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Feeling sluggish to start the week?

You’re not the only one. 

Crypto investment products continued their string of outflows for the fourth week in a row, a CoinShares report found. US investors pulled out a whopping $922 million, though investors in Canada, Switzerland and Germany used the weakness as a buying opportunity.

Maybe we’ll break the streak of declines this week. 

Elsewhere:

• Bitcoin’s down to $82,000 to start Monday, a 2.5% decline over the past day. ETH’s holding on to $2,100, down slightly over the same period.

• The whole market is down to $2.65 trillion, a nearly 7% decline over the past day. 

• DEX volume sits at $6.47 billion, an 8% decline over the past 24 hours, per Blockworks Research.

🏆 Founder mode

It’s still a tough market right now, as the post-White House summit euphoria wasn’t enough to carry us through the weekend. 

But the mindset hasn’t changed for a lot of the folks I talk to — from analysts to venture capitalists — who still think the long-term outcome is bullish. And that’s led me to think about one group I haven’t really written about, outside of raise announcements: founders. 

In this morning’s episode of Empire, Anthony Pompliano joined host Jason Yanowitz and the two discussed a variety of topics, though I, admittedly, perked up when listening to Pomp explain how he finds talent and operates as a founder.

Pomp said he looks for people who are running away from something rather than toward it. Basically, motivation is more built-in for folks who are seeking to either escape the norm or the situation they were in and build something different and perhaps better. At least, that’s the dream right? 

“You want somebody who has a high propensity for action, you want somebody who is detail oriented,” and bonus points if they’re “borderline obsessive,” Pomp said.

When I spoke to Simon Dedic of Moonrock Capital last week, I asked him what advice he’s giving to founders. His big thing right now: telling folks to zoom out.

“Just focus on your vision, just keep building,” he added. 

Ideally, the 5-10 year horizon should be the norm, and the payout when founders and projects get to that stage is larger than the pump we’re seeing now. 

But another hurdle stands in the way for a lot of founders: chasing hype. 

With crypto so narrative-driven at the moment, “VCs are often not better than the retailers out there,” Dedic told me. They’re also trying to capitalize on the hype of the moment and when we see market conditions that, well, suck, it makes everyone a bit more risk-averse — even if they’re long-term bullish. 

The goal for founders who are actively building should be simple, Dedic noted. Create a solid project. Don’t get distracted by the fartcoins or random memecoin mania that don’t even have a five month timeline much less a five year timeline. 

While both Pomp and Dedic spoke about founders and to founders, it seems to me that their way of thinking is relevant to anyone trying to survive in cryptoland. Just keep swimming, right?

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• Gemini confidentially filed for a US IPO, per Bloomberg, potentially kicking off a slew of companies looking to go public.

• The Department of Housing and Urban Development is considering using blockchain and even perhaps a stablecoin, though some officials still consider crypto ‘Monopoly money,’ per a ProPublica report.

• The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency gave banks the green flag to engage in certain crypto activity without seeking prior approval.

👴 The older the better

An interesting dynamic is taking place in the market right now: Dino coins are having a bit of a moment. 

In a research note from K33, analysts looked at why institutions favor “older, more established coins over the new shiny things with no track record.”

“This, in turn, is causing more interest among retail investors and traders for the familiar ‘boomer’ or ‘dino' coins.”

Some of this also comes from the fact that President Trump’s administration has changed the tide, and he’s effectively “given altcoins the institutional stamp of approval.”

“The typical (young) altcoin trader favors the latest trending DeFi token or the latest memecoin looking to cook a 100x run. In contrast, cautious long-term participants seek out what they perceive as safer bets,” the analysts wrote. 

“The term “boomer” may be facetious, but it reflects how older, or at least more institutionally minded, investors are now firmly marking their territory in the crypto space. Such investors are more comfortable with assets that have weathered market cycles while being supported by entities that present in a professional manner.”

In fact, DOGE is included alongside coins like LTC, XRP and ADA, the analysts noted. Though, let’s be fair: ADA and XRP have massive, heavily-focused (or obsessed depending on who you talk to) retail followings. That following is quite different from the institutions that are looking for altcoin exposure. 

ADA, for example, has been dubbed a so-called Ethereum killer, but that narrative hasn’t quite played out. Though there are plenty of comments one could make about the state of Ethereum right now, so perhaps I’m speaking too soon.

Ironically, this also fits into what Dedic and Pomp said about founders: Folks are looking for coins that can survive the narratives. 

Whether or not the use cases for some of these dinocoins have come to fruition, they’re still around and kicking and they’ve managed to gain a spotlight — not just a post from the president.

Brought to you by:

ZKsync is accelerating institutional blockchain adoption and the rise of tokenization. Institutions choose ZKsync to move tokenized assets securely across enterprises while preserving privacy and governance. With gasless transactions, seamless onboarding, and scalable ZK infrastructure, enterprises can transfer financial products and data privately using ZK Stack — an open-source, trustless blockchain platform designed for speed, low costs, security, and interoperability without sacrificing control.

Learn more at ZKsync.io/empire.

On our minds: The White House summit

Katherine:

Am I even slightly surprised we didn’t see a longer-term pump as the White House’s summit ended? 

Nope. 

Look, the summit is a step forward. But it’s still not bringing anything really concrete to the table. Not even the bitcoin strategic reserve. 

Sure, it’s fantastic that we have that and the stockpile now, but there are still questions about how it’s going to actually happen. 

Then, there wasn’t a whole lot of new news to come out of the summit (which should have been expected, in my humble opinion) and so it makes sense that we’ll continue to see this sideways market action. 

We need something new and concrete. Perhaps that’s legislation, though that, too, is a few months out. 

Until then, it seems like we’re going to be tied in with macro. This is going to be our new normal for now.