Welcome to TechCrunch Crypto, formerly known as Chain Reaction. Alongside our regularly scheduled news bits, I’ll be testing out some recurring segments and features — so if you do (or don’t) like what you see, let me know at jacquelyn@techcrunch.com.
To get a roundup of TechCrunch’s biggest and most important crypto stories delivered to your inbox every Thursday at 12 p.m. PT, subscribe here.
A lot of news transpired in the wild world of web3: Solana Mobile’s new device brought in over 30,000 preorders, the highly anticipated Electric Capital developer report showed good — and bad — news for developers, Coinbase went to court and India faced more crypto woes. More details below.
This week in web3
- Buying frenzy for Solana Mobile’s second phone drives preorders sky high
- Coinbase argues for motion to dismiss SEC’s ‘securities violation’ allegations
- Number of monthly active crypto devs fell 25% in 2023
- Google pulls Binance, other global crypto apps from India store
- How low can bitcoin ETF fees drop before it hurts a business?
Crunching numbers
As the crypto space soaks in the spot bitcoin ETF approval from last week, trading volumes across all 11 issuers hit $11.95 billion with assets in aggregate around $27.7 billion within four days, according to a post on X by James Seyffart, an ETF analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence.
Prior to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s approval of the spot bitcoin ETFs, some experts told me they expected trading volumes to hit $10 billion in a year, not a week. So it’s safe to say these numbers are way ahead of the previously anticipated demand.
Our favorite web3 post on X
Franklin Templeton, a 77-year-old firm, which manages over $1.4 trillion in AUM, has a PFP with laser eyes (a nod to the Bitcoin community) and is posting about memecoins like dogwifhat. Bet you didn’t have that on your 2024 bingo card.
You are unsure how to feel about Laser Eye Ben? Just think instead of Ben wif hat
— Franklin Templeton (@FTI_US) January 17, 2024
The latest pod
For this week’s episode, I interviewed Monica Long, the president of Ripple, a blockchain-based digital payment network and protocol.
Ripple has been around since 2012 and is one of the oldest crypto entities. Monica has spent the last 10 years at Ripple, working her way up from the director of communications to now, president.
We talked about Monica’s career growth, cross-border payments, traditional finance and the need for regulatory clarity.
We also dove into Ripple’s suit with the SEC, the XRP Ledger, its focus for 2024 and advice for the community.
Subscribe to Chain Reaction on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or your favorite pod platform to keep up with the latest episodes, and please leave us a review if you like what you hear!
Follow the money
- Inception Capital closes flagship $30M fund of funds focused on crypto emerging managers.
- Staking technology provider Kiln raises $17 million in rare crypto funding round
- COTI launches $25M ecosystem growth fund to focus on privacy on Ethereum
- Crypto exchange WOO Network raises $9M to boost its liquidity
- Digital asset trading tech firm Flowdesk raises $50M in Series B round
This list was compiled with information from Messari as well as TechCrunch’s own reporting.
What else we’re writing
Want to branch out from the world of web3? Here are some articles on TechCrunch that caught our attention this week:
