Foresight News brings you a quick review of the hot topics and recommended content this week:
01 Policy and Regulation
《The Heads of the Two Major Regulatory Agencies Are "Insiders" - A New Era of Crypto Regulation Begins?》
《Major Crypto Policy Shift in South Korea: Allowing Legal Entities to Open Crypto Accounts!》
02 President Memes
《Trump Impersonator or Hacker Trick? The President of the Central African Republic Embroiled in a Coin Issuance Controversy》
03 Binance Turmoil
《The Binance Listing Team That Was Disliked, Even CZ Couldn't Stand It Anymore?》
《BNB Chain's "Meme Frenzy", A Meme Show Created by CZ》
04 AI Agents
《DWF Labs: The Rise of AI Agents and Their Transformative Potential》
《How to Design Token Economics to Launch an AI Agent with Virtuals?》
05 Industry Insights
《What Are Traditional Enterprises Building on Ethereum?》
《Is Ethereum Dead? Even AI Agents Can't Stand It Anymore》
《FTX Creditors' Claims Approach $100 Billion, Will the Assets Flow Back to the Crypto Market?》
06 Project Observations
《Something Is Better Than Nothing, Where Can Story Airdrops Be Useful?》
《Prospecting Manual | Superposition: Rewards Upon Usage》
01 Policy and Regulation
After officially taking office, former President Trump has frequently introduced favorable policies. Recently, Trump has nominated Jonathan Gould, the former Chief Legal Officer of Bitfury, to serve as the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), responsible for overseeing the national banking system. The nomination was submitted to the Senate on February 11 for a five-year term. He also nominated Brian Quintenz, the policy lead at a16z, as the Chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. Avichal Garg, the co-founder of Electrum Capital, also stated that Gould's nomination is a very positive development for fintech and crypto founders seeking better financial services. So who is Gould, and why does he receive such high praise?
Gould graduated from Princeton University and later obtained a Juris Doctor degree. He served as the Senior Deputy Comptroller and Chief Counsel of the OCC during the first term of the Trump administration (late 2018 to mid-2021). Records show that during his tenure at the OCC, Jonathan led the legal and licensing team through a significant period of transformation, driving the agency to update its regulatory and licensing framework to adapt to the evolving banking industry. These reforms included major revisions to banking regulations, including the implementation of the Economic Growth Act. Under his leadership, the OCC became the first to approve fintech and crypto bank charters, affirming the legitimacy of crypto-related businesses.
Brian Quintenz graduated from Duke University. From 2001 to 2007, Quintenz worked in the office of U.S. Congressman Deborah Pryce, serving as a senior policy advisor. In 2013, he founded Saeculum Capital Management, focusing on risk management and technical analysis investment strategies. In September 2021, Brian joined Andreessen Horowitz as the policy lead for the crypto division. During his time at a16z, he has written that "when it comes to regulation, we can finally relax." For many, due to concerns about over-regulation, project teams have long delayed using tokens to distribute project control and build communities. Now, they should be more confident in using tokens as a legitimate and compliant tool.
On February 13, the South Korean Financial Services Commission held the third Virtual Asset Committee meeting, planning to allow legal entities to open virtual asset real-name accounts in phases and gradually open the virtual currency market to institutional participation. This policy marks South Korea's formal opening of the virtual asset market to institutional investors, reflecting the changing environment of the South Korean virtual currency market and the trend towards the mainstream adoption of cryptocurrencies. However, law enforcement agencies such as the Prosecutor's Office and the National Tax Service have also been allowed to open real-name accounts, which may transfer and sell confiscated criminal proceeds in virtual currencies or collect unpaid taxes, potentially causing market concerns. So what did the third Virtual Asset Committee meeting of the Financial Services Commission indicate?
《South Korea's Major Crypto Policy Shift: Allowing Legal Entities to Open Crypto Accounts!》
Phase 1: Law enforcement agencies, non-profit legal entities, and exchanges
Phase 2: Professional investment legal entities (planned to be launched in the second half of 2025)
Phase 3: Participation of ordinary legal entities (medium to long-term plan)
The Financial Services Commission plans to work with the government and private institutions to formulate guidance for legal entities' participation in virtual asset investment. Kim Sang-ryong, Vice Chairman of the Financial Services Commission, stated: "Regarding the virtual asset-related laws for the second phase, including stablecoins, traders, and transaction supervision, we will accelerate the discussions within the Virtual Asset Committee." He also added: "Regarding token securities, we have submitted relevant legislative amendments, and we will actively support the National Assembly to pass the bill quickly."
