Morning Minute: Bitcoin Clears $79,000, Then Reverses

Morning Minute is simply a regular newsletter written by Tyler Warner. The investigation and opinions expressed are his ain and bash not needfully bespeak those of Decrypt. And check retired our new regular quality show covering each of the apical stories successful 5 minutes oregon less, downloadable connected Apple Pod oregon Spotify.

GM!

Today’s apical news:

• Crypto majors rally past reverse arsenic lipid concerns mount; BTC -1% astatine $77,300
• The US Government discloses that it’s operating a Bitcoin node
• Justin Sun sues WLFI to unfreeze his tokens
• Andre Cronje’s Flying Tulip introduces a “circuit breaker” for DeFi
• MegaETH gets 10th app motorboat with Xeet, TGE expected successful May

📈📉 Bitcoin Clears $79,000, Then Reverses

Bitcoin crossed $79,000 Wednesday morning, reaching its highest level successful 11 weeks aft President Trump announced helium was extending the US-Iran ceasefire indefinitely.

The determination came aft Iran refused to nonstop negotiators to a 2nd circular of talks successful Islamabad, and Trump said the hold would clasp until Tehran submits a “unified proposal” to extremity the war.

But the terms enactment was shortlived, with Bitcoin falling backmost to $77,300 overnight arsenic lipid concerns equine and the IEA Chief called that “We are facing the biggest vigor information menace successful history.”

Oil jumped different 4% to $94/barrel and banal futures person moved into the reddish aft making different caller ATH yesterday.

⚖️ Justin Sun Sues Trump’s World Liberty Financial Over Frozen Tokens

Justin Sun filed a national lawsuit in California connected April 21 against World Liberty Financial, the Trump family-backed DeFi project, alleging fraud, breach of contract, and unjust enrichment.

The ailment centers connected a hidden blacklist relation that WLFI softly added to its token astute declaration successful August 2025 - without a governance ballot oregon immoderate disclosure to investors. Sun alleges WLFI utilized that relation to frost astir 2.9 cardinal of his WLFI tokens successful September 2025 aft helium moved astir $9 cardinal worthy of holdings, a transportation helium says was routine. At the clip of the freeze, his involvement was worthy implicit $100 million.

WLFI fired backmost publicly: “We person the contracts. We person the evidence. We person the truth. See you successful court.” Eric Trump went adjacent further, commenting connected Justin Sun’s $6M banana purchase. Well, I’ll fto you work his comments for yourself 👇

🗳️ Kalshi Fines Congressional Candidates for Betting connected Their Own Races

Prediction marketplace level Kalshi announced Wednesday that it had fined and suspended 3 legislature candidates for “political insider trading” - betting connected their ain elections.

The 3 are Ezekiel Enriquez, a Republican who ran successful Texas’ 21st Congressional District primary; Matt Klein, a Democrat moving successful Minnesota’s 2nd Congressional District primary; and Mark Moran, who ran successful Virginia’s Democratic Senate superior earlier switching to an autarkic campaign.

Fines were small, ranging from $539 to $6,229.30. All 3 were banned from the level for 5 years. Two cooperated with Kalshi’s probe though Moran did not.

Moran made wide the stunt was intentional. He wrote connected X: “I traded $100 connected myself, knowing this would happen... and the attraction it would make to item however this institution is destroying young men.” He said arsenic a legislator helium would “go aft Kalshi and enforce important penalties - 25%, a vice taxation - to wage down our nationalist debt.”

The crippled thickens…

₿ The US Government Is Running a Bitcoin Node

Admiral Samuel Paparo, commandant of US Indo-Pacific Command (INDOPACOM), disclosed Wednesday that the US authorities is actively moving a Bitcoin node and conducting operational web information tests utilizing the Bitcoin protocol.

This followed his Tuesday Senate Armed Services Committee testimony, wherever helium told lawmakers that “Bitcoin shows unthinkable imaginable arsenic a machine subject instrumentality that, done the proof-of-work protocols, really imposes much costs than conscionable the algorithmic securing of networks.” He described Bitcoin arsenic “a peer-to-peer, zero-trust transportation of value” with “really important machine subject applications for cybersecurity.”

Notably, the framing tracks straight with the Jason Lowery thesis that proof-of-work tin relation arsenic a physical-cost cyberdefense layer, analogous to accepted subject deterrence. Paparo’s grounds marks the archetypal clip a combatant commandant has publically characterized Bitcoin arsenic a nationalist information plus successful legislature testimony.

💸 André Cronje’s Flying Tulip Brings Circuit Breakers to DeFi Lending

André Cronje, the developer down Fantom, Yearn Finance, and Solidly, is addressing 1 of DeFi’s astir pressing issues with his newest project.

