Morning Minute: Paul Tudor Jones Calls Bitcoin Strongest Inflation Hedge

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GM!

Today’s top news:

• Crypto majors rebound 1-2% ahead of FOMC; BTC at $77.5k
• Paul Tudor Jones calls Bitcoin the strongest inflation hedge, better than gold
• Pump Fun burns $370M in tokens, announces new programmatic buy back
• Robinhood’s HOOD stock falls 10% on earnings miss, falling crypto revenue
• Polymarket in active discussions with CFTC to lift ban on US users

? Paul Tudor Jones Calls Bitcoin Strongest Inflation Hedge

In a Tuesday interview on the Invest Like the Best podcast, Paul Tudor Jones called Bitcoin the strongest inflation hedge available, explicitly ranking it above gold.

His reasoning is straightforward: gold’s supply grows every year; Bitcoin’s doesn’t. During periods of aggressive monetary and fiscal stimulus, he said, Bitcoin is the standout inflation trade, citing the 2020 surge as the clearest historical example. “Bitcoin is unequivocally the best inflation hedge that there is – more than gold,” he said.

His comments on equities were a bit different. He said that current S&P 500 valuations remind him of the 2000 dot-com bubble. The stock market cap relative to GDP is near historic extremes. He warned it will be “really hard to make money” in stocks over the next decade, and added that a major market correction would worsen the federal deficit by collapsing capital-gains tax revenues and destabilizing the bond market.

? Robinhood’s HOOD Stock Dips as Crypto Revenue Falls

Robinhood reported Q1 2026 results Tuesday, missing estimates on revenue and income. Total revenue came in at $1.07 billion against a $1.14 billion consensus. Net income of $346 million ($0.38/share) was one cent short of expectations. Shares fell 6% after hours and are down 10% premarket.

The driver of the miss is straightforward: crypto transaction revenue fell 34% quarter-over-quarter to $134 million, and 47% year-over-year, tracking Bitcoin’s 22% price decline over the same period.

The miss is notable because the rest of the business held up. Prediction markets, futures, and index options all posted record volumes in Q1. Equities and options grew double digits. Unfortunately, HOOD’s revenue remains tightly correlated to BTC price action, and the stock has tracked BlackRock’s IBIT more closely than the S&P 500 for most of 2026. The Q2 recovery in crypto prices, if it holds, should show up in the next print

? Pump.fun Burns $370M in Tokens, Promises New Buybacks

Pump.fun executed a major token restructuring Tuesday, burning approximately $370 million worth of $PUMP tokens (roughly 36% of circulating supply). The burn covers all tokens accumulated through nine months of 100% revenue buybacks.

At the same time, Pump announced a new programmatic buy-and-burn for PUMP tokens using 50% of revenue. They will use an irreversible smart contract locking 50% of all net revenue from the Bonding Curve, PumpSwap, and Terminal into automatic open-market purchases and burns for the next year. The remaining 50% will fund operations and growth.

Zoomed out, Pump.fun has seen tremendous success. In the past few years, Pump has:

• Raised $500 million in 12 minutes through its $PUMP token sale
• Surpassed $1 billion in lifetime platform revenue
• Generated hundreds of billions in trading volume.

But despite allocating 100% of revenue to buybacks, the team said a trust deficit developed around what those bought-back tokens would eventually be used for. The hope is that this new burn removes that uncertainty permanently (or at least for the next year).

? The CFTC Is Using AI to Review Crypto Applications

CFTC Chairman Mike Selig told CoinDesk that the agency is building AI tools to review crypto registration applications and monitor trading markets, as a direct response to losing more than 20% of its workforce under Trump’s federal staffing cuts.

The current process is fully manual with document submissions reviewed by staff. The new system will flag incomplete applications, speed up feedback, and reject filings that aren’t materially complete. Current staff are being trained on Microsoft Copilot while in-house swap data and market surveillance tools are in development.

Selig identified the joint CFTC/SEC digital asset taxonomy guidance as the most consequential crypto action of his tenure, and put prediction market participants “on notice” about the agency’s enforcement posture. Notably, the SEC has roughly six times the CFTC’s staff, while the CFTC’s mandate is expanding rapidly to cover crypto, prediction markets, and derivatives. The hope is that AI can help make up for that resource gap…

?? Polymarket Is Trying to Come Back to the U.S.

Polymarket is in active discussions with the CFTC to lift the ban on U.S. traders from its main international exchange, Bloomberg reported Tuesday.

The restriction has been in place since a 2022 settlement in which Polymarket paid a $1.4 million fine and agreed to exit the US market after operating an unregistered event contract facility. A separate US-only Polymarket platform received CFTC clearance in November following the company’s acquisition of a registered exchange, but that platform has yet to fully launch.

A CFTC vote is required to remove the ban. With four commission seats currently vacant, Chairman Selig is the sole sitting commissioner, which could simplify the approval process. If cleared, Polymarket’s main exchange would compete directly with Kalshi on US soil for the first time.

? Macro Crypto and Markets

• Crypto majors rebounded 1-2% ahead of FOMC today; BTC +2% at $77.5k; ETH +3% at $2,330; SOL +2% at $85; HYPE +1% at $40.30
• DOGE (+12%), PEPE (+8%) and FIL (+7%) led top movers
• Oil +4% at $103; Gold -1% at $4,570
• Stock futures are slightly green ahead of FOMC and despite surging oil
• The CFTC sued Wisconsin Tuesday, making it the fifth state the agency has taken to federal court in less than a month over prediction market jurisdiction
• Tether announced Tuesday it is building a new class of modular, high-density Bitcoin mining systems in partnership with Canaan and ACME Swisstech
• Localhost Research announced a new Post Quantum Cryptography Group Tuesday, partnering with Stanford cryptographers Benedikt Bünz and Dan Boneh to fund dedicated research into Bitcoin-specific post-quantum signature schemes
• Canada announced plans to ban crypto ATMs to protect its citizens from fraud

Corporate Treasuries & ETFs

Meme Coin Tracker

• Meme leaders were very green; DOGE +12%, SHIB +6%, PEPE +8%, PENGU +1%, TRUMP +1%, BONK +6%, SPX +7%, FARTCOIN +7%
• Bull (+60%), Either (+30%) and CARDS (+14%) led notable movers

? Token, Airdrop & Protocol Tracker

• MegaETH launched a new terminal and incentive program, with points earned based on app usage (MEGA +9%)
• Layer Zero pledged 10,000+ ETH to the DeFi United cause, a much awaited reaction given the team’s involvement in the exploit

? What is happening in NFTs?

• NFT leaders were mostly flat; Punks even at 30.9 ETH, BAYC +1% at 9.75 ETH, Pudgy +1% at 5.34 ETH; Hypurr’s -3% at 350 HYPE
• MegaETH NFTs rallied with World Computer Netizens (+60%) and Bad Bunnz (+55%) leading