GM, frens! ☕️ 

The charts are moving, the suits are sweating, and somewhere between the White House and Crypto Twitter, the plot keeps thickening.

It's one of those weeks where the market feels less like a financial system and more like a badly scripted reality TV show 🤡 

This week, we're tracking:

• 🔥 Gas fees with Ambire: less BURN - more RETURN (win $CAKE)

• 🪙 Circle’s (USDC) IPO and the case for crypto’s MATURITY

• 🤯 HBAR, TikTok ... and OnlyFans?

• 📱 Preloaded with TROUBLE: crypto stealing apps found in thousands of phones

As for the W3oF Degen Portfolio, it’s been behaving like a middle child - ignored, underwhelming, and somehow still around 🤦‍♂️ 

No dramatic moves, just vibes and quiet coping 😐️ 

Think you can spice it up with a reckless pick or a cursed gem? Hop into our Discord chat and help us ruin our risk profile 😉 

Gas fees with Ambire: less BURN - more RETURN (+win $CAKE)

Gas fees are the original rug.

No matter the chain or platform - someone’s always reaching into your pockets just to let the transaction through 🪙 🤌 

And it’s never seamless: juggling native tokens, re-approving stuff you already approved, getting slapped with a rejection because you don’t have 0.00069 of the right coin 🙄 

That’s not true DeFi, that’s just bad design baked into wallets that haven’t evolved in a decade.

Ambire finally pulled the plug on that nonsense - with a proper, live deployment of gas abstraction and batching on BNB Chain 🪙 

Here’s what that means:

• You can now pay gas with non-native tokens and execute bundled transactions - swaps, approvals, the whole lot - in a single tap 📝 

• No more playing token tetris before every move. No more clicking through 3 approvals to do one basic thing. Just pick your asset, sign, and go.

Of course, to make the launch spicy, there's a promo tied to Pancakeswap’s platform token $CAKE - pay gas using it before April 14 and you might win a chunk of it back 👀 

But don’t let that distract from the main takeaway here: this isn’t about the token. It’s about finally making smart contract wallets usable.

This is the kind of UX shift the whole space has been screaming for and that’s what account abstraction was supposed to unlock 🗝️ 

The future isn’t flashy dashboards and gauges - it’s wallets that don’t make you feel like you need a DevOps team to press “swap”.

We’re not there yet. But this is a damn good start.

Circle’s (USDC) IPO and the case for crypto’s MATURITY

Circle is going public. Again.

After the whole SPAC (shell corporation filing scheme) clown show collapsed in late 2022, the team behind $USDC - the second-largest stablecoin - went quiet, regrouped, and now they're back with a traditional IPO filing 📜 

No shortcuts this time, just a classic S-1 with the SEC and a hopeful glance toward the New York Stock Exchange. Their valuation target is up to $5 billion.

• Biggest trad. banking players JPMorgan and Citi are underwriting this one this time. And while those two don’t scream “crypto native,” they do scream “Wall Street wants in, but only if the money’s clean and the suits are pressed”.

• Circle, of course, is only too happy to play along. They’ve even decided to relocate their HQ from Boston to One World Trade Center in NYC. Optics matter when you’re aiming for TradFi approval 🔍️ 

The books for $USDC look decent:

• $1.68 billion in revenue + reserves in 2024 💰️ 

• Net income of $156 million 🪙 

• 36% USDC market cap growth YTD

Not bad for a coin people once claimed was “too regulated to thrive”. Turns out “regulated” is now a selling point.

The new era

This IPO lands at a spicy moment.

Nasdaq under Trump 🍊 just had its worst quarter since 2022 and the tech IPO market is still shaking off the hangover. But crypto could be having a moment. The U.S. political climate has flipped bullish on digital assets, and stablecoins are smack in the middle of that narrative.

We’re talking laws / rules backed by Trump himself. We’re talking USDC getting half of Coinbase’s revenue. We’re talking institutional trad desks finally admitting they need stablecoins for real - fast settlements, collateral for DeFi, liquidity routing, cross border payments, etc.

And this is the point - Circle’s IPO isn’t just a bet on one company. It’s a proxy war for crypto’s legitimacy 👀 

If Circle pulls it off, it also sets the stage for a wave of similar plays.

