Welcome to the Beluga Brief, where we deliver data-driven insights to your inbox every week, spending our time in the crypto trenches and combing through thousands of crypto news feeds so you don’t have to.

As the Beluga Brief grows we’ll try out new content sections and schedules to find what is best for our readers — since Memecoins are all the rage these days, we’ve added a section to cover all the craziness in the market from Marc Andreessen-funded AI memecoins to the most profitable traders turning $100 into millions. If you have other suggestions for things you’d like us to cover, feel free to leave a reply on our Twitter!

Fundstrat Solana Report

Our partners at Fundstrat, a leading market strategy and sector research fund, have just released their report on the cutting edge technology being developed on the Solana blockchain. They have also been kind enough to make it available to Beluga Brief subscribers for free!

If you’re interested in a deep dive into topics like the slide above, you can download the full report from the link below. You can expect more reports like this from our partners in the future, so be sure to stay tuned if you’re interested in getting ahead of the market!

What happened today?

As Bitcoin races to break all-time-high, just hours ago Michael Saylor announced a $42 billion plan to buy Bitcoin over the next 3 years. So far, Saylor’s MicroStrategy has purchased a total of 252,220 BTC for a total of just under $10 billion, which today is worth about $18 billion. Saylor has gone on record multiple times recently that more companies should be accumulating Bitcoin as a balance sheet asset and it certainly seems like he will continue to lead by example. Whatever you think about the value of Bitcoin versus dollars in a bank account, MSTR shares trade up about 250% YTD so clearly something is working.

Coinbase also released their Q3 earnings report today which saw the exchange giant miss revenue estimates. This has led the stock price to tumble, however the business did turn a profit of $75.5 million as compared to a loss of $2.3 million a year ago. Interestingly, revenue from retail traders grew almost 100% year on year indicating renewed interest in the market from traders. It’s worth noting however that Coinbase’s listing policies for new tokens on the exchange are very stringent, and because of this they have likely hamstrung themselves on the volume side. Since the market is still focused on trading memecoins and Coinbase basically has no offering for them, it’s surprising to see retail trading volume has grown so much.

Biggest Headlines

The Beluga intern has been hard at work gathering all the most important crypto news stories so you have them in one place!

The Majors

• MicroStrategy announces plan to raise $42 billion to buy more bitcoin

Alt Coins and Stocks

• Coinbase announces $1 billion share buyback as it reports Q3 earnings

• Canary Funds files for Solana ETF

Regulatory

• FTX’s Nishad Singh gets no prison time for role in crypto exchange collapse

New Launches

• GRASS becomes ‘most distributed’ Solana airdrop as nearly 1.5 million addresses claim tokens

Miscellaneous

• Kraken sheds ‘organizational layers’ as board member Arjun Sethi steps up as co-CEO

• OpenEden fires employee following drugging allegations in Hong Kong

Memecoin Corner

The AI memecoin sector is definitely getting frothy, with the vast majority of coins in this category now being launched by malicious teams looking to make a quick buck. One of the most interesting projects to come out of this meta so far though has been the Virtuals Protocol, a platform where teams can create tokenized AI agents that are able to interact onchain and more. Currently the largest agent by market cap on the site is called Luna, which generates its own 24/7 VTuber stream. Admittedly I don’t think the content is that great and I’m not recommending to buy Luna, but I think the concept of interactive communities driven by AI is really compelling.

When we had the NFT bull run last cycle, the main thesis for most projects was that the “community” was strong and something people wanted to be a part of. With the advent of these AI agents who are built to curate and respond to their community as well as interact with tokens onchain, I’m starting to think tokenized AI agents may be the NFTs of this cycle. First movers rarely win in the end so I’m not necessarily saying Virtuals is the end all be all, but this is definitely a space to watch. If you want to check it out for yourself, you can find the Virtuals site here.

The content on this site is for informational purposes only and should not be construed as investment advice. While Beluga strives to ensure the accuracy and timeliness of information, there may be discrepancies when comparing our data to that of financial institutions, service providers, or specific product websites. Always consult with a professional before making any financial decisions.

Will McKinnon is the Head of Content for Beluga and has spent every day for many years trading coins. For that reason there are too many to name, however his largest holdings by a significant margin are Ethereum and Bitcoin. NFA DYOR