Circle's IPO, Tesla Downfall & Deel Drama

It’s stablecoin season…

This Week in Crypto

Bitcoin took a midweek dip to turn $100k into support as it looks poised to close the week green north of $105k.

Buy pressure continued more so from Treasury companies than through the ETF complex, as you can see from the above data. Concerns are building around the sustainability of such a large number of treasury companies purchasing bitcoin via debt (leverage), however as Galaxy’s Alex Thorn points out, underlying debt levels are (a) not that high and (b) not due until 2027/8.

One thing long term readers of this newsletter will know is how we frequently talk about waiting for when Bitcoin trades up in both risk on and risk off environments (i.e. with gold during periods of “flight to safety” and with tech equities when markets go risk on). Fidelity touch on some of this in relation to Bitcoin as corporate treasury asset:

The main star of the week this week wasn’t corn though, it was stablecoins! Circle (finally) went public, with their IPO drawing a 25x oversubscription at $31. The stock traded at a high of $123 (!) on the second day of trading and closed at $107. BlackRock aimed to buy 10% of the float; ARK wanted 14–15%. The market’s response signals growing conviction in stablecoins as financial infrastructure, and may kick of a slew of other crypto IPOs. It’s a hot market.

On the regulatory side, the GENIUS Act - designed to bring federal clarity to stablecoin issuance - is nearing a Senate vote. If passed, the bill could see House action before the August recess.

Worth a read is Nic Carter’s post dropping some novel data on the real volume of stablecoins:

And finally, Pump.fun is gearing up to launch a token within two weeks, with reports pointing to a $1B raise at a $4B FDV. Airdrops and token buybacks are also rumored. If confirmed, it could be a classic case of a wealth effect igniting an alt season on Solana. Let’s stay tuned.

This Week in TradFi

Wall Street stocks ended lower yesterday, after Tesla shares dropped following Musk and Trump’s beef - offsetting news of progress on tariff talks between the U.S. and China.

• Tesla stock dropped more than 14%, losing about $150B in value. 

• The Dow fell 0.25%, the S&P fell 0.53%, and the Nasdaq fell 0.83%.

In other U.S. news:

• Wall Street opened higher today after a strong jobs report calmed worries on labor market health. 

  • The unemployment rate held steady at 4.2%, and job growth slowed slightly to a gain of 139,000 last month.

  • The Dow rose 0.74% at open, and the S&P rose 0.80%.

  • The Fed is expected to cut rates only one more time through the end of the year - most likely in September.

• The S&P is up just 1% for the year, but has significantly rallied since April 8 (“Liberation Day”) - up 19% since Trump announced his initial slew of tariffs. 

• Next week we’ll be waiting for the consumer price index for May - which should give insight on tariff impacts. 

On the international front:

• European shares remained steady today, with STOXX holding its ground at 551.95 points.

• Global food commodity prices dropped last month, driven by market drops in cereal, sugar, and vegetable oil prices. The FAO Food Price Index saw a 0.8% decrease last month vs. April. 

• Germany’s exports and industrial output fell more than expected in April, as demand from the U.S. dropped after months of strong purchases in anticipation of the U.S. tariffs hitting. German exports fell 1.7% in April vs. the previous month.

• The Reserve Bank of India cut its key repo rate by 50bps today - higher than expected - and cut the reserve ratio for banks by 100bps, with low inflation giving room to focus on supporting growth.

• And gold remains steady, with a stronger-than-expected U.S. jobs report offsetting continued geopolitical uncertainty. Spot gold was up 0.1% this morning and is up over 2% for the week so far. 

This Week in Tech

The girlies are fighting this week! And no, we don’t mean Musk and Trump (although that’s also happening).

Reddit is suing Anthropic for allegedly using the site’s data to train AI models without a proper licensing agreement.

• Reddit is the first big tech company to legally challenge an AI model provider over training data, though many publishers have done so already.

  • The New York Times is suing OpenAI and Microsoft, and Sarah Silverman and other book authors are suing Meta.

• Importantly, Reddit has papered deals with OpenAI and Google, allowing them to train AI models on the site’s data. 

• In the lawsuit, Reddit claims that the company approached Anthropic and let the organization know they did not have authorization to scrape Reddit’s content, and that Anthropic reportedly “refused to engage”. 

• Anthropic’s spokesperson responded “We disagree with Reddit’s claims and will defend ourselves vigorously”.

And Deel is now accusing Rippling of spying by “impersonating” a customer.

• Readers may remember that Rippling sued Deel in March, after a Rippling employee testified that he was spying on the company for Deel.

• Deel has now filed an amended complaint, alleging that one of Rippling’s employees “spent six months impersonating a legitimate Deel customer to gain unauthorized access to Deel’s systems to meticulously analyze, record, and copy Deel’s global products and the way Deel does business for Rippling’s own benefit and use.” 

• The lawsuit is also filled with insults at Rippling’s CEO, Parker Conrad - specifically talking about troubles with his previous company, Zenefits. 

  • The suit speculates that Rippling has targeted Deel because Conrad is angry at Zenefits’ VC backer Andreessen Horowitz  - “Sadly, it is now apparent that Conrad has made it his life’s goal to exact misguided and petty revenge on those connected with Andreessen, including Deel, in which Andreessen owns a 20% share.”

• Randomly, the complaint also drops that Deel has been profitable for years and is generating over $1B in revenue. At least we learned that! 

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

• Defense tech start up (or at this point… full fledged company) Anduril has raised $2.5B at a $30.5B valuation, led by Founders Fund.

• Phone unlocking company Cellebrite is acquiring the mobile testing startup Corellium for $170M. 

• Semiconductor company AMD is acquiring AI software optimization startup Brium for an undisclosed amount.

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.