OVERVIEW

Ripple Chases Circle, FIFA Dumps Algorand 🤔

Before we dive in, here’s today’s crypto market heatmap:

Source: Santiment

And here’s a look at crypto’s total market and altcoin market cap charts:

Source: TradingView

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ALGORAND
FIFA Rug-Pulls Algorand Faithful, Pretends It’s Progress ⚽️

FIFA decided to dump Algorand’s open blockchain for their NFTs, cozying up instead with a proprietary, EVM-compatible chain. Their vague corporate-speak justification – “better scalability” and “new features” – has the distinct aroma of carefully crafted PR BS. 💩 

$ALGO.X ( ▼ 1.0% ) fans on X aren’t having it, branding the move as a rug-pull or outright betrayal after minting 1.5 million NFTs since May 2022 and celebrating a flashy $1.38 million ticket sale.

ALGO Fans On Stocktwits: Not Scared 💪 

Algorand fans on Stocktwits though don’t see this as a big deal, with user retireearlyorbust pointing out that despite the negative news, ALGO’s price hasn’t moved much.

Similarly, Stocktwit’s Sentiment and Message Volume scores reveal FIFA’s decision to leave Algorand is a nothing burger.

NFT holders have until May 20, 2025, to migrate their collectibles. FIFA’s “easy” solution? Extra verification, wallet swaps from Algorand favorites like Pera and Defly to EVM wallets like MetaMask, and a promise that it’ll all somehow be seamless. 🤦 

XRP
Ripple Tried Buying Circle, Circle Said ‘Nah’ 🙄

Ripple – reportedly (and that term should be use loosely) dropped a bid to buy Circle, the issuer behind $USDC.X ( ▼ 0.01% ), for around $4-5 billion. Circle promptly (again, loosely) said, “Cute, but no thanks,” feeling undervalued or just eager to dive headfirst into their upcoming IPO. 🤑

Ripple’s Big Swing, Circle’s Bigger Eye Roll 👀 

Ripple has been throwing cash around lately, snapping up Hidden Road for $1.25 billion, clearly hungry for a larger piece of the financial infrastructure pie. Circle, on the other hand, sitting pretty with a $61 billion-ish market cap, probably figured Ripple’s offer was chump change, especially given their IPO dreams.

XRP’s favorite lawyer and former Senate candidate John Deaton summed it all up nicely this morning:

Circle filed its S-1 with the SEC on April 1, 2025, planning to list on the NYSE under the ticker “CRCL,” with JPMorgan Chase and Citigroup as lead underwriters. The IPO is expected this summer. Circle is aiming for a valuation between $4 billion and $5 billion for its IPO.

— John E Deaton (@JohnEDeaton1)
1:29 PM • May 2, 2025

The $20 Billion Rumor – Or Just Crypto Doing Its Thing? 🤷 

Some Stocktwits users are pumped:

And others are not convinced:

Some folks on X and have been whispering that Ripple upped their offer to $20 billion, but credible sources aren’t touching that number with a 10-foot pole. Bloomberg hasn’t chimed in, Ripple and Circle are playing mute, and anyone official is keeping mum, likely due to Circle’s IPO “quiet period” and SEC eyeballing.

As of today, Ripple’s bid looks dead in the water. Circle’s eyes remain firmly set on Wall Street, Ripple still wants a bigger stablecoin presence, and the rest of us just get to speculate wildly. 🍿

NEWS
Odds Of A Rate Cut Next Week? 🤔 

Next Wednesday (May 7, 2025), the FOMC (Federal Open Market Committee) is scheduled to announce their decision on current interest rates. 😱 

And because normal people have become disenfranchised with professional analysts, traditional financial media, and hoity toity talking heads, people look to betting market, like Polymarket, to get a better idea of what might happen.

And what are the odds of a rate hike next week?

Source: Polymarket

1%.

And 99% chance that there will be no change.

So, even though the chances of a jar of pickles winning America’s Got Talen with a ventriloquist act is higher than a rate hike next week, don’t freak out if the FUD rachets up on Monday and Tuesday. 🥒 

NEWS IN THREE SENTENCES
Crypto News 📰

📉 Robinhood’s Crypto Volume Tanks in April, Mizuho Says Chill Out

Robinhood saw crypto trading plunge to $8 billion in April, down sharply from the $15 billion monthly average in Q1 and miles below Q4’s Trump-induced $70 billion frenzy. But Mizuho isn’t sweating it – they think higher fees and steady Bitcoin interest mean the brokerage still has room to milk traders harder, Coinbase-style. The Block.

🚀 Cardano Devs Dunk on Ethereum, Ghost Chain Narrative Officially Haunted

Cardano just blew past Ethereum with more than double the daily GitHub commits in April (449 vs. 183), burying the “ghost chain” jokes even deeper. Thanks to Cardano’s unique EUTXO model, devs are flocking to ADA’s greener pastures, prepping cross-chain bridges with Bitcoin and XRP while Ethereum’s Vitalik fanboys scramble for new Layer-2 patches. ZyCrypto.

