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POTENTIAL INCOMING LITECOIN ETF

Of the existing cryptocurrencies without an ETF, Litecoin currently has the highest chance of approval given it's not classified as a security like SOL and XRP are.

BLACKROCK INCREASES OWNERSHIP OF STRATEGY TO 5%

BlackRock now owns 5% of Strategy (formerly MicroStrategy), up 0.91% since September 2024.

INTRODUCING SOLANA SKYLINE COWORKING SPACE

The Solana Foundation has launched a new coworking space with weekly events in New York City.

THE LESSONS LEARNED AT OPERATION CHOKEPOINT 2.0 CONGRESSIONAL HEARINGS

The Congressional hearings on "Operation Chokepoint 2.0" highlighted sharp partisan disagreements over whether the Biden administration deliberately pressured banks to cut off crypto firms, though both sides ultimately agreed on the need for clearer banking regulations. While Republicans accused regulators of overreach, Democrats dismissed the controversy as political theater, yet there was bipartisan support for reforms like written guidance and increased transparency.

BITCOIN'S ROLE AS A RESERVE ASSET GAINS TRACTION IN US AS STATES ADOPT

A growing number of US states are proposing Bitcoin reserve legislation, with Kentucky becoming the 16th state to introduce a bill allowing up to 10% of excess state reserves to be allocated to digital assets. These bills coincide with significant institutional accumulation through Bitcoin ETFs, which now hold over $100 billion in BTC. While analysts suggest that state-level adoption could trigger a global race to accumulate Bitcoin as a reserve asset, they also note regulatory hurdles and volatility concerns hindering government adoption.

INTRODUCING $IP, THE NATIVE TOKEN OF STORY'S L1

Story Protocol's $IP native token will be used as part of its plans to turn intellectual property into a programmable asset class. The token features a 1 billion initial supply with 58.4% allocated to ecosystem growth and community initiatives. It implements a unique “fair launch” staking mechanism where staking is enabled but rewards are paused. The protocol aims to create a permissionless IP exchange network to address challenges in AI training data licensing and IP monetization, with tokens used for security, gas fees, and governance rights.

ARWEAVE'S COMPUTING PLATFORM AO GOES LIVE ON MAINNET

Arweave has launched the mainnet for its decentralized computing platform, AO, after a year-long testnet phase, introducing a high-speed, parallelized computing environment built on Arweave's permanent storage network. With this launch, AO's native tokens - distributed to AR holders and testnet participants - are now transferable, supporting a broader ecosystem of decentralized applications and AI-driven autonomous agents.

MASTERING EFFECTIVE TEST WRITING FOR WEB3 PROTOCOL AUDITS

This article introduces a structured framework for writing effective tests in Web3 protocol audits, emphasizing that high code coverage alone doesn't ensure security. It encourages developers to adopt three key mindsets - hacker, invariant, and system architect - to identify vulnerabilities and create more resilient protocols.

CRYPTOPUNKS DOMINANCE HAS REACHED A NEW LOCAL HIGH OF 46%

CryptoPunks' dominance has surged to 46% after dipping to 30% in late 2024 due to hype around token drops from projects like Pudgy Penguins and Azuki. With those catalysts fading, both CryptoPunks and Bored Apes are regaining ground, relying on brand value rather than speculative events - raising the question of whether their dominance will keep growing, much like BTC in the broader crypto market.

STARKNET'S NEXT CHAPTER: FROM TECHNICAL EXCELLENCE TO MASS ADOPTION

StarkWare's founder, Eli Ben-Sasson, has outlined its strategic pivot from technical development to driving mass adoption. He highlights its current capabilities like 500 TPS, sub-cent transaction costs, and the upcoming 940x faster STARK prover launch in Q2 2025. Starknet is pursuing simultaneous Bitcoin and Ethereum settlement and improving bridge infrastructure, developer tooling, and support for 30+ new dapps in 2025. Ben-Sasson acknowledges its poor usage metrics and low market mindshare.

ETHEREUM ONCHAIN RISK EVALUATION

Etherscan now displays a credit score for every wallet under the “Cards” tab. This new evaluation is powered by Blockchain Bureau. It enables a simpler way of assessing risk and simplifies undercollateralized lending for DeFi apps.

KLARNA WILL EMBRACE CRYPTO

Klarna CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski announced that the company will embrace crypto, marking the last major fintech to do so.

PHANTOM'S $29M SWAP FEE REVENUE

Phantom hit a record $29M in swap fee revenue for January, reflecting the ongoing surge in on-chain activity.

