Plus: Musk vs. Altman - the AI billionaire beef continues

GM. Peeling back today's news, and it's looking like a messy fruit salad - but don't worry, we've sorted the juicy bites from the mushy bits.

⚖️ Are the SEC and CFTC changing?

🍋 News drops: Elon Musk and Sam Altman are beefing again, crypto broker escapes kidnappers + more

🍍 Market flavor today

Find out more about the Fear & Greed Index here.

Name		Price	24H	7D
Crypto Market Cap: $3.24T 0.52% (24H)
	Bitcoin BTC	$96,722.52	-0.35%	-2.81%
	Ethereum ETH	$2,654.85	-0.07%	-4.69%
	XRP XRP	$2.47	1.99%	-5.96%
	Solana SOL	$199.06	-1.74%	-7.90%
	BNB BNB	$636.60	3.98%	9.39%

Prices as of 11:00 AM EST. Click here to see live data.

The Fear & Greed Index is still hanging out in the neutral zone, while Bitcoin seems to be getting closer to $100K.

Source: BitDegree

CryptoQuant analysts noticed that long-term Bitcoin investors have been increasing their holdings at a much faster rate in recent months.

In past bull runs, when they went on buying sprees, many of them ended up selling within a month - which caused price pullbacks.

However, this time, things seem to be playing out differently. Even after Bitcoin's recent dip, their appetite for BTC hasn't slowed down - matter of fact, they're buying even more.

What does that tell us? They prolly think Bitcoin still has more room to grow 🚀

Source: @cryptoquant_com

And trader Jelle thinks that things might really kick off once BTC reclaims $100K.

Meanwhile, Michael Saylor's Strategy is busy buying the dip. They added another 7,633 BTC - worth $742M - to their stash, which now sits at 478,740 BTC.

Source: @saylor

And just like Strategy is sticking to Bitcoin, the rest of the market appears to be doing the same.

Santiment data shows that Bitcoin and major Layer-1s like Ethereum , Solana , and Cardano are taking over 44.2% of all crypto discussions. Meanwhile, memecoins like Dogecoin and Shiba Inu are seeing less chatter - likely because of recent price swings throughout the market.

Historically, memecoins thrive when the market is running on pure hype, but when things get more serious, attention moves to projects with actual utility. Past cycles also show that memecoin manias often come before major market pullbacks, while stronger projects help maintain stability.

The fact that memecoin hype is cooling suggests we're in a healthy consolidation phase rather than an overhyped, overheated market.

Guess we'll find out soon enough.

🥝 Memecoin harvest

These tokens are serving charts that look like they were drawn by a caffeinated toddler:

	Name		24H Change
	harry bolz HARRYBOLZ		▲ 20.4K%
	CaptainBNB CAPTAINBNB		▲ 15.6K%
	NEZHA NEZHA		▲ 1K%
	Harry Bolz HARRYBOLZ1		▲ 163%

Data as of 06:35 AM EST.

Check out these memecoins and plenty more here .

💔 If nothing changes, nothing changes…

In this US presidential election, many crypto enthusiasts were rooting for Donald Trump like he was their last hope.

That's mainly cuz Biden's administration treated crypto like your dad treats you when you're helping him fix something - impatient, even aggressive, and convinced you're making things worse.

The SEC and the CFTC were out here dropping lawsuits like they're hot - each one sued over 100 crypto companies.

But now, the leadership at both agencies has changed.

So... is crypto finally catching a break? Might be too early to say, but the signs are showing that the crackdown's easing up:

1/ CFTC

The CFTC just had their first crypto-related enforcement action under the new leadership, and it's a real scam - not just some company that dared to mention "crypto" once.

They busted Rashawn Russell, an ex-Deutsche Bank investment banker who ran the classic "100% GUARANTEED RETURNS (NOT CLICKBAIT, NOT A SCAM)" crypto trading scheme.

*Narrator voice* it was, in fact, a scam. He actually took people's money and spent it on personal expenses, gambling, and Ponzi-style payouts.

So, yeah - this is the kind of enforcement we like to see. Less nonsense for legit projects, and more headaches for actual scammers.

2/ SEC

Over at the SEC, the first move under acting Chair Mark Uyeda was to set up a Crypto Task Force - a group that (wait for it) wants to figure out rules instead of just suing everything that moves.

And it looks like they don’t wanna go all-in on major decisions until those rules exist.

Case in point: SEC & Binance just asked to pause their case for 60 days because whatever this task force decides could help settle things more smoothly.

Sooo… is this the start of crypto's chill era? We'll see. But for the first time in a long time, it looks like crypto might actually get a fair shot instead of just getting sued for existing.