Welcome to the Crypto News Rundown, where we
are kicking off our weekly analysis, getting
right into the major crypto events, the big structural
shifts in the market, and some really surprising
regulatory moments that are reshaping the landscape.
It was a week of, well, really stark contrasts.
A fascinating clash, you could say. A clash,
how so? On one side, you had this pretty dramatic
volatility. price dips that reflect a lot of
short -term fear, mostly in the retail market.
But on the other side, that fear was met, and
I mean aggressively countered, by these powerful,
almost undeniable institutional moves, a real
sense of long -term conviction from some of the
biggest players out there. Exactly. It's like
we're tracking these institutional footprints,
and they're just getting deeper and deeper in
the same. So today we're going to unpack a few
critical stories that are really going to define
the market as we head towards the end of the
year. For sure. We're starting with Bitcoin's
hard -fought recovery. We'll get deep into the
huge BlackRock ETF news and then break down what's
happening at major corporate treasuries. We're
talking strategy, MetaPlanet, and even Elon Musk's
SpaceX. And we also have a major security crisis
to talk about. The breach that hit Upbit, South
Korea's biggest exchange, and what that means
for Solana security everywhere. From there, we're
looking at the, let's call it the altcoin ETF
report card. Huh, I like that. Yeah, comparing
the really stellar performance of XRP, which
is all about regulation, against the, well, the
disappointing start for Dogecoin and some of
the shifts we're seeing in the Solana funds.
And we'll wrap up by looking at how this is all
playing out globally, from the SEC giving a really
crucial green light to DePin, to stablecoins
basically acting as legal tender in emerging
markets. It's a lot. OK, let's unpack this, starting
with the king coin, Bitcoin and the institutional
flow that's holding up the market. So let's start
with the big story over the U .S. Thanksgiving
holiday. On paper, it was, let's be honest, an
undeniable disappointment. Bitcoin hit $91 ,000.
Which is an incredible number in a vacuum. An
amazing number. But it failed to top the 2024
high of $95 ,737. And that gap, that little bit
of failure to set a new high, that's the psychological
friction the market's dealing with right now.
I mean, if you zoom way out, we are in an incredible
bull cycle. Of course. But when you zoom in on
just this recent performance, while not clearing
last year's peak, it just highlights how much
higher investors really expected 2025 to go.
And historically, a year over year drop like
this is. It's pretty rare, isn't it? It's very
rare. I mean, the journey is just insane. Yeah.
From zero in 2009, crossing $1 ,000 in 2013,
and then you hit those first two years of holiday
price drops, 2014 down to $369, 2015 down to
$356. Painful years. Oh, they were brutal. Real
existential doubt in the community back then.
Then you get the massive spike to over $95 ,000
in 2024. Seeing it at 91 now, it just means we're
in one of those rare years like 14 and 15 where
we didn't set a new holiday high. That context
helps a little. But even with that price dip,
the underlying mechanics are telling a different
story, right? A much more bullish story. If you
look at the footprint charts, you can see what
analysts are calling a persistent bid absorbing
any and all declines below $90 ,000. And what
does that mean exactly? A persistent bid. It
means every time the price dips below $90 ,000,
big buyers are stepping in. And this isn't, you
know, small retail investors making panic buys.
This is a large, deliberate, almost programmatic
buying pressure. It's institutional accumulation.
So they're defending that $90 ,000 level. They're
defending it and they're consuming the supply
from passive sellers who are stacked up just
under $92 ,000. The whole dynamic is shifting
from just being defensive to something that feels
more like it's in. Well, full attack mode. So
if that buying pressure is so persistent, what
are the technical markers we should be looking
for? What suggests a reversal might actually
be setting up? Well, technically, the market's
already showing a very clear high or low structure.
OK, for anyone who isn't glued to the charts
all day, what does that mean? it just means that
after the price tested a recent low point it
bounced and then on the next dip it didn't go
all the way back down it found its footing at
a higher low That's a classic sign that the bears
are losing steam and the buyers are slowly building
a bullish structure. And we're seeing other signs,
too. Yeah, we're seeing increasing intraday volume.