ONCHAIN BLOCKCHAIN VOLUMES

Ethereum leads public blockchains in total value locked (TVL) at $55.94B, with Solana in second at $9.188B.

HISTORIC ETHEREUM SHORT POSITION

The chart shows extreme short positioning in ETH futures on CME, suggesting much price suppression.

CZECH PRESIDENT SIGNS LAW EXEMPTING CAPITAL GAINS TAXES ON CRYPTO HELD FOR THREE YEARS

The Czech Republic has exempted crypto holdings from capital gains if held for more than 3 years, with retroactive application to assets purchased before 2025. The tax reform aligns with the European Union's Markets in Crypto Assets (MiCA) framework, which has generally been seen as controversial, though the country has been routinely introducing crypto-friendly initiatives. The National Bank previously proposed to allocate 5% of its €140 billion reserves to Bitcoin.

LAW FIRM DEMANDS PUMP.FUN REMOVE OVER 200 MEMECOINS USING ITS IP

Pump.fun, a Solana-based meme coin platform, has been served a cease and desist letter by Burwick Law and Wolf Popper LLP for allegedly facilitating the creation of over 200 tokens that infringe upon their intellectual property. The law firms demand the immediate removal of these unauthorized tokens, citing concerns over investor deception and market manipulation

INTRODUCING AGENT WALLETS

Crossmint has introduced Agent Wallets, a non-custodial wallet solution designed for AI agent providers and launchpads that enables autonomous on-chain interactions while ensuring regulatory compliance. Each wallet uses two separate keys, one for the owner and one for the agent, secured through trusted execution environments (TEEs), removing custody risks for providers.

ONDO FINANCE ANNOUNCES ONDO CHAIN

Ondo Chain is a new L1 blockchain designed to support institutional real-world asset (RWA) tokenization that bridges the gap between TradFi and DeFi. The chain addresses DeFi incompatibility, cross-chain liquidity fragmentation, high transaction fees, and institutional regulatory concerns. Ultimately, the Ondo Finance team hopes to enable seamless cross-chain asset issuance, institutional participation, and scalable financial applications.

THE AGENTIC ECONOMY: WEB2 & WEB3 AI AGENT TRENDS

DEFAI: ACHIEVING THE EFFICIENCY FRONTIER

DeFAI is an elegant abstraction of complex crypto topics and portfolio optimization behind natural language intents. The DeFAI stack consists of three layers - Abstraction, Reasoning, and Execution - with reasoning becoming the key differentiator through proprietary data, broader tooling, and quality prompt engineering. The execution layer is expected to become commoditized, and value will move to protocols that integrate AI as opposed to the agents themselves.

OUR SOLANA PRICE TARGET BY THE END OF 2025 IS $520

VanEck predicts Solana (SOL) will hit $520 by the end of 2025, based on its projected market share growth within the smart contract platform (SCP) market. Its analysis ties SCP market cap growth to U.S. M2 money supply trends, forecasting a 43% increase to $1.1T, with Solana's share rising to 22%, leading to a ~$250B valuation.

DIFFICULTIES AROUND BASE SUCCESS

Base seems to be having issues with declining Virtuals revenue, a lack of Coinbase support for key projects, and teams migrating to other chains like Solana because of better UX and more liquidity. While Base has the potential to onboard millions, its marketing strategy (not degen enough) and engagement with the crypto community may hinder its ability to compete effectively with Solana.

UNISWAP V4 VS. UNISWAP V3 GAS

Uniswap v4 pools on Ethereum mainnet are significantly more gas efficient.

COINBASE LISTS MEMECON FUTURES

Coinbase International Exchange has announced the listing of perpetual futures contracts for Pudgy Penguins (PENGU), Popcat (POPCAT), and Helium (HNT).

BERACHAIN L1 CONTROVERSY

Berachain is another VC-driven L1 fork with excessive insider allocations, perpetual inflation via BGT conversions, and unsustainable tokenomics that could lead to long-term decline.

KITE AI TO LAUNCH THE FIRST AVALANCHE L1 ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE PLATFORM

Kite AI is launching the first AI-focused L1 on Avalanche, using its scalable infrastructure to support decentralized AI development through its Proof of Attributed Intelligence (PoAI) consensus mechanism.

