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- The Bull Didn’t Break. It Rotated
The Bull Didn’t Break. It Rotated
PLUS: BlackRock Wants a Staked ETH ETF
Welcome back to The Warmup.
It’s Monday, and even the 0.002 Bitcoin in my portfolio looks like it finally had a good weekend.
Here’s what we’re watching:
Market Snapshot
The Bull Didn’t Break. It Rotated
BlackRock Wants a Staked Ethereum ETF
Calendar
Market: Crypto is pushing up with ETH and SOL leading, while equities soften and volatility ticks higher.
The Bull Didn’t Break. It Rotated
What’s going on:
Over the last six weeks, the market went from AI euphoria to AI obituary writing.
Nvidia cooled off, Microsoft lost momentum and everyone started yelling bubble. But the selloff wasn’t because AI is failing. It was because liquidity disappeared.
The Treasury refilled its checking account and sucked money out of markets, draining liquidity and triggering the wobble. Now that the Treasury is spending again, the TGA is reversing and liquidity is flowing back in. The drought is ending.
Credit is turning up too. Loan growth has stabilized, lending standards are easing and businesses are borrowing again.
The engine is warming back up.
Now comes the rotation.
The first phase of this bull was Nvidia carrying the torch. The next phase is the infrastructure build. Smart money is moving into picks and shovels. These are the companies that scale AI to reality.
What it means:
The AI trade didn’t die. It paused. Liquidity is returning, credit is expanding and capital is rotating into the builders instead of just the poster children.
The easy money trade was Nvidia.
The smart money trade is infrastructure. If liquidity keeps rising, the next move is likely bigger, broader and powered by the companies making AI physically possible.
The hose is back on. The play now is not chasing what ran before. It’s buying the backbone of what comes next.
BlackRock Wants a Staked Ethereum ETF
What’s going on:
BlackRock just filed with the SEC for the iShares Staked Ethereum Trust ETF.
The goal is simple: track ETH’s price while also earning staking rewards. This comes shortly after they registered the ETF name in Delaware, which hinted a filing was coming. Now it’s official.
Their current spot ETH ETF, ETHA, is already the largest in the U.S. with about $17B under management.
The missing piece is staking, and this new product is built to fill that gap. TradFi investors would be able to access yield on ETH without running validators, managing keys, or touching onchain infrastructure.
Competitors like Grayscale and Fidelity already offer staking functionality in their products. BlackRock entering this arena could accelerate demand and set staking as the new ETF baseline.
What it means:
Staking is transitioning from a crypto-native activity to an institutional product. A staked ETH ETF is yield, made simple. That changes the incentive to hold, and more importantly, to hold longer.
Spot ETH ETFs attracted capital. A staked ETH ETF could lock it in with yield.
If approved, this becomes a major upgrade to Ethereum’s investment profile and pushes the market closer to ETF phase two.
Institutions want yield.
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Key Events this Week
Major token unlocks:
Linea (LINEA): ~$11M unlock on Dec 10 (~6.7% of supply)
Aptos (APT): ~$20M unlock on Dec 11 (~0.8% of supply)
Macroeconomic data calendar:
Tue (Dec 9):
September JOLTS Job Openings: Tracks labor demand across the economy → rising openings signal a tight labor market; falling openings suggest cooling employment conditions.
Wed (Dec 10):
December Fed Interest Rate Decision: Markets expect the third rate cut of 2025 → rate policy shifts will guide risk-asset momentum into year-end.
Fed Chair Powell Press Conference: Forward guidance matters more than the cut itself → tone on inflation, growth, and future easing will move bonds, USD, and crypto.
Thu (Dec 11):
OPEC Monthly Report: Oil production + demand outlook → bullish revisions tighten supply; weak projections reflect slowing global demand.
Initial Jobless Claims: Real-time read on labor health → rising claims point to slowdown risk; lower claims reinforce resilience.
US 30Y Treasury Bond Auction: Key demand test for long-duration assets → strong bid covers ease funding pressure; weak demand could push yields higher.
Major Earnings Releases:
Tue (Dec 9): GameStop
Wed (Dec 10): Oracle, Adobe
Staked ETH ETF = ETH price… |
Crypto is hurting, but the weakness looks temporary rather than permanent.
Liquidity is stabilizing, fundamentals are holding, and the long-term reward still favors real products with real users.
Fear creates opportunity, but only disciplined allocation into strength will benefit from the eventual recovery.
The next cycle will be built on fewer winners, so choose quality and ignore the noise.
— The Warmup Team
Always do your own research. This newsletter is supplemental material to help educate readers as they make their own decisions. Projects mentioned here are provided to give a potential early-mover advantage.