The Breakdown First Five - Monday, March 4, 2024

Welcome back to The Breakdown First Five — the 5 most interesting and/or important stories in bitcoin, crypto, and markets to start your day.

5. Eight State AGs Weigh In Against SEC 

Eight state attorneys general have filed a scathing indictment of SEC overreach in the Kraken lawsuit. They claim that the regulator has stepped way beyond their congressional mandated authority in trying to usurp crypto jurisdiction. The AGs argue that their own state consumer protection laws shouldn’t be ignored by the courts. They aren’t supporting Kraken, but they seem pretty pissed about the SEC. 

4. Nigeria Demands $10B from Binance

Nigeria is furious about their collapsing currency and they’re trying to make Binance pay for it. The theory is that currency speculators have caused the Naira to collapse by 40% this year rather than a lack of confidence in the money. The arrests of two Binance officials are now confirmed. A government spokesperson publicly demanded a $10B payment, but hastily retracted the statement. CEO Richard Teng has been summoned to appear before Parliament. 

3. IBIT Hits $10B

Blackrock’s ETF has gathered $10B in AUM in just seven weeks. It took GLD, the original gold ETF, 3 years to hit that milestone. IBIT rounded out the week with ‘just’ $200B worth of inflows on Friday after racking up half a billion for three days straight. Only about 150 out of 3,400 ETFs on the market ever got to $10B, and most of them took a decade to get there, largely on the back of asset appreciation rather than monster flows.

2. Dogs, Frogs and Hats

Memecoins have gone ballistic. The figures are absurd to the point of being meaningless. 3000% surge in volume. 5x price appreciation in the past month. Is this a full blown retain frenzy or just insiders running up the score? Bullish or toppish? Nobody knows, but it gets the people going. Google trends and Coinbase app indicators suggest that retail is back and they’re buying memes. 

1. Hot Start For March

Bitcoin is already up 6.5% this Month, blowing past $65,000 early this morning. The bid is back in Asian trading hours. Futures open interest is at all time highs. Rumors spread that OTC desks are out of coins (total nonsense according to essentially everyone). The hype is real and it’s not slowing down. RSI has never been this overbought at these levels, are the markets overheated already?