XRP ETFs Outperform, Jobs Data, & Netflix Deal

View from the Arch #111

December 05, 2025

Another rocky week for crypto markets unfortunately…

This Week in Crypto

Sadly, December has also not been kind so far.

  • BTC briefly touched $87K on Monday amid $400M in liquidations. By Wednesday, it made its way back above $93K after Vanguard’s announcement (more on that next) and some weaker jobs data that had people pricing in Fed rate cuts.

  • By this morning, it slipped back below $93K, currently hovering around the $89K mark. 

  • Ethereum oscillated between $2,700 and $3,200, managing to outperform with 5% weekly gains.

  • XRP unfortunately had a rough week, dropping 4-5% and sliding below $2 despite its ETF continuing to crush it with inflows. 

Vanguard - the $11T asset management giant that has notoriously called crypto “too speculative” for serious investors - has caved and opened its platform to crypto ETFs on December 2. 

  • All 50 million of their brokerage customers can now trade Bitcoin, Ethereum, XRP, and Solana ETFs. 

  • Competitor BlackRock’s IBIT still has $66-$70B under management even after the brutal November outflows, which may be why Vanguard decided now was the time. 

XRP ETFs totally dominated this week, surpassing Bitcoin and Ethereum ETF inflows since their November 13th launch. 

  • Total XRP ETF inflows hit $756M, with Monday alone bringing in $89.65M.

  • Comparatively, Bitcoin ETFs only brought in $8.48M, and Ethereum ETFs had $79M in outflows. 

This Week in TradFi

This week was pretty quiet on the domestic front, with everyone waiting for next Wednesday’s Fed rate cut announcement.

  • The S&P 500 slowly inched up all week, closing close to $6,870 - about 0.7% away from its all-time high. 

  • The delayed PCE inflation reading showed core inflation at 2.8% annually, slightly below the 2.9% estimate - giving everyone permission to keep betting on rate cuts. 

  • Treasury yields hit their worst week since June, with the 10-year yield hitting 4.12% and the 30-year hitting 4.78%. 

  • ADP jobs data showed private payrolls declined by 32,000 jobs in November (yes, negative!), when economists were expecting a gain of 40,000. 

    • Initial jobless claims came in yesterday at 191,000, the lowest in three years, causing confusion on what’s actually happening in the job market. 

    • The contradictory data does give the Fed a permission slip to cut rates since nobody can figure out if the labor market is strong or falling apart.

On the international front:

  •  Japan’s bond yields continue to hit new highs, surging to levels not seen since 2008.

    • Japan’s 2-year JGB yield hit 1.01%, and the 10-year yield briefly touched 1.875% (also a 17-year high). 

  • Europe delivered some good news this week: eurozone retail sales for October rose 1.5% YoY, beating forecasts of 1.0% growth - helping European markets advance a bit yesterday.

    • Eurozone headline CPI came in at 2.2% annually in November, slightly above expectations but still close to the ECB’s 2% target. 

    • Bond yields across Europe remain relatively stable, though French political chaos continues to weigh on sentiment. 

This Week in Tech

Anthropic is expanding its partnership with cloud data company Snowflake in a $200M multi-year AI deal that will bring Anthropic’s large language models to Snowflake’s platform.

  • Claude Sonnet 4.5 will power Snowflake Intelligence, Snowflake’s enterprise AI service. 

  • Anthropic has been focused on lots of enterprise deals in recent months, deviating from OpenAI’s growth strategy.  

  • In October, Anthropic signed a deal with Deloitte, and later that same week they also signed a deal with IBM.

Netflix announced today that they’re acquiring Warner Bros, with an enterprise value of $82.7B.

  • The agreement involves HBO Max and the HBO studio - one of the largest mergers in Hollywood’s history.

As usual, below are some fundraising announcements, M&A, and tech personnel changes that caught our eye:

  • New unicorn alert - CRM company Brevo has raised $583M at a valuation of more than $1B. 

  • Autolane, a startup focused on autonomous driving infrastructure, has raised $7.4M.

  • Legal AI startup Harvey has raised $160M, at a valuation of $8B. 

Arch is building a next-gen wealth management platform for individuals holding Alternative Assets. Our flagship product is the crypto-backed loan, which allows you to securely and affordably borrow against your crypto.

Disclaimer: None of the above is financial advice, seriously.