😼 Crypto Bounce Time Soon? Here's Why The Worst Might Be Over:

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Don’t get me wrong—bears might have a short-term case, but I don’t think this cycle is done just yet. We’re still stuck in the same range, meaning you don’t want to see candle closes under $90k (at best, not even $93-94).

If you’re taking a cautious approach, your bullish cue is simple: wait for BTC to close above $100K.

The good news is that we might soon be due for a more sustainable bounce. The fear index has reached 35, indicating an extremely bearish sentiment. Also, there’s quite a lot of short positioning right now, so hopefully, BTC can blow those up (sorry if that’s you.)

Moreover, there are signs that the Fed might need to stop quantitative tightening soon.

Also, the US government hit the debt ceiling in late January, meaning it can’t take on new debt until a fresh ceiling is negotiated. The solution? Tap into the $830 billion in “emergency funds” reserved for such situations. This could happen as early as next week, so I recommend reading this breakdown here.

Additional signs that the worst might be over are the market's starting to brush off bad news or shocking headlines, such as yesterday’s Trump quote about finding fraud in US Treasuries or new tariffs from China, which is planning to impose 10-15% tariffs on US energy and vehicles.

Finally, the US crypto legislation seems to be evolving quickly. Trump is wasting no time, and there’s even talk that a new crypto regulatory framework—including a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve—could be finalized within six months.

All of this aligns with the classic bull run timeline—suggesting that 2025 will be the grand finale of this cycle. Meaning? The best is still ahead. (Not financial advice.)

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BTC (Orange) x Gold (Yellow) 1D Line Chart, Gold Leading

At times, Gold & Bitcoin move together, but in the runup to the US election, we saw Gold lead and Bitcoin follow. Today, I think we are likely seeing the same dynamic. Both Bitcoin & Gold price in monetary expansion (money printer go brrr), but gold is moving first as it’s the more risk-off asset of the two. The money printer is usually turned on due to some kind of crisis. BTC is a way more risk-on asset, so it waits for the risk catalyst to subside.

In August, Gold broke higher, pricing in the uncertainty around the US election. As soon as Trump won - uncertainty removed - it put in a local top, and Bitcoin took over, cue the ‘Trump Pump’ on risk assets.

Right now, there’s uncertainty around tariffs and a potential trade war. Still, we also know there will be money printing required for Trump’s sweeping changes, reshoring & investing in US manufacturing. Gold has both money printing and tariff risk to price in. Once that risk is resolved (tariff deals struck), the dollar will likely come down and risk assets (BTC) send again. We are already seeing the signs of ‘tariff fatigue’. 

Come by the Lucky Luke Discord channel for comments, to roast my picks or to pump your own bags. All banter is welcome any time!

Smart-money movements on Ethereum.

Smart-money movements on Solana.

MegaETH is around the corner.

Don’t forget about this one if you are whitelisted or joined this RNG raffle for a sure wait to mint (here’s how to join).

Our senior researcher Ollie is megabullish on MegaETH, as it is the first real-time blockchain we’ll ever get. Personally, I want to own the NFT and invest in MegaETH once it’s out as well.

As for the ecosystem, check out Cap, this one caught my eye:

The next one you might want to be on the watch for is GTE, touted as the final CEX killer, and perhaps finally some competition to Hyperliquid. Let’s see.

Crypto taxes? Absolute pain.

Sifting through receipts, crunching numbers — it's a yearly ritual of suffering. Throw crypto into the mix, and it’s full-blown chaos.

Now you’re juggling transactions across wallets, flipping between CEXes and DEXes, and wondering if that airdrop was a win or just a taxable headache. And let’s not even start on staking rewards…

Well, it doesn’t necessarily have to suck.

Crypto Tax Calculator is built for degens like you. With over 1000+ integrations, a custom shitcoin pricing oracle, and the superpower to handle your on-chain terror.

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AI16Z

Strong evidence - volume and market structure - that the $AI16Zchart is turning around here. It’s possible we just continue up, but more likely, we get another little pullback and print an inverse head and shoulders. Blocmates wallet stalker-in-chief @danblocmates has spotted some big buys this morning as whales start to allocate for the next move up.

The tokenomics changes are finally coming together, there’s an agent launchpad in the works, and recently, the GitHub has more momentum than Solana (!). 

I am allocating spot and looking to buy more on dips.

HyperEVM
In other news, Hyperliquid will soon have a dual VM environment. This thread from Monk explains this in detail. There will be one brand new, composable EVM, and the existing perps VM for their high performance, onchain Central Limit Order Book (CLOB). The two will share state - so apps on the EVM can place trades in the perps order book.

This is a bullish setup for AI agents looking to trade on the Hyperliquid L1. Look for good momentum to materialize on the Hyperliquid agent projects we’ve shared recently - HWTR, LIQD, and FLY is 3 worth watching. 

New content to study.

• Launching an Agent on Virtuals by Vader

• Dynamic TAO (dTAO): The Next Evolution of Bittensor by M. Alvarez

New updates & projects.

• Grass (Data) - Fundamentals and activity on Grass improves

The important bits.

• SwapX (DEX) - Announces Frax Finance integration

• Ramen Finance (Berachain) - RAMEN now available on Kodiak

• OP_NET (BTCFi) - Announces Bitcoin-Native Liquidity Pools

• Beradrome (DeFi) - NFT airdrop claims are now live

• Infrared (DeFi) - Explains Infrared’s yield

• Exponents (Berachain) - Launch is coming up soon

Even more important bits.

• Japan’s FSA plans to classify crypto as financial products, considers tax cuts

• Publicly traded Metaplanet to acquire 21,000 Bitcoin worth $2 billion by 2026

• Coinbase CEO calls for blockchain-based US Treasury to improve transparency

• Hong Kong recognizes Bitcoin and ETH as proof of assets for investment immigration applications

• Dave Portnoy slams crypto community

• Tornado Cash co-founder Alexey Pertsev released from prison

• Base defends moving sequencer fees to Coinbase custody for 'security and audit' reasons

• MSTR has acquired 7,633 BTC for ~$742.4 million at ~$97,255 per bitcoin

Charts and stats of the day.

• Ethereum gas prices drop to average $0.04

• Crypto adoption is 42% faster than mobile phones

• Hyperliquid absolutely dominates the perp market share

• DeFi TVL on Solana grew by 64% to $8.6 billion from Q3 to Q4

Life gets busy so here’s what you’ve missed.

Weekly content round-up.

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To save you doom scrolling.

Ethereum. It really is either dead, or it’s one of the best buys one can make for the rest of the bull run. If you’re shorting ETH right now, you might want to see this chart, which shows the number of ETH shorts that have just reached extreme historical levels.

I still have hope for ETH. Although it needs to fix its problems and move faster now, I think it still has a bright future.

stay safe homies,

Hix0n 🫡