A Ripple or a Wave? 🌊
Plus, 😵 Strangled at birth, 📈 Funds flood in, 🔌 Pulling the plug, and more!
Welcome to the week! I’m Juan Aranovich, managing editor of Unchained.
In today’s edition:
🏄 XRP: Surf’s up
🪙 Carpe Diem, post mortem
📊 Ether ETFs: Good things come in threes
🛠️ Syntax V2: Downtime
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What’s Poppin’?
By Tikta
XRP Rallies 70% in a Week to Top Solana, Tether Market Cap
XRP has rallied more than 70% over the past seven days, reaching a high of $2.49 — its highest level in nearly seven years.
The last time XRP traded at that level was during the run-up to its all-time high of $3.84 in Jan. 2018, a price spike that proved fleeting, following which the coin has been rangebound generally below $0.60 for the past two-and-a-half years.
The recent rally has pushed XRP’s market capitalization to more than $139 billion, eclipsing the market cap of recently high-performing Solana and leading stablecoin USDT.
After the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission sued XRP issuer Ripple in Dec. 2020, XRP lost much of its value and was delisted by major crypto exchanges.
During the past few weeks, the token has seen a resurgence in popularity as at least five asset managers have filed for, or expressed interest in, launching XRP exchange-traded funds (ETFs).
WisdomTree registered for an XRP ETF in the U.S. state of Delaware, while Bitwise, 21Shares, Canary Capital, and Grayscale have expressed interest in launching spot XRP ETFs.
Killed By Politics, Ex-Diem Boss Says of Meta’s Stablecoin
It’s official. Meta’s controversial stablecoin project, Diem, which met its end before it was even launched, was “100% a political kill,” according to its co-creator, David Marcus.
“The story, as I heard it, is that Jay Powell was told by Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen at one of their biweekly meetings that allowing this project to move forward was ‘political suicide,’ and she would not have his back if he let it happen,” Marcus said, while acknowledging that he wasn’t in the room when that conversation supposedly took place.
Marcus also said the Federal Reserve had then organized calls with participating banks and intimidated them into pulling their support for Diem.
Diem was officially shut down in January 2022. The project sold its assets to Silvergate Capital for $182 million.
Ether ETFs Pull in Record $333M
U.S. spot ether exchange-traded funds (ETFs) saw their biggest day of inflows on Nov. 30 as they raked in a combined $333 million on the day.
BlackRock's iShares Ethereum Trust (ETHA) and the Fidelity Ethereum Fund (FETH) accounted for the lion’s share of the incoming funds, attracting $250 million and $79 million, respectively, according to data from boutique investment management firm Farside Investors.
Ether ETFs ended the week with a combined $455 million of net inflows, despite a shorter week owing to the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday.
ETH briefly traded at a six-month high on Sunday, gaining 11% over the week and nearly 50% over the past month.
Spectral Pauses Syntax Contracts Amid Liquidity Leak
Spectral Labs has paused its smart contracts after finding a vulnerability on bonding curve contracts that resulted in around $200,000 in liquidity being drained from the platform.
The company said that access to its Syntax app — a platform that enables users to create autonomous onchain artificial intelligence agents — had been temporarily deactivated as security experts worked through determining the root cause.
The incident comes just two days after Spectral Labs unveiled V2 of Syntax in an early beta setup.
According to data from Web3 bug bounty platform Immunefi, more than $71 million was lost to crypto hacks in November.
The Chopping Block: DeSci Critiques, Hyperliquid’s No-VC Model, and Freysa’s AI Games
Decentralized Science: Innovation or Illusion?
Welcome to The Chopping Block – where crypto insiders Haseeb Qureshi, Tom Schmidt, Tarun Chitra, and Robert Leshner get together and give the industry insider’s perspective on crypto. This week, special guest Casey Caruso from Topology joins the crew to tackle the latest in crypto and tech. They explore the rise of AI memecoins like Freysa, blending gamified AI agents with blockchain mechanics, and the fallout from a major hack.
The discussion also highlights Hyperliquid’s $1.9 billion airdrop and its no-VC funding model, signaling new trends in token launches. The crew critiques decentralized science (DeSci), questioning its accountability and funding models, with a spotlight on Pump.Science’s tokenized longevity experiments. Finally, they examine the success of Base’s incentive-light approach and the impact of frameworks like Eliza on crypto’s evolution.
Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pods, Fountain, Podcast Addict, Pocket Casts, Amazon Music, or on your favorite podcast platform.
Daily Bits… ✍️✍️✍
💻 MicroStrategy co-founder Michael Saylor presented Microsoft's board with a bold proposal to integrate bitcoin into its treasury, claiming it could enhance shareholder value to the tune of $5 trillion by 2034 and significantly boost annual returns, despite a previous board recommendation against bitcoin investment.
⚖️ The SEC accused Touzi Capital of deceiving over 1,500 investors in a $115 million fraud scheme involving high-risk crypto mining and debt investments disguised as safe, predictable opportunities.
🔎 Ethena and Securitize entered Spark's $1 billion tokenization competition, pitching their USDtb stablecoin, backed primarily by BlackRock’s BUIDL fund, with plans for integration into the Sky ecosystem's asset management framework.
🧷 CryptoPunks skyrocketed 47% in November, with their historical significance and liquidity driving a rebound that outshone rival NFT collections during a broader market rally.
🇰🇷 South Korea's government proposed delaying its controversial 20% crypto tax for a third time, reflecting persistent concerns about the tax's impact on smaller investors.
🔐 Following a $300 million hack, DMM Bitcoin will cease operations and transfer accounts to SBI VC Trade.
What Do You Meme?
📈 Your Market Update 📉
BTC is down 2.2%, trading at $95,054
ETH is down 2.8%, trading at $3,589
BTC dominance: 53.17%
Crypto market cap: $3.54T
*All data as of today, 07:10 am ET. Source: CoinGecko
Recommended Reads
Marc Andreessen and the CFPB: Debunking the Debanking Debunkers by Nic Carter
Forbes: What Crypto Investors Can Expect From A Pro-Crypto SEC
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