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OVERVIEW

This Market Bites Harder Than A Hangry Vampire 🧛

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 📰

🚀 Stellar Q4: Billions, But Who’s Counting?

They moved 18 billion operations, tossed around $32B in payments, and even roped in the UNHCR for good measure. It’s a real “let’s fix the world with frictionless finance” vibe, all while network fees barely break $126k. Call it altruism or a hustle; either way, Stellar’s padding its resume for the next bull run. Stellar blog.

⚖️ Law Firms Tell PumpFun to Dump Those Tokens

Burwick Law and Wolf Popper want PumpFun to yank “Dogshit2” and any other wannabe tokens using their names or logos. They’re accusing PumpFun of impersonation, intellectual property theft, and pushing a hype coin that’s basically pure nonsense. So far, PumpFun has shrugged it off. AltcoinBuzz.

👮 Ransomware Catches A Beatdown

Law enforcement slapped down cyber extortionists so hard this year that ransom payments nosedived by 35%. Larger groups got wrecked, while smaller crooks jumped in to target mid-tier victims who’re stingier with payouts. Either way, more people said “no thanks,” which is a huge win for anyone tired of having their data held hostage. Chainalysis.

🕵️ Coinbase Says Satoshi May Have Hung Around Until 2014

Conor Grogan claims Bitcoin’s mastermind likely sent coins to a Canadian exchange, CaVirtEx, hinting the big mystery dude might have been active well after that 2011 mic drop email. He even hinted that Kraken’s Jesse Powell might have the mother of all KYC secrets. The real punchline is that everyone at Kraken responded with “We are all Satoshi”. The Block.

🏙️ Fetch.ai’s AI Agents Promise City-Wide Traffic Zen

They’re plugging AI into traffic lights, vehicles, and crosswalks, hoping your commute won’t feel like a Dante-level punishment. The plan is a labyrinth of autonomous negotiations, resource optimization, and machine-learning overlays. If it all works, we’ll have fewer traffic jams—assuming your city can handle “multi-agent synergy” without blowing a fuse. Fetch.ai blog.

🧭 IO Research’s Five-Year Cardano Brainstorm

IO Research wants Cardano to morph into a “world’s operating system,” and they’re pushing Ouroboros Omega, zero-knowledge proofs, and more to make it happen. Their new 2025 Work Program is all about building unstoppable, self-sovereign blockchain tech with a boatload of papers and big talk about democracy and interoperability. Input Output.

💸 EmpiresX Ringleaders Hammered With $130M Penalty

A Florida judge just nailed the founders of EmpiresX for a $40 million crypto scam that funded their lavish lifestyles. They’re banned from U.S. markets for good measure, but two of them fled to Brazil, where extradition is basically a joke. Their associate, who stuck around, pleaded guilty and will be paying a hefty sum while thinking about his life choices. Courlistener.

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TECHNICAL ANALYSIS
Price Levels To Watch 👀 

Bitcoin

BTCUSD Weekly Chart – Click to enlarge.

Good news: Bitcoin is still above the Ichimoku Cloud, so things are decidedly still bullish from an Ichimoku perspective.

Bad news: The very bottom of the bullish level is the top of the Cloud – which is at $60,118.

The big zone to look at for support to hold (or break if you’re a bear) is where the 38.2% Fibonacci retracement and the dominant interior trendline sit; the $91,500 value area.

A quick note about how powerful that trendline is – we first looked at it in the April 2, 2024 Litepaper:

April 2, 2024, BTCUSD Monthly Chart – Click to enlarge.

You can read more about that level and how it’s been a kind of exclusive level for Litepaper readers in the December 24, 2024 Litepaper. 📜 

XRP

XRPUSD Daily Chart – Click to enlarge.

XRP is currently in the Cloud with its final support at Senkou Span B. But what I’m most interested in is what happens with price action between February 8 and February 10. 

The Ichimoku trader/analyst and author of Trading With Ichimoku Clouds, Manesh Patel, made an interesting observation. And it’s an observation I’ve not read any other contemporary Ichimoku author write about.

He observed that when the future Cloud (the Cloud furthest to the right side of the chart) is thin and Senkou Span A and B are both pointing in the direction of the future Cloud, major moves often begin. Let’s see if that happens. 🕵️ 

Hedera

HBARUSD Daily Chart – Click to enlarge.

