GENIUS passed, Powell Woes, & Tesla Tumbles

Well…the party’s over for the time being. The crypto market is looking bearish today amid a sharp sell-off. 

This Week in Crypto

• Overall, the market has dropped almost 7%, and Bitcoin has dropped to around $115K, a notable pullback from its all-time high of $123K a couple weeks ago. But, what goes down must come up (right?)

Despite Bitcoin’s recent price wobbles, the institutional money keeps flooding in. 

• On Thursday, Bitcoin ETFs logged their biggest day of inflows in 2025, and corporate and institutional investors have purchased $15B in Bitcoin ETFs over the last couple months.

The GENIUS Act we talked about last week has officially been signed into law by President Trump. 

• Notably, the bill legalizes stablecoins and requires them to be backed by U.S. dollars or Treasuries.

•  The more unfortunate part is that the bill also bans stablecoin issues from offering yield to holders, so your USDC won’t be earning you any interest. All the more reason to borrow against your Bitcoin!

• The dollar is the real winner from the bill, since stablecoins now need to be backed by dollars to U.S. Treasuries. That locks in demand for dollars and short-term U.S. bonds from stablecoin issuers. 

  • Tether alone holds over $120B in treasury bills as of Q1. 

Expectations for lower stablecoin yields are now driving interest towards Ethereum, which as a result gained by almost 12% over the past week.

• Meanwhile, Binance Coin has broken past the $800 mark for the first time, setting a new all-time high and surpassing Solana in market cap. 

Since the serious coins are having a bit of a rough week, apparently the safe haven investment is now memecoins…

• Pudgy Penguins (PENGU) continues its momentum, soaring over 40% in the past week and gaining another 21% in the last 24 hours, trading above $0.04.

This Week in TradFi

Bit of a tense week on the domestic TradFi front but still lots of positives to report:

• The S&P and Nasdaq recorded record high closes yesterday, driven by results from Alphabet. 

  • Alphabet rose 1%, with investors more confident that heavy investment in the AI race is paying off. 

  • Microsoft, Nvidia, and Amazon stocks all also rose 1% or more.

  • Tesla on the other hand dropped more than 8% after Musk warned about a few rough quarters as the U.S. government cuts support for electric vehicle makers. Tesla stock has fallen 25% so far in 2025. 

• The U.S.-Japan trade deal and signs of progress in talks with the EU also helped fuel Wall Street gains. 

• U.S. stock futures opened steady this morning, as investors continue to wait for signs of progress on trade talks ahead of the August 1 tariff deadline.

• Meanwhile, President Trump and Fed Chair Jerome Powell had a bit of a tense moment yesterday, when Trump visited the U.S. central bank. 

  • Trump did confirm that he is not planning on firing Powell, but he continues to put pressure on the central bank to cut rates. 

On the international front:

• The pound dropped to its weakest level against the euro in four months today. The euro is up 0.24%, approaching its April 11 record-high, while the pound is down 0.4% against the dollar.

  • This followed UK data showing that UK business activity grew only weakly in July and employers cut jobs at the fastest pace in five months.

• The Indian rupee fell to a one-month low today and logged its third straight week of declines, pressured by outflows from local stocks and caution from investors ahead of the U.S. tariff deadline. 

  • The rupee closed at 86.515 against the U.S. dollar today, down 0.4% this week. 

• The U.S.-Japan trade deal may open an opportunity for the Bank of Japan to raise interest rates again this year. However, the timing is dependent on whether the U.S. imposes more tariffs on Japan and how the economy is able to withstand that impact. 

  • The BOJ Deputy Governor said that the trade deal increased the chance that Japan hits the bank’s 2% inflation target - a key prerequisite for any further rate hikes.

This Week in Tech

Tesla had their Q2 earnings this week, and results were not pretty.

• The company reported revenue of $22.5B, a 12% decline from Q2 last year. However, revenue was up slightly vs Q1, in which the company generated $19.3B in revenue. 

• Pretty much everything is going wrong for Tesla - lower revenues are fueled by falling EV sales, lower average selling prices, less cash from regulatory credits, and a decline in solar and energy storage revenue. 

• The company did report a 17% growth in revenue in its services business, but it wasn’t enough to offset the losses from EV sales. 

• Q2 net income stands at $1.17B, down 16% from Q2 last year. And the company’s operating income fell 42% YoY down to $923M. 

• Maybe Tesla’s numbers would look better if Musk wasn’t focused on opening a…diner?

Nvidia has become the first publicly traded company to reach a $4T market cap, surpassing Apple and Microsoft. 

• Shares of the company rose almost 3% on Wednesday to an all-time-high of $164.42, driven by an ongoing surge in demand for AI technologies. 

• The stock’s recent rally comes after a slower start to the year, when the emergence of the Chinese AI model DeepSeek shook confidence in AI stocks. 

• Nvidia reached a $1T market value for the first time in June 2023 and tripled it in roughly a year, faster than both Apple and Microsoft - the only other U.S. companies with market values above $3T. 

And just a week after vibe coding startup Lovable became a unicorn, it has now also become a centaur - recording more than $100M in annual recurring revenue (ARR).

• Lovable’s growth has been awe-inspiring - hitting the $100M ARR milestone just 8 months after launch.

• The startup reports that it has more than 2.3M active users and 180,000 paying subscribers.

And some free advice to round off this week: 

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

• Amazon acquired the AI wearable startup Bee whose product records everything it hears with the goal of listening to conversations to create reminders and to-do lists for the user. 

• AI compliance startup Delve has raised a $32M Series A at a $300M valuation.

• Military logistics startup Rune has raised a $24M Series A, led by Human Capital. 

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.