$93k Bitcoin, China's Continued Slump, and Klarna's IPO Filing!

This Week in Crypto

Lots to cover again this week! But I’ll make it quick…

ETF flows were great for Bitcoin this week, bar Thursday. We topped a yard again at the start of the week.

I’m going to do something mental here and even show you the Ethereum ones, which posted some tasty numbers too:

Much of the ETH flows could be attributed to funds-basis trading (long spot, short futures, collect premium), as the CME basis has been higher than that of BTC post-election. This would also explain the lackluster price action for Ethereum.

• ETHBTC has also trended to new yearly lows (I literally write this every week). ETH hodlers in the gutter.

Something else I basically write every week, Michael Saylor bought more corn:

Bitcoin flipped silver, a 5000+ year old asset, this week to become the 8th most valuable asset in the world. Mindboggling when you think about.

• One day in the not too distant future, it will go for golds crown. This is not financial advice, but I’ll be doing everything I can to not sell my Bitcoin. If I need cash, I’ll borrow… If only someone were building such a service…

Price Action this week absolutely reeks of a sovereign bid, there’s lots of noise about this on twitter, but nobody really knows anything for sure. Just don’t be suprised if Qatar or Saudi announce a substantial holding ahead of the United States’ Strategic Bitcoin Reserve (SBR).

• In the words of Paradigm’s Matt Huang, who gives a brief and sussinct overview of the current state of play amongst Nation States, “the race to build Bitcoin reserves is on.” Violently higher, with haste. 

On the American front:

• Howard Lutnick, Cantor Fitzgerald CEO and major Bitcoin Bull, has emerged as a front runner for Treasury Secretary. Polymarket has him at second place at c.25% behind the strong favourite Scott Bessant. Bessant has been vocally pro-crypto, but not to the same extent as Lutnick, who is also heavily involved with Tether.

  • Speaking of Polymarket, CEO Shayne Coplan had his apartment raided and phone seized by the FBI this week. A move condemned on twitter by Elon and Brian Armstrong as being a partisan attack. Shayne Coplan also released a statement to this effect.

• Pennsylvania lawmaker introduces bill for a SBR

• Fairshake PAC (the biggest pro-crypto PAC) went 100% on candidates it backed in the election:

• 18 states filed a lawsuit against Gary Gensler, accusing him of abusing power and “gross government overreach”.

  • At this point, it’s a given that the reign of Gary Gensler is coming to a close as SEC chair. Robinhood CLO is one of the frontrunners to take the position, which will mark a new era for crypto regulation in the United States.

    • Mark Andressen (14:25 below) speaks on Anarcho-tyranny. “For the lawless, they can do what they want and for the compliant, the government is going to torture them to death… That was crypto.”

And finally, a new section (let us know if you think it’s a nice overview)!

This Week in TradFi

Wall Street indexes dropped slightly yesterday, after Fed Chair Jerome Powell indicated that a December rate cut may be more unlikely than traders hoped.

• Powell said that the economy is still growing and inflation remains above its 2% target, so the Fed will need to deliberate carefully on rate cuts. 

• After the news, the Dow fell 0.5% and the S&P fell 0.6%. 

• Jobless claims dropped 4,000 last week, slightly lower than forecast. 

• Policymakers are also looking farther ahead, with potential inflationary pressure coming from President-elect Trump’s proposed higher tariffs. 

• Meanwhile, the U.S. dollar is now at a one-year high, with short-term Treasury yields increasing slightly as well. 

On the international front: 

• The Bank of Mexico lowered its benchmark interest rate by 25bps for a third straight time yesterday, and the governing board voted unanimously to cut the key rate to 10.25%.

• Across the pond, the Bank of England may be keeping interest rates steady until it’s clear the effect President-elect Trump will have on inflation, according to a BoE official. 

• Departing from England, the European Central Bank is on track to cut interest rates further, with euro zone inflation continuing to creep towards the bank’s 2% goal. This is coming after three rate cuts this year already. 

• And lots of negative China news for you today. October industrial output grew 5.3% YoY, missing expectations and slower than last month. Property investment in the country fell 10.3% YoY. And new home prices fell for the 16th consecutive month, down 0.5% MoM. 

• Oil prices are down slightly today due to oversupply and demand concerns. U.S. crude inventories rose last week by 2.1M barrels, much higher than the expected 750,000 increase. 

This Week in Tech

Klarna has kicked off its U.S. IPO plans with a confidential SEC filing.

• In long-awaited news, the company announced it filed a draft registration statement with the SEC on Wednesday.

• Klarna was founded in 2005 and launched in the U.S. in 2015. In 6 years, it was able to hit a $45B valuation but dropped quickly to $6.5B. Its valuation now sits at $14.6B. 

• Timeline and price are still TBD, but we expect the company to officially go public sometime in the first half of 2025. 

Waymo, Alphabet-owned self-driving car company, has officially expanded into Los Angeles, its largest expansion yet. 

• LA is now the third and largest city Waymo operates in, following San Francisco and Phoenix. 

• This comes after a $5.6B Series C last month, led by Alphabet and included previous backers like Andreessen Horowitz, Fidelity, and Tiger Global. 

• The company currently sees around 150,000 paid rides per week across all three markets, up from 100,000 per week in August. 

• Waymo also plans to launch in Austin, Texas in 2025. 

• One great use case from Reddit - 

With growing competition from discount stores like Temu and Shein, Amazon has rolled out discount store Amazon Haul.

• The storefront offers “crazy low prices” and free shipping on orders over $25. 

• The goods are shipped directly from China and are estimated to take around 2 weeks to be delivered. 

• This is a shift from the hallmark of Amazon’s offering - two- and sometimes even one-day delivery. The company is betting that shoppers will be willing to wait longer for goods if they’re lower priced. 

• To keep costs manageable with the low-priced goods, the storefront won’t accept returns on items that are $3 or less. 

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

• Just Eat Takeaway.com is selling GrubHub to Wonder Group for $650M, 91% less than the $7.3B they paid for the company four years ago. 

• Altos Ventures, backer of Roblox, PandaDoc, and Quizlet, raised $500M for its latest fund. 

• Mozilla Foundation, the nonprofit arm of Mozilla, has laid off 30% of its employees.

• Writer, a generative AI startup, raised $200M at a $1.9B valuation led by Premji Invest and Iconiq Growth.

Arch is building 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. We also offer access to bank-grade custody, trading and staking services, powered by BitGo.

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