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⌐◪-◪ → Degens love pixel art.

Marka and Backseats just hit it out of the park with their NFT project, Chonks—generating over $3.34M in a 24-hour open edition with 83,157 mints!

If you recall, I was making Chonks art way back in September when they first teased the project—something about those cute lil guys just caught my attention.

The secret to their success? I think it is a combination of many things:

1. Marka and Backseats are exceptional dudes who have been building/networking in the space for a long time. They are not motivated by greed; they are true craftsmen.

2. The project was CC0, which let people easily create derivative works leading up to the release, creating a viral flywheel of attention + initial community of creators who really made Chonks their own.

3. Chonks were priced at the low price of 0.01 ETH ($39), meaning just about anybody could participate. With that said, some went wild with a few holders minting over 500 Chonks!

4. The art itself is great. Just head over to Chonks.xyz and look at these guys. They are undeniably cute, and I could look at them all day.

5. It pushes the envelope. Chonks aren’t just a 24-hour generative open edition; they’re fully customizable characters where the base NFT (CHONK) is a token-bound account, and its traits (clothes, accessories, etc.) are their own tradable NFT tokens.

6. Market timing. They launched their collection within 24 hours of Bitcoin breaking $100k, which was a massive momentum-generating event for all of crypto. That, plus the NFT market is making its own comeback.

7. Last but not least, and this is the real secret sauce, it got people creating within their framework. Just like Opepen saw massive virality getting people to work within their framework, Chonks did the same but with their own twist—with tons of folks (myself included) making their own custom Chonks before the sale.

I can’t wait to see where this project goes. Just look at what they’ve accomplished up until now—they now have a massive community and war chest. Marka and Backseats didn’t just put on a masterclass in NFTs, they may have single-handedly sparked the NFT supercycle.

Join Specs.Chat to congratulate them and show off your Chonks!

⌐◪-◪ → All hail the new Crypto Czar.

President-elect Donald Trump just named David Sacks as the White House’s upcoming AI and Crypto Czar, continuing the trend of stacking his team with pro-crypto officials.

For those of you who don’t know, Sacks is one of the original members of the PayPal Mafia, where he eventually served as COO. After that, he founded Yammer, a messaging platform that Microsoft acquired for $1.2B in 2012. Now, among other things, he’s a general partner at Craft Ventures and one of four hosts on the popular All-In podcast.

His role as AI and Crypto Czar is simple: guide policy and legal frameworks for these two critical technologies to ensure America is a clear leader.

The Czar is also expected to lead the crypto advisory council Trump promised to create, which will be composed of representatives from exchanges, firms, and mining companies.

Sacks isn’t a bureaucrat—he’s a seasoned tech builder and investor with real-world experience. That’s a good thing.

⌐◪-◪ → The whale is Wall Street.

U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs officially hold more Bitcoin than Satoshi. With 1.1M Bitcoin under management, they are now the largest Bitcoin holders in the world. That’s 5.24% of the total 21M supply.

The craziest part? The ETFs aren’t even a year old yet, having launched earlier this year on January 10th.

For context, 1.1M is the same amount of Bitcoin Sen. Lummis proposed the U.S. acquire for a potential strategic Bitcoin reserve. This would put Uncle Sam in a direct Bitcoin arms race against Wall Street’s institutional and retail investors.

Traditional investors may still fade Bitcoin, but there’s no denying that these ETFs are the most successful financial product launch in history.

First corps, then banks, then States, then Nations. 2025 is about to be wild.

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