Ripple Threatens to Leave U.S. Over Excessive Federal Crypto Regulation
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3 Monaten ago
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Ripple is considering leaving the U.S. and opting for Asia or Europe instead because of the unfavorable regulatory climate caused by U.S. regulators.
In response to the excessive and unclear regulation by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Ripple is planning to move overseas. This was revealed by Ripple’s executive chairman Chris Larsen in a virtual interview with Fortune.
Speaking at the LA Blockchain summit on 6th October, Larsen expressed his displeasure with the U.S. regulatory framework for crypto.
“The message is blockchain and digital currencies are not welcome in the US. You want to be in this business, you probably should be going somewhere else. To be honest with you, we’re even looking at relocating our headquarters to a much friendly jurisdiction.”
Ripple Threatens to Leave the U.S.
Notably, the SEC concluded that Bitcoin and Ethereum are not centrally controlled. Hence, the two cryptocurrencies were exempted from securities laws.
According to Larsen, most countries have more favorable regulatory frameworks for cryptocurrencies than the U.S. He added that regulators like the U.S. SEC negatively impact the digital currency and the blockchain. Specifically, Larsen revealed Ripple’s plan to move to the UK, Switzerland, Singapore, or Japan.
In addition, Larsen noted that moving the firm’s headquarters out of the U.S. does not affect its operation in the country. However, the Ripple executive said a change of chief regulator would be a relief to the fintech firm.
Also, Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse commented on the U.S. lack of regulatory clarity.
Strongest internet companies built in the US, in part b/c of regulatory clarity. We have that opp with blockchain + digital assets. Responsible players like Ripple aren’t looking to avoid rules, we just want to operate in a jurisdiction where the rules are clear. #DCEA of 2020 https://t.co/LqbEDuMXvx
Over the past few years, Ripple has faced lawsuits over its XRP token being a security and selling them illegally. In 2018, an investor Ryan Coffey sued Ripple for losing money while buying and selling XRP. At that time, the investor sought damages on behalf of all other investors that purchased the XRP token.
Following the lawsuit, Ripple filed to dismiss the complaint. Highlighting the digital currency’s legal classification, Ripple said that federal regulators have declared XRP as a currency and not a security.
A month before the lawsuit, the UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) said that XRP is not a security. The UK regulator further compared Ethereum to XRP, claiming they have similar features.
Amid the tension between Ripple and the SEC, there is an ongoing debate on the role of central banks and digital currencies. Larsen, along with some other critics, warned that the US may lose its financial innovation to China.
Remarkably, China is leading the race to launch a digital currency. On the 6th of October, the deputy governor of the People’s Bank of China Fan Yifei revealed details on the status of the digital yuan. The central bank said it has processed 3.13 million transactions using the digital currency.
Before now, there have been ongoing pilot tests for the central bank digital currency (CBDC) in some parts of China. Fan revealed that the tests in Shenzhen and Xiongan have made progress.
Tolu is a cryptocurrency and blockchain enthusiast based in Lagos. He likes to demystify crypto stories to the bare basics so that anyone anywhere can understand without too much background knowledge.
When he’s not neck-deep in crypto stories, Tolu enjoys music, loves to sing and is an avid movie lover.
Following the Bitcoin all-time high on Sunday, December 27, Riot Blockchain stock registered 20% gains on Monday’s trading session. The stock has already appreciated by 13x this year. Apart from BTC, investors of Bitcoin mining companies are making a bomb in the market.
Bitcoin mining giant Riot Blockchain is making all the news in the market at the moment. On Monday, December 28, Riot Blockchain Inc (NASDAQ: RIOT) stock price surged a massive 20% surging past $15.5 levels. One of the biggest milestones with the Monday rally is that the Riot Blockchain has clocked a $1 billion market cap.
The latest price rally comes as Riot Blockchain hints at going aggressively on its Bitcoin mining business. Last week, the Riot Blockchain added new S19 Pro Antimers to its bitcoin mining arsenal. The company announced the purchase of an additional 15,000 Bitcoin (BTC) mining machines from Bitmain. The recent purchase also pushes Riot’s total fleet to 37,640 Next-Generation Bitmain Antminers.
Riot said that the fresh purchase of Antminers will help the mining company to attain a 65% jump in its mining hash-rate. RIOT stock has registered an unprecedented rally this year in 2020. RIOT stock has multiplied by 13x this year registering a 1200% surge so far.
Riot Blockchain has issued nearly 17 million shares since November 2020 with its total outstanding shares going to 67.5 million. It has been a phenomenal journey for Riot ever since it ventured into the Bitcoin mining business in October 2017. With valuations less than $50 million back then, Riot has grown more than 20x in size as of its latest stock price.
RIOT Stock and Shares of Other Bitcoin Mining Companies Profit from BTC Bull Run
The recent Bitcoin (BTC) price rally during Q4 2020 has also pushed the stocks of Bitcoin mining companies to new highs. Earlier on Sunday, December 28, the BTC price hit its all-time high of $28,000 in a massive bull run followed by huge institutional inflows.
