Hi Degens, 

Did you hear the new conspiracy theory that Putin is the new Satoshi Nakamoto launching Bitcoin on the American financial system? 

Huh, the crypto world never ceases to surprise, nor does the feigned ignorance from the Trads. 

Let’s hop on today’s Web3 Creator edition for all the highs and lows that the market witnessed this week. 

• AI tokens record double-digit gains

• USDC bids goodbye to Tron

• Bitcoin is at $52k but retail volumes are missing 

• 😎 Degen of the week (take a guess)

• Vitalik calls L1s to solve L2 woes

Let’s get started!

AI tokens record double-digit gains despite market correction

Nvidia has outperformed Tesla. 

Bard is now Gemini.

Altman is asking for $7 trillion.

Sora is alive and kicking and churning out masterpieces. 

Vitalik is talking about how AI can help tackle crypto’s biggest problems, including audits. 

With such catalysts, AI crypto tokens were bound for an exponential surge. 🎇🎇🎇

Past trends?

• November 2022 saw a similar jump in trading volumes for AI tokens after the ChatGPT launch. 

• This time, the market cap for AI tokens jumped from $7 billion to $17.8 billion in February. 9% of the gains came after Nvidia beat all expectations in its quarterly earnings report. 

• AI tokens and Nvidia stock seem to be highly correlated at the moment. Each registered almost 400% gains. 

AI tokens ruling charts amidst correction

AI tokens recorded double-digit gains in a day. 

Render (RNDR) - 17% 

The Graph (GRT) - 18%

Fetch.AI (FET) - 11%

SingularityNet (AGIX) - 33%

Weekly gains for AGIX stood at a formidable 122%. Delysium (AGI) led the charge with an 182% weekly jump. 

Is the AI boom fading anytime soon?

We don’t think so. 

The momentum started building up after OpenAI’s Sora launched last week. The favorable conditions reflect the boom in the demand for generative AI globally. 

Overall, the AI tokens have seen the highest weekly trading volume in a year. Experts reiterate how AI and crypto can synergize with each other and come up with innovative use cases. 

Bitcoin is at $52k but retail volumes are missing 

Retailers are missing from action in this bull run. The graph above clearly depicts that. This also means most of the demand for Bitcoin is coming from ETFs and institutions. 

The average demand per day from ETFs stands at 10,000 bitcoins against 450 bitcoins that are mined each day. That’s 12.5x the demand against supply. 

(Post halving the number of bitcoins mined per day will reduce further. Is there a supply shock in waiting?)

Last week, ETFs bought $2.4 billion worth of bitcoins via OTC trades mostly, Despite FTX liquidations, Grayscale net inflows are positive, and VanEck saw its ETF trading volumes surge by 14x in a day. 

These are quite some numbers. But what does it imply for Bitcoin? 

71% of the realized $BTC market cap hasn’t moved in the past 6 months. This implies retail investors are hodling on to their bitcoins.  

Retailers are Hodling for two probable reasons:

• Retailers are buying the long-term prospects of Bitcoin as a generational wealth and scarce asset. (FYI, Bitcoin is the world’s scarcest asset now.)

• They await another new ATH for Bitcoin as past halving trends show Bitcoin prices skyrocket around it 

Either way, 

While OTC desks are meeting the huge demand from ETFs, the amount of bitcoins present on the exchanges has also been at its lowest. 

Will BTC explode once retailers join in? 

7 out of 10 retail investors who were a part of the 2021 bull run haven’t joined yet. Google search volumes for Bitcoin are also low. 

As demand increases against shrinking supply, Bitcoin may not be far from the far-fetched price predictions we keep on hearing so often. 

What’s your take on the same? 

Meanwhile, Open Interest for Bitcoin futures reached a yearly high at $22.6 billion. However, due to liquidations and subsequent selling pressure, Bitcoin rejected the $53k resistance. 

Is Circle discontinuing USDC support on the Tron blockchain?

US financial technology firm Circle is discontinuing its support for USDC on Tron blockchain. The move comes in response to an allegation where Circle was called ‘Tron blockchain founder Justin Sun’s bank.’

Circle said it will continue facilitating stablecoin transfers to other blockchains for Circle Mint customers until February 2025. It has urged retail and non-Circle customers to transfer their USDC on Tron to an exchange that facilitates transfers to a blockchain where USDC is supported. 

Although Circle had dealings before with Tron founder Justin Sun, Circle’s CSO Dante Disparte denied being Justin SUn’s Bank. Earlier, Circle dismissed claims that it was funding terrorist organizations. Quite a tight spot to be in being so close to US authorities while being alleged of such activities. 

Halving countdown

More news for you 

• Privacy coins under attack owing to regulatory pressure: Binance delisted privacy coin Monero (XMR) on February 20. Monero’s liquidity hit new lows soon after. Other exchanges may soon follow suit marking a significant turning point for privacy-focused projects.  (Link)

• Coinbase is pushing for Grayscale’s ETF ETF approval: Coinbase has made its case in a 27-pager on why the SEC should approve an Ethereum ETF. Coinbase has made arguments on economic, legal, and technical grounds that Ethereum isn’t a commodity. (Link)

• STRK token more than halves in value: STRK token of the newly launched ETH L2, Starknet, more than halved in value two days after its airdrop. The drop came as a result of nethermind and airdrop farmers dumping millions of dollars of airdropped tokens in the market. (Link) 

🐦Tweet of the week

😎Degen of the week

"I’ll be buying forever".

This is what Michael Saylor, Ex-MicroStrategy CEO, replied to a reporter who asked, “You own $10,000,000,000 worth of Bitcoin. When do you sell for profit?" Watch the full video. (Link)

🎬 More snapshots from the week

• Vitalik Buterin advocates enhancing L1 features to alleviate L2s. 

• Ethereum Foundation is launching ZK funding to help research and development for Zk L2s.

• Binance lists Solana (SOL), Filecoin (FIL), and WorldCoin (WLD).

• Do Kwon will be extradited to the US.

That’s a wrap. See you next week!