The Market’s Waking Up. Are You?

Bitcoin, altcoins, crypto basics, projects, and strategy—all tied together clearly for you…

A.Z.

Apr 27, 2025

📬 This Week’s Check-In

The market’s finally showing some real signs of life.

In the last five days, crypto added about $288 billion — and Bitcoin pulled in a record $3 billion into ETFs. Big money is moving again, and it’s happening a little faster than most people expected.

Bitcoin even passed Google in global asset rankings.

Now it’s looking straight at NVIDIA like it’s the next target.

Meanwhile, regulators in the U.S. eased up on crypto restrictions. China pulled back tariffs. Fidelity pointed out that public companies are buying and holding more Bitcoin than ever. And Brazil rolled out the world’s first XRP ETF.

And if that wasn’t enough movement, SUI started flying on Pokémon rumors, Avalanche is betting on money services, and Beam — a small gaming blockchain we’re spotlighting today — might just be one of the few gaming projects actually getting it right.

⚡ Bottom line: You can feel it. After months of sideways, crypto’s gears are starting to grind forward again. And the smart ones are already positioning themselves while things still feel "early."

Here’s what we’re covering this week:

📸 Spotlight Project: We’re looking at Beam, a gaming blockchain that’s doing something rare — building real games people might actually want to play. Plus, serious AI moves and big funding coming in.
⛓️ Crypto Basics: Leverage trading sounds complicated (and risky), but most people get it wrong because they were taught wrong. We’ll break it down in normal language — no drama, just how it really works.
🔎 Deep Dive: Smart contracts aren’t magic. They’re just code that does what it’s told. We’ll show you why understanding them — even a little — makes you way smarter in this space.
💰 Quick Win: How bookmarking the right Dune dashboards can give you a better read on the market than half the crypto influencers out there. It’s free. It’s simple. Most people won’t do it — but you should.
🌍 Crypto in the Real World: Blackbird is fixing restaurant loyalty points using blockchain — but in a way you won’t even notice. No wallets, no jargon. Just real rewards for real people.
💎 Small-Cap Gem: Meet Humans.ai — a project trying to make sure AI doesn’t run off with your face, your voice, or your work. Ownership baked into the system from the start. Way early, but interesting.

🔔 This isn’t the week to skim. The cracks in the old financial system are starting to show — and so are the doors opening up for those paying attention.

Coffee's still hot. Let’s get into it. 🧠

📈The Crypto Pulse

📸Spotlight Project

—Beam—

A gaming blockchain that actually makes sense.

You know how most gaming projects in crypto usually promise big but end up being pretty disappointing? Either the games suck, the blockchain tech gets complicated, or nobody ends up playing anyway. But every now and then, something genuinely interesting pops up—something that makes you pause and go, "Okay, this might actually work."

For me, that's Beam right now. Let me explain why.

⚙️ Beam is now its own Layer 1 blockchain.

Beam started off under Avalanche’s wing as a subnet, but recently stepped out on its own as a fully independent Layer 1 blockchain. And that’s actually a bigger deal than it sounds. Now Beam gets to decide how fast it scales, how cheaply it operates, and how many other blockchains it connects with—without Avalanche holding the leash. In the first three months of 2025 alone, Beam went from having just 8 validators (basically gatekeepers) to hundreds of validators, making it a more secure, open network.

🤖 They’re not messing around with AI.

I know, AI is everywhere right now, and yeah, lots of crypto projects are jumping on the bandwagon without much substance. But Beam's approach feels real because they've actually hired an Oxford-trained AI mathematician to integrate AI into gaming in a meaningful way. They’re developing AI-powered characters (NPCs) that respond dynamically to how players act, making the gameplay genuinely more fun and realistic. Early testing shows players stick around much longer with these AI-driven games, which means Beam games might actually get traction—not just hype.

💵 Real-world money and real-world backing.

Beam just launched an investment and accelerator fund in Abu Dhabi called Beam Ventures, specifically aimed at blockchain gaming and AI. They’re targeting around $150 million in funding, and this isn’t just throwing money around—they’re actually working directly with game developers to build better products. Big names are already behind this: Avalanche itself has invested half a million dollars into Beam nodes, and Sofon, another blockchain entertainment giant, is deeply involved.

