This Isn’t 2021. Don’t Play It Like It Is

This isn’t a hype cycle. It’s a sorting process. And it’s already underway...

A.Z.

Jul 13, 2025

Bitcoin broke another record this week. Crossed $118K. Liquidated over a billion in shorts. And somehow, the market barely blinked. No big flood of retail money. No wave of hype. Just steady pressure upward — the kind that feels like it’s coming from people who already knew what they were doing.

That tells you something. Not about the price, but the mood. Less noise. More weight.

Meanwhile, things around the edges are starting to shift. Congress is lining up three major crypto bills for a vote next week — one on defining how markets are structured, one on stablecoins, and one trying to stop a federal CBDC. It’s not theater anymore. These bills are real, and if they pass, the rules of the game start changing — especially for U.S.-based platforms and investors.

Europe’s making moves too. ESMA just called out some crypto firms for implying they’re fully regulated under MiCA when they’re not. It’s a warning — but also a marker. Regulators are done letting platforms play fast and loose with the language. That might slow down marketing, but it could speed up clarity. Which, long-term, is good.

Then there’s Trump — now backing a crypto ETF with Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana in the mix. Coming from someone who used to mock the whole space, it’s... weird. But not irrelevant. The fact that political figures are trying to brand themselves into crypto, instead of away from it, says something about where the sentiment’s going.

Elsewhere, some stories didn’t make big headlines but still matter.

MoonPay’s execs got scammed out of $250K through a phishing email. Not some protocol exploit. Just an old-fashioned con with a new costume. It’s a reminder: the tech can evolve, but the weak spots usually come down to people. And no one’s immune.

GMX and Peapods got exploited too. DeFi’s still fragile — and everyone in it is still a test case.

So that’s where we are: no blowups, no meltdowns, no fireworks. Just a bunch of quiet shifts in important places. The kind that usually get noticed later, when it’s already priced in.

This week’s newsletter digs deeper into all of that:

📸 We’ll go inside Sei Network — what they’ve actually shipped, why institutions are sniffing around, and what might still be missing.
⛓️ We’ll walk through copy trading in plain language — what it is, how to do it right, and why so many people mess it up.
🔎 We’ll break down why Avalanche and Solana aren’t really competing — they’re just building for different kinds of users.
💰 We’ll make the case for checking Bitcoin dominance more often — not to predict anything, but to understand how money’s moving.
💎 And we’ll shine a light on Distribute.ai — a small, smart project building a decentralized AI compute network that already works (but still flies under the radar).

That’s the week. Quiet on the surface. Busy underneath.

If you want hype, it’s easy to find.

If you want to understand what’s building — stick around.

Let’s get into it.👇

📈The Crypto Pulse

📸Spotlight Project

— Sei Network (SEI) —

SEI’s been floating just outside of the spotlight for a while. Quiet, but steady. It’s not the loudest chain out there, and that might actually be the point.

🔧So, what is SEI actually doing?

At the core, SEI is a layer-1 blockchain that was built with one specific thing in mind: performance.

And not “marketing-deck” performance. Actual speed. Smart contracts that execute in parallel instead of in one long line. Block finality that settles in under half a second. A rebuilt EVM that’s designed for modern workloads instead of old assumptions. They’re not throwing around buzzwords — they’re shipping working infrastructure.

Their mainnet went live in August 2023. Since then, they’ve rolled out a parallelized EVM, the first of its kind to go live. That means SEI can process multiple smart contract transactions at the same time — which is exactly what you need if you're building things like high-frequency trading apps, games, or social platforms.

It’s fast (380ms finality). It’s efficient (over 12,000 TPS). And with the next upgrade — called GIGA — they claim it’ll be capable of 250,000 TPS. That’s Web2-level throughput. Higher than what even platforms like Google typically need.

Will it actually hit that number in practice?

We’ll see. But the parallel execution model alone is already a step ahead of most chains still stuck in single-threaded logic.

⚙️What’s built on it?

This is where things are still developing. SEI doesn’t have a breakout app yet. Most of the projects built on it so far are forks — solid, but not groundbreaking.

