Ripple Rips and a TikTok Takedown

New administration incoming in 3…2…1…

This Week in Crypto

As always, starting with a quick look into ETF flows:

Bitcoin prices had us worried about our heart health, with prices hitting everything from $90K on Monday back to $101K today.

• With President-elect Trump’s inauguration looming, the news flows this week have indicated a busy start to the new administration.

  • The SEC is expected to entirely revise policies, freeze litigation and review open cases.

    • The commissioners are apparently considering initiating the process that would lead to guidance on when the agency considers a cryptocurrency to be a security and reviewing a few crypto enforcement cases that have been held up in courts.

  • WaPo reported Trump is expected to issue executive orders related to de-banking and accounting measures that force banks to list crypto as liabilities.

  • Polymarket odds of an SBR in the first 100 days have been steadily increasing, hitting 44% this week.

Bitcoin isn’t the only cryptocurrency experiencing the Trump pump, with XRP rising 13% following Brad Garlinghouse’s visit to Mar-A-Logo a couple of weeks back.

• XRP has replaced Bitcoin as the most-traded digital asset on Coinbase. Since the election, XRP’s price has increased over 600% to $3.33, its highest value since 2017. It’s currently worth almost two Solana’s. Wild.

  • Anecdotally, here at Arch $XRP is by far the most requested asset to enable lending against.

• Separately Litecoin (+22%) could receive ETF approval, following Canary Funds filing an amended S-1 for their ETF application.

With the slew of pro-crypto chatter in regulatory corridors, we think the Polymarket odds of a 55% chance of a Solana ETF by 31st July 2025 is likely slightly underpriced. Further, the given on-chain metrics, daily active users and developer activity, the market cap feels underpriced relative to Ethereum and Ripple at this point too. (NFA!)

Slightly shorter one from us this week as we’re over in Colombia for BTC Medellin!

This Week in TradFi

Pretty calm waters in the U.S. this week, with everyone waiting on the inauguration to know how President-elect Trump’s new policies will truly shake out.

• U.S. stock futures edged slightly higher this week ahead of the inauguration, with the S&P and Dow on track to hit their highest weekly rise since the election in late November.

• Economists expect the Fed to continue holding rates steady in January and potentially cut rates again in March, though this is still fairly speculative. However, investors still expect the Fed to only cut rates once this year.

• The dollar continues to hit multi-year highs, fueled by investor anticipation for pro-growth and inflationary policies by the Trump administration. The dollar index has risen almost 10% since late-September, now hitting a two-year high.

  • U.S. CPI: +2.9% YEAR-OVER-YEAR (EST. +2.9%), U.S. CORE CPI: +3.2% YEAR-OVER-YEAR (EST. +3.3%)

On the international front, we’re all about China this week, following a massive economic data dump from the country: 

• China’s economy grew 5% last year, hitting its target, though the growth may be imbalanced, with many feeling like living standards are worsening. 

• In support of this, December data out of the country showed industrial output outpacing retail sales, and the unemployment rate was slightly higher. Chinese goods continue to become more and more competitive in global markets, strengthening export-led growth, but falling prices hurt corporate profits and domestic workers’ incomes. 

• Property investment in the country fell 10.6% last year, after a 10.4% YoY decrease in the first 11 months. New construction declined 23%, and funds raised by property developers fell 17%. 

Meanwhile, new home prices in the country stopped falling last month for the first time in 18 months, following a concerted government stimulus to lift the property sector out of its slump.

This Week in Tech

The TikTok ban is scheduled to go into effect in just two days, and America is ready.

• In response, over 700 million users have shifted over to the video platform RedNote, or Xiaohongshu, calling themselves “TikTok refugees”. 

• The move serves to show domestic social media companies that their products simply do not compete, and Americans just yearn for the social media that apparently only China can create. 

• Up until now, RedNote has been almost entirely used by Chinese citizens. The American flood has led to, at the very least, a cultural exchange between users of the two countries, and Duolingo has seen a 216% growth in new Mandarin learning YoY as a result. 

• Meanwhile, Mark Cuban has offered to invest in a TikTok alternative, specifically one built on the AT Protocol, which would allow the platform to connect to BlueSky’s millions of users. 

Speaking of Bluesky, an independent developer is building a new photo-sharing app for Bluesky called Flashes. 

• There’s been growing calls for alternatives to the Meta social media machine, though no one has been able to recreate the exact type of dopamine rush social media platforms like Instagram bring. 

• Flashes would be the next in line of multiple new open source, decentralized apps like Mastodon and BlueSky.

• However, Flashes developer Sebastian Vogelsang has said he is not trying to create an Instagram dupe. Upon launch, the app will support photo posts of up to four pictures and videos of up to one minute, similar to BlueSky. The app will integrate cleanly with BlueSky, with Flashes posts appearing on BlueSky and comments on those posts feeding back into the app. 

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

• Meta is reducing its workforce by 5% through performance-based terminations. 

• Walmart and robotics firm Symbiotic announced a deal that will have Symbiotic taking control of Walmart’s automation business for $200M in cash and up to $350M in “additional contingent consideration”. 

Software company DataBricks has secured $5B in debt from lenders including Blackstone and Apollo Global.

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.