🪙 A genuine deflationary token setup (finally).

BEAM tokens are pretty interesting too. It’s not just another pointless governance token—BEAM tokens actually do stuff. You use them for staking, fees, trading items, and even running network nodes. Speaking of nodes, every node minted burns BEAM tokens permanently (so far, around 1.8 billion tokens have been burned). That helps reduce supply naturally, making each token potentially more valuable over time.

🏷️ Retail-friendly, realistic pricing.

Beam tokens cost about $0.007 each right now, which means buying even a modest amount gives you a bunch of tokens. It sounds silly, but psychologically that feels good compared to paying $20 for just a few tokens of something else. It’s a smart move by Beam to attract more everyday people, especially once the market heats up again and retail investors start looking around.

💰 Solid treasury and resources.

Beam isn’t a scrappy startup hoping things go their way—they’re sitting on a huge treasury of around $400 million. That’s not pocket change. They have enough money to sustain themselves, fund promising games, and do some serious marketing when the moment’s right. That’s comforting because it means Beam won’t vanish overnight if crypto goes through another rough patch.

🎯 Here’s how you might want to play this:

Beam’s still small, under a $500 million market cap. The biggest gaming crypto projects in the last cycle (like Axie Infinity) reached over $10 billion. Even if Beam captures just a fraction of that, we’re talking serious growth. I personally believe Beam can comfortably hit around 8-10x from where it is now if things go well—especially with all the catalysts lining up like AI integrations and their big fund in Abu Dhabi.

But here’s something important:

Be careful about token unlocks and insiders potentially selling. Beam doesn’t score perfectly here—there are a decent number of tokens held by early investors who might cash out if prices spike. Keep this in mind, watch price action, and consider taking profits incrementally if things start going well.

💡My advice right now?

Keep a close eye on Beam, especially around any official announcements regarding their AI developments or new big-name partnerships through Beam Ventures. You don’t have to rush—waiting for a breakout and retest around $0.01 might be smart. If it breaks and holds above this point strongly, it could be the perfect confirmation you're looking for before jumping in.

This isn’t financial advice, obviously, but I’m personally pretty excited about Beam. It genuinely feels like one of the few gaming blockchains doing things right. Keep it on your radar.

⛓️Crypto Basics

—Leverage Trading Explained (Without the Drama)—

Leverage trading confuses a lot of people—mostly because it’s explained badly by folks who don't actually use it. Let's clear that up in simple terms. (I promise.)

What Exactly is Leverage? 🤔

Basically, leverage is just borrowing money to trade. Instead of trading with your own $1,000, the exchange lets you borrow extra.

If you use 5x leverage, your $1,000 acts like $5,000. So if Bitcoin rises by 10%, your profit isn't just 10% ($100)—it's 50% ($500). Nice!

But it works the other way too: if Bitcoin drops by 10%, you lose 50% ($500). Not so nice.

📈📉 Long vs Short: Quick Explanation

Long means you're betting the price goes up. You borrow money (dollar), buy Bitcoin, wait for the price to rise, then sell and repay the loan, pocketing the difference.
Short means you're betting the price goes down. You borrow Bitcoin, sell it right away, wait for the price to drop, then buy it back cheaper, repay the Bitcoin you borrowed, and keep what's left.

Sounds tricky, but once you do it a few times, it clicks.

⚠️ The Big Misunderstanding About Risk

Everyone says leverage is risky, but here’s what really matters:

It’s not the leverage amount (like 10x, 50x, 100x) that makes trading dangerous—it’s how much money you're actually risking per trade.

Here’s a practical example:

Say you want to risk only 1% ($10) of your $1,000 on a trade.
If your stop-loss (the point where you automatically exit the trade) is tight (e.g., 0.15%), you can put a larger amount of borrowed money into the trade without actually risking more than $10.
Whether you use 1x, 10x, or even 100x leverage doesn't matter much if you set your stop-loss correctly. You’re still only risking $10.

