Good Morning,

Here's a quick preview of today’s content: Citadel looks to dip their toes in crypto, SEC drops probe into Robinhood Crypto, SBF out of the blue takes to twitter with a thread, Strategy nears 500k BTC holdings after their largest buy in 2025, the ripple effects of Bybit hack begin to unfold, MetaMask hints at a massive partnership, Pump.fun to rival Raydium, a new $50M hack occurred, and so much more.

Happy Tuesday, don’t forget to HODL. Let’s dive in.

Market Snapshot

As of 2/24/2024. Data per CoinMarketCap.

  • Solana plunged to its lowest price since mid-October in Monday trading amid ongoing concerns about its association with a scandal involving the Libra token, along with cooling sentiment toward other meme coin initiatives that have favored the network

    • Solana is trading just below $153, down -11 over the past 24 hours, according to crypto markets data provider CoinGecko. SOL has dropped 25% during the past two weeks, and dipped as low as $151 on Monday.

  • BTC/USD dropped to $93,833 on Bitstamp, its lowest since Feb. 18, before modestly recovering at the time of writing

  • The CoinDesk 20 is currently trading at 3106.99, down 0.8% (-25.47) since last Friday at 4 p.m. ET.

    • Leaders: HBAR (+7.8%) and NEAR (+2.1%)

    • Laggards: SOL (-6.0%) and DOT (-6.0%) lag

Headline Roundup
The major headlines driving crypto markets

  • SEC ends it’s investigation into Robinhood’s crypto unit (BW)

  • SBF comes out of the woodwork to post a thread talking about the government employees getting laid off – see the wild thread here

  • Citadel Securities plans to become a liquidity provider for the crypto market (DF)

  • OKX pays $505M fine to DOJ for operating ‘unlicensed money-transmitting business’ (CT)

  • MetaMask hints at credit card partnership with MasterCard (X)

  • Michael Saylor’s Strategy acquires an additional $2B of Bitcoin (DT)

  • $395B AUM German bank DekaBank launches crypto services for institutions (CD)

  • Bitcoin ETFs record $929M of outflows in February (DT)

  • Only 44% of US Bitcoin ETF purchases are long-term investments (CT)

  • Raydium token tanks 25% following Pump.fun’s announcement of its own automated money maker (CD)

  • Bybit returns to a 1-to-1 backing of client assets after its $1.4B hack (CD)

  • Market maker Wintermute withdraws $38.2M of Solana from Binance ahead of a $2B Solana unlock (CT)

  • 95% of Latin American crypto holders plan to buy more in 2025 (CD)

  • CZ reveals personal crypto portfolio, with 98%+ invested in BNB (TB)

  • Nasdaq seeks permission from SEC to list HBAR ETF (CT)

Launches

  • RealNOI launches a $570M tokenized rental income platform powered by Chintai (CD)

  • Tokenized time platform Time.fun launches on Solana (TB)

Venture Capital

  • USDe stablecoin developer Ethena raises $100M in private financing from Franklin Templeton, F-Prime Capital, and others (CD)

  • Foresight Ventures commits $25M for BNB startup incubation (GN)

  • BitDCA secures $8M in funding for it’s Littlebit Bitcoin investment app (EU)

  • IMUA closes $5M seed round from Draper Dragon, No Limit Holdings, and Paramita Capital (GN)

  • Greenfield acquires additional $4M of $L3 token in Layer 3 private financing (GF)

  • Memes Lab raises a $2.3M seed round led by Lemniscap (TB)

  • Torch Finance raises $1.5M pre-seed from lead investors TVM Ventures and Michael Egorov (X)

  • Bybit makes $1M strategic investment into blockchain agriculture startup EthicHub (PA)

  • Data-ownership startup Vana secures backing from YZi Labs, formerly Binance Labs (DF)

Regulation

  • Montana’s Bitcoin state reserve bill fails to gain approval in its House of Representatives (DT)

  • SEC Crypto Task Force continues to meet with major players, including Michael Saylor, to redefine crypto regulation (BN)

  • A guide to global crypto policies and laws (NE)

Cybersecurity

  • Crypto neobank Infini is exploited for $49.5M by a former developer (DT)

  • Hacker offered 20% of $49.5M stolen assets from stablecoin neobank Infini in exchange for their return (CD)

  • U.S. authorities seize $31M of crypto tied to 2021 Uranium Finance hack (CD)

  • Coin Zx executive arrested by Mumbai police for $23M scam (DT)

  • Ledger drops video on how Clear Signing can safeguard crypto (X)

Extra Reads

Chart of the Day

Withdrawals and Deposits on Bybit exchange have nearly returned to normal levels

Meme Dump

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