TL;DR

• BTC consolidates between $95,000 and $100,000, while ETH stabilizes after a second dip.
• Brian Quintenz nominated by Trump as the next U.S. CFTC Chairman.
• SIMD-96 goes live on Solana, enabling validators to earn full priority fees.
• Plume Network partners with Mercado Bitcoin to tokenize $40M in Brazilian RWA assets.
• Sui stablecoin market cap surpasses $500M, reaching a new all-time high.
• SatLayer TVL hits $316M, setting a record high.
• zkLend suffers a $9M exploit on Starknet.

Market Analysis

Review and Insights

• BTC Market – Bitcoin fluctuated between $94,000 and $100,000 this week. After the U.S. CPI release, BTC briefly dropped below support but quickly rebounded with increased trading volume, demonstrating strong support around $95,000. [1]

• ETH Market – ETH retested the $2,500 support level before rebounding to around $2,750, breaking out of a converging triangle pattern. The key resistance level now stands near $2,900. A successful breakout could fuel further market enthusiasm. [2]

• Altcoins – Over the past 7 days, altcoins experienced a significant downturn around February 11, with overall market weakness. Strong performers lagged behind the previous week, but sectors like Bittensor Ecosystem (+2,372.5%), AI Framework (+21.9%), and Cat-themed tokens (+20.3%) saw notable gains. [3]
• Option Market – BTC options open interest stands at $40.07 billion, little changed from last week’s $39.84 billion. The notional value of options expiring on February 14 has risen to $2.596 billion. [4]
• Macro Data – On February 12, the U.S. reported a January YoY CPI of 3.0%, exceeding the previous 2.9%. Higher-than-expected inflation has led to cautious investment sentiment. [5]
• Stablecoins – The total stablecoin market cap increased by 0.99% to $224.5 billion, indicating continued inflows of fresh capital. [6]
• Gas Fees – Over the past week, Ethereum’s average Gas Fee dropped to 1.14 Gwei, with a peak of 11 Gwei, signaling reduced network activity. [7]

Trending Concepts

Bitcoin’s price moved between $94,200 and $100,000 this week, showing varying performance across altcoin sectors. CoinGecko data revealed three leading sectors in market cap growth: Gaming Blockchains rose 10.7%, AI Frameworks 21.9%, and Cat-themed increased 21.9% over the seven-day period. [8]

Gaming Blockchains — This sector provides specialized blockchain infrastructure and open ecosystems for gaming. The platforms enable players to create, manage, and trade in-game digital assets while offering new gaming experiences through decentralized governance and transparent economic systems. Players gain true ownership and control of their virtual assets. As NFTs and virtual economies gain popularity, Gaming Blockchains are disrupting traditional gaming models and drawing strong interest from both developers and investors.

The sector grew 10.7% over 7 days, reaching a market cap of $4.56 billion with 24-hour trading volume of $559 million. Notable performers include RON, up 16.6% over 7 days, and WEMIX, up 13.4%. [9]

AI Framework — AI Framework platforms enable innovation through decentralized autonomous organizations and ecosystems that let developers build, manage, and scale AI applications. These platforms combine technical infrastructure with decentralized governance, giving community members direct control over decision-making.

The sector grew 21.9% over 7 days, reaching a market cap of $2.28 billion with $774 million in 24-hour trading volume. This growth followed recent AI model updates, as investors increasingly view decentralized AI as a valuable investment opportunity. The sector’s ARC token led gains with a 93.1% increase over 7 days. [10]

Cat-Themed — This sector encompasses a variety of cat-themed memecoins. Cat memes have recently gained significant traction across social media platforms like TikTok and YouTube. As token communities continue to develop and expand, leading tokens have shown consistent price appreciation, fueling the sector’s overall growth.

The Cat-Themed sector’s market cap grew by 20.3% this week to approximately $2.79 billion, with daily trading volume reaching $426 million. Standout performers include KET, which surged 114.6% over seven days, and LEO, which gained 88.5%. [11]

Top Performers

According to CoinGecko data, the top-performing tokens over the past 7 days are as follows: [12]

S (Sonic) - 7-day increase of approximately 26.6%, with a circulating market cap of $1.767B.

Sonic is an EVM-compatible Layer 1 blockchain that supports 10,000 TPS and sub-second transaction finality. It also offers Sonic Gateway, a secure Ethereum bridge that enhances liquidity and asset security.

Since 2025, Sonic’s TVL has surged over 1,300%, reaching $357 million. This growth has reinforced market confidence, driving continuous price appreciation. Additionally, Sonic’s recent partnerships with key influencers and projects have further attracted investor interest. [13]

LTC (Litecoin) - 7-day increase of approximately 18.8%, with a circulating market cap of $9.27B.

