After slipping over the weekend, Bitcoin rose to trade above US$30,300 on Monday morning in Asia. The price is now back around the level seen last Thursday – before the favorable ruling by XRP issuer Ripple in its lawsuit with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The partial victory led to significant gains for a number of the top 10 unstable cryptocurrencies, with XRP still leading the gains. US stock futures fell slightly as investors await earnings reports from major banks.
Bitcoin falls back
Bitcoin edged up 0.05% in the past 24 hours to hit US$30,332.54 as of 6:30 a.m. HK for a weekly gain of 0.65%, according to data from CryptoMarketCap.
However, the world’s largest cryptocurrency was trading at around US$31,300 early Saturday morning. After this weekend high, the price of the token returned to roughly its pre-Ripple level.
In a summary judgment Thursday, Southern District of New York Court Judge Analisa Torres ruled that Ripple’s programmatic sales of the XRP token on public exchanges did not constitute securities. The regulator first sued the San Francisco-based fintech company on the grounds that XRP constituted a security in 2020.
The decision was seen as a partial victory for Ripple, however, as the court ruled that sales of XRP to institutional investors violated securities laws.
“There will be further legal proceedings regarding this… It is also unclear whether the SEC will appeal the ruling,” said Caroline Bowler, CEO of Australia-based crypto exchange BTC Markets, in comments by email. Therefore, there remains the “potential for more insecurity for Ripple,” Bowler added.
Nevertheless, Ripple Labs’ XRP led the winners on Monday morning in Asia. It rose 5.58% to US$0.7577 for a weekly gain of 61.56%.
Meanwhile, the SEC has added BlackRock’s request for a spot Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) to its official filing. This decision means that the regulator will now take the proposal seriously.
Blackrock, the world’s largest asset manager with over $9 trillion in assets, filed the application just under a month ago. The move saw the token’s value breach the US$31,000 resistance level earlier this month, as several major asset managers followed suit with similar ETF proposals.
Ether also gained 0.20% to hit US$1,934.09, up 3.81% over the past seven days.
The other top 10 unstable cryptocurrencies were mixed. The biggest losses of the day were recorded by Dogecoin, which fell 2.53% to US$0.07. However, the token still saw gains of 6.89% for the week.
Cardano’s ADA also fell 2.52% to US$0.3185, limiting the coin’s weekly gain to 12.08%. Similarly, Binance’s BNB lost 2.43% to $244.95. It is nevertheless trading at 4.68% more than a week ago.
Total crypto market capitalization increased by 0.16% in the past 24 hours to $1.22 trillion, while trading volume fell by 11.97% to $24.91 billion .
Secure tokenized access for the super-rich and The Flash via NFT
Indices are indirect measures of the performance of the global NFT market. They are operated by CryptoSlam, a sister company of Forkast.News under the Forkast.Labs umbrella.
In the non-fungible token (NFT) market, the main Forkast 500 NFT index edged up 0.50% in the past 24 hours to 2,736.37 as of 9:30 a.m. HK. However, the index is down 0.40% for the week. Forkast’s Solana and Cardano NFT market indices also rose, while the Ethereum and Polygon indices fell.
“NFTs continue to ride the wave of positive news and positive prices in crypto,” said Yehudah Petscher, NFT strategist at Forkast Labs, the parent company of Forkast.News. “However, we are not seeing any noticeable gains in projects and instead most of the big names are still down for 7 days.”
This is despite some strong selling from CryptoPunk and Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) last week. These sales included BAYC #1734, which sold for $1.2 million (600 ETH), CryptoPunk #8531 for $1 million (550 ETH), and CryptoPunk #9476 for $403,000 (217.5 ETH) .
“Big sells sometimes bring liquidity to other projects, but in this case the seller can pocket their earnings or invest in crypto, where the opportunities seem more attractive at the moment,” Petscher said.
Over the past 24 hours, total NFT trading volume has fallen by 10.93% to $16.58 million, according to data from CryptoSlam.
ImmutableX’s Gods Unchained Cards, the collection of NFTs used in Immutable’s trading card game of the same name, topped 24-hour trading volume, despite falling slightly 0.43% to $690,896 US.
BAYC, an Ethereum-based NFT commodity, ranked second in Cryptoslam’s Collections Ranking. Its total trading volume increased by 1.34% to US$660,415 in the last 24 hours. Bored Ape creator Yuga Labs announced last week that it would be hosting ApeFest – an event celebrating its hit NFT collections – in Hong Kong in November.
Meanwhile, non-blockchain sectors are also showing increased NFT activity. .
Indosuez, the global wealth management arm of major French bank Credit Agricole, last week launched a private NFT membership club named Le Clu3. The club will cater to super-rich customers by offering secure access to secret sections of its website, among other otherwise off-limits experiences. Crédit Agricole had approximately $2.712 billion in assets under management in 2022.
Elsewhere, Warner Bros. Discovery, Inc. – the American entertainment conglomerate with a market capitalization of over $30 billion – has announced that it will be releasing its next superhero movie “The Flash” via NFT. The launch is hosted by the Eluvio blockchain and will give users access to the movie itself, collectibles, bonuses, and character artwork.
(Updates to add NFT section)