Weekly Update: 7th of November
What happened between the 31st of October and the 7th of November?
- The crypto market corrected this week: Bitcoin briefly dropped below $100k for the first time since June, altcoins fell harder; we adopted a defensive stance in time. Read more
- Ripple raised $500 million at a $40 billion valuation and partnered with Mastercard and Gemini to deploy RLUSD for card payments. Read more
- Consensys prepares an IPO, Coinbase acquires BVNK and Ripple buys Palisade, marking a clear move toward professional crypto infrastructure. Read more
- Galaxy Digital and Bitcoin miners like TeraWulf are shifting toward AI infrastructure, offering strategic opportunities beyond pure crypto hashing. Read more
Crypto market corrects: Bitcoin drops below $100,000
The crypto market saw a notable correction this week, with Bitcoin briefly dipping below the $100,000 level for the first time since June. Altcoins experienced even sharper declines. The pullback followed persistent weakness in the broader market. After the sharp correction on October 10, investors remain cautious, waiting to see how conditions unfold. The ongoing U.S. government shutdown adds uncertainty around the progress of new legislation, ETF approvals, and key financial decisions. Meanwhile, many long‑term holders have been taking profits, contributing to increased selling pressure.
Our analysts anticipated this weakness early and positioned our liquid funds defensively. This includes maintaining a larger allocation to Bitcoin relative to altcoins, allowing for potential reinvestment into altcoins that have undergone significant corrections. We view this as a healthy retracement within a still‑upward trend. The fundamentals remain strong: institutional inflows, infrastructure development, and regulatory progress, though we remain vigilant and continue to monitor short‑term risks and market behavior closely.
Ripple raises $500 m and partners with Mastercard
Ripple, the company behind the XRP token, announced this week a strategic investment round of $500 million at a $40 billion valuation. The funding was led by firms such as Fortress Investment Group and Citadel Securities. Concurrently, Ripple disclosed a partnership with Mastercard, Gemini and a web‑bank to deploy its RLUSD stablecoin for card payments. RLUSD’s market cap is currently around $1 billion, small relative to leading stablecoins, but the institutional backing signals future scaling potential. This move marks Ripple’s evolution from token project to full financial infrastructure partner.
IPOs and acquisitions persist in crypto ecosystem
Consolidation in the crypto world continues: infrastructure firm Consensys (known for the MetaMask wallet) is preparing an IPO together with JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs, positioning itself for the institutional phase. Meanwhile, Coinbase is in the final stage of acquiring BVNK, and Ripple has announced the acquisition of Palisade.
These transactions bolster infrastructure across custody, payments and bank‑blockchain integration, offering institutional investors greater scale and regulatory compliance. For high‑net‑worth investors and family offices, this means exposure not only to tokens but also to companies professionalising the crypto ecosystem. It marks the transition of crypto from wild West to a cultivated asset class.
Bitcoin miners pivot to AI infrastructure
Within crypto infrastructure, we’re seeing an interesting shift: traditional bitcoin miners such as TeraWulf Inc. and Galaxy Digital Holdings Ltd. are increasingly focusing on artificial intelligence (AI). The data centers used for bitcoin mining are proving to be ideally suited for the high computational demands of AI applications. Due to global shortages of GPUs and computing power, strategic opportunities are emerging to repurpose or expand part of this infrastructure to support AI workloads. This presents an additional revenue model for miners, without impacting the security of the Bitcoin network.
In other digital assets news
- Canada is drafting new stablecoin regulations under oversight of the Bank of Canada.
- Robinhood’s crypto trading revenue surged 339%, hitting a record $80 billion in volume.
- Balancer was hacked again, with over $100 million stolen via smart contract vulnerabilities.
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