🇹🇷 Ex-crypto CEO found dead in Turkish prison

Faruk Fatih Özer, founder and former CEO of the Thodex exchange, was found hanged in his cell in a high-security prison in Tekirdağ, according to Bloomberg and TRT. Preliminary reports point to suicide, with an investigation underway.

🧩 Who was he? The man behind Thodex, the exchange that collapsed in 2021, locking users out of their funds and triggering an Interpol red notice.

⚖️ In 2023, he was sentenced to a staggering 11,196 years in prison (!!! 🤯) for fraud, money laundering, and running a criminal organization.

Today’s news closes one of Turkey’s most infamous crypto scandals — and raises new questions about what really happened behind bars 👀

🍔 Steak ’n Shake goes full Bitcoin!

The fast-food chain has announced the creation of a strategic Bitcoin reserve — all BTC payments will now go straight into it 😎

💰 On top of that, for the next 12 months, the company will donate 210 satoshis from every BTC-paid meal to the Open Sats Initiative — supporting open-source Bitcoin development.

Looks like burgers just got a little more decentralized 🍟🧡

💀 Bitcoin has “died” 446 times — and still keeps rising from the grave

According to media and financial “experts,” BTC has been declared dead 446 times 😅

But here’s the twist: if you had invested just $100 every time they buried Bitcoin, your portfolio would now be worth around $115 million 💰

And what’s the conclusion? — The more obituaries, the stronger the resurrection ⚡️

📉 Bitcoin flash crash below $105K!

BTC plunged under $105,000, triggering a wave of liquidations as many altcoins hit new lows since October 11.

💣 In the past 24 hours, over $1.19B in long positions were liquidated — including a $48M BTC/USDT long from a whale on HTX wiped out in a single order 😬

😱 The Fear & Greed Index has dropped to 21 — Extreme Fear.

😳 AI traders got wrecked!

The AI Trading Showdown has ended — six neural networks competed, each starting with $10,000 to trade crypto. The results are… brutal 💸

🔸 Qwen – $12,231
🔸 DeepSeek – $10,489
🔸 Claude – $6,912
🔸 Grok – $5,469
🔸 Gemini – $4,329
🔸 ChatGPT – $3,733

DeepSeek lost half its capital in a week after leading early on, while Qwen took the crown. 👑

The rest? Let’s just say AI still hasn’t figured out how to beat the market 😅

Point of view: Why does crypto never build anything lasting? 🧐

The industry lives in an endless 18-month loop:

Narrative → Capital → Death. ☠️

NFTs in 2021, DeFi in 2022, AI agents in 2023–24, and now prediction markets — projects keep pivoting just to survive. Real infrastructure takes 3–5 years, but attention and funding vanish in months.

💸 VCs chase hype, not completion. They fund hot ideas, not finished products — because an unfinished one still has “infinite potential.” Pivoting has become a business model.

👨‍💻 Only Bitcoin and Ethereum were built outside this hype machine.
Today, whoever markets faster wins — even if the code is worse.

Crypto doesn’t reward builders. It rewards storytellers 📖

Short-term BTC holders are capitulating

Over 28,600 BTC (≈ $2.98B) were recently sent to exchanges at a loss by short-term holders. 💵

This signals classic capitulation behavior — investors panic-selling after buying higher. Historically, such waves often mark the late stage of a correction 👀

⚖️ FTX backs off from plan to block payouts to “restricted” countries

The exchange has withdrawn its motion that would’ve denied withdrawals to users from China, Russia, Syria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and other “problematic” jurisdictions. 🧐

📄 Under the proposed rule, these countries would be labeled restricted, and creditors would have 45 days to object — otherwise, their claims would be erased and funds redistributed.

💥 After strong backlash from creditors — including 300 Chinese users who filed a lawsuit — FTX decided to drop the plan.
For once, it looks like the community pressure actually worked 🙌

🩸 Bitcoin drops below $100K for the first time in 4 months!

BTC has broken a key psychological level, falling under $100,000 amid growing market pressure. 📉

The move triggered panic across the market, with traders bracing for further volatility.

Looks like the bulls just lost another major line of defense 😬

Bitcoin is oversold again 👀

According to Santiment, BTC has entered another oversold zone amid its latest drop.

📉 Analysts note a growing divergence between Bitcoin and the S&P 500 — while the S&P fell only 1.6%, BTC’s decline was much sharper.

Historically, such decoupling often preceded crypto rebounds as traditional markets recovered…

But for now, with BTC below $100K, there’s still no sign of a bounce 😢

📉 Bitcoin just had its second-worst day of 2025

BTC plunged from $107K to $99K, marking one of the sharpest daily drops this year.

Now we’re seeing a small rebound to around $102K, but price action has stalled — suggesting it might just be a dead cat bounce 🐈‍⬛

Volatility’s back, and the bears don’t look done yet 😬

🐃 Bullish signal from Jim Cramer

Jim Cramer just declared that “everything consumer-related has entered bear market territory… unbelievable reversal.”

