Morning Minute: Relentless Sellers, War Volatility Keep Bitcoin Down

Morning Minute is a daily newsletter written by Tyler Warner. The analysis and opinions expressed are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of Decrypt. And check out our new daily news show covering all of the top stories in ~5 minutes, downloadable on Apple Pod or Spotify.

GM!

Today’s top news:

• Crypto majors dip from highs as Iran negotiations fall through; BTC at $71,000
• Morgan Stanley plans to extend into tokenized money market funds, tax-loss harvesting, Bitcoin yield and lending
• Bitcoin researchers find new potential quantum solution not requiring a fork
• Justin Sun speaks out against WLFI, calls for tokens to unlock
• CFTC positions for “exclusive regulatory authority” of prediction markets

📉 Crypto, markets slide as negotiations fall through

It appears the first round of Iran peace negotiations did not go well. And markets didn’t like it.

Vice President JD Vance walked out Saturday night without a deal. Trump posted almost immediately: The U.S. Navy will begin “BLOCKADING any and all ships trying to enter, or leave, the Strait of Hormuz—effective immediately.”

This sent markets into the red, with BTC falling from the $73K+ level to $71K. ETH is down from above $2,300 to below $2,200.

Oil is up 7% and back to $97, and concerns are high again about the impact of a blockade like this.

But it’s not just war volatility impacting Bitcoin. New data from Glassnode shows that Bitcoin is facing $20M in profit realization PER HOUR above the $70K level, as big holders become relentless sellers.

It looks like the battle to break through $80K may rage on for awhile…

Key details:

• Vance led 21 hours of talks at the Serena Hotel before announcing no deal; Iran’s refusal to commit to abandoning nuclear weapons was the single sticking point; Trump ordered a naval blockade of the Strait “effective immediately”
• BTC fell from $73K+ to ~$71K; oil jumped 7% on Hyperliquid with WTI briefly crossing $100
• Glassnode data shows $20M/hour in profit realization above $70k

🏦 Morgan Stanley is not stopping at Bitcoin

Morgan Stanley’s Bitcoin ETF, MSBT, launched last week. And the finance giant is already mapping what comes next.

The firm’s digital-asset strategy head Amy Oldenburg told Decrypt the firm sees a tokenized money-market fund as “definitely a path forward,” following BlackRock’s BUIDL ($2.3B) into yield-bearing tokens. Parametric, a Morgan Stanley subsidiary, would handle crypto tax-loss harvesting. Bitcoin yield and lending services are being built in-house: “We can’t just primarily rent the technology,” Oldenburg said in February.

So they’re going after tokenized money market funds, tax-loss harvesting, Bitcoin yield and lending. Quite the push.

Key details:

• Morgan Stanley confirmed it’s not stopping at Bitcoin; Oldenburg said a tokenized money-market fund is “definitely a path forward” and crypto tax-loss harvesting via Parametric is “something to also explore”
• ETH and SOL ETFs filed in January remain pending
• E*TRADE crypto trading via Zerohash on track for first-half 2026; Bitcoin yield and lending services in development, built in-house; tax-loss harvesting via Parametric

⚛️ A new quantum-safe Bitcoin solution

The standard path to quantum-proofing Bitcoin runs through a soft fork, broad community consensus, and years of debate. StarkWare researcher Avihu Mordechai Levy just published a proposal that sidesteps all of it.

His QSB scheme makes Bitcoin transactions quantum-resistant using hash-based puzzles and Lamport signatures, all within Bitcoin’s existing scripting rules. Users solve a ~70 trillion attempt puzzle off-chain (GPU-solvable for a few hundred dollars), then broadcast a transaction that already contains proof. None of this would require a fork, but there’s a caveat.

Levy is clear that this is a workaround, not a permanent fix. Transactions are non-standard and go directly to mining pools, and Grover’s algorithm threat remains; plus it’s expensive for users and won’t scale well.

But it’s good to see progress coming up with new solutions…

Key details:

• StarkWare researcher Levy published QSB as a quantum-safe Bitcoin scheme requiring no soft fork; works within existing 201-opcode scripting limits
• The mechanism: hash-based puzzles + Lamport signatures; ~70 trillion off-chain attempts, GPU-solvable for a few hundred dollars per transaction
• The catch: non-standard under current relay policies; transactions bypass the public mempool and are expensive, thus explicitly a temporary workaround

⚖️ The CFTC is done sharing prediction markets with states

The fight over who regulates prediction markets has been running for years. CFTC Chair Mike Selig just made the federal government’s position as clear as it’s going to get.

