Oh, look, Perplexity AI might be dipping its toes into the crypto pool soon. CEO Aravind Srinivas just dropped the bomb on X (formerly Twitter, but who’s counting?), saying crypto integration is "coming soon." Of course, that’s all we get. No timeline, no specifics—just a cryptic "soon." Could we get more vague? Probably. Now, everyone's buzzing about what this actually means. Some crypto fans are dreaming of crypto payments for Perplexity Pro (because who wouldn’t want to pay for AI with $100 worth of $DOGE, right?). Others are convinced they’re going to bake some blockchain magic into AI tools—maybe AI-powered crypto analysis? Or possibly a shiny new filter that helps you pick the next moonshot from the sea of garbage altcoins? 💩🚀 Srinivas also casually mentions that AI and crypto are gonna be the next big thing (shocking, I know). Bitwise estimates that these two could add $20 trillion to the global economy by 2030. So, mark your calendars for any year between now and the end of time when “soon” finally becomes “now.” Oh, and did I mention that Perplexity also just brought in DeepSeek AI, the scrappy Chinese startup that’s low-key eating NVIDIA’s lunch? Yeah, that one. Despite the fact that DeepSeek’s been dropping jaws in AI with fewer resources, some folks are getting a little nervous about their data crossing the Great Wall. But don't worry, Srinivas assured us that DeepSeek’s all about keeping it “American” with servers only in the US and Europe. Your data won’t end up in China... probably. So yeah, AI + crypto integration? It’s “coming soon.” But who knows when. Stay tuned for more non-news updates as we all continue to pretend we know what "soon" really means in Silicon Valley time. 🙄

Alright, degens, gather around. Dacoco just rolled out Lynx, an AI trained to be the ultimate Alien Worlds lore guru. It’s basically a virtual librarian who read too much Kevin J. Anderson and now thinks it knows the secrets of the metaverse. But here’s where it gets wild—Lynx doesn’t just regurgitate lore; it adapts it. Yup, you can now pitch new storylines or tweak existing ones, and if the community vibes with it (aka, you bribe—I mean, stake—enough $TLM), your fanfic might just become canon. On one hand, this is peak Web3: decentralized storytelling, tokenized governance, and AI-enhanced creativity. On the other hand, this is also the internet—so get ready for a flood of "Planet Binance was actually founded by an ancient CZ cult" and "Dogecoin is the true intergalactic currency" submissions. Dacoco's CMO, Kevin Rose, assures us AI won’t replace players but will "enhance and support" them. Translation: AI is here to enable your most unhinged sci-fi takes, not do all the work for you. So, time to start theorycrafting—will your story make it into the official Alien Worlds canon, or will it get voted into the void faster than a low-liquidity altcoin? 🚀

Azuki and Milady Maker NFTs have seen impressive gains, with Azuki increasing by 106% and Milady Maker surging by 891%. Azuki's volume reached $29.3 million, while Milady Maker's daily transactions hit $921,620. Together, these collections are among the top performers in the NFT market this year, contributing to a 22% overall market increase to $198 million. Meanwhile, Ethereum-based NFTs grew by 41%, while Bitcoin NFTs fell by 7.8%. Solana also maintained strong performance with $18 million in transactions. Vitalik Buterin's purchase of a Milady NFT has further boosted the collection’s popularity.

So, Pudgy Penguins dropped their own L2, Abstract, and let’s just say… it’s off to a "fun" start. 711K transactions on launch day? Not bad. But total value secured? A whole $33M. For context, that’s like launching a party and realizing everyone brought their own drinks. Meanwhile, the network’s flagship DEX, NOXA, went from $515K TVL to $109K faster than your favorite influencer dumping their bags. But hey, at least you can farm xp points! Because who doesn’t love leveling up while their NFTs go to zero? Luca Netz wants to steer away from “stuffy DeFi” and focus on fun, viral, simple, stupid products. Translation: if you’re here for serious liquidity, maybe take a stroll over to Berachain or Arbitrum. If you want to launch the next memecoin casino, welcome to the party. Oh, and PENGU, the Pudgy Penguins' native token? Down 41% this week. Abstract’s fun-first strategy is cool and all, but it turns out people still kinda care about… y’know, making money. Anyway, at least you can onboard with an email now. Because that’s definitely what was missing from crypto.

