Opening Recap

Market Pulse: Ether futures blew past $7.1 billion in open interest yesterday, signaling a fresh rotation out of gold and silver into crypto leverage.

Key Movers: Binance saw a flood of ether contracts, Altria celebrated FDA approval for its on! PLUS nicotine pouch, and Hikma Pharmaceuticals leads the Supreme Court’s January IP docket.

Macro & Politics: Regulators flipped the script on tobacco with that surprise FDA nod, and investors are bracing for patent rulings that could redraw biotech’s roadmap.

What’s Next: Watch for funding rate spikes around major expiries and any Fed rhetoric that might rattle short‐term sentiment.

Market Commentary

Here’s what everyone’s missing: while traders fawn over the “Binance ETH Open Interest Surges Above $7.1B” story (newsBTC) and Goldman’s take on Altria’s on! PLUS (Yahoo Entertainment), the real tinderbox is tech pros injecting unapproved Chinese peptides (“Chinese peptides” are the latest biohacking trend in the tech world, The Times of India). Regulators are playing catch-up, and a crackdown could wipe out speculative biotech runs faster than you can say damn liquidation.

Look closer and you see two sides of the same coin: the Supreme Court’s January IP docket (PatentlyO) is about as exciting as patent law gets, but hell, its outcome will reverberate through that “This Under-the-Radar AI Company” thesis (Barchart.com). If the Court tightens patent protections, disruption capital will flow into smaller AI and biotech names owning the core tech.

Action plan: track those funding rates like a hawk, dial up your Altria exposure for steady yield ahead of the next report, and earmark that stealth AI pick before hedge funds catch wind. If you’re not ready to pivot on a dime when regulatory or patent news drops, you’ll be left holding the bag.