Arp's Crypto Digest

General Digital Asset Market View:

Bitcoin climbed 1.47% on Friday to trade above $116,000, supported by a second consecutive day of positive spot ETF flows and renewed optimism from recent policy developments. The move followed a brief recovery earlier in the week after several days of declines, with sentiment improving alongside favorable market headlines.

Spot bitcoin ETFs saw roughly $281 million in net inflows on Thursday, marking a notable pickup after previous outflows. Ether ETFs also attracted strong demand, adding about $222 million in the same period and extending a multi-day streak of inflows, further reinforcing the broader crypto market’s momentum.

Macro:

The focus will stay on tariff developments ahead of the August 12 deadline for a pause in levies between the US and China. The effective tariff rate is currently pegged at approximately 16%. Meanwhile, key economic indicators will include US July pricing data (CPI, PPI & import prices) and economic activity gauges (incl retail sales and IP), the monthly run of Chinese data from the NBS as well as Q2 GDP in the UK, Japan and Switzerland. From central banks, rate decisions are due in Australia and Norway.

More Crypto:

Bitcoin reserves held by companies and institutions have grown from 1.2M BTC in 2024 to over 1.86M BTC by August 2025.

Crypto and DeFi are seeing sustained outflows amid macro fears — from tariffs to weak job data.

Liquid staking is cooling off, even with renewed ETF hype, while RWAs remain the only sector in the green, signaling a shift toward real-world utility.

What Happened This Week:

• Joe McCann cancels $1.5B Solana treasury plan after backlash over his fund’s poor performance.

• China bans local brokers from promoting stablecoins.

• SharpLink raises $200M at $19.50/share to grow its Ethereum treasury.

• Ripple acquires Rail for $200M to boost global stablecoin payments.

• Paxos settles with NY regulator for $48.5M over Binance BUSD partnership.

What to Look Out For:

• El Salvador to launch the world’s first Bitcoin bank.

• Fundamental Global files $5B shelf offering to acquire Ethereum.

• Trump to sign Executive Order allowing crypto in 401(k) plans.

• Japan’s largest bank files to launch $BTC and $XRP ETFs.

• MetaMask to launch “MetaMask USD” stablecoin, issued by Stripe.

What we enjoyed reading and listening to:

• Economic Lessons from the Screwtape Letters — Link

• The Robots Are Coming — Link

• Weekly Dose of Optimism #156 — Link

• GPT-5 Hands-On: Welcome to the Stone Age — Link

• Stablecoins in Africa (Part II) — Link

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