Morning Minute: Saylor's $2.54B Buy Buoys Bitcoin

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 proceed grind up, led by Bitcoin; BTC +2% astatine $76,480
• Saylor buys $2.54B successful BTC, 3rd biggest bargain ever; 85% powered by STRC
• AAVE publishes afloat incidental report; losses scope $120M-$230M
• Curve laminitis pushes for shared information standards crossed DeFi
• Polymarket raising $400M astatine $15B valuation, down Kalshi’s $22B

🟠 Saylor Just Made His Third-Largest Bitcoin Buy Ever

Strategy purchased 34,164 BTC for $2.54 cardinal past week - its largest single-week bargain successful implicit 16 months and 3rd largest successful institution past down 2 November 2024 purchases.

Saylor’s Strategy present holds 815,061 BTC acquired for $61.56 cardinal astatine an mean outgo of $75,527. With BTC astir $76K, the full treasury is backmost successful the green.

STRC did the dense lifting again this week, arsenic $2.18 cardinal of the $2.54 cardinal came from STRC preferred banal sales. And notably, this is the week Saylor besides projected moving STRC dividends to semi-monthly.

The thesis: a much unchangeable STRC terms means the banal trades person to par for longer, which means much issuance capacity, which means much Bitcoin. And with Saylor present adjacent 15% of the mode done his latest $50B ATM, expect the Bitcoin buying to continue. In size.

Key Details:

• Strategy purchased 34,164 BTC for $2.54 billion last week - third-largest single-week acquisition successful institution history; holdings present astatine 815,061 BTC astatine an mean outgo of $75,527; BTC output 9.5% YTD
• The funding: $2.18 cardinal raised via STRC preferred banal sales; $366 cardinal from MSTR communal stock; 85.7% STRC-funded
• Where things stand: 815,061 BTC astatine ~$75K = astir breakeven connected $61.56 cardinal invested; Saylor’s stated extremity is 1 cardinal BTC by extremity of 2026; $1.62B successful STRF capableness and $26.73B successful MSTR ATM capableness inactive available

🔵 Tom Lee Isn’t Sweating The Kelp Dip

Tom Lee’s Bitmine disclosed Monday that it purchased 101,627 ETH for $235 cardinal past week, its largest single-week ETH acquisition of 2026. On a marketplace headdress adjusted basis, that bargain is equivalent to Saylor buying $1.35B successful Bitcoin. It’s a large purchase.

Bitmine’s full holdings are present astatine 4.976 cardinal ETH, representing 4.12% of full circulating supply, and is present 82% of the mode to its self-declared “5% alchemy” target.

Tom Lee commented: “While galore judge the crypto wintertime whitethorn past done the autumn of 2026, our presumption remains that the crypto wintertime is overmuch person to ending.”

He cited ETH being up 41% from its aboriginal February lows arsenic evidence, and called it “the champion wartime store of value.” He besides noted ETH benefits from 2 tailwinds simultaneously: organization tokenization flows and request from agentic AI systems that request a neutral nationalist ledger.

We volition spot if that bull lawsuit so plays retired for ETH the token, but astatine slightest Tom is doing his portion to help.

🎯 Polymarket Is Raising $400M astatine $15B, Now Chasing Kalshi

Polymarket is successful talks to raise $400 cardinal astatine a $15 cardinal valuation, Bloomberg and The Information reported Monday.

The circular could turn to $1 cardinal with further strategical investors beyond NYSE genitor ICE, which completed its $600M tranche past period bringing full ICE committedness to $1.6 billion.

Notably, Kalshi conscionable raised $1 cardinal astatine $22 billion, astir 50% higher, and leads connected some measurement ($13B vs Polymarket’s $10.57B) and gross (estimated $1.5B annually). Historically, these 2 prediction marketplace giants person conducted raises successful enactment with each other. This would beryllium the archetypal clip Kalshi seemingly has pulled ahead. Apparently, Kalshi being the US regulated assemblage (vs Polymarket inactive not unrecorded successful the US) is the differentiator.

🔴 Aave Update: Contained, But Not Resolved

Aave published its afloat incidental study connected Monday. The representation is much contained than Saturday’s panic suggested, but acold from closed. And imaginable losses present scope from $120M to $230M.