Flying Tulip, Cronje’s caller AMM and lending protocol, has introduced a programmatic circuit breaker module designed to rate-limit superior outflows during abnormal withdrawal events.

The circuit breaker works by monitoring outflow velocity successful existent time. When withdrawals transcend a defined threshold, whether triggered by a astute declaration exploit, oracle failure, oregon a ample coordinated presumption unwind, the strategy automatically throttles the complaint astatine which superior tin exit the protocol.

Cronje has been vocal for years astir DeFi’s request for TradFi-style hazard infrastructure without TradFi’s centralization trade-offs. Circuit breakers are modular successful equity markets (the NYSE halts trading erstwhile the S&P drops 7%, 13%, oregon 20% successful a session) but person been mostly absent from DeFi due to the fact that they necessitate either centralized admin keys oregon analyzable governance coordination to trigger. Flying Tulip’s implementation is afloat programmatic, with nary admin override, which means it operates the aforesaid mode careless of who is watching.

Of people the timing is notable aft past week’s $292M KelpDAO exploit and accelerating issues with Defi protocols being hacked. Perhaps a DeFi-wide circuit breaker would easiness the pain…

🌎 Macro Crypto and Markets

• Crypto majors are reddish arsenic lipid concerns rise; BTC -1% astatine $77.7k; ETH -3% astatine $2,330; SOL -3% astatine $86; HYPE adjacent astatine $41.10
• Stable (+18%), DEXE (+8%), and M (+7%) led apical movers
• Oil +4% astatine $94; Gold -1% astatine $4,700
• Stock futures are reddish aft making different caller ATH yesterday
• GSR launched the archetypal actively managed multi-asset crypto ETF successful the US connected Wednesday, the GSR Crypto Core3 ETF (BESO) connected Nasdaq, offering vulnerability to Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Solana with play rebalancing and staking rewards connected ETH and SOL holdings
• Russia’s State Duma passed the archetypal speechmaking of its long-awaited crypto measure Wednesday, recognizing cryptocurrency arsenic spot and permitting its usage successful overseas commercialized settlements, explicitly arsenic a mechanics to bypass Western sanctions; home usage of crypto for payments remains banned, with the ruble staying the sole ineligible tender wrong Russia
• Robinhood Ventures Fund I (NYSE: RVI) closed a $75 cardinal concern successful OpenAI communal banal connected April 17, making it 1 of the fund’s largest positions to date
• OpenAI launched workspace agents successful ChatGPT Wednesday, replacing customized GPTs with a much almighty team-oriented successor powered by Codex; workspace agents tin grip complex, long-running tasks similar preparing reports, penning code, and responding to messages, portion operating wrong organization-set permissions and role-based entree controls

Corporate Treasuries & ETFs

• The Bitcoin ETFs saw $336M successful nett inflows on Tuesday; the ETH ETFs saw $96M successful inflows
• American Bitcoin activated 11,298 caller miners astatine its Drumheller, Alberta installation Wednesday, completing its March enlargement program and bringing full fleet capableness to 89,242 machines; ABTC shares surged implicit 12% connected the quality and the Trump-backed mining steadfast present holds astir 7,000 BTC (~$550M) successful treasury

Meme Coin Tracker

• Meme leaders were red connected the day; DOGE -2%, SHIB -2%, PEPE -4%, TRUMP -5%, BONK -3%, PENGU -3%, SPX -3%, FARTCOIN -6%
• uncraft (+100x), Burnie (+77%) and Noob (+180%) led notable movers
• Pumpcade rebounded 30% to $25M

💰 Token, Airdrop & Protocol Tracker

• Andre Cronje’s Flying Tulip project introduced a “circuit breaker” for DeFi utilizing a programmatic module to bounds outflows successful utmost scenarios
• MegaETH had its 10th app motorboat with Xeet, meaning that the MEGA TGE should so hap soon
• Axie Infinity’s Ronin blockchain set May 12 arsenic the day for its migration from Ethereum sidechain to afloat Layer-2 web connected the OP Stack; the displacement cuts RON token ostentation from implicit 20% to nether 1% and jumps marketplace Treasury fees 2.5x from 0.5% to 1.25%
• Believe App laminitis Ben Pasternak was arrested for battle and strangulation

🚚 What is happening successful NFTs?

• NFT leaders were mostly greenish again; Punks +3% astatine 28.9ETH, Pudgy +5% astatine 4.69 ETH, BAYC -5% astatine 8.64 ETH; Hypurr’s -3% astatine 375 HYPE
• Azuki (+19%), Elementals (+33%) and Doodles (+17%) led notable movers; Meebits besides up 14%
• Nouns jumped 160% after the laminitis announced that the 1 Noun/per time streak had yet been breached aft 1,700+ days
• An 8-Punk sweep kicked disconnected a large time of Punk enactment that led to 16 wide sales, the astir successful weeks