Can’t have the pump without the dump.

This morning Trump sent markets upwards after tweeting that he’s “Waiting for their call” from China. This comes after China said they would retaliate with “countermeasures” in response to Trump’s 34% tariffs.

"If the US escalates its tariff measures, China will resolutely take countermeasures to safeguard its own rights and interests. The US threat to escalate tariffs against China is a mistake on top of a mistake, which once again exposes the US's blackmailing nature. China will never accept this. If the US insists on going its own way, China will fight it to the end." - Chinese ministry spokesperson

What’s wild about this whole situation is just how much markets are moving on unsubstantiated rumors.

Yesterday, a rumor that Trump was going to pause tariffs for all countries but China went viral and drove the market up 4%, only to be hammered down again when the Trump White House public denied the rumors a few hours later.

The market is looking for good news right now. The overall health of the economy is strong, but overvalued. A correction in asset price was bound to happen during Trump’s presidency.

While Trump does have wide latitude to affect markets with his tariffs policy, its important to note that asset prices coming into his term were at extremely elevated levels, and were due for a reversion to historical norms.

Bitcoin is up 2.6%, ETH 1.8%, XRP is up 5.5% today.

Trump Shuts Down DOJ Crypto Enforcement Division

We all know the Biden administration pursued unjust persecution of crypto companies over the last 4 years.

Trump is now dismantling the DOJ National Cryptocurrency Enforcement Team (NCET), a unit established in 2021 to lead investigations into major crypto-related crimes. It’s yet another division shut down that recklessly pursued crypto companies and funds for legitimate business activities.

In a memo, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche announced the move as part of the DOJ's alignment with President Trump’s January executive order aimed at creating “regulatory clarity” for digital assets.

Blanche emphasized that the DOJ should not act as a digital assets regulator and directed prosecutors to focus on individuals who harm crypto investors, rather than targeting exchanges, mixers, or wallet providers.

Trump is on a mission to open the doors to crypto business operations without fear of legal reprisal. He previously instructed the SEC and CFTC to ease oversight.

XRP buys Prime Broker Hidden Road

Big acquisition news today. Ripple Labs has acquired prime brokerage Hidden Road for $1.25bn.

Hidden Road is a a prime broker clearing $3 trillion annually for 300+ top financial institutions.

Prime brokers are financial institutions that offer services like securities lending (so clients can borrow stocks or bonds to short-sell), leveraged trade execution (lending money to amplify trades), and cash management (handling the client’s funds), clearing and settling trades, and often serve as custodians for the client’s assets, simplifying reporting and operations.

Hidden Road will use Ripple’s stablecoin RLUSD as collateral for cross-asset trades, integrating it across its prime brokerage services. This deal follows Ripple’s 2023 acquisition of Metaco for $250 million.

Felix launches on HyperEVM

Felix, a Liquity v2 fork, has launched on HyperEVM with a $5m cap (which has already been maxed out.)

Use your HYPE to mint feUSD as a collateralized loan.

CAKE Tokenomics Get a New Recipe

Pancakeswap, BNB’s main DEX, just revealed a new tokenomics that radically change its governance.

The biggest change is that they are scrapping the veCAKE and Gauges voting system, unlocking all staked CAKE immediately (no penalties, no questions), and slashing daily emissions from 40k to 22.5k CAKE.

In theory ve was supposed to work, but in practice it led to a bloated system that rewarded insiders and favored low-volume, low-impact pools. Voters voted for their own shitcoins while diverting funds away from high-volume pools, the ones that actually were driving usage, leading to them being under-rewarded.

Now rewards will be directed based on real-time data to high-volume liquidity pools that actually benefit the overall health of the network and protocol.

Additionally, Pancakeswap is cutting revenue sharing, instead using the collected 5% LP fees to burn CAKE, targeting a 20% reduction in supply over 5 years.

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