LooksRare is a community owned, NFT marketplace that rewards buyers and sellers for using the platform. LooksRare redistributes platform trading fees to its consumers and stakers, differentiating itself from similar NFT marketplaces.

LooksRare

Casey Wagner

This is a segment from the Forward Guidance newsletter. To read full editions, <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/forwardguidance">subscribe</a>.



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As the so-called lame duck session of Congress (the period between Election Day and the end of the Congressional term) rages on, here’s a look at what lawmakers are most focused on in these final weeks of the 118th Congress:&nbsp;



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Judicial nominations</h2>



A top priority for Senate Democrats has been getting as many of President Biden’s judicial nominations approved before the party loses its majority. Democrats and Republicans have <a href="https://apnews.com/article/biden-trump-judges-confirmation-battle-schumer-senate-ecef59aed90804a53d436dc154a2ee14">reportedly</a> come to an agreement to consider seven district court judges after the Thanksgiving recess, with an additional six being placed on the calendar in December. Donald Trump cleared 234 total judges during his first term, while Biden so far has had 221 of his picks confirmed.&nbsp;



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">The budget</h2>



Lawmakers in September passed a short-term extension that will fund the government through Dec. 20. They now must either extend again or pass a full fiscal year spending bill. Given the Republican’s newfound <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/donald-trump-declared-president-2024-election">power</a>, they are likely not motivated to negotiate a full bill in the next three weeks, so another extension seems most plausible.&nbsp;



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">A recess appointment scheme? </h2>



Rumors are circulating that Trump is considering <a href="https://www.arnoldporter.com/en/perspectives/advisories/2024/11/what-are-recess-appointments-and-will-president-elect-trump-bring-them-back">recess appointments</a> — which involve trying to forcibly adjourn Congress — to get some of his cabinet picks through. The practice — used by former Presidents Barack Obama, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton — has been made more difficult by recent Supreme Court interpretation, which allows Congress to block recess appointments.&nbsp;



There is speculation that the House could agree to recess while Trump uses Constitutional powers to force the Senate to adjourn. It sounds a bit far fetched, but we will be monitoring the situation.



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Congress’s top priorities this lame duck session

Jack Kubinec

This is a segment from the Lightspeed newsletter. To read full editions, <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/lightspeed">subscribe</a>.



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The Solana memecoin launchpad pump.fun faced backlash over the weekend after a number of violent and unsavory livestreams on the platform started making the rounds on social media. By Monday afternoon, its livestream feature had been temporarily deactivated.&nbsp;



The offending streams ranged from token launchers threatening to commit violent acts unless a coin’s price goes up to racist or disgusting content meant to create viral shock value and juice the token’s price. This all happened as pump.fun booked staggering $14.3 million in revenue on Saturday, according to a pump.fun dashboard, nearly tripling its previous high.&nbsp;



Pump.fun is no stranger to edgy content. The site has drawn comparisons to the anonymous forum site 4chan for its often-unhinged content and lax approach to moderation. Before this current wave of disturbing livestreams, pump.fun had a large number of racially insensitive or pornographic tokens, none of which are subject to content moderation.



But as disturbing livestreams went viral on X, pump.fun’s anonymous founder alon wrote that the platform would work to protect users from seeing “repulsive/dangerous content.” In a separate thread, alon <a href="https://x.com/a1lon9/status/1860036153249787911">said</a> pump had taken down a stream of a user threatening to shoot their dog unless a token’s market capitalization increased, noting that the platform has now <a href="https://x.com/a1lon9/status/1860653405837963528">taken</a> down “hundreds of streams.”



A little after 2:00 p.m., pump.fun disabled livestreams on the platform&nbsp;altogether. In a blog post shortly after, pump.fun cited “unprecedented growth” as the key challenge to content moderation before adding that livestreams would be paused “for an indefinite time period.”



This feels like an inflection point for a platform that has separated itself as the most viral application on Solana, booking nearly $250 million in revenue since launching. Largely on the back of memecoin activity emanating from pump.fun, Solana has seen <a href="https://x.com/smyyguy/status/1861038014253666417">record</a> demand for its blockspace, which in turn has lined the pockets of the validators who run the blockchain’s software.



Leaders in the Solana world largely cast memecoins either as a stress test for the network or as an emerging, if currently unserious, financial use case for memes. Even among those who oppose crypto being used for what is essentially gambling, it’s frowned upon to tell users or developers what they should or shouldn’t do with blockchain technology.&nbsp;



Multiple crypto posters shrugged off the pump.fun criticism, pointing out that every large social tech platform has had its warts with content moderation.&nbsp;



But as Solana and crypto hopes for a shift to the mainstream, some are calling for a reckoning with memecoins’ downsides.



“Pump Fun is going to become a massive reputational stain on the crypto industry, on par with FTX,” Chainlink community liaison Zach Rynes wrote on X. Tech lawyer Preston Byrne also pointed out that the platform “does a lot very incorrectly from a social media law” perspective.



Up until now, pump.fun’s playbook has largely been to <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/lightspeed-newsletter-pump-dot-fun-memecoin">make light of criticism</a> through trolling. With livestreams disabled, it appears this particular round of backlash hit home. It remains to be seen whether this will make any difference for traders in the so-called memecoin trenches.



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Pump.fun suspends livestream feature amid backlash

Ben Strack

This is a segment from the Forward Guidance newsletter. To read full editions, <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/forwardguidance">subscribe</a>.



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As more investors seem to be seeking exposure to the crypto asset class (particularly after <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/crypto-impacts-since-election-outcome">Trump’s election win</a>), stocks are one way to get involved.&nbsp;



Let’s check in on that ecosystem.&nbsp;



Starting with MicroStrategy, Benchmark’s Mark Palmer on Nov. 18 raised his price target for MSTR shares from $300 to $450. He’s revising that again, according to a Monday note — this time to $650.



This comes after MicroStrategy last week completed a $3 billion offering of convertible senior notes. It then revealed in a Monday filing that it bought <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/btc-100k-microstrategy-buy">55,500 BTC</a> from Nov. 18 to Nov. 24 for $5.4 billion in cash (averaging $97,862 each).&nbsp;



MSTR shares hovered around $402 at 2 pm ET Monday — down 4.7% on the day but up 70% from a month ago.



The strength of the MSTR rally has some <a href="https://seekingalpha.com/article/4739669-microstrategy-paying-245000-per-bitcoin-makes-no-sense-mstr-stock">questioning</a> the idea that these shares should trade at a nearly 3x premium to the market value of the company’s BTC pile.&nbsp;



But MicroStrategy, via treasury operations, has generated ~79,130 bitcoins YTD, translating into a 41.8% BTC yield (the % change of the ratio between MSTR’s bitcoin holdings and its fully diluted share count), Palmer explained. That BTC is currently worth roughly $7.5 billion.



“We regard the dollar values of the bitcoins that MSTR creates, calculated by using its BTC yield, as analogous to earnings, and we believe they can be projected and contextualized through the attachment of a valuation multiple,” he said.



On to Coinbase, Oppenheimer analysts on Monday raised their COIN price target from $265 to $358. The stock was trading around $311 at 2 pm ET Monday.&nbsp;



They mention that the “chilling effect” created by SEC lawsuits against “widely perceived good actors” in the segment, like Coinbase, “can’t be understated.”



