The Defiant

Happy weekend Defiers!

Celebrity memecoin season continues to wear on, with Iggy Azalea’s MOTHER token rallying past a $200 million market cap.

The news bullish momentum comes as Sahil Arora, an alleged orchestrator of memecoin pump and dumps associated with MOTHER and other recently launched celebrity tokens, is facing backlash from his business partners. Sahil was reportedly blocked from the X social media platform this week.

A wallet dubiously labeled as belonging to Donald Trump is also garnering millions in memecoin airdrops.

Ethereum’s expected spot ETFs remain at the forefront of the crypto news cycle. While Gary Gensler, the chair of the SEC, said his agency will “take some time” before giving the green light to Ether ETF applicants, he also made no indication that the funds won’t eventually enter the market.

VanEck, an investment firm with roughly $100 billion under management, has adjusted its long-term price outlook for Ether amid the ETF hype. VanEck said its “base” scenario places ETH changing hands for $22,000 in the year 2030.

In other ETF news, The State of Wisconsin Investment Board invested roughly $160 million or 0.1% of its assets into spot Bitcoin ETFs from BlackRock and Grayscale. The first U.S. 2x long and short leveraged Ethereum ETFs also debuted this past week.

Crypto endures as a prominent political issue in the U.S. President Biden’s decision to veto a bipartisan resolution dismantling the SEC's despised crypto accounting rule attracted condemnation from many web3 community members.

However, members of Congress are increasingly recognizing the efficiency benefits offered by tokenization. The House Financial Services Committee held a hearing on real-world asset tokenization featuring testimony favorable to blockchain technology.

Robinhood announced plans to expand its crypto operations with the acquisition of Bitstamp, a major centralized exchange founded in 2011. The deal is planned to finalize during the second half of 2025 and is worth only $200 million.