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?

After a bit of a rough weekend where we saw Bitcoin saw its largest two-day drop since the US election, things have recovered and are once again looking strong. The biggest headline of today by a large margin comes yet again from President-Elect Donald Trump, with rumors circulating that his media company is in “advanced talks” to acquire Bakkt, a crypto exchange. If this is true and the deal goes through, it would make the US President not only the founder of a DeFi protocol but also an owner of an exchange — combine that with a new regulatory regime put in place by that same administration, and we have about the best possible backdrop for a crypto bull run I can imagine.

These bullish conditions pushed Solana to outperform the market once again, reaching $250 just under its all-time-high of $260. XRP also caught quite the bid rising almost 100% in the last week to a price of $1.15, indicating retail investors are once again entering the space. Historically-speaking coins like XRP, Cardano and ICP have mainly attracted a more “normie” audience, so this is a good sign for the rest of our coins.

If it wasn’t clear from those two paragraphs, we remain extremely bullish on this market and will continue to update our readers with everything they need to know, always for free.

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 hedge funds and big banks traded IBIT and other Bitcoin ETFs in Q3

• MicroStrategy acquires another 51,780 bitcoin for $4.6 billion, taking holdings to 331,200 BTC

Alt Coins and Stocks

• Bakkt surges on FT report of sale talks with Trump Media

Regulatory

• Bitfinex hack launderer Heather ‘Razzlekhan’ Morgan sentenced to 18 months in prison

New Launches

• Magic Eden shares tokenomics for upcoming $ME airdrop

• Ethereum-compatible Layer 1 Monad begins rolling out testnet

Miscellaneous

• Four experts on when Bitcoin will reach $100,000 as path clears for $1m price

Memecoin Corner

Of course with all the craziness elsewhere in memecoin world AI coins took a bit of a breather last week, however it seems like the meta is fully back in force now. One of the biggest winners has been $VVAIFU which has surged from $1M to over $160M in the last 7 days meaning if you had put $1,000 in last week, it’d be worth over $150,000 today. It’s still unclear exactly what makes AI coins pump as many of them have basically no link between the AI model and the token, however $VVAIFU seems to be building an entire ecosystem which has pushed itself ahead of the pack.

Peanut the Squirrel (RIP) continues to crush it, currently trading hands at a $1.5B market cap and up about 50x since we talked about it in the newsletter a week ago. While a 50x in a week is crazy, it’s far from the only example we’ve seen since the election. I feel like I keep saying this, but the memecoin frenzy we’re experiencing now is truly insane — it reminds me a lot of DeFi summer from last cycle where every high-APY ponzi scheme caught a bid, except perhaps moving even faster. I don’t see any signs of this stopping for the time-being, and while I spent most of my crypto career avoiding memecoins I’ve found myself spending most of my time in the trenches.

Beluga Podcast is Back!

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