Adrian's DeFi Alpha #25: 99k BTC | Trump's Crypto Moves | Altcoin Rallye Takes Off | Microstrategy Buys Forever | AI Agents | TAO | AAVE | TAI

Definitely no financial advice, just insights based on my own journey in DeFi.

Nov 25, 2024

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Hello Friend!

Once upon a bear market, $100k Bitcoin was our collective hope and our North Star guiding us through the wreckage of liquidations and Terra / LUNA’s implosion. And today: Bitcoin is flirting with six figures, and you’re probably already writing your “Bitcoin broke $100k” tweet. Don’t lie, we’re all doing it.

So, how did we get here? It wasn’t moon magic, just Wall Street doing what Wall Street does: turning the humble decentralized Bitcoin into an ETF for the masses. Sprinkle in the top-buying tactic from Michael Saylor and a supply squeeze and voila: $99,000.

️ On today's Episode:

📈 Market Update – Trump’s Crypto Policy, How $BTC pumped to 99k, why altcoin season is imminent.
💻 Project Updates – Phantom in the app store, Monad and Aave with great news, and AI Agents updates.
🐂 Alpha on AI Agents, TAO and TAI
💎 The Premium Section with even more Alpha and all Portfolio, Airdrop & Farming Updates

1. Market Update

Highlighting the key developments in Crypto and their implications.

Weekly Crypto Bubbles

The global #crypto market cap today is $3.50T, a -1.68% change in the last 24h and a +9.03% increase in the last 7 days. Total trading volume in the last 24h is at $253.7B.
BTC dominance has decreased to 55.54% (from 56.30% a week ago), while #ETH dominance slightly dipped to 11.65%

→ Outperformance by:

Dino (old) coins: XLM, XRP
Last cyclers DOT and XTZ
Metaverse plays SAND and MANA.

🚀 Trump x Bakkt: More Than a Meme

This week, Trump Media announced its plans to buy Bakkt, a crypto trading platform backed by the NYSE’s parent company. Naturally, chaos ensued. Bakkt’s stock hit a 162% green candle, trading was halted multiple times, and traders collectively lost their minds.

This is exciting: Trump’s move signals that crypto isn’t just for “tech bros” anymore; it’s about to get political. The potential fallout? More mainstream attention on the space.

A White House Crypto Role?

Trump also teased the creation of a “crypto czar” role within the White House. Yes, you read that right. It’s unclear what the job entails, but I imagine it’s a mix of explaining DeFi to Congress and deleting his boss’s MetaMask seed phrase from the Notes app.

Gensler’s Farewell Tour

It gets even better for Crypto: Gary Gensler, the current SEC Chairman and crypto’s arch-nemesis, has officially announced he’s stepping down on January 20th. This is the same guy who brought us lawsuits against Binance and Coinbase, made life miserable for Ripple, and seemed to have a personal vendetta against innovation in the U.S. digital asset market.

Bitcoin

Bitcoin Is on track for its best November in 5 years, in line with 2020 exactly 4 years ago. Generally, a green November leads to a green December the month after. This has always happened in halving years (2016 & 2020).

MicroStrategy: Borrowing Big and Flying Higher

Who pumped BTC the most?

MicroStrategy, the OG corporate Bitcoin maxi, completed a $3 billion convertible note offering. This figure is not only an upgrade from the revised $2.6 billion target but a massive increase from the original $1.75 billion proposal. Why so bullish? Well, it’s MicroStrategy, and Michael Saylor hasn’t met a Bitcoin dip he didn’t love.

But not everyone’s impressed. Citron Research, a notorious short-seller, called out the company for “detaching from Bitcoin fundamentals” and betting big on speculative leverage. This led to a brief slide in $MSTR stock. Despite the criticism, MicroStrategy now got a market cap exceeding $100 billion, making it one of the top 100 U.S. publicly traded companies.

Bitcoin Exchange Outflows: The Silent Accumulation

Another 90,000 BTC was withdrawn from centralized exchanges this week. That’s like removing $9 billion in liquidity from the market. Exchange reserves are now down to 2.3 million BTC, levels not seen since the early days of crypto.

Translation? HODLers and institutions are tightening their grips, and spot demand continues to rise. This typically signals reduced selling pressure, and with Bitcoin flirting with the $100k milestone, the timing feels… just right.

Altcoins: ETH/BTC and Solana’s Bullish Run

ETH/BTC: A Long-Term Breakout Incoming?
Crypto Twitter can’t stop debating the ETH/BTC pair. The chart is sitting on a long-term trendline that historically precedes altseason. With December approaching—an infamous month for market reversals—ETH might be ready for a comeback against BTC and the start of a real altcoin season.

Solana’s Dominance
Meanwhile, Solana has been getting injected with capital from Ethereum.
Solana’s on-chain activity is higher than ever, and its DEX volumes are leaving Ethereum way behind. This is of course due to the ongoing memecoin hype.

