GM frens,

This week in crypto has been busy. Bitcoin is flexing back at $100K, Ethereum ETFs are up, and AI agent meme coins are proving they have that chaotic retail energy.

Things are moving fast, and the opportunities are huge—so strap in as we break down the most significant developments of the week.

Here’s what you can expect:

• 🔍 A look at the market with data — on- and off-chain

• 🌐 Ethereum interoperability from Arbitrum’s POV

• 🧙 Start using a smart wallet today, with Ambire

• 📈 BTC charted on the weekly and back above 100k

• 🔑 All your hottest headlines, updates and new projects to check out

🔍️ MARKET WATCH

SECTOR PERFORMANCE

Looking at the weekly performance across sectors, we’re seeing a mixed bag of movements. While benchmarks like Bitcoin and Ethereum have held steady with modest gains, Layer 1s have faced notable challenges, with many assets dipping into the red. The gaming infrastructure sector showed some resilience with a few standouts like ARB, but it struggled to keep up with its bullish momentum.

Interestingly, ETH DeFi had a great week, showcasing solid growth with assets like AAVE and UNI taking the spotlight. Others, however, have had a tougher time; Modulars and AI & DePIN have been weighed down by consistent losses across their major players, pointing to a broader sell-off or reduced interest in these niches. Meanwhile, meme coins have been a bright spot for retail enthusiasm, with assets like PEPE seeing double-digit growth.

BITCOIN SPOT ETF: 7-DAY INFLOW STREAK

Over the past week, Bitcoin spot ETFs have maintained a remarkable streak of consistent inflows, adding $3.52B cumulatively. Starting from December 2, 2024, the daily inflows have ranged from $223.03 million to as high as $766.66 million on December 5, showcasing strong investor demand. This streak has propelled the cumulative total net inflow to $34.58B as of December 11, 2024.

Total net assets have also surged, rising from $103.91B to $113.72B within a week. This growth wasn’t limited to crypto ETFs, which saw significant inflows, but traditional finance (TradFi) also saw $150B in inflows during November, hitting an all-time high and pushing equities to new record levels.

TRUMP’S WORLD LIBERTY BUYS ETH, LINK, AAVE

The World Liberty Multisig wallet spent $10 million in USDC to buy 2,631 Ethereum at $3,801 each, $1 million in USDC to acquire 41,335 Chainlink at $24.20 each, and another $1 million in USDC to purchase 3,357 Aave at $297.80 each.

Portfolio overview:

ALAMEDA WALLET UNSTAKES $41.5M OF SOL

An Alameda address has unstaked a total of 181,200 Solana (SOL), valued at approximately $41.5 million, from Solana's proof-of-stake mechanism. expected to be transferred to Cex’s soon.

Courtesy of @MarketsAlpha - Telegram channel for sharing crypto market research and Intel Alpha

💙 SEAMLESS ONCHAIN USER EXPERIENCE

Yesterday Offchain Labs hosted an X Broadcast, “Arbitrum For Builders: Ultimate Interop”, a discussion between the technical and product teams at Offchain Labs surrounding the next steps in abstracting chain complexities away from users (and developers!).

THE UX PROBLEM: WHY CRYPTO STILL ISN’T USER FRIENDLY

As it stands, user experience in crypto won’t have an easy time onboarding your mum or your dad.

Ethereum mainnet is slow and costly, and even getting them to an L2 like Arbitrum can be a challenge.

Once on an L2, you might think it’s smooth sailing, but no, that new app you want to use may actually be on a different L2 or L3.

I know the normie frens I’ve onboarded still have no idea what’s happening when I tell them to carry out a bridge transaction.

INTEROP: THE FIRESTARTER TO SEAMLESS UX

Enter “Interop” — Interoperability is a broad term for technical advancements that allow chains (and apps, users, and liquidity) to inter-operate with one another.

Essentially, the end state we are aiming for is similar to what we experience today with the internet. You know what site you are on and what you are there to do, all the technicalities are abstracted away on the back end by your browser and internet service provider.

We want to make user (and developer) experiences seamless across chains, just like they are across internet websites and servers.

We want to remove the friction, ensuring no new barriers are put up, and that chain interoperability remains permissionless — not guarded by governance or requiring you to be a part of a club.

So how is this going to happen?

Well, it’s already started and is rolling out in phases:

• Permissionless withdrawals to L1 [Arbitrum chains have had this since day 1]

  • Allows you to get your funds off of a rollup while bypassing the sequencer

• Fast withdrawals [available today on AnyTrust chains]

  • “Native fast finality” without adding any new trust assumptions

  • Allows 15m finality on an L2 and 15s finality on an L3

  • This works as transactions are processed by a committee** of validators — if a unanimous vote is reached, the transaction is immediately confirmed

• Adoption of Interoperability standards [being agreed upon by Ethereum and L2 communities]

  • Think fast asset transfers and intent/solver systems

• Driving key metrics making interoperability…

  • Faster (cross chain in seconds)

  • More trustless (removal of intermediaries)

  • More general (availability of additional functionalities above swaps/transfers)

** This is a Data Availability Committee (DAC), one of the trust assumptions already in place on an AnyTrust chain. They provide the data needed for fraud proofs and recreating the chain. AnyTrust chains are an “optimum” (an optimistic rollup using a separate data availability layer).

Interop will take the feeling of being onchain to the next level. We will be getting closer and closer to that internet model (an interconnected open space), and it’s happening sooner than you might think.

