Plus: Why hedge funds are dumping BTC ETFs

GM. Crypto’s been a wild orchard today - think oranges rolling, bananas bruised, and someone throwing coconuts. We’ve got the highlights without the mess.

⚖️ SEC news.

🍋 News drops: MetaMask updates, Pi Network and Bybit beefing + more

🍍 Market flavor today

Find out more about the Fear & Greed Index here.

Crypto Market Cap: $2.80T -2.49% (24H)
Name		Price	24H	7D
	Bitcoin BTC	$83,744.84	-2.24%	-14.86%
	Ethereum ETH	$2,214.26	-4.89%	-19.03%
	XRP XRP	$2.14	-2.70%	-18.29%
	BNB BNB	$587.71	-3.18%	-10.92%
	Solana SOL	$144.91	3.63%	-16.67%

If you’re prioritizing mental health this year, here’s some advice: don’t check your portfolio today ❤️ Might cry ❤️

Source: @dogeofficialceo

But if you’ve been in crypto for more than a month, go ahead. You’ve seen worse. Every bull market comes with dips - some even nastier than this - and yet, we’re still here​​.

This latest pullback, as we discussed yesterday, started after Donald Trump decided to impose tariffs on basically anything that moves.

Source: @0xNovaSeeds

But Bitcoiner Kyle Chasse pointed out another factor: the collapse of a trading strategy called cash & carry.

Hedge funds found a way to make low-risk money by exploiting the price difference between two Bitcoin markets: spot BTC ETFs and BTC futures (contracts where people bet on Bitcoin’s future price).

Normally, Bitcoin futures trade at a premium (slightly more expensive than actual BTC). And hedge funds saw this as an opportunity:

1. Buy Bitcoin through a spot ETF;

2. Short BTC futures (aka, bet that Bitcoin’s price will go down);

3. Wait. Since futures were trading at a premium, they could collect the difference for an almost risk-free return - around 5.68% per year.

But this whole thing only works if futures stay more expensive than spot BTC.

Once the market started weakening tho', that price gap disappeared. No premium = no more profits.

And since hedge funds don't actually care about Bitcoin, they started exiting the trade - dumping their BTC ETFs and closing their short positions.

Source: Farside Investors

And just like that, with tons of Bitcoin suddenly being dumped, the price dipped, and everyone's feeling the pain.

Now, Bitcoin has to find real buyers - people who actually believe in BTC and aren’t just looking for a quick trade. Until that happens, expect more volatility.

For the short term, experts expect this:

• CryptoQuant’s Ki Young Ju thinks BTC will bounce between $75K and $100K for a while;

• BitMEX co-founder Arthur Hayes sees another big drop below $80K before things settle down.

And when’s the bounce-back? Well, Santiment says social media is full of people yelling “BUY THE DIP”. But markets love proving people wrong - so we might only see a real bounce once that confidence starts fading.

TL;DR: wipe those tears and remember that patience is key.

Source: @AltcoinGordon

🥝 Memecoin harvest

Invest responsibly, but also - how tf is this frog coin up?! 🐸

	Name		24H Change
	pepe in a memes world PEW		▲ 87%
	toly's minutes TOLY		▲ 51%
	Kekius Maximus KEKIUS		▲ 41%
	HaloPepe HPEPE		▲ 31%

Data as of 06:20 AM EST.

Check out these memecoins and plenty more here.

🔄 Did a full 180

Yeah, so the market's been kinda disappointing lately - especially since people expected the most pro-crypto US administration ever to send our bagz to the moon.

That said, the SEC served a bunch of updates recently - and the future still looks promising.

1/ Case closed

Since last Friday, the SEC's been closing investigations and dropping lawsuits like they're HOT.

Here are the ones who got the golden ticket:

• OpenSea (NFT marketplace);

• Robinhood Crypto (crypto trading platform);

• Uniswap (DEX);

• Gemini (crypto exchange);

• Consensys (MetaMask developer);

• And last but not least - Coinbase.

Source: @coinbase

2/ The broker-dealer rule

The SEC was this close 🤏 to forcing all crypto liquidity providers and DeFi market makers to register as broker-dealers.

Basically, they wanted KYC and AML rules enforced in DeFi, which... yeah, would’ve made DeFi impossible.

But crypto advocacy groups fought back, and now, the SEC dropped the whole thing.

Source: @BlockchainAssn

3/ Memecoins

The SEC confirmed that memecoins are NOT securities - meaning no one needs to register them with the SEC before launching.

Buuut that doesn't mean memecoins are entirely off the hook: if a memecoin project is a scam, it can still be hit with enforcement action, just not by the SEC.

Source: @davidsacks47

Overall - crypto's getting closer to the regulatory clarity it’s been waiting for. That means:

• More market confidence → more adoption;

• More players entering → more investment options;

• 🚀 (...fingers crossed)

All there's left to do is wait and see if the SEC's glow-up actually lasts.

🍋 News drops

🦊 MetaMask is letting Bitcoin and Solana join the party. Solana support launches in May (making it the first non-EVM chain on MetaMask), and Bitcoin integration is coming in Q3. Oh, and they’re planning to kill gas fees down the line.

👀 Pi Network and Bybit are beefing. Bybit CEO Ben Zhou called Pi a scam, and an unofficial Pi Network X account responded that Bybit was just mad about a rejected listing.

👋 THORChain dev Pluto quit after an attempt to block North Korean hacker funds got overturned. Validators voted to freeze Ethereum trading to stop the bad guys, but the decision got reversed almost instantly.

🤖 OpenAI dropped GPT-4.5, and it’s talking like a real human. The catch: it costs a small fortune.

🇵🇸 Comedian William Banks rugged a Solana memecoin. He said it was to fund Palestinian aid and showed $50K in donations as proof.

🧃 Sip of gains

BitDegree’s Season 7 airdrop got even juicier - a sponsor has entered the chat 🔥

Yeah, I also thought it was already peak perfection. But BYDFi is throwing in an extra $1,000 USDC on top of the $30K prize pool.

If you forgot how this works (or just need motivation):

Do Missions, drag your friends into it → Earn Bits → Climb the leaderboard → Take the W home.

Easy? Easy.

The BYDFi stage ends on March 10, so if you miss out… well, that’s on you 👀

🍌 Juicy memes

Source: @AltcoinGordon

Source: @naiivememe

Source: @naiivememe