So more money is actually moving during the day.
And the RSI, the relative strength index, is
recovering. That suggests the asset isn't seen
as oversold anymore and momentum is building
back up. And you can draw a straight line from
this buying pressure directly to what's happening
in the broader macro environment. Absolutely.
The institutional buying is lining up perfectly
with these improving macro tailwinds. We're seeing
treasury yields falling. Inflation expectations
are coming down. Which all points to the Fed.
It all points to a December Fed rate cut. The
CME Group's FedWatch tool, it now puts the probability
of a 25 basis point cut at 85 percent. 85 percent.
And what was it last week? That's the crazy part.
It's a 46 percent jump in probability in just
one week. Wow. So why does a jump like that hit
Bitcoin so hard? What's the direct connection?
Because Bitcoin, for all intents and purposes,
acts like a long duration asset. It's a bit like
a tech growth stock. So when interest rates are
expected to fall, the present value of future
value, it goes up. Lower rates also mean cheaper
money. So big institutions are encouraged to
move capital out of safer things like treasuries
and into riskier high growth assets like Bitcoin.
That massive jump in probability, it's a huge
green light for them. It confirms the risk on
trade is back. Speaking of institutional conviction,
BlackRock's I Bid It. It is just showing incredible
durability right now. It's a huge psychological
milestone. Holders of the iShares Bitcoin Trust's
ETF have officially flipped back into profit.
We're talking a cumulative gain of $3 .2 billion.
And that's after a pretty scary dip. A very scary
dip. Just four days before that, the cumulative
profit had shrunk all the way down to $630 million.
So this rapid V -shaped recovery, it just reinforces
confidence, especially for the big players who
bought that dip. And it wasn't just iBit. No,
the spot Bitcoin ETFs as a whole had two straight
days of inflows, only 21 million total. But it
was enough to end a painful two week outflow
streak. But iBit is still in a class of its own,
isn't it? It is. According to K33 research, iBit
is the only spot Bitcoin ETF to maintain net
positive inflows throughout the whole of 2025.
That is an incredible statistic. It says everything
about BlackRock's distribution power and the
trust that institutions put in that brand. The
momentum is so strong that iBit is now getting
what people are calling the Mag7 treatment from
regulators. Yeah, this is huge. NASDAQ's eyes
proposed increasing the trading limits for iBit
options to one million contracts. One million.
One million. That is putting Bitcoin derivatives
on the exact same level as the biggest stocks
in the world. We're talking Apple, Amazon, Nvidia,
the Magnificent Seven. So what does that actually
do for the market? Well, iBit already holds over
$86 billion in Bitcoin. Analysts are thinking
this move could inject more than $5 billion in
new derivatives activity, and that creates this
powerful feedback loop. How so? More derivative
demand means market makers and institutional
hedgers have to go out and buy the underlying
asset, the actual BTC, to cover their positions.
It just pours fuel on the fire. It's a huge validation
of Bitcoin as a core financial asset. And then,
as if that wasn't enough validation, we get the
news out of Texas. A truly landmark moment. Texas
became the first U .S. state to purchase Bitcoin
for its public treasury. Which accelerates this
whole state level crypto treasury race that's
been bubbling under the surface. Absolutely.
The purchase happened in mid -November at an
average price of around $87 ,000. And they did
it through BlackRock's iBit ETF. So not self
-custody. They use the ETF. And that's the strategic
part. By using the ETF, they get immediate regulated
exposure to the asset. They get to bypass all
the complex legal and custodial... real hurdles
that would come with trying to hold the keys
themselves. So why is this so important for the
rest of the market? What's the precedent here?
The precedent is that it signals to every other
state treasury and every public pension fund
in the country that these regulated products,
these spot Bitcoin ETFs, are now viable and acceptable
tools for long term strategic allocation. It's
not just a speculative venture anymore. Exactly.