“It had deterred new capital going into this space, and many developers had pivoted to other industries,” they added. “But the industry has a chance to rebuild the reputation, and Coinbase is leading this new chapter.”



In addition to the expectation of a <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/gary-gensler-resigning">yet-to-be-named</a> new SEC chair embracing crypto as a catalyst, Coinbase’s trading volumes have increased substantially since the US election.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;



Average daily volumes have risen to $6.5 billion since Election Day — higher than the $2.4 billion YTD average prior to Nov. 5. Oppenheimer is projecting Q4 spot trading volume to be $350 billion (would be up 89% quarter over quarter and 127% year over year) and for “high trading volume to sustain under <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/revisiting-trumps-crypto-promises-after-his-election-win">Trump&#8217;s crypto policy</a>.”



As for other crypto stocks, Compass Point analyst Joe Flynn increased Galaxy’s price target from $22 (CAD) to $33 (~$24 CAD on Monday afternoon).&nbsp;



Beyond higher crypto prices and trading volumes momentum, GLXY is set to benefit from its expected uplisting to the Nasdaq and its term sheet with a hyperscaler to host high-performance computing (HPC) at its Helios campus — a datacenter Flynn called an “underappreciated asset.”



Flynn, also last week, lowered its rating of bitcoin miner Marathon Digital’s stock to neutral. He noted that “while MARA is an outsized beneficiary of higher BTC prices due to its HODL strategy, we don&#8217;t see much additional upside from the base business itself.”



Then there’s competing miner Core Scientific (CORZ), which notably <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/core-scientific-rejects-coreweave-buyout-bid-after-big-hpc-deal">offers HPC hosting</a> to cloud provider CoreWeave. Flynn wrote earlier this month that CORZ is “well positioned to continue expanding their existing lead in delivering application specific HPC/GPU datacenters with a single tenant focus.”&nbsp;



CORZ is the top holding in the Amplify Transformational Data Sharing ETF (BLOK) — the largest blockchain-focused equity ETF. Other stocks in the top five are COIN, MSTR, Hut 8 Mining and GLXY.



Dan Weiskopf, who co-manages BLOK’s portfolio, said it’s hard to value blockchain-fueled disruption over the next decade as regulations become more crypto-friendly.



He told me: “The real excitement should be around the adoption of tokenization as the application and how blockchain as the technology will <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/investor-appetite-for-tokenized-funds">soon transform</a> industries across the board.”



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Why analysts are upping price targets for MSTR and COIN 

Donovan Choy

This is a segment from the 0xResearch newsletter. To read full editions, <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/research">subscribe</a>.



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Charlie Munger once said: “Show me the incentives and I&#8217;ll show you the outcome.”



So if you’re launching a memecoin on pump.fun, your incentives are: reach a token market cap of $100k, upon which $17k of liquidity is deposited into the Raydium DEX to kickstart a trading pair.&nbsp;



Then, here are the outcomes: nudity, <a href="https://x.com/AltcoinGordon/status/1860627600097366129">stray gun shootings</a>, threats of <a href="https://x.com/beausecurity/status/1860859118124138610">suicide</a>, threats to harm <a href="https://x.com/maver_y/status/1860927674408943717">pets</a>, <a href="https://x.com/JoeyMooose/status/1860891432560545913">school</a> children, <a href="https://x.com/danielgothits/status/1860879008000295267">family</a> members and alleged stunts involving the <a href="https://x.com/crypto_bitlord7/status/1860611480871481766">consumption</a> of faeces in a dog cage.



This list just about sums up the banal grasps for attention in the world of memecoins. Thanks to pump.fun’s in-built <a href="https://x.com/pumpdotfun/status/1826754623354650939">livestream feature</a>, that race for attention to the bottom is being laid bare on full display.



Attention is the currency of memecoins, so it’s a somewhat unsurprising outcome.&nbsp;



This state of affairs has sent a call for regulation or a ban on the memecoin launcher trending across Twitter. Already, there are fake images of a <a href="https://x.com/arbitrumalex/status/1860895686239105288">Polymarket</a> predicting the odds of a pump.fun ban, and the <a href="https://x.com/Sartoshi0x/status/1860878433112207755">SEC</a> seizing the pump.fun website.



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXe84IwqlZeT_-S2fnB-lVkBMMVacXlaSsD9RGUB4riKqhXpvZHtegdv8Zqqw4eZ6ryfy7sqWRDaNWQvebMbB2ISSBj5IY3Y0MrCCNzQHKoyatxmnkXIYY_0dR6qDrzIaiGy8wqKLw?key=Qn2QTSsT43W7zLeZrpL_r554" alt=""/></figure>



Over the weekend, pump.fun founder Alon <a href="https://x.com/a1lon9/status/1860036153249787911">acknowledged</a> the problem and claimed that the platform’s team of moderators are “working around the clock” to quash the “illicit content.” But given the rate of <a href="https://dune.com/jhackworth/pumpfun">thousands</a> of memecoins being deployed daily, that’s going to be easier said than done.



Realistically speaking though, what could a regulator do?



US regulators, for example, could pressure internet service providers to block the pump.fun DNS domain, but a VPN could easily skirt the ban.&nbsp;



As for the tokens themselves, they live on the Solana blockchain. Regulators could technically pressure validators to block the transactions the same way the US Treasury applied <a href="https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/jy0916">sanctions</a> on <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/ny-fed-tornado-cash-report">Tornado Cash</a> in 2022, which takes us down the MEV supply chain rabbit hole once again.



There’s an ironic parallel here to the longstanding problem facing Big Tech’s social media platforms. If illegal content is posted on Facebook, who should be held legally liable — the user or Facebook?



Within the US, free speech proponents have argued that <a href="https://www.eff.org/issues/cda230">Section 230</a> of the 1934 Communications Act legally protects platforms’ illicit user-generated content.



That logic, consistently applied, may shield pump.fun from regulatory pressure, though it will certainly not shield it from the forces of market competition.



Pump.fun’s success has already been mimicked dozens of times. There is makenow.meme on Solana, sun.pump on Tron, and “<a href="https://warpcast.com/proxystudio.eth/0xa01e9beb">Clanker</a>,” a kind of AI-powered equivalent of pump.fun on Base, through which memecoins can be deployed into a Uniswap v3 pool for free with a Farcaster tweet.



Clanker was launched slightly more than two weeks ago, and already has collected about <a href="https://x.com/dwr/status/1860499493239586828?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1860499493239586828%7Ctwgr%5E7ad59c570ca653d32722d42e71d64f8a42c8918b%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&amp;ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fmembers.delphidigital.io%2Ffeed%2Fclanker-bases-pump-fun">$4 million</a> in fee revenues, according to Farcaster co-founder Dan Romero.



But whether it’s the regulatory hammer or market competition, pump.fun has plenty of incentives to quickly nip such a problem in the bud.



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Pump.fun looks to self-regulate gory content

Katherine Ross

This is a segment from the Empire newsletter. To read full editions, <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/empire">subscribe</a>.



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$100,000 is just out of reach right now.&nbsp;



We saw some resistance on Friday as bitcoin touched $99.8k before backing down, which isn’t really a surprise when you look at how much bitcoin could be sold just on Coinbase once we hit the elusive record.



<figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="550" data-dnt="true">1,000 BTC for Sale on Coinbase at $100k <a href="https://t.co/RevXCanfia">pic.twitter.com/RevXCanfia</a>&mdash; matthew sigel, recovering CFA (@matthew_sigel) <a href="https://twitter.com/matthew_sigel/status/1860045279753568485?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 22, 2024</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></figure>



In an X post, Galaxy’s Michael Novogratz said this amounts to “normal profit taking” as Alex Thorn’s data shows that a lot of the sellers came in this year above $56,000, and are looking to offload.&nbsp;



<figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="550" data-dnt="true">Galaxy Research <a href="https://twitter.com/intangiblecoins?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@intangiblecoins</a> telling me that most of the selling is coming from 2024 buyers who bought above 56k.. normal profit taking&#8230; I still think new buyers are gonna HODL and eating through supply is long term healthy.&mdash; Mike Novogratz (@novogratz) <a href="https://twitter.com/novogratz/status/1860824141152067656?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 24, 2024</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></figure>



Despite this being a holiday week for folks in the US (which, on the Wall Street side of things, generally means that volumes are slightly lower), there may be a reason to be bullish on hitting $100k.&nbsp;



And, to no one’s surprise, all roads lead back to MicroStrategy. The firm, in an SEC filing this morning, announced that it purchased 55,500 bitcoin — worth $5.4 billion — at the end of last week into the weekend at an average price of nearly $98,000 per bitcoin.



The <a href="https://www.sec.gov/ix?doc=/Archives/edgar/data/0001050446/000119312524264733/d844494d8k.htm">filing</a> was actually kind of expected, given that we knew a big purchase was on the horizon after it announced at the end of last week that it closed its bond offering. And that came after it was upsized to nearly $3 billion from an initial $1.75 billion.



The most recent purchase comes on the <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/microstrategy-bitcoin-bet">heels of a $4.6 billion buy</a> earlier this month. That means — if you’re looking at the math — we’ve seen Saylor’s company buy up $10 billion worth of bitcoin this month alone. Wild, right?&nbsp;



While Saylor’s purchases are catalysts for price action, it’s not looking like it’s enough to send us over $100k just yet, but perhaps it’ll help folks breach the wall that’s currently in place.&nbsp;



After all, there’s one other trend that shows we could break $100,000 sooner rather than later. According to FalconX’s David Lawant, there have been a few notable liquidity shifts in the market.&nbsp;



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXefQ5LQb1rkl1iS4cinm-1Wa3e9fRJyTQC4kO28Uj5pGou9dX-nNFih0b1wZ1nCxdVfzTZF_pNyUWlM-IBzf2g6cQBz-sOAkxUSLE_s9OUNAclcGnv4CMRHq-BVXEYrx0udOjGv?key=4qLVmzzirA4cqaFtgObkCM2R" alt=""/><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Source: FalconX</figcaption></figure>



“BTC reached its highest spot volume print ever on a seven-day moving average basis and for the first time since 2021 is in shooting range of doing the same on the futures side. While spot volumes on the week after the election brought the daily traded value to above $40 billion, over the past week it was slightly lower at $25-35 billion but still two to three times the levels we have been seeing between March 2024 and the election,” Lawant wrote.&nbsp;



However, the volume jump hasn’t led to an increase in book order depth, which would together lead to a “stronger” impact on price action.&nbsp;



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXf4ZfvWhOgZLR_iWgghofp8SmDlqkUVzRTjkmVkiKNEXTrdleP3R35JPUjVB5vOp0cwEKH5jfva1JvIJU3d_rYevDrZLnoiZvrm7p84k_PIwmwLbthuQmvF6ILKTpK_u37hILiK5Q?key=4qLVmzzirA4cqaFtgObkCM2R" alt=""/><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Source: FalconX</figcaption></figure>



Essentially, this data shows that $100,000 remains a tough level to break through, but “the overall picture remains encouraging,” according to Lawant. 



If MicroStrategy’s buy isn’t enough to send us over the wall, perhaps we’re just a <a href="https://x.com/byKatherineRoss/status/1860008379063894318">CZ post away.</a>



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What it’s going to take to hit $100K

Tether made moves this week, investing in Quantoz alongside Kraken and Fabric Ventures. The team did not disclose the amount invested.



Alongside the announcement, the Dutch-based stablecoin company also announced it was launching euro and US dollar stablecoins.&nbsp;



“EURQ and USDQ are respectively euro and US dollar-referenced E-Money Tokens (EMTs), issued on the Ethereum blockchain by Quantoz, an Electronic Money Institution (EMI) authorised and supervised by De Nederlandsche Bank (DNB), the Dutch Central Bank,” a press release said.



Read more from our opinion section: <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/stablecoin-regulation-necessary-now-us">The time for US stablecoin regulation is now&nbsp;</a>



Both EURQ and USDQ were listed by Bitfinex and Kraken earlier this week, making both available to “eligible clients.”



“Europeans speak loudly about MICAR making stablecoin issuance seamless in Europe and whilst there are clearer rules, there are very few players that can pull it off at scale,” Fabric ventures general partner Anil Hansjee said in a <a href="https://quantozpay.com/quantoz-payments-issues-euro-and-us-dollar-stablecoins/">press release</a>.



Read more from our opinion section:<a href="https://blockworks.co/news/mica-compliance-eu-crypto-consolidation"> MiCA compliance will drive Europe into a crypto consolidation frenzy</a>



“Think regulatory licenses, tier 1 banking partners with adequate liquidity ratios and balance sheets, blockchain expertise, state of the art and scalable compliance onboarding, onchain transaction monitoring, treasury and risk management, security DNA, let alone an ability to convince major European exchanges to list you and market makers to provide liquidity, as well as dapps to build use cases around you,” Hansjee continued.



Not to be outdone, another <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/stablecoins">stablecoin</a> company, <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/paxos">Paxos</a>, had its own news to share earlier this week.



Paxos <a href="https://paxos.com/blog/paxos-to-acquire-finnish-e-money-institution-membrane-finance/">announced</a> that it acquired Membrane Finance, also for an undisclosed amount. The purchase sets Paxos up to be a regulated entity in the <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/eu">EU</a>, where it plans to issue <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/mica">MiCA</a>-compliant stablecoins.&nbsp;



Membrane is a Finnish company with an Electronic Money Institution (EMI) license.&nbsp;



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Other notable funding rounds:</h2>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>Monkey Tilt <a href="https://x.com/MonkeyTiltPlay/status/1859327528739201374">announced</a> a $30 million Series A led by Pantera Capital. Hack VC and Polychain also participated. </li>



<li>Valantis Labs <a href="https://x.com/ValantisLabs/status/1859285814821388325">raised</a> $7.5 million across pre-seed and seed rounds led by Cyber Fund, Kraken Ventures and Seven X Ventures.</li>



<li>OpenLayer <a href="https://x.com/OpenLayerHQ/status/1858938617819000885">said</a> it raised $5 million, with a16z’s CSX, Geometry and Spartan all contributing.</li>



<li>Barter DeFi <a href="https://x.com/BarterDeFi/status/1858893556447891968">announced</a> a $3 million seed round led by Maven 11 Capital.</li>
</ul>



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Funding Roundup: Stablecoin fundraising and M&A activity heats up

Though not the type of crypto hire we typically cover in these roundups, President-elect Donald Trump nominated Cantor Fitzgerald CEO Howard Lutnick to lead the Department of Commerce this week.