💡Real Reasons to Use Leverage (and Be Smart)

Keep less money on exchanges: If your trading account gets hacked, better losing a smaller deposit than your whole stash.
Trade more coins without needing tons of cash: If you trade multiple cryptos, leverage helps stretch your money safely.
Stop yourself from breaking rules: High leverage forces discipline because your losses get limited quickly (your position closes automatically).

How to Avoid Getting Burned 🔥

Always use a stop-loss. Always.
Only risk a small, fixed percentage of your total funds (like 1%) per trade.
Don’t think bigger leverage equals bigger profits. It just speeds things up—wins and losses alike.

Takeaway:

Leverage is just a tool. If you use it right, it’s helpful. If not—well, let’s just say it won’t end pretty. 🤷

Got more questions? Drop them in the comments—I’m here to help.

🔎Deep Dive

—What Smart Contracts Really Are—

Let’s keep this simple.

Smart contracts are just pieces of code that sit on a blockchain.

They run when certain conditions are met.

That’s it.

They don’t need a boss, a server, or someone pushing a button.

If the terms are met, they run. If not, they don’t. No human in the middle.

You can think of them like rules.

“If this happens, then do that.”

Like:

“If it rains less than 20mm in this region, pay the farmer.”

“If Alice sends 1 ETH, send her back 100 DAI.”

And once it’s on the blockchain, no one can change the rule. Not even the person who wrote it (unless they built in a way to delete it).

This makes smart contracts very reliable — and sometimes, very risky.

⚙️ How They Work

They’re automatic. Once they’re on the blockchain, they do their job without needing permission or input.
They don’t care who you are. Anyone can interact with them. Doesn’t matter where you live or how much money you have.
They don’t change. If the code is wrong, it stays wrong unless there’s a fix built in.
They’re open. You can read the code if it’s on a public blockchain. Nothing is hidden.
They follow logic, not people. They don’t take sides. They just check if the rule is met.

This removes a lot of the mess we’re used to — no gatekeepers, no delays, no “sorry, something went wrong” emails.

🌍 A Real Example That’s Easy to Miss

One of the most powerful examples is crop insurance.

Here’s how it works:

A farmer in a rural area might not have access to any insurance company.

Even if they do, filing a claim is a nightmare — if it even gets paid.

But with a smart contract, that farmer can use a basic phone, connect to a service that checks weather data from satellites, and — if there’s a drought — the contract pays them automatically.

No lawyer. No forms. No delay.

This already exists. And it matters a lot more in places where systems fail.

💡 Why This Matters (Even If You’re Not a Farmer)

You’ve probably used a smart contract without realizing it.

Swapped tokens on Uniswap? That was a contract.
Claimed an airdrop? Contract.
Minted an NFT? Yep, still a contract.

But that’s just scratching the surface.

Smart contracts remove middlemen. Not just banks and companies — but inefficiencies, delays, and excuses.

And in places where systems don’t work at all, they’re not just helpful — they’re essential.

Imagine living in a country with no reliable bank, no real legal system, and high inflation.

Now imagine being able to save, lend, insure, or trade — without needing any of those things.

That’s what this tech makes possible. Not perfectly. But better than nothing.

And that’s a massive shift.

🧱 What’s the Catch?

If the code is wrong, it stays wrong. (Like The DAO hack in 2016 — that was messy.)
It’s hard to fix mistakes once a contract is live.
You still have to trust that the data feeding into the contract is accurate.
Not every problem should be solved with a smart contract. Some things need a human call.

So, this isn’t a magical fix for the world. It’s a tool — a powerful one — but still just a tool.

🛠️ What You Can Take From This

Don’t overcomplicate it. Smart contracts are logic on a blockchain.
They’re already part of how crypto works. Understanding them helps you understand the space better.
They’re being used in places most people aren’t paying attention to — and that’s usually where the biggest shifts happen.

No need to hype this up. Just know it’s real, and it’s already working in ways that matter…

💰Quick Win of the Week

—Bookmark Your Favorite Dune Dashboards and Check Them Regularly—

Most people open Dune once, get overwhelmed by SQL and graphs, and never touch it again.

