Uncategorized
Crypto Daybook Americas: China’s DeepSeek Sends Bitcoin, AI Tokens, Stocks Tumbling

By Omkar Godbole (All times ET unless indicated otherwise)
Last week, we described bitcoin above $100,000 as a coiled spring ready to unleash energy in either direction. Unfortunately for the bulls, that energy is being released downward as market sentiment shifts in response to concerns over the impact of the low-cost Chinese AI startup DeepSeek on the U.S. AI sector and American technological leadership.
Bitcoin plummeted to $97,800 during Asian trading hours, with whales driving prices lower to liquidate overleveraged buyers on perpetual futures exchanges. GPU-heavy AI tokens saw sell-offs of up to 40%, with similar pressure affecting GameFi assets.
Nasdaq futures tanked 700 points, with shares in chipmaker Nvidia (NVDA) indicated 10% lower in pre-market trading. DeepSeek-R1 is expected to significantly reduce the costs of developing large language models, raising a questions on the validity of the rich valuations for AI-associated companies like Nvidia.
Trader and analyst Alex Kruger noted on X, «The problem is, few understand how DeepSeek changes things. it’s hard to quantify the issue—and when facing uncertainty, people derisk. When this happens in low liquidity conditions, the market flushes hard.»
Kruger is opting not to buy the dip, saying he prefers to short positions above $100,000 as he anticipates heightened volatility from the upcoming Fed meeting and potential political maneuvering from President Donald Trump. The Fed is expected to reiterate its wait-and-see approach, maintaining its hawkish December guidance on interest rates.
Still, all is not lost. Paul Howard, Senior Director at Wincent, said institutional participation could ramp up in the coming months.
«The next wave up will likely come from organic participation from institutions in the next 3-4 months. I’d be surprised to see a sharp bounce back to all-time highs before Q2,» he said in an email.
Howard identified newly launched layer-1 blockchains with a focus on security and transactions per second, like SUPRA, as valuable opportunities, while stressing that for long-biased funds, discovering alpha in a bearish market involves seeking out low market-cap layer-1s alongside their already established peers. Stay alert!
What to Watch
Crypto:
Jan. 27 (provisional): Abstract, an Ethereum L2, has its mainnet launch, which is expected to expand the reach of the Pudgy Penguins project beyond NFTs.
Jan. 28, 1:00 p.m.: Hedera (HBAR) network upgrade to v0.57.5.
Jan. 29: Cardano’s Plomin hard fork network upgrade.
Jan. 29: Ice Open Network (ION) mainnet launch.
Feb. 2, 8:00 p.m.: Core blockchain Athena hard fork network upgrade (v1.0.14)
Feb. 4: MicroStrategy Inc. (MSTR) Q4 FY 2024 earnings report.
Feb. 4: Pepecoin (PEPE) halving. At block 400,000, the reward will drop to 31,250 PEPE.
Feb. 5, 3:00 p.m.: Boba Network’s Holocene hard fork network upgrade for its Ethereum-based L2 mainnet.
Feb. 6, 8:00 a.m.: Shentu Chain network upgrade (v2.14.0).
Feb. 12: Hut 8 Corp. (HUT) Q4 2024 earnings report.
Feb. 15: Qtum (QTUM) hard fork network upgrade is scheduled to take place at block 4,590,000.
Feb. 18 (after market close): Semler Scientific (SMLR) Q4 2024 earnings report.
Feb. 20: Coinbase Global (COIN) Q4 2024 earnings report.
Macro
Jan. 27, 10:00 a.m.: The U.S. Census Bureau releases December 2024’s Monthly New Residential Sales report.
New Home Sales Est. 0.67M vs. Prev. 0.664M.
New Home Sales MoM Prev. 5.9%.
Jan. 28, 8:30 a.m.: The U.S. Census Bureau releases December Monthly Advance Report on Durable Goods Manufacturers’ Shipments Inventories and Orders.
MoM Est. 0.8% vs. Prev. -1.1%.
Jan. 28, 1:00 p.m.: The Fed releases December’s H.6 (Money Stock Measures) report.
Money Supply Prev. $21.45T.
Jan. 29, 12:00 a.m.: Japan’s Cabinet Office releases January’s Consumer Confidence Survey.
Consumer Confidence Index Est. 36.5 vs. Prev. 36.2.
