Kategorie: Bitcoin News

Bitcoin news about the Bitcoin (BTC) blockchain and its crypto ecosystem.

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Over 30% of new crypto users start with meme coins, says Gemini’s 2025 report

  • 94% of meme coin holders also invest in Bitcoin and Ethereum later.
  • US leads in meme coin adoption, with 31% starting their crypto journey with them.
  • Meme coins now have a combined market cap of $74.4 billion.

Meme coins are no longer just a punchline in the crypto world.

A new study by Gemini suggests these internet-born tokens are now the entry point for over 30% of new cryptocurrency users across key markets like the US, UK, and Australia.

According to the State of Crypto 2025 report, meme coins such as Dogecoin and PEPE are not only attracting first-time investors but also acting as stepping stones into more established digital assets like Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH).

This finding highlights a broader shift in investor behaviour and growing convergence between retail trends and institutional access.

Gemini report shows meme coins as crypto onboarding tools

The report draws on data from 7,205 respondents across six countries and reveals that meme coins serve as early training tools for new investors.

In the US, 31% of those who own both meme coins and traditional cryptocurrencies said they bought meme tokens first.

The trend is mirrored across other markets, with 30% in Australia, 28% in the UK, 23% in Singapore, 22% in Italy, and 19% in France following a similar pattern.

This shift in entry behaviour reflects meme coins’ growing role in demystifying wallets, decentralised exchanges, and tokenomics.

Gemini’s data shows that 94% of meme coin holders eventually invest in major cryptocurrencies.

This progression underlines the fact that meme tokens act as gateways rather than endpoints in crypto journeys.

Institutional crypto access rises as meme coins gain ground

The increasing legitimacy of meme coins coincides with a significant institutional push into digital assets.

The Gemini report finds that 39% of US investors now hold crypto through exchange-traded funds (ETFs).

These regulated instruments are bringing new credibility to the space and creating overlap with retail-driven segments like meme coins.

Combined market capitalisation for meme coins currently stands at $74.4 billion, according to CoinGecko.

What started as parody has developed into a meaningful vertical within the broader crypto market.

The synergy between viral meme content and professionalised investment vehicles suggests that crypto adoption is maturing in complexity and scale.

Adding further momentum is the political backdrop in the US. President Donald Trump has voiced support for crypto, even proposing the creation of a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve.

His stance aligns with a wider regulatory shift that includes approvals for spot Bitcoin ETFs.

Together, these factors contribute to a climate that supports both the entertainment value of meme coins and the financial rigour of traditional crypto investments.

Community engagement now drives meme coin valuation

The latest sentiment from industry insiders supports the growing seriousness around meme coin investment.

Justin Sun, founder of Tron and an advisor to Huobi Global, also commented on this trend.

He highlighted that success in meme coins requires more than virality—it demands genuine community engagement.

For Sun, this means looking beyond follower counts to actual participation and interest.

He described meme coin projects as requiring the same level of commitment as major crypto platforms to gain traction and achieve long-term viability.

The post Over 30% of new crypto users start with meme coins, says Gemini’s 2025 report appeared first on CoinJournal.

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Institutional adoption of Bitcoin: what’s next for big money?

  • BlackRock’s Bitcoin ETF hits $71B, becoming the best-performing ETF in history.
  • MicroStrategy’s BTC stash grows to 580,250 coins, doubling down on corporate crypto.
  • JPMorgan and Morgan Stanley now offer Bitcoin ETFs to their clients.

Bitcoin has truly come a long way from being a fringe experiment in its early days to now commanding center stage within the global finance arena.

To this point, over the last couple of years itself, it seems as though every Wall Street titan has quietly become a Bitcoin holder with BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT), for instance, swelling to about $71 billion in assets (as of May 2025), making it the best performing ETF in history.

Similarly, Michael Saylor’s MicroStrategy, the poster child of corporate Bitcoin, now holds roughly 580,250 BTC on its balance sheet while even skeptics have changed their tune completely, with JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon recently announcing that the bank will allow clients to buy Bitcoin (via ETFs) through their brokerage accounts (with rival Morgan Stanley offering the same spot-Bitcoin ETF access to its clients).

Leaving the big names aside, one can see that the ongoing institutional wave has been unmistakable, with a recent CoinShares analysis reporting that by Q4 2024 professional investors at large were able to accrue $27.4 billion worth of Bitcoin ETFs in the US alone – a 114% jump from the prior quarter. 

Moreover, asset managers and hedge funds now account for about 26.3% of all US Bitcoin ETF assets under management (up from 21.1% in Q3) as even Bitcoin’s legacy players like Grayscale have witnessed renewed interest.