We highlighted Lutnick’s <a href="https://link.mail.beehiiv.com/ss/c/u001.VIz4fB9RgLaqgT0Ji6lSIMhLGx1BG6y6FX8v5LSXYwgUk16fXNbzd9DTUZWINQEf822GPTmvyxixSLBlUzCfKEiY7xc0k6NQw_Om4FA0ED4DeLOcBwhii-0F9NXtu_zQSpEgbeAkqPWj8FN7nb3EkSxZPYvduKlbYQ1oEIxnJPWkCNRQwlBaHZdQG-r-825rKPPIeL_nMIm7e9pJJmQgtBrC08tfpE_1H778ia1rOCUuFQdINNfOeOsD4UvOjPUS9HtR9c01KKfn9luJAfBVu213XdyebUOsBSN3pAUqVP4/4bl/IH224rKYS1q1ONJ1-gW0DA/h20/h001.77vd-pY95ElrlwXXb3i5dZ-R-fIDLipP7mXZqCpSjJA">remarks on bitcoin</a> in a September edition of the Forward Guidance newsletter. At the time, the CEO noted that traditional finance players — including banks and brokerages — would “go headfirst into bitcoin” when the regulatory environment improved.&nbsp;



Trump’s election win has seemed to set the stage for that, given the <a href="https://link.mail.beehiiv.com/ss/c/u001.VIz4fB9RgLaqgT0Ji6lSIMhLGx1BG6y6FX8v5LSXYwigNEM9nXQOp7Y6rYnk4N-VViTtVUBtTUFuOw3Y0SGzqJaLC5YCGtHdUh7zP8F08Vctj5GIA_3ToEZLQ-kWSVRg5HyB_Zgs4WgDo4Bo71rdFSv0iWIROf_jyIKSs-zr1Igy57Aam05L-wIEFb5cRS_FsOx11mCqK8KyzrB3tagk7o7SJX8ylRAcFhLMnRsD5vIPwoT9jSF6Pxpggmn7j6fl_PYeWPZdAy6v7tsa_mD5mNTZoydJIuZ9GyoXQhFPprZFrQA6HgXfnAG1PprcQdez/4bl/IH224rKYS1q1ONJ1-gW0DA/h21/h001.FBU8i7legpmz1J4JxNUxzwposhly6rBZfSbAy03MBcc">crypto promises</a> he has made (namely, “firing” Securities and Exchange Chair Gary Gensler).



Read more: <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/trump-nominates-commerce-dept-leader">Trump nominates pro-crypto CEO to lead commerce department</a>



Lutnick <a href="https://x.com/howardlutnick/status/1831080474124681316?s=46&amp;utm_source=forward-guidance.beehiiv.com&amp;utm_medium=newsletter&amp;utm_campaign=options-open&amp;_bhlid=e85ffb801808c011874423cc190af9f43a1861ef">said</a> in a September X video that bitcoin adoption will proliferate once banks can more freely clear, custody and transact in bitcoin — a reality hindered by the SEC’s Staff Accounting Bulletin <a href="https://link.mail.beehiiv.com/ss/c/u001.VIz4fB9RgLaqgT0Ji6lSIMhLGx1BG6y6FX8v5LSXYwjkzkkNq3FGLJqh4wkyHMJY_s1SVlapX0RF6tXS-mB7PtUyAgVzHOHJvr74YCtLOTNQFQf_Vz_SJQU8j1vQZY-hyHjncXDc8a_L-KY5zLWmRtgHN4pnFtIDa8YK-pnPFIRPHyxSE_prxEa_TeMBs_2l_nz7-le2zouwKD4qmeg2h2LSkXt01JZKHJffWqdmSeJ5dQ7gZH2BOo8C8-zjEycOtfCdA4c-5Jj7yPg1lG_OUQ/4bl/IH224rKYS1q1ONJ1-gW0DA/h23/h001.0fIErinHJecrQsGq3Imi39lmmH8ZZwAKRakgiayAoPg">(SAB) 121</a>.



Lutnick’s firm has stablecoin issuer Tether as a client — a company that has denied being <a href="https://link.mail.beehiiv.com/ss/c/u001.VIz4fB9RgLaqgT0Ji6lSIMhLGx1BG6y6FX8v5LSXYwgZQzTpD9i20l7fRn4fMOxRNJ-OYOLpnRBKvC5u7r-5IMmkjkDsEmfGeWHM3_abYXfZAVDyVXFX_04IvI1yUKgRLHoNAFPYoiA67it2Gv6DnH81LyqIpwcyyoHyffm1gcXB3TVkSQnDaLXw785tbjBkIwbAgwkk89IKeJZzUfPMdMz_HpQZ-QW3WsRT_GOUi-QvPGwdOYOg4IBOlN5usMcFIGy6iWiEuXMcvAhe_gPazUF-80jrqhnP7WFJQGb200Y/4bl/IH224rKYS1q1ONJ1-gW0DA/h24/h001.EbF974gF-xuBcsYq229KAI_PCDC4k3YiQc37tFu5ArU">under federal investigation</a>.



Speaking of Trump appointments, reports surfaced this week of him potentially <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/digital-assets/2024/11/21/leak-reveals-trump-crypto-bombshell-as-bitcoin-suddenly-surges-toward-100000-price/">selecting</a> a crypto czar and forming a <a href="https://www.reuters.com/technology/crypto-industry-jockeys-seats-trumps-promised-council-2024-11-21/">crypto council</a> that could be housed under the White House&#8217;s National Economic Council.



Still, Blockchain Association CEO Kristin Smith said she is watching out for who could fill two other roles.



<figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="550" data-dnt="true">We’ll have lots of time to debate who would be best for positions like a “crypto czar.” It’s a great idea, but the ones before us are Treasury Secretary and SEC Chair–a crypto czar won’t be able to get much done unless the people in those posts are strong. Let’s stay focused.&mdash; Kristin Smith (@KMSmithDC) <a href="https://twitter.com/KMSmithDC/status/1859339558342607023?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 20, 2024</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></figure>



<a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/gary-gensler">Gensler</a> said this week he would <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/gary-gensler-resigning">step down from his SEC chair post</a> on Jan. 20.&nbsp;



Read more: <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/sec-departures-regulation-changes">Changes at the SEC start well ahead of Inauguration Day</a>



As for a crypto firm adding an executive, bitcoin infrastructure technology Blockstream appointed hedge fund veteran Sean Bill as its chief investment officer.&nbsp;



Bill, who was most recently CIO of Prime Meridian Capital Management, is set to lead Blockstream’s newly created asset management division.



The firm’s bitcoin financial products in development include a bitcoin yield fund (aiming to function like a money market fund for BTC holders) and a USD yield fund (providing lending opportunities that generate income through bitcoin-backed loans).&nbsp;&nbsp;



In other soon-to-be hiring news, Wintermute Asia is set to double its headcount in the <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/apac">Asia Pacific</a> region upon establishing a new headquarters in Singapore, the company said earlier this week.&nbsp;



The digital asset derivatives trading arm of Wintermute Group said Monday it is “actively hiring for top-of-the-funnel roles that are critical to scaling its operations.”



