It’s a Bitcoin World and We’re Just Living in It

Olivia Capozzalo & Camila Russo
May 21, 2025

Dear Defiers,

You know what the biggest news in crypto today is: We have a new Bitcoin ATH.

In early U.S. trading, the orange coin spiked to $109.4K, climbing past the January inauguration-day peak. Sure, that’s being propped up by a weakening dollar — which we discuss below — but it nonetheless reflects an undeniable fact: BTC is pumping.

That’s the headline, but it scarcely captures how profoundly the market’s center of gravity has tilted toward BTC over the past few weeks.

Bitcoin now commands 63.2% of total crypto market value, the highest share since the frothy days of January 2021, according to CoinMarketCap. Meanwhile, Ether has slipped to just below 9%, rebounding slightly from its dip to as low as 7.1% last month. What’s more, the “Others” bucket — everything that isn’t BTC or ETH — is down to roughly 27%, a level not seen since March 2021.

Whatever we choose to call this phase of the cycle, it’s certainly not an alt season. More like BITCOIN SEASON.

Macro tailwinds

At the core of Bitcoin’s breakout is what years ago sounded like a maxi’s dream: the original cryptocurrency has a real chance at becoming the world’s digital gold. The U.S. Dollar Index (DXY) has dropped below 100 for the first time since 2022, after last week Moody’s cut America’s sovereign rating on concerns the U.S. debt will continue to climb, putting further pressure on the deficit.

A softer dollar is oxygen for the hardest money narrative; the bigger the fiscal hole, the more credible the idea that an asset with a capped supply and that’s not controlled by a single nation can step in as a neutral store of value.

Institutional pipes

If macro is the wind, ETFs are the turbine blades. U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs have hoovered up 1.19 million BTC — 5.7 % of total supply — bringing AUM to $127.5 billion. That fire-hose of institutional demand is pointing straight at Bitcoin; none of the ETF flow plumbing is wired into the long-tail of tokens that historically thrive on retail FOMO.

Yes, there’s the spot Ether ETFs, but at $9.8 billion in AUM, they’re playing in a different league. And that’s because there hasn’t been a consumer use case to break out into the mainstream in the same way we’ve seen during past cycles — ICOs, NFTs, DeFi summer, play-to-earn.

Until that catalyst emerges, BTC will likely continue to dominate the ETF bid.

When bitcoin breaks ATH but you’re holding alts.

— Altcoin Daily (@AltcoinDailyio)
3:44 PM • May 21, 2025

Treasuries and reserves

And it’s not just ETF buyers moving the needle for BTC versus other cryptos. Nation states and companies are increasingly adding BTC to their treasuries and reserves, further backing the global reserve asset narrative. Sovereign treasuries collectively hold 463,741 BTC — about 2.3 % of supply — up from virtually zero five years ago. The U.S. is the biggest holder, with a 198K BTC trove, followed by China, the U.K., Bhutan and El Salvador, according to CoinGecko.

Public companies now control more than 650,000 BTC, or 3.3 % of the float, after stockpiling nearly 95K coins in Q1 alone, according to Bitwise. MicroStrategy, now Strategy, sits on a staggering 576,230 BTC, equal to 2.7 % of the 21‑million hard cap. Tesla is another notable holder, with 11,509 coins, according to BitBo’s Bitcoin Treasuries. When sovereign wealth desks and CFOs treat Bitcoin like an improved version of gold, the digital gold meme stops being a meme.

The result? Bitcoin is no longer being treated like another risk asset. Recent Coin Metrics data show BTC’s 30-day correlations with both stocks and gold have collapsed to near zero – a textbook decoupling that historically had happened only around major macro catalysts. In other words, Bitcoin is trading like Bitcoin.

Ethereum’s course-correction

Ethereum’s under-performance is not for lack of self-reflection. After a year of angst that rollups were siphoning value away from the base layer, the Ethereum Foundation pivoted in April, publishing a renewed roadmap that puts Layer 1 scalability back on the critical path. The community greeted the shift, plus a successful Pectra upgrade, with relief, and ETH has rebounded, reclaiming the $2.5K handle.

Still, the ETH/BTC ratio sits near multi-year lows. Investors will have to see evidence of increased throughput and the fee burn before they can believe ETH is “ultrasound money.”

Big picture

For now, every datapoint shouts the same story: this is a Bitcoin-led market. Alt season hopefuls may argue that history rhymes and that once BTC consolidates, capital will rotate. Maybe. But rotation starts with narrative, and so far, the only narrative powerful enough to pull fresh money into crypto is the oldest one we have: digital gold.

With love,

Cami, founder of The Defiant

✍️ In today’s newsletter:

BTC breaks $109K to set new ATH
Circle launches payment network with USDC
Solana Mobile reveals details of its web3 smartphone
COLLAT is up over 400% this month

Read more below!

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Stellar Network Aims to Become Top 10 DeFi Chain

📈 Markets in the last 24 hrs:

TICKER	VALUE	24H
Bitcoin	$108,801	2.69 %
Ethereum	$2,559.39	2.73 %
XRP	$2.41	2.62 %
BNB	$668.36	3.36 %
Solana	$171.99	3.13 %

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This is the news that mattered in the past 24 hrs:

BTC hit a new all-time high in USD terms, reaching above $109K, but altcoins are still relatively flat.
Circle has launched the Circle Payments Network (CPN) mainnet, which enables real-time, cross-border settlement in its flagship stablecoin, USDC.
Solana Labs subsidiary Solana Mobile revealed the shipping date for its web3 smartphone, Seeker, plus infrastructure details and a native token, SKR.
RWA tokenization launchpad Collateralize’s COLLAT token has jumped over 400% this month after Solana Labs co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko reposted its product demo video.

🎬WATCH

In our latest podcast, we interview Shaw Walters, the founder of Eliza Labs, one of the biggest projects at the intersection of crypto and AI.

We talk AI, but Shaw also talks passionately about why the current financial system is broken — “immoral” even — and how crypto can help us break free. But only if we manage to move past the casino phase. Give it a listen, it’s a heated one.