The Most Hated Rally in Bitcoin History

On February 28, when U.S. strikes on Iran began and markets cratered, Bitcoin bottomed at $64,000. Today it's trading above $78,000. That's a 22% rally in 53 days, through what the IEA is calling the largest supply disruption in the history of the global oil market. Through Hormuz shutting down. Through IRGC gunboats firing on commercial vessels. Through oil spiking above $100 and the entire Middle East teetering on the edge of a wider war.

And yet, as Checkmate pointed out, the bears absolutely hate this rally. He says he doesn't believe we've ever seen anything quite like it in Bitcoin history. The data backs him up. Bitcoin perpetual futures have posted a negative 30-day average funding rate for 46 consecutive days, the longest sustained negative funding streak since November 2022, when BTC was grinding through the post-FTX wreckage below $16,000. Shorts are paying longs roughly 6% annualized just to maintain their positions. That's real money bleeding out of bearish conviction every eight hours.

On a mean reversion basis, Checkmate ran the numbers across nine anchor points, a mix of technical, on-chain, trend, fast, and slow, and found that for bears calling for $40K, they're betting on a Q 0.4 event. That's rarer than $2 Bitcoin in 2011. Not impossible, but you're fighting the entire weight of the distribution.

Here is what makes this rally so significant. It's not happening because of good news. There is no good news. Iran peace talks keep collapsing. Only three ships transited Hormuz in the last 24 hours. JPMorgan says Iran hits its oil shut-in threshold within 15 days. The Strait may never return to normal. And yet Bitcoin keeps grinding higher, absorbing every shock, shaking off every headline, putting in higher lows week after week in the most methodical, regimented fashion possible.

And the price action isn't just climbing a wall of geopolitical worry. It's climbing every wall. Since Q4 2025, the quantum FUD machine has been running at full speed. BlackRock updated its IBIT prospectus to warn that quantum computing could one day crack Bitcoin's cryptography, and the media ran with it as if the threat were imminent. Then the Epstein files dropped and fabricated emails circulated claiming Epstein created Bitcoin, throwing shade on the entire asset and giving the casually curious another reason to look away. These narratives have been running nonstop through Q1 and Q2, specifically designed to push the layman away from digging deeper. And yet here we are at $78K. The price is the ultimate refutation. All the quantum hand-wringing, all the conspiracy slander, all the institutional hedging language, none of it has mattered. The market is speaking.

As I said earlier today: I like a hated rally. Demand for a neutral, permissionless monetary network controlled by no one has skyrocketed. People are recognizing what Bitcoin is: a sovereign, distributed, extremely scarce reserve asset that no government can freeze, inflate, or confiscate. The fact that bears are still actively shorting and paying a steep premium to do it only makes the setup more explosive. If this crowd gets squeezed, $80K is just the beginning.

Strategy Buys 34,164 BTC for $2.54 Billion, Passes BlackRock as Largest Holder

Why it matters: The largest corporate buyer just absorbed an entire week's mining output in one purchase.

Michael Saylor's Strategy added 34,164 bitcoin last week at an average price of $74,395, its third-largest purchase on record. Total holdings now sit at 815,061 BTC. With this buy, Strategy has officially passed BlackRock's IBIT ETF as the largest Bitcoin holder on the planet. The company has added roughly 80,000 BTC in the first four months of 2026 alone. When one buyer is vacuum-sealing supply at this pace while shorts are paying to bet against the price, something has to give.

Bitcoin ETF Inflows Hit $996 Million Last Week

Why it matters: Institutional demand is accelerating into the rally, not fading.

Nearly $1 billion flowed into U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs last week, up from $786 million the week prior. BlackRock's IBIT alone pulled $284 million in a single day. Two consecutive weeks of rising inflows at these levels signals sustained institutional conviction, not a dead cat bounce. The ETFs are absorbing newly mined supply and then some, while Strategy hoovers up the rest. The supply-demand math is getting very tight.

Hormuz Traffic Near Zero as IRGC Fires on Vessels

Why it matters: The world's most important oil chokepoint is functionally closed, and markets are still underpricing the risk.

Only three ships transited the Strait of Hormuz in the past 24 hours, down from the normal daily average of roughly 60-80 vessels. IRGC gunboats fired on multiple commercial vessels today, hours after Trump extended the ceasefire indefinitely. Treasury Secretary Bessent says Kharg Island storage will be full in days. JPMorgan projects Iran hits its oil production shut-in threshold within 15 days. Brent crude is at $95. As we've been covering since day one of this crisis, the Strait may never return to normal. And Bitcoin keeps climbing.

Warsh Pledges Fed Independence, But Tillis Blocks the Vote

Why it matters: Fed succession is turning into a political standoff two weeks before Powell's term ends.

Kevin Warsh told the Senate Banking Committee yesterday that he would divest "virtually all" of his financial assets and pledged the Fed would remain independent under his leadership. Senator Warren called him Trump's "sock puppet." But the real blocker is Republican Senator Thom Tillis, who has vowed to oppose the nomination until the DOJ drops its investigation of current Chair Powell. Powell's term expires May 15. The succession mess, combined with supply shocks that make rate cuts nearly impossible, is exactly the kind of institutional paralysis that makes Bitcoin's value proposition louder by the day.

Bitcoin Miners Becoming AI Companies as CoinShares Projects 70% Revenue Shift

Why it matters: Mining infrastructure is being repriced as the most valuable real estate in tech.

CoinShares projects that 70% of listed miner revenue will come from AI by the end of 2026, up from roughly 30% today. Publicly listed miners are dismantling ASIC racks, selling BTC reserves, and repurposing their power and cooling infrastructure for AI/HPC contracts. BlackRock's latest research calls AI a "supercharged mega force" and notes behind-the-meter power could supply 25-30% of new U.S. data centers. The irony: Bitcoin mining built the energy infrastructure that AI now desperately needs. The miners who stay? Their margins improve as competitors exit and difficulty adjusts downward.

Trump Invokes Defense Production Act for Grid and Coal Infrastructure

Why it matters: The energy bottleneck is now a national security issue, and the government is treating it that way.

President Trump signed presidential determinations invoking the Defense Production Act to accelerate grid infrastructure buildout and secure coal supply chains for baseload power. The Hormuz crisis has exposed how fragile the U.S. energy grid is when global supply chains are disrupted. Companies that have been building at the intersection of energy infrastructure and large-scale compute are very well positioned here. Giga Energy, Upstream Data, and Satoshi Energy have spent years providing the picks and shovels, including modular data center and transformer infrastructure, as well as gen set production for off-grid power generation, along with power purchase agreements, flare gas monetization, and behind-the-meter generation for large-scale compute. A federal push to expand grid capacity and baseload power is a direct tailwind for these operators. Bitcoin mining built the playbook for monetizing stranded energy. Now the government is catching up.