Bitcoin has broken through 100,000, reaching a historical high. That is not a dark history; it is the path I took. Bitcoin owes nothing to anyone. A new high is both good and bad; the good is that emotions may rise, while the bad is that it may start a new round of profit-taking.
As everyone can see from today's market, Bitcoin has broken through 100,000, while altcoins remain stagnant. Ethereum is at 3900, and altcoins are still not moving. However, when Bitcoin and Ethereum dip slightly, altcoins start to fall. So, we can only choose strong coins for positioning; the question is, which are the strong ones?
The start of this bull market is fundamentally different from the logic of the first half of this year. The first half was a bull market driven by ETF news, with the market following hot topics like memes and AI, making 'hot coins' > others; the second half is a compliance-driven bull market with the arrival of a knowledgeable leader, so the focus is on compliant assets, 'compliance coins' > 'hot coins' > others. The tokens that have surged this time are mainly compliance coins.
This could be the new Trump trade.
With Trump's victory, the market began to anticipate potential policy dividends. Potential policies revealed by Trump's camp indicate that U.S. crypto assets may receive capital gains tax exemptions, which immediately attracted the attention of traditional funds. In this context, U.S. crypto projects with strong regulatory compliance and traditional institutional backgrounds have become the focus of institutional investors.
In addition to asset qualifications, suitable channels are also needed to facilitate institutional entry, such as the asset being listed on Coinbase or having corresponding grayscale trust products.
Statistics show that in the past 30 days, the average increase in assets held by grayscale trusts, weighted by market capitalization, reached 218.27%.
Following this line of thought, which assets will receive attention in the U.S. that are compliant and also have grayscale concepts?
Perhaps you need to pay attention to the leading BTC ecosystem project Stacks (STX). As one of the only two cryptocurrencies that have passed SEC compliance review, STX has completed a rare Regulation A+ issuance, making it one of the few crypto assets approved for public sale to U.S. retail investors.
Additionally, STX is also a grayscale concept coin and can be directly purchased through grayscale trust products.
Moreover, today's STX is different from a few months ago; after the Nakamoto upgrade, it has become a true Bitcoin Layer 2.
Previously, the transaction confirmation for Stacks required waiting for the Bitcoin network to generate new blocks, often taking up to an hour. However, with the 'fast block confirmation' mechanism after the Nakamoto upgrade, the transaction confirmation time has been shortened to a few minutes while maintaining the same level of security as the Bitcoin network.
Even more groundbreaking is the upcoming sBTC.
As a decentralized two-way pegged solution for Bitcoin, sBTC aims to make Bitcoin, the 'digital gold', truly programmable. Users can lock BTC on the Bitcoin mainnet and receive an equivalent amount of sBTC on the Stacks network, thereby participating in smart contract interactions and enabling applications such as DeFi and NFTs.
In the current context where the total locked value (TVL) of Bitcoin DeFi accounts for less than 1% of the market, these technological innovations from Stacks could become key to activating the entire Bitcoin ecosystem.
Stacks announced that sBTC will be deployed in two phases. The first phase will support Bitcoin deposit functions on December 16, 2024; the second phase is expected to launch 6-8 weeks after the first phase, at which point Bitcoin withdrawal functions will be opened.
For new assets, the most important question is: who will use them? Therefore, finding application scenarios for assets becomes crucial. Stacks has created a robust journey for sBTC, forming alliances to attract more institutions to join.
Currently, sBTC has gained support from over 20 well-known institutions, including BitGo and Blockdaemon. For instance, the Bitcoin ATM operator Coinflip will integrate Stacks and sBTC. Coinflip currently serves 400,000 customers and will allow direct conversion transactions with sBTC at Bitcoin ATMs in the future.
Stacks is paving a development path that balances innovation and practicality for the Bitcoin ecosystem. Furthermore, there will definitely be speculation space in this bull market for the Bitcoin ecosystem, so wait for a major washout and look for opportunities to position.
