Good Morning,

Here's a quick preview of today’s content: Turns out the original artist of the 'chill guy' meme is indeed NOT a chill guy and is threatening to sue exchanges and creators of the coin (full breakdown at end of article), Bitcoin continues to march towards $100,000 by breaking multiple all time highs in one day, Saylor wants Microsoft to put BTC on their balance sheet, and more

Happy Thursday, let’s dive in.

Market Snapshot

• Bitcoin flew today above its previous ATH and now sets its sights on $100,000

  • The new all time high is currently $97,862.64 a coin

  • BlackRock launched options trading for its iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) on Tuesday and tallied nearly $1.9B in notional exposure with 354,000 contracts traded

  • The action included 289,000 calls and 65,000 puts, representing a 4.4:1 call-to-put ratio. That indicates a larger number of investors believe bitcoin's price will move higher, compared to those hedging against a potential decline.

Headline Roundup
^{_{The major headlines driving crypto markets}}

• President-elect Donald Trump is considering creating a White House crypto role (BBG) 

• Bitcoin blasts past $97,000 as futures hint at more room to run (DC)

• FTX co-founder Gary Wang avoided prison thanks to his cooperation in convicting Sam Bankman-Fried (BBG)

• MicroStrategy raised $2.6B from a 0% senior convertible note offering to buy more Bitcoin (BBG) 

• BlackRock’s Bitcoin ETF options amassed ~$2B in notional exposure on their first day (CD)

• Founder of Tron, Justin Sun, bought a banana taped to a wall for $6.2M at Sotheby’s auction (BI)

• The SEC distributed $4.6M to investors in defunct crypto startup BitClave (CD) 

• Crypto data tracking firm Arkham Intel plans to launch a spot trading platform in the United States (TB)

• Michael Saylor to present to the Microsoft Board next month about buying Bitcoin for its treasury (BM)

• Grayscale to launch Bitcoin ETF Options following BlackRock’s record option trading debut (DC)

• Coinbase held the #1 spot in the finance category on the IOS app store (CT)

• Digital asset wallet Phantom reached the second spot on the charts in the utilities section of the US Apple App Store (CT) 

• Bitcoin’s independence from S&P500 and Nasdaq has grown post election (CS)

• A mysterious Shiba Inu whale holds 10% of SHIB supply, has made over 250,000x to $2.5B (CT)

• Ethereum giants formerly known as MakerDAO and DAI now on Solana (DC)

• Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy to launch "Dogecast" podcast for the Department of Government Efficiency (WG)

Launches

• Crypto Exchange Archax to offer tokenized money market Funds from State Street, Fidelity International and LGIM (CD)

Venture Capital

• Valantis Labs, the developer behind the DEX protocol Valantis, has raised $7.5M from Cyber Fund, Kraken Ventures and others (TB)

• Blockchain ticketing startup Celebratix raised a $1.2M round from uBIT and angels (EU)

• VC Firm A16z Pushes Back on “Predatory” Crypto Token Deals (BBG)

Cybersecurity

• US prosecutors accused five alleged members of the Scattered Spider gang of a hacking spree resulting in a theft of sensitive data and $11M in crypto (BBG) 

• Crypto whale narrowly avoided $129M loss after falling victim to a phishing on the TRON blockchain (CS)

• Switzerland’s Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA) has raised concerns about rising crypto money laundering risk (CS)

Chill Guy Drama Heats Up

The creator of the popular internet character 'Chill Guy' has recently copyrighted the character and announced plans to enforce this copyright by issuing takedowns for any for-profit use. This is a meme coin based of the chill guy meme that has taken tiktok by storm (mostly by non native crypto people). The coin exploded in popularity in a matter of days flying from $0.04 to $0.5 and an insane market cap of over $450M.

The posts by the artist of the meme has sparked irony and discussion among fans and observers, who point out the contradiction between the character's laid-back persona and the creator's legal actions, leading many to label the creator as 'not chill'.

Here’s what the artist recently posted on X:

In response, the unofficial but official chill guy coin twitter account posted a SOL wallet address for community members to donate to.

Currently the wallet has over $300,000 USD worth of donations that you can see here.

We will keep you updated on what seemingly not chill guy Phillip Banks decides to do.

Meme Dump

Pls send us crypto memes to be featured in the newsletter 🤝

🐦 Follow Us: Visit our X account for constant updates on all things web3, DeFi, and crypto.

💵 Litquidity Ventures: Accredited investors & qualified purchasers within the Litquidity community can gain access to alternative investments such as venture, late-stage growth, and private equity through Litquidity Ventures. Interested? Fill out this form.

☎️ Book a call with Lit: Want to pick Litquidity’s brain on business advice, insights, or just chat to say what’s up? Buy his time here.

📧 Launch your own newsletter: Have great content ideas and looking to launch your own publication? We highly recommend Beehiiv to get started.