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?

At time of writing, we’ve just received reports with more details on Senator Lummis’ proposed bill for the US Government’s Strategic Bitcoin Reserve, which entails the purchase of 200,000 Bitcoins per year over 5 years. At current market prices, this equates to about $87 Billion. With BTC approaching $90,000 it really does feel like we’re finally in silly season, where putting money into anything generates a return. To add to the bullish sentiment even more, Blackrock’s IBIT Bitcoin ETF set a new volume record today with $4.5 Billion traded.

Bitcoin smashing through its previous highs now opens the floodgates for alt-coins to surge and we’re already seeing the effects with the Cronos (formerly “Crypto.com”) blockchain’s native token $CRO up over 70% today alone. I expect more and more “real tokens” with businesses behind them to start getting bid as the cycle goes on, as the Trump presidency brings with it a very important precedent: as Trump himself has had a part in founding a DeFi protocol (World Liberty Financial), it will be very difficult for regulators to go after similar projects. In my opinion this is a massive win for US-based teams specifically, as a lot of innovation has been stifled due to the overbearing SEC over the last 4 years.

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

• BlackRock bitcoin ETF hits new daily volume record as BTC pierces $88,000

• SOL crosses $220, eyes fresh all-time high

Alt Coins and Stocks

• MicroStrategy stock hits new all-time high of over $340 following historic bitcoin rally

Regulatory

• Former Alameda co-CEO Sam Trabucco forfeits yacht, apartments to FTX creditors

• FTX sues Binance and former CEO Zhao for $1.8 billion received as part of a ‘fraudulent’ share deal

New Launches

• Blur proposal suggests adding trading fees and eliminating creator fee guarantees

Miscellaneous

• How memecoins could bring back the retail investor in crypto

Memecoin Corner

By far the biggest story of today was the surprise listing of two memecoins on Binance, $PNUT and $ACT sending both tokens to multiple hundreds of million in market cap. $PNUT, after Peanut the Squirrel who was wrongfully taken from us a few weeks ago, managed to reach a $500M market cap — when we talked about the token in the Beluga Brief edition last Wednesday it had dipped to about $35M, so readers who bought then are up 1000% now. $PNUT likely deserved the listing based on its volume and relative valuation, however $ACT is a bit of a different story.

Before the listing was announced this morning, it was trading at below a $20M valuation with very little volume. At time of writing, it has now peaked over $400M with half a million in volume traded onchain. Smells a bit suspicious to me, and this is just the latest in a series of questionable Binance listings. While I’m not thrilled about potential crimes happening, I will say the pumps these tokens received due to the listings has reverberated around the space. Every single trader is now sitting there looking at their bags, hoping they might be the next lucky winner of a random Binance pump. This is the kind of sentiment that drives a crazy meme market, and it feels like it’s just getting stronger. For reference, if you had put $1,000 into $ACT right before it was listed, it would be worth $20,000 right now… which apparently was so easy this guy’s mom could do it:

Tweet of the Day

The institutions are coming.

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