Bitcoin is currently having its best

week since 2023 giving even higher

conviction in the market that the bottom

may be in. Bulls are euphoric, bears are

licking their wounds. We're going to

talk about all the news that's driving

the market right now on the Daily Wolf.

Let's go.

What is up everybody? Happy Friday and

welcome to the Daily Wolf on Yahoo

Finance. I'm your host Scott Melker also

known as The Wolf of All Streets. You

can find me on X at Scott Melker. Find

me on YouTube at Scott Melker. I had an

incredible YouTube show this morning.

For those of you who missed it, had both

Matt Hogan and Going Parabolic Jason

Williams on as guests helping me to

unpack this maybe early iteration of a

Bitcoin bull market that we're starting

to see. So, we can't talk about

the news today without talking about the

price. So, let's just show you what's

going on. Bearish crypto bets lose

record 3 billion as Bitcoin tops 71,000.

That was yesterday and then I woke up

and it was up to almost 80,000

dollar Bitcoin and that 3 billion in

liquidated shorts had become almost 4

billion. So, what we have here is

Bitcoin up roughly 24% this week. Once

again, the strongest week since 2023.

Bitcoin ETFs added 606 million dollars

just Thursday after over 500 million on

Wednesday. Ether ETFs also added 221

million which is a sizeable number

relative to total inflows into ETFs.

Now, more than 4 billion as I said in

crypto shorts liquidated over 2 days

giving us much more evidence that maybe

the bottom is in. So, I'm going to just

re-very quickly go through the mechanics

of what happened. We had the news from

Scott Bessent.

That was the trigger. Then we had

massive liquidations of shorts which

sent price higher. Then we had the White

House coming in and saying bullish

things about crypto. That sent price up

into the 70s. But waking up this morning

and seeing price almost 80,000 cannot be

explained by any of the three of those.

This is real buying. We're seeing it

through institutions on the ETFs. We're

seeing it through retail. I'll tell you

about that a little bit later. This is

real buying. There is real confidence in

the market. Now, I don't want to steal

the words of my friend Matt Hogan from

this morning, but he made the point that

he does not think this is impulsive

buyers that are buying Bitcoin at 72,000

to sell at 76.

He thinks that there's been a lot of

sentiment that once Bitcoin gets going,

we are once again entering 3 years of a

bull market in the 4-year cycle and

people are starting to position for that

time. So, he believes and I tend to

agree that a lot of the buying we're

seeing right now is buyers that want to

hold this asset to new all-time highs

beyond 126,000

up into 150, 200, 250,000

if this market does what we think it

can. Now, I've been telling you

literally for months that I thought the

bottom was in. This is giving me a bit

more confidence that may be true. We

could go right back down. You know how

Bitcoin is. But this is a real move on

real volume with real catalysts that are

sending it upwards. Interestingly,

nothing's really changed for Bitcoin

except for the price. At 60,000, the

fundamentals were just as strong as they

are at 80,000. But we know that people

love to buy it. Now, my question for you

as the audience to others there's of

people on the sidelines that been

waiting for Bitcoin to go down to 45 or

50,000. I was recently on the When Shift

Happens podcast

and I said that there's no more

dangerous sentiment in markets than I'm

going to sell to buy back lower. And a

lot of people have been waiting to buy

back lower. I'm curious if they're going

to buy here at you know, 75, 80, 85 or

if they're still waiting for Bitcoin to

head down to 45 or 50,000 to put in

those bids. So, you know, the bears were

waiting here for a FTX event to send

price lower and instead they got

liquidated. Now, we have some bullish

news on the regulatory side. US CFTC

chief put staff on notice to create

crypto regulations if Clarity Act fails.

CFTC Commissioner Mike Seelig told the

inaugural gathering of the Innovation

Advisory Committee that his agency won't

sit idle. This is the same series of

meetings and people that we've been

reporting on from the White House all

week, but it's been a very very

interesting week because clearly we're

in the summer doldrums here waiting for

Congress to come back and potentially

act on clarity.