2. Project Updates

What dApp and project updates you need to know in the fast-paced world of crypto

You can find the links attached to the images

DeFi: Bullish Vibes

Phantom Overtakes WhatsApp

Solana’s Phantom wallet is seeing mainstream adoption: it outranked Instagram and WhatsApp on the iOS App Store in the U.S. If that doesn’t scream “bull market energy,” I don’t know what does.

Aave Flexes with $11B Loans

Aave, the OG of DeFi lending, is out here quietly doing numbers. Active loans have climbed from $3.4 billion in January to over $11 billion.

AIXBT Agent highlighting some impressive numbers:

→ More on Aave and my full investment thesis in the Premium Section below ⬇︎

The Headlines You Missed

Monad’s Testnet is Live
The Ethereum-compatible Layer 1 is rolling out its testnet in phases.
Gaming Opportunity
Gunzilla Games raises an undisclosed amount in funding from Coinbase Ventures
→ If you want to profit from the Off the Grid hype, I showed two ways to invest indirectly in on Twitter.

AI Updates:

Vana Foundation & Mainnet Launch
Vana has announced the creation of the Vana Foundation alongside its upcoming mainnet and token launch. All eyes are on how Vana plans to position itself in an increasingly crowded Layer 1 landscape.
Mode: AI Agent App Store Goes Live
Mode, an EVM-compatible Layer 2 optimized for AI and DeFi, has launched its AI agent app store. Among the four agents already live is ARMA by Giza, designed to maximize yield on USDC across three DeFi protocols within the Mode ecosystem.
Almanak: Financial Agents x Legion Launchpad
Almanak, a platform to create and test financial agents in crypto, is set to be the first token launch on Legion, a reputation-based ICO launchpad. If you’re tracking new approaches to fundraising, this is one to keep on your radar.
Holoworld AI: 3D AI Agents Go Live on Base
Holoworld AI has launched its Agent Market on Base. Users can now create, customize, and monetize 3D-rendered, autonomous AI agents. It’s the kind of update that makes you wonder if we’re one step closer to everyone owning their own Jarvis.

3. Alpha Section

Good projects and opportunities I discovered

Just dropped a new video diving into AI Agents! 🚀
I cover the basics of Virtuals Protocol, explore data analytics agents like AIXBT, and break down my 3-step framework for analyzing agents effectively. Check it out!

Alpha 1: AI Agents and Sentient Memes

AI memecoins have entered a strange, fascinating phase. They're leading a narrative that’s too noisy to ignore. But buying in at the top? We are more clever than that! Instead, the move is to watch the leaders and wait for the market to overcorrect—because it always does.

ai16z is one of the more curious experiments here. Written off by some as a “meme fund,” it’s quietly building something more nuanced. Its core tech, Eliza, provides a framework for developers to launch on-chain AI agents that interact with wallets, platforms, and other protocols. Developers can integrate with the ecosystem by contributing 10% of their token supply to the DAO, creating a feedback loop where more builders lead to better tech and more attention.

The community side is just as intriguing. Holders can propose trades, play governance games, and gain clout for making good calls. It’s chaotic, sure, but also effective in keeping things lively. That said, the recent blowup with $matl and $vs tokens—complete with liquidity drama and blame-shifting—shows the risks. $ai16z’s value took a hit, but the project still sits at a top spot in the hot AI agents and meme section.

→ The token sits on support at a 177m market cap right now and DCA with recurring buys (every day / week) on Jupiter could be a valid strategy.

Alpha 2: Bittensor

Barry Silbert isn’t known for subtlety, and his backing of Bittensor makes it clear he sees something big. Bittensor offers a decentralized network for AI model training. Instead of centralized labs, the work is distributed across participants, creating a permissionless system for scaling machine learning.

Grayscale has rolled out a Bittensor Trust, giving institutional players a way to hold $TAO. Meanwhile, Foundry—Silbert’s mining operation—is mining and validating subnets. He is also launching Yuma, a group tasked with accelerating Bittensor’s development.

Silbert has compared his conviction in Bittensor to early Bitcoin days, which says a lot. $TAO as one of our biggest AI positions got heavyweight support now.

→ More on Bittensor and my full investment thesis in the Premium Section below ⬇︎

Alpha 3: TARS AI on Solana

TarsAI: Building AI Infrastructure on Solana

TarsAI is laying down the groundwork for AI on Solana. Think of it as the bridge connecting smart AI tools with decentralized applications. Now part of NVIDIA’s Developer Program, it gains access to cutting-edge tools for advancing AI systems.

Key Features at a Glance:

AI Console: A dashboard for managing AI applications, simplifying integration for developers and users.
AI Tools: Real-time search engines and intelligent agents that level up Solana projects.
Ecosystem Benefits: Revenue from applications supports $TAI token holders and fuels ecosystem growth.

Market Snapshot:
At an $113M market cap, TarsAI is a mid-cap player in AI-crypto. Beware of unlocks as the fully diluted valuation is at 231m.

→ Since TAI pumped a lot I’d wait for a correction and set limit orders $0.23 and $0.2 to buy the dip.

You will get daily updates on my portfolio positions on Telegram

Watchlist for the Week

Thanks for reading, friend! Stay safe!

Adrian

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