Bounce Without Conviction

Markets spent the past week in full risk-off. The Supreme Court's tariff ruling briefly suggested clarity, but defensive positioning had already taken hold and the bounce failed to generate follow-through. The real shift came after Trump's State of the Union remarks. Equities bounced and crypto followed, less on fresh fundamentals and more on positioning. A wave of short covering and light dip buying helped Bitcoin recover to $69,000.

The broader macro picture remains unresolved. Rate expectations are recalibrating, regulatory progress is uneven, and the prospect of policy clarity by March is fading. A separate shock came from the Citrini report, imagining that AI could meaningfully displace white-collar jobs by 2028. The specifics are debatable, but it reinforced the sense that structural change may be moving faster than policy.

Yet beneath the noise, infrastructure keeps advancing. The Ethereum Foundation laid out its 2026 priorities: a 100M gas limit target, native account abstraction, and post-quantum security across upcoming hard forks. Ambitious, yes. But also a signal that core protocol development is not waiting for macro permission.

Meanwhile, not everything wobbled. NEAR rallied following the release of its super app, a reminder that product launches still matter in a market otherwise dominated by macro crosscurrents.

New & Noteworthy

AI that coordinates. Equities that trade 24/7.

• AI infrastructure kept listing. ROBO organizes robots, OPN prices opinions. Last week it was AI as interface. This week it is AI as coordination layer and forecasting engine.

• The equity shelf grew again. CrowdStrike, PayPal, and Palo Alto Networks. Traditional equities, crypto hours. The wall between markets keeps getting thinner.

[Fresh Tickers, Your Move]{https://www.mexc.com/announcements/new-listings}

Weekly Events Highlights

Still running, still relevant, still soaking up attention.

• HYPE Fever Extended: Volatility didn't take the week off, so neither did HYPE. The pool now sits at $300K, with 0-fee trading and spin rewards for those still chasing motion while everyone else watches headlines.

• XAUT Launchpad: Gold rises above $5,100. Subscribe with USDT for discounted tokenized gold because sometimes the trade is simply "own the thing that outlived empires".

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The Quiet Breakout

The RWA active market cap crossed $15 billion this week for the first time, according to DefiLlama. Active market cap tracks tokens distributed to independent holders or smart contracts. Real capital in real wallets, backing real-world assets on-chain.

$15 billion is noteworthy because RWAs are no longer a conference panel. They're an asset class with their own supply curve, their own volume patterns, and their own user base.

Three categories are scaling in sync: tokenized funds (T-bills, bonds, money market funds), tokenized gold and commodities, and tokenized equities. What started with BlackRock's BUIDL and a few gold-backed tokens is now three parallel markets growing at institutional pace.

Gold is driving the commodity side. Spot gold above $5,100 turned tokenized exposure from a thesis into a daily trade. MEXC ranks #1 globally in XAUT perpetual volume across CoinMarketCap, CoinGecko, and CoinGlass, and the gap is widening. Silver, platinum, and palladium Futures are all live with 0 trading fees. Volume is concentrating on platforms that built the infrastructure early.

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Start Earning on Stables

USDT isn't just for collection. Lock it in and earn up to 600% APR. Capital that isn't working is capital that's losing ground.

[Stack Yield on MEXC]{https://www.mexc.com/staking?financialId=1970053632745684992¤cyId=128f589271cb4951b03e71e6323eb7be¤cyName=USDT}

As always, we'll keep watching the narratives as they form. See you in the markets.