Washington just fired the crypto starter pistol, and Bitcoin face-planted on the track.

In partnership with

Hey  degen,

Mo here.

Picture the week as an 80-story roller-coaster: Congress jammed the launch lever, stablecoins went fully legal, Jamie Dimon kissed the ring, and BTC still managed to slam straight into a $114K pothole.

Meanwhile, hacks, Telegram bots and a nine-day Ethereum withdrawal queue reminded us this is crypto, not Disneyland.

Grab your helmet.

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THE RUNDOWN

Dollar Death Star Online
The GENIUS Act is now law. Any bank can spin up a dollar-backed stablecoin—Treasuries in, audits on-demand, no yield allowed. Uncle Sam just weaponized “USDC-on-steroids” to keep BRICS awake at night.

Jamie Kisses the Ring
JPMorgan’s Jamie Dimon went from calling Bitcoin a “pet rock” to green-lighting his own stablecoin desk. Nothing cures maximal FUD like trillions in fee revenue.

Gap Filled, Nerves Unfilled
Bitcoin wicked to $114,322, closing the July CME futures hole. Bulls see a slingshot to new ATHs; bears eye a $104 K trapdoor. Popcorn time.

Strategy Prints, Saylor Buys
MicroStrategy—sorry, Strategy—ups its equity tap to $2 B and now squats on 600 K+ BTC (≈ 3 % of supply). Buying the dip, the dip’s kids, and the dip’s unborn grandkids.

ETH Exit Lane Gridlocked
Unwound stETH leverage turned the withdrawal queue into a nine-day valet line. DeFi efficiency? Still mostly cosplay.

$142 M Rug Season
July hacks: CoinDCX $44 M, GMX (funds returned), WOO X phishing. Attackers now target off-chain servers—the industry’s soft belly.

Capitol Hill vs. USD1
Senate Democrats grill the OCC: How do you stop POTUS from fattening his wallet with the Trump-family stablecoin? Short answer: 🤷

Telegram-Bot Arms Race
TrojanOnSolana blows past $25 B lifetime volume. Copy-trade degens celebrate; MEV bots file grievance tickets.

MAIN EVENT — Dollar Death Star Goes Live

Washington spent a decade playing regulatory whack-a-mole. This week it switched to construction mode.

The GENIUS Act rocketed through Congress, got the presidential sharpie, and instantly turned “stablecoin” from grey-area snack to federally approved entrée:

• Mandatory 1-to-1 Treasuries → guaranteed demand for U.S. debt (Powell quietly fist-bumps).

• Single national license (OCC) → kill the 50-state compliance hydra.

• Audit or die → institutional green light.

• NO yield → separates stables (cash) from tokenized money-market funds (yield).

Translation: Wall Street just received the clearest “y’all come in” invite in fintech history.

Reflex-ripples

• Anchorage + Ethena spin up USDtb; Tether plots a regulated comeback; Goldman & BNY start tokenizing $7 T of money-market sludge.

• Europe looks like Blockbuster watching Netflix. MiCA suddenly feels dial-up.

• China drafts offshore e-CNY stables. The currency cold war is officially on-chain.

Why Bitcoin still matters

Dollar rails need neutral collateral. Enter BTC: censorship-proof, immutable, and—crucially—not an American liability.

Bigger Bitcoin = safer stablecoin ecosystem. Cue Saylor’s 600K BTC flex and Metaplanet’s fresh $3.7 B raise.

DEEPER CUTS

• CME Gap Math – Every gap since 2022 has closed; 60 % rallied afterwards. But fail to reclaim $116K and we could nuke $104K—the next gap below. Mind your leverage.

• Yield ban loophole – Tokenized T-bill funds (BlackRock BUIDL, Franklin BENJI) aren’t “stablecoins,” so yield hunters will pivot there, then Zap-In via DeFi wrappers. Watch that narrative.

• OpenSea insider walk-back – Appeal court tossed Nate Chastain’s conviction; jury instructions too broad. Precedent: NFT front-running might be scummy, not necessarily wire fraud.

• DEX privacy arms race – Aster rolls hidden orders with ZK proofs; Trojan bot adds MEV shield. If you can’t out-speed sandwich bots, cloak up.

The U.S. didn’t embrace crypto; it annexed it.

By making stables the dollar’s digital shock troops, Washington just rewrote the playbook. The question isn’t whether capital flows on-chain, it’s how fast, and who controls the toll booths.

Meanwhile, Bitcoin gap-hunters, stETH queue carpenters and Telegram degenerates keep the circus humming. Same chaos, new overlords.

Stay slightly suspicious and see you next Wednesday (Yes we are bringing back the Degenden radar).

— the DegenDen crew

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