In short, capital that once sat on the sidelines has been massively reallocated into Bitcoin.

And, forecasts suggest this is only the beginning, with a reports projecting over $120 billion of fresh institutional capital into Bitcoin by end-2025, and a staggering $300 billion by 2026, highlighting the rise of “Bitcoin-native yield strategies” allowing holders to earn yields on their BTC.

Programmability as the foundation for a new financial frontier

So far, most of the institutional frenzy has treated Bitcoin as a safer store of value than a programmable asset.

However, over the last couple of years, innovations like Ordinals and the BRC-20 token standard have let people write code onto satoshis or even issue tokens directly atop the Bitcoin network (while various Layer-2s and sidechain projects have brought smart-contracts and even Liquid staking to Bitcoin).

These aren’t just some random experiments but a taste of what’s to come, with Sygnum Bank reporting that the “DeFi on Bitcoin” revolution is one of the fast-growing, boasting over 30 projects from lending and borrowing platforms to shared-security networks. 

Amidst all this, SatLayer has positioned itself as the universal economic layer for Bitcoin, using the flagship cryptocurrency as its backbone instead of some wrapped token.

What that means is that any app built on top of SatLayer can be validated by Bitcoin’s own vast mining power and transparency. 

Concretely, the team has described the result as a “Bitcoin Validated Service” (BVS), that developers can use to launch things like stablecoins, lending pools, insurance oracles, or other DeFi primitives.

Moreover, to prove the veracity of its novel concept, Satlayer has recently integrated with a host of other popular chains. 

For example, late last year, the project tapped into the Sui ecosystem (a high-speed L1), bringing Bitcoin’s security model there.

The mechanism involved using Bitcoin Liquid Staking Tokens (LSTs) from partners like Lombard Finance and Lorenzo Protocol.

In short, a DEX on Sui could use Bitcoin as collateral for trades, or an oracle on Sui could have its payouts guaranteed by BTC (making the currency’s trillions more accessible to new chains and financial primitives).

The broader implications of these developments

One may be tempted to ask the question, what does all of this mean for institutional money and real-world assets?

For one, it positions Bitcoin as a programmable gold standard.

Imagine tokenizing a bond or an equity on a SatLayer-secured chain such that the token’s value is ultimately backed by Bitcoin.

Or consider a stablecoin issued via SatLayer that borrows Bitcoin’s transparency and security to reassure regulators and users. 

These kinds of real-world asset (RWA) scenarios have always been talked about on Ethereum, but they could equally exist on the Bitcoin ecosystem as well now.

More importantly, SatLayer also builds in the enforcement needed to prevent any malpractice as its contracts (deployed on the Babylon framework) include “slashing” logic — wherein if an operator violates rules (say by manipulating an oracle), their locked-up Bitcoin collateral can be confiscated or burned. 

In effect, the platform aligns the interests of Bitcoin holders (who want security rewards) and service operators (who need Bitcoin collateral) within a single marketplace, turning BTC from a passive asset into a core component of today’s digital financial infrastructure.

The post Institutional adoption of Bitcoin: what’s next for big money? appeared first on CoinJournal.

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BTC reclaims $110k as Trump Media announces $2.5B Bitcoin treasury

  • Trump Media and Technology Group has announced it is raising $2.5 billion to buy Bitcoin (BTC).
  • Bitcoin price rose slightly amid the news, reclaiming the $110k level.
  • Trump Media, a Donald Trump-linked company, has entered into agreements with 50 institutional investors to raise the funds.

Trump Media and Technology Group, a Donald Trump-linked company that’s publicly traded in the US, has announced it’s raising $2.5 billion to invest in Bitcoin (BTC).

Bitcoin price, which had hovered around $109k before the news, jumped to above $110,000 as bulls looked to reclaim the upper hand.

The news comes as Bitcoin 2025, a major Bitcoin conference, begins in Las Vegas, with Trump sons Eric and Trump Jr expected as speakers.

Trump Media eyes $2.5 billion Bitcoin treasury

Nasdaq and NYSE Texas-listed Trump Media, trading under the ticker DJT, is the operator of Trump’s social media app Truth Social as well as streaming platform Truth+ and financial technology firm Truth.Fi.

On Tuesday, the company revealed plans to raise $2.5 billion from 50 institutional investors, with subscription agreements targeting $1.5 billion of Trump Media common stock and $1 billion in convertible senior secured notes.

The funds raised from this private placement offering will close on May 29, 2025.

According to the announcement, the proceeds of the offering will be used to adopt a Bitcoin treasury.