That’s a mistake.

You don’t need to know how to code or build dashboards from scratch. You just need to know how to follow the right ones. Think of Dune like a public notepad for on-chain detectives. The smart ones build dashboards. The rest of us just bookmark the good ones and check them like the weather.

It’s free. Takes 10 seconds to set up. And once you start using it right, it’s like getting a second pair of eyes on the market — ones that aren’t distracted by Twitter drama or hype.

🧠 Why it matters

You can't trust price action alone. Especially in crypto, where narratives move faster than logic.

What actually matters?

Who’s buying. Who’s selling. Where the liquidity is moving. What people actually do — not what they say.

That's where Dune can help you. The platform scrapes real-time on-chain data and turns it into dashboards built by other users. Like this one:

👉 Crypto Buy Signal – Alts Dashboard

This chart isn’t trying to impress anyone. It’s just showing what altcoin conditions look like right now based on behavior.

And if you look at where that signal bottomed last time? Right before altcoins went vertical in 2021. Not saying it’ll repeat. But it’s worth watching.

🔧 What to do right now:

Go to Dune. Make a free account.
Search for dashboards around the tokens or themes you follow (like “L2 metrics” or “RWA” or “whale trades”).
Click the ⭐ on any dashboard you find useful.
Create a weekly habit: every Sunday or Monday morning, open your starred dashboards and look for any shifts.

That’s it. No alpha leaks. No secret indicators. Just building your own instinct by checking the real numbers consistently.

The dashboards won’t tell you what to do. But they will help you think better — and in this space, that’s usually enough.

🌍Crypto in the Real World

—Blackbird and the Loyalty Points That Actually Mean Something—

Most restaurant loyalty programs suck.

You collect points you forget about, or they offer you 50 cents off your tenth burrito like it’s a prize. The whole system feels like an afterthought — and it usually is.

Blackbird is doing something different. Not “disruptive” different. Just… actually useful.

It’s a loyalty and payments app for restaurants — powered by blockchain, but you’d never know it. There’s no wallet setup. No crypto talk. You walk into a restaurant, tap your phone, and the rest happens in the background.

So what’s the point?

🧾 You earn Fly points. 🍷 You use them like cash — right there. 📲 It’s fast, clean, and actually gives the restaurant something back.

💸 Restaurants Are Leaking Money. Blackbird Patches the Hole

Here’s what most people don’t realize: restaurants lose 3–5% of every single transaction to credit card fees and middlemen. That adds up — especially for independent spots already scraping by.

Blackbird cuts out the middle. You pay through the app, and that payment goes straight from you to the restaurant. No third party taking a slice just because they can.

You still get your food. The restaurant keeps more of your money. And if you use Fly points, even better — it's kind of like using store credit you earned from just showing up.

No tricks. No NFTs shoved in your face. Just value for both sides.

🧠 What Makes This “Crypto”?

You don’t see wallets or tokens flying around, but underneath it all, it’s built on its own blockchain (called Flynet, layered on top of Base). Everything — check-ins, payments, rewards — lives there.

Why does that matter?

Because instead of relying on platforms like Visa, or loyalty tools like Amex or Uber Eats, Blackbird runs its own network. It owns the pipes. That means they can:

Cut costs for restaurants (no fee monsters).
Give users actual ownership (if you use it, you get a share of it).
Track and reward behavior on-chain without selling your data to ad companies.

So while you're just eating your meal, there’s an entire economic system quietly working behind the scenes — and you’re part of it whether you know it or not.

📦 Two Kinds of Points, Two Purposes

Let’s keep it simple:

Fly: These are your restaurant points. You earn them when you check in or pay, and you can spend them directly at participating spots. Pay your bill. Buy your coffee. Get that glass of wine you wouldn’t usually splurge on. Instant value.
F2: This is the token for people who want to help govern the network (Flynet). If you’ve used Blackbird, you’ve probably already been given some. It’s not for day trading — it’s more like a long-term dividend. When Fly gets spent, a small chunk gets sent to the F2 holders. That adds up over time.

