Who’s got the final round

GM. Get your crypto hydration here – juiced, pulped, and packed with enough energy to keep you ahead of the market.

🐙 Kraken is launching kBTC.

📫 Andrew Tate’s fans are sending abusive emails to Coffeezilla.

🍊 News drops: prosecutors suggest a five-year sentence for the Bitfinex hacker, Thailand’s oldest bank is launching a stablecoin system for international transfers + more

🍍 Market flavor today

Things are still wild in the crypto jungle, y’all 🦁 The Fear and Greed Index is sitting at 71, meaning we’re still in “Greed” territory. Bitcoin’s holding above $67K and even had a quick sprint over $68K this past day. Some traders think this might be the run that finally retests its $73K all-time high.

But before you pop the champagne, not everyone thinks it’ll be an easy jump. Shubh Varma, CEO of Hyblock Capital, pointed out that the market’s flipping between “Fear” and “Greed” faster than a cheetah, which means it’s sensitive to even minor triggers.

Besides, he noted that retail long positions (bets that Bitcoin will go up) are hitting low levels, which could mean a reversal is coming. When retail traders eventually start piling into longs after being low for a while, it’s often a bearish sign ’cause they tend to hop in at the wrong time. So, if things follow the usual pattern, we might see a price drop.

But it’s not all red flags! Bitcoin ETFs are still crushing it, with $458.5M in inflows yesterday, and Ethereum ETFs are keeping pace with $24.2M in inflows – basically, big money is still finding its way into crypto. Plus, a recent report from Aspen Digital shows that 76% of private wealth in Asia has already invested in digital assets, and another 18% is planning to get in soon.

And the adventure continues 🐾 Stay sharp – this jungle’s full of twists and turns.

🎶 Bitcoin (DeFi Remix).mp3

Think of Bitcoin as a ticket to see your fave band. You spent all your savings on it, but you know you’ll love it, so no ragrets (I hope you’ll get the reference). The problem is, your second-fave band is also coming to town, but now you’re too broke for it and, obviously, the same ticket isn’t gonna work for both concerts. Sorry if this hit too close to home btw.

That’s where wrapped Bitcoin saves the day – think of it as a festival pass where both bands are playing. Big W for you, slight embarrassment for your mom when she sees your Instagram stories that night.

Basically, Bitcoin’s kinda isolated when it comes to DeFi – it’s great for peer-to-peer payments and holding value, but it’s not built to handle complex smart contracts. Whereas, for example, Ethereum, is more flexible and DeFi-friendly.

And wrapped Bitcoin is like a bridge here: it’s got the same price as Bitcoin and can be swapped back anytime, BUT you also get to use it on other blockchains with the benefits of DeFi, like lending, staking, and other yield-generating opportunities.

The biggest player in this game rn is WBTC launched by BitGo, Kyber Network, and Ren (though it got a little messy when Justin Sun got involved). Coinbase has also launched cbBTC recently.

And now, Kraken’s also entering the function with its own version, kBTC. It’ll be backed 1:1 by Bitcoin held in Kraken’s custody, and you can use it on Ethereum and OP.

What does this mean for us? Not only do you get to jam to your top bands at the same event, but you get to choose the festival that suits you best. Simply magnificent.

☕️ Coffee’s brewing tea

If there’s something strange in the cryptohood, who you’re gonna call? Coffeezilla 👻 For those who haven’t about this guy – he’s a crypto journalist on a mission of exposing scams, one YouTube video at a time.

This time, his target is set on none other than the controversial Andrew Tate. Coffeezilla hit Tate with an email asking about some shady memecoins he’s been promoting, like ROOST, DADDY, and VENOM. He also had questions about the fact that Tate’s been trying to get his TRW token regulated by the US SEC after saying “SEC come for me, there’s no SEC in Romania, we’re scammers.” Huh? 🤠

You might think: good thing Tate used to do kickboxing, so he could punch that hole in his wall using the correct technique after reading this email. But that’s not the Tate way to deal with things.

This guy posted a video about it on X, going on a rant about how he doesn’t care about the investigation (could tell by the way he made a whole video about it) and throwing some insults at Coffeezilla.

The thing is, Tate didn’t only speak about it. He also leaked Coffeezilla’s email. And if you know anything about Tate – he’s built quite the army of hardcore fans for himself. Put two and two together, and you’ve got a bunch of emails from random people sent Coffee’s way. And no, these weren’t the looking-forward-to-hearing-from-you type of emails. We’re talkin’ more of the homophobic-slurs-and-threats type.

Needless to say, neither the fans nor Tate have actually answered any of Coffee’s questions. But you know what that means – get yo’ popcorn, the next vid’s gonna be interesting 🍿

📰 News drops

⛓ US authorities are pushing for a five-year sentence for Ilya Lichtenstein, who admitted to stealing 120K Bitcoin in the 2016 Bitfinex hack. Even though he could get 20 years for money laundering, prosecutors suggest a shorter term due to his cooperation and clean record.

🏦 Thailand’s oldest bank, Siam Commercial Bank (SCB), has launched the country’s first cross-border payments system using stablecoins. Now, customers can send and receive international transfers anytime with lower fees.

🐹 Hamster Kombat, the hit Telegram clicker game, just dropped more details about Season 2. After letting players run crypto exchanges in Season 1, this time, they’ll get to be CEOs of a game dev studio.

👛 WazirX is preparing to reveal 240K wallet addresses and balances in a filing with the Singapore High Court as part of its debt restructuring. This comes after a $230M hack in July that left users unable to access their funds.

🤓 Knowledge juice

Learn about the MEXC crypto exchange with the latest BitDegree Mission, “Discover Crypto Trading With MEXC”:

🍌 Juicy memes