Web3 had some interesting thoughts on the importance of the Saudis, tokenization, the CLARITY Act, cryptocurrency, and precious metals.
Precious metals vs. Bitcoin
“This morning, investors are reckoning with a new reality as gold hits $5,000 for the first time in history, while silver has topped $100. These are both nicely round numbers and behavioural investing theory tells us investors have a bias toward such milestones.
“The precious metals trade has been gathering momentum for months, and, as any momentum trade, it could run for far longer than many are expecting. At this point, we’re likely to see retail FOMO kicking in, as investors who have missed out on the metals rally so far pile into the market.
“Both gold and silver are in uncharted territory now, which makes price predictions particularly difficult at this point. However, the overall upward trend shows no weakness, and, for the time being, the macro picture supports a risk-off environment where gold truly shines.
“Gold’s historic rise comes at a time when the US dollar is seeing a historic pattern of its own, with a 15.6% drop from the 2022 peak marking its biggest drop in history. However, it’s worth looking at drivers beyond dollar debasement for the metals rally – namely the AI boom.
“This has been one of the drivers behind the unprecedented demand for silver – but copper, nickel and tin are also all essential for new data centres, chips and grids. While they lack the flight-to-safety narrative of silver and gold, their price rally isn’t getting quite as long in the tooth, while demand fundamentals are unlikely to shift anytime soon.
“While metals extend their extraordinary surge, Bitcoin and digital assets continue to lag, despite the return of dollar debasement fears. We’ve seen $1.7 billion of outflows from Bitcoin ETFs over five straight days, and while surveys suggest institutional investors are still bullish over the long term, fears are growing that Bitcoin is entering a bear market – with a large proportion of institutional investors believing it may already be in one.
“The chart is currently looking weak, and although a short-term recovery to around $92,000 is likely from here, the longer Bitcoin remains under $100,000, the more momentum will trend to the downside. While a new all-time high this year still isn’t out of the question, the next 30 days will be crucial in determining whether a bear market is already here.
“In the past, prominent greenback sell-offs have acted as a catalyst for crypto price breakouts, with a similar fall in 2017 kicking off a historic bull market. However, with ongoing macro uncertainty, fears over another US government shutdown, and prevailing expectations of a rate cut pause from the Federal Reserve, there are few external catalysts that could drive this reversal.”
– Nic Puckrin, investment analyst and co-founder of Coin Bureau
“Since Trump took office, asset performance has been shaped less by traditional fundamentals and more by a breakdown in old monetary and market cycles. The idea of predictable four year crypto cycles effectively ended when roughly a quarter of the money supply was created in under two years. That level of intervention permanently altered how capital flows through the system. As a result, Bitcoin, gold, oil, and equities often traded together for much of the period, not because they suddenly became the same asset, but because they were all responding to the same forces: fiat debasement, inflation risk, and uncertainty around the future monetary order.
“While many “debasement trade” (gold and metals especially) assets have performed extremely well last year and this year, BTC and crypto performance has lagged, despite almost daily bullish announcements about real adoption of crypto rails.
“One reason for this divergence could be fallout from the flash crash that the crypto ecosystem experienced on October 10th due to a Binance pricing issue that many in the industry say caused several large market makers to suffer losses and/or exit the markets. Many think that the market volatility since October 10th reflects the lack of market maker participation and liquidity. Until there are real new flows into crypto driven by usage (e.g. the tokenization of real world assets and stablecoins) or by the reallocation of investor portfolios into crypto assets in response to the big banks and wealth management platforms recommended exposure (which could take 12-24 months), this asset class might continue to lag.
“Another reason for the divergence in performance versus other debasement trade assets could be concern or uncertainty about the threat from quantum computing – which is being speculated about widely but it’s still unclear how the developer community should tackle the potential threat and when.”
– Marissa Kim, head of asset management at Abra
Tokenization and the Saudis
“If you’re not paying attention to Saudi’s markets in 2026, you’re missing one of the most important capital market openings in a generation.
“Removing the QFI gate isn’t a technical tweak, it’s Saudi lowering the impedance between global capital and the Kingdom’s growth engine. It simplifies access, strengthens participation and signals serious intent to make the Tadawul a market the world has to price every day, not visit occasionally.
“But zoom out and you’ll see why this matters beyond equities. Saudi has been upgrading the plumbing of its financial system from first principles, not just opening the front door. In November 2025, the real estate regulator REGA announced its own blockchain token standard for property, a world first and a clear signal that Vision 2030 isn’t a slogan; it’s being encoded into market structure.
“That’s the real implication of reforms like this, when ownership and enforceability are strengthened at the market level, RWAs stop being a buzzword and become settlement infrastructure, faster, more auditable and fit for national scale markets across real assets. And that’s exactly the direction Saudi is moving.”
– droppRWA CEO Faisal Monai
CLARITY ACT – Coinbase vs. banks
“The fact that the White House is now planning to mediate a meeting between Coinbase and the banking industry to try and reach an agreement on the Clarity Act reveals the growing importance of stablecoins for the US financial system.
Stablecoins provide an avenue for the US government to shore up the dangerously declining dollar, at a time when currency devaluation worries are driving investor behavior. But the uncertainty around stablecoin legislation is affecting incentives for service providers, which may explain why we’ve seen stablecoin market cap growth stall somewhat in recent months.
In the meantime, new launches are happening almost every day as competition between banks and crypto firms heats up. Just in the last 24 hours, Fidelity has announced plans to launch its own stablecoin, while crypto exchange Bybit is launching MyBank to offer banking services.
It’s no wonder US banks are nervous, with stablecoins currently offering much higher rates than traditional deposits. But the wheels are now in motion, so there are only two paths forward – a clean way to integrate crypto and banks, and a messy way.
My hope is that the mediation meeting on Monday – assuming it goes ahead as planned – paves the way for a clean integration. Because the uncertainty is hurting both digital asset service providers and banks. Clarity, in any form, would be better right now than a lack of it. This will likely mean both sides accepting a compromise, but that’s what healthy financial innovation looks like.”
– Puckrin