So you’ve got one token for spending, and one that acts more like ownership. Split for clarity, and that’s a good thing.

🔁 What the Tap-In Actually Does

This part’s slick.

You walk into a Blackbird restaurant and tap your phone on a little puck. That’s your check-in. The restaurant sees:

Who you are (basic info, nothing creepy)
How often you’ve been there
What you usually spend
How much Fly you’ve got

It’s like you’re a regular — even if it’s your first visit.

And when it’s time to pay? They push the bill to your phone. You choose: Fly points, credit card, whatever. No receipt shuffle. No card reader.

Just done.

📍 Who’s Using It and Why It’s Working

Blackbird’s live in over 500 restaurants, mostly small, local places — not chains. Think: your neighborhood café, not Dunkin'.

And they’re using it because they don’t have the budget or tech teams to build loyalty programs like Starbucks. They can’t compete with Sweetgreen’s email system or Amex’s reward charts. But they can install a puck and offer Fly points.

That’s the gap Blackbird fills — quietly giving these places a real chance to win back customers without selling out to tech platforms.

🛠️ Not Just an App. It's Infrastructure That Doesn’t Get in the Way

This isn’t a crypto company shouting about decentralization or tokenomics.

This is a tool that restaurants use, and that customers don’t even think about. It just works.

And yeah, there’s a whole blockchain under it — Flynet. But the best part? Nobody has to care. Not until it becomes clear they’ve slowly started to own part of the network just by being early.

That’s the kind of Trojan horse we need more of in crypto — not airdrops for people who run bots and dump tokens, but rewards for people who actually use the thing.

🍳 For me;

Most crypto projects still live online. They're built for traders or DAOs or DeFi nerds (nothing wrong with that).

But Blackbird lives in the real world. You can touch it. You can eat the food. You can tap your phone and walk out with a coffee paid for by points you earned last week.

That’s what “crypto in the real world” should look like — not a buzzword, but a quiet upgrade to how things already work.

💎Small-Cap Gems

Humans.ai (HEART)

If you could clone your voice, your face, even parts of your brain... would you trust some random startup to handle it?

Yeah, me neither.

That’s basically the reason Humans.ai (HEART) exists.

They didn’t start by chasing hype or gain. They started by asking a serious question:

"If we’re going to build AI tools that can recreate human abilities... how do we make sure creators actually stay in control?"

The answer they came up with?

You build an entire ecosystem where ownership is baked into the system — using blockchain, NFTs, and a "Proof of Human" safeguard.

(And you definitely don’t let some giant corporation scoop up your work while you’re not looking.)

🧠 What Humans.ai Is Doing

Humans.ai is building a full blockchain from scratch (on Cosmos SDK), designed specifically to mint, own, and manage AI models.

You can clone your voice, your face, or train AI to generate content using your style — all stored as AI NFTs.
Each NFT has rules baked into it. You decide how your AI can be used. (Not some random CEO you’ve never met.)
If someone wants to use your AI model — let’s say your cloned voice in an ad — you approve it in real-time using their "Proof of Human" tech (think simple biometric checks, like face ID or heartbeat sensors).
If you don’t approve? It doesn’t happen. Period.

They’re already working with real businesses.

Some clients have fully cloned their own spokespersons — voice, face, expressions — and are using them in video ads without ever stepping into a studio.

Even cooler: you can clone your voice in languages you don't even speak.

(One of the founders trained his Romanian AI clone to speak fluent Japanese... and he doesn’t know a single word.)

And this isn't science fiction anymore — it's live testing, with real clients, right now.

