Biz Builder Mike

You can't sail Today's boat on Yesterdays wind - Michael Noel

Exchanges

Ripple becomes tidal wave, leads weekend pump and notches legal victories

Amid a weekend pump carrying multiple cryptocurrencies higher, Ripple’s XRP looks to be leading the way with a push as high as 30% on the daily — carried on the back of a string of legal victories and rumors of relisting at some exchanges. 

Where Bitcoin and Ethereum are up merely 2.7% and 3.4% respectively on the day, XRP climbed to $1.36 before retreating to $1.32, where it sits at the time of publication. The digital currency is now up 111% on a 7 day basis, and a staggering 544% on the year. The recent push has also buoyed XRP back into the top 10 cryptocurrencies by marketcap, behind only BTC, ETH, and BNB at #4.

The rally flies in the face of a lawsuit from the Securities and Exchange Commission, which charges that XRP’s $1.3 billion ICO was an “unregistered securities offering.” The news led multiple exchanges to delist the currency, and XRP lost its place as the 3rd largest currency by marketcap, at time looking as if it would even fall out of the top ten. 

The bad news for XRP didn’t stop with the SEC, either. In March Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse announced that the company would be “winding down” its relationship with Moneygram — a once highly-touted partnership that investors often pointed to as proof of the digital currency being on a path towards becoming “the standard” for payments and settlement.

Despite the deluge of negative headlines, it appears all buyers needed was a small ray of hope to jump back in — and they’ve gotten exactly that. Ripple lawyers have notched two victories in their legal battle against the SEC, including winning access to internal SEC discussion history regarding cryptocurrencies, and a court denied the SEC the ability to disclose the financial records of two Ripple execs, including Garlinghouse.

Ripple executives themselves seem heartened by the news, with CTO David Schwartz saying the US isn’t “prepared” to regulate cryptocurrencies (a possible dig at the ongoing legal proceedings).

All in all, it’s just another week for one of the most controversial cryptocurrencies in the space.

Ripple becomes tidal wave, leads weekend pump and notches legal victories

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Digital Asset Custody Provider Hex Trust Finalizes $6M Round led by QBN Capital

Hong Kong-headquartered crypto-asset custody service provider Hex Trust reveals that it has secured $6 million in capital via a Series A round that was led by QBN Capital.

As part of its latest investment round, Hex Trust also received contributions from Cell Rising, Radiant Tech Ventures, Kenetic Capital, HashKey, MD Labs, Fenbushi Capital, Borderless Capital, Genesis Block Ventures and Henri Arslanian.

Hex Trust’s management noted that the funds raised would allow it to further scale its business operations while being able to recruit new talent to work at its Hong Kong and Singapore offices.

Hex Trust further noted that during 2021, they’ll make plans to  expand operations into the European market, where the company has teamed up with SIA, an established provider of banking tech infrastructure.

Hex Trust said the capital secured will also be directed towards making enhancements to its proprietary, bank-grade custody solution, called Hex Safe™. The technology-driven service provides a wide range of custody and treasury management solutions for digital assets, security tokens, and non-fungible tokens (NFTs) as well.

Alessio Quaglini, CEO and Co-founder at Hex Trust, stated:

“We are past the inflection point, as blockchain has established itself as the next financial markets infrastructure. Financial institutions are quickly making their moves, and the next 12 months will be critical to define the structure of the overall market. Hex Trust is now perfectly positioned to accelerate its growth and play a leading role in this space, enabling digital assets adoption for a broad range of regulated financial institutions. We are thrilled to be accompanied in this journey by such established investors.”

As noted by its management team, Hex Trust claims to be one of Asia’s leading digital asset custodians. The company says it’s “fully licensed, insured, and provides bank-grade custody for digital assets.”

Hex Trust is reportedly led by experienced banking technologists and “award-winning” financial markets. The company has developed a proprietary platform – Hex Safe™ – that “delivers a flexible custody solution for banks, financial institutions, asset managers, exchanges, and corporations to safely, securely, and efficiently operate in the digital asset ecosystem.”

