Morning Minute: Bitcoin Passes $78k as Trump Extends Ceasefire Indefinitely

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 arsenic Trump extends ceasefire indefinitely; BTC +2% astatine $78.3k
• Coinbase quantum study says ETH and SOL much astatine hazard than Bitcoin
• Kalshi and Polymarket some tease perps launches connected aforesaid day
• New York’s AG sued Coinbase and Gemini implicit their prediction marketplace products
• USD AI’s CHIP token debuts and soars to $800M fdv

📈 Bitcoin Hits 11-Week High arsenic Trump Extends Iran Ceasefire Indefinitely

Bitcoin climbed supra $78,000 Wednesday morning, its highest level successful 11 weeks, aft President Trump announced he would widen the Iran ceasefire indefinitely, reversing his earlier connection that it would expire Wednesday.

Trump cited Tehran’s authorities arsenic “seriously fractured,” and said the hold would stay successful spot until Iran’s enactment submits a “unified proposal” to extremity the war. The announcement came aft Iran refused to nonstop negotiators to a 2nd circular of talks successful Islamabad and reports surfaced that Vice President Vance’s planned travel to Pakistan had been enactment connected hold.

Markets reacted quickly. BTC was up astir 2.2% implicit 24 hours and 5% connected the week by Wednesday morning, with abbreviated sellers caught connected the incorrect broadside - astir $240 cardinal successful leveraged shorts were liquidated. ETH was up 3% to $2,390 connected a coagulated time of ETF inflows ($43M). Stock futures are opening greenish arsenic well.

On-chain signals are turning constructive for the archetypal clip successful months. Bitcoin’s Net Unrealized Profit/Loss metric turned affirmative for the archetypal clip since aboriginal January, which analysts work arsenic confirmation the bearish inclination has ended. And whales are apparently accumulating at the fastest gait since July 2025.

Strong momentum starting to physique for crypto’s flagship asset…

🏛️ Warsh Faces Senate Over Crypto Holdings, Fed Independence

Kevin Warsh appeared earlier the Senate Banking Committee connected Tuesday for his confirmation proceeding arsenic Trump’s nominee to regenerate Jerome Powell arsenic Federal Reserve chair.

The proceeding covered 3 main areas: his narration with Trump connected involvement rates, his broader monetary argumentation views, and his fiscal disclosures (which see stakes successful Solana, Polymarket, Tenderly, and different crypto and DeFi funds).

• On rates, Warsh said Trump “never asked maine to predetermine, commit, fix, determine connected immoderate involvement complaint determination successful immoderate of our discussions, nor would I ever hold to bash so.” He pushed backmost connected suggestions helium would simply chopped rates connected demand, calling himself an “independent actor” and saying helium would “absolutely not” service arsenic anyone’s governmental instrument.
• On inflation, helium said the trajectory is “improving, but there’s much enactment to do.” He wants a smaller Fed equilibrium sheet, little reliance connected quantitative easing, and less post-FOMC property conferences - noting that “truth-seeking is much important than repetition.”

Markets didn’t emotion it. The hawkish undertone sent crypto stocks lower. COIN fell 6%, HOOD 4.5%. BTC slid toward $75K.

But 21Shares probe strategist Matt Mena argued the work whitethorn beryllium excessively short-term. Warsh has spent years publically arguing the Fed keeps rates excessively precocious based connected lagging data, and his nonstop vulnerability to integer assets — helium views bitcoin arsenic “the caller golden for radical nether 40” — makes him the astir crypto-friendly Fed Chair nominee successful history.

If helium eases successful H2 2026, analysts accidental that the liquidity situation could propulsion BTC backmost toward $100K.

⚛️ Coinbase: Proof-of-Stake Has a Quantum Problem Bitcoin Doesn’t

Coinbase’s Independent Advisory Board published a quantum hazard report Tuesday with a uncovering that’s getting little attraction than BIP-361 but arguably matters more. And the interest impacts Ethereum and Solana the most.

Proof-of-stake chains similar Ethereum and Solana usage cryptographic signatures to unafraid consensus. A sufficiently almighty quantum machine moving Shor’s algorithm could interruption those signature schemes.

Unlike Bitcoin, wherever the quantum hazard is chiefly astir exposed wallet nationalist keys, PoS chains look an further onslaught surface: the halfway statement mechanics itself. Compromise one-third of Ethereum validators and the web can’t finalize transactions. Two-thirds and an attacker tin rewrite concatenation history.

Coinbase’s committee said plainly: “the situation for proof-of-stake isn’t conscionable upgrading wallets; parts of the halfway statement mechanics itself whitethorn request to beryllium redesigned.” No existent quantum machine tin bash this, yet. But the “harvest now, decrypt later” menace means the readying model is now, not erstwhile Q-Day arrives.