Litecoin is the first cryptocurrency based on the Scrypt algorithm. Compared to Bitcoin, it offers faster transaction confirmations (every 2.5 minutes) and has a total supply of 84 million coins.

Today, an LTC ETF application was submitted to the SEC, with analysts considering Litecoin as one of the most likely altcoins to receive approval. Litecoin’s “fair launch” mechanism and PoW consensus model align with regulatory expectations for fairness and decentralization. As major economies shift toward crypto-friendly regulations, and following the approval of Bitcoin and Ethereum spot ETFs, the likelihood of a Litecoin ETF approval has increased, contributing to LTC’s steady price rise. [14]

TAO (Bittensor) - 7-day increase of approximately 15.3%, with a circulating market cap of $3.318B.

Bittensor is an open, decentralized, blockchain-based neural network, designed as a self-governed, tokenized market system for AI development and distribution.

Recently, Bittensor’s ecosystem has seen significant expansion with the launch of high-quality projects like YumaGroup and Kaito, which focus on AI model training and data marketplaces. Additionally, the dTAO whitepaper has provided more clarity on technical details and economic models, increasing market trust and drawing greater attention from developers and investors, leading to TAO’s price surge. [15]

Weekly Spotlights

Hot Topic Review

Brian Quintenz Nominated by Trump as the Next U.S. CFTC Chairman

Brian Quintenz announced on social media that he is deeply honored to be nominated by Donald Trump as the next Chairman of the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). He stated that he previously served as a CFTC Commissioner during Trump’s previous administration. According to Quintenz, the CFTC plays a critical role in maintaining market price discovery, while also ensuring that the U.S. remains a global leader in blockchain technology and innovation. He also expressed his eagerness to work with Trump’s outstanding financial regulatory team.

This development could bring clearer regulatory policies to the crypto market, boosting investor confidence and fostering industry growth. Clear regulations help stabilize market expectations, attract more capital inflows, promote technological innovation, and expand real-world applications, ultimately driving the market towards maturity. [16]

SIMD-96 Goes Live on Solana, Validators to Receive 100% of Priority Fees

According to SolanaFloor, SIMD-96 is now live on the Solana network. This update changes the priority fee mechanism from a 50-50 split (where 50% of fees were burned and 50% were allocated to validators) to a new model where 100% of priority fees go directly to validators. The Solana ecosystem’s SIMD-0096 proposal was approved in May last year.

This change could have several implications for the Solana network. Firstly, validators will receive greater economic incentives, which may increase their participation and strengthen decentralization. However, removing the fee-burning mechanism could lead to an increase in SOL token supply, potentially putting downward pressure on SOL’s price. Additionally, the new fee distribution model might raise community concerns over network inflation and centralization risks. [17]

Plume Network Partners with Mercado Bitcoin to Tokenize $40M in Brazilian RWA Assets

RWA (Real-World Asset) company Plume Network has partnered with Latin American exchange Mercado Bitcoin to tokenize $40 million worth of Brazilian asset-backed securities, consumer credit, corporate debt, and receivables.

Mercado Bitcoin will leverage Plume Network’s Layer 1 blockchain infrastructure to offer global investors access to Brazilian assets. This collaboration aims to bridge global capital with emerging market investments, fostering growth in the RWA sector. Currently, Brazil is considered a key market for digital asset expansion due to its large economy and high digital payment adoption rate. [18]

Security Incident

zkLend Suffers Attack on Starknet, Over $9M Lost

According to an official announcement by zkLend, the protocol has suffered a security breach, and the team is actively investigating the incident. As a precautionary measure, withdrawals have been suspended. The attack resulted in a loss of over $9 million. The attacker bridged the stolen funds to Ethereum and attempted to launder them via the privacy protocol Railgun. However, due to Railgun’s policy restrictions, the funds were automatically returned to the original address.

The root cause of the exploit lies in zkLend’s smart contract implementation of the safeMath library. A vulnerability arose from direct division in calculations, causing a rounding error when calculating exact amounts of zTokens to burn during withdrawals. The attacker exploited this rounding flaw for illicit gains. To prevent similar vulnerabilities in safeMath libraries, projects should implement more secure mathematical libraries, improve precision handling, perform regular security audits, deploy upgradable smart contracts, and foster open-source collaboration and bug bounty programs to strengthen security. [19][20]

Project Highlights

io.net Launches IO Intelligence Platform, Plans to Integrate 25 Open-Source AI Models Including DeepSeek

io.net, a DePIN protocol in the Solana ecosystem, has announced the launch of its IO Intelligence platform, which combines Vector Database as a Service with up to five intelligent agents and 25 open-source AI models (including DeepSeek, Meta Llama, and Mistral).