TVL just passed $600 million, which puts it in the top 15 across all chains. Not massive, but it’s meaningful — and importantly, it’s been rising steadily instead of just spiking on hype. That tells you some people are sticking around.

A few notable integrations:

OpenSea added SEI support (they don’t support many chains)
LayerZero and The Graph both integrated SEI
Revolut ran a learn-to-earn campaign for it
A $50 million ecosystem fund is in motion, focused on GameFi and social apps

Nothing revolutionary yet. But the foundation is there.

👤Who’s backing it — and why that matters

This is the part that’s easy to miss unless you’re looking closely.

Circle (the company behind USDC) owns SEI tokens. Not something they do often.
Wyoming shortlisted SEI as one of only two chains being considered for their state-issued stablecoin.
Binance supports SEI’s parallelized EVM, making it easier for their users to bridge in and out.
An SEI ETF has already been filed by Canary Capital.

None of these things move the price overnight. But they change the context. They tell you SEI is showing up in conversations where infrastructure actually matters — not just with retail speculation, but with institutions and real-world projects.

That’s rare. Especially for a chain this small.

❗But it’s not all clean sailing

There are clear risks.

The biggest is sell pressure.

SEI’s early investors are unlocking their tokens, and many of them are sitting on 4–9x returns. A big chunk of the supply is starting to hit the market now — and that creates downward pressure unless demand keeps growing. This won’t kill the project, but it can drag price action even when things are moving in the right direction structurally.

Another challenge is development.

SEI doesn’t have as many builders as some of the larger chains, and Monad — a rival chain that also supports parallel EVM — raised far more funding. If SEI can’t attract serious developers soon, the tech won’t matter.

And then there’s the ecosystem.

As of now, there’s no killer app. No reason for a regular user to jump in unless they’re staking, farming, or speculating. That has to change.

👀So why keep an eye on it?

Because SEI is doing real work — and not just copying the homework of others.

They’re focused. They’re not trying to be everything. And they’ve actually shipped a fast, stable chain that works in ways others haven’t pulled off yet.

If they land native USDC, finish the GIGA upgrade, and onboard a real app that brings in users — that could change everything.

And even if it doesn’t, SEI still has one of the most technically competent foundations in this part of the market.

So no, you don’t need to rush into it. But if you’re trying to stay ahead of what might matter a year from now — this is one you don’t want to lose track of.

⛓️Crypto Basics

— Copy Trading: What It Is, How It Works, and What to Watch Out For —

If you’re new to crypto and don’t want to spend hours studying charts or guessing when to buy and sell, copy trading probably sounds appealing. It’s simple on the surface: you choose an experienced trader to follow, and your account automatically copies what they do. Buy when they buy. Sell when they sell.

You get exposure to their strategy without having to come up with your own.

That’s the idea.

And it works — sometimes.

But whether copy trading helps you or hurts you depends entirely on how you approach it. A lot of beginners jump in too fast, trust the wrong person, or set things up poorly and get burned. Not because the concept is bad, but because they didn’t treat it with the right mindset.

So let’s walk through it clearly. No scare tactics tough. Just how it works, what to actually pay attention to, and how to do it in a way that makes sense.

⚙️So… What Is Copy Trading, Really?

Copy trading is exactly what it sounds like: your account mimics the trades of another trader.

When they buy something, your account buys it too. When they close a trade, yours does the same. Most platforms do this automatically in real time.

You’re not giving them control of your account. You’re just linking your portfolio to follow their actions — like putting your trades on autopilot, but with someone else at the wheel.

It’s not “passive income.” It’s shared activity.

And that distinction matters, because the outcome still affects you.

❌Where People Get It Wrong

The biggest mistake is thinking copy trading means you don’t have to pay attention.

That’s how people end up following a trader who:

Looked good on paper but was actually hiding losses
Took huge risks when the market turned
Stopped updating their strategy but kept collecting followers

You’re still responsible for who you choose to follow. It’s not a “set it and forget it” situation. It’s more like hiring someone to cook for you. Sure, they do the work, but you still want to check the kitchen now and then.

