Bitcoin Smashes $124,400 in Longest Bull Market Ever

Hi! In today’s edition:

• 💥 Bitcoin sets fresh all-time high above $124K

• 🤑 Bullish IPO pops 160% in wild first day

• 📲 Google tightens rules for wallet apps

• ❌ EF says “nope” to $7.7M ETH sale claims

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Bitcoin Hits New Record Ahead of $124,400

Bitcoin touched a new all-time high of $124,457 on Wednesday, with daily trading volume for the leading digital asset surging 31% to $95.3 billion.

The price action triggered at least $130 million worth of liquidations in BTC short positions, according to data from CoinGlass, with total liquidations across the crypto market topping $426 million in the last 24 hours. 

Bitcoin’s momentum comes amid robust inflows into spot BTC ETFs, and expectations of looser U.S. monetary policy and potential rate cuts in the near future. 

Joe Consorti, head of growth at Theya Bitcoin, pointed out that this price run marks bitcoin’s “longest bull market ever.”

“This cycle's new market entrants have clearly reshaped bitcoin's price behavior. Q4 will determine whether this continues, or if four-year cycles remain intact,” he said.

Bullish Shares Surge 160% on Wall Street Debut

Crypto exchange Bullish made its public debut on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) with an overwhelmingly positive response from investors.

Shares opened 143% higher at $90, surging dramatically from the IPO price of $37 per share. The dramatic rise in price triggered an NYSE volatility halt multiple times during the day.

The company briefly reached a market capitalization of $13 billion during the day, before ending the day’s trade with a value of over $10 billion.

That valuation puts it well above the $5.4 billion the company originally sought when it listed, and ahead of the $9 billion valuation it had targeted in 2021 before scrapping its IPO. 

Last month, Bullish partnered with the Solana Foundation to drive the use of Solana-native stablecoins across its trading, custody, and settlement operations.

Bullish, which clears over $2.3 billion in daily trading volume, will now aim for real-time settlements with Solana’s blockchain.

Google Play Updates Rules for Crypto Wallet Apps

Google Play has released updated rules that require crypto wallet apps to obtain licenses and comply with regulatory standards in more than 15 jurisdictions, including the U.S., Europe, U.K. and Canada.

The rules mandate that developers of crypto exchanges and wallets register with local financial authorities, such as FinCEN in the U.S. or obtain MiCA licenses in the E.U., to continue offering their apps on the Play Store starting October 29.

After a fair amount of backlash from the crypto community, including Bitcoin advocate and Block co-founder Jack Dorsey, Google clarified that non custodial wallets will not fall into the scope of this new policy.

“We are updating the Help Center to make this clear,” said Google on X. 

No, The Ethereum Foundation Didn’t Just Sell $7.7 Million of ETH

Onchain wallet tracker Lookonchain flagged the sale of 1,695 ETH for $7.7 million worth of the DAI stablecoin from a wallet supposedly linked to the Ethereum Foundation.

“This wallet originally received 20,756 ETH ($95.5M now) from the Ethereum Foundation wallet ‘EF 1’ back in 2017,” said Lookonchain in a Tuesday X post.

Ethereum Foundation Co-Executive Director Hsiao-Wei Wang set the record straight in an X post on Wednesday.

“It was not the Ethereum Foundation's operation. Fun fact: Back in the 2014 ICO, ~9% of the ETH supply was allocated to the EF; now EF holds under 0.3% of the total supply. So you can probably find tons of addresses linked to EF after ten years,” she said.

The transactions come as ETH continues to see strong price action, gaining 30% in the last week alone to $4,781, within striking distance of its all-time high. 

Stablecoin Blockchains Are Coming. Here’s Why These Two Giants Should Be Nervous

Although stablecoins were never supposed to exist when Bitcoin was created more than 15 years ago, they turned out to be a godsend for the industry. It did not take long for many to realize that bitcoin, and other assets like ethereum, solana, XRP, etc., could not serve as substitutes for the U.S. dollar because they were too volatile.

Stablecoins were the perfect solution. They ran on public blockchain rails but maintained price parity with a given peg — often the dollar. Their market cap grew from under $1 million in 2017 to $271 billion today as they expanded across blockchains, primarily Ethereum and Tron, and became the primary liquidity engine for spot trading, DeFi markets, and payments. By far the two largest stablecoins are USDT and USDC, with respective market capitalizations of $164.85 billion and $65.22 billion.

Now, their issuers want to control the rails themselves—and two major blockchains could be directly in the crosshairs.

Following the passage of the GENIUS Act, stablecoin chains are hot right now.

Tune in today LIVE at 11:00 am ET as Austin Campbell, NYU Stern professor and founder and managing partner of Zero Knowledge Consulting, joins Laura to chat about how competition in the space is developing, whether stablecoin chains are even needed, and more.

• 📜 TRON founder Justin Sun sued Bloomberg to stop it from publishing the exact size of his crypto holdings, claiming the disclosure would break a confidentiality promise and put him at risk of theft, hacking, or kidnapping.

• 🔄 GMX began compensating users hit by last month’s $42 million Arbitrum exploit with $44 million in upgraded GLV tokens, fully reimbursing losses and adding incentives for holders who keep their allocations.

• ⚠️ Coinbase lost $300,000 in token fees after mistakenly approving assets to a 0x swapper contract, which an MEV bot quickly drained before the exchange revoked permissions and secured remaining funds.

• 📈 U.S. spot ether ETFs recorded $729 million in daily inflows—their second-highest ever—as ETH topped $4,700, pushing three-day inflows to $2.3 billion and setting multiple records for volume and net assets.

• 🦊 MetaMask is preparing to launch its own USD-pegged stablecoin mUSD this month with support from Stripe-owned Bridge and Blackstone, seeking to capture yield from underlying treasury assets.

• 🎓 The DeFi Education Fund launched the DeFi Education Foundation, a nonprofit that will take tax-deductible donations to fund efforts to educate U.S. lawmakers on fair crypto rules.

• ⛏️ Thumzup Media, partly owned by Donald Trump Jr., raised $50 million to expand into large-scale crypto mining and token investments.

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