Crypto Daybook Americas: Tariff Cut Lifts BTC Price as Options, Futures Position for Further Gains

By James Van Straten (All times ET unless indicated otherwise)

Tariff developments remain at the forefront of global economic news, with bitcoin (BTC) surging past $105,000 for a while following the surprise announcement that the U.S. will reduce tariffs on Chinese goods to 30% from 145% for 90 days. In return, China will lower tariffs on U.S. goods to 10% from 125% over the same period.

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Ether (ETH), for its part, is experiencing its strongest monthly performance since November, having added over 40% since the start of May. The ETH/BTC ratio has climbed to 0.02440, its highest in nearly three months, highlighting renewed appetite for risk-on assets. Meanwhile, Nasdaq futures jumped more than 3% on the tariff news, further reinforcing the positive market sentiment.

The U.S. Dollar Index (DXY) has pushed above 101, while WTI crude oil also rallied. Conversely, gold has declined by more than 3%, approaching a 10% drop from its all-time high. Investors are now turning their attention to Tuesday’s inflation report, with expectations that headline year-over-year inflation for April will remain steady at 2.4%.

Strategy (MSTR) held its annual meeting last week, showcasing updates on its Business and Artificial Intelligence (BI/AI) software initiatives and reaffirming its commitment to corporate bitcoin adoption. Executive Chairman Michael Saylor underscored Strategy’s leadership as the foremost public bitcoin treasury, currently holding over 555,555 BTC.

Saylor reiterated the company’s unwavering commitment to further bitcoin accumulation. Strategy plans to continue leveraging AI to enhance operational efficiency and explore innovative strategies for expanding its BTC holdings.

What to Watch

Token Events

Governance votes & calls A Sei Network developer proposed ending support for Cosmos to simplify the blockchain and align more closely with Ethereum to reduce complexity and infrastructure overhead and boost Sei's adoption. May 12: Helium (HNT) proposal HIP 144 voting ends on authorizing Nova Labs to introduce a 30-day delay, or Rewards Escrow period, to the process of claiming rewards for Helium Mobile. May 15, 10 a.m.: Moca Network to host a Discord townhall session discussing network updates.

Unlocks May 12: Aptos (APT) to unlock 1.82% of its circulating supply worth $68.54 million. May 13: WhiteBIT Coin (WBT) to unlock 27.41% of its circulating supply worth $1.2 billion. May 15: Starknet (STRK) to unlock 4.09% of its circulating supply worth $23.87 million. May 15: Sei (SEI) to unlock 1.09% of its circulating supply worth $14.91 million.

Token Launches May 12: Jerry The Turtle (JYAI) to be listed on LBank with JYAI/USDT pair. May 12: Space and Time (SXT) to be listed on Bitrue with SXT/USDT pair. May 16: Galxe (GAL), Litentry (LIT), Mines of Dalarnia (DAR), Orion Protocol (ORN), and PARSIQ (PRQ) to be delisted from Coinbase.



Conferences

CoinDesk's Consensus is taking place in Toronto on May 14-16. Use code DAYBOOK and save 15% on passes.

Token Talk

By Shaurya Malwa

Animal-themed memecoins are surging.

A speculative frenzy has gripped popular memecoins from 2024, with prices for tokens like cat-themed MICHI, hippo-themed MOODENG and squirrel-themed PNUT all more than doubling since Saturday.

That has helped alleviate some losses for the tokens. which took a 90% drawdown from peak prices in 2024, mainly around October and November.

Talk of a "Cat Coin Supercycle” narrative has gained steam among some crypto circles on X. This suggests renewed retail investor enthusiasm, likely fueled by viral social media activity.

Cat token mog (MOG) appears to have put the frenzy into gear, jumping over 130% last week as technology entrepreneurs from Ycombinator's Garry Tan to Elon Musk changing their profile pictures on X to one referencing the token.

Traders looking for short-term speculative bets may keep an eye on the animal and cat memecoin sectors, especially as the price moves bring more eyeballs — and demand — to these tokens.

Derivatives Positioning

While BTC has largely traded between $104K-$106K in the past 24 hours, perpetual futures open interest on offshore exchanges has increased to nearly $20 billion from $18 billion.

The growth shows the market is building energy during the consolidation and an eventual breakout could be a violent one.

Global aggregated funding rates remain positive for BTC and ETH, pointing to bullish sentiment.

