币市操盘手

The likelihood of ancient Bitcoin whales selling off in the short term is low!

On Friday, an ancient address that had been dormant for 14 years and held 80,000 Bitcoins was suddenly activated, triggering panic selling in the market. According to Coinbase director Conor Grogan's analysis, these addresses may belong to an independent miner from 2011, who at that time accumulated mining rewards from 180 blocks and once held 200,000 Bitcoins, making him the fifth-largest whale in Bitcoin history. What unsettles the market the most is that his holding cost was only $1.76 per coin, and at the current price of $108,000, his unrealized gains are as high as 61,000 times. A sell-off would inevitably cause a huge impact on the market. Considering that the German government’s sale of 49,858 Bitcoins in 2024 caused months of market fluctuations (with a maximum drop of 32%), if this whale chooses to cash out, the potential selling pressure of 80,000 Bitcoins could create a more severe market tsunami.

A data study by Glassnode in 2020 showed that Bitcoins that have not moved for ten years have only a 0.5% chance of re-entering market circulation, making addresses holding coins for over ten years (without any transfer records) generally regarded as permanently lost. So why would "sleeping" Bitcoins suddenly awaken? Currently, three main versions are widely circulated in the market:

1. A Chinese national named Deng controls 80,000 Bitcoins and was previously sentenced to 16.5 years in prison for illegal fundraising mining. He lost his asset disposal rights during his incarceration and was released early this year through special channels.

2. An ancient miner accidentally recovered the hard drive containing the private key.

3. The super forces driving this round of Bitcoin price increase are aligned with a certain whale. They accumulated a large amount of low-priced chips before driving the price up, and the activation of Bitcoins this time aims to test the market reaction and reduce the market's sensitivity to large movements.

From the current situation, version three is the most likely, for two main reasons: first, after the whale unexpectedly obtained 80,000 Bitcoins, he only transferred them to a new address without further operations, which aligns with conventional security management behavior of large Bitcoin holders; second, after the news broke, the price in the secondary Bitcoin market only dropped by 1.09%, and there were no signs of smart money rushing to sell. These two points indicate that the whale's intention to sell in the short term is not obvious, and the super forces did not consider the unexpected activation of the ancient address as an uncontrollable factor.

The rise of Ethereum has just begun!

On June 24, influenced by the unexpected ceasefire agreement between Israel and Palestine, global stock markets surged collectively, with Bitcoin rising nearly 5% during trading, completely recovering all losses from this round of geopolitical conflicts. However, the market's rebound did not eliminate the cautious sentiment among investors. For example, during the process of ETH rebounding 16% from its low, its funding rates have remained in negative territory for an extended period, and the extent of the negative values is further widening, indicating that investors still have a strong defensive mindset against a potential second bottom.

In an upward trend, a shift to negative funding rates often indicates that the token price is hitting key resistance levels, which more reflects investors hedging due to increased short-term uncertainty rather than a bearish outlook for the future. For instance, from late April to early May this year, Ethereum entered a consolidation phase, with a surge in market hedging demand leading to an ongoing expansion of negative funding rates; however, as the token price broke through resistance, the market quickly entered a continuous short squeeze mode. Therefore, if Ethereum subsequently breaks through the tight range of $2500-$2600, it could similarly trigger a short squeeze.

From a trading perspective, the likelihood of ETH breaking through key resistance levels in the short term is high, mainly for two reasons:

Firstly, in terms of capital flow, starting in June, ETH whales have notably accelerated their accumulation speed. According to Glassnode data, from June 11 to June 16, the average daily accumulation amount for addresses holding between 1K-10K ETH exceeded 800,000 ETH, pushing the total holdings of this group to over 14.3 million ETH, a record high since 2017.

The Ethereum ETF in the US stock market has continued to experience capital inflow, and even with a significant drop of 10% on June 22, the outflow scale of the Ethereum ETF was only $9 million, indicating that the institutional demand for Ethereum allocation has entered a new phase of growth.

