Good Morning,

Here's a quick preview of today’s content: FTX has finally begun some creditor repayments, short positions on Ether continue to pile up in historic fashion, Coinbase adds new tokens to derivatives, M&A + VC activity are on fire in February, a man burned $1.65M ETH with encrypted on-chain message calling out Chinese hedge fund executives, and so much more.

Halfway through the week and halfway through Q1. Let’s dive in.

Market Snapshot

• Investor sentiment is still a bit shaky after $LIBRA liquidation event, as investors call for impeachment of Javie Milei, President of Argentina

• Leverage traders are also causing large sell-offs with large short positions being liquidated

• CMC’s Crypto Fear & Greed Index has jumped back down into the Fear zone, with a score of 37

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

• FTX begins repaying over $1.2B to small creditors (DC) 

• LIBRA token co-creator Hayden Davis explicitly brags about gaining influence over Argentina's President through his sister, see full statement here

• xAI's Grok-3 outperforms ChatGPT, Gemini, and DeepSeek in benchmark test (CT)

• Coinbase rolls out new derivative offerings including SOL, HBAR, and others (CN)

• Argentina’s President Javier Milei is under investigation for fraud over collapsed LIBRA token (DC) 

• Traders establish a record $11.3B short position on Ethereum (TD) 

• Pump.fun founder calls for new guardrails for token launchpads amid LIBRA memecoin fallout (CT) 

• Solana falls 8.8% due to memecoin controversies related to LIBRA token launch (DC) 

• Grayscale launches fund based on Pyth network’s Solana governance token (DC) 

• SEC’s crypto task force could facilitate a resolution of the agency’s lawsuit against Coinbase (BW) 

• TON developers confirm that they have no relationship with Telegram (BW) 

• LIBRA token co-creator Hayden Davis brags about gaining influence over Argentina's President through his sister (CD) 

• Japanese Bitcoin-holding firm Metaplanet announces 10-to-1 stock split (CD) 

• US art collective Kanbas makes a $3M NFT purchase, the largest sale in three years (CD) 

• A man was arrested after climbing the Hollywood sign to promote a memecoin (DT)

• SEC acknowledges Bitwise’s XRP ETF filing (TB) 

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Venture Capital

• Blockchain cybersecurity firm Blockaid raises $50M in a Series B led by Ribbit Capital (CD) 

• Founders Fund and Pantera lead $11M pre-seed investment into Altius Labs (CC)

• Curve Finance founder’s new project Yield Basis raises $5M at a $50M token valuation (TB)

• Bitcoin DeFi startup Maestro raises $3M seed round co-led by Wave Digital Assets and Draper Associates (FS)

• Uswap completes $1.5M seed financing led by Waterdrip Capital (CC)

• BAI Capital leads multi-million dollar seed round for digital payment provider KUN (PA)

• Omorika Ventures backs crypto platform for financial advisors, Veli, with 6 figure investment (EU)

• Sui-based startup Bluefin receives undisclosed investment from Beam Foundation (EC)

Regulation

• Cloris Chen, CEO of Singularity Finance joins a crypto and AI regulation roundtable (CP)

• Europe’s MiCA regulations will set a new standard for crypto advisor qualifications (CN)

• Nigeria looks to introduce new crypto taxation soon to increase national revenues (CG)

Cybersecurity

• Norway charges four men for running an $86.5M crypto investment fraud (DC)

• Cardex, an app on Abstract Chain experiences an exploit that drained users' assets (TD)

Extra Reads

• Hu Lezhi burned 600+ ETH to call out Chinese hedge fund executives for ‘employee manipulation’

  Learn why Lezhi did this, with decrypted allegations in the transactions

Chart of the Day

Crypto has lost $700B in market capitalization in the last 30 days

Meme Dump

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