🦀ETH ETF Staking, Communism And Fed Fails - Let's Talk About It.

GM to everyone, even to ETH communists.

Yesterday evening, the Ethereum community got excited about the news of the incoming inclusion of staking into ETH spot ETFs. Naturally, all eyes turned to Vitalik, waiting for his reaction. For some reason, he decided it was the perfect moment to declare it was time to “Make communism great again.” Nice one, Vitalik; it seems that Ethereum’s marketing is only improving.

Moreover, many jabs are being thrown toward the concept of ETH ETF staking since the yield isn’t high enough to compete with treasury yields. However, viewed from a long-term perspective, this chart offers a slightly more bullish case. We also know that besides a weaker dollar and lower rates, Trump wants to suppress 10-year treasury yields. So, I wouldn’t be so quick to discard staking ETFs.

Oh well, back to Bitcoin. The Crab is still chopping up breakout traders to pieces, but once again, there’s a lot of liquidity to be grabbed, around $100k. So, for the thousandth time, it’s better to be really bullish again only after BTC settles above those levels.

Trump isn’t helping the cause again, clarifying that the most critical tariffs will be deployed today. Again, sooner or later, this type of tariff news will lose the juice and become irrelevant to price movements.

Lastly, from the macro perspective, it seems the Fed is failing to keep inflation low, which means quantitative easing won’t happen any time soon since that requires much lower interest rates. Nevertheless, QE isn’t the only thing needed for this cycle to run higher. I can recommend listening to this podcast explaining the credit cycle.

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The important bits.

• Mode (L2) - The Synth Subnet Whitepaper is released

• Core DAO (BTCFi) - Get Ignition rewards (10x multiplier) on Element

• Core DAO (BTCFi) - Partners with Aethir to bring AI to BTCFi with $100m fund

• Sophon (Entertainment layer) - Join Sophon's discussion on X today

• Sophon (Entertainment layer) - Brings onchain experience to users without noticing using zkTLS

• Ionet (AI, Infra.) - Introduces Ionet Intelligence

• SKALE (L2) - Features the AI infrastructure on SKALE

• Superseed (L2) - Join ecosystem highlight spaces with Stryke

• DESK (AI, perp. trading) - Releases introduction to DESK + guide

• Story Protocol (IP, data) - Mainnet goes live

• OpenSea (NFTs) - OpenSea v2 beta is live

• Arbitrum (L2) - Arbitrum upgrade makes it the first stage 2 rollup

Even more important bits.

• Binance sold $8b of its corporate-held crypto since the beginning of 2025

• Trump says interest rates should be lowered

Charts and stats of the day.

• Fed fails the pivot - inflation is running hot

• Curve Finance CRV reserves are increasing rapidly

• The altcoin market cap has slumped by $234B in the past two weeks

• Robinhood revenue increased 700% since Q4 2024

• Aave added $20b net deposits during the past year

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.

 You can either generate reports your accountant will love or directly file ‘em yourself. 

 Snag 20% off your first year. Your accountant — and sanity — will thank you.

VIRTUAL/USDT 4H Log Chart

We featured the bull case for Virtuals on Tuesday - Grant interviewed Jansen, but it’s not out yet, so you still have some edge before news drops.

Price is below the 0.786 retracement, which is your institutional buyzone right here. Expect an aggressive repricing to the upside if they are going with their own L1 as we suspect they might.

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.

Infrared Finance + Brahma airdrops.

The crab market continues, but there’s still fun to be had.

Infrared Finance might eventually award us with a juicy airdrop. Considering it’s the largest protocol on Berachain, it might be a good one. Strategy for now? Deploy WBERA/WETH or WBTC/WBERA LP into Berahub, stake that LP on Infrared, and enjoy a 500% yield in iBGT.

Next up, including a potential airdrop, is an adorable automation console for DeFi - Brahma. Brahma can also be used for Base, Arbitrum, and more chains. You can play around on Berachain and get rewarded boxes full of Honey, Karma points, and other tokens.

If you’re bored of this damn market, join me on Brahma here.

Besides that, I’m using a portion of my Infrared yields to gamble on Berachain tokens like YEET, ARTIO, and HODL (this is very risky, of course). 

Lastly, a nice SocialFi app is also popping off right now, Berally. You can join here.

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

An idiot’s guide to Story protocol.

Research

Story Protocol mainnet was just launched and it’s perfect time to get back to our idiot’s guide!

Read More →

• berAIslands (Berachain, DeFi AI)

• InfiniFi (First On-Chain Fractional Reserve System)

• HeyTracyAI (AI sports commentary)

• stElx (the Elixir network last)

• Replit (dApp creator)

• Prodigy.Fi (Berachain dual yields)

To save you doom scrolling.

Ethereum tried to pivot its branding, and this is how it turned out. What do you think?

So many people all around are losing hope for the possibility of the continuation of this cycle.

I would offer a more positive view. It’s now becoming clear we won’t need quantitative easing in order to send everything higher. Bitcoin dominance will inevitably break down at some point, and plenty of venues remain for price exploration (pumps).

Moreover, if we survive and protect our capital after this cycle is over (either after Q2 this year or the furthest Q1 next year), we can safely buy back into BTC and majors during the next bear market. And then? Then, we ride up the whole of the following global liquidity cycle, which, at that time, may even be accompanied by QE.

Long game.

stay safe homies,

Hix0n 🫡