Jan. 29, 4:00 a.m.: The European Central Bank (ECB) releases December 2024’s Monetary Developments in the Euro Area report.
M3 Money Supply YoY Est. 3.8% vs. Prev. 3.8%.
Jan. 29, 8:45 a.m.: The Bank of Canada (BoC) releases the (quarterly) Monetary Policy Report.
Jan. 29, 9:45 a.m.: The BoC announces its interest rate decision.
Est. 3% vs. Prev. 3.25% followed by a press conference at 10:30 a.m.
Jan. 29, 2:00 p.m.: The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) announces the U.S. central bank’s latest interest rate decision.
Target Range for the Federal Funds Rate Est. 4.25% to 4.5% vs. Prev.: 4.25% to 4.5% followed by a press conference at 2:30 p.m. Livestream link.
Token Events
Governance votes & calls
Compound DAO is voting whether to implement interest-rate curve adjustments for Stablecoin Comets across multiple networks, including Ethereum and Base.
Clover Finance DAO is voting whether to rebrand the CLV Network to Lucent Network to align with a pivot toward building a decentralized finance and artificial intelligence platform (DeFAI). The rebrand would include a migration from Polkadot to an SVM chain and a new token ticker, LUX.
Arbitrum DAO is voting on a proposal to establish the Arbitrum Strategic Objective Setting (SOS), which would allow DAO members to propose and vote on short to mid-term objectives.
Unlocks
Jan. 31: Optimism (OP) to unlock 2.32% of circulating supply worth $52.9 million.
Jan. 31: Jupiter (JUP) to unlock 41.5% of circulating supply worth $626 million.
Feb. 1: Sui (SUI) to unlocked approximately 2.13% of its circulating supply worth $226 million.
Token Listings
Jan. 28: Pudgy Penguins (PENGU) and Magic Eden (ME) to be listed on Kraken.
Jan. 29: Cronos (CRO), Movement (MOVE) and Usual (USUAL) to be listed on Kraken.
Conferences:
Jan. 29-31: Crypto Peaks 2025 (Palisades, California)
Jan. 30, 12:30 p.m. to 5:00 p.m.: International DeFi Day 2025 (online)
Jan. 30-31: Ethereum Zurich 2025
Jan. 30-31: Plan B Forum (San Salvador, El Salvador)
Jan. 30 to Feb. 1: Crypto Gathering 2025 (Miami Beach, Florida)
Jan. 30-Feb. 1: CryptoXR 2025 (Auxerre, France)
Jan. 30-Feb. 2: Oasis Onchain 2025 (Nassau, Bahamas)
Jan. 30-Feb. 4: The Satoshi Roundtable (Dubai)
Feb. 1-28: Mammathon (online), a global hackathon for Celestia (TIA).
Feb. 3: Digital Assets Forum (London)
Feb. 5-6: The 14th Global Blockchain Congress (Dubai)
Feb. 6: Ondo Summit 2025 (New York).
Feb. 7: Solana APEX (Mexico City)
Feb. 13-14: The 4th Edition of NFT Paris.
Feb. 18-20: CoinDesk’s Consensus Hong Kong
Feb. 19: Sui Connect: Hong Kong
Feb. 23-March 2: ETHDenver 2025 (Denver, Colorado)
Feb. 25: HederaCon 2025 (Denver)
Token Talk
By Shaurya Malwa
AI-themed agents and memes took a thumping Monday, with stalwarts Virtuals Protocol (VIRTUALS), ai16z (AI16Z) and eliza (ELIZA) sliding as much as 30% as China’s DeepSeek led to a reiteration of U.S. AI startup valuations.
The downturn dented massive Sunday rallies on Jupiter’s JUP and Base memecoin toshi (TOSHI).
JUP spiked 40% as founder ‘Meow’ announced at an annual conference that the platform would burn over $3 billion JUP tokens and begin using 50% of its fees to buy back the tokens from the market.
TOSHI more than doubled as Coinbase listed perpetual futures for the token, making it the only Base memecoin with both a spot and futures listing on the influential exchange.
The subsequent spike in demand sent the token to a peak market capitalization of $820 million.
Derivatives Positioning
BTC perpetual funding rates flipped negative during European hours, showing a net bias for shorts. Historically, such a positioning has tended to mark local price bottoms.
BNB, DOGE, TRX and AVAX also saw negative funding rates.
BTC, ETH short-dated options now show a bias for put options, offering downside protection. Expiries after February continue to show a bias for calls.
