Cryptonics_101

By Axion
April 15, 2025
Hey there. If you own Trump's meme coin, we're not telling you what to do, but we have been watching the clock. And the clock has pretty much run out.
Situational awareness: Congress is not in session this week.
Are you curious about how much BTC the U.S. government has? [email protected]
Today's newsletter is 1,101 words, a 4-minute read.

Very soon, 40 million Official Trump meme coins will be unlocked, and they are very likely to be sold into the market as quickly as possible — which is bad news for anyone who has them.

Why it matters: The launch of the meme coin on the Friday before Inauguration Day caused a groundswell of retail enthusiasm, but one that really only benefited savvy traders and cost many other early buyers a collective $2 billion.
What's happening: The new tokens are set to become available to sell or transfer three months after the Jan. 17 launch, according to Alex Fatuliaj, a co-founder of Simplicity Group, a firm that helps crypto startups sort out how to allocate tokens and when (also known as "tokenomics").

200 million Official Trump tokens, or 20% of the total supply, are circulating. The 40 million new coins will unlock under the control of the two Trump Organization affiliates that own the rest of the unvested supply.
This will also begin a daily unlock of the remaining tokens, which will last for the next two years, according to its release schedule.
State of play: Official Trump trades around $8.

At that price, the 40 million soon-to-be-unlocked coins represent around $320 million worth of the meme coin.
Yes, but: It's unlikely that all of them would fetch that price. If the unlocked coins are sold into the market it will be a dilutive event, which typically causes prices to drop.
Between the lines: Fatuliaj believes these tokens are almost certainly going to be sold.

"There is substantial liquidity in the market ... but it's nowhere near enough able to absorb $320M worth of selling," he tells Axios.
Even so, any sales of additional tokens into the market is likely to put downward pressure on price, he noted.
What we're watching: The date of the unlock is unclear, but it should happen around April 17. Fatuliaj warns of a big early sell that's likely to tank the price hard, predicting a quick drop to $7 or even $6 soon.

By the end May, the price is likely to fall as far as $3, he expects.
What they're saying: Early on, we waited to see if Fight Fight Fight, LLC, the Trump Organization subsidiary responsible for the meme coin, might offer services or benefits to drive value to the token, but we haven't seen evidence of that.
$TRUMP
The Trump Organization did not respond to a request for comment on its plans for the unlocked tokens, or on any plans to drive additional value to Official Trump tokens. Fight Fight Fight could not be reached for comment.
The president has, however, posted about his namesake token on his social media site.

Omkar Godbole
Mon, April 14, 2025 at 12:47 PM GMT+5 2 min read
Bullish bitcoin (BTC) options strategies are becoming popular again, stabilizing a crucial sentiment indicator that indicated panic early last week.

BTC has bounced to over $84,000 since probing lows under $75,000 last week. The recovery comes as the bond market chaos supposedly forced President Donald Trump to capitulate on tariffs just days after announcing sweeping import levies on several nations, including China.
Late Friday, The Trump administration issued new guidelines, sparing key tech products like smartphones from his 125% China tariff and baseline 10% global levy. Hours later, Trump refuted the news, suggesting no relief on tariffs.

Still, the price recovery saw emboldened traders chase upside in BTC through the Deribit-listed call options. A call gives the purchaser the right but not the obligation to buy the underlying asset at a predetermined price on or before a specific date. A call buyer is implicitly bullish on the market, looking to profit from an expected price rise. A put buyer is said to be bearish, looking to hedge or profit from price swoons.
"Trump's bond-market-crisis fueled tariff-walkback flipped the vocal narrative from aggression to capitulation, and the markets from capitulation to aggressive bounce. Protective/Bear play BTC $75K-$78K [strike] Puts were dumped, and $85K-$100K [strike] Calls were lifted as BTC surged from $75K-$85K," Deribit said in a market update.
The pivot to upside calls has normalized the options skew, which reflected strong put bias or downside fears early last week, according to data tracked by Amberdata. The skew measures the implied volatility (demand) for calls relative to puts and has been a reliable market sentiment indicator for years.

The 30-, 60-, and 90-day skews have rebounded to just above zero, up from deeply negative levels a week ago, indicating a decrease in market panic and a resurgence of upside interest. Although the seven-day gauge remains negative, it reflects a notably weaker put bias than a week ago when it dropped to -14%.

$100K is the most popular bet
Another data point likely to energize the recently battered market participants is the distribution of open interest, highlighting the resurgence of the $100K call as the most favored options bet on Deribit, which accounts for over 75% of global options activity.

As of writing, the $100K call boasted a cumulative notional open interest of nearly $1.2 billion. The notional figure represents the U.S. dollar value of the number of active option contracts at a given time. Calls at $100K and $120K were popular early this year before the market swoon saw traders deploy money in the $80K put last month.

