Almost another working week in crypto done and dusted. And unless things very suddenly turn pear shaped (which is never out of the question with the asset class Jerome Powell reckons has staying power), then it’s been a pretty damn good one. All things considered.

And when we say all things, we’re really just referring to the positive swell of sentiment surrounding the increased/renewed institutional interest in crypto/Bitcoin amid all the regulatory heat being levelled at big industry players in the US.

And we’re talking huge, MASSIVE, institutional interest – headlined by BlackRock and Fidelity BTC spot ETF filings chatter. There are others, too, including Valykrie, Charles Schwab, Citadel Securities, Deutsche Bank and further dark-suited financial puppeteers.

Here’s what Bitcoin proponent Preston Pysh and economist Lawrence Lepard think about that…

Meanwhile, how’s the market sentiment tracking in general? If only there was some sort of easily digestible visual aid based on social media sentiment and a series of market momentum data…

bitcoin 30k

Well, there you have it, the market has given itself a fresh lick of paint, ditching the can of Meh Olive and opting for Morning FOMO – a lovely, citrussy shade of envy and avarice that ought to go well on the walls of your home office study or “Mom’s” basement.

Didn’t Warren “Bitcoin is Rat Poison Squared” Buffett once say something about greed and financial markets? “Be fearful when othe… ooh, look, $PEPE is bursting up the charts again. Let’s move on to some HOT CRYPTO GAINERZ, shall we?

Actually, before that… this…

 

Stockhead wins fanny pack at BASE L2 meet

You know the market’s picking up when… 

… You win a branded “To the Moon” fanny pack at a Coinbase-hosted blockchain developers event – for asking the fourth or possibly even fifth-best question of the evening.

Here’s the prize…

bitcoin 30kbitcoin 30k

And here was the question…

“You mentioned Polygon, earlier. Is the increasingly crowded Layer 2 sector a race to supremacy? Or does Coinbase and Base view it as something more collegiate than that?”

We’re yet to transcribe the soundbites from the event, but the answer was along the lines of being “for the most part, all in this together”.

Coinbase’s developing layer 2 (L2) chain, called Base, will absolutely be one of the biggest blockchain launches of the year. Big funding, top developers, smart branding (“onchain is the new online”) – Coinbase, the only publicly listed crypto firm, is still a force to be reckoned with in this industry.

What is Base? It’s an Ethereum-based L2 that aims “to bring the first billion users onchain” – and is a hub/building block for decentralised apps.

We’ll cover it in greater depth in a separate article – Base shapes as a significant mainnet launch for the industry, later this year.

 

Top 10 overview

With the overall crypto market cap at US$1.21 trillion, down about 0.6% since this time yesterday, here’s the current state of play among top 10 tokens – according to CoinGecko.

Ah, bummer. BTC has dipped below $30k again. It’s SO OVER. “F**k this crypto sh*t. I’m done.”

But before I sell out of everything again, let’s just check in with some analytical regulars. Here’s Roman Trading, who honestly, has been very hard to fault on his trading calls this year so far, from what we’ve seen. He’s spotting potential short-term bullish signs for a US$31k move, but with an even shorter short-term dip possible first.

And you know what? That might actually be playing out as we type, but we shall see.

Rekt… what you got, pal?

Van de Poppe? Whoa, whoa, WHOA! Settle down there, buddy. That’s some hopium overload there on the altcoins.

We like it, we just won’t believe till we see it. Fed hawkishness and all that. Likely more heavy shots to be fired in the US regulatory war against crypto and all that.

 

News just in

BTC just hit $30k again! For the first time since 10 minutes ago when we posted the section above! You bewdy, I’m buying.

Or maybe I should wait till it hits $69k again – when everyone from your grandma to your postperson is FOMOing again into dog and amphibian-themed memecoins. Yeah, that seems more sensible.

Once again, a friendly reminder: none of the contents of this column represent anything remotely resembling financial advice. But you already know that. And this is crypto – the riskiest corner of Risk-On Alley. But maybe, just maybe, BTC and ETH and a handful of others really do have a big role to play in the future of finance.

 

Uppers and downers: Even $PEPE is surging again

Some of the biggest 24-hour gainers and losers at press time. (Stats accurate at time of publishing, based on CoinGecko.com data.)

PUMPERS (11-100 market cap position)

• Kaspa (KAS), (market cap: US$523 million) +15%

• Pepe (PEPE), (market cap: US$668 million) +12%

• Radix (XRD), (market cap: US$717 million) +6%

• Shiba Inu (SHIB), (market cap: US$4.6 billion) +3%

• VeChain (VET), (market cap: US$1.25 billion) +2%

 

SLUMPERS

• Flow (FLOW), (market cap: US$553 million) -8%

• NEO (NEO), (market cap: US$610 million) -7%

• Render (RNDR), (market cap: US$799 million) -7%

• Stacks (STX), (market cap: US$1.08 billion) -7%

• Bitcoin Cash (BCH), (market cap: US$2.6 billion) -6%

 

Around the blocks

Some pertinence and randomness that stuck with us on our morning moves through the Crypto Twitterverse.

Hmm, a big $PEPE call here from Crypto Banter’s Miles Deutscher…

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