💡How to Choose a Trader (Without Getting Tricked by Stats)

Most platforms will show you data for each trader — stuff like total return, win rate, number of trades, and average profit/loss. This looks helpful, but stats alone don’t tell the full story. Here’s what you should actually look for:

✅ Experience

Have they been trading for at least 30 days?

Ideally, more. Consistency over time is more valuable than one lucky streak.

✅ Win Rate

Above 65% is generally good.

But don’t fall for 90% win rates without context — those can be gamed. Some traders never close losing trades just to keep their stats clean.

✅ P&L Ratio

This is how much they make on wins vs. how much they lose.

If they’re winning small and losing big, it’s a problem — even with a high win rate.

You want this ratio to be at least 1:1. Higher is better.

A ratio of 2:1 means they’re making $200 when they win and losing $100 when they don’t. That’s healthy.

❗️Open Positions

Check what’s currently open. Some traders have losing trades down 30–40% but haven’t closed them — which hides the loss from the stats. If they’re sitting on big negative positions, be careful.

A trader who’s honest with their losses is more trustworthy than someone who’s gaming the numbers.

🔩Platform Settings That Actually Matter

If you’re using a platform like BingX, some small decisions make a big difference.

Zero Slippage

This means your trades happen at the same price as the trader’s. Without it, you might get worse prices due to market movement. This especially matters for short-term trades.

Copy by Position Ratio (not per order)

This follows the trader’s risk management.

If they’re confident in a trade and put more money into it, your copy does the same. If you just use a flat amount for every trade, you’re not really following their strategy — just their choices.

Turn Off Immediate Position Open

When you start following someone, this setting prevents you from instantly copying all their current trades at bad prices. Better to wait for the next new trade.

Don’t Tweak Their Strategy

Avoid setting your own stop-loss or only copying certain coins unless you really know what you’re doing. Otherwise, you’re breaking the system you chose to follow.

Do You Need to Check In?

Yes.

Not every day. But once a week, take 10 minutes to look over the trader you’re following.

Are they still trading consistently?
Are they still managing risk well?
Are their open positions reasonable?

If not, pause the copy or switch to someone else. You’re not locked in.

🤨So, Is Copy Trading Worth It?

It can be. Especially if you’re still learning and want to gain exposure without managing everything manually.

But it’s not passive.

It’s not “hands-off.”

It’s not a shortcut to being rich.

It’s just a way to borrow someone else’s system — as long as you stay awake while it’s running.

You don’t need to be an expert. But you do need to care enough to make good choices.

🔎Deep Dive

— Avalanche vs. Solana —

People keep comparing Avalanche and Solana like they’re fighting for the same spot.

They’re not. They’re not even playing the same game.

Sure, both are fast, both are Layer 1s, and both have ecosystems full of DeFi, NFTs, and dApps. But once you look closer, it becomes pretty clear:

one is built to move quickly right now, and the other is built to support systems that might actually last.

That doesn’t mean one is better than the other — just that they’re doing different things.

Let’s talk Solana

Solana is fast. Really fast. It’s not just theoretical — real-world speeds are over 1,000 transactions per second, and it can scale higher than that. Fees are tiny, and that’s part of why so many people are using it. Right now, it’s one of the most active chains out there.

It’s also where a lot of on-chain energy is happening — meme coins, NFTs, gaming, tokenized stocks, new DeFi experiments. Platforms like Robinhood now let you stake SOL and get over 7% APY. The tokenized stock rollout is live on Bybit. Radium is offering LP rewards from Tesla and Nvidia. All of this is happening already — not roadmap stuff, actual usage.

That kind of activity attracts new users. It also pulls in liquidity. The more people are on Solana, the more developers build for it. So it’s fast, cheap, and crowded — which is a good thing if you’re trying to grow.

But there’s a cost to that speed.

Solana has gone down multiple times. The architecture is complex, and when one part of the system breaks, the whole network can halt. It’s gotten better — Firedancer and other upgrades are in the works — but for now, it’s something you have to factor in. Especially if you're building something that can’t go down for hours.

Solana is great for high-volume, public-facing applications. It’s efficient and popular. But you probably don’t want to build financial infrastructure on a chain that’s gone dark mid-day more than once.

Avalanche isn’t trying to be that chain

It’s not built to compete with Solana for volume or hype.

