Brought to you by:

 🥱 The new normal

We’ve been on a bit of a markets spree this week, and it’s not over yet. At the very least, we should be glad that nothing’s ever truly boring in crypto land, right? 

Anyway, I caught up with Kraken’s head of strategy Thomas Perfumo to pick his brain on the markets given the volatility we’ve seen.

For Perfumo, the pullback has been in line with what he calls the “new normal” after bitcoin topped $100k. 

“We’ve seen a couple of pullbacks corresponding with large liquidations of leveraged positions. This is typical consolidation behavior,” he told me. 

“From observations during the past two cycles, a rally in altcoins takes hold after a run-up in bitcoin. This sparks a rotation into altcoins as investors seek to outperform in the next phase of the bull market. In the prior two bitcoin-led cycles, the market cycle peak corresponded with bitcoin market cap dominance, which is currently in the mid-50s, falling closer to 40%,” Perfumo added, backing up what we’ve been discussing here on Empire. 

If we continue to see altcoins outperform, Perfumo thinks there’ll be a “pick-up in interest”

“People are on the lookout for signs that crypto services are experiencing mainstream adoption. Stablecoins have already broken prior records in terms of circulating supply and DeFi total value locked (TVL) is inching closer to peak 2021 levels. We think the combination of significant improvements to scalability this past cycle and a line of sight towards a more favorable, pro-growth agenda for crypto innovation will lead to an environment that’s ripe for crypto services to catalyze a new wave of adoption.”

But, as I wrote yesterday, it might be time to start prepping your bags for lower liquidity in the next few weeks, which is typical for this holiday period. Perfumo suggested that some of the selling might be put off till the new year as folks in the US specifically base their moves on the potential tax consequences. 

“It’s certainly possible that shortfalls in liquidity could lead to higher price volatility, both to the upside or to the downside,” he said. 

Speaking of next year, Perfumo’s in agreement with Canary Capital’s Steven McClurg that the cycle still has plenty of legs. 

It’s not just bitcoin posting wins, he noted that DEXs and some infrastructure plays — which have received plenty of support from venture capital — are ready to post wins on the year. 

However, some of the other sectors, like web3, gaming and the metaverse aren’t quite there yet. Or, if we’re being honest, are nowhere near being ready for mainstream attention outside of some exceptions (looking at you Off the Grid).

That’s not to say that there can’t be dark horses among projects yet to find mainstream attention, Perfumo said. 

Either way, he’s bullish on the environment, telling me that this is the perfect recipe for innovation within the space.

— Katherine

P.S. Can you do us a favor? Help us tailor Empire to best fit your interests. Fill out this survey.

Despite platforms such as Twitter and Telegram, there is a significant gap in direct feedback between protocols and the crypto community. Web3 marketing studio SCRIB3 invites participants to an industry-first focus group. The aim is to bring together a diverse range of perspectives to:

• Identify common hurdles for different blockchain networks like L2s and other infrastructure

• Optimize strategies for protocols

• Foster innovations that benefit the entire industry

Take the survey for the chance to participate!

• BTC almost broke $102,000 earlier this morning before scaling back to $100,800. 

• The ETH/BTC ratio is up almost 4% in the past day to 0.0392. ETH/USD: $3,960.

• DEX volume on Sui has grown 74% week-on-week to $2.431 billion.

• OKX and Binance are leading for crypto inflows over the past week, with $709.7 million and $676.2 million apiece, per DeFiLlama.

• Weekly NFT sales volume is up nearly 15% to $210.2 million, according to CryptoSlam, led by Pudgys and Bitcoin collectibles.

🧼 Pristine assets

When Cobie was tweeting about his pyramid-shaped philosophy on building the perfect crypto portfolio — you listened.

Maybe you even saw the benefit of spreading your capital across bitcoin, ether and solana in a 50/35/15 split. Depending on the execution, those strategies would’ve easily paid off during the bull market to date. 

It still probably hurts to know that they've been blown out of the water by Milady and Pudgy NFTs.

USD-denominated floor prices for both NFT collections have now gone more than 20x since December 2022.

The cheapest Miladys went for the ETH equivalent of $890 back then — today they go for $22,570. 

At the same time, Pudgys have exploded from $5,070 to $106,900. Floor Pudgys are now technically more expensive than bitcoin, although with far less supply. 

BTC has meanwhile managed around 6x and ETH 3x, while SOL is currently at 18.5x. 

Then again, you can’t buy stuffed collectible bitcoins at Walmart.

Of course, NFT markets are far smaller and less liquid than major coins. They tend to undergo outsized pumps when volume suddenly picks up. 

Most of the gains have come in the past month or so: There were only about 1,000 Pudgy trades in the past week and 1,900 in the past month. 400 and 1,240 for Miladys.

In any case, there’s no denying that floor Miladys and Pudgys are now two of the best-performing crypto assets in this bull market. 

Only one top-25 coin has outperformed them: PEPE.

Floor prices for Azuki, Doodles and CryptoPunks have still more than doubled, but that’s less than most major coins excluding LTC and DOT. 

Bored Apes and Nouns have even lost value against the US dollar.

Still, if you were searching for indicators of how silly the next bull market phase could get, look no further.

— David

The financial landscape is transforming, and digital assets are at the center of it all.

This March, DAS NYC brings together allocators, institutional leaders and fund managers to explore the cutting-edge trends shaping the future of finance. From macroeconomic shifts to the rise of onchain economies, this is where the most impactful conversations happen.

March 18-20, 2025 | NYC

Be there to connect, collaborate, and lead the charge into the next era of financial evolution.

• The incoming Trump administration is considering a16z Crypto policy lead Brian Quintenz to head up the Commodities Futures Trading Commission, Bloomberg reported. 

• Bitcoin ETFs have seen net inflows 68% of the time since their launch 11 months ago.

• Vancouver passed a motion to make the city more bitcoin-friendly. 

• Crypto’s gonna have to start caring about cash flow, according to Pantera’s Cosmo Jiang. 

• Trump-linked World Liberty Financial bought $5 million of ETH to boost its holdings to over $50 million ETH, per onchain data.

Q: Can we finally say that retail is back?

Not yet. Soon. 

Google Trends data does show a huge surge in interest starting at the end of October for three search terms: Bitcoin, Coinbase and Binance.

About this time last month, search interest for “bitcoin” even reached its second highest point since peak retail, in May 2021.

Bitcoin search interest has since fallen by a third, and is now back to where it was in March, while “Coinbase” and “Binance” are still far below where they were in 2021.

It’s not a perfect indicator of retail participation, but I’m still looking for a solid bounce from here.

— David

Depends where you’re looking, I’d argue. David’s right that we haven’t seen mass retail re-enter the picture, still some of the data looks healthy. 

Take, for example, Robinhood’s retail trading numbers, which were bullish enough to warrant a Barclays upgrade earlier this week. 

Pretty much every analyst I’ve spoken to has said that they think retail’s still on the sidelines, and we may not see a mass entrance until sometime next year. But their interest seems to be there. 

I don’t know about y’all, but I’ve started getting more and more texts from old friends asking about crypto. 

Once my mom starts asking about bitcoin, we’ll know retail’s ready to pump.

— Katherine