Asia Morning Briefing: Korean Crypto KOLs Fuel Massive $USELESS Rally as Traders Shrug Off Traditional Narratives

Genuine Morning, Asia. Right here’s what’s making recordsdata in the markets:

Welcome to Asia Morning Briefing, a each day summary of top tales in the course of U.S. hours and an clarify of market moves and diagnosis. For an large overview of U.S. markets, request CoinDesk’s Crypto Daybook Americas.

South Korea has prolonged been identified for its outsized impact on altcoin markets, from the XRP mania that drove a 400% rally supreme year to primarily the most up-to-date-day obsession with a token that proudly calls itself USELESS.

The $USELESS phenomenon has ties to South Korean KOLs, Bradley Park, a Seoul-based analyst with DNTV Analysis, told CoinDesk in an interview.

At the center of every thing is Yeomyung, a Korean KOL and liquidity provider who aped into USELESS early, held via a 50% drawdown, and is now sitting on serious paper gains.

“He made immense income throughout the Trump coin bustle, and with USELESS, he additionally earned from [providing liquidity] early on and is now ravishing preserving,” Park told CoinDesk. “They’re all ravishing waiting for a CEX itemizing, attributable to without it, there’s no staunch contrivance to exit.”

Park tracked Yeomyung’s wallet exercise and illustrious that his early conviction has inspired copy-buying and selling amongst Korean retail investors. Even wallets tied to insiders on Solana’s Jupiter

are preserving. The upward thrust of USELESS reflects a broader evolution in Korean market habits.

“I actually mediate Korean customers on this market are now no longer ravishing exit liquidity,” he acknowledged. “They’re beginning to attain the market and are evolving into staunch worldwide gamers.”

One other character on this fable is Bonk Guy, an early promoter of BONK, who reappeared to tweet enthusiastically about USELESS after the worth rebounded, although some Korean traders, in conjunction with Park, admire wondered his sincerity.

“Bonk Guy became the first to shill LetsBONK,” Park acknowledged. “But after the worth collapsed, he went silent. Now that USELESS is bouncing back, he’s all of a sudden exhibiting curiosity again.”

Park pointed to the upward thrust of Hyperliquid, Kaia, and now Solana-based memecoins love USELESS as proof that Korea isn’t any longer any longer a secondary market.

Whereas XRP’s rally became underpinned by simply clarity in the U.S. and narratives about Trump-generation deregulation, USELESS feels less love chaos for chaos’s sake and more love a reflection of the put attention, and exhaustion, is flowing in this day’s market, Park acknowledged.

With no roadmap, no utility, and no pretense of creating one thing larger, it taps into a form of memetic disillusionment: a collective shrug at aged crypto promises, and an ironic bet on nothingness that, ironically, appears to be like to be more factual than many tokens claiming to alternate the field.

Trump Endorses GENIUS Act

President Donald Trump on Tuesday endorsed the GENIUS Act in a Fact Social put up following its bipartisan passage in the Senate, calling it a serious step toward U.S. management in the digital asset sector.

Trump urged the Home of Representatives to toddle the bill “lightning mercurial” and without amendments, stating it ought to be despatched to his desk with “no delays, no add-ons.”

The message indicators sturdy government pork up for the Guiding and Establishing Nationwide Innovation for U.S. Stablecoins (GENIUS) Act, which introduces reserve and compliance necessities for buck-backed stablecoin issuers and marks the first main portion of crypto regulations to sure the Senate.

Trump framed the regulations as key to enabling “huge funding” and “immense innovation,” positioning the U.S. as a global leader in digital resources.

Whereas the bill passed the Senate with main bipartisan backing, its destiny in the Home remains perilous.

Democratic lawmakers are weighing attainable amendments, in conjunction with stricter oversight for international-issued tokens and barriers on attainable issuers.

Alternatively, the bill is presumably no longer without its critics. In a recent CoinDesk editorial, Georgetown College finance professor James J. Angel argues that the GENIUS Act is a flawed portion of regulations attributable to of fragmented oversight by 55 regulators, redundant processes, exclusion of curiosity-bearing stablecoins, and inefficient joint rulemakings.

News Roundup: Coinbase Unveils Coinbase Payments for Retailers

Coinbase (COIN) unveiled Coinbase Payments on Wednesday, CoinDesk previously reported, a brand contemporary provider provider-centered funds stack constructed on its Ethereum layer-2 community Atrocious.

The product enables worldwide ecommerce platforms love Shopify to compile USDC 24/7 without wanting blockchain abilities, the usage of tools love a gasless stablecoin checkout, an ecommerce API engine, and an onchain funds protocol.

Coinbase acknowledged the machine is designed to repeat aged fee rails while reducing charges and offering constantly-on settlement. The originate positions Coinbase alongside fintech companies love Stripe and PayPal in the journey to modernize funds with blockchain infrastructure.

It additionally deepens its partnership with USDC issuer Circle (CRCL), whose shares jumped 25% on the suggestions, while Coinbase rallied 16%. Coinbase says stablecoins processed $30 trillion in transactions supreme year, tripling from the year prior, and it’s having a bet that programmable, buck-pegged funds will proceed to disrupt the worldwide monetary stack.

Market Movements:

• BTC: Bitcoin rebounded above $105,000 in a V-fashioned recovery despite escalating Israel-Iran tensions, with sturdy ETF inflows and key pork up at $103,650 highlighting institutional self assurance amid market volatility.
• ETH: Ethereum rebounded 4% to take care of above $2,500 despite Center East tensions, with file-excessive staking and accumulation signaling rising investor conviction amid market volatility.
• Gold: Gold slipped 0.19% to $3,383.11 after the Fed held charges proper at 4.25–4.5%, with Chair Powell signaling no forthcoming protection changes and emphasizing persevered economic energy despite commerce tensions.
• Nikkei 225: Japan’s Nikkei 225 slipped 0.27% Thursday as Asia-Pacific markets traded combined, weighed down by the Fed’s fee stop and ongoing Israel-Iran tensions.
• S&P 500: The S&P 500 dipped 0.03% to 5,980.87 after the Fed held charges proper, with Chair Powell signaling a wait-and-request draw amid uncertainty over Trump’s tariffs.