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Start your day with top crypto insights from David Canellis and Katherine Ross. <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/empire">Subscribe to the Empire newsletter</a>.



Explore the growing intersection between crypto, macroeconomics, policy and finance with Ben Strack, Casey Wagner and Felix Jauvin. <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/onthemargin">Subscribe to the Forward Guidance newsletter</a>.



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Crypto Hiring: Industry waits for more Trump appointments

FIFA and Mythical Games are collaborating to launch FIFA Rivals, the companies announced on Friday. The app is an officially licensed, free-to-play soccer game for iOS and Android.



<figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="550" data-dnt="true">New title in the &#39;Rivals&#39; franchise! Introducing <a href="https://twitter.com/FIFARivals?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@FIFARivals</a>, an officially licensed mobile game from <a href="https://twitter.com/playmythical?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@playmythical</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/FIFAcom?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@FIFAcom</a> ⚽ Powered by Mythos chain, build your dream team, own your players, and compete in real-time arcade action. Available in 2025 on iOS &amp; Android. <a href="https://t.co/2S5EnhV3sB">pic.twitter.com/2S5EnhV3sB</a>&mdash; Enter the Mythos (@EnterTheMythos) <a href="https://twitter.com/EnterTheMythos/status/1859963926672486879?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 22, 2024</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></figure>



Scheduled for a 2025 release, players will be able to manage their own football clubs and compete against other players in real-time arcade gameplay.



FIFA Rivals will include an in-game marketplace for players to trade football stars as NFT-collectibles on the Mythos blockchain.



Read more: <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/off-the-grid-blockchain-gaming-experience">Off the Grid’s popularity is about ‘best of breed technologies’&nbsp;</a>



“Our goal (with FIFA Rivals) is to replicate our success with previous Rivals games and set new benchmarks in the Web3 gaming sector,” said John Linden, CEO and founder of Mythical Games.&nbsp;



Mythical Games is the Web3 <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/gaming">gaming</a> studio behind the NFL Rivals game that today boasts over six million downloads. Similar to FIFA Rivals, players in NFL Rivals can own and trade NFT-collectible player cards via the Mythical Marketplace on Mythos.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Suntory Group tokenizes Premium Malt’s beer on Avalanche</h2>



Global beverage corporation Suntory Group announced Tuesday a pilot project to tokenize its signature Japanese Premium Malt’s bottled beer on the <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/avalanche">Avalanche</a> blockchain.



Read more: <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/lightspeed-newsletter-solana-wine-tokenization">Wine tokenization on Solana</a>



As part of a strategic partnership with Ava Labs, this limited release of tokenized Premium Malt’s bottles will be open to Japanese markets on Nov. 12.



Premium Malt’s beer bottles will come with a near-field communication (NFC) tag which, when opened and scanned, will enable the collection of a unique <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/nfts">NFT</a> for consumers.



The announcement was made at Thailand Blockchain Week by Suntory Chief Digital Innovation Officer Rio &#8220;Popeye&#8221; Inaba, and Ava Labs’ Japan head, Roi Hirata.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">One interesting stat:</h2>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>Monkey Tilt, a crypto-based gambling platform, announced on Wednesday a $30 million Series A funding round led by Pantera Capital. The sum brings its total funding raised to over $50 million.</li>
</ul>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Also of note:</h2>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>Season 2 of Yuga Labs’ multiplayer <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/yuga-labs-demos-otherside-metaverse">metaverse project</a> “Project Dragon” is <a href="https://x.com/OthersideMeta/status/1857477347500273689">launching</a> today with new avatars and rules for its virtual world game.</li>



<li>Chiliz Group is set to <a href="https://x.com/Chiliz/status/1858471882368119070">launch</a> a non-custodial Socios.com wallet for its 2.3 million users. </li>



<li>The Toledo Museum of Art <a href="https://x.com/yatreda/status/1858609798889009356">purchased</a> the digital artwork “Abyssinian Queen” by Ethiopian art collective Yatreda, using USDC on the Ethereum blockchain.</li>
</ul>



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Start your day with top crypto insights from David Canellis and Katherine Ross. <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/empire">Subscribe to the Empire newsletter</a>.



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Web3 Watch: FIFA officially licenses blockchain-based mobile game

This is a segment from the Lightspeed newsletter. To read full editions, <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/lightspeed">subscribe</a>.



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SOL touched $260 for the first time ever last night, setting off a round of <a href="https://x.com/calilyliu/status/1859901821856166149">quasi-religious</a> celebration and dunks on Solana bears. We have covered <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/lightspeed-newsletter-solana-bull-run">the narrative side</a> of Solana’s turnaround from a massive post-FTX sell-off previously, but today we’re bringing you some interesting data to recap Solana’s landmark day.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">1,111</h2>



That’s the number of days between Solana’s first and second all-time highs. As long as the wait may have felt for SOL holders, that’s actually less time than it took bitcoin to set its second price record: The orange coin <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/bitcoin-all-time-high-comparison">took some 1,200 days</a> to top its 2013 high.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">$294.42</h2>



That would be Solana’s previous all-time high adjusted for inflation, according to the data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. So $263 is pretty good, but those SOL tokens don’t go quite as far as they used to.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">7.72%</h2>



That’s the percentage of one ether token that one solana token represents, and this SOLETH ratio also set an all-time high yesterday. When solana last hit an all-time high, the coin was only worth 5.7% of one ether.&nbsp;



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">$2.4 billion</h2>



That’s how much the SOL tokens Galaxy Trading purchased from the FTX estate are worth at today’s prices, according to details <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-04-05/ftx-s-solana-sale-galaxy-pantera-buy-tokens-at-64-sol?utm_campaign=socialflow-organic&amp;utm_content=crypto&amp;utm_source=twitter&amp;utm_medium=social">reported</a> by Bloomberg. The subsidiary of Mike Novogratz’s Galaxy Digital purchased $620 million in SOL at $64 per token in April. SOL was trading at around $172 at the time. Not a bad deal.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">80%</h2>



That’s roughly the percentage of Solana decentralized exchange activity that involved memecoins yesterday. Speculative meme tokens have largely been the story of Solana’s massive run-up in volume and blockspace demand. Solana founders and investors will often portray memecoins as a “stress test” for the network — presumably as it readies itself to onboard more meaningful financial activity.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">1,150%</h2>



That’s roughly the price appreciation between when Robinhood delisted SOL in June 2023 and when it added the token back to the platform last week. The popular retail trading app stopped offering SOL and repaid users at June 2023 market prices after the SEC declared in lawsuits against Coinbase and Binance that the asset is an unregistered security. Following Donald Trump’s electoral victory and the prospect of a more crypto-friendly regulatory environment, Robinhood brought SOL back. Robinhood users missed out on some pretty big gains in between those dates.



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Solana’s all-time high by the numbers

This is a segment from the Forward Guidance newsletter. To read full editions, <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/forwardguidance">subscribe</a>.



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This has been a busy week at the SEC. 



