Happy Friday everyone, hope you all have had a lovely week!

Bitcoin is trading around $77,300 as of Friday afternoon which is its highest level since early February and up roughly +7% on the week. The catalyst: Iran's foreign minister announced the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz for the duration of the ceasefire, oil plunged nearly 10%, and Bitcoin ripped through the $76K double-top that had capped it all week. Up ~14% off its April lows.

Here are the five things you need to know.

1. Strait of Hormuz reopens and Bitcoin breaks $77K

Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi confirmed this morning that "the Strait will be open for the period of the remaining US-Iran ceasefire," which runs through April 22. President Trump responded on Truth Social thanking Iran for the full reopening. Within hours, BTC punched above $77,000, its highest print since February, while WTI crude collapsed nearly 10%. The rally is the mirror image of Monday's shock: when Trump ordered a naval blockade on April 12 after peace talks collapsed, BTC bottomed at $70,741 before a short squeeze drove it back toward $75K. This morning's news closes the loop. The ceasefire is temporary and the IRGC's "Strait of Hormuz Management Plan," requiring oil tankers to pay a $1-per-barrel fee in Bitcoin for safe passage, remains on the books regardless. Chainalysis called it "a significant milestone for state adoption." Whether oil actually flows freely by April 22 is the trade of the next five days.

2. Wall Street's Bitcoin ETF arms race goes nuclear

Goldman Sachs filed with the SEC on Tuesday, April 15 to launch the Goldman Sachs Bitcoin Premium Income ETF — a covered-call product that buys existing spot BTC ETFs like IBIT and sells options against them to generate monthly income, with a 40–100% overwrite range depending on market conditions. It's aimed squarely at yield-starved boomers and could launch by end of June. Meanwhile, Morgan Stanley's MSBT, which opened April 8 at a 0.14% fee (vs. BlackRock's IBIT at 0.25%), pulled in over $100M in its first week which makes it Morgan Stanley's most successful ETF launch ever. Crypto ETFs overall saw $1.1B in inflows last week, a 4-month high, with Bitcoin ETFs alone absorbing $12.4B in Q1 2026. The takeaway: the ETF fee war is a race to zero, which is great for buyers and brutal for anyone still charging 2% for "exposure."

3. Strategy just dropped another $1B and is gunning for 1M BTC

The corporate bid is not slowing down. Michael Saylor's Strategy (formerly MicroStrategy) added 13,927 BTC for ~$1 billion last week at an average price of $71,902, funded entirely through sales of its STRC preferred stock meaning zero dilution for common shareholders. That brings the company's total to 780,897 BTC (average cost basis: $75,577), making it the world's largest corporate Bitcoin holder by a mile. Saylor has publicly set 1 million BTC by end of 2026 as the target, with roughly $49 billion in dry powder still to deploy. Add that to the ~328,372 BTC the U.S. government already holds under the Strategic Bitcoin Reserve (established by executive order in March 2025, still awaiting congressional legislation to formalize), and you have two of the largest, most programmatic buyers on earth, corporate and sovereign, both in accumulation mode.

4. Hot CPI, cold Fed and Bitcoin finally decoupled from risk

March CPI printed 3.3% headline, the highest since April 2024, driven almost entirely by a 10.9% monthly spike in energy tied to the Iran conflict. Core CPI came in softer at 2.6%, but Q2 rate-cut odds collapsed near zero. The Fed has now held at 3.5%–3.75% for two consecutive meetings, with just one cut penciled in for later this year. Historically, a hot inflation print plus no cuts = risk-off carnage. Instead, BTC rallied from $70,500 to $72,400 within hours of the release and has kept climbing ever since. That's the tell. With tariffs expected to add ~50 bps to headline inflation by mid-year and the Fed trapped between sticky prices and a slowing economy, Bitcoin is starting to trade like what it actually is: a hedge against the financial system itself, not a leveraged bet on Fed liquidity.

5. Bitcoin Weekly Concept: The Separation of Money and State

For roughly 330 years since the Bank of England was chartered in 1694 money has been a monopoly of the state. Every major currency on earth required a sovereign to issue it, a central bank to manage it, and an army to defend it. You used the king's money or you went hungry. This wasn't a law of nature; it was a limitation of physics. Gold was heavy, counterfeiting was possible, and ledgers required trusted record-keepers so someone had to be in charge. Bitcoin is the first monetary system in history that requires none of those things. It has no issuer, no central manager and no border. This week's news is the thesis in action: Iran's IRGC demanding BTC for Strait of Hormuz passage, Strategy buying a billion dollars a week with shareholder equity, the U.S. government sitting on ~328,000 coins it cannot dilute, they are all, adversaries and allies alike, plugged into the same neutral monetary protocol governed by math rather than by any of them. That's the historical rupture. The separation of church and state took three centuries and a lot of blood. The separation of money and state is happening on X in real time, one block at a time.

Stack sats. Stay humble. See you next Friday.

— Stephan

The Bitcoin Weekly is not financial advice. It's five things and a concept. Do your own research, hold your own keys, and don't trust — verify.