The Daily: Dormant bitcoin whale wakes up after 12-year slumber to 830x gains, Andre Cronje's Flying Tulip raises $200M, and more

The following article is adapted from The Block’s newsletter, The Daily, which comes out on weekday afternoons.

Happy Monday! Polymarket puts U.S. government shutdown odds above 65%, but BofA sees only minor fallout — a small GDP drag, muted market reaction, and limited impact on crypto compared to debt ceiling crises.

In today's newsletter, another bitcoin whale moves funds for the first time in 12 years, Andre Cronje's Flying Tulip raises $200 million, Swift confirms it is planning to integrate blockchain into its infrastructure stack, and more.

Meanwhile, Strategy and BitMine reinforce their respective spots as the leading Bitcoin and Ethereum treasury holders.

Let's get started!

P.S. CryptoIQ is now available to everyone. Take the test for a chance to win $20,000!

Dormant bitcoin whale wakes up after 12-year slumber to 830x gains

A dormant bitcoin wallet holding $44 million in BTC moved its funds over the weekend after 12 years of inactivity.

• Arkham data shows the whale transferred around 400 BTC, mostly in equal 15 BTC batches, completely emptying its wallet.
• Lookonchain traced the funds back to miner rewards received 15 years ago, but the owner and motives for the sudden transfer remain unknown.
• During the wallet's dormant period, bitcoin's price surged roughly 830x, from about $135 to $111,800 at the time of the transfers.
• Multiple Satoshi-era wallets have emerged from decade-long dormancies in recent months as bitcoin rallied to new highs this year, and some OGs seemingly look to take profit.
• Recent moves include Galaxy Digital selling 80,000 BTC for an investor's estate planning requirements and another whale rotating $5 billion in BTC into ETH.

Andre Cronje's Flying Tulip raises $200 million at $1 billion token valuation

Andre Cronje's new crypto project, Flying Tulip, has raised $200 million at a $1 billion fully diluted token valuation via a private seed funding round and plans to raise up to $800 million more through an FT public sale.

• Flying Tulip is pitched as a full-stack onchain exchange spanning all of DeFi — including spot, derivatives, lending, stablecoins, and insurance, with an initial rollout on Sonic.
• All investors in both private and public rounds will get an "onchain redemption right," letting participants redeem their principal anytime for downside protection with "unlimited upside," Cronje said.
• However, this means the funds cannot be used freely, so instead, Cronje plans to deploy the pledged capital into onchain yield strategies via protocols like Aave and Ethena, targeting around $40 million in annual yield to fund growth, incentives, and buybacks while keeping the principal redeemable.

Swift to work with Consensys on blockchain prototype for cross-border payments

Global financial messaging network Swift will integrate a blockchain-based shared ledger into its infrastructure stack, starting with real-time, 24/7 cross-border payments.

• The ledger design builds on a conceptual prototype Swift co-developed with Consensys — the software firm behind MetaMask and Ethereum Layer 2 Linea — and uses smart contracts to validate tokenized value transfers.
• Over 30 global banks, including Bank of America, HSBC, and BNP Paribas, will help test and implement the system.
• Swift positions the project as a step toward interoperable, onchain financial infrastructure while preserving its compliance standards.

Hyperliquid unveils Hypurr NFTs, floor price surges to $69,000

Hyperliquid launched 4,600 Hypurr NFTs on its HyperEVM mainnet on Sunday, with the floor price quickly climbing to nearly $69,000.

• The collection has already generated over $45 million in trading volume, with standout sales like Hypurr #21 fetching close to $470,000.
• Most NFTs went to early users from Hyperliquid's genesis event, when its HYPE token was launched, with smaller allocations for the foundation, developers, and artists.
• "The goal of the Hypurr NFT collection was to share a memento with those who believed in and contributed early on to Hyperliquid's growth," the Hyper Foundation said, with no guarantee of further utility.

Macro data dents sentiment as global crypto funds see $812 million in weekly outflows

Crypto investment products saw $812 million in net outflows globally last week, led by $719 million from Bitcoin-based funds and $409 million from Ethereum products, according to CoinShares' data.

• Stronger-than-anticipated macroeconomic data impacted sentiment in the U.S., although year-to-date flows remain robust at $39.6 billion, Head of Research James Butterfill noted.
• However, Solana and XRP bucked the trend with $291 million and $93 million in respective inflows, likely on anticipation of U.S. ETF launches, Butterfill said.

In the next 24 hours

• UK GDP data are released at 2 a.m. ET on Tuesday.
• ECB President Christine Lagarde will speak at 8:50 a.m.
• Optimism and 1inch are set for token unlocks.
• TOKEN2049 side events kick off in Singapore. BTC in D.C. gets underway in the U.S. capital.

Never miss a beat with The Block's daily digest of the most influential events happening across the digital asset ecosystem.