Good Morning,

It’s a great morning to waste 40 minutes listening to the $HAWK Tuah memecoin story. Don’t worry we will save you the time.

Here's a quick preview of today’s content: Haley Welch and Faze Banks ‘talk to-us’ about Hawk Tuah memecoin rugpull, Gemini eyes 2025 IPO, VanEck drops bullish Solana prediction, pump.fun hit with cease & desist, Czech President makes pro-crypto move for long-term hodlers, and so much more below 👇

Happy Friday, the weekend is near - Let’s dive in.

Market Snapshot

• Crypto had one of it’s roughest full weeks in many months

• BTC finishes down 6.6%, ETH and SOL down ~17%, while XRP, DOGE, ADA fall 24%

  • Lots of news headlines were potential impacts for crypto’s week in the red

    • Trump’s tariff announcements

    • Memecoin madness and legal concerns

    • Market liquidity reached new outflow records higher than Luna and FTX market collapses’

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

• ‘Hawk Tuah’ girl, Haliey Welch, broke down into tears while talking about the alleged rugpull of her coin, watch here

• NEOS Investments announced a 29.5% distribution yield for their Bitcoin High Income ETF, BTCI

• Franklin Templeton awaits SEC approval for crypto index ETF (CT)

• VanEck predicts Solana will reach $520 in 2025

• Ripple’s Brad Garlinghouse could be appointed to the White House Crypto Council (CT)

• Crypto exchange Gemini is considering an IPO as soon as this year (TB) 

• Trump Media and Technology Group plans to launch a Bitcoin ETF (CD) 

• 71% of institutional traders have no plans to trade crypto this year (CT) 

• Satoshi Nakamoto's Bitcoin stash may be worth over $108B (CT) 

• Coinbase executive links Satoshi Nakamoto's wallets to activity as late as 2014 (TB) 

• Coinbase’s chief lawyer testifies in Congress about crypto debanking (CD) 

• Grayscale files to list its Litecoin trust as an ETP on NYSE Arca (CT) 

• Cboe BZX Exchange files 19b-4s for Bitwise, 21Shares, and Canary Capital for an XRP ETF (TB) 

• Former Celsius CEO Alex Mashinsky seeks a one-month delay in his sentencing (TB) 

• Tornado Cash developer Alexey Perstev to be released from prison as he appeals his money laundering conviction (DC) 

• Bybit completes registration in India after paying $1M fine for unauthorized operations (CD) 

• 1inch Network integrates ZKsync integration to offer faster and cheaper cross-chain swaps (CD) 

• Traders push BNB Chain’s tutorial video token to a $35M market cap (CT) 

• Texas Rep. Al Green criticizes Trump for launching his own memecoin (CT) 

• CME crypto trading volumes hit a record of $285M in January (CT) 

• Two law firms issue cease & desist orders against Pump.fun for IP issues with 200+ memecoins (CT)

Launches

• Berachain launches its mainnet and BERA token, which hits a $1B marketcap (BW) 

• Ondo Finance announces release of Layer-1 blockchain for institutional RWA tokenization, Ondo Chain (OF)

• Kuroro Wilds launches play-to-airdrop campaign ahead of KURO token launch (DC) 

• Laurence Day’s Wildcat defi platform launches new version on Ethereum (TB)

• Ethereum’s Pectra upgrade expects testing to begin this month with hopes to launch on mainnet in April (CD)

Venture Capital

• 0G Foundation launches $88.8M fund to support decentralized AI applications (CD) 

• Near Foundation launches $20M AI Agent Fund to support AI-powered agent  tokens (CS) 

• Tevau announces $10M valuation in latest pre-seed financing (TV)

• INXY Payments raises $3M from Flashpoint Ventures and angel investors (TEU)

• Fraktion raises €1.1M from Cabrit Capital, Tezos Foundation, and others for tokenization and fractionalization of real-world assets (FL)

• Nextrope secures $1M for web3 security project (GNW)

• Keystone Hardware Wallet backed by Avalanche Foundation ‘infraBUIDL()’ program (KW)

Regulation

• Czech President signs bill to waive capital gains tax on bitcoin holdings of over three years (TB)

Cybersecurity

• Jupiter’s X account is hacked to promote fake memecoins (TB)

• XRP ledger back online after hour long technical glitch (CCN)

• This week’s crypto hack roundup (BiS)

Extra Reads

• ChatGPT was down globally around 10am ET on Thursday

  Here’s how it impacted crypto & DApps

• Haley ‘Hawk Tuah’ Welch makes her first social appearance in 3 months

  FULL PODCAST HERE

Chart of the Day

With Ethereum’s Pectra Upgrade expected in April, here’s a look at the ETH Supply Total throughout the years

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.