🌍 Why Humans.ai Looks Promising

Ownership Solves the Trust Problem:
Most people won’t hand over their identity or creative work without serious protection. Humans.ai gives creators real control, not just a "Terms of Service" checkbox.
Early Mover Advantage in AI x Blockchain:
AI agents are about to flood every industry — marketing, gaming, education, entertainment. But most people have no way to own or sell what they create. Humans.ai is solving that gap.
Timing and Market Dynamics:
AI coins have this weird pattern. When crypto runs hot, people FOMO into AI tokens fast.
Humans.ai’s price has chopped up and down— but historically, every time AI gets hot again, coins like HEART explode.
Right now, HEART is sitting in a pretty quiet zone — not hyped, not overheated — just lurking, waiting for the next AI cycle wave.
Proof of Human = Real-World Safety Net:
Unlike shady AI projects where bots run wild, here every major AI action still needs a living, breathing human to approve it. It's not just "trust the code," it’s verify with your face or pulse. This matters more than people realize (especially once AI scams start popping up everywhere).
Serious Real-World Projects in Progress:
They’re not just theorizing. They already partnered with the biggest football club in Romania to create the Voice of the Community — a giant AI voice built by stitching together fan recordings.
It’s an education pipeline to pull regular people into using blockchain-backed AI.

⚠️ What Could Go Wrong

Early Stage Tech = Early Stage Problems:
The blockchain is still in development. The real mass-market applications will take time to mature.
Volatility Is Brutal:
HEART’s price history looks like a rollercoaster designed by a caffeine addict. If you can’t stomach wild swings, this isn’t your playground.
Complex Product Could Slow Adoption:
Educating people about AI ownership, NFTs, proof-of-human... it’s a lot. Regular users might take a while to catch up.

🔥 What to do:

If you’re building a long-term, high-risk, high-reward crypto portfolio, HEART could be a smart speculative play for a tiny portion (1–2%) of your stack.

Not because it’s a guaranteed moonshot.

Because if AI ownership really becomes a thing — and it will — early projects like Humans.ai might end up as foundational infrastructure.

Just don’t bet your rent money on it. Clone your face, clone your voice, but don’t clone mistakes from 2021 bull run.

💬 My Thought:

A lot of crypto projects say they're the future.

Humans.ai is trying to build a future where you don’t need to "trust" — you can own.

In a world that's getting flooded with AI noise, that’s not a small thing.

That’s everything.

📌 Wrapping Up: Where Are We Really Headed?

There's a lot of optimism in crypto right now—and yeah, there's good reason for it. Banks just got the green light to step fully into crypto, Bitcoin ETFs keep pulling in billions, and markets are shrugging off things like tariff noise that used to rattle them. It feels like the gears have shifted.

But before you dive in head-first, let’s slow down and keep it real for a second.

Even with the momentum we're seeing, the path upward isn't going to be a straight line. Bitcoin might push towards new all-time highs soon—maybe even $120K—but expect pullbacks, especially as summer approaches and traders start hitting pause. Historically, we often see dips right after quantitative tightening wraps up around June, so don’t be shocked if the market cools down temporarily before heating up again later in the year.

Ethereum's looking solid too—upgrades coming soon might push ETH to $5-7K by year’s end. But don't bank on wild predictions like $11K just yet (though hey, we'd all love to see it). Realistically, patience is key. Keep an eye out for a pullback around summer as well, and then another strong push heading into fall.

Here's a simple way to think about it:

Short term: Things look bullish, but expect some resistance near past highs.
Mid-year: A summer lull isn't something to panic over—it's normal market behavior.
End of year: Potentially big moves upwards again. Think smart, not greedy.

Bottom line?

Yes, things are genuinely positive right now—but crypto rewards those who stay balanced. Not hype chasers. Not panic sellers. Just smart folks who know how to read the signals and keep their cool.

Stay sharp, keep your risk in check, and remember—this isn't a sprint, it’s still a marathon.

That's it for this week. Thanks for being here—I appreciate you. See you in the next one.

-A.Z.

Founder, Freedom Finance

P.S. Money moves in cycles, patience wins, and most people panic at exactly the wrong time. That’s what we cover here at Freedom Finance—real market moves, actual strategy, none of the usual nonsense.

We’re also running a $100 Portfolio as a public experiment. No magic formulas, no hype—just seeing what happens when you invest small, stay consistent, and make decisions like an actual investor. Because if you can’t manage $100, why would you handle $10,000 any better?