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This week has brought some interesting crypto news and events that may potentially influence the web3 industry. Let’s explore them in this weekly digest 👇
quick weekly news
Bitcoin could top $300,000 this year, and Ethereum, will exceed $8,000. Hashkey survey
Recently, the HashKey crypto fund released a short overview of their latest survey, suggesting that a majority believe $BTC could reach $300K. The survey was conducted among 50,000 community members and was based on 16 popular forecasts made by HashKey researchers, analysts, and traders.
While such predictions cannot be deemed entirely accurate, the fact that community members vote for such forecasts highlights a prevailing bullish sentiment on crypto within the HashKey community and potentially across the broader Web3 industry. According to the survey results, 50% of HashKey users believe Bitcoin will surge to $300K per coin by 2025. Meanwhile, Ethereum is expected to reach $8K this year, often referred to by the crypto community as “digital oil.”
Additionally, nearly 41% of respondents believe that DEXs will significantly increase their market share, driven by the rising popularity of AI agents and memecoins. At the same time, CEXs are expected to adopt DeFi strategies, as they already started to actively implement in their strategies with their recent launches of multiple Layer 2 chains, own Web3 wallets, and wrapped liquid staking tokens across various chains.
Finally, AI agents garnered significant attention from the HashKey community despite their relatively recent launch just a few months ago. According to the survey, 21% of voters believe AI agent applications will experience explosive growth. This optimism can be attributed to the recent surge of the leading AI agent token, $ai16z, which reached a market capitalization of $2.5B just weeks ago. Additionally, several AI agents, such as Alchemist AI, Cookie DAO, and others, have been listed on Binance Futures, further fueling interest in this sector.
Rating of AI agents by market capitalization and their performance over the past 30 days. Source: CoinGecko
the first deadline for SEC’s decision on Solana ETF is set for Jan 25th
James Seyffart, a Bloomberg ETF analyst, recently posted on Twitter that the first deadline for the SEC’s decision on the Solana ETF approval is set for January 25, 2025. According to the initial rules, the SEC is required to provide feedback on the Solana ETF – either approving it, delaying the decision until the second deadline of March 11, or rejecting it with clear justifications for the decision.
Based on previous experiences with ETF approvals, such decisions are often pushed to the latest deadlines. Even when approved, funds are frequently required to make improvements to their filings. For example, in the case of Ethereum, staking was excluded from the ETF application. However, as this deadline falls shortly after the inauguration of Donald Trump and potentially marks the end of Gary Gensler’s term as SEC chairman, there is a chance that a new chairman could be in place by this date, potentially speeding up the process.
According to a recent report from JPMorgan, the Solana spot ETF could attract between $3B and $5B in net assets. These estimates are based on data collected from existing $BTC and $ETH spot ETFs. For Bitcoin, ETF inflows have been approximately 5% of its current market capitalization, while Ethereum ETFs have seen inflows of around 3%. Applying this data to Solana, with its current market capitalization of $90.5B, the estimated inflows within the first 6 – 12 months of ETF trading could range from $2.7B to $5.2B.
Source: CoinTelegraph
XRP surges to $3 per coin. But SEC doesn’t seem to give up on Ripple
Following JPMorgan’s announcement of a potential approval and inflows of nearly $4B to $8B in net new assets into $XRP, the coin surged to its 2017 highs, nearing $3 per token. Moreover, $XRP even surpassed Bitcoin in Google Trends interest on January 15, as most cryptocurrencies, including $BTC and $ETH, experienced a correction while $XRP approached a ATH.
Adding further bullish momentum to the $XRP trend, crypto analysts on Twitter noted that the entire rally was driven by spot buyers, which often indicates more sustainable growth compared to rallies fueled by derivatives trading. “If I saw this with $BTC, I would simply say we are going much higher,” said DOM, a crypto trader on Twitter. Meanwhile, Jeth, another prominent trader on the platform, claimed, “There’s no reason to hold $ETH over $XRP right now,” suggesting that $XRP has more upside potential than $ETH.
However, this price surge and rising narrative are still questionable when it comes to fundamentals. While many investors believe that the SEC may ease its aggressive stance toward Ripple – especially following Ripple’s recent “win” against the Department of Justice (DoJ) and the anticipated change to a more crypto-friendly SEC chairman – the SEC has not ceased its efforts.
On January 15, 2025, the SEC reiterated that XRP tokens sold to retail investors were unregistered securities. Additionally, the SEC argued that XRP tokens given as employee compensation or in business deals were also improperly excluded from being classified as securities.
Ripple’s CEO reacted to the news on Twitter, stating that the SEC is “doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.”
While it has been proven that Ripple Labs can successfully win lawsuit cases against the SEC, the ongoing attempts to file new charges could still pose significant challenges for the company, both financially and reputationally. As a result, it remains uncertain whether the new SEC chairman’s policies regarding crypto, and Ripple specifically, will take a significantly different direction.
Pump.fun faces possible lawsuit over allegations of investor harm
Diving deeper into potential lawsuit discussions, pump.fun, a rising star in the memecoin industry and the largest Solana-based meme coin launchpad, may face legal action from a U.S. law firm.
On January 15, 2025, the New York-based Burwick Law Firm announced plans to file a lawsuit against pump.fun due to recent harmful activities that occurred during pump.fun’s live streams. To provide context, a few months ago, pump.fun introduced a new feature on its launchpad that allowed memecoin creators to live broadcast content directly on the token purchase page to engage with their audience.
However, the main issue with this feature was the lack of moderation on the platform. Token “CTOs” reportedly began engaging in inappropriate and harmful behavior, including threatening others, using drugs, and performing actions that would be permanently banned on any social media platform or TV broadcast. This is in addition to the growing number of rug pulls, as the feature quickly attracted individuals seeking to exploit the system for quick financial gain.
As a result, approximately a month ago, pump.fun temporarily removed the live-streaming feature from its platform to implement the necessary moderation improvements. Nevertheless, the damage may have already been done, as some memecoin creators were allegedly incentivized to engage in illegal activities to “rug pull” users.
Given the circumstances, it is no surprise that the platform might face legal action in the near future.
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top crypto meme of the week
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