The big players on Wall Street have long wanted your Bitcoin – and maybe they even got it on the cheap? Unless you’ve been hardcore HODLing for years, that is. In any case, Crypto Twitter is abuzz this morning with more BlackRock chatter.

And that’s because Barton Larry Fink, the CEO of the world’s biggest asset manager, has come out and said some very positive things about the OG crypto asset in an interview with Fox Business.

Can’t be bothered listening to another old bloke in a suit bang on about financial matters? Here were the best bits:

• “We do believe that if we can create more tokenization of assets and securities – that’s what Bitcoin is – it could revolutionize finance.”

• “Instead of investing in gold as a hedge against inflation, a hedge against the onerous problems of any one country, or the devaluation of your currency whatever country you’re in – let’s be clear, Bitcoin is an international asset, it’s not based on any one currency and so it can represent an asset that people can play as an alternative.”

• “I do believe the role of crypto is digitalizing gold, in many ways.”

These statements are a far cry from Fink’s line on Bitcoin a handful of years ago in 2017, when he essentially dismissed it as nothing right-minded investors would be interested in and an asset heavily used for “illicit activities” – an “index of money laundering”.

https://twitter.com/BTC_Archive/status/1676694002282758145

Meanwhile, what’s happening with the reignited race for a spot Bitcoin ETF? Admittedly, it’s a very slow race. Here’s an update from the ETF watchers over at Bloomberg…

Essentially, since BlackRock refiled its application the other day in an attempt to meet the SEC’s strict criteria and satisfy notions of protecting against market manipulation in the crypto market, seven other big guns have followed suit and refiled with this in mind.

(Still quite like that Valkyrie Investments Bitcoin ETF “money printer” title: BRRR.)

As for the chances of approval? Still anyone’s guess at this stage, and although BlackRock has a stupendously good track record of getting ETFs across the line, Fink isn’t giving much away:

“We hope that, like in the past, we could be working with our regulators and get the filing approved one day, and I have no idea what that one day will be, but we’ll see how that all plays out.”

 

Top 10 overview

With the overall crypto market cap at US$1.23 trillion, down about 1.3% since this time yesterday, here’s the current state of play among top 10 tokens – according to CoinGecko.

Ethereum rival Solana (SOL) is the eye-opening re-entry into the top 10, usurping Litecoin with a bit of a surge that’s seen it gain 20% over the past seven days.

As for Bitcoin and Ethereum, they’re what we might call steady right about now. And we actually just did.

While some, including blockchain analytics firm Block Scholes, are of the belief Bitcoin and the crypto market are no longer closely correlated to the US stock market, the fact is, the crypto market dip overnight has indeed followed stonks heading slightly lower.

As our very own non-fungible Eddy Sunarto noted over at Market Highlights this morning, Aussie shares might be in for another red day, too, after both the S&P 500 and Nasdaq closed -0.2% lower following the release of the June Fed Reserve meeting minutes.

“The minutes indicated that FOMC members wanted to hike the Fed Funds rate in June before deciding to keep it at 5%-5.25%,” wrote Eddy. “Analysts believe the upcoming CPI report on July 12 will determine whether or not the Fed will hike in July.”

Also, there’s an important unemployment figures update happening in the US at the end of the week, which could have some initial bearing on markets before that CPI print next week.

Dutch crypto trader and analyst Michaël van de Poppe sees a couple of scenarios, as usual, one being a BTC dip on bearish macro news back just under US$30k again. Could happen, but let’s not panic if it does, eh? Not finanical advice, and so forth.

 

Uppers and downers

Some of the biggest 24-hour gainers and losers at press time. (Stats accurate at time of publishing, based on CoinGecko.com data.)

There’s not much moving in an upwards fashion in the top 100 by market cap today, so here are some lurking further down in crypto’s nether regions…

PUMPERS (lower, lower caps)

• Onomy Protocol (NOM), (market cap: US$17 million) +103%

• Propy (PRO), (market cap: US$27 million) +79%

• Verge (XVG), (market cap: US$128 million) +25%

• Pepe 2.0 (PEPE2.0), (market cap: US$38 million) +24%

• Acala (ACA), (market cap: US$48 million) +14%

 

SLUMPERS

• BitDAO (BIT), (market cap: US$668 million) -8%

• Bitcoin SV (BSV), (market cap: US$812 million) -6%

• Compound (COMP), (market cap: US$404 million) -7%

• Kaspa (KAS), (market cap: US$435 million) -6%

• Fantom (FTM), (market cap: US$835 million) -5%

 

SLUMPERS (lower, lower caps)

• Storj (STORJ), (market cap: US$56 million) -23%

• Maverick (MAV), (market cap: US$105 million) -15%

• Zilliqua (ZIL), (market cap: US$364 million) -9%

 

Around the blocks

Some pertinence and randomness that stuck with us on our morning moves through the Crypto Twitterverse.

And over in Hopium Corner, we have the usual high figures being bandied about whenever someone of note says something bullish…

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