📈 eToro Eyes IPO Relaunch Next Week as Trump Tariff Trauma Fades

With Trump’s tariff-induced market tantrums finally calming down, eToro’s once-delayed $5 billion US IPO might debut as soon as next week. The brokerage banked $931 million in commissions last year, up from $639 million, riding the crypto-friendly wave from new SEC chair Paul Atkins. CryptoBriefing.

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Tell Me What You Want 🔊 

Quick note here: Let me know what you’d like to see more of in the Litepaper.

More charts? More on-chain analytics? More data? Let me know! 🎇 

E-mail me here: jmorgan@stocktwits.com

NEWS IN THREE SENTENCES
AI, Stablecoins, & Privacy News 🕵️ 

🤖 Worldcoin Launches in the US, Builds Fancy Orb to Prove Humans Still Exist

Worldcoin hits the US market with new Orb verification devices, tackling humanity’s latest existential threat: sophisticated AI bots stealing our dating matches and gaming victories. Orb Mini promises to put biometric verification in everyone’s hands—proving you’re human now requires specialized hardware and NVIDIA GPUs. Worldcoin.

🔒 Story Explores Fully Homomorphic Encryption

Story Network is exploring Fully Homomorphic Encryption (FHE) to keep intellectual property interactions private on-chain, tackling the small inconvenience that FHE operations are still wildly expensive and slower than dial-up. But hey, if protecting your precious creative IP means burning through AWS bills like toilet paper, so be it. Story Protocol.

💳 Alchemy Chain’s Stablecoin Payments Promise: No More Gas Wars

Alchemy Pay unveiled its technical roadmap for Alchemy Chain, a stablecoin-focused blockchain promising predictable fees, efficient cross-border payments, and FIFO fairness. Scheduled phases begin Q2 2025, eventually delivering a system that businesses might actually use. Alchemy Pay.

NEWS IN THREE SENTENCES
Real World Asset Tokenization (RWA) News 🪙 

🌉 Ondo Brings Institutional-Grade Bridging to Solana

Ondo Finance expands its institutional-grade RWA bridging solution to Solana, using a custom DVN and LayerZero tech – words that make TradFi executives nod confidently despite having zero clue what they mean. Now institutions can move assets cross-chain securely, assuming their compliance officers don’t have aneurysms decoding Ondo’s documentation first. Ondo Finance.

NEWS IN THREE SENTENCES
Metaverse, NFT, & Gaming News 🎮️

🎾 VEXI’s Vintage Sports Pack Drops, Making Nostalgia Your New Favorite Overpriced NFT

On April 30th, VEXI launched its Vintage Sports Pack featuring classic Leatherhead and Tennis Player costumes, with just 100 packs available for $39.99 (discounted from $49.99, because scarcity is cooler when cheaper). It’s retro gear that screams, “I miss when sports were violent and outfits looked ridiculous.” Gala Games.

🌐 ENS Lectures the UN on Web3 IP

ENS showed up at the UN’s IP conference to preach responsible domain management, promising no ICANN rules broken and fewer name collisions in Web3. While competitors YOLO their TLDs, ENS sticks to principles (and paperwork), reassuring everyone that Ethereum naming won’t accidentally fracture the entire internet – probably. Ethereum Naming Service.

NEWS IN THREE SENTENCES
DeFi, DEX, & Lending Protocol News 🏦

💸 Hyperliquid’s New Fee System Makes Staking Less Painful

Hyperliquid rolls out a revised fee structure on May 5, rewarding staking and incentivizing spot trading—because clearly, calculating your fee tier wasn’t complicated enough before. Staking now grants fee discounts, spot volumes count double, and maker rebates flow continuously, ensuring traders keep both their calculators and anxiety meds handy. Hyperliquid’s X.

🔮 UMA Bets on Greed Over Cryptography, Accidentally Reinvents Honesty

Turns out honesty really is the best policy. UMA’s Optimistic Oracle flips traditional oracle complexity on its head by simply making lying too expensive to consider – proving yet again that greed is crypto’s favorite security measure. With a 98.6% dispute-free resolution rate, UMA’s economic incentives ensure the truth emerges, not out of virtue, but pure financial self-interest. UMA.

LINKS
Links That Don’t Suck 🔗

🕵️ The EU is set to bans all anonymous crypto accounts from 2027

🪙 Bitcoin Core controversy: the debate on removing OP_RETURN limits

🔋 Analysts remain bullish on Strategy’s ‘turbocharged’ $84 billion capital plan to buy bitcoin

💶 European Bitcoin treasury company launches $20B Bitcoin strategy

🇬🇧 FCA Asks for Public Feedback on UK Crypto Legislation

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Author Disclosure: The author of this newsletter holds positions in ADA, IMX, COPI, MIN, AGIX, ALGO, ZEC, XLM, and NEAR. 📋