A curious structural shift

Amidst a sell-off in U.S. assets — stocks, bonds and the greenback, all at once, representing a glaring crack in the armor of so-called American exceptionalism — the largest of all decentralized digital assets made it through the night with a 1.6% gain to hit $88.5K.

Bitcoin is up 3.4% since last Tuesday, per CoinGecko. Checking BTC over the past month, we see it is up 5% versus a 13% gain for gold (which touched $3,500/oz) and a 10% loss for the S&P 500 over the same 30-day period.

Whether BTC winds up veering more squarely into the camp of safe havens, as opposed to behaving akin to a risk asset, will likely depend on how U.S. President Donald Trump’s trade war plays out. At the moment, pessimism about economic growth prospects runs high, and the situation with the U.S. dollar, in steep decline, could be on the verge of spiraling into a full-blown "confidence crisis,” Forbes said.

Yesterday, the White House confirmed Trump is exploring whether he can fire Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell. Trump has blasted Powell as a "loser" for not cutting interest rates.

SeekingAlpha points out that in the rush for alternative safe haven assets, "Bitcoin has been under consideration as one possibility."

If BTC should truly leg up anew, memecoins could conceivably enjoy a fresh surge as well. Among today's biggest gainers is Fartcoin (FARTCOIN), up 18% to cross $1. FARTCOIN is now the 79th-largest digital asset. It sports a market capitalization of just over $1B. Over the past 30 days, FARTCOIN has more than doubled.

Meanwhile, Kaspa (KAS), 49th-largest crypto, has gained 14% in the past day to reach $0.09322. KAS has surged nearly 50% in the past fortnight.

BTC forming a bullish chart pattern over the past day has indicated a strong surge toward the psychological point of $90K, which bodes well for altcoins such as FARTCOIN and KAS (CryptoNews).

The dollar index, a measure of the greenback versus a basket of other major currencies, has shed more than 9% so far this year amidst uncertainty about U.S. trade policy. Dollar weakness is particularly sharp relative to the euro, yen and Swiss franc, all now viewed as relatively safer havens in a world embroiled in a trade war. EUR versus the USD broke out to 1.1575 yesterday, the highest level seen in three-and-a-half years.

"Parking money in America is no longer the routine, fuss-free, neutral option," the FT said earlier this month.

The "Sell America" trade, says the Wall Street Journal, hasn't been this prevalent since 2008.

Roger Altman, a veteran Wall Street investment banker and a former deputy secretary of the treasury, told CNBC he does see some "alarming evidence" (i.e. falling equities prices, falling bond prices and a weaker dollar) that investors are now desiring a higher risk premium to own U.S. assets. And, he adds, "you have to think there's some capital outflow going on."

Inflows into U.S.-listed BTC ETFs hit nearly $400M on Monday. That's the biggest single-day inflow that the category has seen since January (Cointelegraph).

Paul Atkins starts his job as Chairman of the SEC with a cluttered stack of applications from a litany of crypto ETF issuers.

"There are now 72 crypto-related ETFs sitting with the agency awaiting approval to list or list options," noted Bloomberg's ETF analyst Eric Balchunas. "Gonna be a wild year."

All in all, asset managers await feedback on applications tied to 15 cryptos that do not yet have ETFs connected with their spot price. "Those include applications centered on digital assets with large valuations like Solana, Dogecoin and XRP, alongside relatively nascent ones like the Solana-based tokens Bonk, Pengu and Official Trump," said Decrypt.

It's unclear whether memecoin ETFs have a shot at a clear runway once Atkins takes the helm, as Decrypt explained.

But a final decision on, say, XRP products, could come by the end of the summer or in early autumn.