INTEROP x INTENTS

Intents are coming, and fast.

ERC-7683 (an intent-based interop standard for Ethereum) just dropped, standardizing the intent messages (e.g. a user’s intent to swap assets from chain A to chain B). This will pave the way for 1-3s crosschain transactions and swaps.

The next steps to overcome are:

• How to integrate this into key Arbitrum protocols (e.g. using GMX or camelot from different chains with an intent)

• How to make solvers more comfortable taking intents from L3s (transacting to and from your favourite appchains like SankoChain, ApeChain, and AnimeChain.

Remember, interop is for users, but it’s also for devs. It opens huge doors for composability, Money Legos, and plugins that previously only existed in siloed chains. Soon your favourite apps on Arbitrum, Optimism and Ethereum might be integrating features and assets with one another.

ABRITRUM’S STRATEGIC ADVANTAGE

Arbitrum One is especially well-positioned to benefit from this new movement. It has the highest TVL of all L2s, sitting at $21.35B. Interop will synergistically supercharge that liquidity.

Think about it.

No more fragmentation of liquidity across chains. Other chains can harness Arbitrum One’s liquidity with ease, and Arbitrum One’s liquidity can access new opportunities without fragmenting liquidity.

Then ask yourself — what happens when crypto feels as connected as the internet?

Check out the full video here.

Courtesy of Atomist - Founder at Castle Labs

🧙 START USING A SMART WALLET TODAY

It’s easy, with Ambire.

Ambire is a hybrid account abstraction wallet supporting EOAs and Smart Accounts on all EVM networks. 

It’s the first wallet that lets you derive Smart Accounts on existing or new seeds and hardware wallets - simply enjoy the power of smart accounts with the EOA security model.

Smart Accounts allow for:

• Security features: onchain transaction simulation, human-readable transactions, significant balance decrease warnings.

• Gasless transactions: pay gas crosschain with Gas Tank, variety of ERC20 tokens, and EOAs. Each smart account transaction automatically fills the Gas Tank with cashback.

• Transaction batching: approve & swap in one go, batch any combination of onchain actions - save gas and time!

Get the extension: https://www.ambire.com/get-extension

Limited invite code for our readers: castlecap

🔥 Hot Tip: If you’re using Smart Accounts, you’re already accruing XP for Ambire’s Extension campaign!

📈 PRICE ACTION

Gm frens!

Getting straight into it, BTC has been chopping around a bit but is still above the moving averages. Ideally, I’d like to see the price pull back a little bit towards the rising 10/20 EMA and bounce there.

Right now here’s how it is:

• Healthy uptrend

• Above rising 10/20 EMA

• Above rising 50 MA

Now is definitely a good time to be in crypto. The sector is overall very bullish and I’m looking for interesting trades not just on BTC.

Trade responsibly and I’ll see y’all next time!

Courtesy of 0x_Vlad - trend-based trader and MentFX student

🔑 KEY NEWS

MAJOR HEADLINES

• Trump appoints pro-crypto Paul Atkins as new chair of the SEC & David Sacks as "White House AI & Crypto Czar"

• Grayscale Submits Application for Solana ETF on NYSE

• Kain x Andrew Kang drama

• Haliey Welch & insiders rug memecoin

• Pump.fun banned in the UK

• Amazon shareholders request the company explores adds BTC to its treasury

• Riot Platforms Announces Proposed Private Offering of $500M of Convertible Senior Notes to Buy BTC

PROJECT UPDATES

• CloberDex exploited for $500k

• Fluid proposal for their rebrand from InstadApp and $FLUID

• Safe introduces Safenet

• Pudgy Penguins announces $PENGU token launch this month

• Introduction and rebranding to N1Chain (ex LayerN)

• Grass, Ontocord & Laion launch Valid

• SushiSwap proposal to liquidate all their $SUSHI holdings

• Fuel Network introduces $FUEL

• Sonic Labs mainnet next week

• XION, Heurist, Magic Eden & Movement Labs TGEd

INTERESTING PROJECTS

• XU308: Tokenized Uranium

• Ontocord: Data for AI training

• Buddhism Model: AI framework bridging technology and spirituality

• Terrace Fi: Trading terminal & portfolio management system

This week’s developments remind us just how dynamic the crypto space continues to be. From Bitcoin’s historic $100K milestone to Ethereum’s ETF inflows and shifts in institutional strategy, the signals point to a maturing market with plenty of room for innovation and growth.

Stay sharp.

✍️ CONTENT CREATORS WANTED

Want to stack some extra funds for the on-chain casino while levelling up your game?

As the crypto market gains momentum, Castle Labs is expanding and seeking talented content creators who thrive in short and long-form writing, work autonomously, and take the initiative to own and drive their work.

Three Key Roles at Castle Labs:

1. Newsletter & Social Media Owner: Craft engaging, timely content to grow our online presence.

2. Long-Form Writer: Dive deep into research reports or client-facing content with precision and clarity.

3. Marketing Specialist: Shape client strategies and help incubate their marketing efforts with creative and effective campaigns.

Fill out an application form!

In our newsletter, we may discuss projects or tokens in which we hold positions. While we aim to provide informative content, our views are not financial advice. Please conduct your research and consult professionals before making investment decisions. Crypto markets are volatile, and past performance doesn't guarantee future results. Invest responsibly, and be aware of the risks. Your capital is at risk, and we do not accept liability for any losses.