Plus: Ripple’s CTO faked fan questions for Black Sabbath

GM. Today’s newsletter is brought to you by: grapes. Round. Juicy. Possibly fermenting into gains.

On the juice menu today:

🍍 The state of Bitcoin + upcoming events on Wednesday.

🚀 BNB hit a new all-time high.

🍋 Your convo with ChatGPT could be used against you in court, Ripple CTO admitted to faking a Black Sabbath Q&A + more

🍍 Market flavor today

Crypto Market Cap: $3.85T -0.84% (24H)
Name		Price	24H	7D
	Bitcoin BTC	$116,002.06	-0.97%	-1.84%
	Ethereum ETH	$3,730.67	-0.88%	-2.09%
	XRP XRP	$3.09	-1.20%	-14.30%
	BNB BNB	$817.44	3.90%	5.76%
	Solana SOL	$184.70	0.50%	-5.36%

As you can see in the chart, most coins are just kinda going sideways.

(Except for BNB - but we'll get into that in the next section.)

That said, things might not stay quiet for long.

Trader CrypNuevo pointed out that Bitcoin is stuck between two key price zones called liquidation clusters.

Basically, those are areas where lots of traders are using leverage (borrowed money) to bet on the price going up or down.

If the price hits those zones, it can force a bunch of people out of their trades all at once (kind of like knocking over the first domino), which often leads to price swings.

Right now, there are two clusters:

👉 Between $120K - $121K;

👉 Between $113.6K - $114.5K.

And Bitcoin's caught right in the middle.

Now, in sideways markets like this, Bitcoin often hunts liquidity - it moves toward areas where it can force the most traders out of their positions.

CrypNuevo thinks BTC might go up first and hit the top zone ($120K - $121K).

But he still sees the lower zone ($113K - $114K) as the more likely destination in the mid-term, since that area holds more liquidation pressure overall.

And that’s not the only reason to expect sum action soon 👀

Here’s what's happening on Wednesday that might shake things up:

1/ FOMC meeting

The Fed's gonna announce what’s happening with interest rates, and then Chair Jerome Powell will give his speech.

Nobody's expecting rate cuts this time, but he could hint that they're coming soon. And the market would likely react fast.

(Because rate cuts = bullish for crypto.)

2/ White House crypto report

Also on Wednesday, the long-awaited digital asset stockpile report should finally be coming out.

Quick backstory: back in March, Donald Trump signed an executive order to create a US Digital Asset Stockpile, which includes crypto (other than BTC) that’s been seized through legal action.

This new report should break down what’s actually in the stockpile, how big it is, and what the plan is moving forward.

TL;DR: Bitcoin’s stuck between two trap zones, and volatility is expected on Wednesday. Stay tuned 🤓

🥝 Memecoin harvest

Memecoins woke up and chose violence. Against logic 💥

Data as of 07:35 AM EST.

Check out these memecoins and plenty more here.

🚀 BNB all-time high

Like I mentioned in the market update - most coins are lowkey being boring.

But not BNB, the native crypto of Binance.

This bad boy hit a new all-time high today.

What's driving it? Glad you asked, let's dig in 👇

1/ BNB Chain's getting crowded

Activity on Binance's blockchain, the BNB Chain, has exploded lately:

👉 In the past day, $6.66B (👹) worth of crypto was traded on DEXs built on BNB Chain - more than the DEX volume on Ethereum and Solana combined;

👉 470K+ new wallet addresses were created in a single day.

And the more people use BNB Chain, the more valuable BNB becomes, because you need it to do most things on that network.

2/ Big dawgs are buying

Companies are starting to include BNB in their balance sheets:

👉 Nano Labs, a Chinese Web3 company in China, increased their BNB holdings to 128K tokens (that's over $100M worth) - and they’re calling it part of their long-term strategic reserve;

👉 Windtree Therapeutics, a Nasdaq-listed biotech company, plans to raise up to $520M to start building a BNB treasury.

This means BNB is being taken seriously by legit companies - and that sends a signal to both retail and institutional investors.

3/ Token burns

Every few months or so, Binance burns a chunk of BNB - aka permanently removes some tokens from circulation.

Because the less supply there is of something, the more valuable each remaining piece can become.

Think of it like this: there are 100 apples, and 100 people who want one. If someone destroyed 20, there would only be 80 apples left - but still 100 hungry people. You can bet the price of apples is going up.

That’s exactly what Binance is doing with BNB. Fewer tokens + steady demand = price pressure to the upside.

... Ok, so now what?

Well, according to BitBull, BNB has entered its expansion phase - meaning it’s broken through a price ceiling that held it down for two years.

And it's still holding strong above that level.

Their take:

"All this demand is certainly going to push BNB above $1K by Q4 and possibly $1.8K - $2K by cycle top."

Hopium?.. Could be.

But let's see how far the rocket goes 🚀

🍋 News drops you can't miss

💭 Ripple CTO David Schwartz shared a throwback about the time he helped run a Black Sabbath fan Q&A. He admitted to faking fan questions and censoring Ozzy Osbourne’s answers.

👁️ A lending company called Divine Research has issued ~30K unbacked crypto loans since December 2024. Instead of asking for deposits, they use Sam Altman’s World ID to confirm who you are and block you from borrowing again if you don’t pay up.

🙏 Tornado Cash developer Roman Storm is asking for another $1.5M to cover legal costs. So far, over $3.9M has already been donated by the crypto community.

😬 OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said that anything you type into ChatGPT could be used in court. Unlike talking to a doctor or lawyer, there are no legal protections here.

🍌 Juicy memes