Plus: What dictators hate about Bitcoin

GM. We squeezed the markets, spiked the juice with drama, and now we’re pouring it straight - no ice, no chill.

🫢 Coinbase made it into the TIME100 Most Influential Companies list.

🤔 Bitcoin - the most important human rights technology of the 21st century?

🍋 News drops: HTX fees, Binance has some startups worried + more

🍍 Market flavor today

Crypto Market Cap: $3.32T 0.1% (24H)
Name		Price	24H	7D
	Bitcoin BTC	$107,428.84	-0.09%	6.35%
	Ethereum ETH	$2,468.44	1.42%	10.79%
	XRP XRP	$2.19	0.50%	10.20%
	BNB BNB	$654.70	1.06%	4.96%
	Solana SOL	$157.24	4.47%	19.06%

I had the wildest dream about Bitcoin last night. So unhinged, I just have to share. Picture this:

• $2.2B flowed into Bitcoin ETFs in just one week;

• Institutions bought over 18K BTC in just one month;

• US states started adding Bitcoin to their reserves - Texas even promised to buy $10M worth of BTC;

• Bitcoin went sicko-mode parabolic...

...and then, I woke up. Then tried to fall back asleep, failed, cried a bit, and went on with my day.

The craziest part, though: all of that actually happened. EXCEPT for that last part. No moon. We're still at around $100K.

Now, if you're like, "How tf is that possible?" - the founder of Capriole Investments, Charles Edwards, explained it like this:

Over the past year (since Bitcoin ETFs launched in January 2024), many long-term holders (LTHs) saw their moment to take profits.

At the same time, new groups of large buyers - institutions, Bitcoin treasury companies, and state governments - were strong enough to absorb all that sell pressure.

But now there’s a problem: the new demand isn’t keeping up anymore.

According to CryptoQuant’s Crazzyblockk, Bitcoin's Apparent Demand turned negative again.

In plain English, miners and LTHs are selling, but there aren’t enough buyers to take all that Bitcoin off the market.

And more BTC for sale = downward pressure on price.

So, unless buyer demand picks back up soon, any short-term rally might struggle to break through all this extra supply.

Just another day in the life of the world's most bipolar asset...

🐳 War of Whales is ON

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Our friends at BloFin launched War of Whales - a massive futures trading competition where the prizes are absolutely insane.

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Data as of 07:10 AM EST.

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💅 Influencing

Back in 2021, TIME magazine launched its TIME100 Most Influential Companies list.

It's an annual ranking where editors and correspondents evaluate companies across different sectors based on relevance, impact, innovation, leadership, and success.

It's not about who's biggest or richest, but who's actually important in shaping the world.

And get this: Coinbase made it into the Disrupters category of the list this year.

Disrupters are companies that are changing how things work, usually by:

• Replacing outdated business models;

• Working in legally unclear areas

• Fixing problems older companies ignored;

• Or changing how people behave / making a cultural impact.

These companies often give us a sneak peek into where industries are headed.

The ideas they’re testing - while still early or risky - can force bigger, slower competitors to adapt.

So seeing a crypto company there is a kind of a big deal.

TIME’s write-up points out that Coinbase has made over $2B in revenue since last fall, helped turn crypto into a political issue, and became the first crypto company in the S&P 500.

So yeah, welcome to the mainstream - wipe your boots at the door.

🤔 What good is it for?

Ever had someone ask you what Bitcoin is actually for besides "making tech bros rich" or "buying drugs on the dark web"?

And of course, sometimes your brain likes to go Windows 95 loading screen mode when you need it most. So you end up mumbling something about "digital gold" and immediately regret how unconvincing you sound.

Well, try to remember this comeback next time:

Alex Gladstein from the Human Rights Foundation called Bitcoin the most important human rights technology of the 21st century.

And hear him out.

Around the world, there are governments that aren't exactly known for respecting individual freedoms.

They can freeze bank accounts when people attend the wrong protest, support the wrong cause, or simply because someone in power doesn't like them.

However, with Bitcoin, assuming you control your own keys and aren't keeping everything on some exchange, good luck to any government trying to freeze your wallet.

Take Ukraine in 2013-2014, when Viktor Yanukovych's government froze protesters' bank accounts to cut off their funding.

The Human Rights Foundation still needed to get money to them, so they tried Bitcoin instead.

And it worked - activists received the funds they needed when banks wouldn't cooperate.

But even if you live in a relatively free country, you're not immune to financial control.

Ask anyone who's dealt with banks "temporarily" freezing accounts during "routine reviews," international money transfers that take forever and cost a fortune, or having to explain to your bank why you're sending money to family abroad.

Bitcoin doesn't care about your government's mood swings, your bank's "business hours," or whether some bureaucrat thinks your transaction looks "suspicious."

So next time someone asks what Bitcoin is "really" for, you can tell them: it's for anyone who thinks they should control their own money instead of asking permission from institutions that may or may not have their best interests at heart.

It's financial independence in your pocket.

And honestly, in a world where everything else seems to be getting more centralized and controlled, that's pretty damn important.

🍋 News drops

🤔 Not sure how much HTX will take from your trades? We broke down all the fees so you won’t get caught off guard.

🇰🇪 Kenya’s new crypto rules have some startups worried. They say the Virtual Asset Chamber of Commerce, linked to Binance, could have too much say in how things are run.

⛓️ A 57-year-old man from the US got nearly eight years in prison for a $40M crypto scam. He ran fake coins like EmpowerCoin, ECoinPlus, and Jet-Coin.

⏸️ South Korea put its CBDC testing on hold. Meanwhile, local banks are turning their attention to Korean won-backed stablecoins.

🚓 Five people got arrested in Spain for a scam that stole nearly $540M from over 5,000 victims. They had a network of helpers to move and hide the stolen money through bank accounts and crypto wallets.

🍌 Juicy memes