5. Klarna Finally Surrenders to Crypto

Sweden’s buy-now-pay-later behemoth, Klarna, is throwing in the towel on its anti-crypto stance. CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski announced on X he’d “embrace crypto,” asking for ideas on leveraging Klarna’s 85 million users and $100 billion in volume. Will the company embrace stablecoins? Or will they throw BTC on its balance sheet? No one knows yet – but with rumors of a U.S. IPO at a $15 billion valuation in April, Klarna might just be timing its crypto pivot to perfection.

4. Ether Shorts?

While many of the majors are taking off, Ether has been underperforming. Why? One theory, courtesy of The Kobeissi Letter, is that the subdued price is due to hedge funds shorting the asset.

3. Bitcoin Payments: From Digital Gold to Everyday Currency

Breez, in partnership with 1A1z, has released a new report investigating the use of Bitcoin as a payment system. If you’ve been waiting to see “peer-to-peer electronic cash” in action, this report might just convince you that the future is already here. Case studies looking closer at Mercari, Mullvad VPN, Namecheap, ProtonMail, and others already benefiting from BTC payments are included. Give it a read here.

2. The MicroStrategy Copycats

MicroStrategy is inspiring a host of companies to buy bitcoin in a maneuver aimed at boosting their share prices. In today’s earnings, we have Metaplanet, whose shares are up more than 4,000% over the past 12mo, one of the highest returns globally. While we are glad companies are beginning to interact with bitcoin, we hope they are doing it for fundamental and not share-price-only reasons. Money is fungible, and swapping one kind (USD) for another (BTC) is a low-cost economic activity. If the market pays a premium for holding BTC, every company will do it… However, as more do it, the less impact it will have on share price.

1. New Week, New Memecoins… New Millionaires?

The Central African Republic’s President Touadéra followed Trump’s lead by launching an official memecoin. Meanwhile, Barstool’s Dave Portnoy started trolling the crowds with $JAILSTOOL. If you’re wondering who’s actually making money on these things, here’s some fresh memecoin madness data covered by the NYT: 700k wallets profited from TRUMP memecoin (31 wallets alone bagged $669 million), but 813k wallets ended up underwater. Hey, honestly, not that bad. Still, if you’re dead set on chasing memecoins, data shows that you better jump in within minutes, literally, or skip the ride altogether.