We’re in the mass adoption era. 

And no, we’re not just being delusional: The head of the Czech central bank is ready to spend billions — up to 5% of its $146 billion of its reserve — on bitcoin to build up a stash, according to a Financial Times report.

It’s not yet a done deal, but the Michael Saylor effect is real. 

Meanwhile:

• Bitcoin’s clinging to $102,000 as both crypto and equity markets attempt a rebound from the DeepSeek selloff.

• CME futures premiums went negative for the first time since August 2023 and open interest fell by 17,225 BTC (its largest-ever daily decline) after Monday’s market action, per K33 data.

• Daily transactions in the Ethereum ecosystem jumped 41% in the fourth quarter, according to Coinbase Institutional data.

🌱 Grow, baby, grow

Look, I’m no David, but I do have some fun data for you today. 

Coinbase Institutional and Glassnode released a report focused on the trends we’ve seen so far this year. Some of the data is somewhat expected, but there were also some fun nuggets that show just where crypto is growing. 

Take, for example, this chart from a16z:

See how large January was in comparison to other months? Perhaps it’s not jaw-dropping, but that’s pretty dang impressive. And before you ask, no this data doesn’t reflect any of the wallets opened by people when TRUMP dropped. 

Coinbase Institutional’s David Duong explained to me that the chart was produced prior to the launch of TRUMP. Though, he added, the president’s memecoin “was also pretty impressive [because] there are a lot of market players who had never touched crypto before who adopted crypto mainly to trade [TRUMP].”

But the attention shouldn’t just be on wallets or memecoins, let’s give altcoins their moment to shine too.

Duong thinks that bitcoin’s selfishly been hogging the attention, but that doesn’t mean that there isn’t room for altcoins. He thinks folks are still looking for the “1000x opportunity in the space.”

Perhaps that means that we’ll see more newcomers enter the playing field, challenging the “blue chip names” and the dino coins from the early 2020s.

“When it comes to smart contract platforms or other things, I think people are content with having like ETH, SOL and SUI, but many people are kind of saying, ‘Yes, but what other platforms are out there, what could come next?’ So I think that's still a theme now that people are kind of playing the space again,” he explained. 

A side effect of this: Sectors are becoming more and more clear within crypto. As Duong explained, we’re seeing memecoins fully carve their own path and separate from other parts of crypto while DeFi is starting to see its own pickup following the shift in the regulatory environment. 

AI agents are a good example of the branching out we’re seeing, Duong added, given that they’re focused on the “attention economy” inside of crypto. On the other hand, DEXs are close to 20% of the volume of centralized exchanges. 

“Many of the market players are trying to assess the market at the moment, so they are looking at the sectors, and they know what could be attention-grabbing or getting more revenue. But now it's a question of … what's going to actually garner the attention?” 

So many trends to watch, so little time.

— Katherine

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Hear from Michael Saylor as he breaks down the bold moves shaping Bitcoin’s place in the US economy. Richard Teng offers a rare perspective on how Binance is navigating regulation and driving growth. Cathie Wood shares her vision for aligning innovation with transformative investment opportunities.

DAS NYC goes beyond the headlines, bringing together the most influential minds to address the critical challenges and opportunities in digital assets and technology.

📅 March 18-20 | NYC

• Coinbase is keeping busy: It’s adding a Trump campaign manager and a former New York Fed president to its global advisory council.

• Crypto.com said it’ll suspend Tether and PayPal’s stablecoin services in Europe at the end of the month thanks to MiCA.

• Former SEC Chair Gary Gensler is back… in the role of professor at MIT. Gensler will focus on things like artificial intelligence and public policy with, hopefully, very little mention of crypto.

🫨 Stabilizing force

Let me introduce crypto’s killer app: stablecoins. 

I know we just talked about stablecoins, but I wanted to, well, Circle back. Duong said he’s frequently being asked by institutional investors if some of the forecasts for stablecoins (like Jeremy Allaire of Circle saying that stablecoins will hit $3 trillion by 2030) are realistic.

“You think about the level of M2 money supply in the United States, and it's $21 trillion. So we're just at around 1% of that if we go to $3 trillion, that's still only less than 15% of the entire M2 mining supply as it is so I really don't think that's far off. I think that the opportunity on that side of things is still huge,” Duong explained. 

He also thinks that Cicle’s recent acquisition of Hashnote shows its interest in yield-bearing stablecoins, given that Hashnote already has one. Institutions, at least, are very interested in the potential yield-bearing offering due to the macro environment. Basically, high rates lead to more folks sniffing around to see where they can make or save some extra money. 

Even with the Fed currently going into an easing cycle, Duong thinks that the interest will remain, backing up some of the points made by Marc Boiron of Polygon Labs last week.

Stablecoins really seem to be in the “can’t stop, won’t stop” stage of growth. 

“Behind this growth lies a simple but powerful fact: Stablecoins can make it faster and cheaper for both businesses and individuals to move money around the globe,” Coinbase wrote.

And that, dear readers, is exactly what we want from a potential killer app.

— Katherine

On our minds: Binance

According to a Reuters report from Tuesday, Binance could be in hot water yet again. This time, though, it seems that the French are probing the crypto exchange. 

I’m not convinced that this will do any real damage to Binance should anything come of it, given that the exchange already settled with the US and — like we saw with the multibillion-dollar regulatory settlement — the evidence could be older given that Binance is under new leadership and CZ’s off doing his own thing.

Still, it’s something to keep an eye or ear on given the tricky situations the exchange has been in the past couple of years (like Nigeria holding executives hostage). 

Binance has done a lot of work on the outside to improve its public image, but — like we saw in the Empire episode with new CEO Richard Teng — it still wants to keep some stuff close (and metrics) close to its chest. 

We still don’t know where the new headquarters will be!

— Katherine