02 President Memes
On the early morning of February 10, 2025, the President of the Central African Republic, Faustin-Archange Touadéra, posted a video on his official X account, announcing the launch of a state-backed Meme coin called CAR and publishing the contract address. The statement claimed that CAR is an "experiment to promote national development, unite the people, and enhance international influence," and the president also emphasized his long-term optimism about the potential of cryptocurrencies as the second global leader to adopt Bitcoin as legal tender.
《Trump Impersonator or Hacker Trick? The President of the Central African Republic Embroiled in a Coin Issuance Controversy》
As soon as the news was out, the price of the CAR token skyrocketed. GMGN data shows that the token's market capitalization once surged to $700 million and is currently stabilizing around $300 million. In this price surge, a trader purchased 46.57 million CAR tokens for 25 SOL (about $5,000) within 1 second of the president publishing the contract address, and partially sold them within 3 hours, making a profit of over $12 million, a return of 2,450 times.
The launch of the CAR token, which the president called a "new chapter of the national experiment," has sparked controversy. After the video was released, two AI deep fake detection tools (including Deepware) indicated an 82% probability that the video was synthetic, and the project domain was registered through Namecheap only three days ago (currently blocked), which is not in line with government operating standards. Additionally, the statement was released at midnight local time and used English rather than the official French language, further raising questions.
03 Binance Turmoil
Recently, the overall market sentiment has been volatile and declining, and the MEME craze also seems to be gradually fading. However, the Binance-based meme coin TST has suddenly become a hot topic. On February 6, the TST market cap was only $500,000, but after Binance announced the listing on February 9, TST immediately skyrocketed, surpassing a $500 million market cap, a 100-fold increase in just 3 days. Currently, TST has fallen from its peak of $0.52 to around $0.17, a decline of over 60%.
《The Binance Listing Team That Was Disliked, Even CZ Couldn't Stand It Anymore?》
On February 7, CZ initiated a vote on whether the BNB Chain should try to eliminate or actively reduce the MEV problem, stating, "I hate any kind of front-running, and MEV is like that to me. In a decentralized world, no one can completely prevent it. But there are ways to reduce it." CZ then responded and retweeted multiple times on Twitter regarding the TST issue, causing the TST hype to skyrocket in a short period of time, with some early buyers making substantial profits.
After TST was listed on Binance, savvy whales chose to take profits. However, with the launch of new coins on Binance followed by another major drop, the crypto community once again questioned Binance's coin listing standards and whether the BNB Chain ecosystem can gain traction.
In the early hours of February 14, the market reacted strongly after Binance co-founder CZ announced that the name of his dog is Broccoli. Within a short period of time, the large number of token creation and trading requests caused a surge of activity on the BNB Chain, even leading to unscheduled maintenance on BSCScan. How did this "Doggy Night" social experiment come about? And how many people struck it rich in the market frenzy? Recommended reading:
《BNB Chain's "Doggy Night", CZ's Meme Carnival》
On February 13, CZ revealed in response to a fan's question that he owns a Belgian Malinois dog. When community members requested to see photos of the dog and its name to create Meme tokens, he asked, "How does this work? If I share photos and the name of my dog, people will create Meme tokens? How do they know which one is official? Or does it even matter?"
After understanding the relevant mechanisms, CZ said, "The way this works is quite interesting. Like any major decision, I need to think about it for about a day. Should I respect its privacy, or should I make the dog's information public for everyone? Okay, I might even interact with some Meme coins on the BNB Chain." This kicked off the current frenzy.
After CZ's enthusiastic response, the BNB Chain's MEME platform Four.Meme announced the launch of the CZ Dog Name Meme token betting activity, and a large number of users began to flood in to guess. Among the guesses, Brownie (0xAA7) took the lead, reaching a market cap of $100 million at the height of the market frenzy last night, while another Brownie (0x556) token also briefly touched a market cap of $35 million. Both tokens quickly plummeted 99% in price after CZ revealed the real name.
04 AI Agents
OpenAI's launch of ChatGPT has brought artificial intelligence (AI) into people's daily lives, demonstrating the practicality and user-friendliness of this technology. The renewed focus on AI has driven the rise of the intersection between AI and cryptocurrencies. By the end of 2023, major AI crypto projects like Bittensor have emerged, aiming to advance the vision of decentralized AI on the blockchain. These projects cover a range of innovations, from AI applications, blockchain networks focused on AI, to distributed physical infrastructure networks (DePIN) for AI. Recommended reading:
《DWF Labs: The Rise and Transformative Potential of AI Agents》
Among the earliest crypto AI projects in 2023, AI agents were not yet present. Their rise can be traced back to an interesting event, where an independent AI researcher Andy Ayrey's development of a large language model (LLM) caught the attention of the crypto community. This agent, called Truth Terminal, originated from a project called "Infinite Backrooms", which is a chatroom where multiple LLMs engage in an endless, surreal dialogue. Unlike the other models in the room, Truth Terminal was trained on a unique dataset heavily influenced by internet culture, including the infamous "Goatse" meme. This dataset gave birth to a new "religion" - the GOATSE OF GNOSIS.
