ROLLUP: ETH’s Pectra Upgrade | $2T Stablecoin Push | Apple’s Crypto Breakthrough | Coinbase Buys Deribit!
Ethereum surges ahead, regulators get crypto-curious, Apple opens the gates, and Coinbase bets big. Are we officially bullish again?
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Inside the episode
This week in crypto, optimism flooded back into the markets, driven by major upgrades, regulatory pivots, and strategic acquisitions. With Bitcoin comfortably over $100K and Ethereum soaring after shipping its much-anticipated "Pectra" upgrade, it's safe to say the bulls are back in town—at least for now. Let’s unpack the biggest stories reshaping the crypto landscape this week.
Ethereum’s "Pectra" Upgrade: A Leap Forward for Layer 2
Ethereum’s latest upgrade, Pectra, has officially gone live—and the results are already impressive. Pectra introduces significant enhancements designed to improve user experience, expand scalability, and reduce transaction friction. Among its highlights:
- Blob Space Doubled: Pectra effectively doubles the available space for Layer 2 solutions like rollups. This means faster transactions, lower costs, and more capacity to handle increased traffic—crucial as Ethereum continues its quest to scale sustainably.
- User Experience Boosted: Account abstraction is now partially realized, enabling wallets to batch transactions, pay gas fees with stablecoins, and even let apps sponsor user fees. Goodbye annoying pop-ups, hello smoother DeFi interactions.
Yet, even amid these improvements, the community debate on Layer 1 scaling persists. Many argue Ethereum must accelerate L1 upgrades to ensure the blockchain remains attractive to Wall Street and major TradFi players who prioritize speed, security, and minimal MEV (Maximum Extractable Value).
Washington Eyes $2 Trillion Stablecoin Market
In a striking reversal, U.S. regulators, led by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, are setting their sights on stablecoins. The White House sees potential for stablecoins to underpin $2 trillion in economic activity—an enormous opportunity that could radically transform crypto adoption.
The Senate’s Genius Act, aiming to establish clear regulatory frameworks for stablecoins, is gaining bipartisan momentum, despite resistance from some Democratic lawmakers citing AML and national security concerns. As the regulatory dust settles, major industry players, including Tether and Coinbase, are positioning themselves to become primary issuers in this massive stablecoin market.
Apple’s App Store Monopoly Breaks Wide Open for Crypto
This week, crypto scored a landmark victory in its battle against Apple's App Store monopoly. A U.S. district court ruling forced Apple to loosen restrictive policies, allowing apps to seamlessly incorporate external payment links—bypassing the notorious 30% Apple fee.
For crypto users, this means significant changes:
- NFT Marketplaces: Platforms like OpenSea can now support direct NFT buying and selling within their apps, revolutionizing mobile crypto commerce.
- Crypto Payments: Mobile apps can integrate crypto payments directly, removing barriers to using stablecoins, ETH, and other tokens for everyday purchases.
- Enhanced Utility: NFTs and crypto tokens can unlock gated features within apps, enhancing utility and deepening consumer engagement without restrictions from Apple.
Apple's loss in court could become crypto's massive gain, opening the door to a future of true mobile crypto adoption.
Coinbase’s $9 Billion Bet on Derivatives
In a historic crypto acquisition, Coinbase announced its intention to acquire Deribit—the largest Bitcoin and Ethereum options exchange—for $9 billion in cash and stock. The acquisition positions Coinbase as a global leader in crypto derivatives, rivaling traditional giants like CME and firmly establishing the company’s global presence.
Deribit controls roughly 90% of the global crypto options market but hasn’t been accessible to U.S. customers. Coinbase’s strategic move not only expands its product offerings significantly but also places it squarely at the center of institutional crypto trading—potentially reshaping the competitive landscape.
Are We Back in Bull Territory?
Bitcoin's leap above $100K, combined with Ethereum’s rapid post-upgrade surge and bullish macro developments, begs the question: Are we officially back in a crypto bull market?
While the bullish signs are unmistakable—strong market rallies, major regulatory advancements, and pivotal industry shifts—skepticism remains justified. Concerns linger around the economic impact of tariffs, potential recessionary pressures, and global market uncertainty, highlighted by gold’s recent all-time highs.
Yet, despite these uncertainties, crypto markets are clearly demonstrating resilience and growing maturity. Stablecoin adoption, mobile integration breakthroughs, and significant regulatory clarity could provide a sturdy foundation for sustained growth.
As always, navigating crypto requires caution—but optimism might be warranted more than ever. Are these bullish moves the start of crypto's next golden age, or just a brief surge before more volatility? Stay tuned.