“We view Bitcoin as an apex instrument of financial freedom, and now Trump Media will hold cryptocurrency as a crucial part of our assets. Our first acquisition of a crown jewel asset, this investment will help defend our Company against harassment and discrimination by financial institutions,” said Devin Nunes, chief executive officer and chairman of Trump Media.

BTC on the balance sheet

Adding Bitcoin to the Trump family-owned company’s balance sheet will see it join other publicly-traded companies that now hodl billions of dollars worth of the digital asset.

The biggest player in this corporate frenzy for BTC is Strategy, which has amassed over $40 billion in BTC since first buying it in 2020.

The surge in spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) has also seen BlackRock gobble up thousands of BTC as inflows mount.

Crypto.com and Anchorage Digital are Trump Media’s custody providers as it embarks on this BTC treasury venture.

Other companies to help TMTG are Yorkville Securities and Clear Street as co-lead placement agents, and Cantor Fitzgerald as financial advisor.

Bitcoin price changed hands around $110,065 at the time of writing, just 1.7% off its all-time high of $111,970 reached on May 22, 2025.

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Bitcoin rally pauses below $110K; profit-taking by short-term holders intensifies

  • Bitcoin slipped to $109,000 Monday amid sluggish Memorial Day trading, but remains up 1.7% in 24 hours.
  • Short-term Bitcoin holders realized $11.4 billion in profits over the past 30 days, intensifying selling pressure.
  • A temporary US delay on 50% EU tariffs (until July 9) spurred overnight gains in crypto and European stocks.

Bitcoin experienced a slight pullback to $109,000 on Monday, May 26th, navigating sluggish trading conditions as traditional US markets remained closed for the Memorial Day holiday.

Despite this minor dip, the premier cryptocurrency maintained a position of strength, holding onto gains from a gentle weekend rise and remaining tantalizingly close to the all-time high it achieved just last week.

While Bitcoin consolidated, the broader digital asset market saw pockets of notable activity.

The CoinDesk 20 index, which tracks the top 20 digital coins (excluding stablecoins, memecoins, and exchange tokens), highlighted decentralized exchange Uniswap (UNI) as the day’s standout performer, with its token surging 6.6%.

Tokens for Chainlink (LINK) and Avalanche (AVAX) also posted respectable gains of 3.3% and 3.4%, respectively.

These gains largely materialized overnight, receiving a boost from a shift in US trade policy rhetoric.

President Trump announced on Sunday that the implementation of proposed 50% tariffs on EU goods would be delayed until July 9.

This was a reversal from his statement on Friday, which had called for the tariffs to take effect on June 1 and had consequently triggered a sell-off in risk assets, including cryptocurrencies.

European stocks, initially shaken by the tariff threat, rebounded on this news of a temporary reprieve.

Profit-taking wave: short-term holders cash in

Despite the overall positive sentiment that has recently propelled Bitcoin near record highs, analysts suggest the cryptocurrency may have entered a more volatile, consolidatory phase. T

raders are currently digesting the rapid, nearly 50% surge from the lows seen in April, according to a Monday report from Bitfinex analysts.

A significant factor potentially capping Bitcoin’s immediate upside is an intensification of profit-taking by short-term holders.

The Bitfinex report highlighted that this particular cohort of investors has realized a substantial $11.4 billion in cumulative profits over the past 30 days.

This figure stands in stark contrast to the $1.2 billion in profits realized by the same group in the preceding 30-day period, indicating a significant ramp-up in cashing out gains.

“At these levels, the risk emerges that profit-taking outpaces new demand inflows,” the Bitfinex analysts wrote.

Unless thereʼs a corresponding rise in new capital entering the market to absorb this supply, prices may begin to stall or even retrace.

Navigating choppy waters

The coming days are seen as crucial in determining Bitcoin’s near-term trajectory.

“The next few days will be key to gauge whether the dip to $106,000 has set the range lows or a bigger reset is in the cards,” the Bitfinex report stated.

Should a more significant pullback materialize, a key level of support to monitor is the short-term holder cost basis, which currently sits around $95,000.

This represents the average price at which this group of investors acquired their Bitcoin.

Despite the potential for near-term choppiness and profit-taking, the underlying outlook remains constructive, according to the analysts.

They pointed to strong inflows into US spot Bitcoin ETFs—totaling an impressive $5.3 billion in May so far—alongside currently low market volatility and a lack of excessive speculative froth.

These factors, they argue, suggest that Bitcoin is likely to resume its upward trend heading into the third quarter of the year, following this potential period of consolidation.

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