Giants come marching in

Tariff-related economic bewilderment should eventually give way to run-of-the-mill uncertainty. Big players in the crypto market seem to be anticipating this scenario. Cointelegraph points to robust inflows into spot Bitcoin ETFs as well as to derivatives market data that suggests growing demand for long, leveraged positions. Evidence comes via the BTC futures premium increasing yesterday to 8%, up from 6.5% one day prior.

"It’s likely that persistent institutional demand for Bitcoin is gradually shifting the risk perception among the world’s largest investment firms," Cointelegraph said.

Just in the past week, Michael Saylor's Strategy snatched up $427 million worth of the largest digital asset while at the same time BTC ETFs experienced $2.75 billion worth of inflows, with some of that surge seen as connected with institutions.

Meanwhile, JPMorgan’s CEO Jamie Dimon recently announced the bank would allow clients to invest in BTC ETFs, unlocking the door to a high-rise corner office adjacent to $6 trillion in customer deposits.

Total crypto assets reached $3.645T on May 22, the day that Bitcoin recorded its all-time high of, per CoinGecko, $111,814. 

As of this morning, that total market cap figure was $3.57T.

BTC is locked in a grappling contest with $110K, trading sideways over 24 hours, but up 4% over the past week.

XRP has shaded red on the week (-1%) while most other large-cap coins are flat or slightly up.

As of 8 a.m. (EST), Dow futures were rallying in the pre-market session, stoked by the chance to to react to Trump's quick reversal of his only recently articulated plan for 50% tariffs on goods coming out of the EU. 

Suddenly, optimism, that tit-for-tat tariff talk will give way to good-faith deals to come (any day now, right?) has led the 10-year Treasury to shed 5 basis points to 4.465%.

X Money, an endlessly teased payment and banking app, started beta testing, Elon Musk confirmed in a post on Sunday.

"This will be a very limited access beta at first,” Musk said on X.

The notion of such a thing being in the works has been floated, rumored, even softly announced, ever since the archmogul bought Twitter in 2022.

Lately, chatter — about code leaks and ramped-up cross-state license pursuits — has openly circulated. Musk himself said during an X space discussion in December of 2023 that in-app payment services would be fully launched by the middle of 2024.

Musk has never tipped his hand about how heavily crypto would be integrated, if at all, into such services. If anything, he has downplayed his stance on digital assets, conveying indifference. "I don't spend too much time thinking about crypto," he said in December of 2023. 

In the past six months, Musk completely reappropriated the symbol of the original memecoin, turning "DOGE" into shorthand for "controversial federal spending watchdog." The coin he once treated as a pet now seems like an afterthought to the Tesla founder.

The X platform's foray into finance might have gained steam with President Trump taking office but Musk instead dove headlong into his role puppeteering the Department of Government Efficiency’s Workforce Optimization Initiative (DOGE) and just generally following Trump around.

Musk's money-related aspirations have not escaped that fiery financial industry watchdog otherwise known as U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren, a Democrat from Massachusetts, and who has been sharply critical of X’s payment plans.

Bristling at Musk’s efforts to dismantle the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Sen. Warren said: “Musk has lost money hand over fist on X. So he has this idea of X becoming a big money platform where he would get everyone’s personal financial data."

In 2023, after Twitter rebranded to X and brought in a new CEO, Linda Yaccarino, the social media company publicly disclosed it planned to feature “unlimited interactivity,” featuring payments and banking. At the time, Cointelegraph said, many industry watchers speculated that the platform would likely support cryptos like BTC.