Moreover, along with the BTC price rally, the Bitcoin hash-rate has jumped significantly since November 2020. Over the last two months, the BTC hash-rate has surged nearly 30% and is currently at 132 TH/s. The surge in the hash-rate suggests higher mining activity for Bitcoin.
As a result, Bitcoin mining companies have been making massive purchases of the BTC mining machines. In addition to Riot Blockchain, other giants like the Marathon Patent Group have made aggressive purchases over the last few months. Just like RIOT, the Marathon Patent Group (NASDAQ: MARA) has registered a phenomenal rally of 18% on Monday, December 28. MARA stock has multiplied investors’ wealth by 12x in 2020. It means the MARA stock has also given phenomenal 1100% returns year-to-date.
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Bhushan is a FinTech enthusiast and holds a good flair in understanding financial markets. His interest in economics and finance draw his attention towards the new emerging Blockchain Technology and Cryptocurrency markets. He is continuously in a learning process and keeps himself motivated by sharing his acquired knowledge. In free time he reads thriller fictions novels and sometimes explore his culinary skills.
How low could XRP go? Watch these price levels next
Published
7 Stunden ago
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Dezember 29, 2020
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XRP price dropped by 30% on Dec. 29 following Coinbase’s decision to suspend trading.
The market sentiment around XRP has become overwhelmingly negative due to the fear of more exchange delistings.
In the near term, XRP faces three key historical support levels at $0.224, $0.1743 and $0.1471.
Where will the XRP price go next?
The ongoing price trend of XRP is not cyclical nor reliant on technical analysis. It is due to investors selling XRP following the suspension of trading across major cryptocurrency exchanges.
On Dec. 29, Coinbase announced that it is suspending the XRP trading pairs on their platform. Paul Grewal, the chief legal officer at Coinbase, wrote:
“In light of the SEC’s lawsuit against Ripple Labs, Inc, we have made the decision to suspend the XRP trading pairs on our platform. Trading will move into limit only starting December 28, 2020 at 2:30 PM PST, and will be fully suspended on Tuesday, January 19, 2021 at 10 a.m. Pacific Standard Time*. We will provide additional updates, if any, through the Coinbase Support Twitter account, including if there are any changes to timing.”
Given the SEC’s recent action against Ripple, all XRP books have been moved to limit only and Coinbase plans to fully suspend trading in XRP on Tuesday, January 19, 2021, at 10 AM PST. Afterwards, users will continue to retain access to their XRP funds. https://t.co/izreZvgHNl
As Cointelegraph previously reported, analysts anticipated Coinbase to suspend XRP trading after the United States Securities and Exchange Commission filed its complaint.
Coinbase plans to undergo an initial public offering, and it is in the firm’s best interest to remain fully compliant with the regulators in the U.S.
Considering the regulatory uncertainty around XRP, traders have emphasized that technical analysis is of less importance in the short term. Scott Melker, a cryptocurrency trader, said:
“A few people have told me that there’s oversold bullish divergence on the $XRP chart. You are doing it wrong. Charts don’t matter here. You cannot trade in a vacuum. Jesus could come down with Biggie and Tupac and put on a concert for Brad Garlinghouse and I still wouldn’t buy.”
In the foreseeable future, XRP has several major support areas it could potentially recover from. However, these are deep support levels on the weekly chart, which shows that it lacks momentum for a major rebound.
The XRP price has fallen by over 60% in merely two weeks, recording one of its steepest two-week drops in history.
What happens next?
Adam Cochran, a partner at Cinneamhain Ventures, was one of the first to break the story that Coinbase had conversations about suspending XRP trading.
Cochran hinted that the SEC are probably looking into more projects and companies than people realize. He said:
“If you thought my scoop on Coinbase delisting/suspending $XRP was insightful, you’re going to love the next scoop I’m working on, this week. Looks like that SEC is far more active than we thought and sniffing around a number of projects and companies!”
In the initial exploit, the attacker liquidated over 11,700 coins on the 1inch decentralized exchange aggregator after inflating the token supply according to data from the Ethereum wallet explorer Nansen. In total, the rogue actor drained more than $5 million from the project as of press time.
Cover Protocol released addressed the incident in a message posted on its Discord group, stating:
“The Blacksmith farming contract has been exploited to mint infinite $COVER tokens. We have restricted minting access to the farming contract in order to stop the attacker. If you are providing liquidity for $COVER token (uniswap or sushiswap) please remove it immediately.”
According to the Cover Protocol team, the issue only affected the token supply with funds held in “claim/noclaim” pools still safe. The project says it is investigating the incident.
The attack caused a massive decline in the COVER token price, falling by more than 97% while also eliciting negative comments from a cross-section of the crypto community on social media. Back in November, Cover was one of the DeFi protocols to merge with Yearn.Finance.
Monday’s incident makes the Cover the latest DeFi project to suffer a malicious exploit in a year ridden with opportunistic profiteering attacks against numerous protocols.
As previously reported by Cointelegraph, the spate of DeFi hacks throughout the year stand out as one of the major disappointments in the crypto space for 2020 with data manipulation deemed as being easy to accomplish on many projects.