io.net is a decentralized computing network that supports the development, execution, and scaling of ML applications on the Solana blockchain, combining 1 million GPUs to form the world’s largest GPU cluster and DePIN. io.net aggregates GPUs from underutilized resources (such as independent data centers, crypto miners, and crypto projects like Filecoin and Render) to address this challenge. These resources are combined in a decentralized physical infrastructure network (DePIN), enabling engineers to access substantial computing power in an accessible, customizable, cost-effective, and easily implementable system. [21][22]

Data Highlights

SUI Stablecoin Market Cap Surpasses $500 Million, Reaching an All-Time High

The total market cap of stablecoins on the Sui blockchain has exceeded $500 million, setting a new all-time high. As a high-performance Layer 1 blockchain, Sui aims to provide high throughput and low-latency transaction experiences. Its native token, SUI, has a total supply of 10 billion tokens and is widely used for staking, transaction fee payments, on-chain governance, and value exchange.

Recently, the Sui ecosystem has been expanding rapidly, particularly in decentralized finance (DeFi) and blockchain gaming. These innovations have played a crucial role in boosting the market cap of stablecoins on the network. For example, Dogizen, an early Telegram ICO project, announced its migration from the TON blockchain to Sui, leveraging Sui’s superior scalability and performance. [23]

SatLayer’s TVL Hits Record $316 Million

According to DefiLlama, SatLayer’s Total Value Locked (TVL) surged by 1,006% within seven days, reaching an all-time high of $316 million. SatLayer’s mission is to unlock the full potential of Bitcoin as the world’s best economic collateral. By providing Bitcoin Validation Services (BVS), it enhances the security of any dApp or protocol, fundamentally improving the overall security of the crypto ecosystem. Since February 7, when SatLayer announced its partnership with BeraChain, it has actively collaborated with multiple projects, drawing significant investor attention. [24]

CME’s Q4 2024 Crypto Trading Volume Breaks Record with 300%+ Year-over-Year Surge in Daily Average

According to the latest financial report from CME Group, the company set a new record for crypto trading volume in Q4 2024, reaching a daily average trading volume of approximately $10 billion—a more than 300% increase compared to 2023. The momentum continued into 2025, with crypto contract trading volumes hitting another all-time high in January, indicating growing demand for crypto derivatives. During the earnings call, CME’s Chief Financial Officer, Lynn Martin, noted that crypto derivatives are among the fastest-growing contracts this year. CEO Terry Duffy added that despite strong market demand for CME to list more types of crypto products, the company must work closely with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to ensure clear differentiation between securities and non-securities.

Notably, as retail investor interest in crypto derivatives continues to grow, CME announced in January 2025 the launch of options tied to its Micro Bitcoin Futures, further expanding the crypto derivatives market. [25]

Market Opportunities

Project Airdrops

Airdrop Project to Watch This Week: iAgent Protocol

iAgent Protocol merges AI with gaming, enabling users to create, own, and monetize AI agents. The protocol stands out for its innovative AI training approach that prioritizes visual data over traditional text-based methods—making it the first of its kind in blockchain gaming.

The protocol will distribute 30 million AGNT tokens through an airdrop in February 2025, coinciding with its token generation event. Using an XP-based system, participants can accumulate points by completing various activities and social engagements.[26]

How to participate:

• Visit the iAgent Airdrop official page and connect your wallet
• Link your social media accounts
• Complete social and related tasks to earn XP
• Invite friends to join and earn additional XP

Note:
The airdrop program and participation methods are subject to change. Users are advised to follow iAgent’s official channels for the latest updates. Additionally, users should exercise caution, be aware of potential risks, and conduct thorough research before participating. Gate.io does not guarantee the distribution of future airdrop rewards.

Weekly Fundraising Report

Several projects across DeFi, DePIN, and Social Networks secured funding this week. According to RootData, between February 8 and February 14, 17 projects announced funding rounds totaling over $48 million. Here are the top three largest funding rounds: [27]

Legend secured a $15 million funding round on February 11, led by a16z and Coinbase Ventures. The company will use the funds to accelerate the Legend app’s development through team expansion and marketing initiatives. Now in its testing phase, Legend is focusing on its launch on the Apple App Store and building a strong user base. The platform plans to generate revenue through a subscription model. Looking ahead, Legend aims to evolve into a self-custody wallet, enabling users to fully control their digital assets.

Hivello secured $9 million in a strategic funding round on February 9, led by Animoca Brands. The funds will support innovation and simplify DePIN node operations for better user accessibility. Hivello is a platform specializing in aggregating of decentralized physical infrastructure networks (DePIN) that lets users earn rewards by contributing unused computing resources across multiple networks. The company completed its Token Generation Event (TGE) on February 11, 2025, with HVLO tokens launched on Gate.io. This marks a new phase in Hivello’s ecosystem growth. The HVLO token will power Hivello’s decentralized economy, enabling staking, rewards, and broader DePIN ecosystem participation.

