Bitcoin dipped below the psychological US$100K barrier this week (A$153K), while the top 20 coin index fell 15%. Widely shared news that OG Bitcoiners have been selling up reinforced fears that the cycle may be over. However, the likely end of the US government shutdown (for now) and President Trump’s A$3,060/US$2,000 ‘tariff rebate’ stimulus proposal helped prices recover. Whether that cheque will ever get mailed is an open question, but crypto investor Lark Davis notes the 2020 stimulus cheque saw Bitcoin rally 50% within five weeks. AshCrypto observed that the last time the US Government opened after a shutdown, Bitcoin surged 300% over five months (though correlation is not causality). Overall sentiment was pretty dire, with Bitcoin ETFs losing A$1.83B/US$1.2 billion across the week.
Bitcoin finishes the week down 0.4% at A$161,918 (US$105,970) while Ethereum also mostly recovered from its dive to finish the week down 0.1% at A$5,466 (US$3,574). A rise in large volume orders for ETH was observed, which historically precedes a recovery in the price, according to analysts. DOGE was this week’s standout performer, up 10.6%. XRP wasn’t far behind with a 9.6% increase, after a successful fundraise and a new partnership with Mastercard. Inflows into the Solana ETFs topped A$209M (US$136.6M), but SOL remained flat for the week. The UNI token surged 30% today on the news the fee switch may finally be turned on. The Crypto Fear and Greed Index is at 29 or Fear.
In headlines
Ripple is making waves
Ripple has raised another US$500 million (A$765M) in a fundraising round led by Citadel Securities and Fortress Investment Group that values the company at US$40 billion (A$61.2B). It comes hot on the heels of Ripple’s US$1 billion (A$1.52B) tender offer earlier this year at the same valuation. The company said it is not planning an IPO. Ripple has also teamed up with Gemini and Mastercard to test the use of RLUSD (Ripple’s stablecoin) for card payment transaction settlements.
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Staking safe harbour
US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the Treasury and the Internal Revenue Service have issued new guidance for a safe harbour enabling exchange-traded products to stake crypto. There are strict rules to ensure safe custody and liquidity. “The impact on staking adoption should be significant,” said Bill Hughes, senior counsel at Consensys. “It effectively removes a major legal barrier that had discouraged fund sponsors, custodians, and asset managers from integrating staking yield into regulated investment products.”
US crypto market structure bill draft
The US Senate Agriculture Committee has just published its draft crypto market structure bill, which would be a companion bill to the Clarity Act in the House of Congress. The draft defines terms like blockchain, how the concepts would apply under the Commodity Exchange Act, and instructs the CFTC to engage in joint rulemaking with the SEC. The draft needs to be combined with the Banking Committee’s draft before the Senate can advance the legislation, a process that could take a while.
ASIC boss gets FOMO after meeting with SEC
Australian Securities and Investments Commission Chair Joe Longo seems to have been gripped by FOMO around tokenisation. He told the National Press Club the first tokenised bond was issued in Sydney in 2018 but today “other countries are outpacing us.” “Distributed ledger technology that facilitates asset tokenisation could fundamentally transform our capital markets, in the same way as the introduction of CHESS once did,” he said. Longo met with US SEC Chair Paul Atkins last month, and he’s realised the regulator needs to “do more to support innovation” or Australia might miss out.
Lighter’s incredible TPS thanks to ZK tech
The Ethereum ecosystem has hit a new scaling high of 24,192 transactions per second. Until recently the ecosystem was lucky to hit 300-400 TPS, led by Base which is now consistently over 180 TPS. But new ZK proof perps DEX app chain Lighter has blown everyone else out of the park with a consistent 4,000 TPS to 5,000 TPS. While Lighter is faster than Solana, it’s also seen a number of outages since launching in October. The more traditional L2s will also see a TPS boost following next month’s Fusaka upgrade.
Stablecoins are cutting Bitcoin’s lunch
Ark Invest’s Cathie Wood has cut her 2030 Bitcoin price projection by US$300,000 (A$459K) because she believes stablecoins are eroding Bitcoin’s store of value use case. The bearish prediction would see Bitcoin “only” worth US$1.2 million (A$1.83M). Bloomberg analyst Mike McGlone says that history shows Bitcoin has a tendency to revert to its 48-month moving average after extended rallies, which would see it fall to US$56,000 (A$86K). But analysts at Glassnode say the current pullback is nothing to worry about and “the market can be classified as a mild bear phase characterised by orderly revaluation rather than panic.” Meanwhile, Pete Rizzo notes that “institutional investors are still very excited”.
Alt L1s assemble crack team
Alt L1s and infrastructure providers have teamed up for the Blockchain Payments Consortium in order to establish a framework for cross-chain payments. Fireblocks, Polygon Labs, Mysten Labs, the Monad Foundation, the Solana Foundation, the Stellar Development Foundation and the TON Foundation are all members. If done right this could lead to (among other things) deeper markets and less friction on the end-user UI.
Dev gets 5 years
Samourai Wallet developer Keonne Rodriguez has been sentenced to five years in prison for running an unlicensed money transmitting business. Prosecutors said the privacy wallet processed US$237 million (A$363M) in illicit transactions between 2015 and 2024. Advocates argue that punishing the authors of open-source code threatens civil liberties and the right to privacy.
Singapore’s crypto industry
The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS)’s Financial Stability Report suggests the local crypto industry is still relatively small in size and has limited links to tradfi. It will continue to monitor potential risks spilling over to tradfi as the industry expands. In related news, Ripple has partnered with Global Finance & Technology Network to train 200 central bankers, regulators and policymakers across the Asia Pacific about digital assets. The training will be delivered via a six-week online course, which includes case studies from MAS’s Project Guardian.
Hong Kong’s tokenised money market fund
Franklin Templeton has launched a tokenised U.S. dollar money market fund for professional investors in Hong Kong. The Franklin OnChain U.S. Government Money Fund is “the first end-to-end tokenised structure by an asset manager to integrate issuance, distribution and servicing directly on-chain in Hong Kong.” As you might expect, it will only be available to institutional and professional investors.
JPMorgan, Ark Invest, IBIT and BitMine
Wall Street banking giant JPMorgan has increased its holdings in BlackRock’s IBIT Bitcoin ETF by 64%. It now holds US$343 million (A$525M) worth, as of the end of the third quarter. It’s also holding US$102 million (A$156M) worth of Ethereum treasury company Bitmine. Cathie Wood’s ARK Invest bought another 240,000 shares of BitMine this week, bringing its total holdings to 6.58 million shares. Bitmine itself bought 110,000 ETH in the past week, bringing its stack to 2.9% of the entire supply of ETH. “We are now more than halfway toward the ‘alchemy of 5%’ goal,” chair Tom Lee said.
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