The Breakdown First Five - Thursday, November 21, 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.

PSA: Good news! The Breakdown has been acquired by Blockworks. Early next month, you'll start receiving the Blockworks Daily newsletter. You can expect the same quality crypto news and analysis, just with a new look. To ensure a smooth transition, please add newsletter@blockworks.co to your approved senders list. Happy reading!

5. New Highs, Every Day

Bitcoin hit another new high overnight, reaching just shy of $98,000. Opinions are a little mixed. This certainly feels like a euphoric price extension, but Santiment claims social media sentiment is “luke-warm at best.” Fund managers are fielding desperate calls to get allocations as the tradfi FOMO ramps up. $100,000 feels pre-ordained and potential top signals are everywhere, but there’s still pockets of disbelief. Can Bitcoin go even higher? 

4. Justin Sun Buys $6M Banana

If you are keeping track of top signals, here’s another. Justin Sun has purchased the artwork “Comedian” for $6.2M at Sotheby’s. The piece is a fresh banana duct taped to a wall. Sun plans to eat the banana, which he believes is a cultural phenomenon bridging the world of art, memes, and the cryptocurrency community.

3. Options Skewed

After a scorching hot launch, the data for IBIT options shows significant volume for highly speculative bets. The majority of positions were placed for the December 20th expiry date. Most stuck with conservative bets on a price increase between 10% and 20%. And then there was a sizable portion of traders who bet on Bitcoin hitting $175,000 within a month. These options are extremely cheap, just 15 cents, so this could just be a retail gamble. Or it could be much more.

2. MSTR Goes Parabolic

Microstrategy is on an absolute tear. The stock is up almost 600% year to date and has been hitting 10% daily jumps regularly. It now has better returns than NVIDIA on all timeframes. The company has announced their latest convertible debt offering will be increased by 50% to $2.6B. Investors are happy to take it with an implied 55% premium to the stock. Whether this is a blow off top or Saylor is a genius, the company is now unignorable on Wall Street.

1. Crypto Czar

The Trump administration is reportedly thinking about appointing a Crypto Czar within the White House. The Czar would be armed with a small staff and tasked with serving as a liaison between financial regulators, Congress and the White House on crypto policy. This would be the first crypto focused role in the US government, underscoring how important getting crypto policy right is to the incoming administration.