Morning Minute: Bitcoin Clears $79,000, Then Reverses

Morning Minute is a daily newsletter written by Tyler Warner. The analysis and opinions expressed are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of Decrypt. And check out our new daily news show covering all of the top stories in 5 minutes or less, downloadable on Apple Pod or Spotify.

GM!

Today’s top news:

• Crypto majors rally then reverse as oil concerns mount; BTC -1% at $77,300
• The US Government discloses that it’s operating a Bitcoin node
• Justin Sun sues WLFI to unfreeze his tokens
• Andre Cronje’s Flying Tulip introduces a “circuit breaker” for DeFi
• MegaETH gets 10th app launch with Xeet, TGE expected in May

📈📉 Bitcoin Clears $79,000, Then Reverses

Bitcoin crossed $79,000 Wednesday morning, reaching its highest level in 11 weeks after President Trump announced he was extending the US-Iran ceasefire indefinitely.

The move came after Iran refused to send negotiators to a second round of talks in Islamabad, and Trump said the extension would hold until Tehran submits a “unified proposal” to end the war.

But the price action was shortlived, with Bitcoin falling back to $77,300 overnight as oil concerns mount and the IEA Chief called that “We are facing the biggest energy security threat in history.”

Oil jumped another 4% to $94/barrel and stock futures have moved into the red after making another new ATH yesterday.

⚖️ Justin Sun Sues Trump’s World Liberty Financial Over Frozen Tokens

Justin Sun filed a federal lawsuit in California on April 21 against World Liberty Financial, the Trump family-backed DeFi project, alleging fraud, breach of contract, and unjust enrichment.

The complaint centers on a hidden blacklist function that WLFI quietly added to its token smart contract in August 2025 – without a governance vote or any disclosure to investors. Sun alleges WLFI used that function to freeze approximately 2.9 billion of his WLFI tokens in September 2025 after he moved roughly $9 million worth of holdings, a transfer he says was routine. At the time of the freeze, his stake was worth over $100 million.

WLFI fired back publicly: “We have the contracts. We have the evidence. We have the truth. See you in court.” Eric Trump went even further, commenting on Justin Sun’s $6M banana purchase. Well, I’ll let you read his comments for yourself 👇

🗳️ Kalshi Fines Congressional Candidates for Betting on Their Own Races

Prediction market platform Kalshi announced Wednesday that it had fined and suspended three congressional candidates for “political insider trading” – betting on their own elections.

The three are Ezekiel Enriquez, a Republican who ran in Texas’ 21st Congressional District primary; Matt Klein, a Democrat running in Minnesota’s 2nd Congressional District primary; and Mark Moran, who ran in Virginia’s Democratic Senate primary before switching to an independent campaign.

Fines were small, ranging from $539 to $6,229.30. All three were banned from the platform for five years. Two cooperated with Kalshi’s investigation though Moran did not.

Moran made clear the stunt was intentional. He wrote on X: “I traded $100 on myself, knowing this would happen… and the attention it would create to highlight how this company is destroying young men.” He said as a senator he would “go after Kalshi and impose significant penalties – 25%, a vice tax – to pay down our national debt.”

The plot thickens…

₿ The US Government Is Running a Bitcoin Node

Admiral Samuel Paparo, commander of US Indo-Pacific Command (INDOPACOM), disclosed Wednesday that the US government is actively running a Bitcoin node and conducting operational network security tests using the Bitcoin protocol.

This followed his Tuesday Senate Armed Services Committee testimony, where he told lawmakers that “Bitcoin shows incredible potential as a computer science tool that, through the proof-of-work protocols, actually imposes more costs than just the algorithmic securing of networks.” He described Bitcoin as “a peer-to-peer, zero-trust transfer of value” with “really important computer science applications for cybersecurity.”

Notably, the framing tracks directly with the Jason Lowery thesis that proof-of-work can function as a physical-cost cyberdefense layer, analogous to conventional military deterrence. Paparo’s testimony marks the first time a combatant commander has publicly characterized Bitcoin as a national security asset in congressional testimony.