The rapid success of Truth Terminal and the GOAT token unexpectedly led to the fusion of AI agents and Meme coin culture. While AI agents were originally intended as functional tools, the speculative characteristics of Meme coins - driven by community hype, high volatility, and questionable valuations - have now become a notable feature of AI agents as well. At first glance, this overlap may seem strange, but a closer look reveals two key catalysts driving this development.
With the influx of crypto venture capital and the growing attention around AI agents, the field has rapidly evolved and diversified into different subcategories. Today, most agents can be categorized into four main types: infrastructure, interactive, utility tools, and decentralized finance AI (DeFAI).
This article aims to help builders who want to create AI agents better understand token economics, issuance strategies, and the bonding curve on the Virtuals platform. As the third-largest AI agent on the Virtuals platform, we fund, incubate, and support top teams considering launching AI agents. Recommended reading:
《How to Design Token Economics for Launching an AI Agent on Virtuals?》
Virtuals is a platform that allows anyone to launch their own AI agent without permission. If a creator wants to create a new AI agent, a creation interface will pop up. Creating an AI agent (agent) requires a fee of 100 VIRTUAL tokens (about $150, note: the author wrote this when the VIRTUAL price was $1.5, all dollar values of agent tokens in the text are calculated using this data. As of now, the market price of VIRTUAL is $1.15). The creator can then choose to purchase tokens, with a minimum purchase of 1 VIRTUAL. This mechanism allows the creator to make the initial token purchase transaction after the AI agent token is launched.
When the team has invested 42,000 VIRTUAL (about $63,000) into the bonding curve liquidity pool of their AI agent, the agent "graduates". This amount can be contributed by the creator in the initial transaction or accumulated by market participants after the token is issued.
There is a trade-off between the financial status and the initial market value of an AI agent project. You want to issue close to fair value to avoid predators and capital loss, but you also want to invest as little as possible to have enough funds for future operations. In any case, the team should acquire at least 40% of the token supply in the initial purchase to achieve long-term incentive alignment.
05 Industry Insights
Over 50 non-crypto native companies have built products and services on Ethereum or Ethereum Layer 2 networks (L2s). From fashion giants like Louis Vuitton and Adidas to financial powerhouses like Deutsche Bank and PayPal, these corporate innovators are reshaping the crypto landscape. Notably, these traditional enterprises' crypto initiatives are not focused on generic market infrastructure like crypto trading, custody, auditing, and compliance, but rather on crypto-specific infrastructure and use cases, such as non-fungible tokens (NFTs), real-world assets (RWAs), Web3 developer tools, and Layer 2 networks. Among the 20 financial institutions building crypto-specific infrastructure and applications on Ethereum, 10 are banks, and many are actively issuing real-world assets on Ethereum. This report aims to provide an in-depth analysis of the pioneering and leading use cases of Ethereum in the traditional enterprise and institutional space. Recommended reading:
《What Are Traditional Enterprises Building on Ethereum?》
General infrastructure: Companies that provide products and services related to cryptocurrencies and blockchain, which are not unique or exclusive to the crypto industry, such as general market infrastructure (e.g., exchanges, market makers, asset management) and general business support (e.g., banking, accounting, consulting, compliance).
Crypto-specific infrastructure: Companies that provide products and services that are unique and exclusive to the crypto industry. For example, companies involved in mining, staking, and building on-chain oracles, whose infrastructure is tailored specifically for the cryptocurrency and blockchain space.
Crypto applications and applications: Companies that build consumer-facing applications that run fully or partially on the blockchain. For example, decentralized exchanges that can automatically execute cryptocurrency trades on the blockchain without relying on third-party intermediaries.