The chart shows the concentration of open interest in calls at strikes ranging from $95,000 to $120,000. Meanwhile, the $70K put is the second-most popular play with an open interest of $982 million.

By Reuters
April 12, 20257:18 AM GMT+5Updated a day ago

April 11 (Reuters) - Binance executives met U.S. Treasury officials last month and discussed loosening government oversight of the company, while exploring a business deal with President Donald Trump’s crypto venture, World Liberty Financial, the Wall Street Journal said.
Executives of the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange asked Treasury officials to remove a U.S. monitor overseeing its compliance with anti-money-laundering laws, the paper said on Friday, citing people familiar with the talks.
Binance has also been in talks to list a new dollar-pegged cryptocurrency from World Liberty Financial, it added.
At the meeting, Binance CEO Richard Teng and Chief Legal Officer Eleanor Hughes asked for the removal of monitorship or reduction of its duration and scope, the paper said.
Binance, the Treasury Department and World Liberty Financial did not immediately respond to Reuters' requests for comment.
Last month, the Journal said Binance's billionaire founder Changpeng Zhao had been pushing for a pardon from the administration.
In November 2023, Zhao stepped down from his CEO role and pleaded guilty to breaking U.S. anti-money laundering laws in a $4.3-billion settlement that resolved a years-long investigation.
Reporting by Gnaneshwar Rajan in Bengaluru; Editing by William Mallard and Clarence Fernandez

By Reuters
April 8, 20255:07 PM GMT+5Updated 4 days ago

April 8 (Reuters) - Ripple said on Tuesday it will buy multi-asset prime broker Hidden Road in a $1.25 billion deal, making it one of the largest acquisitions by the crypto company.
This is the second billion-dollar-plus deal involving a crypto company this year, as digital assets such as bitcoin gain more prominence under U.S. President Donald Trump, who has promised to be the "crypto president".
The U.S. market is effectively open for the first time due to the regulatory overhang of the former SEC coming to an end, and the market is maturing to address the needs of traditional finance," Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse said.
Prime brokers help in the day-to-day operations of clearing, securities lending, leveraged trade execution, among others. Large hedge funds and institutional investors usually avail these services.
Hidden Road clears $3 trillion annually across markets with over 300 institutional clients. The deal will allow the Hidden Road to expand exponentially using Ripple's balance sheet and become the largest non-bank prime broker globally, the crypto company said.
Ripple will also become the only crypto company to own and operate a global multi-asset prime broker due to the deal, which is expected to close in the coming months, it said.
The acquisition also enhances Ripple USD's (RLUSD) utility as Hidden Road uses the stablecoin as collateral across its prime brokerage products.
Ripple launched RLUSD, a stablecoin pegged to the U.S. dollar, last year, as it sought to disrupt the market dominated by Tether and USD Coin.
Reporting by Pritam Biswas in Bengaluru; Editing by Leroy Leo

By Reuters
April 12, 202512:23 AM GMT+5Updated 15 hours ago.

NEW YORK, April 11 (Reuters) - The U.S. Treasury said on Friday it is seeking guidance from primary dealers on stablecoins as well as potential changes to the 20-year bond auction schedule, including possibly shortening the when-issued period.
The when-issued period typically begins after the announcement of a new security issue and ends the day before the actual issuance date. Trading typically occurs during this period, allowing investors to participate in the market and express their view on the price of the security.
Meetings by the U.S. Treasury with primary dealers will be on April 24 and 25, with their input on budget deficit and debt issuance estimates, among other topics, to be considered for the refunding announcement in May. Primary dealers are trading counterparties of the New York Federal Reserve, acting as market makers on U.S. government debt.
The 20-year auction is currently announced mid-month, settled at the end of the month, and has a mid-month "dated date", the period in which interest starts or accrues on a bond.
The "dated date" is important for calculating accrued interest, especially when a bond is sold between interest payment dates.
This schedule often results in a longer when-issued period for 20-year bond sales, including auctions of the Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities, compared to other auctions, the documents showed.
The department also sought comments from dealers on the potential demand for Treasury securities as a reserve asset for stablecoins, particularly given recent Congressional action in this area.
Stablecoins, a type of cryptocurrency designed to maintain a constant value, usually a 1:1 dollar peg, are commonly used by crypto traders to move funds between tokens. Their use has grown rapidly in recent years, and proponents say that they could be used to send payments instantly.
The House of Representatives and the Senate have both introduced bills to create a regulatory regime for stablecoins. The Senate Banking Committee advanced one measure last month, and the House Financial Services Committee approved another last week.
Reporting by Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss in New York; Editing by Nia Williams.