Texas is treating Bitcoin as a legitimate hedge
against federal monetary policy and inflation,
while at the same time they're laying the groundwork
for future self -custody if and when the state's
own reg - regulatory framework evolves to allow
it. It's a very smart two step play. Now, this
recent volatility has been a huge stress test
for the corporate treasuries that followed this
playbook. Let's start with strategy, formerly
MicroStrategy. They rolled out a whole new credit
dashboard basically to calm investor nerves after
the price dip. And their confidence is, well,
remarkably high. They're not worried. Not at
all. They claim they have a 71 year dividend
payment runway to service their debt, even if
the price of Bitcoin just stayed flat for decades.
71 years. Yeah. Their debt coverage ratio, what
they call their BTC rating, is at 5 .9 times
their debt. And that's because their average
cost basis is so low, around $74 ,000. So the
liquidation fears that we saw in the last cycle,
that's pretty much off the table for strategy.
For them, yes. Their debt is well managed. And
crucially, their MNAV ratio, that's the enterprise
value of the company divided by the value of
its crypto holdings, is still above one. It's
at 1 .16. OK, can you break that down for us?
What does an MNAV ratio of 1 .16 actually tell
us? It's basically a measure of market confidence.
If the ratio is above one, it means the market
values the company for more than just the Bitcoin
it holds. They're pricing in a premium for its
ability to keep executing its accumulation strategy.
So the market thinks strategy itself is worth
16 percent more than all its Bitcoin and its
software business combined. Exactly. And that
gives them the power to raise more money by issuing
new stock if they want to. It's a very powerful
signal of stability and market trust. Now, you
contrast that incredibly strong position with
what's happening over at Japan's meta planet.
A much, much more precarious situation. The market
is really holding its breath on this one. Why?
What's the problem? Well, meta planet is nearing.
A serious inflection point. They hold 30 ,000
Bitcoin, but their average cost is way higher
than the current price. It's around $108 ,000
per coin. Ouch. So with Bitcoin trading around
87 ,000, they're, what, 17 % underwater. Almost
exactly. That's about $640 million in unrealized
losses right now. And to make it worse, they
just added a ton of leverage. Precisely. They
recently borrowed an additional $130 million
using their existing Bitcoin as collateral. So
for them to just break even, Bitcoin needs to
get back to $108 ,000. Just to break even. For
their whole leveraged investment model to actually
work. to make a profit and service that debt,
analysts think Bitcoin needs to get above $130
,000. That seems optimistic in this market. So
what's the timeline here? What's the immediate
risk? The risk is huge because they have two
massive dates coming up in December. First is
December 18th, the Bank of Japan's interest rate
decision. Right. If the Boje tightens policy,
the yen gets stronger, and that could push Bitcoin's
price down even further in local currency terms.
Which would look really bad right before their
shareholder vote. Exactly. The second date is
December 22nd. That's a critical shareholder
vote on a $135 million fundraising plan, which
they desperately need. So if the Bojay tightens,
the vote could fail. It absolutely could. We're
already hearing whispers that some of the big
institutional shareholders are getting nervous.
If that vote fails and Bitcoin dips further,
you could start seeing margin call scenarios.
It's a very tight spot for them. OK, shifting
gears to Elon Musk. SpaceX made a big move this
week that got a lot of analysts talking. Yeah,
they transferred 1 ,163 Bitcoin, that's worth
about $105 million, to new wallets linked to
Coinbase Prime. And this isn't a sale? No. Analysts
at Arkham Intelligence are very firm on this.
It's not a sale or a liquidation. It's about
professionalizing their custody. So moving it
somewhere safer, more regulated. That's the consensus.
Moving funds to Coinbase Prime is what you do
when you're a major corporation and you view
this asset as a long term strategic reserve.
It's about higher security, regulatory compliance,
all of that. SpaceX is still the fourth largest
private holder of Bitcoin, with over 6000 coins
worth more than half a billion dollars. This
is just them growing up. From the professionalization
of custody, we now have to turn to a very stark
reminder that centralized exchanges are still.
Well, massive honeypots. Yeah, this is a serious
incident this week. South Korea's biggest crypto
exchange, Upbit, suffered a major breach. How
much are we talking? Unauthorized withdrawals
totaling about 36 .9 million U .S. dollars or
54 billion Korean won. And the timing just amplified
the shock. It happened right after Upbit's parent
company, Dunamu, announced this massive $10 billion
acquisition deal and revealed plans for a U .S.