Ah yes, just what we needed—AI-powered degen agents running around Ronin. Sky Mavis just inked a deal with NRN Agents (from the brains behind AI Arena) to bring their AI models onto the chain in Q1 2025. So basically, we’re getting “millions of AI gaming agents” deployed across Ronin’s ecosystem. What could possibly go wrong? First up: proof-of-concept demos in some select games. Expect these AI agents to flex their skills in dynamic multiplayer environments. Translation? Get ready to be outplayed by a bot that never tilts, never sleeps, and definitely doesn’t forget to set stop-losses. Eventually, this will expand to a full-on AI invasion across Ronin. Kathleen Osgood from Sky Mavis is hyping this up as "Ronin will be the home to AI X Gaming X Memes." So, AI is about to level up the gaming ecosystem, with more experiments, more integrations, and probably more copium for Ronin maxis. To ease us into our AI overlords, AI Arena is launching a community campaign where you can help train these agents. Great—now we’re doing unpaid internships for machine learning models. And in Q2, the NRN SDK will roll out to Ronin studios, coinciding with the network becoming permissionless. Nothing like an open playground for AI-powered gaming madness. Oh, and if the AI news wasn’t enough, Ronin has also gone full meme mode. Meet Tama Meme, the first fair launch token platform on Ronin. It dropped on January 21st, and in just a week, 7,000 tokens were born, $25M was traded, and 69,000 degen wallets aped in. That’s one hell of a launch—but let’s be real, 6,900 of those tokens are probably already abandoned. So, to summarize:✔️ AI bots coming to flex on you in Ronin games✔️ Ronin going permissionless, aka AI agents running wild✔️ Meme coins everywhere The future of gaming, ladies and gentlemen. Strap in.

Azuki and Milady Maker NFTs have seen impressive gains, with Azuki increasing by 106% and Milady Maker surging by 891%. Azuki's volume reached $29.3 million, while Milady Maker's daily transactions hit $921,620. Together, these collections are among the top performers in the NFT market this year, contributing to a 22% overall market increase to $198 million. Meanwhile, Ethereum-based NFTs grew by 41%, while Bitcoin NFTs fell by 7.8%. Solana also maintained strong performance with $18 million in transactions. Vitalik Buterin's purchase of a Milady NFT has further boosted the collection’s popularity.

Well, folks, it looks like NFTs had another thrilling year in 2024... if by "thrilling," you mean a complete nosedive into mediocrity. According to DappRadar's latest report, trading volume and sales hit their lowest point in four years. Who saw that coming? Oh right, everyone. Let’s break it down, shall we? NFTs started strong, riding the Q1 bull rally triggered by BTC spot ETFs getting approved in the U.S., peaking at a solid $5.3 billion in trading volume. But that lasted, what, a few months? By Q3, we were down to $1.6 billion—talk about a crash and burn. By the end of the year, we were at $13.7 billion in trading volume, which is still a 19% dip from 2023. Oh, and token sales? Yeah, those took a dive too—down 18% to 49.8 million. Classic. Now, if you’re new to the NFT game, let me bring you up to speed. Remember when NFTs were just speculative JPEGs getting sold for millions of dollars like Beeple’s $69 million “art” in 2021? Those were the glory days (or maybe just the biggest pump-and-dump of all time). But, as with all hype-based markets, the bubble eventually popped. Big surprise. But don’t worry! It’s not all bad news (for some). NFTs that actually do something useful are still alive and kicking. Like, actual in-game assets in gaming or NFTs that give you access to cool things, like a VIP pass to a concert or an exclusive event. Local governments are even getting in on the action—hello, Jeju Island’s NFT-based tourist card. Gotta keep those tourists coming somehow. Meanwhile, in DeFi land, things are actually looking up—sort of. DeFi saw a massive rebound, hitting $214 billion in total value locked (TVL) at its peak in December. All thanks to memecoins. Yes, you read that right—memecoins. Because nothing says "future of finance" like a coin named after a dog. 🙄 And hey, let’s not forget the dApp sector. Active wallets were up by 485%, thanks to AI dApps skyrocketing in popularity. But, of course, there’s always a catch: dApps lost a cool $1.3 billion in security breaches. So, you know, just a minor setback for the blockchain revolution. In conclusion, NFTs are like that friend who talks a big game, but when the time comes to show up, they’re MIA. Will NFTs make a comeback? Probably not in the way we imagined, but at least we still have gaming NFTs and tourist cards to keep the dream alive. Cheers to the next big thing (whatever that is). 🥂