It’s built to handle complexity. The kind of complexity that comes from real-world systems — banks, governments, asset managers — trying to move into crypto.

That’s why Avalanche splits its work across three different chains:

X-Chain handles transfers and creating assets.
C-Chain is for smart contracts, fully EVM-compatible.
P-Chain manages validators and subnets.

This design isn’t just technical detail. It’s what makes Avalanche more stable — and more flexible.

When someone builds on Avalanche, they don’t have to fight for blockspace with every new memecoin project. They can create their own subnet — their own isolated chain — with its own rules, validators, fees, and even compliance structure.

That’s huge if you’re a business or a government. You get the benefits of being part of the Avalanche ecosystem, without the downsides of being on a public, shared Layer 1. And it works — subnets are live and in use.

This isn’t just a nice feature. It’s a blueprint for how large-scale systems can move into blockchain without losing control.

📊Avalanche is already being used in those ways

One of the most interesting recent developments: a partnership with a Korean FX platform to build a stablecoin pegged to the Korean won on Avalanche. Not just another digital dollar copy — they’re focusing on programmable money tied into real payment rails.

If that plays out, and Avalanche becomes part of South Korea’s digital finance infrastructure, that’s a serious proof of concept. Not just adoption — integration.

There’s also a $250M grant program running to fund development on Avalanche. It's targeting things like AI infrastructure, digital securities, and systems that large institutions might actually want to use. This is the part of crypto that most retail traders ignore, but it's the one that matters most if you’re thinking longer than a bull cycle.

The important point is, Avalanche has real apps running, across surprisingly diverse areas.

Think loyalty apps with real-world celebrities, prediction markets where you can bet on real events easily, and even platforms like Republic letting you invest in movie production.
Gaming also makes up a big part of their ecosystem, which makes sense: cheap, fast transactions are perfect for gaming. (check “Off the Grid”)
Big financial players like JPMorgan and Amazon are also exploring Avalanche for stablecoins and programmable payments.

Its structure (multiple smaller blockchains within the larger Avalanche network) makes it flexible enough for different industries to build exactly what they need without messing with each other. In other words, Avalanche is becoming essential infrastructure—actually useful, not just speculative.

And Avalanche doesn’t need to be the busiest chain on paper to succeed.

It just needs to be the one that other people build on top of.

💡One is traffic. One is transport.

If you’re measuring activity, Solana probably wins. It has more users, more tokens flying around, more liquidity across apps. It feels alive — and for a lot of people, that’s enough. Especially if you’re trading or yield farming or just exploring new stuff on-chain.

But Avalanche is trying to be the road system. The infrastructure layer that actual financial tools, national currencies, and institutional software can be built on.

Solana is moving people fast. Avalanche is figuring out how to move systems.

Final Thoughts (No Verdict)

You don’t need to choose one over the other. That’s not the point here.

But if you’re trying to understand what these chains are really built for, this is the difference:

Solana is optimized for throughput, for now. It’s smooth, fast, and efficient — if nothing breaks. It’s great for retail-facing applications.
Avalanche is optimized for adaptability. It’s modular. It’s structured. It’s slow to hype, but strong when it comes to long-term use.

I like both. But if I had to build something serious — something that handles value for real users in high-stakes settings — I’d go with Avalanche. Not because it’s trendy. Because it’s solid.

That’s it.

💰Quick Win of the Week

— Bitcoin Dominance - Not a Signal, But a Clue—

If you’ve never paid attention to Bitcoin dominance, don’t worry. Most people either ignore it completely or try to use it as some secret trading signal. It’s neither useless nor magic — but it is something worth watching.

At the simplest level, Bitcoin dominance tells you how much of the total crypto market is made up of Bitcoin. So if dominance is at 50%, that means half of all the value in crypto is sitting in Bitcoin.

When that number changes, it tells you where money is moving.

And in crypto, watching where the money moves matters more than listening to people talk about where it should move.

🔩What It Actually Means

When Bitcoin dominance goes up, it usually means one of two things:

People are pulling out of altcoins and into Bitcoin, treating it as the safer option.
Or, Bitcoin is pumping and altcoins are lagging behind.

