Polymarket is taking its brand offline, opening a free grocery store in New York City and backing it with a $1 million donation to fight food insecurity.

Polymarket, the crypto-based prediction market platform, announced on Feb. 3 that it will open New York City’s first free grocery store later this month as part of a community-focused initiative.

The pop-up store, called “The Polymarket,” is set to open on Feb. 12 at noon ET and will offer groceries at no cost to visitors. The company said no purchase will be required, and the store will be open to all New Yorkers. Polymarket has not yet disclosed the exact location.

Alongside the launch, Polymarket donated $1 million to Food Bank For New York City, a non-profit that supports hunger relief across all five boroughs. The company described the donation as part of its effort to give back to the city it calls home.

A physical bet on community impact

Polymarket framed the project as a “real, physical investment” in New York. The company said the store will be fully stocked and emphasized that the initiative is meant to address food insecurity rather than function as a traditional retail operation.

Food Bank For New York City said the donation will support its ongoing work to expand access to food and strengthen long-term food security. Polymarket encouraged members of the public to contribute to the organization as well.

Sources familiar with the project say the grocery store is expected to run for a limited time, likely spanning several days around the opening weekend.

Marketing push amid rising competition

The move also comes as competition heats up among U.S.-based prediction market platforms. Rival Kalshi earlier staged a smaller free grocery giveaway in New York, prompting comparisons between the two campaigns.

Both efforts echo campaign rhetoric from New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who previously floated the idea of city-run grocery stores. Polymarket currently hosts active markets tied to whether such stores will open in the city by mid-2026, adding another layer of symbolism to the initiative.

The launch follows a busy stretch for Polymarket. In late January, the platform announced a multi-year partnership with Major League Soccer, becoming the league’s official prediction market partner. On Feb. 2, Polymarket integrated with decentralized exchange aggregator Jupiter, allowing users to access markets directly on Solana.

The company is also navigating regulatory pressure. A Nevada state court issued a temporary restraining order last week preventing Polymarket’s U.S. affiliate from offering certain contracts to Nevada residents, with a hearing scheduled for Feb. 11.

There’s always a bull market somewhere.

While bitcoin and shares of bitcoin holder Strategy are falling, an exchange-traded fund designed to move in the opposite direction of MSTR and double its daily change has hit a record high.

That exchange-traded fund is the GraniteShares 2x Short MSTR Daily ETF, trading under the ticker MSDD on Nasdaq. It is an actively managed fund designed to deliver -200% of the Strategy’s daily performance. In simple terms, if MSTR falls 2% in a day, the ETF targets a 4% gain that same day (before fees/decay).

The fund debuted on Jan. 10, 2025 and is seen as a high-risk short-term tactical tool for bears betting against MSTR. And it has lived up to its repute.

MSDD’s price hit a record high of $114 on Tuesday, up 13.5% on the year, extending the past year’s 275% surge, according to data source TradingView.

MSDD’s compatriot, the Defiance Daily Target 2x Short MSTR ETF (SMST), also clocked an 11-month high of $113 on Tuesday. This fund debuted on Nasdaq in August 2024.

In other words, MSTR bears out there who loaded up on these ETFs have made a killing.

Strategy fell to $126 on Tuesday, the lowest since September 2024, extending its multi-month bear market. The stock is now down a staggering 76% from its lifetime high of $543 in November last year.

Strategy is the world’s largest publicly listed bitcoin holder, stashing 713,502 BTC ($54.24 billion) at press time. Naturally, its share price tends to follow swings in bitcoin’s market value.

Bitcoin, the leading cryptocurrency by market value, has dropped 12% this year and traded as low as $73,000 on Tuesday. That was the weakest since late 2024. Since then, prices have bounced back to $76,000, thanks to narrowly approved funding package that alleviated near-term U.S. shutdown risk and stabilized risk sentiment in financial markets.

“Currently, a 10 billion market cap, this thing is not even worth $1 billion,” one X user argued.

The latest cryptocurrency market crash was brutal, sending Cardano’s ADA to multi-month lows.

Some analysts believe the storm may not be over, warning the price could nosedive by as much as 75% in the short term.

The Bad Days for the Bulls Aren’t Over?

Several hours ago, ADA plunged to 0.27, the lowest level since August 2024. Currently, it trades at around $0.29 (per CoinGecko’s data), representing a 15% decline on a weekly scale.

The well-known analyst DrBullZeus claimed that the asset is now nearing “a must hold support zone” at the range of $0.24-$0.28. He thinks that breaking below that level could result in a price crash to $0.125 and even $0.075.

The popular trader Matthew Dixon also chipped in. He suggested that “technically speaking,” ADA has retraced in three waves since the local top seen towards the end of 2024. He outlined $0.24 as a “very important long-term support,” predicting that as long as it holds, the price could rebound.

“A break of support would be a serious concern,” he alerted.

Prior to that, Harmonic Trader predicted that in six months, ADA might trade under $0.10. “Currently, a 10 billion market cap, this thing is not even worth $1 billion,” they argued.

Time to Rally?

Despite ADA’s recent price decline, some other analysts remain optimistic that a resurgence could be on the way. One of them, using the X nickname “Lucky,” asked their almost two million followers whether they plan to increase their exposure to the token at current rates. The analyst also envisioned a potential pump to nearly $1 in the near future.

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LaPetite is also bullish. Several days ago, he forecasted that ADA is about to go “parabolic,” claiming that “huge announcements” concerning Cardano are coming soon.

The recent exchange netflows signal that a rebound could indeed be on the horizon. Data provided by CoinGlass shows that over the past days and weeks, outflows have significantly outpaced inflows. This means investors have been shifting from centralized platforms to self-custody, which in turn reduces immediate selling pressure.

Aave Labs says it is sunsetting its “umbrella brand” Avara in the company’s latest move to refocus on decentralized finance and simplify its branding.

Aave founder and CEO Stani Kulechov posted to X on Tuesday that Avara, a company encompassing projects including the Family crypto wallet and previously the social media platform Lens, “is no longer required as we go all in on bringing Aave to the masses.”

Kulechov said the Apple iOS-based Family crypto wallet was also being wound down as the team has “learned that onboarding millions of users requires purpose-built experiences, such as savings, rather than generic, open-ended wallet experiences.”

The move marks Aave’s latest effort to refocus on products such as its flagship lending protocol as the project handed stewardship of Lens to the Mask Network last month, with Kulechov saying Aave’s role in the protocol would be reduced to an advisory role so it can focus on DeFi.

Kulechov said in his latest post that Aave was “now united as one team of world-class designers, engineers, and smart contract experts, aligned around a single mission: bringing DeFi to everyone.”

All future projects under Aave Labs

Avara said in a blog post that “all current and future products, including the Aave App, Aave Pro, and Aave Kit, will operate under Aave Labs” to simplify the brand.

It added that accounts linked to the Family wallets “will continue as core infrastructure within Aave Labs products,” but the iOS app would be wound down over the next year.

No new users will be onboarded to the app from April 1, and existing users can continue using the app until April 1, 2027, and will continue to have full access to their funds on Aave’s website.

Related: There is no trust in DeFi without proper risk management

Aave is the biggest DeFi protocol with $30 billion in total value locked, nearly $9 billion more than the next largest project, the staking protocol Lido, which has $21.7 billion in value locked, according to DefiLlama.