Secondly, in terms of fundamentals, against the backdrop of the impending implementation of the "GENIUS Stablecoin Act," Ethereum, with a 55% share of stablecoins and 81% share of RWA, holds an absolute advantage and is set to become a major beneficiary of the flourishing development of on-chain financial applications like PayFi and RWA. According to CoinMarketCap data, despite most altcoins continuing to decline since May, as of June 24, Ethereum still ranks third in the growth rankings of the top 100 cryptocurrencies by market capitalization with a 41.3% increase. This indicates that the demand for Ethereum is undergoing a paradigm shift from being the 'mother of altcoins' to becoming 'on-chain financial infrastructure.'

Geopolitical crises are one-time disruptive factors; a decline is a golden opportunity!

Due to the impact of the Israel-Palestine conflict, the cryptocurrency market plummeted sharply on June 13, with over $1 billion in long positions liquidated within 24 hours. Ethereum bulls suffered particularly severe losses, with a liquidation rate as high as 60%. This crash caused ETH to break through $2800, which was characterized as a false signal for buying. Earlier, the aggressively bullish firm Trend Research was ridiculed by the market as a contrarian indicator. It is worth mentioning that after the outbreak of the Russia-Ukraine conflict in March 2022, Bitcoin saw a near 70% pullback within three months. Therefore, many investors view the escalation of the Middle East geopolitical crisis as a signal of historical repetition.

Current market concerns regarding the Middle East geopolitical crisis revolve around: rising oil prices potentially pushing U.S. inflation higher, thereby forcing the Federal Reserve to delay interest rate cuts. According to the pricing of federal funds futures, after Israel's airstrikes on Iran, the market reduced its expectations for U.S. interest rate cuts in the second half of the year from 45 basis points to 34.5 basis points. The probability of the first rate cut in September also dropped from 58% on June 7 to 47% on June 15. This change clearly indicates that geopolitical crises have indeed lowered the market's expectations for rate cuts.

However, despite the potential for the Middle East geopolitical crisis to push oil prices higher, the current global oil market supply remains ample. This is mainly due to the continued increase in production by major oil-producing countries, with U.S. crude oil production exceeding 13.4 million barrels per day (a surge in shale oil production), approaching historical peaks. These factors can effectively alleviate the supply shocks caused by geopolitical conflicts. JPMorgan estimates that the geopolitical crisis may bring a risk premium of $10-15 per barrel in the short term, but in the medium to long term, oil prices will still return to the fundamentals-driven range of $60-70 per barrel. Unless the Strait of Hormuz is blocked (with a probability of only 5%-10%), sustained surges are unlikely.

In summary, the Middle East crisis has limited long-term impact on U.S. inflation and is more of a short-term market disturbance. If the market continues to decline due to escalating conflicts, there may actually be a good opportunity to buy the dip.

Two simplest and most straightforward logics for being optimistic about Ethereum:

1. Vitalik is one of the very few founders driven by technical ideals rather than commercial interests—his motivation for promoting Ethereum stems from a belief in decentralized technology, not short-term arbitrage;

2. Ethereum has consistently adhered to the core principles of decentralization, maintaining its benchmark status in the public chain field in terms of censorship resistance and security.

Circles above 100 have no investment value!

If Circle's market share remains at 25% over the next three years, based on predictions from the U.S. Treasury Borrowing Advisory Committee (TBAC), the total market value of stablecoins will grow from $234 billion in April 2025 to $2 trillion in 2028, an increase of approximately 8.3 times. Based on this, Circle's profit in 2028 could reach $1.3 billion ($156 million × 8.3), corresponding to a price-to-earnings ratio of about 18.3 times (based on a market value of $23.9 billion), but this valuation is still lower than PayPal's current price-to-earnings ratio (about 15.7 times).

However, Circle's actual profit three years from now is likely to be below $1.3 billion. On one hand, competition in the stablecoin sector is becoming increasingly fierce, which will compress its market share and profitability; on the other hand, if the long-term yield of U.S. Treasuries continues to decline, the yield on USDC collateral assets will be significantly reduced, leading to a shrinkage in its profits.

