Good Morning,

Here's a quick preview of today’s content: Crypto venture capital explodes with numerous massive raises in the past 24 hours, BTC jumps above $100k, XRP at 7 year high while overtaking BTC in Google trends, Bitfinex looks to get back 80% of hacked BTC, Texas & Oklahoma introduce BTC reserve bill, and more

Happy Friday! Let’s dive in.

Market Snapshot

• The price of Bitcoin rose above $100,000 late Thursday evenings as Trump’s comments 'rippled' throughout the space

  • At one point BTC reached $102,071 a coin

• On top of this, the recent CPI data released Wednesday indicated that inflation is slowing down

  • The core consumer price index data, excluding food and energy, was 3.2% in December, coming in lower than expected and down from November’s 3.3%

• Litecoin continues to surge (+36% in the past 5 days) as ETF speculation continues to heat up

Market Predictions

• Traders on Kalshi are currently predicting if TikTok will be banned in the US before May

• 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 plans to use an executive order to designate crypto as a national priority (BBG) 

• Famous activist short selling firm Hindenburg Research, who targeted Tether and Block, closes up shop (DL)

• Trump is open to creating a strategic reserve including US-based cryptocurrencies (CT) 

• Litecoin rallies 20% on analyst speculation of SEC ETF approval (TD) 

• Treasury nominee Scott Bessent opposes a US CBDC (CD) 

• RWA platform Tradable tokenizes $1.7B in private credit on ZKsync (CT) 

• South Korea's largest crypto exchange Upbit receives suspension notice (CCN) 

• Sonic L2 surges 28% following Binance listing announcement (DH) 

• Sui Foundation partners with Chainalysis to boost its ecosystem’s security  (CN) 

• Jito Labs hires crypto veteran Rebecca Rettig as its chief legal officer (TB) 

• XRP millionaire invests $500K in Ethereum token DTX Exchange (CD) 

• eToro confidentially files for a US IPO, seeking a $5B valuation (TB) .

• XRP surpasses ATH as futures open interest hits a record of $7.7B (TB) 

• 30% of Ethereum validators signal support for increasing the block gas limit (TB) 

• Majority crypto investors are described as young, educated males investing under $10K and favor Binance (CT) 

• Helium partners with DAWN to create a 'last-mile internet solution' (BW)

Launches

• Keynode launches its new staking platform with an improved liquidity pool (MT) 

• AI agent battle platform Monsters.fun launches its waitlist (TD) 

• Ronin Network launches $10M grant program to support blockchain development (CT) 

• Solana ETFs unlikely to launch in 2025 (CT)

Venture Capital

• Crypto wallet Phantom Technologies raises $150M at a $3B valuation in a funding round led by Sequoia Capital and Paradigm (BBG)

• Digital asset custodian Komainu raises $75M in strategic investment from Blockstream Capital Partners (BW) 

• L1 stablecoin payments network 1Money raises a $20M seed round (CT) 

• Decentralized exchange Global Token Exchange raises $10M across 3 funding rounds (TB) 

• Web3 consumer discovery platform EarnOS raises a $5M seed round (FN)

• Social graph protocol Tapestry raises $5.8M in a Series A co-led by Union Square Ventures and Fabric Ventures (TB) 

• Web3 gaming firm Hyve Labs raises $2.8M in a pre-seed led by Framework Ventures (TB) 

• Web2.5 infrastructure firm Torram raises a $710K pre-seed round (FN)

• U.S. crypto startups secured 46% of directed venture capital investment in Q4 (CT)

Regulation

Extra Reads

• CryptoQuant releases global survey with key insights shaping crypto trends

  2024 Survey Here

• 20% of Gen Z and Gen Alpha view crypto as a retirement tool

  Shocking Statistics Report Here

• $150k Bitcoin is a bearish case

  Check Out Bull, Base, and Bear Cases

Chart of the Day

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