Canadian YouTube alternative Rumble announced the launch of its wallet with support for Tether’s USDT stablecoin.

In a March 26 X post, Rumble CEO Chris Pavlovski said Rumble Wallet will be used for content creator monetization. He promised it would work better than most advertisers and that it would use Tether’s USDt (USDT). Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino showed his appreciation for the initiative, referring to it as “A wallet for the people” in an X post.

Related: Tether seeks Big Four firm for its first full financial audit — Report

A flurry of investments

The announcement follows Tether investing $775 million in Rumble in late 2024. Ardoino wrote at the time that the company “deeply believes in the fundamental values of freedom of speech and financial freedom.”

Source: Paolo Ardoino

It is one of several major investments recently made by the $143 billion stablecoin issuer. Reports from 2024 indicated that Tether was the seventh-largest holder of US Treasury securities globally, surpassing many nation-states.

In February, Tether acquired a majority stake in Juventus FC, a major Series A football club based in Turin, Italy. During the same month, the stablecoin operator sought to acquire a majority stake in South American agribusiness firm Adecoagro.

Rumble also recently began investing its capital, acquiring over $17 million worth of Bitcoin (BTC) earlier this month. The firm announced its new strategy in late November 2024, when it voiced its intention to spend up to $20 million adding Bitcoin to its balance sheet.

Rumble was founded in late 2013 as a YouTube alternative for small content creators. The platform saw a significant influx of users from 2020 onward, at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Viewership increased from 1.6 million users in 2020 around the US election time to 31.9 million by the end of the first quarter of 2021.

Related: Trump Media looks to partner with Crypto.com to launch ETFs

Rumble’s foray into the US

Venture capitalists backed the platform, including current US Vice President J.D. Vance and former PayPal CEO Peter Thiel. At the end of 2021, US President Donald Trump-linked Trump Media and Technology Group announced a partnership with Rumble, which would “deliver video and streaming for TRUTH Social.” Trump wrote in the announcement:

“TMTG continues to align with service providers who do not discriminate against political ideology. Therefore, I have selected the Rumble Cloud to serve as a critical backbone for TMTG infrastructure.”

In 2022, Trump’s social media platform Truth Social also migrated to Rumble’s cloud platform. TMTG CEO Devin Nunes said at the time that “Truth Social and Rumble took a major stride toward rescuing the internet from the grip of the Big Tech tyrants.”

The partnership between the two companies grew stronger as time went on. Also in 2022, Truth Social joined Rumble’s ad platform as its first publisher. This year, TMTG joined Rumble in a lawsuit to halt alleged censorship in Brazil.

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Prominent US-based angel investor Jason Calacanis poked fun at GameStop’s decision to invest in Bitcoin.

In a March 26 X post, Calacanis suggested that buying Bitcoin (BTC) was a solution well-suited for public companies that do not have a suitable business model:

“If you’re a public company that can’t figure out a business model, buy Bitcoin! This might actually be great advice if [Strategy co-founder Michael Saylor] is gonna buy $1T in Bitcoin.”

Still, Tomas Fanta, principal at crypto investment firm Heartcore, told Cointelegraph that there are tangible long-term benefits to holding Bitcoin on a corporate balance sheet. Among those he listed were long-term price appreciation and theoretically lower correlation to equity markets over time.

“I do disagree with the view, though, that failing companies should be using Bitcoin as the last-ditch strategy,” Fanta said.

Related: GameStop hints at future Bitcoin purchases following board approval

Source: Jason

Is GameStop’s adoption part of a trend?

Fanta said that while “one case is not enough to gauge a broader trend,” there does appear to be such a trend:

“We may actually be witnessing one of the first experiments with corporate treasury diversification into crypto outside of tech or crypto-aligned companies such as Tesla or Coinbase.”

Saul Rejwan, managing partner at crypto early-stage venture capital firm Masterkey, echoed the sentiment. According to him, companies are increasingly trying to secure themselves against long-term monetary shifts.

“Bitcoin’s role as a corporate reserve asset is no longer fringe; it’s becoming a legitimate play for companies that want to align themselves with a digitally-native, inflation-resistant financial future,” he said. “While not every company will follow suit, GameStop’s move joins a growing chorus,” Rejwan added.

Related: GameStop buying Bitcoin would ‘bake the noodles’ of TradFi: Swan exec

Adopting Bitcoin is adapting to change

Rejwan also noted that historically successful companies often falter when they resist change — citing Nokia as an example — and said adopting Bitcoin could be viewed as a strategic adaptation:

“When done transparently and with proper risk management, Bitcoin can bring long-term resilience to corporate balance sheets — especially for brands with low time preference and strong alignment with digital-native values.”

This idea was also repeated by Georgii Verbitskii, founder of crypto investment app TYMIO, who said that GameStop “could well become the example the market is waiting for.” He added:

“Adding Bitcoin to a corporate balance sheet isn’t just speculative — it has real, long-term upside if executed properly.”

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Crypto community members are growing more optimistic about an XRP exchange-traded fund (ETF) approval following the resolution of a multi-year legal battle between Ripple and the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). 

On March 19, Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse announced the case had concluded. In an X post, the Ripple executive said the SEC will drop its appeal against Ripple, ending the $1.3 billion unregistered securities suit that started in December 2020. 

Following the development, Nate Geraci, president of the advisory firm ETF Store, said on X that the approval of an XRP (XRP) ETF is next. Geraci said it was “obvious” that it’s only a “matter of time” before the SEC approves an XRP ETF. 

The executive predicted that asset managers like BlackRock and Fidelity would be involved in offering the asset. 

Polymarket punters give 86% odds to XRP ETF approval in 2025

Aside from Geraci, users on the crypto betting platform Polymarket also expect approval for an XRP ETF in 2025. On March 26, Polymarket gave an 86% chance that an XRP-based ETF product would be approved this year. 

The bet will resolve if an XRP ETF receives approval from the SEC by Dec. 31. At the time of writing, the betting market had a volume of $55,000. 

Polymarket shows an 86% chance that a Ripple ETF will be approved in 2025. Source: Polymarket

However, users only give a 42% chance that an XRP ETF will be approved before July 31.

Despite being a gambling site, Polymarket users’ predictions have historically been very accurate. A Dune Analytics dashboard studying the accuracy of Polymarket bets showed that the platform had been accurate by over 90% a month before betting markets were resolved. 

Related: SEC plans 4 more crypto roundtables on trading, custody, tokenization, DeFi

XRP price only surged by 5% as the SEC battle ends

Despite being a huge milestone, the end of the multi-year legal battle between Ripple and the SEC failed to move the markets significantly. On March 19, XRP traded at $2.32, according to CoinGecko. At the time of writing, the asset hovers at around $2.44, a 5% increase. 

On March 21, analysts said the new development had already been priced in. Nicolai Sondergaard, research analyst at Nansen, previously told Cointelegraph that the resolution had been widely expected. 

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