Good Morning,

Here's a quick preview of today’s content: Circle’s USDC reaches new all-time high market cap, Solana is raking in revenue from retail onboarding through memecoins, a dogecoin ETF has been filed, Larry Fink predicts potential 7x bitcoin, CLS admits to wash trading, and much more!

It’s almost Friday. Let’s dive in.

Market Snapshot

• The CoinDesk 20 is currently trading at 3956.13, down -0.5% since 4 p.m. ET on Tuesday

  • Leaders: SOL (+2.8%) and XRP (+0.2%)

  • Laggards: ICP (-5.6%) and HBAR (-4.9%)

• XRP, SOL prices jumped +3% following an unconfirmed report that the institutions-focused Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) is adding futures contracts of both assets

  • A screenshot of the "staged subdomain" showed that the regulated futures could start trading on February 10 pending regulatory approval.d

Market Predictions

• Traders on Kalshi are currently predicting if a new country will buy Bitcoin this year

• You can trade this market by checking out Kalshi

• Get a $20 bonus when you deposit $100 or more with code “LIT” on signup

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

• Trump announces Stargate Project, a $500B AI investment initiative (DC) 

• BlackRock’s Larry Fink sees $700K Bitcoin if all investors adopt the token (TB) 

• SEC just announced a crypto task force, what this could mean here

• Goldman Sachs’ David Solomon does not see Bitcoin as a threat to the dollar (DC) 

• Blockworks founder reports 50% of $TRUMP/$MELANIA holders had never bought a Solana altcoin before (X)

• USDC supply surpasses $50B (CS)

• CME may launch XRP and Solana futures pending regulatory approval (TB) 

• Crypto lending platform Nexo sets $5K minimum limit to use its services (CD) 

• Solana validators generated over $25M in fees from Trump and Melania memecoins (CD) 

• USDh, a stablecoin built on Bitcoin L2 Stacks, secures $3M in liquidity (CD) 

• Saudi Prince Alwaleed’s Kingdom Holding will not invest in crypto (CD) 

• Coinbase asks US courts to rule that crypto trades on its platform aren't securities (CD)

• Solana stablecoin supply rises 57% following Trump memecoin launch (BW) 

• Worldcoin jumps 25% following announcement of Trump’s $500B AI initiative (DC) 

• Switzerland’s Crypto Valley reached $593B valuation in 2024 (CT) 

• Crypto derivatives exchange Deribit grew trading volumes by 95% to over $1.1T in 2024 (TB) 

• Uniswap Labs’ version 4 begins rollout this week, with full deployment next week (TB) 

• TORN surges over 140% after US court reverses sanctions on Tornado Cash (TB) 

• Coinbase executive claims to have found 430 Bitcoin linked to Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht (TB)

• Satoshi-era wallet rises from 13-year dormancy with 6,400 BTC ($678M) (UT)

• Kraken donates $111,111 worth of BTC to newly pardoned Ross Ulbricht (X)

Launches

• Bitcoin yield farming chain Corn’s $8.3M initial coin offering sees $69M worth of orders (BW) 

• The Solana Optimistic Network raises $22M via an NFT sale ahead of its mainnet launch (TB) 

• LINE NEXT launches Dapps on its messaging platform to drive Web3 adoption in Asia (TB) 

• Mesta looks to launch a hybrid fiat-stablecoin payment rails for cross-border payments (BW)

Venture Capital

• Crypto VC investments expected to exceed $18B in 2025 (MSN) 

• Keplr Wallet raises $5M in a seed round led by 1confirmation (TB) 

• SONEX completes $1M seed fundraise led by Outlier Ventures (UT)

• Accenture Ventures makes strategic investment QuSecure, a post-quantum security startup with crypto agility (BW)

Regulation

• Coinbase asks appeals court to state that on-platform trades are not securities (CD)

• Kansas Senator Bowser introduces bill to invest public employee retirement funds in Bitcoin ETFs (BM)

Cybersecurity

• UAE crypto market maker CLS Global admits to wash trading scheme on Uniswap (DC)

• National security concerns jump with potential for a strategic bitcoin reserve (AB)

• EasyMM and ARGOS partner to improve digital asset protection (MI)

Extra Reads

• Crypto exchange Bitfinex to be returned $9B in stolen bitcoin

  Read Why This Might Be Controversial

• Trump became President of the United States and a crypto billionaire in the same week

  3 Related Topics to Pay Close Attention To

Chart of the Day

47% of TRUMP & MELANIA memecoin buyers created their wallets the same day of their purchase

Meme Dump

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