Bitcoin Holds $81K as Schwab Opens BTC Trading, Square Hits 1M Merchants and MARA Sells $1.5B
Bitcoin Bitcoin Holds $81K as Schwab Opens BTC Trading, Square Hits 1M Merchants and MARA Sells $1.5B Maelstrom chief investment officer Arthur Hayes argues that escalating AI capital expenditure and the ongoing Iran conflict will force both Washington and Beijing into accelerated fiat issuance, setting up a powerful tailwind for Bitcoin. In a fresh commentary, he frames the AI race as a national security imperative that politicians will fund through printed money and bank loans, calling the combination a perfect environment for crypto. Hayes maintains that a return to the prior all-time high and a $126,000 target is a foregone conclusion, citing BTCs roughly 31% rebound from its February low near $62,822 and its outperformance versus gold and US tech equities since late February. Charles Schwab has switched on its long-awaited Schwab Crypto platform, opening direct bitcoin and ether trading to its first wave of eligible retail clients on Tuesday. The brokerage giant, which managed $11.77 trillion in client assets and 39.1 million active accounts at the end of March, will charge a 75-basis-point trading fee and operate the service in every US state except New York and Louisiana. Clients hold a separate crypto account custodied by Charles Schwab Premier Bank, with Paxos