IPO. And the timing was... Disturbingly precise,
wasn't it? It lined up with a previous hack.
The timing is unsettling, to say the least. The
hack happened on November 27th. That is the exact
same calendar date as a major breach back in
2019, which was linked to North Korean state
actors. Wow. Is there a confirmed link this time?
No confirmed link yet, but that coincidence alone
has sparked some really intense speculation about
a sophisticated recurring attack. So what were
the hackers targeting? The focus was exclusively
on Solana ecosystem tokens, and they were all
held in the exchange's hot wallet. So the operational
wallet, not the cold storage. Right. The vast
majority of user funds in cold storage remain
completely secure. The attackers just drained
a whole basket of high -value Solana tokens,
SOL, USDC, Biomank, JUP, RayRender, a bunch of
others. Do we have any idea how they got in?
Was it a private key compromise? A software bug?
An insider. Exchanges rarely give up the specifics,
but analysts are looking at three main theories.
First, a sophisticated zero -day exploit in the
Solana software app it was running. Second, a
simple private key compromise, which can happen
with operational hot wallets. And the third theory.
Given the history with the 2019 breach, an insider
threat or a very deep social engineering attack
is still a high probability, especially because
the theft was so fast and so targeted. So once
Upbit figured out what was happening, what did
they do? Their crisis management was a pretty
textbook, to be honest. They immediately suspended
all deposit and withdrawal services across every
single network. Locked everything down. Everything.
At the same time, they started this massive emergency
transfer of every remaining asset into ultra
secure cold storage and launched a full security
audit of their entire system. Here's where it
gets really interesting, though. The part that
I think changes the whole story for users is
the immediate guarantee of reimbursement. It
absolutely does. The CEO of Dynamo, Oh Kyung
-sook, issued an immediate, unequivocal guarantee
of full user reimbursement. No questions asked.
None. The company announced they would use Upbit's
own corporate money to cover the $37 million
loss. They turned it from a user problem into
a corporate expense. And you think back to the
history of big crypto hacks, Mt. Gox, FTX, customer
funds were just... gone or frozen for years,
this feels like a huge shift. It's a complete
industry shift. Upbit's move prevents customer
panic, it maintains trust, and it completely
avoids a potential bank run, either just absorbing
the loss to protect their members. And on top
of that, they've already started recovery efforts,
successfully freezing about $12 billion worth
of one of the stolen tokens. But this puts a
huge spotlight on Solana security across the
board, not just at Upbit. That's right. The fact
that they targeted a basket of SOL ecosystem
tokens suggests a very sophisticated attack focused
on that high speed layer one liquidity. You know,
the CEO of Trezor noted that over two and a half
billion dollars has been stolen just in 2025.
This is a sharp reminder to all exchanges that
security is a perpetual moving target. OK, let's
shift our focus now to the very competitive world
of altcoin ETFs. And we are seeing a huge divergence
in performance here. massive one. And it really
separates the assets that have regulatory clarity
from the ones that are, well, still relying on
pure meme speculation. So let's start with the
clear winner. Yeah, XRP is definitely winning
the altcoin ETF race right now, almost entirely
because of its regulatory standing. The XRP ETFs
are showing impressive cumulative net inflows
of $643 million. And they have a perfect daily
inflow streak, which is the most powerful contrast
you can make with, say, the recent outflows in
the Solana funds. It really is. It speaks directly
to institutional conviction. And analysts think
this is just the warm up. The warm up. Yeah,
the current products from Grayscale, Franklin
Templeton, Bitwise, they're just the early movers,
the real institutional heavyweights, the BlackRock's
infidelities of the world. They haven't even
filed for a spot XRP ETF yet. And when they do?
Some analysts are betting that when that volume
hits, the XRP rally could actually be bigger
than the one Bitcoin had. We're also seeing big
shifts in the supply dynamics for XRP, right?