Transcript
Bitcoin is over a hundred thousand. We are so back, baby. David, even ETH is catching a bit.
What? No way.
Yeah.
Right after Ethereum ships its biggest upgrade ever. What's inside of it? Also what comes next? And also what was it missing?
We also have Appleswalled Garden just opened the door for crypto. It's wide open for us now. Coinbase makes its biggest acquisition of all time, and Washington, DC, suddenly wants two trillion dollars in stable coins.
We're gonna talk about all of that, but first we got to get to the markets because, Ryan, the markets are looking good. They are feeling good. I don't know what was in the water or air this morning, but I woke up and saw green across the charts. Bitcoin is up 3.8%, broke through $100,000 to where we are right now at the time of recording. $101,000 Bitcoin. Uh it's moved pretty big uh on the last like two weeks. So it's grinding up slowly until suddenly we're up like $7,000 on the week. Ether price, uh Ryan, it was up 1% more than Bitcoin last week. I think Bitcoin was up uh 3% last week. Ether was up 4% last week. Bitcoin is up 4% this week, ETH is up almost 11% this week. So we are two for two weeks of Ryan Sean Adams returning back to Bankless, and ETH is green. If it continues to be like this, he can never leave again. The ratio is up 7%. We are above a.02 number, still very low.
Okay.
Oh but it is climbing.
We got a double digit day in the last 24 hours. Double digit day, yeah. ETH is up 14%.
Uh-huh.
It never does that.
Yeah.
It doesn't do that. Okay, what's the explanation for this? I uh actually
No, I know. I do not I cannot figure out why. I don't know what the news is.
Is it's one of those uh more buyers than sellers kind of thing?
Yeah, I mean traditional equities markets are is up pretty big too. Like my my Robin Hood portfolio, which entirely is consists of Coinbase stock and Robinhood stock, is up
so uh
A nice balanced portfolio across all the stocks that represent America.
uh That's right.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Okay, well, like the big question is are we still in a a bear or how did we ever go into a bear market, right? That's what people were saying, I think, when when you know like I was away. It does not feel like a bear market when uh Bitcoin is over 100k. In fact, this feels very bullish. And we got total crypto market cap. What's the price here? I am I seeing 3.25 trillion?
3.25 trillion. I think it might be even a little bit higher right now. We are threatening to cross 3.3 trillion. And as a reminder, the all-time high of the crypto market cap, total crypto market cap, is $3.9 trillion. We are at 3.3. Bitcoin dominance is also higher than it has ever been in a long, long time. Yeah. Uh of course, Bitcoin dominance started at 100%. Uh, but uh it like bottomed to down at like 33 or 40% just a number of years ago, like in the 2021 era. It is at like 67%. So Bitcoin dominance continues to make all time high. Down today, though, down very bigly today.
Yeah, do you know do you know do you see uh Raoul Paul called the um the top of Bitcoin dominance? Yeah.
I've seen more and more people call the top of Bitcoin dominance.
And um I I'm wondering if you want to make a call, David, in United.
Hate it when you do this.
Okay, so are we b is this the bull market? Is this back? Are you are you gonna say it's back and then curse us and we you were gonna crash down, you know, another thirty percent or something?
Oh man, I don't know. Uh I don't know, man. I don't know how to make these calls. I don't know. Sure. It's oh we're all we were never le we never left, you know?
We never left, yeah. We always saw this. You know what? Um, I feel like on the week to week, it's impossible to call call markets. You're just like in the noise in the weekly when we look at this. But like, um, yeah, secular bull trend, I guess, uh resumes. Uh, you want to talk about the Fed though? They had a they had their meeting, they have those uh every once in a while, and everyone was waiting for what would Jerome Powell do?
So would he raise rates? Uh, what did he do, David?
Uh I I was hoping you would tell me actually.
He did absolutely nothing, is what he did. He's keeping everything.
On no rate changes. That's good. That means that's our win.
Do you want me to give you the summary
Please
of what Powell said?
please do.
Wait and see.
Oh,
That's what he said.
Yeah.
okay.
He's keeping the Fed interest rates at the target range 4.25% to 4.5%. He he noted this is why. This is why he's waiting and seeing. The risks of higher unemployment and higher inflation have risen, he said. And he kind of blamed tariffs for that. Uh he said we're facing uncertainty around uh tariffs. The economy shows some signs of resilience as well as weakness. So he's like, I don't want to touch anything while this is going on. And just some history for you, if you don't recall, uh, the recent Fed rates. So the Fed hasn't touched the federal funds rates since uh December 2024. And at that time, it decreased it by uh 25 bips. I knew like some BIP decreases. So that's what they did back in in December. And from then on, it's been a wait and see. I thought you'd uh enjoy this chart, David. So this is the federal funds rate over the last like, I don't know, 70 years or something like this. This is a weird chart.
