Bitcoin and Token2049 Dubai

[Forum Admin]

Bitcoin and Token2049 Dubai

This week, Bitcoin broke through $97,000, marking an 18% rebound since March’s close. This rally is partly fueled by renewed institutional interest, including increased ETF inflows and the continuation of the narrative that bitcoin is finally becoming a gold-like asset..

 

Another reason Bitcoin’s price action is that it lessened the trade war news. This week was almost silent after a month of near-constant Trump tariff news, though tariff news continued. Traditional and crypto markets responded positively to this lack of major trade war news.

 

I spent the week at Token2049 interviewing people, taking in the spectacle, and checking out projects and talks on the conference floor. Eric Trump headlined Day 2, discussing digital sovereignty and confirming that buyers of a new Trump Organization tower in Dubai can purchase apartments with bitcoin. On a related note, World Liberty Financial announced its USD1 stablecoin will be natively integrated on TRON, with plans to scale to billions in market cap.

 

Changpeng Zhao (CZ) made a rare public appearance. His most interesting point was about Europe: "We are advising many countries on how to set up a crypto reserve like in the US. Europe isn’t part of the discussion; it’s missing from the map.” Europe is getting ahead of the U.S. with MiCA (Markets in Crypto-Assets), but the nations seem far behind both the U.S. and Asia. Afterwards, in an interview with Oliver Stauber, the CEO of KuCoin EU, I asked him about this. He wasn’t hopeful in the short term, but was over the long term.

 

The spectacle of Token2049 Dubai included a zipline, climbing wall, big mascot costumed characters, men in mirror-paneled suits, a cold plunge, a fresh coconut stand, an excessive amount of neon lights, arcade games, a race simulator with a moving seat, cosplay girls, and more. The floor was packed, and everyone seemed excited. I heard the hilarious phrase, “zipline to the moon!” It made me a little uneasy. Top signs?

 

My last interview of the conference with Eric Balchunas, Senior ETF Analyst for Bloomberg and my go-to guy when it comes to ETF news related to crypto, made me feel much better about the conference's exuberance. He also reframed my thinking of the coming fight between spot bitcoin ETFs and all the crypto native custodians like centralized exchanges, wrapped bitcoin providers, sidechains, and L2s.

 

I used to think the crypto-native bitcoin custodians would eventually win, but now I’m unsure. Crypto companies are not taking the ETFs as seriously as they should.

 

Indeed, some non-trivial percentage of Bitcoin’s intense price action is attributable to the ETFs. These ETF inflows will only increase over time. The Bitcoin and crypto ecosystem cannot afford to underestimate the power of ETFs, which have transformed the traditional equity market.