💸 André Cronje’s Flying Tulip Brings Circuit Breakers to DeFi Lending

André Cronje, the developer behind Fantom, Yearn Finance, and Solidly, is addressing one of DeFi’s most pressing issues with his newest project.

Flying Tulip, Cronje’s new AMM and lending protocol, has introduced a programmatic circuit breaker module designed to rate-limit capital outflows during abnormal withdrawal events.

The circuit breaker works by monitoring outflow velocity in real time. When withdrawals exceed a defined threshold, whether triggered by a smart contract exploit, oracle failure, or a large coordinated position unwind, the system automatically throttles the rate at which capital can exit the protocol.

Cronje has been vocal for years about DeFi’s need for TradFi-style risk infrastructure without TradFi’s centralization trade-offs. Circuit breakers are standard in equity markets (the NYSE halts trading when the S&P drops 7%, 13%, or 20% in a session) but have been largely absent from DeFi because they require either centralized admin keys or complex governance coordination to trigger. Flying Tulip’s implementation is fully programmatic, with no admin override, which means it operates the same way regardless of who is watching.

Of course the timing is notable after last week’s $292M KelpDAO exploit and accelerating issues with Defi protocols being hacked. Perhaps a DeFi-wide circuit breaker would ease the pain…

🌎 Macro Crypto and Markets

• Crypto majors are red as oil concerns rise; BTC -1% at $77.7k; ETH -3% at $2,330; SOL -3% at $86; HYPE even at $41.10
• Stable (+18%), DEXE (+8%), and M (+7%) led top movers
• Oil +4% at $94; Gold -1% at $4,700
• Stock futures are red after making another new ATH yesterday
• GSR launched the first actively managed multi-asset crypto ETF in the US on Wednesday, the GSR Crypto Core3 ETF (BESO) on Nasdaq, offering exposure to Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Solana with weekly rebalancing and staking rewards on ETH and SOL holdings
• Russia’s State Duma passed the first reading of its long-awaited crypto bill Wednesday, recognizing cryptocurrency as property and permitting its use in foreign trade settlements, explicitly as a mechanism to bypass Western sanctions; domestic use of crypto for payments remains banned, with the ruble staying the sole legal tender inside Russia
• Robinhood Ventures Fund I (NYSE: RVI) closed a $75 million investment in OpenAI common stock on April 17, making it one of the fund’s largest positions to date
• OpenAI launched workspace agents in ChatGPT Wednesday, replacing custom GPTs with a more powerful team-oriented successor powered by Codex; workspace agents can handle complex, long-running tasks like preparing reports, writing code, and responding to messages, while operating within organization-set permissions and role-based access controls

Corporate Treasuries & ETFs

Meme Coin Tracker

• Meme leaders were red on the day; DOGE -2%, SHIB -2%, PEPE -4%, TRUMP -5%, BONK -3%, PENGU -3%, SPX -3%, FARTCOIN -6%
• uncraft (+100x), Burnie (+77%) and Noob (+180%) led notable movers
• Pumpcade rebounded 30% to $25M

💰 Token, Airdrop & Protocol Tracker

• Andre Cronje’s Flying Tulip project introduced a “circuit breaker” for DeFi using a programmatic module to limit outflows in extreme scenarios
• MegaETH had its 10th app launch with Xeet, meaning that the MEGA TGE should indeed happen soon
• Axie Infinity’s Ronin blockchain set May 12 as the date for its migration from Ethereum sidechain to full Layer-2 network on the OP Stack; the shift cuts RON token inflation from over 20% to under 1% and jumps marketplace Treasury fees 2.5x from 0.5% to 1.25%
• Believe App founder Ben Pasternak was arrested for assault and strangulation

🚚 What is happening in NFTs?

• NFT leaders were mostly green again; Punks +3% at 28.9ETH, Pudgy +5% at 4.69 ETH, BAYC -5% at 8.64 ETH; Hypurr’s -3% at 375 HYPE
• Azuki (+19%), Elementals (+33%) and Doodles (+17%) led notable movers; Meebits also up 14%
• Nouns jumped 160% after the founder announced that the 1 Noun/per day streak had finally been broken after 1,700+ days
• An 8-Punk sweep kicked off a big day of Punk action that led to 16 overall sales, the most in weeks