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A tiny mistake that cost Ross Ulbricht $12 million

Plus: The ECB throws shade at Bitcoin

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😐 Ross Ulbricht loses $12M to a bot.

🍋 News drops: Tether is bringing USDT to Bitcoin, some YouTubers get sued over an NFT scam + more

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🍍 Market flavor today

Fear and Greed Index
Find out more about the Fear & Greed Index here.

 Crypto Market Cap: $3.63T 0.3% (24H)
  Name   Price 24H 7D
Bitcoin Bitcoin BTC $104,637.15 -0.30% -1.67%
Ethereum Ethereum ETH $3,376.95 3.68% -0.53%
XRP XRP XRP $3.08 -0.81% -2.40%
Solana Solana SOL $236.22 -1.64% -10.55%
BNB BNB BNB $683.92 0.74% -0.34%
Prices as of 01:00 PM EST. Click here to see live data.

The market stayed greedy all week, Bitcoin held above $103K today, and BTC ETFs saw a solid $588.1M in inflows yesterday. Everything looks chill…

BTC price chart 01-31

Source: BitDegree

… unless you check what the people in charge are cooking.

Apparently, Donald Trump wasn't bluffing - he's moving forward with his plan to slap a 25% tax on imports from Canada and Mexico starting tomorrow.

That's a huge deal, given that those two countries make up about 27% of all US trade.

According to Bitwise's head of research, André Dragosch, this tax could translate to a 6.75% increase in import prices next month, enough to push inflation higher and make the Fed less likely to cut rates.

  • If inflation starts creeping up, some investors might use crypto as a hedge;

  • At the same time, if credit conditions tighten, investors could pull money out of riskier assets like crypto.

Meanwhile, in Europe, the Czech Republic's central bank is thinking about adding Bitcoin to its reserves - and the European Central Bank (ECB) is not having it.

ECB's President Christine Lagarde says she's "confident that Bitcoin will not enter the reserves of any of the central banks of the General Council."

Her reasoning: reserves must remain liquid, secure, and free from any suspicion of money laundering or crime.

Uhmm, sure, sis 🫡 Except:

  • Bitcoin is actually one of the most liquid assets out there, traded 24/7 with massive daily volumes;

  • With proper custody solutions, Bitcoin can be held securely - and many major financial institutions are already doing so;

  • Sure, Bitcoin still faces concerns about illegal activity. But ironically, major banks have been fined billions for money laundering - so it's not like traditional systems are squeaky clean.

As crypto matures and regulatory frameworks evolve, the idea that "no central bank would ever hold Bitcoin" might age about as well as my uncle Bob's take that getting a tattoo means I'll never get a job.

Root tweet 01-31

Source: @therationalroot

Moral of the story: if crypto's looking chill... you're prolly just don't have all the info.

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🥝 Memecoin harvest

We put the "fun" in "fundamentals"... lol jk, no fundamentals right here, partner - but these memecoins still mooned 🤠

 

Name

 

24H Change

Lux Token

Lux Token LUX


16.8K%

THUG LIFE

THUG LIFE GANG


9.3K%

The Next Bitcoin

The Next Bitcoin BUTTCOIN


4.2K%

Aesoperator

Aesoperator AESOP


818%

Data as of 10:10 AM EST.

Check out these memecoins and plenty more here.

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🙅 Don't try this at home

Imagine you go fishing, catch a lil' fishie, throw it back into the water ('cause you have such a kind heart, of course)...

... and it IMMEDIATELY gets eaten by a bigger fish.

That's pretty much how people who donated ROSS memecoins to Ross Ulbricht (the guy who created Silk Road and got pardoned by Trump recently) probably feel rn.

His crypto wallets just fumbled $12 million - because of an oopsie.

… How tf?

  1. Ross (or someone controlling his wallets) tried to set up a liquidity pool for the ROSS token on Raydium, a DEX on Solana. The goal? For people to trade the token more easily by adding some of his own ROSS coins into the market.

  2. The step where things went wrong. When you create a liquidity pool, you need to set the starting price of the token correctly - otherwise, someone can instantly take advantage of the mistake. Ross set the wrong price, basically making it super easy for bots to buy up his tokens for way cheaper than they were supposed to be.

  3. An MEV bot (aka a super-fast, profit-hunting trading bot) grabbed $1.5M worth of ROSS and flipped them for a profit.

  4. Ross (or his team) didn't realize the mistake… so he tried to set up the pool AGAIN. This time, another $10.5M was lost.

  5. The price of ROSS tanked by 90% in the process.

Hide the pain Harold meme

On the bright side, Ross still has 10% of the supply left and has now properly set up liquidity.

Yeah, but... Actually, no - no further comments here. We're walking into the weekend with good vibes only.

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🍋 News drops

⚡️ Tether is bringing USDT to Bitcoin via the Lightning Network, making transactions faster and cheaper. Now, merchants can accept USDT just like BTC - same setup, less hassle.

🚔 A Manchester gang got sentenced after kidnapping a guy and making him hand over $124K in crypto. They repeatedly terrorized him for almost a year

🚕 Teleport, the Solana-based rideshare app that wanted to take on Uber and Lyft, is shutting down. They're blaming the market for not being ready for decentralized rides.

🔥 Pump.fun's in hot water. A lawsuit claims the platform made $500M off unregistered securities and hyped highly volatile tokens.

⚖️ The Nelk Boys have been sued over claims they overpromised and underdelivered on their $23M MetaCard NFT project. Buyers expected VIP perks - meetups with Snoop Dogg, exclusive events, merch discounts, and even a $250K giveaway. Instead? A whole lotta nothing.

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🧃 Sip of knowledge

You've nearly finished reading today's newsletter... now what? Well, the next 10 minutes, you could:

  • Scroll through Instagram and let your brain melt;

  • Do something else unproductive, like... stare at a wall... idk;

  • Educate yourself about something cool.

C'mon, we both know what the right choice is 😏

The latest Crypto Finally Explained video breaks down crypto quests - a mix of gaming and crypto that makes learning about Web3 actually fun.

What are they? How do they work? And why is everyone talking about them? Watch this video to find out!

Crypto Finally Explained: Crypto quests

Source: Crypto Finally Explained

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🍌 Juicy memes

The heart when trading

Source: @Trader_Theory

Lambo or McDonald's

Source: @naiivememe

3K ETH in 2021 vs 2025

Source: @naiivememe

Gode S. Web3 Market Analyst
Gode is a Web3 Market Analyst who researches the most important industry events and interprets how they affect the wider Web3 space. Her formal education in media culture & digital rhetoric allows her to employ a methodical approach to evaluating critical Web3 news data, including large-scale events and the wider social sentiment within the ecosystem.
Gode is a mutilingual professional, having studied in multiple universities all across Europe. This allows her to have a one-of-a-kind opportunity to analyze Web3 social sentiments spanning different cultures and languages and, in turn, develop a much deeper understanding of how the Web3 space is growing within different communities. With the rest of her team, Gode works to identify crucial crypto news patterns and provide unbiased and data-driven information.
Gode’s passions include working and communicating with people, and when she’s not researching Web3 news, she spends her time traveling and watching true crime documentaries.

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