Crypto

Former ETH maxi, Infinex’s Kain Warwick, revealed he has sold 90% of his Ethereum — but he’s not giving up on it just yet. X Hall of Flame Infinex founder Kain Warwick has a few ideas on how hype could return to the fading asset that is Ethereum but says theres no one easy narrative to breathe life back into it. Theres no fucking certainty in ETH land right now, Warwick tells Hall of Flame, but that doesnt mean a comeback is off the table. If theres demand for ETH the asset, demand for block space on the L1, that will drive things, he says. Warwick, who admits he sold off 90% of his ETH bag since late 2020, thinks Ethereum could regain momentum if layer-2 networks finally start paying their fair share for using the base layers security. Charging L2s more, capturing more of the value that L2s are generating and increasing that kind of margin on blockspace would be really bullish for the L1, Warwick says. Read more

A crypto analyst eyes Bitcoin’s potential retrace to $70K, a crypto investor funds a SpaceX flight, and more: Hodler’s Digest BitMEX co-founder and former CEO Arthur Hayes says US President Donald Trump’s tariffs may rattle the global economy in some ways, but that same disruption could be exactly what Bitcoin needs to rally. Global imbalances will be corrected, and the pain papered over with printed money, which is good for BTC, Hayes said in an April 3 X post. His comments come just a day after it was announced that the Trump administration will hit all countries with a 10% tariff starting April 5, with some countries facing even larger rates, such as China facing a 34% tariff, the European Union 20%, and Japan 24%.  Read more

9GAG founder’s new “MemeStrategy” firm will buy Bitcoin for reserves, jailed Bithumb CEO paid $3.5M in salary and bonuses. Asia Express The creator of meme culture pioneer 9GAG is diving headfirst into Bitcoin and blockchain, acquiring a publicly listed Hong Kong company with plans to turn it into a crypto and AI venture. Ray Chan, co-founder of 9GAG, has acquired a controlling stake in Howkingtech International Holdings Limited and plans to convert the company into a Web3 outfit. Chan has proposed renaming the firm to MemeStrategy, a nod to MicroStrategy (now Strategy), which popularized the corporate Bitcoin accumulation playbook. He will serve as chairman and CEO, pending shareholder approval, and several members of the 9GAG team have joined the board. Read more

The SEC backed down in the Ripple case, but the industry remains in the dark on key legal questions with no precedent set. UPDATE: The headline has been updated to reflect Ripple’s clarification the “bad actor” designation was not applied as part of its settlement with the SEC. Ripple has emerged (mostly) victorious from its long-running battle with the Securities and Exchange Commission, but for legal experts, the cases conclusion feels like a missed opportunity. Since the case didnt advance to a higher court, Judge Analisa Torres original district court decision which famously differentiated between XRP sales to institutional investors and those on exchanges has not established a binding precedent.  Read more

The crypto industry needs to believe in something again, says Joe Lubin, Kain Warwick, Paolo Ardoino and Scott Melker. For crypto fans who came of age during earlier eras back when Bitcoin was going to bank the unbanked and stop all wars, or even during the ICO boom when tokenizing carbon credits and disrupting dentistry were touted as the future of finance the last couple of years have been incredibly depressing. On the one side, some Bitcoiners who used to want to smash the unfair financial and banking system now cheer the worlds biggest banks and governments for gobbling up an increasing percentage of the supply. And on the other side, theres the financial nihilism of memecoin trading, where nothing of value is built or created just a production line designed to extract as much cash as possible from retail. The vast majority of Pump.fun users, 99.6%, havent even made $10,000 on the site. Ethereum creator Vitalik Buterin has always believed crypto can make the world a better place but seemed to have a crisi...