TRX, XMR, TAO, BTC and HYPE have seen net positive cumulative volume delta for the past 24 hours, a sign of net buying pressure in the market.

In Deribit's options market, SOL traders chased upside with the $200 call option expiring on June 27.

BTC traders bought the $120K call expiring at the end of June and sold higher strike calls in longer duration expiries.

Market Movements

BTC is up 1.21% from 4 p.m. ET Friday at $104,445.95 (24hrs: -0.16%)

ETH is up 8.81% at $2,546.56 (24hrs: +1.43%)

CoinDesk 20 is up 4.27% at 3,265.29 (24hrs: +1.18%)

Ether CESR Composite Staking Rate is up 10 bps at 3.23%

BTC funding rate is at 0.0072% (7.8687% annualized) on Binance

CD20 May 12 20205 (CoinDesk)

DXY is up 1.14% at 101.48

Gold is down 3.22% at $3,219.31/oz

Silver is down 1.54% at $32.23/oz

Nikkei 225 closed +0.38% at 37,644.26

Hang Seng closed +2.98% at 23,549.46

FTSE is up 0.48% at 8,595.81

Euro Stoxx 50 is up 2.01% at 5,416.72

DJIA closed on Friday -0.29% at 41,249.38

S&P 500 closed unchanged at 5,659.91

Nasdaq closed unchanged at 17,928.92

S&P/TSX Composite Index closed +0.41% at 25,357.74

S&P 40 Latin America closed +0.83% at 2,578.58

U.S. 10-year Treasury rate is up 5 bps at 4.44%

E-mini S&P 500 futures are up 2.82% at 5838.25

E-mini Nasdaq-100 futures are up 3.81% at 20,904.00

E-mini Dow Jones Industrial Average Index futures are up 2.16% at 42,216.00

Bitcoin Stats

BTC Dominance: 62.77 (-0.60%)

Ethereum to bitcoin ratio: 0.2448 (+1.39%)

Hashrate (seven-day moving average): 897 EH/s

Hashprice (spot): $55.70

Total Fees: 3.43 BTC / $357,259

CME Futures Open Interest: 149,160 BTC

BTC priced in gold: 31.9 oz

BTC vs gold market cap: 9.04%

Technical Analysis

Total crypto market excluding BTC and ETH. (TradingView/CoinDesk)

The total market cap of all cryptocurrencies, excluding BTC and ETH, has topped the 200-day simple moving average (SMA).

The breakout indicates positive outlook for altcoins, in general.

Crypto Equities

Strategy (MSTR): closed on Friday at $416.03 (+0.4%), up 2.59% at $426.80 in pre-market

Coinbase Global (COIN): closed at $199.32 (-3.48%), up 4.96% at $209.20

Galaxy Digital Holdings (GLXY): closed at $0.03 (0%)

MARA Holdings (MARA): closed at $15.76 (+10.29%), up 4.44% at $16.46

Riot Platforms (RIOT): closed at $8.48 (+0.47%), up 4.83% at $8.89

Core Scientific (CORZ): closed at $9.32 (-1.38%), up 5.69% at $9.85

CleanSpark (CLSK): closed at $9.2 (+5.99%), up 5.11% at $9.67

CoinShares Valkyrie Bitcoin Miners ETF (WGMI): closed at $15.55 (+0.13%), up 5.98% at $16.48

Semler Scientific (SMLR): closed at $34.79 (-1.28%), up 9.95% at $38.25

Exodus Movement (EXOD): closed at $50.13 (+17.98%), up 3.73% at $52

ETF Flows

Spot BTC ETFs:

Daily net flows: $321.4 million

Cumulative net flows: $41.2 billion

Total BTC holdings ~ 1.17 million

Spot ETH ETFs

Daily net flows: $17.6 million

Cumulative net flows: $2.49 billion

Total ETH holdings ~ 3.46 million

Source: Farside Investors

Overnight Flows

Overnight flows, May 12 2025 (CoinDesk)

Chart of the Day

Diverging trends in market caps for USDC and USDT. (TradingView/CoinDesk)

The chart shows the market cap for USDC, the world's second-largest dollar-pegged stablecoin, has declined from $62.28 billion to $60.68 billion.

Meanwhile, the market cap for Tether's USDT, its larger rival, has risen further, greasing the crypto market rally.

While You Were Sleeping

In the Ether

ITE May 12 2025 (Uniswap Labs/X)

ITE May 12 2025 (Will Clementell/X)

ITE May 12 2025 (Raoul Pal/X)