Iran Discovers Bitcoin, McGlone Yells at Clouds, and Satoshi Remains Public Enemy #1

Bitcoin finished the week just above $71,000, extending its nearly two-and-a-half-month standoff with the 200-week moving average. Ethereum printed a modest green weekly candle near $2,100 while most altcoins bled or traded sideways. Mel Mattison calls it a "textbook" pre-uptrend pattern. PlanB is still betting on the 4-year cycle. Time will tell—or as we say in crypto, "time" is a meme and "tell" is a rugpull waiting to happen.

Stocks had a banner week—the S&P 500, Dow, and Nasdaq all climbed nearly 4%. Gold and silver resumed their recoveries while oil cooled below $100. The VIX collapsed back to 19.5, nowhere near those "Liberation Day" highs. Volatility traders basically got front-runned into oblivion while your aunt called asking if she should buy the dip again.

The Iran situation dominated headlines once again. A supposed Hormuz ceasefire triggered bounces in both stocks and Bitcoin, though Bob Elliott argued oil won't see meaningful relief until transit returns to at least 50% of pre-war capacity. President Trump warned Iran about charging tanker fees—fees that, as Tracy Shuchart noted, are already well documented. Nothing says "international diplomacy" like arguing about tolls on Twitter.

Here's the twist: Iran is reportedly demanding Bitcoin payment from ships transiting the Strait of Hormuz. Whether it's regular policy or just a dramatic signal, "the fact that Bitcoin is even in the conversation is a milestone" for the neutral reserve asset thesis. The same Bitcoin that people called "magic internet money" is now being used to grease the wheels of geopolitical brinkmanship. Satoshi's vision of peer-to-peer electronic cash is evolving into peer-to-peer maritime extortion, and honestly? That's still progress.

Macro bulls keep making their case. Raoul Pal insists rising liquidity metrics remain bullish for risk assets. Lyn Alden dismissed alarm over $8 trillion in maturing US debt as "100x more airtime than they deserve." Tom Lee is calling bottoms again. Meanwhile, Mike McGlone went full bear, saying $10,000 Bitcoin is likely and the only "flippening" will be Tether over ETH. Not entirely unfounded—stablecoin market cap sits at $307 billion, a fraction away from another ATH. McGlone's take is basically the financial equivalent of yelling at clouds, but clouds have been known to rain on parades before.

CryptoQuant spotted the first uptick in Bitcoin network activity in months, though CEX activity has cooled 48% from the October 2025 peak. On the institutional front, Morgan Stanley launched a spot Bitcoin ETF with "best first day of trading for any of our ETFs" according to Amy Oldenburg. Eric Balchunas called it a "BFD." For those keeping score at home, that's "Big F***ing Deal" in TradFi translation—Wall Street finally learned slang and somehow it's still cringe.

In regulatory news, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent published a WSJ op-ed urging the US to be the center of the new digital economy. His words clash somewhat with Roman Storm facing prison for developing Tornado Cash software. Nothing says "welcome to the digital economy" like throwing developers in a cell for writing code that got used for mixing. It's like arresting the inventor of the envelope because criminals use it to hide IOUs.

YouTube terminated Bitcoin.com's channel for "harmful and dangerous content," then reinstated it after backlash from Rumble's Chris Pavlovski and Gary Cardone. The New York Times tried unmasking Satoshi again—this time suggesting it's Adam Back. Nic Carter called it ridiculous. Laura Shin found it credible. Back denied it. Mystery unsolved. At this point, finding Satoshi is crypto's version of finding the Holy Grail, except the Grail probably doesn't have a Twitter account denying everything.

France is considering a law forcing anyone with over €5,000 in crypto to declare it to tax authorities—ironic given a French IRS agent recently sold declarants' data to criminals who then kidnapped families. Nothing says "trust the government with your financial data" like a state employee moonlighting as a data broker for kidnappers. On the lighter side, a new North Korean hacker detection method made the rounds: ask them to insult Kim Jong Un. Specifically, call him a "fat, ugly pig." We can neither confirm nor deny whether this works, but it would explain a lot about DPRK's cybersecurity posture.

In AI news, Anthropic built a model called Mythos they say is too dangerous to release. Jason Calacanis and Kyle Samani are debating Bittensor's prospects. Algod is predicting a 2026 "Subnet summer." Bittensor will implement lock-based subnet ownership after Templar suddenly shut down—Const called it "one of crypto's oldest problems: founders who rug their token holders." Nothing says "decentralized AI future" like founders who discover that "lock-based ownership" is just a fancy term for "please don't do a runner with the treasury."

CZ dropped an autobiography written in prison. OKX CEO Star Xu challenged its legitimacy, alleging "full of falsehoods." CZ responded with a $1 billion reward for proof. That's one way to do a book tour—write it in a cell and bet your net worth that nobody can call you a liar. In crypto, even autobiography launches come with a bounty.