Dazzling Debut 🔥
Plus, ⚖️ KuCoin pays the price, ⚡ DeepSeek disrupts AI crypto, 🛠️ Leveraged crypto ETFs look to list, and more!
Morning, all! I’m Juan Aranovich, managing editor of Unchained.
In today’s edition:
🤑 Venice AI token goes va-va voom!
🚨 KuCoin pleads guilty
📉 DeepSeek dents AI cryptos
🎯 Tuttle’s takes aim at leveraged ETFs
🏦 Crypto booster heads to U.S. Treasury
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What’s Poppin’?
By Sage D. Young and Tikta
Venice AI Token Hits $1.6B FDV on Launch Day
Venice AI’s native token, VVV, had a big first day of trade, with its fully diluted value (FDV) crossing $1 billion within two hours of the token’s launch on Ethereum layer 2 Base.
At the time of writing, VVV had an FDV of $1.6 billion, according to data from DEX Screener.
Venice AI's platform, founded by longtime Bitcoin advocate Erik Voorhees, allows users — particularly AI agents and developers — to access the Chinese DeepSeek R1 artificial intelligence model.
DeepSeek’s rise to the top position in Apple’s App Store on Monday triggered a massive rout in AI-focused U.S. tech stocks.
Voorhees said that when DeepSeek is accessed through the Venice AI interface, no personal data is sent to the Chinese government, which appears not to be the case when users access DeepSeek directly.
Half of the total supply of 100 million VVV tokens was distributed through Monday’s airdrop, with 25% allocated to AI protocol accounts on Base and another 25% going to more than 100,000 early users of the Venice platform.
KuCoin Settles With DOJ for $297M, Agrees to Quit US Market
China-linked Crypto exchange KuCoin has pleaded guilty to operating an unlicensed money transmitting business.
“KuCoin employees repeatedly stated on public social media sites that [know-your-customer] was not mandatory on KuCoin, including in response to posts from customers who had identified themselves as being in the U.S.,” a release from the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York reads.
As part of the settlement with the U.S. Department of Justice, KuCoin agreed to pay nearly $297 million in fines and forfeiture, and will exit the U.S. market for a minimum of two years.
Two of KuCoin's co-founders, Chun Gan and Ke Tang, have entered into deferred prosecution agreements with the DOJ. The agreements allow them to avoid prosecution if they meet specific conditions set by the government.
DeepSeek’s Rise Hits Crypto AI Tokens Harder Than Tech Stocks
The soaring popularity of the new artificial intelligence model R1 from Chinese startup DeepSeek has not only shaken traditional U.S. technology stocks, but has also sent shockwaves through the crypto AI sector, dramatically impacting the prices of AI-related tokens.
Although the prices of tech stocks such as Nvidia, Arm, and Broadcom have declined, AI-related cryptocurrencies saw substantially sharper drops. The worst-performing assets in the crypto space in a 24-hour period ending late Monday afternoon ET were all related to artificial intelligence, data from CoinGecko show.
As a category, tokens that had emerged from the Virtuals ecosystem dropped 33.7% to a market capitalization of $2.4 billion, although the scale of the losses had eased during the 24 hours to 6 a.m. ET on Tuesday.
Tuttle Capital Files for 10 Leveraged Crypto ETFs
Tuttle Capital Management recently filed applications for 10 leveraged crypto exchange-traded funds with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
The list of new funds includes ETF applications for memecoin tokens TRUMP, MELANIA, and BONK, in addition to ETF applications for tokens such as LINK and ADA.
“This is a case of issuers testing the limits of what this SEC is going to allow,” Bloomberg ETF analyst James Seyffart said on X. “I’m expecting the new crypto task force (led by Hester Peirce) to likely be the lynchpin in determining what's gonna be allowed vs what isn’t.”
One of Tuttle’s most popular ETFs is the T-Rex 2X Long NVIDIA (NVDX), which returns 200% the daily performance of Nvidia’s stock. NVDX was down 33% after a major selloff in the chipmaker’s shares on Monday.
Pro-Crypto Billionaire Scott Bessent to Become Treasury Secretary
The U.S. Senate confirmed billionaire hedge fund manager and crypto advocate Scott Bessent as the new Secretary of the Treasury in a 68-29 vote on Monday.
In a notable instance of bipartisan agreement, his confirmation was supported by 16 Democrats alongside the Republican majority.
Bessent is set to play a key role in shaping President Donald Trump's economic agenda.
The billionaire has highlighted the urgency of extending tax cuts from 2017 that overwhelmingly benefited wealthy individuals and eroded the U.S.’s public finances, and has also expressed an intention to bolster the crypto industry and manage economic relations with China.
In November, Unchained reported on the impact that pro-crypto Bessent would likely have on the Trump administration, which designated crypto as a national priority last week.
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Daily Bits… ✍️✍️✍
🐧 Abstract, an Ethereum layer 2 developed by Pudgy Penguins’ parent firm, launched on mainnet, offering zkSync-powered scalability, native account abstraction, and a consumer-focused blockchain platform named “The Portal” to simplify user onboarding.
💹 MicroStrategy launched a 2.5 million perpetual preferred share offering named STRK, enabling indefinite dividends to fund Bitcoin purchases after acquiring 10,107 BTC for $1.1 billion, bringing its holdings to 471,107 BTC.
📉 Bitcoin miners Core Scientific and Cipher Mining saw stock prices plunge more than 30% amid DeepSeek’s AI-driven disruption, highlighting post-halving diversification struggles as the crypto and AI sectors compete for infrastructure dominance.
📜 Cboe BZX Exchange filed amendments for in-kind redemptions on spot bitcoin and ether ETFs, following a similar filing by Nasdaq, enabling institutional investors to trade shares directly for BTC and ETH instead of cash.
The $$$ Corner…
📈 Humanity Protocol raised $20 million to rival Sam Altman’s Worldcoin, leveraging palm vein biometrics for decentralized digital identities, bringing total funding to $50 million despite concerns over biometric privacy and its founder’s previous business collapse.
🔗 Blockchain interoperability protocol Analog secured $5 million at a $300 million valuation ahead of its token launch, marking a 150% valuation increase in one year, as it expands its platform with backing from Foresight Ventures and film producers.
What Do You Meme?
📈 Your Market Update 📉
BTC is up 2.1%, trading at $102,586
ETH is up 2.1%, trading at $3,171
BTC dominance: 55.77%
Crypto market cap: $3.65T
*All data as of today, 07:52 am ET. Source: CoinGecko
Recommended Reads
The Ugly by Arthur Hayes, chief investment officer at crypto venture fund Maelstrom and co-founder/former CEO of BitMEX
DL News: Ethereum developers pledge cooperation as Ether’s woes trigger ‘wartime’ mindset
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