The headline news from the commission, if you will, was Chair Gary Gensler’s <a href="https://www.sec.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2024-182">departure announcement</a>. He said yesterday he would be resigning, effective 12 pm ET on Jan. 20, 2025 — the exact time President-elect Donald Trump is scheduled to be inaugurated. We’re not surprised, but we got a chuckle out of him unprecedentedly naming the exact time he would leave the post.&nbsp;



And then today, fellow Democrat Commissioner <a href="https://www.sec.gov/newsroom/speeches-statements/gensler-statement-lizarraga-departure-112224?utm_medium=email&amp;utm_source=govdelivery">Jaime Lizárraga</a> announced he would also depart early on Inauguration Day, saying he wants to spend more time with his family as his wife battles breast cancer. We wish her and the Lizárraga family all the best.



On the legal front, one federal judge this week came to the same decision in two separate cases. Judge Reed O’Connor of the Northern District of Texas found the SEC had overstepped its authority and must vacate the Dealer Rule, adopted in February by a 3-2 commissioner vote. Republican Commissioners Hester Peirce and Mark Uyeda dissented against the Dealer Rule.&nbsp;



The rulings were seen as a win for both the hedge fund and crypto industries, protecting companies and managers in both groups from what has been described as “severe and adverse” changes in policy. Under the rule, certain hedge funds and crypto traders and validators would have been considered “dealers,” a classification both groups found <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/sec-expands-dealer-rule-crypto-firms">prohibitively strict</a>.&nbsp;



It looks like changes at the agency are coming even before Trump moves back to Washington.&nbsp;



We <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/donald-trump-cabinet-selection">wrote earlier</a> in the week about how there was a chance the commissioner voting breakdown would remain the same even after Trump takes office. With two spots now up for grabs, we know this won’t be the case.&nbsp;



No more than three commissioners can be from the same party, and with Gensler out we can all but guarantee a Republican will be in as the next chair. That means Lizárraga’s vacant spot will go to a Democrat or Independent. Typically in this case, the Democrats would submit names for Trump to consider. But we know the Trump Administration often veers from the conventional.&nbsp;&nbsp;



I’m still skeptical, though, that we will see any pending litigation dismissed. Even if the SEC now swings Republican (and potentially more pro-crypto), its staff would have to ask the commissioners to dismiss a lawsuit. These are staffers that have worked on these cases, in many instances, from the beginning.&nbsp;



As we enter this new era of the SEC, it’s important to remember that Gensler’s predecessor — Chair Jay Clayton, a Trump nominee — was the one who brought the <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/ripple-fined-civil-penalty-sec-lawsuit">Ripple case</a> over XRP’s <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/forward-guidance-newsletter-sec-ripple-inflation">security status</a> in 2020. He also brought an additional 79 crypto-related enforcement actions during his tenure, plus a separate action against Trump ally Elon Musk. Clayton is now headed to lead prosecution at the Southern District of New York, if Trump has his way. 



Despite Clayton’s track record, he’s largely praised by the industry as being <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/bitcoin-etf-approval-inevitable-jay-clayton">pro-crypto</a>. We know Trump wasn’t always a fan of the industry, so maybe he’s not the only one who can have a change of heart.



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Start your day with top crypto insights from David Canellis and Katherine Ross. <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/empire">Subscribe to the Empire newsletter</a>.



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Changes at the SEC start well ahead of Inauguration Day

This is a segment from the Forward Guidance newsletter. To read full editions, <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/forwardguidance">subscribe</a>.



<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity"/>



Bitcoin hit about $99,500 overnight before dipping below $97,300 a few hours later. The asset’s price was right around $99,350 at 2 pm ET.



On <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/bitcoin-close-to-all-time-high-against-gold">the cusp</a> of $100,000, what will happen after BTC hits that level? Or if it doesn’t break through that in the short term?



As you know by now, nobody knows for sure. But I caught up <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/21shares-us-crypto-etf-adoption-outlook">(again)</a> with Federico Brokate, head of 21Shares’ US business. He also helped BlackRock launch the iShares Bitcoin Trust (<a href="https://blockworks.co/news/blackrock-bitcoin-etf-1b-inflows">IBIT</a>) in January while he led iShares’ business strategy in the Americas.&nbsp;



The main takeaways? Well for one, the six-figure mark represents “a psychological barrier for markets” and a price target investors have been eyeing since the last crypto bull run, Brokate explained.&nbsp;&nbsp;



He noted, too, that BTC’s price last week quickly rose another 3-5% after hitting the $90,000 mark with enough volume — a scenario that could happen again <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/bitcoin-could-hit-100k-within-weeks">at $100,000</a>.



“If the barrier isn’t decisively broken by Thanksgiving, we could expect to see prices come down 15-20% — a correction that would test the $80,000 support level and wash out leveraged and low-conviction players,” Brokate told me.&nbsp;



Reaching the six-figure level would mean “greater short-term volatility as orders are filled, options liquidate and liquidity providers fulfill ETF block order requests,” he said, adding: “It wouldn’t be surprising to see some drawdown in the coming months.”



Outside of BTC, Brokate noted that altcoin markets <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/altcoin-season-when-bitcoin-dominance-hits-60">often surge</a> after bitcoin establishes a price plateau. This comes as investors tend to rotate to what are viewed as “higher-risk, higher-reward opportunities.” Perhaps that happens in late Q1, or Q2, the 21Shares executive posed.&nbsp;



While solana (SOL) just reached a <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/solana-sets-all-time-high-of-263">new price peak</a> at roughly $263, ether (ETH) remains about 32% off its November 2021 high. XRP was up about 65% from a week ago, as of 2 pm ET Friday.



Finally, Thanksgiving might mean more than turkey and football this year. After all, Brokate reminded, holiday gatherings are often a time investors discuss their investment journeys and gains, sparking curiosity.



Brokate recalled that in 2017, BTC hovered in the $6,000-to-$9,000 range before surging to about $16,000 after Thanksgiving.



He added: “We may see a similar move this year.”&nbsp;



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Start your day with top crypto insights from David Canellis and Katherine Ross. <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/empire">Subscribe to the Empire newsletter</a>.



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As BTC nears $100K, keep an eye on Thanksgiving

This is a segment from the 0xResearch newsletter. To read full editions, <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/research">subscribe</a>.



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As SOL <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/solana-sets-all-time-high-of-263">reached</a> new all-time highs yesterday, Crypto Twitter’s search for the “next Solana” is on.



There is no shortage of <a href="https://x.com/chainyoda/status/1849835317022327039">mega fast alt-L1s</a> to pick from, but in the spotlight are two contenders: MoveVM-based chains Sui and Aptos. Both chains were born in the previous crypto cycle, and built by teams with backgrounds in Facebook, which developed the Move programming language as part of its <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/facebook-led-crypto-project-diem-to-be-sold-off-for-200m-report">Libra</a> (later renamed Diem) project.



In terms of price action, SUI has outperformed APT by a large margin on a YTD basis after overtaking Aptos in market cap in mid-September.



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXcjcTtlwYopTYE2yOIskjzWcqBxEx7D7aBC_Cjmo7doI9Mx2sGFD_tmiAX-9CXtrLg8F-nrgo3qB8gu7C0WH7B0kXRSina0C8LbETBYgqgpCbzhDchR_OEmm95Xj0vEt9oFpjg56g?key=iZHG-iO_AQDsFz_3x3YWxSrN" alt=""/><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Source: <a href="https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/sui/">CoinMarketCap</a></figcaption></figure>



Despite <a href="https://x.com/SuiNetwork/status/1859705664362381559">suffering</a> a brief two-hour outage yesterday, SUI’s price has bounced back above its pre-outage price levels, ironically reinforcing the mimetic perception of Sui as the next Solana due to the latter’s <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/solana-downtime-post-mortem">history of outages</a>.



