Bitcoin Stays Resilient amid Geopolitical Tensions

Bitcoin has been trading above the 100,000 level for over a month, yet the crypto major hasn't seen a new all-time high in June, and it had rallied this week but gave up gains yesterday.

I did tank along with the rest of the crypto market last night as Israel launched strikes on.

Meanwhile, the crypto industry is still seeing regulatory catalysts with the US Senate set to on.

Genius Act next week and over in the US House of Representatives, two committees advancing the Clarity Act this week.

Well joining me on this Friday morning is Gareth Jenkinson, managing director at Coin Telegraph.

Well, Gareth, thank you so much for joining us on this Friday.

A lot happening in crypto this week.

So what is your reaction to the crypto sell off we saw overnight after Israel struck Iran?

Hey Remy, thanks for having me.

Always good to be here.

Yeah, um, really not surprising to see a lot of the crypto majors down overnight, uh, especially when there are major geopolitical tensions.

Obviously Israel striking Iran overnight has spooked the markets.

Interestingly, Bitcoin dropped down to about $103,000.

I think some people might have thought that it might have completely tested the 1000 mark.

That didn't happen.

Um, we saw a A 1 to 2% drop overnight.

I saw notable commentators like Peter Schiff, who's obviously a very well known gold bug, sort of making comparisons, saying, you know, Bitcoin gold is drastically up in comparison to Bitcoin, and people shouldn't have been buying Bitcoin.

They should have been buying gold, but I think overall Bitcoin is still kind of proving a little bit that it is a hedge asset and a play when there's this amount of uncertainty.

Um, and it was just interesting to see that, that Bitcoin probably held up best out of all the top 10 cryptocurrency majors overnight with, with the sort of, um, uh, you know, uh, uh, very unsettling, um, global events happening.

Yeah, and as you mentioned overnight, we did see Bitcoin fall to that 103,000 level, but in New York morning trade we are looking at Bitcoin right above 105.

The recovery hasn't been as strong given what we saw overnight.

But when it comes to developments on Capitol Hill here on the side of the Atlantic, what do you make of some of the progress that's taking place?

Yeah, I think the big, the big story this week obviously is the Senate choosing to advance the Genius Act.

So we're going to see the Genius Act go to Congress and really go through a thorough review from all of the Congress members, and it's a very important piece of legislation for the entire cryptocurrency ecosystem.

Obviously, it will set out some very, very clear guidelines when it comes to how and, and how, you know, US.

Um, uh, financial institutions can offer stablecoins and how people can use them.

Of course, stablecoins really have become the lifeblood of the cryptocurrency industry.

Bitcoin still accounts for, uh, the lion's share of the overall cryptocurrency market cap, but you have, uh, Tether USDT and Circle USDC, uh, accounting for a huge amount of market cap, probably about $200 billion in totality just between USDT and USDC.

Uh, so to see, uh, the Genius Act.

Getting closer to fruition is definitely very positive for the industry.

Um, you know, uh, Circle themselves also announced that they'll be taking USDC onto the XRP ledger that is of course the blockchain that XRP Ripple operates on as well.

So there's a lot of news coming out around stablecoins and lots of institutions looking at, at using them or leveraging them.

There was the news of Walmart and a few other big names in, in America considering getting into stablecoins as well.

So it's a very interesting space to watch right now.

Yeah, and I do want to ask you about some thoughts regarding Coinbase.

So they had their summit yesterday and Trump did deliver a short address to the summit, but what are your thoughts on Coinbase actually teaming up with American Express and allowing users users to actually earn Bitcoin on purchases?

I think it's a fantastic move.

I, I'm not surprised to see it happening.

You know, both Mastercard and Visa have been working with a number of exchanges across the world to offer, you know, uh, crypto cards.

So you can, you can use these either Mastercard or Visa cards to, to pay with crypto.

You convert your crypto into fiat and do that.

So Coinbase have come out this week with a new card.

It's offering 4% Bitcoin back on every purchase that you make with this card.

It looks fantastic as well.

I mean, I, I'm a big Bitcoin maxi.

I'm a bitcoin advocate.

So to see them have, you know, um, uh, the original, uh, Bitcoin block, uh, and the message that Satoshi inscribed there, uh, in 2009 on the card, uh, looks, it looks really great and I think a lot of Bitcoiners out there would be really, um, positive, uh, you know, about the potential of being able to actually earn some Bitcoin every time you're using your, your card to, um, pay for purchases.

So, uh, slowly but surely we're getting Bitcoin payments, um, you know, coming to fruition.

Uh, and incentives for people to, to use these kind of, um, uh, services and, and earn some Bitcoin.

So overall, another thing that makes me pretty positive and I, I thought it was, uh, definitely worth the headlines that it got this week.

And finally, Gareth, you've had a very busy travel week.

I understand you're in Paris for proof of talks.

So tell me a little bit about the discussions that you had surrounding Bitcoin scaling, as well as discussions on layer twos.

Yeah, I, I hosted a panel at Proof of Talk.

Just a quick shout out to XVentures.

It's really a fantastic, uh, event.

The 3rd year running, they had some really big name speakers this year.

Most notably, Barry Silber took the stage from Digital Currency Group.

I don't think he's spoken publicly at a cryptocurrency event in over 4 years, so it was great to see him back.

He was talking about uh Bitten specifically uh in his uh main mainstage panel.

Um, I, I hosted a panel on Bitcoin layer 2s, obviously bringing payment functionality.

And scale to the Bitcoin network.

There's a load of different approaches there, very nuanced conversation.

You've got uh protocols like the Lightning Network that allows you to do it very natively on Bitcoin, and then you have a few approaches that, uh, you know, make use of Ethereum virtual machine and a few other approaches to scaling, um, uh, Bitcoin that, that have some detractors and critics, from a, a very conventional Bitcoin standpoint, but a very lively debate and uh definitely a topic that's gonna be a lot more spoken.

About I think everyone understands that Bitcoin is a fantastic store of value, but a lot of people forget that it is a payments network as well.

We can transact with each other in a decentralized way without asking for permission.

There's a lot of tools and services out there that allow you to do it very quickly and very cheaply, so the future is looking bright for Bitcoin, and it was fantastic to host that conversation at a conference that was really focused on the wider cryptocurrency space, and I like to bring things back to Bitcoin as often as I can.

OK, Gareth, well, thank you so much for joining us on this Friday.

Have a great weekend and we'll see you again next week.

Thanks for having me.

Take care.