It's a very weird chart.
Like it spikes up in the nineteen eighties, right? This is Volcal this Vulcan era.
Neither of us were alive.
Wasn't alive, but um bad time to get a mortgage, let me tell you. So like up to 19%. And then uh, you know, it's just such a weird chart, these central banker charts, I think. But um the interesting thing to me is like he was talking about inflation. We haven't seen inflation yet. This is trueflation. Right now, inflation is hanging out at about 1.6%.
Inflation is under control.
It
So far, and of course, this is uh this is a trailing indicator. I guess what Powell is just saying is like, well, yeah, it's fine now, but we don't know the impact of the tariffs, and he's expecting that that's going to be inflationary. You can almost read between the lines he's anticipating some sort of like recession or maybe some sort of you know, like inflation spike post tariffs, and that's why he's not doing anything. Uh of course, uh Trump had a comment on that. Uh, did you see his comment this morning?
No, tell me.
Okay. He said Jerome Powell is a fool who doesn't have a clue. Other than that, I like him very much.
Mixed signals by Donald Trump. Very mixed signals. Because like Trump wants him to lower rates, because it's always good for the f sitting president, right? Is that what
Because of course, right? A sitting president always wants like easier monetary policy, right? It helps him get elected. I guess he he says this. Trump continues oil and energy are way down. Almost all costs, groceries, and eggs are down, virtually no inflation, tariff money pouring into the US, the exact opposite of too late. Enjoy, he says. It's like I guess he has a point with oil and energy down and cost of groceries down. If you look at the trailing indicator of inflation, this is not a forecast of what the next 12 months will hold. I don't know. What's your take? Do you think do you think Powell should be adjusting rates down at this point in time or or hold it steady?
I mean, I do not have an opinion here. What I do enjoy is that rates are being held steady and markets are still finding plenty of reasons to be bullish and go up. I think it's worth high highlighting that we the the SP 500 is up almost 20% from the bottom of the tariff scare. And the bottom of the tariff scare got pretty low, right? And so that's 31 days. Over 31 days, the SP 500 is up uh almost 20%. Over 17 days, we are up 10%. And we are like only from all-time highs, only like 7% away from uh all-time highs in the SP 500s, despite the tariffs, despite persistently high interest rates. And if we can go up as a stock market while interest rates are like at 4.75, 4.25%, that means that that's real, like there's no ex there's no zerp excuse for why those markets are going up. Markets are going up based off of fundamentals. And that that feels good. And and that feels like a very strong economy. And that's also true for the crypto space as well. If the crypto space can go up.
Cause crypto up until 2021 only existed in a zero interest rate policy environment. And now in 2024 and 2025, crypto is going up under a sustained high interest rate environment, which means we earned it. We deserved that. That was our success and that is showing up in our crypto prices.
Yeah, I mean that's that's definitely a bullish interpretation. I will say, like trailing off of last week, we still haven't seen what impact tariffs might have.
Perhaps this is kind of a blip up before you know we get some tariff shock that happens this summer and research. We talked about that. The R word is still out there. Also, there was this capital flight trade that's like outside of the US that seems to have rebounded, at least right now. So I guess on the week it's too soon to tell. But if indeed markets fully recover, right? That was a buy the dip opportunity that a lot of people miss. This is why you got a dollar cost average in and uh like just like not worry about it. Uh something else that's hitting all time highs, though, David, is uh gold on the
Still worrying me. Still worrying me. Yeah. Is that a good idea? It's like mixed opinions on this because when I see gold going for all-time highs, I think Bitcoin is not far behind that in even more aggressive and explosive fashion. And I think maybe that's what we're seeing recently. But also when gold goes to all-time highs, that just means
Uncertainty. Global instability and uncertainty. And also the decline of the United States economy as the epicenter of global finance, right? Like we had that we had a really good thing going. We would export dollars, we would buy goods, they would come to the United States, the rest of the world would get the dollars, and they would reinvest in the American financial system. And our Loki of control by being the world's financial system would increase. And that unraveling, there's no way that that unravels without pain. And go people pushing gold to all time highs, I worry, is like a hedge that people are betting on around the unraveling of the financial epicenter of the world being Wall Street being the United States.