Bitcoin Hits $65,000 Amid Iran Deal Uncertainty

📊 Bitcoin Holds Near $65,000 as the Iran Deal Wobbles

Bitcoin climbed back to $65,000 on Monday morning, recouping a portion of Friday’s dip below $63,000 but ending the week roughly unchanged.

Other major cryptocurrencies traded sideways alongside it:

– ETH gained 1% over the week, settling at $1,750
– Solana added 1% for the week, landing at $73
– Hyperliquid’s HYPE ended the week flat at $68

Price action was relatively muted, though that could be viewed as a positive given a week that saw Saylor’s STRC plunge to an all-time low of $83, ETFs record $227 million in net outflows, and the Fear & Greed Index stuck firmly in Fear territory throughout.

On the macro front, the Iran ceasefire hit a snag. Permanent U.S.-Iran peace talks commenced in Switzerland following Friday’s agreement signing, a deal that initially pushed oil down 9%. However, Iran ordered the Strait of Hormuz shut once more over the weekend, reigniting the very supply disruption risk the deal was designed to eliminate. Layer in the hawkish Warsh Fed commentary and last week’s STRC selloff, and Bitcoin and crypto find themselves in a fragile position heading into the new week.

For the time being, Bitcoin is range-bound rather than trending, holding above the low $60,000s but failing to retake the week’s highs. Until there’s more clarity on the Iran situation and the Fed’s trajectory, the current range is likely to persist.

⚖️ CME Sues the CFTC, Arguing Crypto Perps Are Swaps, Not Futures

CME Group, the largest derivatives exchange in the United States, filed a lawsuit against the CFTC on Thursday. The exchange is asking a federal court to overturn the regulator’s approval of Kalshi’s perpetual futures, the first such product to receive clearance in the U.S. back in late May.

CME presents two key arguments:

– On procedural grounds, the exchange contends that the CFTC didn’t adequately evaluate Kalshi’s application or the broader implications of approving perps before granting it, which CME claims violated the Dodd-Frank Act.
– On substance, CME argues that perpetual futures are actually classified as swaps under Dodd-Frank rather than futures, a reclassification that would subject them to a different and more stringent regulatory framework.

Beneath the legal arguments lies a competitive rationale, since CME contends these perpetual products threaten its long-dated futures business, which sits at the heart of its operations.

The case carries significance well beyond CME. It arrives alongside a Michigan court ruling that sports prediction markets don’t qualify as swaps and fall outside the CFTC’s jurisdiction, meaning the agency is now being challenged on two fronts simultaneously, both contesting the Dodd-Frank basis it relied on to expand into crypto perps and prediction markets.

If CME prevails and perps are reclassified as swaps, the approvals that allowed Kalshi and Coinbase to offer regulated U.S. perpetual futures could be revisited, and the prediction-market clearances might follow. With courts now split on the issue, the matter is headed for appeals and likely the Supreme Court, positioning it as one of the most consequential market-structure battles of the year.

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Macro Crypto and Markets

• Major cryptocurrencies are showing mixed movement this morning: Bitcoin is up 1% at $65,000; Ethereum has gained 2% to reach $1,750; Solana is down 1% at $73.50; Hyperliquid remains steady at $68.25
• Top gainers included DEXE (+26%), Ethena (+5%), and OKB (+6%)
• Oil has risen 1% to $77 per barrel; Gold has dipped 0.5% to $4,225
• Stock futures are holding steady, showing no change since Thursday’s close
• Franklin Templeton has submitted applications for ETFs designed to automatically reinvest dividends from U.S. stocks into Bitcoin — a unique approach that channels equity dividend income toward Bitcoin purchases rather than distributing it as cash to investors
• Strategy’s STRC dropped to a record low of $83 on Thursday before recovering slightly to $88
• The Federal Reserve has put forward new customer identification requirements for stablecoin issuers, signaling a push to mandate that issuers verify the identities of their users as the federal regulatory framework for dollar-pegged tokens continues to develop
• Jaredfromsubway.eth, the Ethereum network’s most infamous MEV sandwich bot, lost over $7.5 million after an attacker spent weeks tricking it into approving fraudulent trading routes constructed from counterfeit tokens and liquidity pools. The attacker then exploited those approvals to drain its holdings of WETH, USDC, and USDT, laundering a portion through Tornado Cash

Corporate Treasuries & ETFs

Meme Coin Tracker

• Leading meme coins were mostly in the green: Dogecoin +1%, Shiba Inu +1%, Pepe +1%, Pudgy Penguins -1%, TRUMP +1%, Bonk +1%, SPX +3%, Fartcoin +5%
• Solana’s top movers were Solangeles (+180%), three (+30%), and GTAVI (+65%)
• Notable movers on Base included GITLAWB (+15%) and Nock (+12%)

📈 Myriad Market of the Day

💰 Token, Airdrop & Protocol Tracker

🚚 What is happening in NFTs?

• Leading NFT collections were mostly in the red: CryptoPunks down 7.5% at 31 ETH, Bored Ape Yacht Club down 3% at 9.2 ETH, Pudgy Penguins up 6% at 4.8 ETH; Hypurr down 2% at 227 HYPE
• Trolls (+12%) and Axie Infinity (+8%) were among the top performers