Silk Road’s mastermind is back

Plus: FBI’s crypto trap catches a big fish

GM. Don’t let the headlines turn your portfolio into fruit salad; we’re here to dish out the right slices of insights.

🚶‍♂️ Ross Ulbricht walks free.

🍋 News drops: the FBI’s successful undercover operation, ZachXBT’s salary + more

🍍 Market flavor today

The Fear & Greed Index is at 84, which basically means that investors are lying down on their stomachs and kicking their feet in excitement 🥰

Bitcoin’s been bouncing around between $102K and $108K, but trader Mister Crypto believes this won’t last long.

That’s ’cause whales are buying, and retail is selling. Whales usually have more experience, better research, and think long-term – so if they’re buying when others sell, it’s seen as a buy the dip type of situation.

Another proof that big money is interested in BTC: we saw a $802.6M flow into Bitcoin ETFs yesterday.

And there’s more on the horizon with a new type of ETF entering the game: Calamos Protected Bitcoin ETFs. These offer a way to invest in Bitcoin while limiting potential losses:

CBOJ (100% protection): you won’t lose any money, no matter how much Bitcoin drops;
CBXJ (90% protection): you can only lose up to 10% of your investment;
CBTJ (80% protection): the most you can lose is 10% of your investment.

The catch? Your profits are capped, too. It’s a lower risk, lower reward setup, perfect for those worried about Bitcoin’s price swings.

And an appeal to a wider range of investors = more money heading toward BTC 😏

Over in the Ethereum department, ETH ETFs had $74.4M in inflows yesterday.

But Ethereum itself hasn’t been having the best time lately, as reported by Santiment. Its market cap is down 2.5% over the last month, while XRP (+42.3%) and Solana (+45%) are thriving.

Why tho’? Critics are pointing fingers at a few things:

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin sells some ETH now and then, which some take as a lack of confidence;
Concerns about decentralization – big players like Coinbase and Binance control most ETH staking;
The network’s shift to a modular system. This makes Ethereum more scalable and adaptable, but it also diverts value to Layer-2 projects, reducing fees and slowing ETH’s price growth.

Still, Ethereum’s not exactly sinking – it’s been around for nearly a decade and kept 75% of its market share. Developers and users are sticking around, so the network might be playing the long game, even if it’s sacrificing short-term Ws.

Also, there’s been a lot of negativity toward Ethereum on social media, which could actually be a good sign. Markets often do the opposite of what everyone expects, and some top dogs are still quietly buying ETH during this uncertainty. Meaning: a rebound could be incoming.

🥝 Memecoin harvest

These memecoins called shotgun on the rocket to the moon today:

	Name		24H Change
	Heart Sparkle Mermaid HSM		▲ 15.1K%
	Artificial Isle Clams CLAMS		▲ 7.4K%
	Stargate STARGATE		▲ 6.2K%
	Stardom AI STARDM		▲ 4.5K%

Data as of 08:30 AM EST.

Check out these memecoins and plenty more here.

Imagine the last time you went out for a coffee (or something stronger, idk 👀), and people were still feeling swag while rocking onesies and playing Drake’s Started from the Bottom.

Sorry for this difficult read, but that’s basically the world Ross Ulbricht remembers – because he’s been locked up since 2013 for creating Silk Road.

Well, until now. Yes, Ross is officially a free man: Donald Trump gave him a full pardon, just like he promised.

If the only Ross you know is the guy from Friends, and “Silk Road” makes you think of a trade route from a thousand years ago, you’re in the right place: we’re gonna fill you in on why the crypto community can’t stop talking about it today.

The Silk Road

Ross tried out all sorts of businesses, like an online used book shop and a video game company, but none really took off.

However, there was one business idea that he hadn’t tried and couldn’t stop thinking about – a no-limits online marketplace where you could buy and sell absolutely anything in complete anonymity.

But to build something like that, there was one missing puzzle piece: he needed to figure out a way for people to pay and stay untraceable.

Then, he discovered this magical thing called Bitcoin and created the Silk Road marketplace.

Now, you see, Ross is a hardcore libertarian, so he believes people should be free to decide what they do with their lives, bodies, and property without anyone interfering.

For him, this also includes doing drugs – he wanted them legalized and argued that we wouldn’t ban Big Macs because they can make people gain weight and have heart attacks.

So, naturally, alongside stuff like art, books, and electronics, people were able to sell and buy drugs on Silk Road. Some may even say they were the big stars of this site.

And naturally, it was a big no-no from the government.

The marketplace ran from 2011 to 2013 – right up to Ross’ arrest.

The arrest

Ross was caught by an IRS investigator (which, lmao, are we surprised – if there’s money involved, the IRS WILL get you).

For operating Silk Road, he was charged with conspiracy to traffic narcotics, commit money laundering and computer hacking, continuing criminal enterprise, and even involvement in murder-for-hire.

That landed him a double life sentence + 40 years, no parole. John Gotti, a mafia boss, and Richard Speck, a mass murderer, got less. Just sayin’.

So yeah, no matter if you agree with Ross’ beliefs – his sentence was pretty wild.

Why did the crypto community care?

Many in the crypto community had been rooting for Ross’ release. Several reasons:

They argued nobody should rot in prison forever for making a site (whether it was legal or not);
For many, Ross symbolizes Bitcoin ideals – keeping the government out of our business;
Even though Silk Road gave BTC a criminal rep, it also helped popularize it.

And now he’s free – and he won’t need to hear the cringy stuff from 2013. Instead, he’s walking into a world of TikTok, sigmas, and skibidi toilets…

…

…well, sh*t, the world didn’t get much better, did it? Good luck catching up, Ross.

🍋 News drops

⭐️ Donald Trump dropped a $500B bombshell called “Stargate”. It’s a private-led AI project aiming to build data centers across the US and promising to create over 100K jobs.

🥸 CLS Global pleaded guilty to helping manipulate a token that turned out to be created by the FBI. The bait, NexFundAI (NEXF), was made to lure scammers, and CLS fell for it – they faked trading volumes to make the token seem more popular than it actually was.

✊ The SEC is assembling a crypto dream team led by Hester Peirce, aka “Crypto Mom”.Their mission? Lay down some ground rules for crypto, create realistic ways to register, and crack down on the bad guys without overdoing it.

💰 After ZachXBT vented about not getting paid for his blockchain investigations, some mystery dev made a memecoin in his name and dropped half the supply into his wallet. ZachXBT wasted no time – he cashed out $3.81M.

🤔 Is Bybit as good as they say? We broke it all down in our review, so you can skip the guesswork.