News and analysis

Loopring (LRC) is down 7.3% this week to $0.1229, underperforming the broader crypto market, where Bitcoin (BTC) is declining by 2.1% to $92,343 after a 9.1% surge on Sunday. The latest rally was sparked by U.S. President Donald Trump’s Truth Social post, suggesting that Bitcoin, Ethereum, Ripple, Solana, and Cardano will form a U.S. strategic crypto reserve. Cardano soared 70% in a single day on the news before the market retreated as investors awaited further details.

LRC climbed 9.3% to $0.1327 on Sunday but erased most gains the next day. The nearest support sits at $0.1200, followed by $0.1000. While another wave of the crypto rally could stabilise prices above these levels, a significant surge remains unlikely.

Tezos (XTZ) is down 9.9% this week to $0.717, outperforming the broader market, where Bitcoin (BTC) has plunged 16.5% to $80,000, briefly touching $78,220—its lowest level since November 10. The crypto market correction follows BTC’s overbought conditions after its Trump-driven rally, with further downside pressure fueled by renewed tariff threats from the former U.S. president.

Tezos has already fallen significantly and is now halfway to key support at $0.600, making further declines less likely. In a baseline scenario, XTZ is positioned for a recovery towards the $1.000 resistance.

When looking at how Bitcoin desperately fell in just three days from above $95,000 to form a 15-week bottom at nearly $82,300, so soon after breaking new records around $110,000, it seems to be unbelievable for an inexperienced observer to know that there was no any specific fundamental reasons behind such a strong corrective drop. And yet, this was essentially how it happened. Amid the vast information bias that could really put this downward pressure on the world's most important crypto asset, we can only quote the FBI message about alleged responsibility for a $1.5 billion ByBit hack of the North Korean malicious cyber activity known as "TraderTraitor". Its actors have reportedly converted stolen Ethereum to Bitcoin and other virtual assets dispersed across thousands of addresses on multiple blockchains last Friday. This affected more than 60 million users worldwide.

A sad story, but possible compensation for victims from ByBit is still discussed, and it’s unlikely that the current situation is able to undermine investors' trust for any significant period of time. Enthusiasm of those people who are eager to buy Bitcoin at any reasonable price still looks reasonable. Trump tariff wars have nothing to do with Bitcoin demand, as well as a somewhat slower-than-expected cycle of the U.S. Federal Reserve's rate reduction, which can only delay some people's ultimate decision about the proper time to convert their cash from the Greenback into the crypto world. From early March to late October 2024, a highly visible technical resistance area between $73,500 and $75,000 served as a safe barrier against further climbing to the round hill over $100,000. Now it can be seen by many as a solid foundation for a new era of an expensive-but-temporary-cheaper Bitcoin. At current prices, even purely mathematically, a risk/reward ratio is approximately 1:4, which is very good by the standards of the crypto market, keeping in mind figures like $110,000 and above as still looming targets.

The steady demand for converting fiat Dollars into Bitcoin is also supported by statements of the U.S. Republican leaders headed by Trump. U.S. federal government is going to buy up to 200,000 of Bitcoin per year for 5 years at least, with an intention to accumulate a reserve fund of 1 million Bitcoins. Besides, at least 15 individual U.S. states are in the process of establishing their own Bitcoin reserves as well at each state level. If Trump has set out to turn Washington into the crypto capital of the world, then there is no doubt that the corresponding bills will pass the Congress.

Inflation skyrocketed over the last five years, and it could surge again. The stock market's achievements are great, but recent corrections in techs showed that profit from these equities could be less than in 2024. Economic success doesn't equal to the market gains as well, and the global economy could face growing uncertainties as international relations are changing. Robert Kiyosaki, the "Rich Dad Poor Dad" author, recently called Bitcoin’s latest dip as a unique chance to buy more, feeling that the problem is not Bitcoin, but rather the financial system itself including the banks and the massive debt load. If one talks about the U.S., the actual debt is not "just" the famous $36 trillion but the number of obligations like Medicare and Social Security that may surpass $200 trillion according to some calculations. Again, buying U.S. bonds is not profitable now, even if we forget the assumption that main bondholders like Japan and China can stop propping them up. And now, when even the sitting U.S. President is ready to recognize Bitcoin as real money to make reserves against debt problems, it is hard to imagine that demand will become much weaker soon.