This kind of shift often lines up with fear, caution, or just a reset in the market. After hype cycles crash, people retreat to Bitcoin — not necessarily because they love it, but because it’s the last thing they still trust.

When Bitcoin dominance goes down, that’s when money is moving into altcoins. Not because they’ve suddenly become “better,” but because people are hunting for bigger gains.

So, you can think of Bitcoin dominance as a mood thermometer for the whole market:

High and rising → cautious, consolidating, playing defense.
Low and dropping → aggressive, speculative, chasing returns.

👀Why It Matters (Even If You Don’t Trade)

You don’t have to be a day trader for this to be useful.

Let’s say you’re holding a mix of Bitcoin and altcoins. If you see dominance steadily rising, it’s worth asking: are your altcoins bleeding out? Is the market rotating away from them? Should you be sitting in something sturdier until things settle?

Or maybe you’ve been waiting for altcoin season. You notice Bitcoin dominance slowly declining while your watchlist starts turning green. That’s a sign of risk appetite returning — maybe it’s time to ease back in, carefully.

The point isn’t to react instantly. It’s just to stay aligned with the flow. Markets move in cycles, and dominance helps you see which part of the cycle we’re in — even if price action is noisy.

❌Some Things It Doesn’t Tell You

It’s not perfect. There are caveats.

It doesn’t account for stablecoins, which now make up a huge part of the market. That messes with the numbers.
It doesn’t include dead or inaccessible Bitcoin, which means the real supply is lower than reported.
It doesn’t give trade signals. It won’t tell you what to buy or when.

It’s not a decision-maker — it’s a lens. You still need to combine it with price action, fundamentals, or whatever else you trust.

Where to Track It

You can find Bitcoin dominance on most market platforms:

TradingView: search BTC.D
CoinGecko or CoinMarketCap: usually listed on the homepage
CoinStats, Messari, or others work too

Set a reminder to check it weekly. Don’t overanalyze. You’re not looking for patterns — you’re just noticing shifts.

Last Advice

Bitcoin dominance won’t make you rich. It won’t tell you what coin is going to moon next.

But if you watch it quietly over time, you’ll start to see how this market breathes. You’ll stop falling for hype, and you’ll be less surprised when the party ends early.

That’s a win most people never get.

💎Small-Cap Gems

— Distribute.ai (DIS) —

Distribute.ai is working on a simple but ambitious idea:

Make AI infrastructure accessible to everyone — not just big tech.

Today, most of the compute power that runs AI models is controlled by a few major platforms. If you want to run anything beyond a toy chatbot, you’re probably using OpenAI, AWS, Google Cloud, or something in that tier. It’s expensive, it’s closed, and it’s kind of fragile. If any one of them decides to raise prices, block access, or ban certain tools — there’s not much anyone can do about it.

Distribute.ai is trying to change that.

It’s a decentralized compute network — meaning, instead of relying on a central server farm, it connects thousands of individual providers who offer their unused GPU/CPU power. That power is then used by people who want to run AI tasks, build models, or deploy applications.

It’s already live, by the way.

They’ve got over 100,000 compute nodes on the network. You can already run things like:

Text-to-speech
Image generation
Translation tools
Speech recognition
Chatbots
Even your own uploaded models

There’s also a marketplace where developers can publish and monetize their own AI models directly. No gatekeeping, no “waitlist for API access,” and no need to build your own backend from scratch.

The whole thing is powered by the $DIS token.

🔧How $DIS is used

It’s not complicated. You use the token to:

Pay for compute resources, inference jobs, and access to models.
Earn rewards when you provide compute power to the network.
Participate in governance decisions and ecosystem development.

It’s functional. You don’t buy it just to speculate. You buy it because you’re either contributing to the network or using its services.

The tokenomics are pretty clean:

Total supply: 1 billion DIS
50% allocated to the community
Long vesting for the team and grants
No “instant unlock and dump” nonsense

It’s designed to build long-term participation, not short-term hype.

✔️Why it stands out

There are a lot of crypto projects trying to hop on the “AI + blockchain” bandwagon. Most of them are just slogans. This one actually does something (or try).