NodeGo.AI secured $8 million in funding on February 10, with Hash Capital leading the round. The funding will support the expansion of its decentralized AI computing network and enhancement of real-time AI processing capabilities. NodeGo is a community-driven network that allows individuals and organizations to monetize their unused computing resources. Through blockchain technology, NodeGo offers a secure and efficient marketplace for sharing, buying, and selling computing power. The funding will go toward building its network, enabling users and enterprises to contribute spatial computing and other computational tasks for AI workloads while earning rewards for participation.

What to Watch Next Week

Token Unlock

According to Token Unlocks, several significant token unlock events are scheduled for next week (2025.2.14-2.20), with a total unlocked value exceeding $200 million.[28]

Here are the top 3 token unlock events for next week:

SAND: Scheduled to unlock approximately 205 million tokens on February 14, 2025, at 8:00 AM UTC, representing 8.41% of circulating supply, valued at around $81.61 million. With an average daily trading volume of $119 million, this unlock may have a notable impact on SAND’s market price. Investors should proceed with caution.

ARB: Scheduled to unlock approximately 92.65 million tokens on February 16, 2025, at 1:00 PM UTC, representing 2.13% of its circulating supply, valued at approximately $46.19 million. With an average daily trading volume of $294 million, this unlock could impact ARB’s market price. Investors should proceed with caution.

AVAX: Scheduled to unlock approximately 1.67 million tokens on February 16, 2025, at 12:00 AM UTC, representing 0.40% of its circulating supply, valued at approximately $43.70 million. With a recent average daily trading volume of around $480 million, the impact on the token price is expected to be relatively small.

Crypto Calendar

Next week (February 14-20, 2025) will bring several important events that will will impact cryptocurrency markets, global economy, and energy markets. Consensus Hong Kong 2025 will be held from February 18-20. [29][30] The United States will release January’s retail sales monthly rate on February 14, 2025.[31] On February 19, 2025, the US will release January’s annualized housing starts (in tens of thousands of units). [32] On February 20, 2025, the US will release API crude oil inventory data for the week ending February 14.[33]

References:

1. Gate.io,https://www.gate.io/trade/BTC_USDT
2. Gate.io,https://www.gate.io/trade/ETH_USDT
3. Gate.io,https://www.gate.io/bigdata/estimate
4. Coinglass,https://www.coinglass.com/zh/pro/options/OIExpiry
5. Cryptocraft,https://www.cryptocraft.com/calendar?day=jan15.2025
6. Defillama,https://defillama.com/stablecoins
7. Sosovalue,https://sosovalue.com/zh
8. Coingecko,https://www.coingecko.com/en/categories
9. Coingecko,https://www.coingecko.com/en/categories/gaming-blockchains
10. Coingecko,https://www.coingecko.com/en/categories/ai-framework
11. Coingecko,https://www.coingecko.com/en/categories/stablecoins
12. Coingedcko,https://www.coingecko.com
13. Gate.io,https://www.gate.io/zh/price/sonic-s
14. Gate.io,https://www.gate.io/zh/price/litecoin-ltc
15. Gate.io,https://www.gate.io/zh/price/bittensor-tao
16. X,https://x.com/BrianQuintenz/status/1889702678852211005
17. X,https://x.com/SolanaFloor/status/1889701379607794128
18. TheBlock,https://www.theblock.co/post/340307/plume-network-and-brazils-mercado-bitcoin-to-tokenize-40-million-worth-of-rwas
19. X,https://x.com/zkLend/status/1889443044250034614
20. X,https://x.com/SlowMist_Team/status/1889659563517026772
21. X,https://x.com/ionet/status/1889691089491087364
22. IO,https://io.net/
23. Defillama,https://defillama.com/chain/Sui?stables=true&tvl=false
24. Defillama,https://defillama.com/protocol/satlayer
25. cmegroup,https://investor.cmegroup.com/static-files/4ae8cca2-7ad7-4577-b942-b53cdd732190
26. X,https://x.com/iAgentProtocol/status/1889364344074297477
27. Rootdata,https://www.rootdata.com/Fundraising
28. Token Unlocks ,https://token.unlocks.app/
29. Gate.io,https://www.gate.io/calendar
30. Consensus Hong Kong,https://consensus-hongkong2025.coindesk.com/
31. Jin10,https://rili.jin10.com/
32. Jin10,https://rili.jin10.com/
33. Jin10,https://rili.jin10.com/

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