We are. The amount of XRP held on exchanges,
especially Binance, is collapsing. It's at its
lowest point since August. Which is a bullish
sign. It's a long -term bullish indicator, yeah.
Less supply on exchanges means less sell -side
pressure. It makes the price more elastic if
and when a wave of demand kicks in. So you've
got tightening supply and strengthening ETF demand
happening at the same time. And on top of all
that... Ripple scored a huge win for its stablecoin
RLUSD this week. This is a massive win in the
Middle East. It really cements RLUSD as a piece
of foundational financial infrastructure. Ripple's
stablecoin was officially recognized as an accepted
fiat reference token in the Abu Dhabi global
market. So it already had a strong regulatory
footing in the U .S., in New York. What does
this dual US -UAE compliance actually mean for
institutions? It's transformative. It means licensed
banks, custodians, payment firms, anyone in one
of the world's most sophisticated financial hubs.
can now legally hold, transfer, and use RLUSD
for regulated financial activities. Like collateral
lending? Collateral lending, settling cross -border
payments, you name it. It moves RLUSD from being
just another crypto token into a globally compliant
tool for serious financial institutions. Okay,
now let's turn to the other side of the altcoin
ETF market, where things have been a lot more
turbulent. Starting with the debut of Grayscale's
spot Dogecoin ETF. GDOG. It was, to put it mildly,
a flop. A dud. A total dud. I mean, despite all
the media hype, the fund only logged $1 .4 million
in trading volume on day one. The forecasts were
for $10 to $12 million. It missed by a huge margin.
And the momentum just died almost immediately,
which suggests that institutional appetite for
pure meme exposure is basically zero. Well, on
day two, inflows collapsed by 80%. They dropped
to just $365 ,000. The market treated it like
a one -day headline, nothing more. And it raises
this really fundamental question. Which is? When
regulators have given you a perfectly good path
for exposure, why are the big institutions still
shunning a high -profile meme asset like Dogecoin?
What's the consensus on that? The consensus is
that institutions are looking for assets with
real demonstrable utility or a clear regulatory
status like XRP. And if they are going to take
on more risk, they want something that offers
a compelling staking or yield mechanism. And
Dogecoin offers none of that. None of it. So
listing GDOG just proved that having a regulated
wrapper isn't enough if the underlying asset
doesn't have a foundational purpose. Meanwhile,
the Solana ETFs had a pretty big speed bump this
week. They recorded their first ever day of net
out. That's right. About 8 .1 million in net
outflows. And it was mostly driven by one fund,
the 21 shares Solana ETF or TSOL. It saw a massive
single day withdrawal of $34 million. But other
Solana funds are still doing well, right? What's
driving that divergence? The outflows from TSOL
look like profit taking, especially with the
market volatility and that up its security incident.
But the overall Solana ETF category is still
resilient because the funds that offer yield
are still attracting money. Like the staking
ETFs. Exactly. The Bitwise Solana staking ETF,
BSOL, is still seeing inflows. It pulled in over
13 million. And that suggests that the more sophisticated
investors are favoring those staking features.
They're treating those products as long term.
revenue generating holds, not just short term
trading vehicles. OK, moving over to Ethereum.
The network is getting ready for some major technical
upgrades. It is. This week, Ethereum validators
pushed the main net block gas limit up to 60
million. That's the highest it's been in four
years. What does that actually mean for the network?
It effectively doubles the previous cap, which
means it can handle a lot more transactions.
It's a huge boost for throughput and efficiency,
especially with the big Fusaka upgrade coming
on December 3rd. They're getting ready for a
lot more activity from the Layer 2s. And while
the network itself is scaling up, we're seeing
some huge high -risk leveraged bets being placed
on the asset. Yeah, we tracked a move from a
prominent whale trader, goes by 1011 Short. He
opened a highly leveraged $44 million long position.
