SCOOP’S TL;DR

📈 MARKET SENTIMENT

• BTC ETF approval has stirred excitement and optimism in crypto despite the choppy price action. Falling Bitcoin dominance, currently at 51.6%, could potentially awaken altcoins, particularly as Ethereum performs well against Bitcoin, and an ETH ETF is anticipated in May.

🔥 THE TRENDING NARRATIVE

• BTC DEFI, DePIN & RWA

🏋️ BARBELL’S WEEKLY PICK

• $ORAI - ORAI CHAIN

🗞️ TOP STORIES

• Bitcoin ETF is here

• Vanguard gets cold feet

• Is the is ETH ETF next?

🏆 WEEKLY WINNER

• The Crypto Industry

😡 REKT SECTION

• The SEC

💎 PREMIUM SCOOP

• Smart Money Buys

• Brand new Gaming token launching in just a few days, that couldn’t be more bullish - 25X potential

📈 MARKET SENTIMENT

• Crypto Total Market Cap $1.76T - 24/hour change -3.39%

• Total Crypto Market Volume $81.2B - 24/hour change -28.38%

  Majors - 24/Hour change

• BTC - $43,468 -6.1%

• ETH - $2603 +0.2%

  Trending 24-hour Gainers

• $SUISWAP +17%

• $OPUL +1%

• $TET -9%

• $BICO +0.1%

• $TIA +2.9%

• The Eagle has landed! The BTC ETF is approved! Congratulations to all you degens. We have come a long way. But how has the king reacted?

• We have had some choppy price action which to be honest was expected. We didn’t expect the market to go nuclear on the day of approval, however, we cannot underestimate how bullish this is for the crypto industry in the long term.

• Without stating the obvious, overall market sentiment is hot, with many believers we are on the cusp of the biggest run of our lives, and possibly the last run of our lives. Realistically the next 18 months is where we should see the most aggressive price action for the majority of the market.

  Bitcoin

• Analysts predict we should see Bitcoin pop up to the low 50K’s with then a retrace back to the lower 40K’s in the short to mid-term. Our view is if this plays out, it’s a healthy move for the market as a whole.

  Bitcoin dominance

• BTCd has fallen sharply today to 51.6%, if it continues to fall this could lead to Alts waking up again allowing us to capitalize on some explosive gains.

  ETH/BTC

• ETH has performed well against Bitcoin the last few days, this combined with a slip in Bitcoin Dominance again lends well to ALT coins having a pop to the upside.

  Ethereum 

• ETH has been a bit lackluster this whole rally so far, but the next shiny new object is the proposed ETH ETF which is due in May. We expect this to drive attention towards ETH & of course, ALTS within its ecosystem. Bitcoin has set the stage for crypto ETF approvals, so you would think the foundations are at least partly in place for this to be approved, despite being fairly different assets.

  Strong Crypto narratives to focus on this year

• - AI Infrastructure / Autonomous agents

• - DEPIN

• - Eigen Layer Ecosystem

• - Parallelization EVM

• - Modular Blockchains

• - Solana Killers

• - GameFI

• - Social-Fi / Gambefi

• - RWA - Real-World Asset tokens

• - New Layer 1’s

• - Privacy

  🐂 SMART MONEY ‘ON-CHAIN’ IS BULLISH ON:

Smart Money data is collated from the top 1% of most profitable traders On-chain

• 1 VAULT - Layer1 AI

• 2 MUBI - BTC DEFI

• 3 MXH - Decentralized Physical Infrastructure (DEPIN)

• 4 OLAS - Autonomous Agents / AI

• 5 RSTK - Eigen Layer

• 6 BANANA - Trading Bot

🔥 THE TRENDING NARRATIVE

Crypto is a narrative & trend-driven game, where attention goes, the money flows. So what’s hot?

Following the BTC ETF approval, we can finally move on. Phew… Despite the news being over it is likely the Bitcoin Defi narrative will remain strong, since the birth of ordinals, and BRC-20 market growing from $450M to $1.8Bn protocols built on top of Bitcoin have exploded. We have seen the success of $MUBI & $BSSB of late and the next up-and-comer looks to be SatoshiVM a  Bitcoin ZK Rollup Layer 2 solution, with first mover advantage in its sector. What is also interesting is that the SatoshiVM is partnered with $MUBI, a $100M+ BTC bridge, and on top, it is launching on the same launchpad as $MUBI, that being ‘Bounce’.

Outside of the BTC Defi narrative, we expect some performing sectors in the coming weeks & months to be DEPIN, Eigen Layer & RWA (real-world assets). These narratives haven’t yet had a mania phase but are very much on Crypto Twitter’s radar.

In today’s Premium section, we give a rundown of some hot Depin tokens we expect to pop in the coming weeks and months.

🏋️ BARBELL’S WEEKLY PICK

In each issue, our Founder ‘Jack Barbell’ delivers a hot rising star crypto asset that is yet to explode.

Follow Jack Barbell on X - @thebarbell_

ORAI CHAIN

Ticker - $ORAI

SHINY NEW AI COIN, COMING IN HOT

The convergence of artificial intelligence (AI) and blockchain is growing every day in crypto, and $ORAI is raising its head as a prominent player, attracting attention with KOL’s in the space. The strength of the AI sector in crypto has fostered a bullish outlook, and $ORAI's unique position as the world's first AI Layer 1 (L1) platform sets it apart.

Unlike traditional data oracles, $ORAI focuses on AI APIs, distinguishing itself from technologies like Band Protocol and Chainlink. This emphasis on AI APIs, coupled with a commitment to ensuring high-quality AI models, has contributed to $ORAI's distinct identity and first-mover advantage.

