📉 Coinbase’s BTC Discount Explained

Since late October, BTC on Coinbase has been trading cheaper than on Binance. That usually happens when big players are selling, not buying. Even yesterday’s bounce from 89K to 93.5K came with BlackRock posting a record 523M outflow from its ETF.

⚡️ The Real Source of Pressure

The main source of pressure is the unwind of a large hedge fund trade. For the past year many funds were short MSTR and long BTC through ETFs. They entered this setup when the MicroStrategy premium was extremely high and rode it down as the stock fell 45 to 60 percent.

🕯 How The Unwind Works

Now the trade is finishing. Funds are closing their MSTR shorts and selling the BTC side at the same time. Even if the BTC leg is at a loss, the overall structure stayed profitable because the short made far more.

➡️ Why It May Soon End

MicroStrategy started to rebound yesterday which suggests the unwind is close to done. Once these positions clear, the selling pressure linked to this trade should ease.

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📊 This Bitcoin Cycle Isn’t Following the Old Script

In the last two bull markets, the strongest part of the move came in Q4 of the post-halving year. That’s when Bitcoin usually exploded upward and extended the rally.

🕯 This time, the pattern flipped.
While previous cycles surged into year-end, 2025 is showing weakness instead.

A reminder that this market isn’t behaving like 2017 or 2021 and the playbook needs adjusting.

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🕯 New Season of the AI Trading Tournament

A fresh round of the AI trading competition has kicked off. Last season, the Chinese models took the crown with the strongest performance across the board.

● Chinese AI models dominated the previous season
● Early leader is Gemini
● Last season it nearly wiped its entire balance
● Looks like the model learned something and came back stronger

The opening results already hint that this season won’t be boring.

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It feels too late to short crypto, but still way too early to long.

The worst position for the markets to be in.

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📌 Saylor’s BTC Cost Basis of ≈ 74K - Can It Be Defended?

Michael Saylor’s average entry around 74K has become a key psychological level for the entire market. Here’s what the numbers show.

➡️ Strategy Inc. (formerly MicroStrategy) holds around 640K BTC with an average price near 74K per coin

➡️ At current prices, the unrealized profit is slim, and a move below 74K would put the position underwater

➡️ They hold spot bitcoin, not futures, so there’s no forced liquidation if price dips

➡️ The real risk is on the balance sheet: refinancing debt and managing capital structure if BTC stays below their basis for too long

Defending 74K isn’t about a liquidation line. It’s about how long the company can endure pressure if the market trades below that level.

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🧠 The Real Quantum Risk: Why Bitcoin Is Exposed and Zcash Isn’t

There’s a lot of confusion around quantum threats, so here’s the simple version of what actually matters.

➡️ Quantum doesn’t break everything
It only breaks systems based on discrete log or factoring. That includes standard elliptic-curve cryptography, but not all encryption on the internet.

➡️ Quantum attacks are targeted
A quantum computer must focus on a specific public key. There’s no magic “decrypt the whole network” button. Early attacks will be slow and extremely expensive, improving over time from months per key to seconds.

➡️ Web2 can evade early quantum machines
Most internet systems rotate keys frequently. Messaging apps, servers, and TLS infrastructure refresh cryptography much faster than quantum computers will scale in the early phase. The attack surface keeps moving.

➡️ Bitcoin can’t rotate away easily
Millions of Bitcoin public keys are permanently exposed on-chain, especially pre-Taproot outputs. These static keys sit there forever as fixed targets.
Once quantum machines can break a single ECDSA key, attackers will simply pick high-value exposed wallets. This wouldn’t be a total network collapse - it would be targeted theft.

And because Bitcoin governance is slow to accept cryptographic upgrades, the network may not migrate in time.

➡️ Why Zcash already has defenses
● Shielded Zcash never exposes public keys on-chain, so Shor’s algorithm has nothing to attack

● Users can simply move ZEC from transparent addresses into shielded ones to remove quantum exposure

● Zcash can upgrade its cryptography regularly, including adopting post-quantum SNARKs and signatures

● The upcoming Tachyon design removes address exposure entirely, eliminating the core quantum attack surface

The post-quantum era isn’t doomsday for crypto. But right now Bitcoin is structurally vulnerable, while Zcash already has mechanisms, and an upgrade path, to stay safe.

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🇺🇸 US Opens National Security Investigation Into Bitmain

The US has launched an investigation into Chinese mining-hardware giant Bitmain under Operation Red Sunset. Officials are examining whether the company’s machines could be used for surveillance or interference with the American power grid.

➡️ Interest spiked after reports of Chinese mining farms operating near critical US infrastructure

➡️ Customs teams inspected Bitmain shipments in ports, checking chips and firmware

➡️ Bitmain rejects the accusations and says its miners have no remote-access capabilities

The story gained extra heat after a company linked to Donald Trump’s sons bought 16,000 Bitmain miners worth about 314M

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State of the market

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Real talk

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