Surprise offensive

With the war taking yet another volatile turn and the Fed set to decide on interest rates, the two biggest cryptos used the early part of Wednesday to make some distinctly positive strides.

Bitcoin rose 1.4% over the past 24 hours to reclaim $64,000. That was as of 5:55 a.m. (EST). Yesterday, BTC, per CoinGecko, had fallen below $63,000.

Meanwhile, Ethereum is back above $1,900 after gaining 1.7%. Stiff resistance still lurks between $1,920 and $1,955, a region that has triggered repeated selling over the past month, according to Cointurk News.

One noteworthy jaunt taking place at the moment comes courtesy of Unibase, a data storage project that often gets categorized as connecting with AI, DeFi, NFTs and blockchain infrastructure. Unibase’s native UB shot up 17% over the past day. Its market capitalization reached $355M, making it CoinGecko’s 112th-largest digital asset.

In true head-spinning fashion, oil is spiking yet again after Iran launched surprise ballistic missile attacks on a U.S. base in Jordan, Axios said. U.S. Central Command in a post on X said all of the missiles were intercepted.

And so with tensions once again running hot in the region, Brent crude oil futures jumped to start Wednesday. Brent, per barrel, in the past five days has been as high as $100 and as low as $81. In just the past few hours, Brent jumped 3.5% to $87 per barrel. It was only a few weeks ago that Brent sank below $72 per barrel, or roughly back to where it was before the war.

Meanwhile, Apple’s total market cap briefly touched $5T yesterday. Apple, which will report earnings tomorrow and roll out an upgraded Siri in the fall, has surpassed Nvidia as the most valuable public company. Shares of the iPhone maker have risen 25% so far this year as investors dial into a narrative rewarding a less-is-more approach to AI spending.

South Korea’s Kospi index plunged yet again. It is down 40% since peaking last month. Semiconductor companies, including SK Hynix and Samsung Electronics, have led the broader index sharply lower as investors grow skittish about the sustainability of the chip cycle. South Korea’s top financial officials, jarred by yet another panicky deleveraging session, were set to gather for an emergency meeting.

The tech sell-off in Asia followed another rough day for the worldwide chip sector, or the “AI trade,” which has fallen out of favor so far this summer, owing to concerns that overly aggressive tech spenders are “raising mounds of debt and going cash flow negative without a clear path to hefty returns,” CNBC said.

The Philadelphia semiconductor index (SOX) — which tracks the 30 largest U.S.-listed chip companies — has lost 20% over the past month.

Just since Friday, 20 of the world’s most valuable chip stocks shed $1.3T in combined market cap, according to CNBC.

SpaceX (SPCX), which recently revealed it spent $7.7B on AI last quarter, is now down 50% since its all-time-high of $225.64 hit on June 16 just four days after its historic IPO. 

SPCX actually recorded a 2.6% gain on Tuesday after the  Federal Aviation Administration proposed a rule to streamline the space launch approval process (Barron’s).

The odds of the CLARITY Act’s passage fell to 27% on Polymarket as of early today. That’s the lowest those odds have been. The U.S. Senate's window for enacting landmark crypto market structure legislation is closing fast ahead of the August recess.

Speed bumps abound. A brand new bipartisan ethics provision is being crafted and could get to the White House in the “next couple days,” CoinGape reports.

Senator Thom Tillis, a Republican from North Carolina, signaled that the new proposal would include state attorneys general in the enforcement of ethics provisions and not just the Justice Department. This new provision comes after Democrats rejected one that had been blessed by the White House. President Trump’s crypto ventures remain a focal point driving the push for guardrails governing elected officials who might seek to unduly profit from the digital asset sector. However, it’s not just the ethics issue stalling the bill’s progress.

The Senate earlier this week put the CLARITY Act on hold to sort out a batch of Trump administration position nominations and to debate Russian sanctions. 

Meanwhile, ceaseless bank lobbying pertaining to stablecoin yield concerns, and related negotiations, could also delay even a first-step procedural vote prior to Aug. 8, CoinGape said.