Appold Market Watch - Week ending 5 September 2025
Market Update & Industry News - Week ending 5 September 2025
🔷 World Liberty Financial has blacklisted Justin Sun's blockchain address, which holds 595 million unlocked WLFI tokens worth about $107 million. This action follows outbound transactions from the address. Sun argues these were minor tests without market impact, urging WLFI to unblock his tokens.
Appold view: An interesting one. In August, President Trump signed an executive order to combat politicised or unlawful debanking, where financial institutions deny or restrict services without legitimate grounds. Yet World Liberty Financial, a Trump-backed institution, has allegedly done precisely that by blacklisting Sun’s wallet. Since the coin’s public release, its value has already fallen by 20%, a likely reason for restricting Sun from selling his tokens.
🔷 Stripe and Paradigm have partnered to develop Tempo, a layer-1 blockchain focused on stablecoins and payments. The network, designed with input from OpenAI, Shopify, and Visa, aims to process over 100,000 transactions per second with privacy features, accommodating payments in any stablecoin. Tempo is currently in private testing.
Appold view: While it’s positive to see more major TradFi players entering the space, the constant creation of rival L1s risks repeating old mistakes. Blockchain was meant to avoid siloed financial infrastructures with unnecessary intermediaries and fees. Yet with each company trying to own the “new financial plumbing,” that original vision may prove difficult to achieve.
🔷 RAK Properties, a major listed real estate firm in Ras Al Khaimah, will accept Bitcoin, Ether and Tether for international property sales. Payments, processed by Hubpay and converted into dirhams, align with the UAE’s push to attract digital asset investment. The move reflects growing regional adoption and regulatory clarity, driving sector growth.
Appold view: With a market capitalisation of $1.3 billion, RAK Properties’s move signals another step in shifting digital assets from speculation to real-world utility. As more UAE companies adopt similar practices, these technologies can begin to realise their true purpose and broader potential.
🔷 Coinbase Derivatives will introduce the Mag7 + Crypto Equity Index Futures on 22 September, the first U.S.-listed contracts combining major technology stocks and digital asset ETFs. The index includes Apple, Microsoft, Alphabet Inc., Amazon, NVIDIA, Meta, Tesla, Coinbase shares, plus bitcoin and ether ETFs.
Appold view: Coinbase’s latest move isn’t just about a new product; it’s about blurring the lines between Wall Street’s tech and blockchain’s emerging infrastructure. By packaging them together, Coinbase is moving towards the SEC’s vision of “Super Apps” where everything finance-related can be conducted from a single entity. Expect little to no regulatory pressure on future moves like this.
#Marketwatch #Blockchain #Investments