That's 15 ,000 ETH. Wow. What's his liquidation
point? It's set down at $2 ,326. So it's a very
clear high risk, high reward bet. It shows this
intense individual conviction that ETH is about
to break to the upside. At the same time, we're
also seeing more cautious long term buying from
the corporate side. That's the other side of
the coin. Bitmine Immersion Technologies, which
is listed on Nasdaq, they added almost 70 ,000
more ETH to their holdings last week. How much
do they hold now? Their total treasury is up
to 3 .63 million ETH. That's roughly 3 % of the
entire circulating supply. Now, they're reporting
huge unrealized losses on that position, about
3 .4 billion. But the fact that they're still
accumulating just shows their long -term conviction
in Ethereum's future. They're willing to stomach
the volatility. And then we shift to the pure
meme sector. And the picture for something like
Shiba Inu is much gloomier. Yes, the data here
is pretty unambiguous. About 200 billion EFRAZIG
were moved back onto exchanges this week, which
is a huge number. And that's typically a very
strong bearish signal. Its classic analyst shorthand
for sell -side preparation is underway. And the
move is significant because it happened right
as the price was trying to make a little technical
recovery. It just squashed it. And the technicals
don't look great either. No, the chart structure
is overwhelmingly bearish. Shizib is trading
below all the major moving averages, the 50,
the 100, the 200 day. The overall trend is down.
That little price bounce was just a technical
reaction to being oversold, not a real reversal.
So with all this new supply hitting the exchanges,
what's the most likely scenario from here? The
most likely scenario is just more of the same.
Bearish continuation. That massive inflow suggests
Ishib is going to retest support at 0 .008 or
maybe even head down towards 0 .0074. And a bullish
break is just low probability right now. Very
low. For that to happen, you'd need to see two
things. A huge wave of withdrawals from exchanges
and a clear daily close above the key resistance
levels. Right now, that's just not in the cards.
We've talked a lot about institutional adoption
in the developed world. Let's look globally now.
where regulation and just pure real world necessity
are driving huge adoption, especially for stable
coins. Yeah. Stable coins are really starting
to move beyond just being for crypto trading.
They're getting integrated into the backbone
of traditional finance. Visa just made a huge
move this week. What did they do? They partnered
with an infrastructure provider called Aquano
to expand settlement using approved stable coins
like USDC across the Samia region. That's Central
and Eastern Europe, the Middle East. Africa.
So they're just trying to cut out the slow traditional
banking layers for cross -border payments. Exactly.
They're using stable coins to digitize the back
end of money movement. It enables 24 -7 near
instant settlement. And we're seeing the same
thing in Europe, where Deutsche Börse is integrating
a euro pegged stable coin into its institutional
custody service. But even as adoption is rising.
The biggest stablecoin, Tether's USDT, got hit
with a big downgrade this week from S &P Global.
They did. S &P Global downgraded USDT's stability
rating from constrained down to weak. Why? What
was the reason? Core reason was Tether's increased
exposure to volatile assets. They pointed out
that Bitcoin now makes up over 5 .6 % of USDT
reserves, which is higher than the buffer they
had previously stated. And S &P also highlighted
the same old concerns about transparency and
disclosure. How did that rating affect the market,
especially somewhere like China, where USDT is
basically the only game in town? It triggered
a really mixed reaction in China's huge underground
crypto market. I mean, they rely completely on
USDT for trading. So while some of the veteran
traders just dismissed it as the usual Tether
FUD, others expressed real panic. They're terrified
of a collapse. For them, any instability in USDT
is an existential threat to their access to digital
assets. That reliance on stablecoins is even
more intense in economies that are just being
crushed by hyperinflation. Oh, absolutely. I
mean, in these places, crypto isn't a speculative
investment. It's a necessary tool for survival.
Like in Bolivia. Take Bolivia. Yeah. They're
facing over 22 percent inflation and a chronic
shortage of U .S. dollars. So the government
did a complete U -turn and lifted its crypto
ban last year. Now banks can custody digital
assets and the government even permits crypto
based accounts and loans. How does that dollar
shortage actually affect the average person there?
It means importers can't get physical U .S. dollars
to pay for essential goods. You get. Empty shelves,
long lines for basic stuff. So in response, businesses
just started pricing things in USDT. Really?
Yeah. Big car manufacturers like Toyota and Yamaha
are accepting stable coins because they literally
can't get physical dollars through official channels.
