Good Morning,

Hope you are all HODLing

Here's a quick preview of today’s content: David Sacks spoke yesterday revealing America’s pro-crypto plans, crypto continues its market pullback, ETH was a hot purchase for many firms yesterday, Hong Kong looks to increase headcount for crypto regulators, Solana wallets are being drained from porn sites, and much more.

Volatile crypto markets are starting to shape like today

Happy Hump Day 📈📉 Let’s dive in.

Market Snapshot

• Bitcoin tumbled below $97k yet again Tuesday afternoon

  • Bitcoin dominance regains 60%, causing the crypto market to fall with it, nearly 4%

• Although funds are buying Ether (read below), it continues to struggle with weak price action, going below $4.7k, down 13.1% on the week

• Contrary to pre-week concerns from crypto liquidations, U.S. market finds itself in the green with job data and Chinese tariff news

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

• Crypto Czar David Sacks says a stablecoin bill and national Bitcoin reserve are priorities (TD)

• Peter Thiel-backed crypto exchange Bullish Global is considering an IPO (BBG)

• Congress will create a bicameral working group to develop pro-crypto regulation (RT)

• Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is named head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (BW)

• The SEC is scaling back its 50-person crypto enforcement unit (CT)

• Fidelity purchases $49.75M of Ethereum (BT)

• Trump’s World Libery Financial acquired tens of millions worth of Ether (BBG)

• $1B of Ether left on centralized exchanges during its crash on Monday (CD)

• US Congressman William Timmons displays his Ethereum wallet on his X profile (DC)

• Trump’s meme coin accumulates $100M in trading fees (RT)

• Decentralized lending protocol Aave processed $210M of liquidations on Monday (CD)

• Bitcoin market dominance rises to 58.8% (TB) 

• El Salvador buys another $1.1M of Bitcoin (DC)

• $492M-listed Semler Scientific acquires $88.5M of Bitcoin (TD) 

• Blockchain firm Neptune Digital Assets buys $2M of Bitcoin and begins accumulating Dogecoin (CD) 

• The XRP Ledger temporarily halts block production for an hour on Tuesday (DC) 

• OpenSea’s V2 beta testers accuse the NFT marketplace of copying competitor Blur (TD)  

• Helium Mobile opens its waitlist for its free 5G wireless plan (DC) 

• Crypto.com plans to file for an ETF for its native coin, Cronos (CT) 

• Shiba Inu creates partnership with UAE government (CN)

• FTX will begin payout distributions to small creditors on February 18 (CS) 

Launches

• EVM-equivalent L1 Berachain will launch its mainnet on February 6 (BL)

Venture Capital

• The Taproot Wizards raise $30M in a Series A funding round (TD) 

• Olas, a platform for AI agents in crypto, raises $13.8M to create an ‘agent app store’ (TB) 

• Gaming infrastructure platform Beamable raises a $13.5M Series A led by Bitkraft Ventures (TB) 

• Herd, a collaborative terminal project, raises $1.8M pre-seed round led by Semantic Ventures (CC)

Regulation

• US Senator Bill Hagerty introduces a bill to create a regulatory framework for stablecoins (CT) 

• Coinbase urged US regulators to allow banks to offer crypto services (RT) 

• Hong Kong’s securities watchdog proposes adding headcounts for cryptocurrency-specific staff (TB) 

• The Gwacheon City in South Korea will seize crypto from tax evaders (DC)

• MiCA makes turning point in crypto with stablecoin regulation with (F)

Cybersecurity

• A court upholds a lawyer’s 10-year sentence for his role in a $400M crypto scam (RT) 

• Creditor repayments of $235M WazirX hack may stretch until 2030 without creditor approval (CS)

• Phantom and Trust crypto wallets are being drained from in-wallet porn browsing exploit (AB)

Extra Reads

• Bitcoin had a historic Q4 2024 reaching $100k for the first time

  Here’s how the bitcoin mining environment also thrived

Chart of the Day

The Bitcoin network explained in a chart 💱

Meme Dump

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

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