Key block trades for the day include a short volatility play, involving short positions in BTC $05K call and $98K put, both expiring on Jan. 10. In ETH’s case, shorts in out-of-the-money calls and a long position in the $3K put has been noted.
Market Movements:
BTC is down 5.95% from 4 p.m. ET Friday to $98,784.45 (24hrs: -5.84%)
ETH is down 6.12% at $3,050.20 (24hrs: -7.88%)
CoinDesk 20 is down 9.07% to 3,536.28 (24hrs: -9.66%)
CESR Composite Staking Rate is down 2bps to 3.1%
BTC funding rate is at 0.0006% (0.7% annualized) on Binance
DXY is down 0.26% at 107.17
Gold is down 0.21% at $2,767.13/oz
Silver is down 0.55% to $30.48/oz
Nikkei 225 closed -0.92% at 39,565.80
Hang Seng closed +0.66% to 20,197.77
FTSE is down 0.21% at 8,483.97
Euro Stoxx 50 is down 1.51% at 5,140.89
DJIA closed on Friday -0.32% to 44,424.25
S&P 500 closed -0.29% at 6,118.71
Nasdaq closed -0.5% at 19,954.30
S&P/TSX Composite Index closed +0.14% at 25,468.49
S&P 40 Latin America closed +0.53% at 2,322.63
U.S. 10-year Treasury was down 13 bps at 4.5%
E-mini S&P 500 futures are down 2.37% at 5,988.00
E-mini Nasdaq-100 futures are down 4.27% at 20,974.75
E-mini Dow Jones Industrial Average Index futures are unchanged at 44,216.00
Bitcoin Stats:
BTC Dominance: 59.45 (0.60%)
Ethereum to bitcoin ratio: 0.0392 (-1.7%)
Hashrate (seven-day moving average): 766 EH/s
Hashprice (spot): $60.2
Total Fees: 4.19 BTC/ $439,954
CME Futures Open Interest: 187,465 BTC
BTC priced in gold: 35.8 oz
BTC vs gold market cap: 10.17%
Technical Analysis
The RSI on the hourly chart dropped to 20 during the Asian hours, the lowest since late August.
In other words, bearish momentum was the strongest in nearly five months.
RSI readings below 30 are taken to represent oversold conditions and a sign of an impending bear breather.
Crypto Equities
MicroStrategy (MSTR): closed on Friday at $353.67 (-5.11%), down 4.9% at $336.35 in pre-market.
Coinbase Global (COIN): closed at $298.00 (+0.67%), down 4.9% at $283.39 in pre-market.
Galaxy Digital Holdings (GLXY): closed at C$32.52 (-4.18%)
MARA Holdings (MARA): closed at $19.99 (+0.2%), down 6.1% at $18.77 in pre-market.
Riot Platforms (RIOT): closed at $13.54 (+4.23%), down 6.94% at $12.60 in pre-market.
Core Scientific (CORZ): closed at $15.98 (-2.2%), down 15.33% at $13.53 in pre-market.
CleanSpark (CLSK): closed at $11.53 (+1.05%), down 6.76% at $10.75 in pre-market.
CoinShares Valkyrie Bitcoin Miners ETF (WGMI): closed at $26.22 (+2.22%), down 8.28% at $25.05 in pre-market.
Semler Scientific (SMLR): closed at $55.46 (-9.3%), down 9.48% at $50.20 in pre-market.
Exodus Movement (EXOD): closed at $61.25 (+39.2%), down 2.04% at $60 in pre-market.
ETF Flows
Spot BTC ETFs:
Daily net flow: $517.7 million
Cumulative net flows: $39.94 billion
Total BTC holdings ~ 1.173 million.
Spot ETH ETFs
Daily net flow: $9.18 million
Cumulative net flows: $2.8 billion
Total ETH holdings ~ 3.67 million.
Source: Farside Investors
Overnight Flows
Chart of the Day
As BTC and Nasdaq, gold has held relatively steady, possibly on the back of haven demand.
Haven appeal seems to have driven the yield on the 10-year Treasury note lower by nine basis points to 4.504%. Bond prices and yields move in the opposite directions.
While You Were Sleeping
Bitcoin Dives to Under $99K as DeepSeek, FOMC Steal Trump Effect (CoinDesk): Bitcoin fell below $99,000 as traders braced for this week’s FOMC meeting, and Chinese startup DeepSeek’s advanced AI model pressured U.S. tech valuations, weighing on market sentiment and crypto prices.
