Here’s what happened in crypto today

Today in crypto, a crypto analyst mulls over altcoin season approaching, CZ denies ties to Trump, said pardon was a ‘surprise,’ Cathie Wood’s ARK Invest added $2 million in BitMine shares across its ETFs.

Altcoin season signals hide in ‘many weeks’ of bearish BTC dominance: Analyst

The recent volatility in Bitcoin’s dominance could be a signal that altcoin season is approaching sooner than many traders expect, according to a crypto analyst.

“The reason why you should have confidence in the altcoin price action is because the BTC Dominance chart looks bearish and has looked bearish for many weeks,” crypto analyst Matthew Hyland said in an X post on Friday. 

“The downtrend is favorable to continue; therefore, this relief rally has been a dead cat bounce in a downtrend,” Hyland said. In a separate video on Saturday, Hyland said that the recent volatility in Bitcoin’s price may have been orchestrated by traditional finance giants.

“Over the past month, I’ve kind of just maintained the view that a lot of this was really just manipulation, essentially for Wall Street to set themselves up,” he claimed.

CZ says he was surprised by pardon, denies ties to the Trump family

Binance co-founder CZ said the pardon from United States President Donald Trump came as a surprise and that the two have never met, spoken personally, or had close ties.

The only interaction CZ has had with the Trump family was talking to Eric Trump at the Bitcoin Middle East and North Africa (MENA) conference in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates (UAE), CZ told Fox News. He also said he was unaware of how the pardon would develop throughout the process:

“I did not know when or if it was going to happen. I believe my lawyers submitted the petition in April, and it took a few months. I didn’t know the progress. There was no indication of how far it went along, etc. Then, it happened one day.”

The pardon drew a divide between crypto industry executives, who celebrated the move, and US lawmakers in the Democratic Party, who were critical of the pardon and argued that it was financially motivated.

Cathie Wood’s ARK Invest adds BitMine shares as it offloads $30M in Tesla stock

Cathie Wood’s ARK Invest has increased its exposure to Tom Lee’s Ether treasury firm BitMine while reducing its position in Tesla.

According to the firm’s daily trading disclosures dated Friday, ARK purchased a combined 48,454 shares of BitMine (worth around $2 million) across three of its exchange-traded funds (ETFs), including the ARK Innovation ETF (ARKK), the ARK Fintech Innovation ETF (ARKF) and the ARK Next Generation Internet ETF (ARKW).

Wood’s investment funds have been increasing their exposure to BitMine since it started accumulating Ether (ETH) as a treasury asset in April.

BitMine shares were up 7.65% on the day to reach $40.23 in after-hours trading, according to Google Finance. The stock has gained a whopping 415% since the beginning of the year.