Stable coins are acting almost as legal tender
there. And the situation is even more extreme
in places like Venezuela and Argentina. Venezuela's
inflation is somewhere between 170 and 270 percent.
Citizens are so reliant on stable coins, they
just call them Binance dollars. And in Argentina,
even with the new president's austerity measures,
inflation is still over 30 percent. They recorded
nearly 94 billion in crypto transaction volume
last year. Wow. And then Turkey shows a slightly
different behavior, right? They're moving beyond
just stable coins. Yeah. Turkey's inflation is
at 32 percent and they have a. staggering 200
billion in crypto volume. But the market there
is shifting away from just holding stable coins
and more towards altcoin speculation. Why is
that? Economists think it's a kind of desperate
yield seeking behavior. When your purchasing
power is just evaporating, holding a dollar pegged
asset isn't enough. People are taking on way
more risk just trying to find some way anyway
to keep up with inflation. OK, let's move over
to Russia, where the government's attempt to
regulate crypto mining is running into some problems.
That's right. The problem is all the unregistered
miners operating in what they call the shadows.
So an adviser to the state Duma has proposed
an amnesty for illegally imported mining equipment.
So mining is legal there now, but people aren't
complying. It was legalized in 2024. But the
law requires you to register and pay taxes if
you use more than 6 ,000 kilowatt hours a month,
which is a pretty low threshold. And it's just
been widely ignored. What's stopping them from
complying if it's legal? About 60 percent of
miners are still unregistered. And the core issue
is the fear of asset forfeiture. They want to
register, but they're afraid the government will
not just fine them, but actually seize and confiscate
their expensive mining rigs because they were
imported illegally. And this shadow economy is
causing real infrastructure problems. Absolutely.
The Siberian regions, with their cheap electricity
and cold weather, are perfect for mining. But
now they're suffering severe power shortages
because of all the unauthorized operations. So
local authorities are cracking down, which just
shows the conflict between wanting to tax this
industry and needing to manage their strained
power grid. The amnesty is the proposed solution
to bring them into the legal system. On the regulatory
front in the US, we got a very rare and pretty
significant no action letter from the SEC this
week. This was a massive victory for utility
driven crypto projects. The letter was for Fuse,
a Solana based deep end project focused on decentralized
energy, specifically solar panels. And a no action
letter basically means the SEC is saying we won't
recommend enforcement action against you. It's
a green light. It's a huge green light. And the
core of it was successfully arguing that their
token is a utility token, not a security under
the Howey test. How did they manage to do that?
It was a very sophisticated legal strategy. The
Howey test requires an expectation of profit
from the efforts of others. Few successfully
showed that their tokens are primarily for consumptive
use. So for rebates and discounts on your energy
bill. Exactly. The argument is that. People are
buying the token to use it to get cheaper energy,
not to speculate on the success of the management
team. That functional utility is what separates
it from being a speculative security. And this
is a big regulatory shift with support from Commissioner
Hester Peirce. It is. This is the second Deppin
project to get a letter like this. It really
reinforces the view that the SEC is willing to
embrace Deppin as a, quote, novel way of organizing
human behavior and capital. So we've established
the market is getting more professional, more
institutional, and the stakes are much higher.
Which brings us to a whole new sector that's
focused on information asymmetry. Yeah, the launch
of the Layer 1 Monad this week was a perfect
example of why real -time on -chain information
is so critical now. A lot of people got burned
on this one. They did. Monad launched with this
massive $3 billion valuation, and the price surged
80 % almost instantly. And it shocked a lot of
retail traders who were betting against that
high valuation. What was the key piece of information
they were missing? They didn't have immediate
access to the circulation data. The key was that
only 10 percent of the total token supply was
actually available in circulation at launch.
So there was extreme scarcity. Extreme scarcity.
The advanced traders who were using real time
on chain standards saw that low circulating supply
and they anticipated the squeeze. They were able
to front run the retail market that was betting
the other way. So the difference between winning
and losing was just knowing the true circulating
supply at the exact right time. right moment.
