The Bitcoin Space Race Begins, ETH’s Big Pivot, & a Looming Crypto Recession?

Bankless

Technology, News, Tech News

4.7 • 1.2K Ratings

🗓️ 2 May 2025

⏱️ 63 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

📣BUILDBEAR | EASY EVM SANDBOX https://bankless.cc/buildbear ------ This week, Ryan and David dive into crypto’s dramatic new re-prioritization (pivot?) as Ethereum is shifting rapidly, prioritizing Layer 1 scaling in a move that has sparked intense community debate. Meanwhile, macro turmoil hits crypto with a looming tariff-driven recession and signs of American capital flight shaking global markets. Bitcoin tightens its grip on Washington, cementing itself as digital gold in the eyes of the Trump administration, and Worldcoin launches a U.S. rollout amid rising fears of an AI-driven dystopia. Plus, Sui surges on wild Pokémon rumors, Ripple’s bold move to buy Circle gets rejected, and Monero rockets after a massive Bitcoin hack. Is crypto entering a new golden age, or are these the early tremors of deeper uncertainty? Find out on this week's must-watch Weekly Rollup. ------ BANKLESS SPONSOR TOOLS: 🪙FRAX | SELF SUFFICIENT DeFi https://bankless.cc/Frax 🦄UNISWAP | SWAP ON UNICHAIN https://bankless.cc/unichain 🛞MANTLE | MODULAR LAYER 2 NETWORK https://bankless.cc/Mantle 🌐SELF | PROVE YOUR SELF https://bankless.cc/Self 🟠HEMI | BTC & ETH, ONE NETWORK https://bankless.cc/hemi ------ TIMESTAMPS & RESOURCES 0:00 Intro 1:58 Markets 3:06 Movers of the Week https://www.bankless.com/read/whats-next-for-sui-in-2025 https://x.com/davewardonline/status/1877073873499197832? https://x.com/SuiNetwork/status/1914689214803009837 https://blog.sui.io/canary-capital-sui-etf/ 5:11 Macro https://x.com/RyanSAdams/status/1917575854961439151 https://www.apolloacademy.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/042625-ConsumerandFirms_v2.pdf https://x.com/watcherguru/status/1917601209906520370 Meme: https://x.com/alifarhat79/status/1917585508818980906 https://x.com/RaoulGMI/status/1912554771644325905/photo/1 19:18 Ethereum Pivot? Or Reprioritization? https://x.com/ethereumfndn/status/1916883771280040264 https://x.com/VitalikButerin/status/1917541325072916590 https://x.com/ethereumfndn/status/1916883782025482729 https://x.com/dankrad/status/1917678690852311333 https://x.com/RyanSAdams/status/1917689036744835390 https://x.com/TrustlessState/status/1917564803909918856 https://x.com/hasufl/status/1917880676000411796 https://x.com/0xoxus/status/1917824751151600084 28:05 Base and Scroll Reach Stage 1 Decentralization Milestone https://l2beat.com/scaling/summary https://x.com/jessepollak/status/1917253415966798164 https://x.com/Scroll_ZKP/status/1916871844151406649 29:33 Worldcoins “At Last” Event in San Francisco https://www.ft.com/content/0c5c2b8d-b185-40b6-9221-b80ee130b92e?utm_source=chatgpt.com https://x.com/TheStalwart/status/1916277891299475462 38:45 Bitcoin Space Race https://x.com/BitcoinMagazine/status/1917271814356754459 https://bitcoinmagazine.com/politics/u-s-secretary-of-commerce-howard-lutnick-has-a-bitcoin-vision-for-america 42:20 What’s going on in Movement labs?! https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2025/04/30/inside-movement-s-token-dump-scandal-secret-contracts-shadow-advisors-and-hidden-middlemen https://x.com/hasufl/status/1917572935339888776 44:02 Monero likely pumped 50% due to suspected $330M Bitcoin theft https://x.com/zachxbt/status/1916756932763046273 45:51 Tether Now Holds 7.7 Tons of Gold to Back XAUT https://thedefiant.io/news/markets/tether-now-owns-7-7-tons-of-gold-to-back-its-xaut-token 47:09 US bank regulators pull back guardrails on bank crypto activities https://x.com/federalreserve/status/1915519104435224895 https://x.com/asvanevik/status/1915581219133415597 48:15 Senate Moves to Ban Congressional Stock Trading—Again https://x.com/HarrisonKrank/status/1916921283658252621 51:18 US DOJ seeks 20-year prison sentence for Alex Mashinsky https://x.com/cointelegraph/status/1917166974091534743 53:13 Circle rejected ripple takeover bid of $4-5B https://x.com/matthew_sigel/status/1917647009994993944 56:29 Closing & Disclaimers ------ Not financial or tax advice. See our investment disclosures here: https://www.bankless.com/disclosures