But we know that clarity is very

unlikely to happen. Right? I think last

I checked prediction markets had it at

roughly 10%. Even the most bullish

analysts who had it at 70% before like

Galaxy down to 5-10%. I've told you for

me, since December, it's been 5% or less

that it would pass. So, it seems like

the regulators are operating on the

assumption that it won't pass. We know

that they've wanted to pass pro-crypto

regulation and start to write rules, but

I think that they were waiting on the

sidelines to see what happened with

clarity because why waste their time and

effort preempting something that could

be a law and make their lives much

easier. Now, with the assumption that

it's not going to go into law

and having meetings here with the

Innovation Advisory Committee, we can

see they're moving forward. So, what

happened? Earlier this week, the SEC

under one Paul Atkins

went ahead and made regulation crypto.

We talked about that, right? It sets

rules for fundraising, for safe harbor

so that you can become sufficiently

decentralized and not be named a

security. Well, here Mike Seelig, who is

a CFTC Commissioner of one, is saying

the CFTC is going to do the same thing.

He said, "The staff will explore a new

regulated crypto asset market category."

He wants rules allowing developers to

legally launch and operate protocols in

America. Be huge for bringing innovation

back to the United States, just like

Cboe, uh just like Acton's new proposal

at the SEC. But he went on to say this

cannot fully replace clarity, much like

we saw Acton saying that we still do

need laws on the books so that if we get

a new regulator, these rules cannot be

replaced. But yeah, he as he said,

"Agency rules are also easier to

challenge in court or reverse under a

future administration." So,

this is what's happening. The regulators

are moving forward. They don't think

that clarity is going to happen and they

are going to make rules, which then puts

the onus on the crypto industry, in my

mind, to become too big to fail over the

next 2 and 1/2 years before we likely

get regime change. You may not get

regime change. But if we come to a

presidential election next time and the

crypto industry is still, you know,

fumbling about,

we're going to have big problems and we

could see a reversal. We need the laws

to obviously cement what they're doing,

but getting favorable regulation and

building to the point where nobody can

stop us, that is the move that we are

looking for and there are people

that are trying to stop us.

CME CME CEO Terrence Duffy trades barbs

with CFTC Cboe and Calshi COO over

prediction market oversight. So now

you'll remember that the CME freaked out

when Calshi had perpetual swaps

approved. We talked about that story.

They said that they

you know, that's gambling and perpetual

futures should not be regulated by the

CFTC and that they're not really

derivatives contracts, blah blah blah.

Now they're having the same kind of

comments over prediction markets. So he

said the prediction markets, this is the

CME CEO Terrence Duffy, accused

prediction markets of tolerating

manipulation and insider trading. Cboe

came back and said, "These are fake news

because the contracts are offshore." I

mean, nothing says regulator regulatory

clarity like the regulator calling the

world's largest futures exchange fake

news.

It is very very mature. Uh the United

States government here. Right? But there

is still we have the turf war between

the federal government and the states

over prediction markets that we've long

reported on. Now, you also have it

between the incumbents who probably want

to slow these industries like crypto and

prediction markets down so that they can

get their piece of it, which they're all

trying to do. So, we have the incumbents

actually battling the regulators as well

over whose turf this is and what kind of

products can be, uh, released. Now,

listen, there's definitely some insider

trading in prediction markets. Right?

But that doesn't mean the prediction

markets should not exist or that

anything actually stops this train. But

it's a really interesting time that

we're in right now, uh, with the

regulatory regime, the incumbents, the

states. A lot of confusion as to who is

going to regulate what and a lot of that

comes from an overbearing regulatory

regime that we had before under one

President Joseph Biden. Now, going back

to crypto volumes, we have a update to a

story that I told you, I don't know, all

of like yesterday or the day before

here. Yeah, remember I told you that the

South Koreans weren't trading anymore,

crypto volumes were down massively,

they'd gone to SK Hynix and and Samsung

and were using leverage leverage ETFs.

Well, in the words of Poltergeist,

they're back. Up it trading volume

spikes 273% in a day. Calm down. As

South Korean investors re-enter crypto.

So, up its daily volume volume surged

273% to 1.84 billion. Busiest day since

March. Bithumb hum hum thumb thumb

Bithumb. Volume jumped 133%.

Now, interestingly, XRP was the most

actively traded asset on both exchanges.

We've seen this in South Korea many,

many times. These guys love to speculate

and they go love to go a little further

down the risk curve than Bitcoin to do

it. Last I checked, you know, I I think

XRP had been trading under a buck. It

was pushing $1.40 at at one point today.

So, massive move there and

you know, uh when the South Koreans get

on something, you're going to see more

volatility and more up and downside on

an asset that they choose uh in the

short term. But, we talked about all the

rotation.

