Good Morning,

Here's a quick preview of today’s content: Jerome Powell squashes CBDC rumors, Cardano ETFs are being filed, Binance has sold almost all of its crypto reserves, Ondo Finance and World Liberty Financial partner up, venture funding stays hot for web3, a crypto influencer dropped a diss track against Dave Portnoy, and so much more.

Mid-week update, not-so-mid news. Let’s dive in.

Market Snapshot

As of 2/11/2025. Data per CoinMarketCap.

  • Crypto market capitalization falls below $3.14T, a 3% dip in the last 24 hours

  • MEXC exchange Vice President Tracy Jin states that current market sentiment is primarily tied to the Federal Reserve leaving interest rates unchanged and proposed tariffs in the U.S. causing fear of trade wars

  • CoinDesk 20 performance saw 15 of 20 currencies trading higher Tuesday than the start of the week

    • Cardano ($ADA) saw the highest movement up 13% early Tuesday morning

  • There also could be some correlation to market fear that is represented in Bitcoin exchange purchases and physical gold storage – check out our ‘Extra Reads’ section

Headline Roundup
The major headlines driving crypto markets

  • An Elon Musk-led consortium offers to acquire OpenAI for $97.4B (DC) 

  • Fed Chair Jerome Powell commits to never issuing a CBDC (DC) 

  • Binance sold almost all of its Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Solana reserves in January (X) 

  • NYSE and Greyscale file for a Cardano ETF (TB) 

  • Franklin Templeton registers a Solana Trust in Delaware (CT)

  • Base is allegedly sending all L2 fees to Coinbase (TD) 

  • Solana-based DEXs post $60M in trading volume this month (CD) 

  • SEC opens a public comment Solana ETFs (CD)

  • Binance and SEC jointly file for a 60-day pause in their legal case (TB) 

  • Elon Musk changes X name to Harry Bōlz, causing a surge in two Solana memecoins (DC) 

  • OpenSea denies reports of mandatory KYC checks for users claiming a potential airdrop (CD) 

  • World Liberty Financial partners with Ondo Finance to advance tokenized RWAs (TB)

  • 3iQ selects Sol Strategies as the staking provider for its 3iQ Solana Staking ETF (TB) 

  • KULR Technology Group acquires another $10M of Bitcoin (TB) 

  • Japanese mobile game studio Gumi plans to buy $6.6M of Bitcoin (TB) 

  • Solo bitcoin miner mines a $310K bitcoin block (DC) 

  • Binance founder CZ thinks Binance’s token listing process is broken (TD) 

  • Ethereum staking service Lido developers propose revamping platform with modular vaults (CD) 

  • TON blockchain will use LayerZero for transfers between multiple ecosystems (CD) 

Launches

  • Fold partners with Visa to launch a Bitcoin rewards credit card (BM) 

  • Uniswap launches its Ethereum L2, Unichain (BL) 

  • Crypto influencers are dropping diss tracks

Venture Capital

  • A16Z Crypto and Coinbase Ventures participate in $15M financing for defi platform Legend (FN)

  • Web3 development studio Mirai Labs secures $4M from lead investor Mechanism Capital (TB)

  • DCG, Pantera Capital and other strategic partners back TaoFi (CT)

  • Morningstar Ventures releases note of recent investment in web3 assistant Fere AI (MV)

  • R.J. O’Brien makes strategic investment and partnership with Phlo Systems (PRN)

  • ZenGo publishes strategic investment from Tether (ZG)

Regulation

  • 12 minutes of SEC Commissioner discussing crypto ETFs, regulation, and exchanges

Cybersecurity

  • ZkLend offers 10% white hat bounty to hacker that stole 3,300 ETH (CP)

  • Four Meme suffers exploit resulting in $183k loss (BN)

  • US, UK, and Australia launch joint disruption against crypto ransomware group LockBit (CT)

  • Alabama man faces 5 years in prison as he revealed his SEC X account hack process (DM)

Extra Reads

Chart of the Day

As physical gold purchases go parabolic, Bitcoin exchange reserves hit 3 year low, around 2.5M BTC

Meme Dump

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

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