Return to glory

The world's largest crypto, which hadn't been above $100,000 since early February, got there again at least momentarily at about 7 a.m. (EST). The milestone came (and went) as the White House touted its first trade deal, stirring animal spirits with respect to risk-taking. BTC had ebbed to $99,600 by 8 a.m. (EST).

Early reports of a deal between the U.S. and Britain jolted Dow futures by some 300 points, indicating the potential for a strong start to the trading session, and this despite the Fed's warning yesterday of the heightened risk of serious tariff ramifications, that is, stagnating economic growth alongside higher prices, the dreaded destroyer of all things fun known as "stagflation."

Inflating earlier this morning was a trio of Big Ten stalwarts. We're talking about Ethereum, Cardano and Dogecoin. The latter rose 6% in one day to reclaim 18 cents. Recent DOGE glories include a trek toward the vicinity of 50 cents, back in early December. That seems like a long time ago. But we also remember DOGE first hitting ten cents in April of 2021 and that seems like only yesterday.

Incidentally, ETH also gained 6% in the past 24 hours, as did its rival Cardano's ADA.

Among the Top 100 bracket, the biggest moves are in the rear guard. That's where you will find PENGU, native token of the Pudgy Penguins realm. PENGU just enjoyed a 25% forward march in 24 hours. PENGU is now the 99th-largest digital asset with a market capitalization bordering on $900M. PENGU's per-token price is roughly a penny.

At No. 92 is another significant jumper, Virtuals. The AI agent protocol native VIRTUAL has spiked by 17% since this time yesterday.

Fartcoin (FARTCOIN), sort of a proxy lately for nouveau memecoin momentum, increased 7% versus a 5% gain for bigger, longer-standing memecoin Shiba Inu (SHIB).

Meanwhile, a few other bigger-cap memecoins, including PEPE, BONK and TRUMP, each notched double-digit returns, percentage-wise, in the past 24 hours, according to CoinGecko.

Launched in 2019 as an institutional-level lender for the broader DeFi ecosystem, Maple Finance takes pride in facilitating overcollateralized loans. Ever since November, though, Maple's native asset, SYRUP, has been underwhelming. Boosting relevance, Binance on Tuesday listed Maple's SYRUP, formerly MPL.

A six-month-long migration from MPL to SYRUP was finalized at the end of April at a 1:100 ratio. As if squirted from a plastic container, SYRUP spurted from 17 cents to 24 cents immediately after the Binance news. But gains were not all that sticky. SYRUP has declined 3.3% in the past 24 hours. With a market-cap of roughly $235M, SYRUP ranks as CoinGecko's 258th-largest digital asset. Its ATH of 34 cents came on Nov. 13. SYRUP is down 35% since then.

Yeah, Bitcoin hit $100K. It was right around 7 a.m. (EST). We were in the midst of checking the charts when it happened. But by about 9 a.m. (EST), Bitcoin had settled near $99,200, shedding 0.3% in the previous one hour, suddenly again estranged from a key psychological mark but still possibly on the brink of further advances, bullish analysts insist. 

For example, Standard Chartered's Geoff Kendrick (always super bullish) envisions the $120K mark coming within sight by the end of Q2, per Decrypt.

BTC is on a little bit of a roll. Yesterday saw ETF inflows of $142M. BTC has gained 3% since last week at this time. "Global institutions increasingly view [BTC] as a way to diversify from USD assets," Decrypt said.

At 10 a.m. (EST), Trump is expected to unveil a deal with the UK, which runs either a trade deficit with America, or a surplus, depending upon which country's statistical measure catches the eye of the beholder.

Later this week, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent will travel to Switzerland for talks with Chinese counterparts. Bessent has suggested discussions would begin with an emphasis on "de-escalation," Decrypt said. Still, Trump as recently as yesterday said publicly he would not consider lowering the 145% tariffs on China as a way to spur negotiations.

Now then, turning far away from the macro tumult, and toward trends observable on-chain, there is fresh data showing BTC's "realized cap" reached yet another record high, per CryptoQuant. Realized capitalization refers to the total acquisition cost of all the BTCs in circulation. The BTC market cap, based on current prices, is $1.97T, as of today. As of yesterday, the realized cap hit a record $891B, reflecting the "value at which the extant supply last moved onchain," as Cointelegraph explained.

This realized cap figure continuously has reached record highs since the middle of last month, reflecting a sustained shift across a wide spectrum of investors, according to CryptoQuant contributor Carmelo Alemán. “It reflects a growing conviction in BTC's long-term potential as a financial asset," he added.