It tells the market: you can build in crypto and get that Wall Street exit. It tells investors: These companies aren’t just code and vibes anymore - they’ve got cash flow, compliance, and cap tables that make sense 💵 

The critics in the space will call it selling out. But that’s the point. Circle’s whole model is about trust and merging traditional finance with crypto (that’s why USDC is pegged by the US Dollar) and that’s why those $60B sitting there isn’t by accident 🤷‍♂️ 

So yeah, this might not be the most explosive story in crypto this week. But it might be the most important. Because maturity is what turns bubbles into industries.

HBAR, TikTok ... and OnlyFans?

The HBAR Foundation is teaming up with Zoop - a social app startup co-founded by Tim Stokely, the original mastermind behind OnlyFans - of all things - to submit a formal bid for TikTok’s U.S. operations 🤯 

• Under a U.S. law passed in 2024 and extended by Trump, ByteDance has until April 5 to divest TikTok or face a ban in the US.

• According to Zoop’s RJ Phillips, this isn’t just about ownership. The goal is to “create a new paradigm” where creators and communities benefit directly from the value they generate 💰️ 

• That’s an extremely familiar promise in crypto circles, but this time it’s being pitched not for some web3-native protocol, but for the single most viral social platform on Earth 👀

HBAR’s role here is more than just a check. As one of the more institutionally aligned players in the space - with real-world deployments, council governance, and a track record of going where the suits are - it brings structure to Zoop’s creator-focused vision.

It also brings the chain

• A full-on Hedera-powered TikTok isn’t confirmed, but the implications are clear: this is a bid to take one of the internet’s most centralized algorithms and build a new version where data, monetization, and visibility don’t flow through one opaque pipe in Beijing 💻️ 🕵️‍♂️ 

And while the crypto market is used to ambitious bids with absolutely zero follow through, this one isn’t just an idea. The intent has been filed. The press is covering it. And the window to act is closing fast.

Oh and also, though it’s still a long shot in a VERY crowded race, for once, crypto’s in the conversation for something that isn’t just another L2, meme coin, or rug apology. So there’s that.

Preloaded with TROUBLE: crypto stealing apps found in thousands of phones

Kaspersky Labs just pulled the lid off a sophisticated cyber grift involving thousands of Android smartphones - counterfeit models, preloaded at the factory with malware designed to do one thing: jack your crypto.

• At the heart of it is Triada, a well dressed Trojan that’s been around since 2016, now hitting its final form like a pokemon evolution - except instead of cute powers, this one specializes in stealing wallet credentials, intercepting SMS 2FA codes, replacing wallet addresses on the fly, and rerouting calls to scammers 🥷 

• These phones are sold as discounted Android devices through shady online retailers. And the malware is embedded before you ever touch the power button. According to Kaspersky, around 2,600 cases have been confirmed across multiple countries, with most of the activity centered in Russia during Q1 2025.

Some models were so convincing, they fooled even seasoned users - until the apps started doing things on their own, and wallets started drying up 💸 

The malware burrows deep into the firmware, giving attackers low level access to almost everything on the phone. If it had any more access, it’d be also calling your mom on Sundays 🤦‍♂️ 

And this isn’t just a crypto problem. Triada hijacks SMS, monitors browser activity, and has been linked to attempts at full digital ID compromise. Phishing, but industrialized 📱 

As of recently, DDoS attacks have also been evolving from digital vandalism to full blown weapons.

A recent Netscout report flagged 16.8 million incidents in 2024 - up nearly 30% from the previous year. Latin America and Asia Pacific saw the largest spikes, just in case anyone thought this was a localized trend 📉 

AI is fueling the fire.

Bots are smarter, faster, and now good enough to bypass CAPTCHAs and adapt on the fly. You don’t need a nation state budget anymore - just some GPT-powered scripts and determination 🤖 

Bottom line:

Your device might betray you. Your apps might be fake. The services that you want to use are out of order due to DDoS attacks. And your group chat friends might be impostors. Everything to steal your coins. Welcome to 2025.

🙃 

Other worthy reads

DeFi isn’t sleeping, despite awful conditions:

“Why DeFi Insurance Failed (And How It Can Be Fixed)”, article by Fishmarketacad:

“DeFi Stablecoins to Supercharge Dollar Network Effects”, article by 0xJMG:

MEMES

That's all for now, frens.

We'll meet in a week! And remember, the market conditions are temporary, but our commitment to building a better DeFi is here to stay. Thanks for joining us, and we look forward to seeing you back next week. Cheers!

Yours, The 🔥 Team

Brought to you by Ambire: The Only Web3 Wallet That You’ll Need!