I’ve written a lot about one of the most sought-after long entry setups in Ichimoku, the Ideal Bullish Ichimoku Breakout. Well, the inverse of that is developing here on Hedera’s daily chart: the Ideal Bearish Ichimoku Breakout.

If the Chikou Span closes below Senkou Span B at $0.217, then a much deeper retracement lower for HBAR could be in its future. Not shown on the chart is the weekly Kijun-Sen in the same value area at $0.222.

Below those levels? The top of the weekly Cloud (Senkou Span B) aaaaaall the way down at $0.114. Yuck for the bulls, but giddyup for the shorts. 🐎 

NEWS IN THREE SENTENCES
Metaverse, NFT, & Gaming News 🎮️

⚽ $PSG Token Turns 5: Messi, Merch, And Monetization

Paris Saint Germain’s digital asset is blowing candles on a half-decade, pulling fans into locker-room votes and giving them illusions of choice. They even tossed a few tokens at Messi’s contract signing, showing the world you can pay soccer legends in hot, fresh crypto. Now they’re diving deeper into Chiliz Chain like it’s the next Champions League. Chiliz blog.

🏌️ WEMIX PLAY x Golf Super Crew: Tee Up For Free Swag

Sign up early, use your WEMIX PLAY account, and land an NFT just for showing up (maybe even an Uncommon one if you’re lucky). Then brag about it on X for a shot at an easy 10 PLAY Tokens—if you’re among the first thousand. It’s basically free stuff for tapping a few buttons, so swing away. WeMix blog.

🎨 Generative AI x NFTs: Copyright Is About To Get Weird

Everyone’s cranking out high-res art with a few typed prompts, leaving legal teams to argue who owns what. NFTs promise a traceable record of ownership, but AI’s swirling billions of references together like a chaotic buffet. Welcome to the future where an unstoppable AI collides with unstoppable blockchains—and unstoppable headaches. Kava blog.

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

⏰ PancakeSwap Kills Its Affiliate Program

No more shilling and commission-sharing after March 5, so if you’ve got unclaimed discounts, it’s time to cash out. They say they’re “streamlining” to focus on better things, which probably means more syrup pools or NFTs shaped like bunnies. Not a huge shock; affiliate freebies don’t exactly scream “sustainable DeFi.” Pancakeswap blog.

🔒 Sushi Taps dRPC For MEV-Free Trading

They’re re-routing swaps so front-running and sandwich attacks get locked out. That means fewer bots leeching your trade profits, and more talk about 90% MEV rebates that’ll magically appear in your wallet. For now, it’s live on Ethereum, BNB Chain, Base, and Polygon. Sushiswap blog.

⛓️ Bitcoin DeFi: The Next Gold Rush (Allegedly)

Builders who missed the Ethereum DeFi boom are eyeing Bitcoin’s “untapped liquidity” like it’s 2019 all over again. With new L2s, rollups, and staking tools, they claim you can finally do something interesting with BTC besides hodling. Asphere BSI swears they’ll give devs the infrastructure they never had. Ankr blog.

🍀 USDY Joins BitGo’s Go Network For Institutional Yield

Ondo’s throwing USDY into BitGo’s custody so big-money clients can pretend they’re into DeFi without ever leaving their walled gardens. Now they can shuffle this Treasury-backed token around on the Go Network for “instant” settlement and minimal headache. It’s basically yield for folks who still need an industrial-grade babysitter. Ondo blog.

🔥 SNXWeave Weekly: Leverage Tokens, SIP-420, And V4 Hype

They’re wrapping up SIP-420 for a new era of staking (read: bigger incentives, less hassle). The 3x Leveraged Token Rally is still dishing out OP and USDC for folks who fancy high-stakes trades. V4’s coming soon, hoping to outdo on-chain DEX rivals without handing over the keys to centralization. Synthetix blog.

LINKS
Links That Don’t Suck 🔗

🌡️ Celsius founder Alex Mashinsky wants to delay fraud sentencing

🏧 Bitcoin ATMs now in every Costco store across the U.S.

🙂 71% of institutional investors may shun crypto in 2025: JPMorgan

💶 Trump crypto agenda could speed up digital Euro: ECB Board Member

🤯 1.24 trillion Shiba Inu (SHIB) withdrawal stuns major US exchange

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