Speaking to CoinDesk on the sidelines of Vanderbilt’s Digital Assets Summit, Selig said the CFTC will continue defending its “exclusive regulatory authority” over prediction markets in court, regardless of the underlying event.

“It doesn’t matter if it’s sports, politics, or anything else. If it’s a validly offered product on a CFTC-regulated exchange, we regulate that,” he said.

The agency got a significant tailwind April 6 when the Third Circuit ruled that the Commodity Exchange Act gives the CFTC exclusive jurisdiction over trades on designated contract markets, directly undercutting state gaming regulators’ arguments. The Ninth Circuit, which includes Nevada (one of the states that secured injunctions against Kalshi), hears a consolidated case next week.

Selig made clear that Nevada won’t be the last state targeted: “I wouldn’t say, just because these are the first states, that they’ll be the last.”

This is a 180-degree turn from two years ago, when the CFTC under Biden was the one trying to shut prediction markets down. Now it’s suing states to keep them open.

Key details:

• CFTC Chair Selig argued for the agency’s exclusive regulatory authority over prediction markets in an interview with CoinDesk; said federal jurisdiction applies regardless of whether contracts cover sports, politics, or anything else
• Third Circuit ruled April 6 in the CFTC’s favor, backing exclusive federal jurisdiction over DCM-traded products
• The CFTC sued Arizona, Connecticut, and Illinois on April 2 alongside the DOJ, challenging their cease-and-desist letters targeting Kalshi and Polymarket; Selig said more states could follow

🌞 Justin Sun shares frustrations with WLFI

Justin Sun invested $75M in World Liberty Financial last year. On Sunday, he vented on X about several things WLFI has been doing.

“What was never disclosed—to me or to any investor—is that World Liberty embedded a backdoor blacklisting function in the smart contract used to deploy WLFI tokens. This function gives the company unilateral power to freeze, restrict, and effectively confiscate the property rights of any token holder, without notice, without cause, and without recourse.”

Sun’s comments came after WLFI deposited 5 billion WLFI tokens as collateral on Dolomite, a DeFi protocol co-founded by a WLFI adviser, and borrowed $75M in stablecoins. It’s a move that went viral and has many claiming that the WLFI team is selling out without actually selling.

That doesn’t appear to have been at the heart of Sun’s comments though, and Sun ended his post calling on the team to unlock the remaining tokens and uphold transparency for the community.

The WLFI team responded late Sunday, stating that they have the evidence and are ready to see Justin Sun in court. The plot thickens…

Key Details:

• Justin Sun publicly broke with WLFI, calling it a “personal ATM”; alleges governance was “neither fair nor transparent”; invested $75M total
• The backstory: WLFI froze Sun’s wallet in Sept. 2025, blocking 595M unlocked tokens worth ~$107M; WLFI said the freeze targeted wallets linked to phishing
• The math: WLFI trades at $0.079 vs the treasury’s $0.1507 average buyback, thus 48% underwater; WLFI -18% on the week

🌎 Macro crypto and markets

• Crypto majors fell from local highs after Iran peace talks fell through; BTC at $70K; ETH at $2,190; SOL  at $82; HYPE at $41.60
• Stable (+10%), VVV (+5%), and AAVE (+5%) led top movers
• Oil +3% at $97; Gold even at $4,724
• Bitcoin faced $20M/hour in profit realization above the $70K level according to Glassnode data, meaning there are still some big sellers out there
• Alameda unstaked $16M in SOL, potentially for creditor reimbursements
• Hackers minted 1B DOT tokens on the Ethereum mainnet and then sold them off, but netted just $250k due to limited liquidity; the exploit was due to a Hyperbridge vulnerability

Corporate treasuries & ETFs

Meme Coin Tracker

• Meme leaders were mostly flat; DOGE -1%, SHIB -1%, PEPE -1%, TRUMP +1%, PENGU -1%, SPX -1%, FARTCOIN -2%
• Bull (117%), neet (+43%), triplet (+24%), and LOL (+24%) led notable on-chain movers

💰 Token, airdrop & protocol tracker

• WLFI threatened to sue Justin Sun in response to his condemnation post on X asking for his tokens to be unlocked

🚚 What is happening in NFTs?

• NFT leaders were mostly flat over the weekend; Punks -1% at 27.65 ETH, Pudgy -1 at 4.12 ETH, BAYC even at 6.39 ETH; Hypurr’s +1% at 396 HYPE
• Renga (+125%) and MAYC (+6%) led notable movers
• Adam Weitsman announced the acquisition of 2,000 Otherdeeds and 203 Kodas from a private collection, now holds over 8,500 Otherdeeds