Here’s what happened in crypto today

Crypto Market Update: Daily Trends and Events

Bitcoin’s price currently sits at $109,000, a 0.8% increase week-over-week. However, CryptoQuant data reveals a concerning 30-day contraction in demand, totaling -895,000 BTC. Institutional investment also slowed, with ETFs purchasing only 40,000 BTC and MicroStrategy acquiring 16,000 BTC last month—significantly less than previous periods. The near-empty Bitcoin mempool further underscores a lack of retail spot demand. This contrasts sharply with the Toncoin surge of 12% to nearly $2.9 following a recent announcement, although its mempool activity, while rising from 5,000 to 15,000 transactions, remains far below historical peaks. Analysts like Joël Valenzuela even suggest a “major crisis” in Bitcoin, with Joao Wedson attributing the low mempool activity to absent retail participation.

Ethereum also saw significant developments. SharpLink Gaming became the first publicly listed company to adopt ETH as its primary treasury reserve asset, fueling a $425 million private placement and bringing Joseph Lubin onto its board as chairman. Meanwhile, Vitalik Buterin proposed EIP-7983 to cap transaction gas, aiming to enhance security, stability, and zkVM compatibility. CoinShares reports that while Bitcoin ETPs saw $790 million in inflows last week (down from a three-week average of $1.5 billion), the momentum seems to be shifting towards Ether. The regulatory landscape continues to be a challenge, with the OKX CEO highlighting “false positives” as a major hurdle in global compliance.

Beyond Bitcoin and Ethereum, other notable events include the launch of FLOKI’s Valhalla blockchain game, a browser-based MMORPG; Elon Musk’s announcement of a new pro-Bitcoin political party in the US, described as pro-tech, pro-free speech, and anti-regulation; and Jack Dorsey’s release of Bitchat, a decentralized messaging app utilizing Bluetooth mesh networks. The crypto space also saw controversies, including the refutation by the Emirates News Agency of TON’s golden visa offer for stakers, and JPMorgan’s acceleration of TradFi/DeFi integration through a pilot project with Chainlink and Base. Finally, despite earlier predictions, bets on a US recession in 2025 have significantly fallen.