Given his legendary status as a reverse indicator, the crypto crowd on X is celebrating — if Cramer’s bearish, maybe things are about to turn bullish 👀

Looks like the market just got its favorite kind of signal — an Inverse Cramer alert 🚨

Arthur Hayes: “The money printer is coming — and Bitcoin will moon” 🚀

In his new essay, Arthur Hayes predicts that the Fed will soon restart money printing, which will send BTC “to the moon.” 🌕

He warns of upcoming volatility due to a potential U.S. government shutdown, and says many traders still rely on outdated 4-year cycle models, causing them to sell too early. 🤷

According to Hayes, the next big move won’t follow the old playbook — it’ll rewrite it 💥

🧠 Crowd in Panic, Institutions Keep Buying — Bitwise Expects New BTC ATH

Bitcoin has once again dropped below $100K, and talk of a new “crypto winter” is spreading fast. But Bitwise CIO Matt Hougan believes the opposite — the market is close to its bottom.

📊 Key points from Bitwise’s CIO:

▪️Retail investors are in “max desperation” mode — panic selling, liquidations, and exits from the market.
▪️ Meanwhile, institutions keep accumulating BTC and investing in spot ETFs.
▪️Inflows to IBIT, FBTC, and GBTC remain positive, and the new Solana ETF (BSOL) raised $400M in its first week despite the market drop.

💬 Bitwise forecast:

🔸“We’re near the bottom — sellers are exhausted, buyers are holding.”
🔸A new Bitcoin ATH could come by year-end: realistic target — $125K–130K, optimistic — up to $150K.

Hougan insists: no crypto winter ahead — the next leg up is coming. 🚀

🕵️‍♂️ CZ and Binance ready to ride the privacy coin wave?

Binance-backed Aster DEX, actively promoted by CZ, just announced plans to launch a public privacy-focused blockchain with zero gas fees . ✔️💵

Seems like CZ might be quietly preparing to enter the privacy narrative 🥷.

📊 Bitcoin demand hits new all-time high

🔎 According to CryptoQuant, buyer demand for BTC has surged to record levels — around 350,000 BTC were purchased in the past month.

📝 At the same time, Bloomberg reports that long-term holders sold roughly 400,000 BTC, sparking concerns among traders.

However, Glassnode explains this as a natural “redistribution” — older investors are selling coins to new market participants.

💡 Experts suggest the situation isn’t as alarming as it seems — the market may simply be rotating liquidity, not entering a new sell-off phase.

🚀 ZEC > $500!

Zcash just shocked the market — the coin jumped another 20% in the last 24 hours, breaking above $500.

👀 Arthur Hayes is once again full of optimism, claiming the next target is ZEC = $1000!

🇺🇸 Miami Mayor Reports 300% Profit from His Bitcoin Salary!

🌴 Miami Mayor Francis Suarez revealed on Fox Business that his Bitcoin-denominated salary brought him a 300% return. He began receiving BTC payments when the price was around $30,000.

“Now it’s up 300%. When Bitcoin hit $120K, it was nearly 400%. I’m not worried about daily volatility",

- Suarez said, emphasizing the long-term value of an asset with a transparent and trusted issuance system.

Suarez started taking his salary in Bitcoin back in 2021, becoming the first U.S. official to do so. He’s been a vocal supporter of crypto since 2020 and holds both BTC and ETH in his portfolio.

🗓 U.S. Government Shutdown Becomes the Longest in History

The ongoing U.S. government shutdown has officially set a new record — 36 days and counting, with no resolution yet in sight. 👀

This prolonged deadlock is fueling uncertainty in financial markets, adding pressure on the dollar and strengthening the narrative for decentralized and non-sovereign assets like Bitcoin.

🧐 Wintermute: Liquidity Exists — Just Not in Crypto

According to a new Wintermute report, the crypto market is stuck in a self-financing loop — money keeps circulating inside the ecosystem, but fresh capital isn’t coming in.

📉 What’s happening:

🔸 Inflows through stablecoins, ETFs, and digital treasuries (DATs) have plateaued.
🔸 Global liquidity is high and central banks are easing, but the 5%+ SOFR rate keeps capital locked in bonds.
🔸 Within crypto, funds just rotate — BTC → ETH → alts → back, fueling short rallies and volatility from liquidations, not real trend growth.

💰 Key figures:

• Stablecoin cap rose from $140B to $290B since 2024 but stalled.
• ETF + DAT capital jumped from $40B to $270B, also flat.

🚀 New cycle triggers:

1️⃣ Fresh stablecoin issuance
2️⃣ New inflows into crypto ETFs
3️⃣ Growth in DAT/tokenized fund issuance

🎰 Top traders wiped out on HyperLiquid

Seven well-known traders lost tens of millions on the HyperLiquid platform, erasing record profits due to overleveraged positions 💀

🔸 Machi Big Brother: +$44.8M → −$14.9M
🔸 Trader with 14-win streak: +$33M → −$30.2M
🔸 James Winn: +$87M → −$21.9M
🔸 Aguila Trades: +$41.7M → −$37.6M
🔸 Gambler: +$26M → −$28.8M
🔸 Anonymous trader: lost over $45M — the largest loss
🔸 Low-stack degen: $125K → +$43M → −$180K

These collapses highlight the brutal side of leverage — even the best-performing traders can lose everything in hours when the market turns. 🤷