BLACKROCK PLANS TO LAUNCH A BITCOIN ETP IN EUROPE

MICROSTRATEGY IS NOW STRATEGY

MicroStrategy has rebranded to Strategy, adopting a new Bitcoin-inspired corporate identity with an orange color scheme and stylized “B” logo. The company has positioned itself as the world's largest Bitcoin Treasury Company through billions of dollars in treasury purchases of BTC. It plans to continue to focus on business intelligence while accumulating Bitcoin as its primary treasury reserve asset.

BRINGING INTEROPERABILITY TO ARBITRUM AND ETHEREUM

Offchain Labs is improving interoperability between Arbitrum (L2) and Ethereum (L1) by introducing a Universal Intent Engine. This will enable crosschain swaps and transfers in less than three seconds. The Arbitrum team hopes to facilitate trustless, cost-efficient interactions across EVM-compatible chains by bringing interoperability to Arbitrum and Ethereum.

TRACK UNISWAP V4 GROWTH WITH ALLIUM'S NEW ANALYTICS DASHBOARD

Allium has launched the official Uniswap v4 Analytics Dashboard, which provides real-time insights into TVL, volume, and adoption metrics across all v4 deployments. Built with support from Uniswap Foundation, the tool helps DeFi analysts, investors, and researchers track Uniswap v4's growth from day one.

AGENTIC DAOS AND AUTONOMOUS CORPORATIONS

Agentic DAOs is a new organization concept that prioritizes programmatic alignment of incentives and AI-driven automation over decentralization. This author envisions Autonomous Corporations (AutoCorps) that drive shareholder value through autonomous decision-making via proprietary models. For these agents to drive value, there must be “intelligence mining” where they extract value from real-time latent space and create “cognitive arbitrage.”

GEMINI 2025 TREND REPORT

The crypto market completely transformed in 2024, largely driven by BTC and ETH ETFs and institutional interest. Solana captured record levels of interest and adoption, primarily driven by retail speculation and the success of Pump.fun. The APAC region saw strong retail growth of 6.4%.

BERACHAIN: A DAVID TO RIVAL SOLANA AND ETHEREUM OR ANOTHER FARM-AND-FORGET CHAIN?

Berachain is set to launch its mainnet on February 6 and introduce a unique Proof of Liquidity (PoL) consensus model that integrates liquidity provision with network security. With $3.3B in pre-launch liquidity and a novel tokenomics system, Berachain could disrupt traditional blockchain models, though challenges like governance centralization and long-term sustainability remain key considerations.

BEAR CASE ON ETH

This post challenges Ethereum's previous dominance in alt seasons because of its alleged stagnant innovation, leadership issues, and reliance on L2s, all of which have led to an overvalued market cap without clear new use cases to drive demand. Although traders may hope for an ETH pump to trigger an alt season, the reality is that market cycles evolve, and successful projects like Solana and tokens with strong fundamentals (e.g., AAVE) are already outperforming the general market by catering to real user demand.

KEY TRENDS FROM JPM'S REMITTANCE REPORT

Crypto is revolutionizing digital money by turning mobile phones into banks. It has the potential to disrupt remittances, telcos, and fintechs due to its alleged lower fees and faster transactions. There are now ~36M crypto mobile wallet users, remittance costs have dropped to 3.25% on average, and fintech players like PayPal have enabled stablecoin transfers via African crypto exchanges like Yellowcard.

BLACKROCK BUYS BITCOIN AND ETHEREUM

BlackRock recently bought 100.53K ETH valued at about $285M.

ETHEREUM SUPPLY CLIMBS TO PRE-MERGE UPGRADE LEVELS; ANALYSTS POINT TO DENCUN 'BLOB' UPDATE

Ethereum's token supply has jumped back up to pre-Merge levels, with analysts claiming the increase stems from the Dencun upgrade, which reduced the proportion of transaction fees being burned as blob transactions were introduced.

RANSOMWARE EXTORTION DROPS 35% IN 2024 AMID CRYPTO EXCHANGE CRACKDOWNS AND INCREASING REFUSAL TO PAY: CHAINALYSIS

Ransomware payments have decreased dramatically (~35%) to $813M in 2024, down from $1.25 billion the previous year.

XRP LEDGER'S HOUR-LONG HALT SPARKS DEBATE OVER CONSENSUS TRADEOFFS

The XRP Ledger recently experienced a 64-minute halt, reigniting discussions about its consensus tradeoffs and validator centralization.

