The Crash Bitcoin Ignored | MJBurrows Crypto - Issue No 9

Bitcoin sits out the chip crash

South Korea's stock market fell 11% on Wednesday, its second double-digit drop in two days and the worst two-day run on record, as the AI trade unwound again. Bitcoin rose 1% instead, to around $63,800 — the second time in five sessions it has held while the chip complex cracked. SK Hynix fell about 17% after a 557% jump in quarterly profit, the price having already assumed better; Samsung slid 12%. Crypto spent the month moving in step with those stocks, up when chips rallied and down when they slipped, and that link has now failed on the two days it mattered most. Two sessions is a pattern worth watching, not a proven break — miners are still tied to AI data-centre demand — and the Fed's decision this week is the first real test of whether the split holds.

Wall Street asks Washington in

After years of insisting Washington stay out of crypto, Wall Street has changed its mind. BlackRock, Fidelity, Franklin Templeton, Goldman Sachs and SoFi all urged Congress to pass the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act, the bill splitting oversight between the SEC and the CFTC — the strongest institutional backing it has drawn. The motive is less principle than procurement: the firms want to know which regulator they answer to before selling crypto to everyone else. But the unity stops at stablecoins: JPMorgan wants tighter limits on the yield they can pay, and Coinbase warns that would gut the bill. An ethics clause covering officials' crypto interests — the president's included — remains unresolved, and with the Senate breaking on 8 August behind judicial nominations and a Russia sanctions package, the endorsement may arrive with no floor time to use it.

One asset ignoring the crash that's hammering everything it used to trade with; one industry finally asking for the rules it spent a decade resisting. Crypto is growing up in two directions at once. The cards below, then the rest of the issue. — MJB

South Korea’s benchmark fell 11% on Wednesday, a second straight double-digit drop and its worst two-day run on record. Bitcoin rose 1% instead. The AI selloff that dragged crypto down all month has now left it alone twice in five sessions. Twice is not a decoupling. It is no longer a coincidence either.

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Wall Street has spent the crypto era insisting Washington should stay out of it. This week five of its biggest names asked Congress to come in instead. BlackRock (NYSE: BLK), Fidelity, Franklin Templeton, Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS) and SoFi all urged lawmakers to pass the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act, the bill that would split oversight between the SEC and the CFTC. The Wall Street Clarity Act push is the loudest endorsement yet. And it may be too late.

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For years the crypto pitch was that it answered to no one — not a central bank, not a regulator, not the market's mood. This week it detached from the chip trade and, in the same breath, five of Wall Street's biggest names asked Congress to please regulate it. Independence is a fine slogan right up until you want to sell the thing to pension funds. — MJB