Solana, Dogecoin, XRP Plunge 10% as Bloody Start to Week Sees $770M Long Liquidations (CoinDesk): SOL and DOGE led declines as crypto markets saw $770 million in bullish liquidations and overall market capitalization dropped 8.5%.
Bitcoin May Be ‘Double Topping’ for a Price Slide to $75K (CoinDesk): Bitcoin’s inability to sustain gains above $100,000 signals weakening momentum. If the price drops below $91,300 it could potentially reaching as low as $75,000, analysts said.
China’s Economy Stumbles in Sign Rebound Hinges on More Stimulus (Bloomberg): China’s January PMI data showed manufacturing contracting and services slowing, a signaling faltering recovery amid weak demand and trade pressures. Analysts warned of further slowdown without stronger fiscal stimulus.
Fixed Income Investors Seek Ways to Navigate a Trump Presidency (Financial Times): Sticky consumer inflation, a strong U.S. jobs market and uncertainty over Trump’s policies have fueled a sell-off in Treasuries, though some investors see current prices as attractive for long-term gains.
Emerging Market Investors Eye Frontier Assets Shielded From Trump’s Tariff Threats (Reuters): Amid Trump’s tariff threats and global tensions, some investors are turning to frontier markets like Serbia, Ghana and Sri Lanka for growth potential and insulation from U.S. trade risks.
In the Ether
Uncategorized
First Solana ETF to Hit the Market This Week; SOL Price Jumps 5%

Solana SOL jumped about 5% Monday morning amid rumors that a SOL Staking exchange-trade fund (ETF) by Rex Shares and Osprey Funds could start trading on the market as soon as Wednesday.
The token later fell back slightly, now trading up about 2.3% over the past 24 hours at $157 at press time.
A spokesperson for Osprey confirmed to CoinDesk that the «fund will launch Wednesday,» following a post on X by the automated headline account «Unfolded.»
Just last week, Rex filed a letter with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) asking whether comments had been resolved for their filing. Later that day, the asset manager posted on X that the ETF was “coming soon,” suggesting that the SEC had no further comments.
The REX-Osprey SOL+Staking ETF would be the first of its kind in the U.S. Several issuers are still awaiting approval for a spot SOL ETF which would likely also include staking capabilities.
Uncategorized
Katana Mainnet Goes Live as Pre-Deposits Hit $232M

Self described ‘DeFi-first’ layer-2 blockchain Katana has launched its mainnet after receiving $232 million in pre-deposits.
Deposits flooded in after Katana was revealed to the public less than a month ago. DefiLlama data shows that deposited jumped from $75M to $2320M between June 1 and June 30.
Depositors will receive randomized reward NFTs called Krates, as well as a share of 70 million KAT tokens, Katana’s native token. Upon launch, yield farmers will be able earn more KAT by staking on platforms like Morpho and Sushi.
The blockchain aims to solve one of DeFi’s largest problems: Liquidity.
A lack of liquidity can lead to a multitude of issues including slippage, inefficient pricing and unsustainable yields.
Some of the mechanisms Katana will use to solve that the issues is VaultBridge, which is a product that enables yield generation on deposited assets on Ethereum, as well as chain-owned liquidity (CoL), which allows Katana to retain 100% of net sequencer fees and convert them into liquidity reserves.
«Katana represents the endgame for how blockchains create value in DeFi,» Marc Boiron, co-contributor of Katana said in a press release.
The launch coincides with yield farming incentives including token rewards for liquidity providers on Morpho and Sushi.
Despite being based on Ethereum, Katana is blockchain agnostic so users can generate a yield on blockchains like Solana through Katana’s collaboration with Jito, a liquid staking protocol.
UPDATE (June 30, 2025, 17:46 UTC): Updates to reflect new numbers in pre-deposits.
Uncategorized
Why Are There No Big DApps on Ethereum?

On July 30, 2025, we will be celebrating a decade since Ethereum launched on mainnet. Inarguably, one of the biggest milestones in this industry’s short life.
When it launched as the world’s first smart contract platform, this was obviously something entirely new and a completely new way of thinking about software. Instead of renting access to someone else’s platform that could change the rules or lock you out at any moment, one could – in theory – now participate in systems that belonged to everyone and no one, where the rules were written in code and couldn’t be arbitrarily changed by a CEO’s whim. Users would own their date, and software would be maintained and managed by a network rather than a boardroom. The consequences seemed pretty utopian.
