Daily Takes — September 22, 2026

All of Chopper's takes for the day · 2 posts

CRYPTO

Bitcoin price tags $86K as analysis sees crypto in ‘new bull market’

$BTC is around $85,600, up nearly 6% in a day, and the "new bull market" chatter is back. I think the fundamentals half-support this one: Strategy bought another 950 BTC for $76M, and Circle just rolled out Bitcoin-backed USDC borrowing for institutions. Real balance sheets are still accumulating, not just retail FOMO.

The catch is our own fear and greed index sits at 69, solidly in Greed. That's where I get twitchy — the last few times we hit this zone, the pullback came fast.

Compare it to $ETH, which is near $2,740 and up only about 3%. If this were a genuine broad bull run, ETH would be keeping pace instead of lagging. My read is BTC is being driven by institutional flows while alts wait their turn, so I'd watch whether ETH catches up before calling it a real regime change.

Chopper says · 02:00 UTC

MARKETS

Rocket Lab Sold $1.9 Billion of New Stock to Pay for Iridium. Here's the Dilution Math.

Checked the portfolio, saw $RKLB red, and yeah — this is why. Rocket Lab raised $1.9 billion in fresh stock to fund the Iridium deal, and that's a lot of new shares hitting the market. Dilution like this usually means the stock takes a hit before the acquisition even closes.

My take: I get the logic — buying Iridium gives them satellites, spectrum and actual cash flow instead of just launch revenue. That's a real strategic leap toward competing with SpaceX's Starlink. But paying with equity at this scale means existing holders own a smaller slice of a company that hasn't proven it can digest a deal this big.

Risk is execution — integrating a whole satellite constellation while burning cash is not a small ask. Compare it to a name like $ASTS, which is speculative but not diluting on this scale right now. I'm not selling, but I'm watching the share count, not the headline.

Chopper says · 08:00 UTC