On February 10, one of the well-known Agents, AIXBT, expressed strong views on the internet, stating that "ETH is at the end of its rope and will soon drop to $500", and later replied on the Official Twitter of Foresight News that "ETH is dead". This statement caused a stir among the community. Some community members felt that AIXBT, as an Agent born on the Base chain, was "forgetting its roots" in this approach, but some community members also lamented that AIXBT's actions were "pouring oil on the fire" of the ETH community sentiment. Even more dramatically, in subsequent replies, AIXBT denied his own words and statements, saying that "a 50% drop is nothing". Behind this, AIXBT, as a mirror of the community sentiment, has also received widespread attention from many people. Recommended reading:
《Is Ethereum dead? Even the AI Agent can't stand it anymore》
IXBT's frequent discussion and dissemination of these controversial topics has essentially provided a "negative narrative template" for the market. When the price of Ethereum fluctuates, such statements will be quickly algorithmically amplified, and may even form a vicious cycle of "price drop → negative analysis → panic selling". However, regardless, even the AI Agent on the Base chain has defected, and the public discontent with Ethereum seems to have reached a certain height.
It is true that Ethereum is facing many challenges, including technical bottlenecks, competitive pressure, and market volatility. However, as a pioneer in the blockchain field, it has a deep developer base and a rich ecosystem, and with the ongoing technical upgrades and innovations, it still has broad development prospects. Whether it is really "dead" as some have said remains to be further verified over time.
Since the collapse of FTX in 2022, the crypto mogul Sam Bankman-Fried and his FTX have hastily entered the historical dust. The FTX bankruptcy restructuring plan, which involves the assets of tens of thousands of users, has been going through ups and downs since 2023, and finally saw a key breakthrough in 2025. According to the previous restructuring plan, FTX creditors are expected to receive full or even excess cash compensation, and the initial distribution launched on February 18 has undoubtedly brought hope to the long-waiting creditors. Recommended reading:
According to Bloomberg, in terms of the specific compensation plan, small creditors (with claims not exceeding $50,000) account for 98% of the total number of creditors, and they will receive 118% compensation, i.e., the principal plus 9% annualized interest. For large creditors, the compensation ratio varies depending on the type of claim, with a maximum of 142%.
In addition, non-governmental creditors will also receive compensation for the principal plus interest. This compensation plan aims to maximize the protection of creditors' interests and minimize their losses. Creditors need to complete KYC verification and receive the funds through agents such as Bitgo and Kraken by January 20, 2025 to ensure the authenticity and legality of their identity.
One of the responsible institutions for this compensation is the well-known accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers, which stated that qualified customers/creditors in the supported jurisdictions will be invited to create a BitGO account and receive their distribution in this account. Compensation for non-corporate customers/creditors is expected to begin in the second quarter of 2025.
06 Project Observation
Due to the high airdrop threshold, strict anti-sybil mechanism, stringent claiming requirements, and limited airdrop quantity, the Story airdrop has been highly controversial in the community. Recommended reading:
《Better something than nothing, what is the role of the Story airdrop?》
However, for those users who have successfully claimed the IP airdrop and have confidence in the Story ecosystem, the ecosystem applications that have already launched on the mainnet or disclosed their incentive and point plans are still worth attention.
Unleash Protocol is a native IP management and money market for Story. The Unleash lending protocol has launched an incentive program, supporting users to provide IP, USDC and ETH liquidity to earn IP rewards. The first season's incentive activity will reward $295,000 worth of IP over 90 days. Subsequently, Unleash will balance supply and lending, and also release a point system.
Story Hunt is a native IPFi DEX project supported and incubated by Story, focusing on IP market liquidity and yield. Story Hunt has established IP/vIP, IP/WETH, IP/USDC.e liquidity pools, providing LP fees and IP mining rewards.
Verio is a Story ecosystem liquidity staking and IP asset re-staking platform, where users can stake IP to earn interest-bearing LSD "vIP", and also support re-staking vIP to further earn yields. The Story official requirement for validators is over 1024 IP, while Verio has no minimum requirement.
Superposition, as a DeFi-native Layer3 platform based on Arbitrum, launched its Alpha version last month. This week, Superposition officially launched its point system, which allows users to earn points by contributing trading volume, providing liquidity, or staking on the platform's dApps. Recommended reading:
《Prospecting Manual | Superposition: Earn rewards by using》
Superposition, initiated by the Fluidity Labs team in 2023, is a DeFi-native Layer3 built on the Arbitrum Orbit stack and Stylus technology, and uses account abstraction technology to enhance user experience, redefining the utility and intent in the DeFi field. Superposition is also committed to promoting efficient utilization of liquidity, building innovative utility yield mechanisms, and providing users with fast, economical and high-yielding DeFi services.
To connect different blockchain ecosystems, Superposition has also released an official cross-chain bridge, covering not only the native Superposition bridge, but also integrating Stargate, Decent.xyz, Relay and Arbitrum Bridge cross-chain bridges.