Before the rate cut in September, Bitcoin still reaches new highs!

On June 6, boosted by the mild cooling of the labor market, the Nasdaq index jumped 1% during trading, and Bitcoin soared over 3%, both escaping the drag from Trump's and Musk's Twitter feud. Within two days of the ADP and non-farm data being released, Trump unusually called on Powell to cut interest rates quickly on social media four times in a row. Although Trump's calls did not receive a response from Powell, the 'rate cut trade' has quietly become one of the hottest themes currently.

According to federal funds futures pricing, the market expects the Federal Reserve to cut rates by a total of 45 basis points in the second half of the year (most likely in two increments of 25 basis points each), with the first rate cut likely to occur in September, where the probability of a rate cut is 58% = (5+4+5.5)/25. The CME FedWatch tool shows even stronger expectations for easing—this indicator shows that the probability of a rate cut of at least 25 basis points in September has risen to 62.4%, indicating that some traders are betting on earlier and more aggressive easing policies.

One important reason the market is particularly focused on the first rate cut is: according to historical back-testing since 1990, the average cumulative rate cut in the 12 months following the Federal Reserve's first rate cut is 175 basis points. Current interest rate futures pricing shows that from September 2025 to December 2026, the federal funds rate will be cumulatively lowered by 125 basis points, which means that the initiation of the first rate cut equals the start of a new easing cycle.

Details of the air combat between India and Pakistan are continuously being disclosed. In fact, the Indian Air Force is not as poor as the outside world imagines; their aircraft adopted low-altitude flying tactics before launching missiles to avoid detection by ground radars and early warning aircraft. Furthermore, throughout the operation, the command system coordinated the collaborative actions of nearly a hundred aircraft, all of which never left the coverage area of the S-400 air defense system. An important reason for its failure is that electronic warfare capabilities and satellite reconnaissance levels were indeed completely overwhelmed by China.

The battle over Bitcoin is extremely perilous for the United States. Success means reshaping the Bretton Woods system; failure could lead the nation down a wrong and reckless path. It's hard to imagine that from the federal level to states, and then to the private sector, everyone is adopting an all-in stance!

The victory in the Pakistan Air Battle is indeed China's second Deepseek moment!

The victory in the Pakistan Air Battle is often attributed to the advantages of systematic warfare, especially the ground-air coordination of air defense systems and early warning aircraft, as well as the overwhelming advantage of missile range. However, two key factors are often overlooked—China's provision of electronic warfare systems (including electronic jamming and monitoring) and satellite reconnaissance (which made India almost transparent). Military strength directly determines the depth of economic cooperation. In the past, China's allies were hesitant to easily lean towards China, primarily due to a lack of trust in China's military strength. This has also led to the odd phenomenon where allies depend economically on China while relying on the United States for security. Therefore, the victory in the Pakistan Air Battle not only reassessed the value of China's military-industrial system but also paved the way for the reshaping of the global economic cooperation pattern (such as accepting RMB settlement and joining the 'Belt and Road Initiative').

Bitcoin will continue to reach historical highs this year!

On November 24, 2024, the well-known short-selling institution Citron Research stated on social media that although they are optimistic about Bitcoin in the long run, they believe MicroStrategy (MSTR) stock price has strayed far from Bitcoin's fundamentals. Therefore, they adopted a hedging strategy of shorting MSTR and going long on BTC, betting that the movements of the two will eventually converge. However, data six months later showed that the price difference between MSTR and BTC not only did not narrow but instead widened by 7%. This means that if Citron's strategy was strictly followed, the hedging position has incurred substantial losses over the past six months.

