Bear market confirmed? This analyst says yes

Plus: Brazil wants to pay workers in crypto

GM. Crypto’s like a ripe guava – if you wait too long, it turns into mush, but if you bite in too early, it’s all hard and sour. One way to find out, right?

🇧🇷 Brazilians might receive their salaries in crypto.

🍋 News drops: LIBRA drama is heating up, the Solana ad people hated + more

🍍 Market flavor today

These past few weeks, crypto’s been proving why cry is right there in the name.

Bitcoin’s down 24% from its all-time high of $109K reached in January. And while dips like this aren’t unusual in bull markets, Bitfinex analysts said that this one’s different.

Normally, Bitcoin doesn’t stay down for long, thanks to strong institutional buying. But this time, demand’s looking pretty weak – just take a look at Bitcoin ETFs, which had almost $1B in outflows last week.

It gets worse, don’t worry.

Short-term holders are sitting on losses, which means many are panic-selling and pushing prices down even further.

If no new buyers step in to buy the dip, Bitcoin could either drag sideways for a while or drop lower as weak hands get shaken out.

Now, the good news? There are large buyers:

• Bitcoin ETFs are recovering – after last week’s disaster, they had $274.6M in inflows yesterday;

• Michael Saylor’s Strategy bought another 130 BTC. It’s their smallest buy ever, but hey, still something;

• Metaplanet, aka the Strategy of Japan (side note: I hate that it’s no longer MicroStrategy – phrases like this sound hella confusing now), is raising about $13M to buy more BTC;

• New Bitcoin whales accumulated over 200K BTC just this month.

But… is it enough?

CryptoQuant CEO Ki Young Ju isn’t convinced. He warned that liquidity is drying up, and some whales are offloading BTC at lower prices.

Matter of fact, he said that every major on-chain metric is signaling a bear market 🙃

If things keep heading this way, we might be stuck in 6–12 months of sideways or bearish price action before any real recovery.

And US macroeconomic factors aren’t helping much either.

Retail sales grew 0.2% in February, below the expected 0.6%.

If investors take this as a sign of a slowing economy, we could see even weaker liquidity and risk appetite, which is… not so bullish for crypto.

But there’s a wildcard: the Fed. If they look at these numbers and decide it’s time to ease interest rates, crypto could catch a break.

Tomorrow’s FOMC meeting should give us some clues. Fingers crossed, y’all.

🥝 Memecoin harvest

Memecoins that are pumping harder than my caffeine addiction ☕️

Data as of 07:50 AM EST.

Check out these memecoins and plenty more here.

Reasons why Brazil is goated:

• Rio Carnival;

• Brazilian funk;

• Pelé;

• This:

Federal deputy Luiz Philippe de Orleans e Bragança introduced a bill that would let workers in Brazil receive part of their salaries in crypto.

Of course, there are a few conditions to keep things in check:

• At least 50% of your salary must be paid in Brazilian real (BRL);

• Freelancers and independent contractors could go full degen and get paid entirely in crypto if their contracts allow it;

• The exchange rate must be set by a financial institution authorized by Brazil’s Central Bank. So no, your employer can’t pay you in “discount Bitcoin” they found in the backrooms.

Why would they want this? Well, Brazil is already a growing crypto hub, and this could attract even more investment, startups, fintech innovation, and companies moving in.

And if this passes, it could be a game-changer for crypto adoption, too.

• More workers getting paid in crypto = more businesses accepting crypto = snowball effect;

• If it works, other countries might follow suit.

Now, here’s where it gets even juicier: if more workers start receiving BTC as part of their salaries, demand naturally increases.

Unlike crypto traders who buy and sell based on market swings, salaried workers get paid regularly – meaning a consistent, predictable flow of money into BTC.

And if even a fraction of Brazil’s workforce starts holding their salary in crypto instead of cashing out immediately, that’s a steady source of buy pressure.

So yeah, if you see us sipping caipirinhas on a beach in Brazil soon… mind your business 🍹

🍋 News drops

⚖️ The LIBRA drama is heading to the Supreme Court of New York. A new lawsuit claims its creators misled investors and drained over $100M from one-sided liquidity pools.

✊ Solana removed an ad from X after facing backlash. The video featured “America” in therapy, getting told to focus on pronouns instead of innovation. The takeaway: performative activism is always cringe regardless of political ideology.

🤨 Elon Musk claims he’s found at least 14 government money printers running on autopilot. Agencies like Treasury and Defense are apparently sending money without clear oversight.

⚠️ A new malware is stealing crypto from Chrome wallet extensions. It scans your system, takes login details, and checks your clipboard for passwords and private keys. Basically, if you copy-paste your seed phrase, consider it gone.

🍌 Juicy memes