Koreans spend you know, spent the whole

bear market chasing Samsung and SK Hynix

and leverage. Well, this is the first

hint that the rotation is coming back.

And this is something that we've been

talking about over and over and over

again on this show, other shows, with

every single guest.

There's a hot ball of money for

speculation, right? And for years that

was in crypto, specifically in Bitcoin

and altcoins. Then, with the

with the proliferation of derivatives

and perpetual swaps on hyper liquid on

other assets, that hot ball of money was

able to move. So, you went crypto to

gold and silver to oil to pre-IPO SpaceX

and then all over the place. Now, you

can gamble on anything. You didn't need

to gamble on Bitcoin and altcoins, so

they became a bit out of vogue. But, we

keep saying there will be a time when

that hot ball of money returns to

crypto. I think that hot ball of money

is now returning to crypto and this is

the first indication that that might be

true. We're seeing it in the ETFs, we're

seeing it in the exchange volumes in the

United States, and we see it even

compounded with exchange volume in South

Korea. Now, also from our friends in

Asia, Nomura Backed Laser Digital wins

Japan's first crypto approval in 4

years. Now, it's not such a big deal,

the approval that they got. I mean,

they're going to provide liquidity to

domestic crypto firms. This is sort of

on the institutional side and not an

indication of retail volume coming back,

but interestingly,

Japan has been on the sidelines and has

done some very, very favorable

legislating and regulating of late, and

now we're seeing it actually come into

place. I mean, we have Asian retail and

institutional infrastructure reawakening

at exactly the same time. I mean, you

know, Japan spent 4 years here checking

Nomura's paperwork, and someone finally

found the correct fax machine, I guess.

Um because the the you know Yeah,

regulators, governments, they're slow.

That's that's what that joke was.

That's what that joke was. So, in uh

less uh favorable and exciting news,

I've been reporting obviously on the

crisis in self-custody.

Coldcard ships firmware after 114

million Bitcoin theft, says AI helped

catch more bugs, but the real story here

is that they came out and said, "We

still haven't really fixed this."

It's been weeks.

Uh ongoing exploit for Coldcard. Most

people have probably done what they need

to solve this, but still a problem here

in self-custody, especially when you

compound SafePal and Trezor and Bits of

Gold releasing

uh hundreds of thousands in hacked

information on people who bought these

self-custody solutions. But, this is

what they said, right? They released new

Coldcard firmware, but they said simply

installing the update does not make an

effective wallet safe. So, anyone who

generated a seed on a vulnerable

firmware between 2021 and 2026 must

create a new seed and move the Bitcoin.

A new seed generation requires 65

unpredictable button presses, 50 dice

rolls, or 128 coin flips. Who is still

doing this?

Get your money off of a Coldcard and to

literally anywhere else.

This is absolutely insane. And I mean,

to just to kind of compound on that,

I've got a story here. AI adoption in

crypto crime rose 40% over the past

year. We know that all of this is going

to become exponentially worse in a world

of AI. It is time to just pick the best

projects, the best security, and hold

and be extremely vigilant, because we

have our favorite segment right now that

aligns very well with that. It's how not

to invest. Hit it.

>> How not to invest. [music]

>> How not to invest.

>> How not to invest. Mantra blockchain

halts after exploit. These guys had

problems just a few months ago. This is

one of the hotter projects just a few

years ago. But here's the story. Mantra

token plunges 18% to record lows as

blockchain halts after exploit. Token

token touched 0.004126

minutes after the network stopped

producing blocks. Well, Mantra later

said an attacker exploited a

vulnerability in software used by the

chain.

Once again,

I don't even need to talk so deeply

about the Mantra token specifically or

their chain. This is just a reminder

that with AI and Lazarus Group and all

of the other ways for hackers and

exploiters to take your money, you do

not need to be invested or using chains

that do not have the vigilant security

budgets or team working behind them

because they will get hacked. Harmony,

Raven coin, Mantra. We have this endless

list of exploits seemingly every single

day that are losing people who have not

been vigilant, who are just sitting on

the sidelines holding assets from

previous cycles waiting for them to go

down fastly. Guys, the Bitcoin bull

market may be back. If you're looking at

chart, 82,800

is the line where the market would make

a higher high and kill the bear market

structure. I'll have my eyes on that all

weekend and I'll be back to discuss it

with you on Monday.

Peace.