Crypto Goes BOOM 📉 💣

The crypto market took a major blow after an extended weekend of trading, with many digital assets tumbling by double-digits. The value of the crypto market fell $410 billion in the last 24 hours, trading below $2 trillion.

$BTC.X dropped as low as $42,900 after reaching a high of more than $52,000 earlier in the day. The price action coincided with El Salvador adopting $BTC.X as legal tender — El Salvador’s wallet experienced technical difficulties within hours of its debut. Amidst the melodrama, El Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele tweeted that he is buying the dip. 💪 The company’s treasury added 150 bitcoins to their treasury. The country now has 550 total coins. 🤔

Bitcoin was led lower by the rest of the market, as $ETH.X tumbled 20% to $3,138 over the last 24 hours. Cardano’s $ADA.X token lost 23% and trades below $2.50. Similarly, $XRP.X plummeted 28% and $DOGE.X dropped 23% to $0.24. The steep decline came a day after JPMorgan analysts warned clients that the crypto markets are once again in a bubble. Analysts said the recent crypto boom reflects “froth and retail investor mania” instead of sustainable gains for the market. 

On the bright side, three cryptos traded up today. One of them was $SOL.X, which hit a new all-time high of nearly $195 today. 🎉 FOMO has pushed the masses towards the high-powered “Ethereum Killer.” It was joined by $FTM.X (+31%) and $NEAR.X (+20%).

During the correction, major exchanges such as Coinbase, Kraken, and Gemini experienced delayed or canceled transactions.

In an interview with Bloomberg, Stephane Ouellette (chief executive and co-founder of FRNT Financial) said “Mystery selloffs, or selloffs where a legitimate reason is only found significant while later are much more common in crypto than in other asset classes.”  

The crypto market ended in all red today. 💔 It’ll be interesting to see how long this correction lasts.

The wildest year for IPOs isn’t even close to over. More than 100 companies are queued up to go public by the end of the year, according to Dan Primack of Axios.

This year, 279 companies have completed IPOs in the U.S. Last year, that figure was just 218. IPO numbers were pushed north by robust interest in growth stocks, new listings, SPACs, and speculative trades. That 279 companies doesn’t include 423 SPACs (nor a smaller number of direct listings).

Among the “notable companies” going public are Warby Parker, Allbirds, Sweetgreen, and Authentic Brands Group. We’ve covered a few of these in the Rip already, but we will be making our rounds as they bring it home. 🏆 💰 This lineup could be joined by Chobani and Rivian, and perhaps even Discord, Reddit, and Instacart.

Unfortunately, IPOs have fallen off from their impressive growth last year. With that said, we’ll be keeping an eye on these IPOs as we near the end of the year. 

Apple finally announced that its next keynote event will take place on Tuesday, Sept. 14. 🥳

The keynote is expected to include the new iPhone 13, Apple Watch Series 7, and a new generation of Airpods. The company will also supposedly announce a new version of its mobile operating system, iOS. Last week, we reported that the new iPhone is expected to offer satellite communications technology. 📡

The notoriously secret company is the second “Big Tech” player to show off new mobile exploits. Apple appears to be following in the footsteps of Samsung, which announced its new foldable Galaxy products on Aug. 11. Apple will be followed by Google several weeks from now with the rollout of Google’s most ambitious phone yet, the Pixel 6. 

Speaking of Apple: Ford poached a top Apple executive, who was the “de facto head of Apple’s … electric car project.”

Doug Field, Apple’s VP of special projects, will be leaving Apple behind to become Ford’s chief advanced technology and embedded systems officer. It’s a huge pickup for Ford, which has been making inroads with its own EV and autonomous vehicle ambitions. 🔋 🚗

As for Apple, it’s unknown who will take over the company’s top-secret auto effort, dubbed ‘Project Titan.’ Project Titan has been under development since around 2014. Field has been involved with the project since he left his post as Chief Vehicle Engineer of Tesla in 2018.

The news was cause for celebration among investors. $F stock moved up 1.15% on the announcement. The stock closed up 0.54% today.

Emerging markets have been the talk of VC-town since the start of the pandemic. With more and more individuals gaining access to cell phones, internet, and financial technology across the globe, investing is buzzin’ in places like Latin America and Africa . 🐝 💰

So what’s going on now?

Well, the MSCI Emerging Markets ETF is getting wrecked. iShares MSCI World ETF is down as much as 8% from February highs due to China’s crackdown. On the other hand, VC funds continue to dump capital into global fintech. 

African fintech firm Wave just raised a $200 million Series A from well-known investors like Sequoia, Stripe, and others. Cora, a Brazilian-based banking provider, raised $26.7 million in a Series A round this year. And Chile’s Xepelin raised $230 million in debt and equity this year, too. Most emerging fintech startups implement some kind of third-party financial infrastructure to provide non-traditional banking solutions in places with widespread government distrust. 

As global levels of fintech investment reach all-time highs, KPMG’s Global Fintech Co-Lead commented “Overall investment in fintech surged to a record high in the first half of 2021 as investors, particularly corporates and VC investors, made big bets on market leaders in numerous jurisdictions and across almost all subsectors.”

There’s no clear way to interpret signals in emerging markets — just look at the El Salvador/Bitcoin situation. But you can’t deny that generally, where there’s a lot of risk, there’s often a lot of reward, too. 😉