Looking at the bigger picture, Kiyosaki doesn't care about rising volatility in Bitcoin, which is nothing new, but saying that Bitcoin is "a hedge against economic chaos" with dips as buying opportunities. Of course, volatility is also a part of the chaos, but probably its minor detail compared to many others. This approach seems very close to our vision, if we remember that a hedge originally was not a market term but rather an object that protected a house and a garden from invasion. The current gap in this Bitcoin hedge simply means a hole in a fence, and this gap, or this hole, can serve as a source of fresh air. However, people like Kiyosaki and those having thought along similar lines can quickly repair this gap with their money to restore the integrity of this hedge and to earn more money. Like other things temporarily broken, a hedge against world chaos could appear intact again.

The dogs bark, but the parade goes on. NVIDIA's quarterly report showed solid results last night, so that the AI darling remains at the head of the tech caravan. Wall Street was tensely awaiting metrics from the top blue chip of the last couple of years and even, for a time, the most valuable company in the world after the close of the regular session. That was exactly the moment of doubt for many investors as some giant tech companies including Meta, Amazon and Google indulged into all kinds of corrective price actions. Well, the AI revolution hero has not failed anybody. The smallest news was that NVIDIA happily announced its Q4 EPS (earnings per share) of $0.89 on three-month revenue of $39.3 billion to clearly beat analyst polls estimates of $0.84 on a more than $1 billion smaller revenue of $38.16 billion. However, the best piece of news was that its management freshly projected as much as a 9.4% sales growth to $43 billion, plus or minus 2%, for the current quarter; also well above recent consensus forecast at nearly $41.8 billion. Things just go on in the way I told you before. The new Blackwell series is in high demand, while Chinese "competitors” or still rather NVIDIA's clients, are also ramping up orders for Nvidia's previous Hopper AI chip due to their local boom created by a relative success on a cheaper DeepSeek's model. Only most advanced AI chips can speedily process big data needs and tasks for large players like Microsoft, Amazon etc. Why not chase two hares at once, if NVIDIA has such capacity? NVIDIA's CEO Jensen Huang reiterated that post-training for AI is driving demand as more computing power like the Blackwell ramp is needed for reasoning models, while next-generation AI models would be "even more thoughtful", so that post-training process would require "hundreds, thousands, or perhaps millions" more computing power. Well, big tech companies continue to spend billions of dollars building their AI data centres, and much of that money goes directly to Nvidia. As an example, Meta wants to build its own U.S.-located data centre by investing $200 billion, they just confirmed this week. Jensen Huang noted that the world has "only recently tapped consumer AI", but  the next wave is coming: agentic AI, physical AI, and sovereign AI.

A scheduled sensation is not a sensation at all, as Wall Street is tipped for NVIDIA success. Therefore, I feel it's a quite normal phenomenon that its share price seesawed after the release, with prices initially slipping 1.5% to $129 per unit in the first hour of the extended trading on Wednesday and then rising 2.28% above $134 again before the opening bell on Thursday. In any case, there was no sell-out, which is already a sign of strength, meaning that the flagship stayed afloat to help an entire squadron of tech ships to sail on. Even if some unfavourable circumstances of a temporary nature drag, NVIDIA shares to test bottoms around $120 again, like it happened at the end of January, the analyst pool's 12-month target levels above $170 look like a modest hint of even higher achievements. For me, NVIDIA's target for 2025 lies around $200 at least.

As to the further profit potential for NVIDIA stock itself, its CFO Colette Kress commented that gross margins will be "in the low-70s" during the Blackwell ramp, due to Nvidia's commitment to building out manufacturing, but once Blackwell fully ramps, gross margins can "improve to the mid-70s" later this year. In Q4, NVIDIA generated $11 billion of revenue from the Blackwell-related products, which was 50% of the overall data center revenue, she added.

For me, NVIDIA is easily coping with the looming threat of tariff wars and even the potential for further export controls on the delivery of its cutting-edge chips to China. This wild stallion of the modern era could be already called the old AI horse, compared to its younger and low-budget Chinese rivals, but anyway, this is the horse that wouldn't mess up the furrows going straight ahead.