It’s Wednesday — the perfect time for a midweek market update. December rate cut odds swung back above 80%, lifting BTC, equities and gold. We’re turning it over to the 0xResearch team to catch you up, but you’ll have Byron back in your inboxes tomorrow for a Thanksgiving throwback. Happy reading!

Indices

Markets tilted risk-on in the latest session, with most major crypto-adjacent sectors posting gains even as BTC (-1.1%) softened slightly. Traditional benchmarks were steady as the S&P 500 eked out a small move higher (+0.9%), while Gold (+0.7%) and the Nasdaq 100 (+0.5%) saw modest strength. Overall tone skewed constructive, led by thematic crypto sectors rather than broad-based flows.

Crypto sector indices showed a clear rotation into high-beta themes. AI was the standout performer, ripping +6.3% on the day, followed by strong moves across RWA (+4.9%) and Crypto Miners (+4.4%). On the downside, Modular networks lagged sharply (-1.7%), followed by Meme (-1.3%) and High-FDV Low-Rev tokens (-1.0%), signaling selective risk-taking rather than a wholesale chase across the curve.

The moves fit a familiar narrative as investors gravitate toward sectors with strong storytelling momentum, such as AI, RWA, and miners (also AI), while trimming from overextended or lower-quality pockets of the market. With BTC drifting sideways and macro catalysts sparse, sector dispersion continues to dominate short-term performance.

Market Update

Klarna announcing KlarnaUSD on Tempo (the new Stripe/Paradigm payments chain) is a clean validation of the “stablecoin rail-replacement” trade that’s been building behind the scenes. With McKinsey pegging stablecoin settlement at $27 trillion annually, the narrative is shifting from speculative infra to industrial-scale payments plumbing. Klarna’s 114 million users and $118 billion GMV aren’t crypto-native flow, but they’re exactly the kind of volume that can reshape onchain settlement curves once mainnet access opens. This initiative could help improve its weak stock performance by cutting payment costs and opening new revenue streams through faster, cheaper global transactions. It also signals innovation and business-model diversification, which may boost investor confidence after a period of poor market sentiment.

Tempo’s positioning as a purpose-built payments L1 (low latency, predictable fees, Stripe-grade compliance rails) sets up a clear competitive lane vs. Solana/ETH L2s on consumer payments. A Stripe + Klarna distribution stack is a real threat — not only to crypto protocols, but to entities working on the $120 billion cross-border segment that Klarna is explicitly hunting. The interesting angle is that KlarnaUSD is built via Bridge’s Open Issuance, keeping issuance modular and likely multichain over time.

For crypto markets, this reopens the “fintech-stablecoin adoption” trade that last peaked during PayPal’s PYUSD rollout. Watch for rotation into payment-aligned infra, high-throughput chains, issuer infra, compliance middleware and real-world settlement protocols. However, despite the institutional appetite, the regulatory overhang isn’t gone, as a bank-issued stablecoin hitting global distribution will likely trigger scrutiny in both the EU and the US. Either way, watch Tempo ecosystem assets and payment-rail narratives — Klarna just put real enterprise weight behind onchain settlement.

— Marc Arjoon

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