8/13/24: Bitcoin's Got Size 🚀💰🇸🇻

Top News

  1. Bitcoin is now the 6th largest monetary asset in the world

  2. Polymarket sees $4.5M bet on Elon x Trump interview

  3. El Salvador announces $1.6B investment for new Bitcoin City

Specs’ Breakdown

1. Bitcoin is now the 6th largest monetary asset in the world

⌐◪-◪ → Bitcoin just overtook the British pound as the 6th largest monetary asset in the world.

While Bitcoin still has a long way to go before it overtakes Gold in 1st place (12.4x to be specific) it only has to 4.9x to overtake the US Dollar.

When you consider this through the lens of Bitcoin as a strategy reserve asset — it starts to sound pretty sensible:

  1. BTC is a top 10 asset by a wide margin

  2. BTC is outperforming all in terms of growth

  3. BTC is a fantastic hedge against further inflation

While Bitcoin overtaking gold as the #1 largest monetary asset is certainly a bullish outcome, what’s even MORE bullish in my opinion is the day the chart above is denominated in Bitcoin (not USD).

2. Polymarket sees $4.5M bet on Elon x Trump interview

⌐◪-◪ → Last night, Polymarket users bet $4.5M on which words Donald Trump would say during his interview with Elon.

Interview might be the wrong word here, it was more of a 1-way conversation given Trump’s long rambling, but I digress.

What’s amazing is over 50% of those bets were placed live, turning a very boring conversation (in my opinion) into a very riveting one.

The biggest win of the night was probably when Trump said “tampon”, which had sub-20% odds going into the evening. The other two words that hit were “MAGA” and “Illegal Immigrant”.

The biggest loss of the night however was that Trump did not say “Tesla” even though he referenced Elon’s “electric vehicles” many times — it was almost as if Trump was told not to say the word.

Meanwhile, Pump.Fun made $850k in revenue during the interview which puts it in 3rd place of all crypto protocols and chains, just behind Aave and Ethereum.

3. El Salvador announces $1.6B investment for new Bitcoin City

⌐◪-◪ → El Salvador is doubling down on Bitcoin by dedicating two seaports and a hefty $1.6B to the development of a tax-free crypto haven.

The city was supposed to be funded through El Salvador’s Bitcoin bonds, but due to delays, the $1.6B investment came from Yilport, a Turkish holding company, marking the largest private investment in the country’s history.

One of the seaports handles the country’s exports of coffee, sugar, and salts — and the other abandoned seaport is where Bitcoin City will be built.

I’ve never been to El Salvador, but I’m starting to think I need to plan a short trip just to get a feel for the place — help me get Bukele’s attention. If he bites I’ll geocache some special ordinals in Bitcoin City.

Everything Else

⛓️ Crypto & DeFi

  • PayPal PYUSD on Solana surpasses its Ethereum supply

  • Optimism pushes to connect affiliated networks to ‘Superchain’

🏦 Wallstreet & VC

  • Marathon announces stamp ‘Made in USA’ on mined Bitcoin

  • Ethereum spot ETFs see $4.9M inflows, ETHE ends outflows streak

  • Bitcoin Miner Argo repays $35M bailout loan from Galaxy Digital

  • Ion Protocol raises $4.8M to unlock rollup and appchain yields

🏛️ Legal & Regulatory

  • SEC files charges in $650M NovaTech crypto pyramid scheme

  • DEF purchases patent against MakerDAO and Compound

  • Three Arrows Capital files $1.3B claim against Terraform Labs

  • Coinbase urges SEC to abandon DeFi exchange rule

  • VCs receive SEC letters over their involvement with Uniswap Labs

🌎 Rest of the World

  • Germany prepares tokenized bond issuance in ECB trial

  • Binance Venezuela hit by access restrictions

  • Metaplanet buys $3.3M more Bitcoin, holdings reach 303 BTC

  • Singapore’s DBS rolls out blockchain-powered treasury tokens pilot

  • Pump.fun attacker pleads guilty in London

🖼️ NFTs & Metaverse

  • Hamster Combat skips VC funding, criticizes ‘exit liquidity’

  • Polymarket partners with Perplexity AI for news summaries

  • Chimpers released a collectible trading card set ‘ARCADEGEN’

  • Pump.fun sees new 16k coins created