Why does MicroStrategy (MSTR) have a Bitcoin asset premium rate as high as 103%? Although the market generally believes this phenomenon is due to its leveraged strategy of "issuing bonds to buy coins," by May 12, 2025, MSTR had held nearly $60 billion in Bitcoin, while its total liabilities were only $8.5 billion, resulting in an actual debt ratio of less than 15%. This financial structure indicates that traditional leverage theory cannot fully explain its high premium phenomenon. In fact, MSTR's extremely high asset premium rate more reflects the market's re-evaluation of its "Bitcoin bank" business model—strategic first-mover advantage and strong profit expectations.

For example, in securities trading, there is a significant layering effect in market liquidity: when investors buy a small amount of individual stocks, the trading price is usually close to the market price; however, if one attempts to acquire more than 5% of the shares, due to insufficient order book depth, the stock price may rise sharply. This additional cost caused by large transactions is known as liquidity premium. According to Coinglass, the total balance of all centralized exchanges currently remains at only 2.17 million coins, and replicating one MSTR (568,840 coins) would cost far more than $60 billion.

Liquidity premium essentially reflects the market's expectation gap regarding Bitcoin's future price, and the rise in premium rate indicates further strengthening of bullish sentiment in the market. From April 7 to May 12, 2025, the Bitcoin asset premium rate of MicroStrategy (MSTR) rapidly climbed from 55% to 103%, indicating that:

1. The market's valuation expectations for Bitcoin are being systematically raised.

2. Spot market buying liquidity is showing structural tightness.

Based on this analysis, we remain optimistic about Bitcoin continuing to reach historical highs this year.

Why does a long-term bull market in the crypto market still exist?

Recently, many KOLs have held a pessimistic attitude towards the crypto market, mainly for two reasons: First, the increasing risk of an economic recession in the United States may trigger a global demand contraction; second, resilient inflation or restrictions on the Federal Reserve's policy space may result in interest rate cuts that are less than expected. Although these concerns are not without merit, combining them with our previous analytical framework, Bitcoin is likely to demonstrate unique anti-fragility in this cycle.

Firstly, under the policy combination of "manufacturing return + high tariffs," the dollar will enter a depreciation cycle, and the hedging demand for traditional safe-haven assets (gold) and emerging digital assets (Bitcoin) will significantly increase. Due to the strong control of U.S. capital over Bitcoin, they are more inclined to promote Bitcoin as a replacement for gold, becoming the new king of safe-haven assets.

Secondly, the prosperity of the crypto market objectively provides a strategic buffer for the dollar system. The U.S. debt solution proposed by Miran, chief economist of the Trump team—levying a "seigniorage tax" on dollar users and forcing them to purchase long-term U.S. Treasury bonds—was difficult to implement in the traditional financial system but has been perfectly realized in the crypto market. Stablecoins like USDT and USDC are essentially zero-yield U.S. dollar bonds, and investors exchange the sacrifice of returns for liquidity and market access (on-chain dollars), which essentially constitutes a "dollar usage fee" for global users. As long as stablecoin issuers are required to hold U.S. Treasury bonds as reserve assets, the growth of stablecoins will also become a “perpetual motion machine” for the demand increase of U.S. Treasury bonds.

The "U.S. Dollar Payment Stablecoin Act" passed by the U.S. House of Representatives on April 2 provides a key patch to this institutional closed loop, explicitly stating that: the reserve assets of stablecoins are limited to cash, short-term U.S. Treasury bonds, and highly liquid assets such as repurchase agreements backed by U.S. Treasury bonds, while strictly prohibiting the use of reserves for lending, investment, or other purposes. This regulation will directly lead to the standardization of the reserve structure of issuers like Tether and Circle to a configuration ratio of 0.8 U.S. Treasury bonds + 0.2 cash (not mandatory but is the optimal solution). In other words, for every additional dollar of stablecoin issued in the future, U.S. dollar stablecoin issuers will simultaneously increase their holdings of 0.8 dollars of U.S. Treasury bonds as underlying reserves.

Therefore, under the generally pessimistic market sentiment, Bitcoin, due to its unique monetary attributes and strategic position in the dollar system, may instead achieve excess performance.