Good Morning,

Here's a quick preview of today’s content: Trump admin axes crypto enforcement team, Ripple makes one of the largest crypto investments in history, Apollo Global Management dives more into crypto with a 7 figure strategic investment, Kraken partnering with one of the largest credit card services in the world, markets whipsaw AGAIN.

It’s Wednesday my dudes (and dudettes) – let’s dive in.

Market Snapshot

• Bitcoin briefly hit $80,000 before dropping to $76,500, now stabilizing below $78,000; down -5.9% in the last 24 hours

  • The CoinDesk 20 Index is down 2.2%, signaling broad weakness in top crypto assets

• Crypto relief rally fizzled as stocks reversed earlier gains and turned lower

  • White House confirmed 104% tariffs on Chinese goods, taking effect at midnight (today)

  • The offshore Chinese yuan weakened to 7.4 per U.S. dollar, a potential early signal of broader economic stress

  • Market sentiment shifted amid the Trump administration’s aggressive trade policy moves

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

• In a shocking turn of events the DOJ is shutting down its crypto enforcement team – see all details here

• Binance and Worldpay develop strategic partnership for Apple Pay integration (DF)

• Instant Bitcoin payments via Lightning Network now possible thanks to exchange partnership (BM)

• $30M of Melania memecoin quietly dumped by development team (DT)

• Kraken and Mastercard partnership open door to 150M merchants (BM)

• Treasure DAO hopes to extend runway with this latest pivot

• Justin Sun is not afraid of legal action taken by First Digital over stablecoin accusations

• Blackrock bitcoin and Ethereum ETF offerings expand with Anchorage Digital custodian (DF)

• Cboe files 19b-4 for Sui ETF as approval is around the corner (DT)

• Aavegotchi DAO finalizes migration to Base with latest vote (TB)

• Venus Protocol vote approves $1.7M reimbursement for unpaid Venus Labs (TB)

• SOL Strategies led by former Valkyrie CEO discloses 24,000 SOL purchase (CD)

• BitVMX update will soon allow developers to create Layer-2 solutions on the bitcoin blockchain (CD)

• Binance is delisting 14 tokens following newe voting process (CT)

Venture Capital

• Apollo Global Management doubles down on real-world assets with ~7 figure strategic investment into Plume – amount undisclosed (BW)

• Blackbird Labs announces $50M fundraise led by Spark Capital for restaurant loyalty platform on-chain (TC)

• Lyzi scoops up $1.4M for retail crypto payments on Tezos protocol (CD)

Launches

• Solana launches zero-knowledge powered token standard improving institutional compliance and fast finality (DF)

• Trump-backed World Liberty Financial proposed a test airdrop of its recently announced USD stablecoin to WLFI holders (TB)

Regulation

• Andrew Bailey from Bank of England takes role with Financial Stability Board to develop crypto regulatory framework (CD)

Cybersecurity

• Two sentenced to 13 years for $7.3M of crypto laundering related to Ukraine war (DT)

• A MEV bot lost $180k due to vulnerability in access control system (CT)

• U.S. DOJ disbands crypto enforcement unit (RT)

Chart of the Day

Every asset class in the world has been heavily impacted because of tariff drama.

Meanwhile counter strike skins:

Meme Dump

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