So, DeepSeek made its grand entrance and, surprise surprise, the crypto market didn’t completely implode. BTC dropped 5%, ETH dropped 7%, and SOL? A generous 10%. But hey, they’re all recovering like the resilient little coins they are. The real drama? Memecoins, obviously. PENGU got clobbered with a 21% drop—guess being the first stage exit liquidity isn’t as fun as it sounds. But here’s the kicker: even without China’s OpenAI competitor throwing its weight around, we’ve known for a while that gaming tokens were looking like a sinking ship. I mean, just check out this disaster year-to-date. MOCA and BEAM down by 40% in 27 days, with GMT, SUPER, BIGTIME, and YGG doing their best "hold my beer" impressions, just barely trailing behind. Look back further and it’s pretty much the same vibe: MOCA and SUPER are the only ones doing the “I’m not dead yet” dance since January 2024. For the rest, it’s a 75% price dive into oblivion. Here’s the list of the usual suspects getting wrecked: WEMIX (Wemade)ENJ (Enjin)GMT (Stepn)ILV (Illuvium)BIGTIME (Big Time)XAI (Xai)SAGA (Saga)MAGIC (TreasureDAO)PIXEL (Pixels)Some of these projects might as well start sending “we're sorry” letters to investors because the recovery might just be a dream at this point. But wait, it’s not all doom and gloom. Believe it or not, there’s still hope. Some developers aren’t giving up despite the market shenanigans. Pixels, for instance, is quietly fixing the play-to-earn trainwreck that’s been plaguing the space. Props to them for actually tackling the core issues and trying to build a sustainable model—unlike the token-centric token projects out there. And let’s not forget there are blockchain games without tokens (yet) or ones that don’t need to rely on token performance at all—NFL Rivals, Off The Grid, Champions Tactics, and some fresh names like EVE Frontier and Craft World. But if you’re thinking about launching a gaming token in the first half of 2025? Uh, yeah, good luck with that. You might need more than just a solid project—you’ll need a miracle. 🥴 TL;DR: Crypto market: still a mess. Gaming tokens? More like gaming wrecks. Some bright spots exist, but overall, it's survival of the fittest—and the fittest are those not relying on tokens to make a quick buck.

In the last 7 days, NFT sales nearly hit $200 million, driven by optimism in the broader cryptocurrency market. This week marked a new era for digital assets, coinciding with Donald Trump’s political rise in the U.S. According to Cryptoslam.io, sales increased by 7%, totaling $190.71 million. Ethereum led with $108.9 million in sales, up by 14%, while Bitcoin and Solana followed with $25 million and $17.35 million, respectively.Notable collections, including Azuki and Pudgy Penguins, saw significant sales growth, with Azuki’s sales increasing by 58%. The Solana-based Mad Lads collection saw a 154% surge. Despite the challenges faced by NFTs, the market remains hopeful for a more positive trend ahead.

Ah yes, another day, another ETH dump by our good pals over at the Ethereum Foundation. This time, they unloaded 100 ETH for a cool $307,893. Not too shabby. But wait, this isn’t their first rodeo in 2025. Oh no, EF has already offloaded 300 ETH this year, cashing in on a nice $981k payday. Must be nice to be the bag-holder for their liquidity experiments. 🥂 Price check: ETH is down over 7% in the last 24 hours, currently clinging to the $3k level like it’s on life support. But don't worry, EF still has plenty of ETH to drop on us in the future—a humble 269,175 ETH, worth about $817 million. Just sitting there, like Chekhov's gun, waiting to be fired at the market. Why the fire sale? Apparently, it’s all in the name of "innovation" and "ecosystem support." EF just announced they’re gonna throw $165M into DeFi projects. Great timing, right? Dump the price, then start investing. Classic move. Meanwhile, the calls for EF to stop selling ETH (or at least stake it) are growing louder than ever. Even Justin Sun popped up to say, “Hey guys, maybe chill with the sell button?” Not that he’s ever been the voice of reason. 🙄 Solana vs Ethereum, fight! With Solana and other chains breathing down ETH’s neck, there’s pressure to actually do something innovative for once. Paradigm even came in swinging, saying Ethereum's annual upgrade schedule is too slow to keep up. TL;DR: stop selling, start building. The Vitalik Factor: Our boy Vitalik has promised more transparency and dev support, but he’s drawn the line at Aya Miyaguchi’s resignation. Can’t blame him—crypto Twitter campaigns are basically the blockchain equivalent of mob justice. Still, there’s no denying the Foundation needs to get its act together if ETH is going to stay king. TL;DR: EF dumps ETH, price tanks, everyone yells, EF promises reforms, rinse and repeat. Meanwhile, Solana and the other chains are laughing all the way to the bank. Maybe instead of selling, they should try staking like the rest of us plebs? 🤷‍♂️