Dropping Below the Ton 😬

Monday morning again! I’m Juan Aranovich, managing editor of Unchained.

In today’s edition:

• 📉 Bitcoin slips amid Chinese AI threat

• 🔥 JUP token soars on buyback plan

• 🌐 Musk eyes blockchain as political tool

• 🎯 Coinbase’s cup runneth over

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What’s Poppin’?

By Tikta

Bitcoin Sinks Below $100,000 Amid Risk-Off Sentiment

Bitcoin saw a sharp decline below the $100,000 mark on Sunday ET as bearish sentiment took hold.

The broader crypto market fell more than 5.7% to a market capitalization of $3.4 trillion.

The volatility triggered around $676 million of liquidations across major crypto exchanges, of which 94% were from long positions alone, according to data from cryptocurrency futures trading and information platform CoinGlass.

“Risk-off is the theme as DeepSeek scares investors,” Adam Kobeissi, founder of capital markets commentary site The Kobeissi Letter, wrote on X, referring to a new Chinese artificial intelligence model that appears to pose a challenge to U.S. dominance of the AI field.

Bitcoin, which has recently been tightly correlated with American Big Tech stocks, was likely one of the first risk assets to take a hit.

It was trading at around $99,767 as of 7:50 a.m. ET on Monday morning.

JUP Surges After Buyback Announcement

Solana-based decentralized exchange aggregator Jupiter plans to allocate 50% of protocol fees to buying back its native token, JUP, according to an announcement by Jupiter’s pseudonymous founder, “Meow.”

The price of JUP surged 20% following the announcement, reaching an intraday high of more than $1.20 on Sunday, although as of 7:50 a.m. ET on Monday morning, it had retreated to around $1.08 amid the broader market correction.

The token’s trading volume also jumped 50% and active addresses rose by 5,000 on the day.

Jupiter Exchange's strategy involves using half of its protocol revenue, which amounted to $102 million last year, to repurchase JUP tokens. The move is expected to reduce the token supply and increase demand, potentially enhancing JUP’s market valuation.

Jupiter also said it had acquired a majority stake in memecoin trading app Moonshot and multichain portfolio tracker SonarWatch.

It additionally unveiled a revamped user experience named Ultra mode, promising improved transaction efficiency and lower fees than competitors.

The protocol also announced a $10 million commitment to support open-source AI projects through its Magic Fund, collaborating with ElizaOS.

Musk-Led DOGE Eyes Blockchain for Budget Cuts

Elon Musk is actively exploring the use of blockchain technology within the Trump administration’s newly established cost-cutting commission, the Department of Government Efficiency, to enhance federal operations, according to a report by Bloomberg.

People close to the matter said Musk is in discussions with representatives of several public blockchains to assess their technologies for potential implementation in government systems.

Their uses could range from protecting important government data to tracking flows of money.

Donald Trump’s business associates tapped the Solana blockchain to issue the memecoins TRUMP and MELANIA. However, at the time of writing, it was unclear which blockchains the department was in talks with.

Coinbase Rethinks Token Listing Process

Crypto exchange Coinbase is re-evaluating its token listing process, a move prompted by a staggering influx of new cryptocurrencies, says CEO Brian Armstrong, according to whom around 1 million new tokens are created weekly.

Armstrong said on X that the current system is no longer sustainable, given the volume of new tokens being launched.

“It needs to move from an allow list to a block list, and utilize customer reviews/automated scans of onchain data etc to help customers sift through,” he said.

“That and we'll continue integrating native DEX support more deeply. Customers shouldn't need to know or care whether the trade is happening on a DEX or CEX.”

Tokens listed on Coinbase often experience a significant increase in price shortly after they are listed on the exchange — a phenomenon known as “the Coinbase effect.”

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Daily Bits… ✍️✍️✍

• 📈 Nasdaq filed to allow in-kind creation and redemption for BlackRock’s Bitcoin ETF, streamlining institutional participation by enabling share transactions directly in Bitcoin rather than cash.

• 📊 MicroStrategy purchased 10,107 bitcoin for $1.1 billion, bringing its total holdings to 471,107 BTC, marking the 12th consecutive week of acquisitions under Executive Chairman Michael Saylor’s leadership.

• 🇪🇺 The European Central Bank called for a digital euro to counter Trump’s executive order promoting U.S. dollar-backed stablecoins, warning it could disintermediate banks by diverting customers away from traditional financial systems.

• 🚀 Memecoin launchpad Pump.fun set a single-day revenue record, earning $15.5 million in fees on Jan. 24 as it processed $4 billion in volume in just two weeks and solidified its position as a leader in the space.

The $$$ Corner…

• 🔥 New layer 1 blockchain project Fogo secured $8 million in under two hours via the Echo angel investing platform set up by crypto trader Jordan Fish, A.K.A. Cobie, at a $100 million valuation, with a focus on leveraging Solana’s virtual machine to build a high-performance blockchain.

• 💡 Rollup platform Radius closed $7 million in a seed round led by venture fund Pantera Capital to develop its Lighthouse network, designed to convert maximal extractable value into a sustainable revenue source for rollups, reducing dependence on transaction fees.

• 🪙 Chain-abstracted token marketplace Printr raised $2.5 million in pre-seed funding to create a memecoin launchpad, enabling users to launch tokens across Ethereum, Solana, Sui, and other chains with interoperability powered by multichain platform Axelar.

What Do You Meme?

📈 Your Market Update 📉

• BTC is down 4.7%, trading at $99,767

• ETH is down 6.7%, trading at $3,086

• BTC dominance: 56.09%

• Crypto market cap: $3.5T

*All data as of today, 07:52 am ET. Source: CoinGecko

Recommended Reads

1. Paradigm: Ethereum Acceleration

2. The state of crypto at the World Economic Forum in Davos (2025) by Brian Armstrong, CEO of Coinbase

3. Jose Maria Macedo, co-founder of Delphi Labs, on the bullish and bearish things about the launch of $TRUMP

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