GM to all of you nutcases. It’s Crypto Nutshell #838 findin’ the way… 🧭🥜

We're the crypto newsletter that's more unforgiving than a chess match played with real lives on a frozen border… ♟️❄️

What we’ve cooked up for you today…

What’s in the Crypto Nutshell Portfolio?

BREAKING: BlackRock debuts staked ether ETF as demand grows for yield in crypto funds

BlackRock's third crypto ETF started trading on Nasdaq this morning.

The iShares Staked Ethereum Trust (ETHB) is the first BlackRock fund to include staking.

It holds spot ETH and stakes between 70% and 95% of its holdings on the Ethereum network. Investors earn staking rewards paid out monthly - similar to a dividend.

The fund passes 82% of those rewards through to investors.

Coinbase, which serves as custodian and staking provider, takes 10% as a base fee. The rest is split between the trust and its validators - Figment, Galaxy, and London-based Attestant.

ETHB charges a 0.25% sponsor fee, with a temporary discount to 0.12% on the first $2.5 billion in assets.

And day one looked strong.

ETF analyst James Seyffart reported $15.5 million in trading volume on the first day, calling it "very very solid" for an ETF launch.

This matters because the first wave of spot ETH ETFs launched without staking.

That meant investors gave up yield to buy the ETF wrapper. Many crypto-native holders stayed on self-custody rather than lose that income.

BlackRock's Jay Jacobs said the firm expects a shift.

Some assets will move from ETHA - BlackRock's existing spot ETH fund, which holds $6.5 billion - into ETHB.

And some ETH holders who were staking directly may now move into the ETF for the first time.

"For people who own it directly and were staking it, they may not have seen existing ETP solutions as apples to apples," Jacobs said. "Now ETHB makes it much more comparable."

The competition is already live.

Grayscale's Mini Ethereum Trust passes 94% of rewards at a 0.15% fee. Its larger ETHE fund passes just 77% at a much steeper 2.5% fee.

REX-Osprey launched a staking ETF last year but holds just $1.6 million in assets.

BlackRock is the clear heavyweight here.

The firm now manages over $130 billion across crypto ETPs, tokenised funds, and stablecoin reserves. It captured roughly 95% of all digital asset ETP flows in 2025.

Staking ETFs are no longer a novelty.

With BlackRock in the game, they're the baseline. 🚀

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That's the disconnect Tom Lee just called out on CNBC. And it might be the most important one in the market right now.

Lee is the co-founder and head of research at Fundstrat Global Advisors, one of Wall Street's most respected independent research firms.

He's been one of the few traditional finance voices who has stayed consistently bullish on crypto through the worst of this drawdown.

And in his latest interview, he said it plainly: it looks like crypto is bottoming.

Not because of the charts. Because of the fundamentals.

He pointed to what's actually happening behind the scenes while everyone is focused on red candles.

Banks at Davos are openly embracing crypto. Regulatory bills favourable to the industry are moving forward. And BlackRock, the largest asset manager on the planet, just moved into DeFi through Uniswap.

Lee's reaction to that last one? Even he was struck by it.

BlackRock going into DeFi is the kind of move that would have been unthinkable just 2 years ago. Now it's happening in the middle of a bear market, while most retail investors have checked out.

That's the pattern. The biggest moves in crypto's history have always started when the fundamentals were screaming but the price action was terrible.

The smart money doesn't wait for the chart to confirm what the fundamentals are already saying. It positions while everyone else is staring at the wrong screen.

The tailwinds are stacking up. The price just hasn't caught up yet. 🚀

Today we’ll be taking a look at the amount of Bitcoin available for sale on exchanges.

Here’s how to interpret this metric:

Just 2.70 million BTC now sit on exchanges - 13.51% of the circulating supply.

And since the start of 2026, 46,817 BTC have been pulled off exchanges. That's roughly $3.1 billion in Bitcoin removed from the open market in a matter of weeks.

Let that land for a second…

We're in the middle of a brutal drawdown. Fear is elevated. Headlines are ugly. And yet Bitcoin keeps leaving exchanges at pace.

This isn't new either. Exchange balances have been in structural decline for years. The trend doesn't care about sentiment cycles - it just keeps grinding lower.

Less supply available. More conviction underneath. The market can stay ugly on the surface, but the plumbing tells a different story.

Sellers are running out of coins to sell. 💪

Bitcoin Quantum Threat Is Real But Not Imminent, Says Cathie Wood's Ark Invest. Researchers say quantum breakthroughs could eventually expose millions in Bitcoin unless the network adopts post-quantum cryptography.

SEC, CFTC Handshake on Memo to Regulate Markets in Harmony. The SEC and CFTC have agreed to regulate crypto and other financial markets in harmony, including sharing information and data on issues of common interest.

Crypto trader loses nearly all of $50 million in one botched DeFi transaction. Aave founder Stani Kulechov said the interface displayed multiple slippage warnings, which the user manually accepted on a mobile device.

JPMorgan says bitcoin and gold ETFs show sharp flow divergence since Iran war. GLD has seen outflows of about 2.7% of assets, while IBIT has seen inflows of around 1.5% of assets since the war erupted, analysts said.

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Select your answer below and you’ll be redirected to the results page. (answer explanation can be found after “Meme Corner”)

Because what would the crypto world be without its share of memes?

Trivia Answer: When a single entity controls more than half of a network's mining or validation power, allowing them to manipulate transactions 🥳

With majority control of hash power or stake, an attacker could theoretically double-spend coins or block transactions from confirming. Larger networks like Bitcoin are considered practically immune due to the enormous cost of acquiring that much hash power, but smaller proof-of-work chains have been successfully attacked.

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DISCLAIMER: The content of this newsletter is not financial advice. This newsletter is strictly educational and is not investment advice. Please be careful and do your own research.