Good Morning,

Here's a quick preview of today’s content: A meme of a ‘chill guy’ completely takes over the degen trading space, the Russian government has officially set a crypto tax limit, Shaq has to pay up after NFT rug pull, institutions show support for a US Bitcoin reserve

Happy Wednesday, let’s dive in.

Market Snapshot

• Rollercoaster day for Bitcoin breaking all time highs above $94,000 then sinking back down to $91k in a flash

  • New all time high sits at $94,002.8

• A meme has gone viral all of over Tiktok named 'chill guy' - in turn a coin was made that has gone absolutely nuclear eclipsing a $260M market cap in a matter of a day

  • Find out how this meme was born here

  • See the coin on dex tools here 

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

• VanEck officially endorses President-elect Trump's plan to create a strategic Bitcoin reserve (CN)

• Bitcoin mining stock MARA raises it’s convertible stock offering by $150M after overwhelming investor demand (CD)

• BlackRock’s IBIT Bitcoin options trading began and tracked an incredible $446M of volume in its first trading hours (CS)

• Rumble in talks with Michael Saylor regarding adding bitcoin to their balance sheet (BM)

• Former custodian of Tether and pro crypto enthusiast Howard Lutnick just got elected as Commerce Secretary (CD) 

• Centralized exchange Gemini expands its operations in France (CD) 

• Kid makes a coin on pump.fun, proceeds to dump whole bag for $30K, all while live streaming (TT)

• El Salvador looks to tokenize T-bill investments to the wider public (CD)

• Chair of FDIC, Martin Gruenberg announces resignation as Trump’s sweep continues (CN)

• BlackRock is bullish on US strategic bitcoin reserve (CS)

• Major bitcoin mining stocks surge 33% after the elections, per JP Morgan (CD)

• Paypal looks to expand in Asian and African markets through cross-border stablecoin payments (CT)

• The last FTX executive to be sentenced on Wednesday (CT) 

• NFT marketplace MagicEden reveals tokenomics for $ME token (TD)

• BitWise announces option trading for its own ETF product BITB (CS)

• Halfway through the month and CME’s crypto unit is already logging its best month since it launched bitcoin futures contracts way back in 2017 (BW)

• Coinbase announces delisting of wrapped BTC or simply ‘wBTC’ (TB) 

• The value of one Bitcoin has surpassed the average retirement savings of Americans (TD)

• Central Bank of Brazil teams up with Chainlink to build blockchain based trading solution (TD)

• Clarification: Binance’s BFUSD is not a stablecoin, Binance clarifies amid community’s Terra flashbacks (CT)

• The 2019 MacBook Pro used by the IRS to seize $3.6B worth of Bitcoin stolen from crypto exchange Bitfinex is being put in Smithsonian (DC) 

• Hedera HABR surges amid rumors of Brian Brooks replacing Gary Gensler (DC)

Launches

• The Layer 1 blockchain protocol Injective launched iAgent, a SDK that lets users create their own onchain artificial intelligence agent (TB)

• Sky, formerly Maker, goes multi-chain, deploying the stablecoin on Solana (BW)

• Ai16z partners with RyzeLabs to launch its own AI accelerator program (CB)

• DYdX launches its own ‘Unlimited upgrade’, allowing permissionless market listings (TD)

• BitFinity launches its own layer 2 (CT)

Venture Capital

• OpenLayer, a new AI protocol, has raised 5M in seed funding round from a16z CSX, Geometry, IOSG Ventures and others (TB)

Regulation

• Crypto assets are no longer prohibited as commodities, per China's High Court (BIC)

• Russian government approves 15% tax on crypto transactions (CS)

• DAO participants can be held liable for the actions of the other members, per CA judge (CT)

Cybersecurity

• Shaq expected to pay $11M settlement in Astrals NFT lawsuit (DC) 

• Forta aims to fight smart contract exploits through Firewall (TB)

• Polter Finance exploited, $12M wiped out (TD)

• BIT Mining expected to pay $10M penalty regarding the alleged bribery of Japanese officials (TB)

Chart of the Day

If you bought the MSTR top back in the 2000 tech bubble you are officially back in the green!

Meme Dump

how the 'chill guy meme' all started…

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

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