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OVERVIEW

Optimism: Now Available In Short Bursts And Limited Supply 🤌

Source: Giphy

Before we dive in, here’s today’s crypto market heatmap:

Source: Santiment

And here’s a look at crypto’s total market and altcoin market cap charts:

Source: TradingView

NEWS IN THREE SENTENCES
Crypto News 📰

🚨 A Bit Late: FBI Fingers North Korea For Bybit’s $1.5B Mega-Hack

The FBI confirmed “TraderTraitor” hackers from the DPRK pulled off the biggest crypto heist in history, draining $1.5B from Bybit on Feb. 21. They’re already laundering the stolen loot via thousands of addresses, so apparently 1.5 billion bucks wasn’t enough to keep them discreet. FBI.

⚡ Litecoin Unveils .LTC Domains

No more clunky addresses—just snap up a .LTC domain from Unstoppable and send funds to “moonshot.ltc” or something equally rebellious. It’s a forever-owned domain bridging LTC’s OG vibe with the unstoppable world of Web3 login. Over a decade old and still finding new ways to stay relevant, Litecoin keeps flexing. Litecoin.

💸 Saylor: I’ll Buy All BTC If It Hits $1

MicroStrategy’s Michael Saylor said if Bitcoin ever collapses to $1, he’d scoop every single coin. He’s convinced BTC’s fundamentals, institutional backing, and 21M cap ensure it’ll never crater that low. So while we watch it hover around $84k (down from 90K+), Saylor’s basically telling short-sellers: “Yeah, good luck with that.” TheStreet.

📉 Pump.Fun Volume Crashes as Meme Mania Fades

That memecoin launchpad that had 70k+ tokens minted in a single day? Now it’s down to just 25k daily. Even the $100k liquidity “burn” mechanism can’t save it as hype drifts away. After big splashes from celebrity coins like Trump’s, the mania’s cooled off, leaving fewer degens flipping cat-faced tokens into 2x overnight fortunes. CoinCodex.

🕵️ Chainalysis Sees $51B+ in 2024 Crypto Crime

Chainalysis revised last year’s crime stats to a record $51B, thanks to stablecoin laundering, pro-grade AI scams, and advanced DeFi exploits. Ransomware payments dropped 35%, but criminals just pivoted to stablecoins and untraceable alt-laundering. Looks like the only winners are those who can hide their footprints faster than regulators can chase them. Cointelegraph.

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BITCOIN
Total Bitcoin Holdings of U.S.-Based Entities 🪙 

Ever wanted to know how many $BTC is in the U.S.? Here’s a break down of how much and who has it.

⚠️ TL;DR

• 3.42 million BTC (16.31% of total 21M supply) is held by U.S. ETFs, public/private companies, the government, exchanges, and known individuals.

• When adjusting for lost Bitcoin (lower estimate), U.S.-based entities control approximately 21.2% of the real circulating supply (~16.13M BTC).

• The U.S. alone holds over 1 in 5 available Bitcoin.

1️⃣ U.S.-Based Exchange-Traded Funds (ETFs)

2️⃣ U.S.-Based Public Companies

3️⃣ U.S.-Based Private Companies

4️⃣ U.S. Government

5️⃣ U.S. High-Profile Individuals

6️⃣ U.S.-Based Crypto Exchanges

💰 Total Bitcoin Holdings of U.S.-Based Entities

🔢 Adjusted for Total Current Mined BTC & Lost BTC

• Total Bitcoin Mined (as of February 26, 2025): 19.83 million BTC

• Estimated Lost Bitcoin (lower estimate): 3.7 million BTC

• Estimated Circulating Bitcoin (Mined – Lost): 16.13 million BTC

• % of Circulating BTC Held by U.S. Entities: 21.2%

NEWS IN THREE SENTENCES
DeFi, DEX, and Lending Protocol News 🏦

⚙️ StableSurge: Balancer’s New Fee Trick

They slapped a “hook” on Balancer v3 to hike swap fees when stablecoins drift off peg, basically telling frontrunners to cough up extra if they want to break stability. The dev team breezed through audits and aggregator integrations in record time. Now stablecoin trades have built-in protective spikes against those who dare try to push them off balance. Balancer.

📦 Vault 2.0: Saga’s Fresh Incentives

Saga’s pivoting from staker-only rewards to roping in LPs and other DeFi dynamos. They’re splitting everything into “Activity Vaults” plus a “Loyalty Vault,” so you’ll want to do more than just park tokens and forget. With millions of SAGA tokens up for grabs, expect more folks scrounging for that sweet yield. SAGA.

LINKS
Links That Don’t Suck 🔗

🦄 Uniswap taps Robinhood, MoonPay and Transak for native off-ramps to ‘move between crypto and cash’

🔨 THORChain hits unwanted $3B volume milestone as Bybit hackers revive activity on the struggling network

🐶 Dogecoin open interest declines 67% in three months

🏦 Revolut faces investor pressure for share sale before $1B profit report

🕹️ Warner Bros exec reportedly cites need to “regain our credibility and swagger at producing great games”

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Author Disclosure: The author of this newsletter holds positions in ADA, IMX, COPI, MIN, AGIX, ALGO, ZEC, AVAX, XLM, XTZ, and NEAR. 📋