The $ORAI ecosystem includes an, AI Marketplace, OWallet, and Orai Bridge. The ORAI ecosystem is growing and TVL has rocketed recently, showing devs are starting to dev hard on the chain. Current metrics reveal a $7.07 price, a $108 million market capitalization, and a $140 million fully diluted valuation, with 77% of the total $ORAI token supply currently in circulation, reducing the risk of the thing we all hate ‘dilution’

ORAI sits at a nice sweet spot, with $100Mcap the project is established, but offers a high level of upside should attention focus on the chain. KOL’s and influencers are discussing $ORAI across Twitter as we speak, dubbed to be the next big hit.

I wouldn’t be surprised to see this thing 15X in price and will certainly be adding to my portfolio.

🌐 TOP STORIES

Bitcoin ETF is here - The day the world changed forever.

At a glance 🔎

• Wednesday the 10th of January 2024 will go down in history as the day that Bitcoin cemented itself amongst the elite.

• From anonymous Degenz dreaming from a basement to now being a legitimate asset class with higher market caps than Meta and Tesla, their vision is now officially recognized by the largest regulatory body in the world.

• Over $3bn of volume has amassed since the launch and the price of Bitcoin reached its highest level since December 2021.

🕵️ Scoops take:

Despite some choppy action on the price, which was to be expected in the immediate term, this is incredibly bullish!

The fact this happened in the 2nd week of January, sets up an incredible year ahead.

Given the amount of institutional demand that the ETF should drive for Bitcoin, this should cause positive price action for the King and will no doubt drive all eyeballs to the space for this bull cycle.

This combined with the upcoming halving, things are about to get interesting.

As we said earlier in the week, there may not be a bad time to invest if it is a long-term hold…if you want to operate in the short term, may the investment gods be with you.

DePIN refers to Decentralized Physical Infrastructure Networks, using blockchains & token rewards to develop & incentivize physical Infrastructure in the real world across the likes of transport, energy & wireless connectivity.

Despite the narrative being less sexy than AI, excitement is heating up across the market. It's big business and brings us ever closer to real-world adoption.

In this week’s premium edition, our members will gain access to 3 undiscovered low-cap gems with the potential to moon hard in DePIN season.

Unlock 3 low cap Gems

👇

Vanguard get cold feet - Let the fleeing commence. 

At a glance 🔎

• Vanguard has announced that they would not offer Spot Bitcoin ETFs.

• The $7.7 trillion asset management firm has said Bitcoin does not fit with its philosophy.

• What they have failed to realize is the mass contradictions this stance has. They are a top 10 owner of Microstrategy and they also own Bitcoin mining stocks.

• They let their client purchase GBTC in the past (they can only sell now) and they let you trade $BITO which is the inferior futures ETF product)

🕵️ Scoops take: 

This was never going to be a scenario where all major providers that could offer would.

That being said the hypocrisy stinks.

In typical style, many have taken to X to share their annoyance and that they will be taking their business elsewhere.

Whatever the true reason, don’t let stories like this put you off, there are major players in the game offering the opportunity including Blackrock and Greyscale.

Always remember, money flows where it is supposed to, the blockades will break.

ETH ETF - Quiet winners of the Bitcoin ETF approval

At a glance 🔎

• Over the last year, ETH constantly lagged behind Bitcoin’s rise.

• Since the approval, however, Bitcoin has fluctuated to similar levels whereas ETH is up 9%

• ETH is still fighting its corner for approval down the line, and the SEC recently accepted that Ethereum is a commodity which is a massive regulatory boost.

• Rumors are circulating that May is being pinpointed for the ETF approval push.

  🕵️ Scoops take:

The Bitcoin approval broke the barrier for Cryptocurrencies to now sit at the recognized regulatory table.

Bitcoin going through the war that they have has cleared a straight road for Ethereum to proceed down the digital yellow brick road.

May 23rd is a day to mark in your diary as it is the final day for the decision on VanEck’s spot ETH.

😡 THE REKT SECTION 😡

False Start Hack

Despite the SEC finally approving the BTC ETF, they did have a little blunder along the way which caused havoc for the crypto industry.

On Tuesday this week, the SEC’s official Twitter was hacked, causing malicious actors to falsely claim that the BTC ETF had been approved when in reality it hadn’t. Bitcoin price shot up and then crashed following Gary Gensler Tweeting out that the SEC’s Twitter had been compromised.

This all came down to the SEC not using 2-factor authentication set on their account, as confirmed by Twitter themselves.

A huge government body like the SEC is meant to protect investors, the fact they had such weak security on one of their major communications channels, whilst a whole industry waited on their word is mind-boggling.

Talk about an amateur hour!

There is never a dull day in crypto.

🏆 WEEKLY WINNER 🏆

The Crypto Industry

One small leap for the SEC, one giant leap for the Crypto industry. Following the BTC ETF approval, Bitcoin has meme’d itself from degen cyberpunk tech in a basement to 16 years later being recognized by one of the world’s most notable regulators.

Crazy stuff! We are set up for a wild ride in 2024. The stage is set. LFG

In this week’s Premium edition, we uncover a brand new launch token in the gaming sector that gets us incredibly excited. The token launches today, is backed by the biggest in the industry & is already partnered with some of the biggest & most played games on the planet.

Oh it also leverages cutting-edge AI

This thing has 25X written all off it 

Feast your eyes on the delights, surprises & Alpha below.

Subscribe to Premium to read the rest.