📊 This Week in Crypto: Emiri Checkin' in From the Pub

Well, we’re cooked innit. 

I’ve never seen such an underwhelming golden bull market. BTC has just dropped below 80k, the markets look like shit, there are no buyers, and even other markets across the world look like shit. Thank you, Mr.Trump, so much for us getting tired of winning. 

Anyway, there’s no point crying and moaning. The only solution is to drown your sorrows in a nice cold pint and keep moving forward. Man, why did we pick this industry? 

In terms of news, things have naturally been pretty slow. Everyone is shell-shocked and pretty much checked out. Those who cashed out are living life, and those who roundtripped are just sitting on their hands.

However, we did have some interesting developments nonetheless. 

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The important bits.

• Tanssi (DeFi) - 1 mission left in the Let’s Forkin Dance reward season

• Ramen Finance (Launchpad) - NAV Finance presale round is now open

• Vana (AI, data) - GPT data token is now live on Vana

• UniversalX (DeFi) - Now integrated with Sonic

• SteadyTeddys (Berachain NFT) - Announces whitelist checker soon

Even more important bits.

• Trump announced today that he will increase the planned tariffs against China from 10% to 20%

• January PCE inflation falls to 2.5%, in-line with expectations of 2.5%

• Senator Cyntia Lummis explains the Digital Assets Conference hearing highlights

• First Solana SOL ETF listed on the DTCC

• Base announces TPS improvement with Flashblocks

• SEC says meme coins are generally not securities under federal law

• SEC drops the Consensys case

Charts and stats of the day.

• Short-term investors who bought #Bitcoin within the last week took the biggest hit in the recent correction

• BlackRock's ETH spot ETF holdings rose 124% in the last three months

SEC loosens the noose

Crypto companies and the SEC have been fighting for quite some time now. However, the SEC seems to have changed its crypto stance with this new administration. 

Companies like Coinbase, Opensea, Gemini, and Uniswap have always been under the SEC's firing line. The SEC has significantly hampered their progress with constant subpoenas, notices, and lawsuits. 

Now, all these companies have announced that after around 700 days of nonstop investigation, all investigations have been stopped. While it’s good that the SEC loosened the leash, most founders are far from happy with the outcome. 

Their position is that the investigations were unjust and unlawful from the start, and the damage they have caused over the past 700 days is almost irreparable. So, there is no love lost between the SEC and crypto companies. 

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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Bitcoin sentiment is the lowest in 12 months.

Bybit is back 

Most of us are well aware of the $1.5B Bybit hack, which saw the exchange's ETH cold wallet attacked by the North Korean hackers Lazarus Group. 

Bybit is one of the few OG crypto exchanges that has lasted through multiple cycles and come out unscathed. Trusted by most OGs in the crypto game, it came as a shock to everyone that they were hacked for $1.5B.

“While all of you were withdrawing, I deposited millions to long” IYKYK. 

This is the only exchange event in which this strategy worked. Bybit has successfully closed the ETH gap created by the hack, which is pretty crazy considering it’s been just around a week since the hack occurred. 

Entities across the industry came to Bybit’s aid, with most offering uncollateralized loans to close the ETH gap on the exchange. Throughout the hack, withdrawals were processed as usual, and now the exchange has paid back most of the entities that loaned them ETH. 

A glimmer of light in an otherwise incredibly dark week. 

To save you doom scrolling.

Be greedy when others are fearful?

Classic crypto shenanigans 

While these were the two significant events in the industry, at this point, a bunch of other random events that are classic crypto also took place. 

1. SBF IS BACK - the biggest criminal of the last cycle put out an incredibly weird tweet about unemployment, being unable to check his email, and how it is stressful. The guy was sentenced to 25 years, but now people fear Mr.Trump may pardon him. What happens from here? I don’t know, but I do hope his sentence gets elongated. 

2. Pumpfun dumps Raydium - Pumpfun announced that they are testing their own AMM and will be looking to launch soon. This caused close to a 30% drop in RAY’s price as people expect all activity to shift off of Raydium to Pumpfun. 

Apart from this, the week was pretty uneventful. I have been head down working on getting you guys some good research on blocmates, so stay tuned to Twitter for that. Other than that, I would say to remain focused and patient. Better times should come at some point. Till then, just survive and plan. 

I will be doing the same, but after I have slam 15 pints today. 

See you soon, my fellow degens. 

Emiri 🫡