As explained by Hex Trust:

‘”Through Hex Safe™, clients can access liquidity providers, exchanges and lending & staking platforms, enabling seamless access to services while assets are held in our highly-secure and regulated platform. Hex Trust has offices in Hong Kong and Singapore.”

As covered in April 2020, Hex Trust became the very first licensed crypto-asset custodian in Hong Kong to integrate its services with R3’s Corda platform.

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Users of top Indian crypto exchange report seeing ‘0’ funds during outage

Major Indian crypto exchange WazirX experienced disruptions caused by system failures for more than four hours Sunday. 

In a tweet at 5:24 PM UTC, WazirX CEO Nischal Shetty reported that the crypto exchange had “hit some internal limits” set by one of the infrastructure providers. The load on Wazir’s system reportedly created “a ripple effect on all the services,” causing some of the exchange’s 1.8 million users to report being unable to see any funds in their accounts during the outage.

“It’s because parts of the system are not working,” said Shetty. “One such system is the one that shows the fund value. It’ll start showing again as soon as all the services are back up.”

More than four hours later, the CEO reported that users could once again see funds in their accounts and were able to cancel orders, but said that trading was still disabled.

According to WazirX co-founder and chief operating officer Siddharth Menon, the exchange was experiencing all-time high trades across its systems shortly before the outage occurred. Shetty reported that the firm had seen more than $270 million in trading volume within 24 hours earlier today, making the crypto exchanges one of the largest in India. In addition, the price of WazirX’s native WRX token has risen more than 160% in the last day to reach $4.15 at the time of publication.

Reports have been circulating for several months claiming the Indian government is planning to introduce a possible ban on private cryptocurrencies. Shetty has joined representatives from other exchanges in India in drafting a presentation note highlighting recommendations for crypto regulations in the country. The WazirX CEO said the approach was necessary given the negative stance taken by government authorities toward cryptocurrencies.

Users of top Indian crypto exchange report seeing \’0\’ funds during outage

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‘Silent crash’ as price floors collapse across NFT space

If prices plummet in an illiquid market, how soon before anyone notices?

While fungible tokens traded on centralized and decentralized exchanges have significant transparency regarding price movements, nonfungible tokens can be harder to track. Because of their illiquid nature, gauging the sentiment of the overall market market for a project can be difficult — a dynamic that has led one eGirl Capital member, Mewny, to dub NFT corrections ‘silent crashes.’

In a silent crash, speculators might not even be aware that one is underway — buyers simply evaporate and sellers fail to move their wares. However, metrics such as “floor price” — the lowest price at which a NFT can be bought for a particular project — as well as total volume can indicate that a bull is turning into a bear. 

There could be bad news on the horizon for NFT collectors, too, as signs are pointing to a nasty crash underway.

CryptoPunks, among the earliest and most popular NFT projects for collectors, have seen a over 40% decrease in floor price to 14 ETH (roughly $28,000 at the time of publication). The price capitulation has led to some on-chain horror stories today, such as one speculator who sold a Punk for 16 ETH after purchasing it for 25.5, and another that sold for 27.99 after a 42 ETH purchase:

CryptoPunks aren’t the only high-profile project experiencing a marketwide correction, either. Data from evaluate.market shows that sales volume in multiple price categories for NBA Top Shot have declined precipitously since a Feb. 22 peak. 

One semi-anon and self-described Top Shot enthusiast, Jordan, who charted the downturn points to two specific populations for the steep fall.

“The market has been trending downward since the Feb 22. It seems like there are two types of sellers. One, the investor who got in early and wants to cash out with exponential profit. Two, the investor who bought at or near the top and can’t stomach to watch their investment lose value by the day,” he said. 

Watching price floors plummet is difficult regardless of the project. According to market-tracking website Nonfungible, the pullback is effecting the entire market: total number of sales, total value of sales, and active wallets are all down on a 7-day and 30-day basis. 

Jordan ultimately thinks this a healthy, short-term pullback, however.

“I think it’s a healthy, relatively short-term correction. The rate at which prices rose from Jan 1 to Feb 22 was unsustainable. I think the next few months will continue to be bumpy, but I’m very bullish overall.”

‘Silent crash’ as price floors collapse across NFT space

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