TRUMP'S ‘CRYPTO CZAR' FLOATS BITCOIN RESERVE AS WHITE HOUSE PUSHES SOVEREIGN WEALTH FUND

President Trump's newly appointed “crypto czar,” David Sacks, confirmed that evaluating a strategic bitcoin reserve is a top priority, aligning with the administration's broader pro-crypto agenda. This comes as Trump signed an executive order to establish a U.S. sovereign wealth fund. Analysts speculate that bitcoin could be included as a strategic asset to help bolster national reserves.

WILL TRUMP'S TRADE WAR BRING AN EARLY END TO THE BITCOIN BULL MARKET?

Bitcoin's recent drop below $92K amid Trump's trade war announcement triggered fears of an early bull market end, but strong demand and historical patterns suggest further upside. Analysts project a peak between $160K and $210K in late 2025. Key indicators, including long-term holder supply and the Pi Cycle Top, signal that Bitcoin has yet to reach its final cycle high. A potential top is expected around September–October 2025.

STORY PROTOCOL WHITEPAPER: A PEER-TO-PEER INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY NETWORK

Story Protocol is building an IP blockchain that has a programmable market for knowledge and creativity assets through a multi-core execution environment that combines EVM compatibility with specialized cores for IP management, offchain synchronization, and cross-chain communication. The platform features a Proof of Creativity protocol for IP registration with customizable usage parameters and has a native IP token for network security and transaction processing. Potential applications include a universal market for intelligence, a foundational layer for AI interactions through the Agent TCP/IP protocol, and infrastructure for autonomous agent-to-agent commerce.

BERACHAIN HONEYPAPER: PROOF OF LIQUIDITY

Berachain's novel blockchain architecture introduces Proof of Liquidity (PoL), which aims to align network security with liquidity provision. It leverages a dual-token model consisting of BERA (gas and staking) and BGT (governance and rewards). It will be an EVM-compatible chain and introduce an incentives marketplace where protocols can bid for validator emissions using whitelisted tokens, while validators can direct emissions toward reward vaults based on economic preferences. The protocol's architecture incorporates immediate execution and optimistic payload bundling to reduce block times by up to 40%. Its economic model aims to solve traditional L1 problems by adjusting validator rewards based on demand for validator security rather than preset curves.

EVOLVING COINBASE WALLET TO BRING THE WORLD ONCHAIN

Coinbase Wallet is being rebuilt to be 10x faster, easier to use, and more integrated with onchain social experiences, using Farcaster's social graph and mini-apps to enhance app discovery. The 2025 vision focuses on streamlining crypto payments, enabling builders to go viral, and creating a seamless experience for traders, creators, and communities to engage in the onchain economy.

THOUGHTS ON FAIR LAUNCHES

Current fair launch token models, which distribute 85-95% of supply at launch while leaving teams with only 5-15%, create operational challenges for long-term project development compared to traditional VC funding where teams retain 80-90% ownership. It leads to inadequate liquidity management, difficulties in team compensation, and unsustainable resource allocation for development, particularly impacting teams building complex technical solutions that require extended development cycles. While fair launches aim to democratize early access traditionally reserved for VCs, the approach often undermines project sustainability and forces builders to prioritize short-term token economics over long-term technological development.

YOU'RE PROBABLY LOOKING AT THE DEFAI OPPORTUNITY WRONG

The DeFAI market is in the midst of a serious correction, with market caps dropping over 50% from their mid-January peaks. The sector is undervalued and could grow to represent 10% of the $125 billion DeFi market. There are three value segments underpinning this belief: Information Agents focusing on UI abstraction and analysis, smart DeFi enabling automated actions, and Alpha Hunters that combine data analysis with autonomous execution. Despite market skepticism, AI-native teams are better positioned to compete in inefficient markets where returns are increasingly attributed to intelligence rather than human intervention.

CRYPTO CZAR DAVID SACKS HAS SAID NFTS AND MEMECOINS ARE COLLECTIBLES, NOT SECURITIES

White House crypto czar David Sacks argues that NFTs and memecoins should be classified as collectibles, like baseball cards or stamps, rather than securities or commodities, which would exempt them from stricter financial regulations. While his remarks don't change their legal status, they highlight the ongoing debate over how digital assets should be regulated and taxed in the U.S.

SEC LAUNCHES CRYPTO TASKFORCE

The SEC has launched a new Crypto Task Force website to provide regulatory clarity, foster innovation, and engage with the public on crypto asset laws and compliance.

BERACHAIN MAINNET SET TO LAUNCH FEBRUARY 6

Berachain's Layer 1 mainnet, set to launch on February 6, introduces a unique “proof of liquidity” consensus model that integrates staking with DeFi participation.