In terms of TVL, Sui and Aptos are running fairly neck to neck (see below chart), no doubt thanks to ongoing <a href="https://blockworks-research.beehiiv.com/p/saving-self-custody">liquidity incentive</a> campaigns. As far as active dapps on the L1s, both are also fairly even — Sui has 44, Aptos has 49 — based on <a href="https://defillama.com/chains">DefiLlama</a>’s numbers.



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXenOdwIIajIY7bxP-U5Oe2jAvhqq6dNLszfvbjNUIgadp9x6CHSxu_2dlV0pPzSZioxukKuownLe4b7GM8KFobhzgyum61mUZJs0MPFxad7uSP4nGil8eEYhtqVT0wwk7-XlMkGMQ?key=iZHG-iO_AQDsFz_3x3YWxSrN" alt=""/><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Source: <a href="https://app.artemisanalytics.com/chains?selectedChains=aptos%2Csui">Artemis</a></figcaption></figure>



Zooming into onchain activity, Sui’s DEX trading volumes saw a 3x jump since September, overtaking Aptos by a long shot in the last month.



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXdqJQVqlSwzCgw26lUiBjulWHrTAzbtTU9Z3rZiWH4xCH65HHT4yRZPpL9tycA9teh8gpP8gt96fPn2FehQUim60H6vtfR9vF9CTmEAv912j6yo2Vw1y7hRS3uT4KuthdzDufkxeQ?key=iZHG-iO_AQDsFz_3x3YWxSrN" alt=""/><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Source: <a href="https://app.artemisanalytics.com/chains?selectedChains=aptos%2Csui">Artemis</a></figcaption></figure>



In terms of fees, Sui is also far outpacing Aptos, with $1.1 million generated in October alone, vs. $196k for Aptos.



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXfLuhT9H7k7HvC4fz6DK0LnfWjbr5DtUcpH3n9xaFYNu1GZavbAqJaor7tQb4RpP_7nFu5dDHCWY3B-VMaC7C4v5zkDdBuFBuW9Ln0QeMHw2My3F3UwOf1ccJM4jRrpstaRZ2J_qA?key=iZHG-iO_AQDsFz_3x3YWxSrN" alt=""/><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Source: <a href="https://app.artemisanalytics.com/chains?selectedChains=aptos%2Csui">Artemis</a></figcaption></figure>



In the TradFi arena, both chains are pursuing real-world assets. Ondo has deployed its USDY tokenized Treausurys product on both chains, with about $8.3 million on Sui and <a href="https://app.rwa.xyz/networks/aptos">$15.7 million</a> on Aptos.&nbsp;



Aptos also announced last week BlackRock’s <a href="https://aptosfoundation.org/currents/blackrock-buidl-fund-live-on-aptos">deployment</a> of its tokenized RWA BUIDL fund, while Sui <a href="https://blog.sui.io/franklin-templeton-digital-assets-strategic-partnership/">announced</a> today a partnership with the digital assets arm of Franklin Templeton to support ecosystem growth.



Finally, both Sui and Aptos are attempting their own hardware plays. Sui is leaning hard into the gaming sector with its handheld console <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/sui-playtron-handheld-web3-gaming-device">SuiPlay0x1</a>, and earlier this month struck up a partnership with the global esports team <a href="https://blog.sui.io/team-liquid-myblue-blue-fan-platform/">Team Liquid</a>, while Aptos has taken the route of a <a href="https://aptosfoundation.org/currents/aptos-foundation-partners-with-jambo-to-empower-emerging-markets-through-web3">budget-priced JamboPhone smartphone</a>.



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Sui, Aptos vie for ‘next Solana’ status

David Canellis

Crypto has all sorts of stories we hope are really true.



For one, bitcoin’s rising price is dictated by the world recognizing its raw disruptive power.&nbsp;



No way that it’s a simple reflection of the <a href="https://www.lynalden.com/bitcoin-a-global-liquidity-barometer/">global liquidity cycle</a>. Nor does it serve as a basic multiplier on the <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-05-17/bitcoin-s-correlation-with-tech-stocks-jumps-to-highest-level-since-august">performance of megacap tech stocks</a> in the Nasdaq 100. Correlation be damned. Coincidence at best.



Here’s another: The price of bitcoin goes up when Binance co-founder Changpeng Zhao tweets “gm.”



It’s something I <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/cz-tweets-gm-bitcoin-goes-up">covered a while back</a>. But that was before Zhao finished up his <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/changpeng-zhao-binance-next-steps">four-month prison stint</a> in September, which included a stay in a Long Beach halfway house.



Zhao has since shared gms on X three times, and each one has preceded bitcoin pumping shortly after.



All in all, bitcoin has rallied 82% since Zhao first tweeted following his release two months ago — from about $54,600 to as much as $99,456 this morning.



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1600" height="1148" src="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/image-24.png" alt="" class="wp-image-94713" srcset="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/image-24.png?w=1600 1600w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/image-24.png?w=300 300w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/image-24.png?w=1024 1024w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/image-24.png?w=768 768w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/image-24.png?w=1536 1536w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/image-24.png?w=358 358w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/image-24.png?w=364 364w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/image-24.png?w=305 305w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/image-24.png?w=80 80w" sizes="(max-width: 1600px) 100vw, 1600px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Here’s (almost) every “gm” tweet from CZ mapped to the price of bitcoin</figcaption></figure>



Zhao has now tweeted “gm” on 11 different occasions across his full Twitter history, starting in March 2022.



On all but two, the price of bitcoin has gone up in a significant way within days, retained that value and then some. That’s an 80% success rate.



In fact, anyone who’d bought $1,000 worth of bitcoin alongside Zhao’s gms would’ve accumulated 0.317 BTC for $11,000.&nbsp;



They’d now be able to cash out almost $31,480, which is a profit of 186%.



Of course, correlation is not causation, and loads of stuff correlates with the price of bitcoin in any case.



Here’s a similar, but opposite, story from a few years back: the S&amp;P 500 <a href="https://thenextweb.com/news/the-stock-market-crashes-every-time-lil-yachty-releases-music-a-theory">crashes every time rapper Lil Yachty releases music</a>.



Still, for the superstitious, Zhao’s gms can’t hurt.&nbsp;



It’s now been two weeks since his last. Sounds overdue.



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Bitcoin goes up when CZ tweets ‘gm’: A theory

The crypto-focused asset manager Bitwise took an initial step toward launching a SOL ETF yesterday when it registered a statutory trust in Delaware. Bitwise becomes the fourth firm to show interest in a spot SOL ETF following earlier filings from <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/lightspeed-newsletter-spot-solana-etf-filing">VanEck</a>, <a href="https://blockworks.co/podcast/lightspeed/f1b64556-a070-11ef-be46-37ac229013df">21Shares</a> and <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/canary-capital-sol-etf-filing">Canary Capital</a>.



