In today’s edition of the weekly recap: President-elect Donald Trump names two, new nominees that bode well for crypto, while a GOP Senator proposes ditching gold for Bitcoin.
SEC shakeup
- SEC chair Gary Gensler intends to resign on Jan. 20, Trump’s inauguration day. The incoming administration is considering securities attorney Teresa Goody Guillén as his replacement. Robinhood’s Dan Gallagher said he wasn’t interested in the role.
- This week, the Trump team met with multiple executives to assemble a council with the White House’s first “crypto czar.”
- Last week, FDIC Chairperson Martin Gruenberg, who was pivotal in multiple crypto crackdown cases, disclosed his intention to resign on Jan. 19, 2025.
- Trump’s latest nominees — Howard Lutnick for Commerce Secretary and Scott Bessent for Treasury Secretary — are both vocal crypto advocates.
US Bitcoin reserve discussions
- GOP Senator Cynthia Lummis, who champions a Bitcoin (BTC) reserve, proposed that the government sell off its gold reserve to implement crypto purchases instead of using a government budget.
- BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, declined to support the initiative, but VanEck publicly endorsed the plan.
Bitcoin flirts with $100,000
- After breaching $93,000 two weeks back, Bitcoin hit new ATHs last week. Despite an initial drop below $89,000 on Nov. 17, projections of a run to $100,000 emerged amid a slowdown in spot ETF outflows.
- On Thursday, Nov. 21, BTC claimed $95,000 as bulls strengthened their hold.
- The firstborn crypto asset rallied further on Thursday, breaching $97,000, as the chances of it hitting $100,000 in November spiked to 83% on Polymarket.
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- BTC claimed a new peak of $99,800 on Nov. 22 amid strong ETF inflows, as $1 billion in net capital flowed into ETF products. Bitcoin closed the week at $97,775. On Sunday, it hovered above $96,000.
Institutional BTC interest
- MicroStrategy announced on Nov. 18 that it had purchased 51,780 BTC worth $4.6 billion, bringing its total holdings to 331,200 BTC. The software development firm completed a convertible note offering at 0% on Nov. 21, raising a whopping $2.97 billion to buy more Bitcoin.
- Meanwhile, medical equipment company Semler Scientific revealed last week it bought 215 BTC for $17.7 million earlier in the month. This brought its cumulative bag to 1,273 Bitcoin bought with $88.7 million.
- Japanese firm Metaplanet also augmented its stash, copping an additional 142 Bitcoin tokens worth $11.3 million, upsizing its total holdings to 1,142 tokens.
- Acurx, a pharmaceutical company listed on the Nasdaq, joined the bandwagon. The firm revealed plans to buy $1 million worth of Bitcoin and hold it in its reserves.
XRP and Cardano cross $1
- XRP (XRP) and Cardano (ADA), two assets that had languished underneath the $1 mark for at least two years, eventually reclaimed the elusive price mark.
- Notably, XRP rose 41% to reach a three-year peak of $1.265 on Nov. 16. The asset had traded below $1 since December 2021. Despite a pullback on Nov. 16, XRP held above $1, eventually topping $1.6 last week.
- A week after XRP surged past $1, Cardano replicated the feat. ADA rallied 27% to reach a peak of $1.0440, breaking past the $1 mark for the first time since April 2022. Cardano has also held above $1.
Sui suffers first downtime
- Last week, layer-1 blockchain protocol Sui suffered its first downtime. The network stopped producing blocks for over two hours. Developers eventually fixed the issue.
The Sui network is back up and processing transactions again, thanks to swift work from the incredible community of Sui validators.
The 2-hour downtime was caused by a bug in transaction scheduling logic that caused validators to crash, which has now been resolved. https://t.co/TJh2zwvQcD
— Sui (@SuiNetwork) November 21, 2024
- The setback did not inhibit ecosystem progress. A day after the issue, Sui partnered with $1.6 trillion asset manager Franklin Templeton to bolster blockchain innovation.
