Tesla CEO Elon Musk recently voiced his support for Bitcoin (BTC) during a chat with Clubhouse. Musk said that his friends tried to onboard him to the Bitcoin bandwagon as early as 2013, but the world’s richest man did not take the final step. Musk admitted that he was “late to the party.” Musk also said that Bitcoin could be “on the verge of getting broad acceptance by conventional finance." While these comments by the SpaceX founder are positive, they did not move the markets since he did not commit to buying Bitcoin as a personal investment or for the …

Between Jan. 30 and the early hours of Feb. 1, XRP price pumped 147%, reaching $0.76 which is its highest level in two months. The move seems to have been fueled by r/Satoshistreetbets, an off-shoot of r/Wallstreetbets. It seems that speculative social media group-based investing is becoming a trend so let’s take a look at what triggers might have catalyzed the recent surge in XRP price. Data from TheTie, an alternative data provider focused on social analytics, shows just how significant the impact of active Twitter users has been on XRP price. Even Gene Simmons, the legendary musician from the …

XRP, the number-four cryptocurrency by market capitalization, crashed nearly 50% in under two hours on Feb. 1 as a trading frenzy backfired on new investors. XRP traders nurse 48% losses Data from Cointelegraph Markets and TradingView showed that extreme volatility set in for XRP/USD during Monday trading, hours after now-infamous Reddit group r/Wallstreetbets opted to buy the token en masse. After reaching highs of $0.75, losses began mounting fast, the downside accelerating until XRP bounced off lows of $0.39 — 48% beneath the top. At the time of writing, XRP/USD traded at around $0.45, with large swings still commonplace on …

XRP price underwent a strong 86% breakout in the early trading hours on Jan. 30 as the fourth-ranked cryptocurrency by market cap became the new coin of focus in the r/Wallstreetbets cryptocurrency-focused off-shoot r/Satoshistreetbets. Data from Cointelegraph Markets and TradingView shows that XRP rose from $0.28 to a peak at $0.51 before profit selling pulled the price back to $0.41. It appears that the antics of the past week which saw r/Wallstreetbets pump GameStop, AMC and Dogecoin (DOGE), have carried over into the weekend as Stellar (XLM) also saw its price pump in tandem with XRP. After rallying more than …

Ripple's case before the Securities and Exchange Commission is threatening to have major, well, ripple effects for the industry. On Jan. 29, Ripple Labs filed its response to the SEC's complaint. Ripple, as it has many times before, argued that XRP is not a security i.e. an investment in Ripple and is therefore not in the SEC's jurisdiction. Ripple is, moreover, prepared to drag the rest of the industry into its fight to make its case. A Ripple representative told Cointelegraph: "The SEC has clearly picked two winners and ignored a growing and robust industry that is much larger than …

Sentiment plays a major role in the short-term price action of an asset. This truth was demonstrated today when Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, simply wrote 'Bitcoin’ in his Twitter bio. Crypto traders and Musk followers immediately noticed and Bitcoin price conveniently shot up a few minutes after the tweet. When BTC price makes a sharp directional move, traders buy into the breakout and short-sellers are squeezed out of their positions. That is what seems to have happened with Bitcoin (BTC) as the sentiment swiftly turned bullish. It is not only Bitcoin that has seen a pick up in …

The Ripple community is at a loss to explain the motivation behind a class-action lawsuit filed by Florida man Tyler Toomey against Ripple Labs and Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse over a $48.56 loss. In November 2020, Toomey purchased 135 XRP tokens at $0.724 each for a total value of $97.80. Following news of another lawsuit against Ripple in Dec that year, Toomey sold his investment for $49.24, suffering a loss of almost 50%. He’s now launched a class action costing eight times more in filing fees than the loss he claims to have incurred. According to the Middle District of …

Public companies have purchased about 85,000 Bitcoin (BTC) in the past year and institutional investors have pumped money into Grayscale Investments, which shows increasing institutional adoption is one of the main reasons for the recent Bitcoin rally. However, at the moment it seems institutional investors are unlikely to chase prices higher. If the fresh inflow of money stalls or reduces drastically, it could result in a pullback in Bitcoin’s price. If that happens, short-term traders and momentum players may book profits and trigger a deeper correction. A correction will be a healthy sign because it will shake out the speculators …

Ripple Labs, the company behind the Ripple payment protocol and XRP-based products, is facing another lawsuit alleging the firm violated securities laws in the United States. On Monday, Florida-based XRP investor Tyler Toomey filed a civil suit against Ripple Labs and Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse. The lawsuit alleges that the defendants failed to comply with Florida securities laws by failing to register with the Florida Office of Financial Regulation. Toomey notes that Ripple Labs and Garlinghouse ar already facing a similar lawsuit for reportedly violating federal securities laws. The $1.35 billion suit was brought by the U.S. Securities and Exchange …

Ripple Labs spent $690,000 on lobbying in the United States in 2020, which still didn't save the firm from the Securities and Exchange Commission. Per legally mandated disclosures for 2020, Ripple's lobbying program dwarfed those of other firms in the crypto industry. Coinbase, which looks to become the first American crypto exchange to issue public shares, spent $230,000 over the same year, while other exchanges like Binance.US, Gemini and Kraken did not report any spending on lobbying. Ripple's spending on lobbying is, however, relatively paltry compared with the giants of Big Tech. Facebook, for example, spent well over $5 million …

Aggressive profit-booking sent Bitcoin (BTC) spiraling below $29,000 on Jan. 21 but was this a sign that institutional investors dumped their positions? This is one of the main questions bothering traders because large institutional inflows primarily led the run-up to $42,000. Cointelegraph contributor Marcel Pechman analyzed derivatives data from various exchanges, which showed professional traders might have purchased at lower levels. The fall seems to have particularly hurt the excessively leveraged traders, resulting in $460 million worth of liquidations at derivatives exchanges. Data from CryptoQuant shows that Bitcoin’s biggest mining pool, F2Pool, witnessed daily outflows of 10,000 Bitcoin for three …

When an asset is in an overbought condition and traders are sitting on large profits, even minor negative news and events could trigger profit-booking. This seems to have happened following Janet Yellen’s adverse comments on cryptocurrencies during a virtual hearing with the U.S. Senate Finance Committee. In the same meeting, Yellen also told Congress to “act big” in order to support the U.S. economy. Another round of stimulus would probably further weaken the U.S. dollar and drive investors into assets that are considered as a store of value. This means Yellen's comments may have inadvertently boosted the sentiment surrounding gold …