Here’s however the exploit went down: the attacker forged a LayerZero packet (nonce 308) accepted by Kelp’s single-DVN span with nary corresponding pain connected Unichain releasing 116,500 rsETH. Then 89,567 of that ended up connected Aave arsenic collateral crossed 7 wallets, which borrowed 82,650 WETH and 821 wstETH against it. All 7 attacker positions presently beryllium astatine wellness factors betwixt 1.01 and 1.03 and haven’t been liquidated yet.

The cardinal occupation is that the adapter that backs each remote-chain rsETH crossed each L2 presently holds lone 40,373 rsETH, against full distant claims of 152,577. That’s a 112,204 rsETH gap.

How Kelp socializes the losses determines however atrocious this gets for Aave. If the haircut is dispersed crossed each rsETH holders globally, the token depegs astir 15% and Aave absorbs astir $124M successful atrocious debt. If losses are isolated to the affected L2 chains instead, the interaction concentrates connected Arbitrum and Mantle and Aave's atrocious indebtedness swells to astir $230M.

Aave is moving scenarios but can’t adjacent the publication until Kelp makes a nationalist decision. Thus the holding signifier continues, and unfortunately, assurance successful these protocols is seemingly dropping by the hour…

🌎 Macro Crypto and Markets

• Crypto majors are precise green; BTC +2% astatine $76.5k; ETH +1% astatine $2,320; SOL +1% astatine $86; HYPE -1% astatine $40.90
• XLM (+8%), ZEC (+8%), and XMR (+6%) led apical movers
• Oil -1% astatine $87; Gold adjacent astatine $4,790
• Stock futures are greenish again aft falling somewhat connected Monday
• Curve Finance laminitis Michael Egorov is pushing for shared information standards across DeFi pursuing a question of exploits helium says stem from avoidable centralization risks similar single-verifier span setups
• Arbitrum's Security Council voted to frost 30,766 ETH (~$71.5M) tied to the Kelp DAO exploit; the funds were moved to a protocol-controlled intermediary wallet connected April 20 earlier the attacker could span them backmost to ETH mainnet
• Ripple published a four-phase roadmap Monday to marque the XRP Ledger quantum-resistant by 2028; progressive investigating of NIST-standardized post-quantum algorithms begins successful H1 2026
• Coinbase launched Bitcoin and Ethereum-backed loans for UK users, allowing customers to get against their crypto holdings without selling their positions
• Coinbase and Bybit are reportedly moving together on tokenization, custody, and planetary organisation of US nationalist and pre-IPO stocks; the program is Coinbase provides US plus entree and compliance infrastructure, Bybit provides the planetary distribution

Corporate Treasuries & ETFs

• The Bitcoin ETFs saw $238M successful nett inflows on Monday; the ETH ETFs saw $68M successful inflows

Meme Coin Tracker

• Meme leaders were green connected the day; DOGE +1%, SHIB +2%, PEPE +2%, TRUMP +2%, BONK +2%, PENGU +8%, SPX +10%, FARTCOIN +5%
• MAGA (+250%), Either (+25%), Belief (+20%), and unc (+30%) led notable movers
• Asteroid briefly sold disconnected to $100M earlier rebounding to $200M and a caller ATH (now $170M)
• A national judge ruled that Caitlyn Jenner's $JENNER memecoin is not a security given determination was nary “common enterprise” erstwhile evaluating the Howey Test

💰 Token, Airdrop & Protocol Tracker

• Tether led an $8 cardinal strategical circular for KAIO, an Abu Dhabi-regulated tokenization firm building infrastructure to bring organization funds onchain
• The full marketplace headdress of tokenized RWAs is present up 20x over the past 3 years according to Cryptopolitan

🚚 What is happening successful NFTs?

• NFT leaders were mostly even; Punks adjacent astatine 26.6 ETH, Pudgy -1% astatine 4.26 ETH, BAYC +1% astatine 7.88 ETH; Hypurr’s adjacent astatine 386 HYPE
• mfers (+19%) and Normies (+14%) led notable movers
• A Skull of Luci sold for 166 ETH, a caller grounds successful ETH terms