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What happened today?

Bitcoin has retraced some of the bounce off the Monday lows and now trades just over $97,000 with alt-coins following a similar pattern. Yesterday saw the first press conference held by the newly appointed US Crypto Czar David Sacks, during which he emphasized that regulatory clarity and turning the USA into a crypto powerhouse are top priorities for this administration. While everything mentioned was bullish for the industry, a lack of a major headline or concrete development meant the market didn’t get very excited. This indicates some exhaustion in the market which definitely isn’t surprising given how crazy everything has been over the last few weeks, let alone the liquidations on Monday.

It may not have been the most exciting press conference, however this is a good marker to track the new administrations progress. We’ve had a lot of politicians saying things over the years without much follow through, so until it actually happens I’m not sure I’d believe everything they say they’re going to do, but they are clearly putting resources into this. Something worth noting is while ETH still trades under $3,000, it has held pretty strong through the general bleed in the market today. Finally, tomorrow marks the long-awaited launch day of Berachain, along with its native token BERA. We’re not yet sure how this will perform, but it’s certain to be volatile given the attention level of Bera and the massive supply allocated to airdrops. This may be the largest token launch of the year, so it’s worth paying attention; if you want to learn more, you can check out our Berachain ecosystem page here.

Trading Talk

Given the price action of majors it should be no surprise that things were pretty quiet on the trading front this week. On the onchain side, previous ‘metas’ like AI and memes have been hit very hard through all the volatility. Virtual, the protocol behind many of the largest AI coins like AIXBT, now trades almost 80% off its all-time-high of over $4. Many of the largest memecoins from influencer Murad’s famous list are down even more, and many may not ever recover. This is all to say this bull run has not been the easy money traders thought it would be, and the reason for that is likely the remaining participants are far more sophisticated than they were in 2020. In general they “know the game,” and so real alpha is more difficult to come by.

With all of that said, the best performers in the market so far have been a lucky few who hit it big on memecoins, and then the people who have blindly held Bitcoin and XRP for years. In other words, the market may be more sophisticated but the winners are still the people who held onto their conviction bets and stayed patient. VC’s have largely lost, professional traders have largely lost, and yet the ‘normies’ win. There have been a lot of lessons this cycle for sure, but I think that is the biggest takeaway.

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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

• How Trump’s trade war is affecting Bitcoin and Gold

Alt Coins and Stocks

• MicroStrategy drops the ‘Micro’ and rebrands to Strategy

• PENGU price falls as Pudgy Penguins burn over $150 million in Solana tokens

Regulatory

• SEC moves top crypto litigator involved in Ripple, Coinbase cases to IT department

• FDIC releases trove of ‘Operation Chokepoint 2.0’ crypto documents

New Launches

• Berachain outlines tokenomics ahead of mainnet launch and airdrop

Free BONK Report from Fundstrat Research

Interested in learning how the institutions are looking at your favorite memecoins? Download a free report from Fundstrat Research on BONK and the memecoin landscape below!

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