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🚨 Introduction.com Member Spotlight 🚨

Meet Mickey Negus (@mickeynegus), a powerhouse within the Introduction.com network and a recognized leader in the crypto-infrastructure space.
As a 40 under 40 leader and seasoned operator, Mickey has spent her career navigating high-stakes environments: from managing counterterrorism operations and weapon development at a U.S. government laboratory to scaling core infrastructure at Edge & Node, the core developers behind The Graph indexing protocol.
We are thrilled to celebrate Mickey’s latest move: she has officially stepped into the role of Head of Enterprise Sales at Edge & Node!!
In her new leadership position, Mickey is bridging the gap between decentralized tech and institutional requirements. Her focus is clear:
Institutional Scaling: Working with regulated organizations to build infrastructure for real production use cases.
Verifiable Data: Enabling institutions to leverage indexing at scale and reliable dataset composition.
On-Chain Rails: Leading a high-performance team to get global enterprises running on blockchain infrastructure.
Whether it's infrastructure operations, security, or now driving enterprise adoption, Mickey continues to be "in the room" where the future of the internet financial system is being built.
Word on the street is she’s looking to build a cracked team. Hit her up if you think you fit the bill 👇
Top Headlines
Member Activity
VC
Talos: Secured a $45M Series B extension to further scale its institutional-grade digital asset trading infrastructure.
The capital will be utilized to expand its execution management system (EMS) and liquidity network as traditional financial institutions ramp up their participation in the crypto markets.
Shouts out to Will McCormick at Robinhood and team for their participation in the round! LFG!
Doppler: Closed a $9M seed round led by Pantera Capital, with participation from Variant, Figment Capital, and Coinbase Ventures.
The onchain protocol, which has already facilitated the launch of over 40,000 assets on Base, provides automated infrastructure for liquidity bootstrapping and price discovery auctions to prevent sniping.
Lauren Stephanian and the Pantera team showing up big with their support in the round!
Non-Member Activity
VC
Jupiter: Secured a $35M investment deal as the platform integrates Polymarket into the Solana ecosystem. The move aims to bring high-speed, low-cost prediction market access to Solana users while scaling Jupiter's liquidity infrastructure.
Flying Tulip: Raised $25.5M in a private token Series A round led by Amber Group, Fasanara Digital, and Paper Ventures. This brings the total institutional capital for Andre Cronje’s new DeFi platform to $225.5M, maintaining a $1B fully diluted valuation with unique "perpetual put" redemption rights for investors.
Startale Labs: Landed $13M in follow-on funding from the Sony Innovation Fund, marking the first investment of its Series A round. The capital will support the development of Soneium, an Ethereum Layer-2 network co-developed with Sony, which has already processed over 500 million transactions.
M&A
Bulletin: Acquired by DeFiLlama in its first-ever acquisition to integrate proprietary OTC market data. The deal allows the data aggregator to provide LlamaPro subscribers with rare visibility into the valuations and secondary market activity of private crypto companies.
IPO
StreamEx: Closed a $35M underwritten public offering on the Nasdaq, selling over 11.6 million shares at $3.00 per share. The proceeds are earmarked for debt repayment and working capital as the company expands its regulated commodity-backed stablecoin offerings.
Markets
The Apex Predator Returns
If you’ve spent the last week watching your portfolio and wondering if the market hit a "fast-forward" button on volatility, you are not alone. Between gold’s parabolic rally meeting a sudden floor and Bitcoin undergoing a significant correction, we are witnessing a violent regime shift in global liquidity.
The primary trigger was the nomination of Kevin Warsh to lead the Federal Reserve, a move that signaled a hawkish end to "easy money" and re-established the US Dollar as the market's apex predator. This "Warsh Shock" ignited a massive leverage reset, sucking the oxygen out of alternative assets and leaving the following sectors in a search for a new fundamental floor:
Gold & Silver: The "fear premium" evaporated instantly as the CME Group hiked margins by 30%. Gold suffered its steepest one-day decline since 1983, dropping 11% to settle near $4,745, while Silver recorded a historic 31% single-session plunge to $78.
The Yuan & The "Eastern Floor": Beijing’s attempt at currency stability is failing the yield test. As the DXY surged above 97, the Yuan retreated toward 6.94, unable to compete with a hawkish Greenback. This triggered a momentum reversal from Chinese speculators who had pushed Shanghai premiums $19 over London to hedge domestic risk. This "Eastern Floor" is now under pressure as the PBoC balances strategic gold hoarding with emergency measures to flush out "hot money" and protect industrial silver supplies after its January 1st export reclassification.
Crypto: The speculative "easy money" well has run dry. Bitcoin’s 40% drawdown to the $76,000 range triggered $2.5 billion in liquidations as the market began pricing in a leaner, $6.6 trillion Fed balance sheet.
Headlines
Uncle Sam’s $12B Rock Collection
U.S. Strategic Minerals Push: The U.S. has launched a $12 billion initiative to secure domestic supplies of critical minerals. This move is a significant pivot in industrial policy aimed at reducing reliance on foreign debt holders and securing the hardware supply chain for both the energy transition and advanced computing.
Nvidia’s "It’s Not That Serious" Phase
Nvidia’s AI Dominance: Nvidia has clarified its investment strategy, signaling that financial backing of AI labs like OpenAI was never a "commitment" to a single partner. This highlights Nvidia's "arms dealer" position in the AI race and its focus on maintainting a hardware monopoly across the entire venture capital landscape.
The Germans Are Coming (to Crypto)
German Banking Milestone: Retail crypto adoption hit a major milestone in Europe as ING now allows German customers to purchase Bitcoin, Ether, and Solana products directly through their bank accounts, further blurring the line between traditional banking and digital assets.
Regulation Roundup
United States 🇺🇸
Regulatory "United Front": In a rare joint appearance, the SEC and CFTC chairs signaled a new era of cooperation, pledging to provide a clear roadmap for digital asset firms and suggesting that the time is right for pension funds to consider crypto exposure.
Tokenization Oversight: The SEC issued new guidance clarifying rules for tokenized stocks, specifically targeting "synthetic equity" to ensure blockchain-based versions of traditional shares meet the same rigorous scrutiny as the legacy market.
Nevada Wagering Suit: The Nevada Gaming Control Board has filed a civil enforcement action against Coinbase, alleging the exchange is offering unlicensed sports wagering through its prediction markets. This follows a similar recent crackdown on Polymarket in the state.
International 🌏
UAE Stablecoin Approval: The Central Bank of the UAE has officially approved its first USD-backed stablecoin, a major step in the region’s bid to become the primary global hub for regulated digital payments.
UK Stablecoin Inquiry: British lawmakers have launched a formal inquiry into stablecoin regulation, signaling that the UK is moving quickly to finalize its own rules to compete with the EU’s MiCA framework.
Canada’s Custody Crackdown: In an effort to prevent a repeat of the QuadrigaCX collapse, Canada’s investment regulators have rolled out strict new crypto custody rules, mandating higher standards for how exchanges hold client assets.
Events
Thursday, February 5
7:00 PM - 9:00 PM
Pubkey
Tampa, FL
Tuesday, February 10
7:00 PM - 9:00 PM
Pubkey
New York, New York
Thursday, February 12
7:00 PM - 9:00 PM
Pubkey
Miami, Florida