Has Off The Grid fired the starting GUN for the gaming supercycle? Pudgy Penguins meet Monopoly on Ice in LOL Land, and more: Web3 Gamer. After five months of anticipation, the most exciting Web3 game of 2024 finally rolled out its cryptocurrency token this week. Third-person battle royale shooting game Off The Grids native token, GUNZ (GUN), launched on crypto exchange Binance on March 31, alongside the launch of the Avalanche-based GUNZ mainnet. Within hours of the launch, the token tapped a market cap of $69 million before retracing back near $44.39 million, according to CoinMarketCap data. Avalanche said it was a “major milestone for Web3 gaming and purpose-built Avalanche L1s.” Read more

A crypto analyst is eyeing off a sooner timeframe for Bitcoin all-time highs, XRP may retrace up to 40%, and more: Hodler’s Digest Bitcoin will break past its $109,000 all-time high sooner than expected despite recent volatile US macroeconomic conditions, according to a crypto analyst.  The market may be underestimating how quickly Bitcoin could surge potentially hitting new all-time highs before Q2 is out, Real Vision chief crypto analyst Jamie Coutts told Cointelegraph.  He said this forecast stands regardless of whether or not there is more clarity on US President Donald Trumps tariffs and potential recession concerns. Read more

Chinese influencer denies links to honeytrap scam after promising sex to any Bitcoiner, BTS firm’s $350 blockchain revenue: Asia Express. A viral crypto influencers spend the night with BTC holders stunt has taken a dark turn after Chinese media linked her profile to a real-life extortion case. On March 25, Sina Finance reported that in 2024, a software engineer in Chengdu was ambushed and robbed of 6 BTC by a criminal gang posing as a female crypto trader named Bitcoin Conger. The group had allegedly lured the victim through an X profile that promised sexual favors after months of online communications. Once the victim agreed to meet at a high-end hotel in Chengdu, the perpetrators reportedly used fabricated evidence to threaten the victims reputation, ultimately extorting a 6 BTC transfer. Read more

The sad story behind those Studio Ghibli memes, humans require a “modest death event” to understand AGI risk, robots in homes trials: AI Eye. Social media feeds were overrun this week with memes created using OpenAIs buzzy new GPT-4o image generator in the style of Japanese anime house Studio Ghibli (Spirited Away, Howls Moving Castle). Theres Aussie breakdancer Raygun doing her signature kangaroo move, that image of Ben Affleck looking depressed and sucking on a ciggie, gangster mode Vitalik and thousands more images all captured in the admittedly adorable Studio Ghibli style. But theres a much darker side to the trend. The memes emerged as footage from 2016 resurfaced of studio founder Hayao Miyazaki reacting to an early demo of OpenAIs image generation capability. He said he was utterly disgusted by it and that he would never wish to incorporate this technology into my work at all. Miyazaki added that a machine that draws pictures like people do was “an awful insult to life, and PC Mag reported at the time...

Arbitrum co-founder Steven Goldfeder has ruled out the L2 becoming a based rollup and was circumspect about becoming a native rollup too. Offchain Labs CEO Steven Goldfeders crypto origin story is classic geek gold. As a student at Princeton, he first heard about Bitcoin in 2013 during a visit day at Princeton. Professor Ed Felten the future inventor of rollups on Ethereum, co-founder of Arbitrum and a White House science advisor gave a five-minute lightning talk about the cost of a government destroying Bitcoin.  Goldfeders curiosity was instantly piqued, and that night, other students hosted a poker game with a half-BTC buy-in. As he says: That was back in the days when that was just ten bucks. If only Id held onto it… Read more

Early Solana proponent Armani Ferrante says FTX and Alameda are his guiding light for what not to do with Backpack Exchange. Former Alameda Research employee turned crypto exchange founder Armani Ferrante knows firsthand that Eminems lyrics “you only get one shot, do not miss your chance to blow” couldnt be more true in crypto. When you see Elon Musk standing next to his rocket, then it collapses and crashes, he feels bad about it. He loses a lot of money. Its horrible, but he gets to try again when the rocket crashes, Ferrante tells Hall of Flame. If an exchange collapses, you dont get to try again; it is game over, the 32-year-old US-born, Tokyo-based entrepreneur declares. Read more

Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse says the SEC lawsuit is “over,” Donald Trump speaks at Blockworks’ Digital Asset Summit: Hodler’s Digest The US Securities and Exchange Commissions multi-year enforcement action against Ripple is finally coming to an end, according to the companys CEO. This is it the moment weve been waiting for. The SEC will drop its appeal a resounding victory for Ripple, for crypto, every way you look at it, Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse wrote on X on March 19. Im finally able to announce that the case has ended; its over, Garlinghouse said in the video attached to the X post. Read more