Exactly. And that reality has just fueled the
rise of all these new AI powered tools. This
is the new technological arms race, isn't it?
AI tools monitoring on -chain data to try and
fix this information gap. It is. We're seeing
whole projects dedicated just to this, offering
AI agents that monitor everything. price, liquidity,
supply movements, whale transactions to give
users that critical information faster than anyone
else. We're also seeing a new vision for Bitcoin
that tries to address its biggest structural
weakness. The fact that it's too slow to be a
currency. This is the idea behind Bitcoin Hyper.
The classic critique is that Bitcoin's base layer
is just too slow and expensive for lots of small
transactions. So Bitcoin Hyper is trying to solve
that by creating a Solana -grade execution layer
specifically for wrapped BTC. So how does that
work without breaking Bitcoin's core security?
It's a layered system. You lock up your real
BTC on the secure Bitcoin base chain, and then
it mints a wrapped version that can move super
cheap and super fast in this high velocity dApp
environment. But the final settlement is still
anchored back to the main Bitcoin chain. Exactly.
It's anchored to the secure base layer. And the
native token, HYPER, is what you need for gas,
for staking and for governance on this execution
layer. The argument is that this turns Bitcoin
from just being static collateral into active
transactional capital. All right. Finally, let's
look at a fascinating little niche shift that's
being driven by regulation. The sudden exodus
of crypto traders from offshore gambling sites.
Yeah, the Wild West era of offshore crypto casinos
is coming to a very abrupt end. And it's because
of two things, predatory compliance and enhanced
enforcement. So the operators lure you in with
promises of no KYC. They do. They'll let you
deposit as much as you want with no questions
asked. But then the trap springs when you try
to withdraw. Precisely. The user tries to make
a six -figure withdrawal and suddenly the operator
freezes the funds and demands a U .S. ID for
verification. When you provide it, they ban you
for violating their terms of service about U
.S. residents and they just confiscate your funds.
It's a bait and switch. An aggressive one. And
it's become standard practice. And on top of
that, U .S. exchanges are now proactively stopping
funds from even reaching these sites. Exchanges
like Coinbase are using advanced chain analysis
tools. If they detect a transfer to or from a
known gambling wallet, they just shut down your
account immediately. So it's become a survival
strategy for US crypto users to avoid these sites
completely. So compliant platforms like these
sweepstakes models are emerging as the only real
alternative. Yeah, they are. And the legal genius
is that they use a mechanism that removes the
element of consideration. Why is that distinction
so important? Because U .S. lottery law says
you need three things for it to be a legal gambling.
A prize, chance, and consideration, which is
money exchanged for the chance to win. These
sweepstakes platforms use a dual currency system.
You buy gold coins for entertainment, which have
no value, but you get sweeps coins as a free
bonus. And because the valuable sweeps coins
are given away for free, it legally removes that
element of consideration. Which makes the whole
system compliant with U .S. law. Exactly. And
it allows for instant crypto redemptions, usually
USDC, straight back to a whitelisted exchange
wallet without any fear of your account being
closed or your funds being confiscated. You know,
if we look at the week as a whole, the market
volatility was definitely heavy. But that underlying
narrative of professionalization, of maturation,
it just remains constant. We saw major institutions
really solidifying their Bitcoin positions. We
saw altcoin ETFs finding these specific utility
driven footholds with XRP. showing that strong
conviction. While Dogecoin just struggles. While
Dogecoin struggles, exactly. And the regulatory
frameworks are evolving so fast now to embrace
actual utility in the deep end sector and for
stable coins all over the world. This week was
really defined by this growing chasm between
the speculative meme coins that just rely on
hype and the utility -driven assets that are
getting real, measurable, institutional, and
regulatory support. For you, the difference between
winning and losing now is so often tied directly
to getting the right on -chain information and
understanding where the regulated... capital
was actually flowing. So what does this all mean
for you? If U .S. state governments are buying
Bitcoin ETFs and globally compliant stablecoins
are enabling regulated finance in major hubs
like Abu Dhabi while also acting as legal tender
in developing nations, how long until the distinction
between traditional finance and crypto finance
just dissolves entirely?