Transcript

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0:00.0	Bankless Nation is the first week of May is time for the bankless weekly rollup where we
0:08.9	covered just about everything that happened in crypto, at least everything that happened
0:12.5	that's important. David, man, we got to talk about tariffs, all right? I want to bring some
0:17.6	macro into today's episode. People have been looking for your macro takes. Oh, yeah? Well, they're hot takes. All right. And GDP numbers just came in, and they're kind of, they're not looking great. So I've got three macro catalysts. I think that bankless listeners, crypto investors should be looking out for. Catalysts, not saying they're good catalysts. They could go either way, but we'll get
0:38.1	into that. It goes to somewhere. We're also going to talk about the Ethereum pivot or just as
0:43.1	strategic reprioritization. It really depends on who you ask. And we're also going to talk about that
0:47.9	as well. Worldcoin also, they're rolling out the orb in the U.S. We'll talk about what that
0:53.4	means. And I guess this is like for people worried about dystopia and AI bot propaganda, I don't know which world is better, that world or like we're going to all get orbed or our eyeballs orbed. So like I may be up for this. I think as AI has gotten more real, people are slowly coming around to the idea of WorldCoin more and more.
1:11.5	We'll talk about that. And then also, Bitcoin is just embedding itself deeper into American politics.
1:17.2	A massive hack sends Minero up 50%. Sui is up 60% on a bunch of speculation that they're going to win Pokemon.
1:24.2	And then Ripple tries to buy Circle, but gets denied all of this and more.
1:28.2	But first before we get into all of that message from our friends and sponsors, Build Bear, this is, this one is for the Web3 devs. We know testing smart contracts. It shouldn't be a pain. It is a pain. There's a lot that devs need to go through to make testing smart contracts work. bear lets you spin up your own EVM sandbox so you can test, debug, deploy all in one places like GitHub for Web3, trusted by teams like Consensus and Gelato. So if you want to, which you should, you can streamline your workflow and launch faster. Check it out at bankless.c.c. slash build bear. All right, Ryan, you ready to get into the markets? Yeah, let's do it, man. It's been a while since I looked at these charts, so tell me what's going on on Bitcoin.
2:04.6	Bitcoin up 4% this week.
2:06.6	Really strong showing this morning, $97,000.
2:09.6	So slowly grinding up, trying to hit that $100,000 mark.
2:13.6	Ether up 5% this week, 5% up to $1,8,50.
2:18.3	Those are very different numbers.
2:21.3	ETH Bitcoin ratio, 0.019 and a total crypto market cap, ignore the ratio.
2:28.3	Total crypto market cap of 3.14 trillion.
2:31.3	As a reminder, Ryan, the all-time high for the total crypto market cap, I believe it's just short of four. Yeah, it's like 3.9 trillion. And we are coming in at 3.13 trillion today. I mean, this is not looking so bad, right? It's not looking so bad here. I mean, Bitcoin is down. Oh, I know where the blood is. Oh, don't ask where the blood is. Are you going to find some blood? Oh, we know where the blood is. Oh, God, look at this red.
2:54.6	Yeah. I mean, Bitcoin is down. Oh, I know where the blood is. Oh, don't ask where the blood is. Are you going to find some blood?
2:51.2	Oh, you know where the blood is.
	...

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