I spoke with Bitwise CEO Hunter Horsley, who cast Solana as one of this crypto market cycle’s breakout successes that he thinks clients will want to access. The firm also recently <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/bitwise-files-for-spot-xrp-etf">filed for an XRP ETF</a>.



Bitwise’s filing is the latest indication that despite Solana’s lack of a regulated futures market in the US — long thought to be a requirement for spot crypto ETFs — a potentially more crypto-friendly Trump administration could get SOL ETFs across the finish line.&nbsp;&nbsp;



The move comes as a FOX Business correspondent <a href="https://x.com/EleanorTerrett/status/1859611713579999366">reported</a> on social media that the SEC is more actively engaging with spot SOL ETF applicants. This is an about face from August, when The Block <a href="https://www.theblock.co/post/312031/the-sec-rejected-cboes-19b-4-filings-for-solana-etfs-source">reported</a> that the SEC rejected 19b-4 filings from the Cboe exchange, a key component in bringing about an agency decision.



The obvious difference between now and then is the regulatory outlook, with SEC chair and crypto industry bogeyman Gary Gensler <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/gary-gensler-resigning">announcing his resignation</a> from the agency. Horsley said the US presidential election was “absolutely relevant” in Bitwise’s decision to file for a SOL ETF, and now feels like a “constructive time” to engage with regulators after mulling over an application for around a year.&nbsp;



Like competitors VanEck and 21Shares, Bitwise currently offers a Solana exchange-traded product in Europe — a product it gained access to by way of <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/bitwise-europe-acquisition-crypto-etps">acquiring London-based ETC Group</a> in August. The Solana ETP currently has $27 million in assets under management (AUM), which is dwarfed by some competitors — 21Shares’ Solana ETP holds nearly $1.4 billion, for instance.



With a potential spot ETF, Bitwise and its competitors will seek to let US investors get exposure to SOL’s price action in a regulated wrapper.&nbsp;



SOL has the chance to become the third crypto to get a US-traded ETF. The first, bitcoin, <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/day-1-bitcoin-etf-trading-volume">saw impressive inflows</a> after launching while the second, ether, was much <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/on-the-margin-newsletter-ether-etf-data-takeaways">less in-demand</a>. I asked Horsley if the uninspiring ether flows spelled trouble for SOL ETFs. He responded that ether ETFs faced an uphill battle since they launched over the summer (when asset managers are likely vacationing in the south of France), ether hasn’t had great price action this market cycle, and two crypto ETFs were a lot for slow-moving capital markets to absorb in a short time.&nbsp;



Horsley was effusive in talking about Solana overall, calling SOL “an incredible emerging asset and story.” Later on, the Bitwise boss said many bitcoin ETF buyers may be looking for the “next big thing” in crypto.



“For a lot of investors, the answer to that is Solana,” Horsley said.



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Bitwise CEO: Solana an ‘incredible emerging asset and story’

SOL reached a new all-time high of $263 more than three years after it last peaked, according to data from CoinGecko.



Solana’s native token price fell dramatically amid the FTX exchange’s unwinding, briefly trading in the single digits in late 2022. SOL then endured a sluggish 2023, as the SEC made the argument that SOL was a security, creating regulatory fears around the asset. But after a year of explosive growth, a resurgent Solana has climbed all the way back to become one of only a few major cryptoassets to set a price record this market cycle.



Two years ago today, SOL was changing hands for a little under $12. The asset has appreciated by more than 2,000% since then.&nbsp;



In recent weeks, user demand to include transactions in Solana blocks has skyrocketed amid explosive growth in the memecoin trading sector. Solana memecoins attached to AI agent projects began the uptick, and Donald Trump’s presidential election victory turbocharged it.&nbsp;



Moonpay, a popular fiat to crypto on-ramp, said it saw an all-time record for Solana transactions on the platform Tuesday.



Solana’s “real economic value” metric — which largely comprises extra money traders will pay to get transactions processed faster —&nbsp;totaled a record of over $100 million-worth last week, as measured by Blockworks Research.



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1644" height="759" src="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/2024-11-22-Solana-REV.jpg?w=1024&amp;h=1024" alt="" class="wp-image-94704" srcset="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/2024-11-22-Solana-REV.jpg?w=1644 1644w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/2024-11-22-Solana-REV.jpg?w=300 300w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/2024-11-22-Solana-REV.jpg?w=1024 1024w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/2024-11-22-Solana-REV.jpg?w=768 768w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/2024-11-22-Solana-REV.jpg?w=1536 1536w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/2024-11-22-Solana-REV.jpg?w=428 428w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/2024-11-22-Solana-REV.jpg?w=470 470w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/2024-11-22-Solana-REV.jpg?w=389 389w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/2024-11-22-Solana-REV.jpg?w=80 80w" sizes="(max-width: 1644px) 100vw, 1644px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Source: <a href="https://app.blockworksresearch.com/analytics/sol">Blockworks Research</a></figcaption></figure>



So-called REV can be thought of as a proxy for Solana blockspace demand, and the metric was under $10 million weekly just two months ago.



Based on the past few days, Solana’s REV could approach $200 million this week.



Further fueling the recent rise was <a href="https://lightspeed-4bed7b.beehiiv.com/p/bitwise-ceo-on-sol-etfs">speculation on Thursday</a> that the chances of a SOL ETF being approved by the SEC under a Trump administration are higher than previously thought.



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Solana sets all-time high of $263

Marathon Digital clearly plans to keep up its BTC buys amid a rally that has sent the asset’s price to new highs. And they’re not alone.&nbsp;



The bitcoin miner revealed Thursday that it completed its offering of 0.00% convertible senior notes (due 2030). Net proceeds from the sale amounted to roughly $980 million — a majority of which will be used to buy more bitcoin and for “general corporate purposes.”



Marathon held 27,562 BTC on its balance sheet, as of Oct. 31. That represents roughly 8% of the 331,200 BTC held by MicroStrategy, the largest publicly traded holder of bitcoin.



MicroStrategy founder Michael Saylor alluded to Marathon’s CEO during a Tuesday X space when asked whether there’s an amount of BTC MicroStrategy could buy that would be detrimental to the bitcoin network.&nbsp;



“As much as I would like to buy all the bitcoin, I don’t think Fred Thiel’s going to let me buy all the bitcoin,” Saylor said.&nbsp;



He added: “And if <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/daily/issue/post_a86f70e8-2026-4c78-821e-c99cc7fd3a4b">Cynthia Lummis’ bill</a> gets taken by the Senate and House — and signed in the White House — then the US government’s going to be bidding against me.”&nbsp;



More companies have started to <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/company-treasuries-btc-reserve-asset">name BTC as a reserve asset</a>. Singapore-based Genius Group said Thursday morning it added another $4 million of bitcoin to its treasury and is targeting a reserve holding at least $120 million worth of BTC.&nbsp;



Tech giant <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/microsoft-bitcoin-balance-sheet">Microsoft has a proposal in front of them</a> to consider diversifying its balance sheet with bitcoin. Saylor said the “activist” behind it invited him to give a three-minute presentation to the board next month; the MicroStrategy executive accepted.



“It’s tricky to actually find a board that gets aligned with the management team and moves forward, and that’s why you haven’t seen as many companies act as aggressively as they could,” he said on the X space.



But, Saylor noted he expects that to change in 2025: “I think this will be an exponential process that’s going to pick up speed here.”



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