‘Twas a Feast Week in Crypto Land

GM GM!

Happy $100k week! It still feels unreal that BTC crossed the six-figure mark. But well, we’re living the dream and seeing history being scripted. 

A lot happened behind the scenes. After all, ‘twas quite a happening week. So, without beating around the bush, imma dive straight in. 

The HAWK and TUAH showdown 

The ‘Hawk Tuah’ girl launched a token called HAWK on Solana this week. According to Bubblemaps, around 96% of the token’s supply was in just one cluster. No surprises, but the token ended up crashing 90% right off the bat.

Meanwhile, TUAH was counter-launched as a “revenge” coin to flip HAWK and send the Hawk Tuah girl to prison. A day back, it had registered a 15,000%+ pump, but now, is down by almost 80% on the daily.

Celsius founder pleads guilty 

While we’re still on the prison topic, Alex Mashinsky —  the guy who once promised the moon with Celsius Network — is finally facing the music. He pleaded guilty to fraud this week after being hit with charges in July 2023. 

It’s a classic story of crypto hubris: promise big, profit bigger, and leave the customers holding the bag when it all comes crashing down. Celsius filed for bankruptcy in 2022, locking up funds and leaving investors scrambling. Now Mashinsky is staring down a sentence that could top 30 years, with his date in court set for April 2025.

Adios, Gary! 

Trump has named former SEC Commissioner Paul Atkins as the new SEC Chair. Good news, he’s pro-crypto! Atkins co-chairs the Digital Chamber's Token Alliance — a blockchain trade association.

He’s worked in the SEC during George Bush’s regime and Trump says Atkins issa "proven leader." Garry daddy is all set to resign at noon on January 20. This means, next year onwards, no one will look to tear down the industry. 

Ripple's Garlinghouse says Atkins will bring “common sense” back to the agency. You bet!

Alongside, Trump also appointed David Sacks as America’s first AI and Crypto Czar. He’s specifically gonna sit down and chalk out a regulatory framework. Our “clarity, clarity” cries have finally been heard! 

We don’t need protection. We need communication, we need clarity!

Sonic is comin’ 

Everyone seems to be excited ‘bout Sonic’s L1 blockchain that’s set to go live this month. Its upgraded testnet Blaze went live on December 1, while on December 2, the team took a snapshot for its S token airdrop.

Sonic has achieved genesis already; infra is being deployed at the minute. CTO Cronje says Sonic has a “developer-focused model.” 90% of the network’s transaction fee is paid back to developers — that itself will act like a magnet post-launch. 

Also, as users, you can expect an increase in throughput — I’m talking bout over 2,000 transactions per second and single-second finality. This would put it on par with the likes of Solana. 

This speed will be achieved via the new Fantom Virtual Machine that will replace the old Ethereum Virtual Machine model. The upgrade will also bring down the storage requirements by 90%. 

Pretty exciting! The team is cooking. Looks like it’s gonna be an epic launch. 

Magic Eden airdrop

The HYPE airdrop was a banger. The whole town was happy. Now, we’ve another airdrop to prep for — the ME airdrop. The eligibility checker went live on December 4. 

The ME Token Generation Event (TGE) is scheduled for December 10. The token will have a total supply of 1 billion, with 12.5% (125 million tokens) allocated for the initial airdrop,

Over four years, 50.2% of the total supply will be distributed to the community and ecosystem. On Whales Market and Kraken ME is trading at $3.5; while on Coinbase it is priced at $3.9 [pre-market prices]. 

XRP, dino coins light up the room

The week started with XRP rallying, teleporting us back to 2017-18. The asset flipped SOL, USDT to become the third-largest crypto asset. Even better, XRP ended up flipping the entire meme coin market capitalization on Monday [$132 billion vs. $138 billion]. 

XRP is currently trading at the brink of $2.5 — the asset has revisited this level for the first time since January 8, 2018, scripting a 6-year (nearly 7-year) high. On CEXes like Binance, Coinbase, and Kraken, XRP was the most traded asset on Monday.

Then by mid-week, other dino coins like BNB, TRX, and SAND followed suit. They pulled off 30-60% single-day rallies. Also, the altcoin index’s reading clinched 90 this week — a level last seen more than two years back. Overall, ‘twas a feast! 

What’s next for BTC? 

It took BTC less than 16 years to become a $2 trillion asset, while companies like Apple and Amazon took 42 and 29 years to get there. 

El Salvador invested $269 million into BTC; its total current balance is $603 million, the unrealized gains is at $333.5 million. Likewise, MSTR’s BTC investment has surpassed $18 billion profit.  

Feels like we’re in up-only season. We’ve had 9 positive months out of 11 so far this year; a positive December could make it 10. Historically, bull years have finished strong. 

$250k is the next threshold that everyone’s eying.

Whales are doing the heavy lifting already, plus we’ve institutional demand, ETF inflows, and improved macro sentiment. Let’s see where the road ahead takes us.

And finally

If you’re new to the arena, worry not, blocmates has you covered too. 

GrantMaster is doing a free on-chain DeFi seminar series covering everything right from scratch. Trading, farming, staking — no base has been left out. If you missed the first one, then you can tune in here. 

The other ones are gonna be great too! Tag along to become an informed idiot!  

Signing off,
Lavina 🫡