The infrastructure exists. The tools are live. The integrations are real — Slack, Notion, Discord, Obsidian — all connected to make it easier for developers to plug in and build.

And it’s tackling a real bottleneck: compute power.

As AI grows, the demand for compute is going to explode. Centralized platforms can’t serve everyone forever — not affordably, and definitely not fairly. Distribute.ai is a way to spread that load across a global network of users, all getting rewarded for their contribution.

It also gives developers more freedom. Instead of being locked into one provider’s terms, they can build and deploy how they want. That’s a big deal for open-source AI, privacy-conscious teams, and smaller builders who want control over their stack.

❗What to watch out for

It’s still early.

This kind of decentralized system only works if both sides show up — people who want to provide compute, and people who need to use it. If either side lags, it slows down the flywheel.

It also depends heavily on developer traction. If no one builds on it, the whole thing just sits there.

They’re competing with giants. AWS, Google, OpenAI — these companies have a huge head start, massive funding, and institutional partnerships. Distribute.ai needs to win over a certain kind of user: someone who wants something different. Open, affordable, flexible. It’s not for everyone, at least not right away.

Then there’s regulation. Combining blockchain and AI is probably going to raise eyebrows. It’s hard to say what the legal environment will look like in a year, let alone five.

So, no — this isn’t a “safe bet.” It’s not pretending to be.

What kind of play is this?

This is long-term, high-risk, high-reward.

It’s for people who want to allocate a small part of their portfolio to infrastructure-level bets — things that could be nothing, or could quietly become essential.

If AI becomes more decentralized — and there’s a good chance it will — projects like this are the ones that could benefit most. Distribute.ai isn’t loud. It’s not viral. It’s building. Quietly. Steadily.

It’s the kind of project that, if it works, just becomes part of the background. And if you were there early, that’s where the upside is.

No hype. No guarantees. Just a smart idea, being built out in public, with a clear purpose.

📌Before You Go…

— The Quiet Part Is the Plan—

So here we are — Bitcoin’s at all-time highs, ETH is climbing, and yet half the altcoin market still feels like it's been left behind in the dark.

You’re not imagining it. That’s just where we are right now.

Institutional players are still stacking. BlackRock’s not chasing memes on Twitter. They’re building — locking up ETH, setting up real infrastructure. Retail, on the other hand, still looks bored. They’re waiting for fireworks. But if you zoom out, you’ll see the fuse is already burning. The market is setting up. Quietly. Carefully.

This isn’t 2021. You can’t just close your eyes and pick a coin anymore. Too many projects. Too many narratives. Liquidity is thin, and attention is fragmented. Most altcoins won’t make it. And that’s not pessimism — it’s just how things work when the game shifts from “early and exciting” to “crowded and serious.”

But that doesn’t mean there’s no upside.

It just means the upside is narrower — and smarter.

We’re in a cycle where being precise matters. Where being early doesn’t help unless you’re also right. You don’t need to chase every pump. You need to be one of the few people who actually has a plan for what comes next.

And here's what that next phase probably looks like:

Bitcoin dominance needs to roll over. That hasn’t happened yet. But it’s starting to soften.
ETH/BTC needs to break out. Right now it’s just coiling sideways.
And the “normies” — the retail crowd — they haven’t come back yet. No surge in search traffic. No Coinbase in the App Store top 10.

Until those three things shift, this isn’t full-speed altseason. Not yet.

But it’s getting closer.

If you’re paying attention, this is the time to prepare, not react. To clean up your watchlist. To drop the dead weight. To figure out what you actually believe in — not just what other people are hyping.

And when the rotation starts — when memes run first, and that energy starts moving toward AI, RWA, DeFi, maybe gaming — the people who had a plan will be the ones who catch it early, ride it right, and get out before the lights go off.

Because make no mistake: the crash will come. It always does.

And the worst time to figure out your exit is after everything starts falling.

You’ve read the data. You’ve seen the narrative. Now ask yourself:

Do you know what you’re going to do next?

Because if you don’t — this is your sign to figure it out.

Stay sharp. Don’t be the last one holding the bag.

And if you’re still here, still reading, still thinking — you’re already ahead of most.

See you next week.

-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?