📊 Kalshi and Polymarket Launch Perps

Kalshi announced connected Tuesday that it’s readying to motorboat perpetual futures crossed crypto and different assets. By afternoon, Polymarket announced the same, saying “We’ve priced the aboriginal - present you tin really commercialized it.”

Incredible lockstep between these 2 prediction marketplace giants, erstwhile again (even their announcement hype videos looked the same).

Kalshi’s motorboat is codenamed “Timeless,” goes unrecorded April 27 successful New York, and starts with BTC perpetuals utilizing USD arsenic collateral. Kalshi’s borderline present is leveraging its CFTC licenses and a borderline trading support secured past month.

Polymarket’s early-access waitlist is unrecorded astatine polymarket.com/perps, and they’re teasing perps crossed assets similar BTC, NVDA, and golden with up to 10x leverage.

Notably, this comes astatine a clip erstwhile the CME and Hyperliquid are leaning into launching prediction markets. It appears the prediction markets are warring back…

🏴‍☠️ Scammers Are Charging Bitcoin for Hormuz Safe Passage

Who had crypto getting tied up successful a Strait of Hormuz scam connected their bingo card?

Greek maritime hazard steadfast MARISKS warned Monday that chartless actors posing arsenic Iranian authorities person been contacting shipping companies stranded westbound of the Strait of Hormuz, demanding Bitcoin oregon USDT successful speech for “transit clearance.”

The fraudulent messages told ships that Iranian Security Services volition measure your eligibility, past wage the interest successful BTC oregon USDT, and your vas tin transit astatine a pre-agreed time.

MARISKS said it believes astatine slightest 1 vas paid the fraudulent fee—and past was fired connected portion attempting to transit anyway. The scam mirrors a existent argumentation that Iran projected backmost successful March, that they’d complaint BTC/USDT transit tolls of astir $1 per barrel.

🌎 Macro Crypto and Markets

• Crypto majors are precise greenish aft Trump extended the Iran ceasefire indefinitely; BTC +2% astatine $78.3k; ETH +3% astatine $2,390; SOL +3% astatine $88; HYPE level astatine $41
• PENGU (+11%), M (+6%), and SKY (+5%) led apical movers
• Oil +4% astatine $90; Gold -1% astatine $4,760
• Stock futures are greenish again, up 0.5%
• A four-star admiral and caput of US Indo-Pacific Command told the Senate on Tuesday that Bitcoin has important imaginable arsenic a nationalist information asset
• Tron laminitis Justin Sun filed a national suit against World Liberty Financial in California tribunal Tuesday, alleging the Trump-backed task froze astir $776 cardinal worthy of his WLFI tokens, stripped his voting rights, and threatened to pain his holdings aft helium declined to support investing
• New York AG Letitia James sued Coinbase and Gemini Tuesday over their prediction marketplace products, calling them amerciable gambling operations nether authorities law
• DoorDash will pay its transportation workers successful stablecoins across 40+ countries using Stripe and Paradigm’s Tempo blockchain, which launched its nationalist mainnet successful March
• Jefferies expert Andrew Moss warned Tuesday that the $293M Kelp DAO exploit may punctual Wall Street firms to dilatory oregon intermission their blockchain and tokenization plans as they reassess infrastructure risk

Corporate Treasuries & ETFs

• The Bitcoin ETFs saw $12M successful nett inflows on Tuesday; the ETH ETFs saw $43M successful inflows

Meme Coin Tracker

• Meme leaders were green connected the day; DOGE +3%, SHIB +2%, PEPE +3%, TRUMP +4%, BONK +5%, PENGU +11%, SPX +10%, FARTCOIN +2%
• MAGA (+130%), Peace (+30%), Spike (+30%), and Cards (+30%) led notable movers
• Meteora’s MET token jumped 30% to $100M

💰 Token, Airdrop & Protocol Tracker

• USD AI launched its CHIP token, which soared to $800M fdv successful its debut
• AAVE has present seen $15B successful outflows since the KelpDAO exploit
• MegaETH confirmed the 3 much apps are launching this week, meaning 9 of the 10 required to motorboat per their KPIs person launched (TGE coming aft the 10th)

🚚 What is happening successful NFTs?

• NFT leaders were precise greenish with Bored Apes starring the weay; Punks +5% astatine 28.1 ETH, Pudgy +5% astatine 4.46 ETH, BAYC +16% astatine 9.14 ETH; Hypurr’s adjacent astatine 386 HYPE
• BAKC (+16%) and MAYC (+9%) led notable movers