However, nearly ten years on from Ethereum’s launch and the dreams of a Web3 version of Amazon, eBay, Facebook or TikTok haven’t arrived, and are nowhere on the horizon.
Gavin Wood, Ethereum co-founder, and his vision of “Web3” envisaged exactly that. Joe Lubin, the renowned founder of Consensys, said that “Ethereum will have that same pervasive influence on our communications and our entire information infrastructure.»
The libertarian journalist Jim Epstein predicted a year after Ethereum’s launch that “the same types of services offered by companies like Facebook, Google, eBay, and Amazon will be provided instead by computers distributed around the globe.”
Vitalik Buterin himself envisaged Ethereum “law, cloud storage, prediction markets, trading decentralized hosting, [hosting] your own currency,” in his 2014 Bitcoin Miami speech, where he announced Ethereum to the world. “Perhaps even Skynet,” the fictional artificial neural network from the Terminator films. He has described the platform he created as both a threat and an opportunity to platforms like Facebook and Twitter back in 2021.
The Scale Problem
The barrier to achieving this vision is scale. The most successful consumer applications today serve hundreds of millions of users. Instagram processes more than 1 billion photo uploads daily. eBay handles roughly 17 billion dollars in transactions each quarter. Facebook’s messaging platforms process trillions of messages annually.
Ethereum processes about 14 transactions per second, and Solana can handle over 1000. Instagram handles over 1 billion photo uploads daily. eBay processes 17 billion dollars in transactions quarterly. The math doesn’t work.
Let’s entertain the decentralized eBay example for a moment. A truly decentralized eBay would demand far more than simple payments. Every listing creation or update would require onchain transactions for item metadata, pricing, and condition details. Auctions would need automatic bidding resolution with time-locked smart contracts. Escrow systems would have to hold funds until delivery confirmation, with DAO arbitration for disputes.
User reputation systems would require immutable rating storage tied to wallet addresses. Inventory management would need real-time stock tracking, possibly through tokenized goods. Shipping confirmations would demand oracle integration for delivery proofs. Marketplace fees and tax royalties would need smart contract enforcement. Optional identity verification systems would require decentralized credential management. Each interaction would multiply the transaction load exponentially beyond what current infrastructure could support.
It goes without saying that this would require a blockchain of unprecedented speed and throughput. Frankly, a decade after Ethereum, the infrastructure just hasn’t been there to support it.
The Economics Don’t Work
The business model hasn’t always made sense either. Modern applications need massive scale to generate revenue that covers development costs. Furthermore, layer 2 solutions fragment users across platforms, where (for example) Arbitrum users can’t directly interact with Polygon applications. This defeats the purpose of building unified global computing.
This isn’t theoretical. OpenSea struggled with profitability despite dominating NFT trading with high-value transactions & fee-tolerant users. If you can’t profit from selling digital art to crypto enthusiasts paying hundreds in fees, how do you build a marketplace for used goods? The economics are even worse for lower-value transactions that define mainstream commerce. A decentralized social network charging $5 per post would be dead on arrival.
Gaming applications that require a few dollars in transaction fees for every item trade won’t attract players who expect the same for free elsewhere. So far, the only viable on-chain businesses have been those that can extract massive value from relatively few users – essentially high-stakes financial applications and speculative trading.
The Calvary Is Coming
The industry accepted a false tradeoff: security and decentralization, or functionality and scale, but not both. But transaction throughput has steadily increased (and will continue to) across networks as the technology matures. We can now achieve massive scale even with proof of work chains, maintaining the security and decentralization that made blockchain revolutionary in the first place (rather than the premature embrace of proof of stake that compromised these principles).
Zero-knowledge proofs allow users to prove transaction validity locally, submitting only small cryptographic proofs that are aggregated recursively and in parallel by a network of provers. Networks can process millions of transactions without every node verifying each one individually. When users prove their own transactions, the marginal cost of adding an additional transaction approaches zero, and blockchains can finally support the economics that mainstream applications require.
But ten years on, it’s clear that the vision once laid out by the futurists of Web3 has moved at a disappointing pace. Let’s hope the next decade moves a little faster – and, fingers crossed – our blockchains too.
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