Every Sunday we discuss the most important crypto news of the week. Last week was very volatile and therefore quite unpredictable for the crypto industry, and last week was just as crazy.
The news was dominated by a single development regarding the lawsuit between Ripple and the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
Ripple wins major XRP lawsuit victory
The judge has given a preliminary result that Ripple’s supporters interpreted as particularly positive for XRP. According to the court, the token is not by definition an unregistered security, and can therefore be traded in the ‘secondary market’ (read: on crypto exchanges).
Shortly after the lawsuit started, several major trading platforms removed XRP from their offerings, including Coinbase and Binance.US. Now that Ripple has a good chance of winning, Binance.US, Coinbase and Gemini, among others, have decided to offer the coin to customers again.
The XRP price rose enormously as a result and was remarkably popular on some trading platforms. For example, the volume of XRP on Bitvavo was even five times higher than that of bitcoin (BTC).
Bitcoin ban in the Netherlands, is that going too far?
But not all news about Ripple, its lawsuit and regulation in general is positive. For example, the SEC is not yet throwing in the towel. It does not exclude the possibility to appeal, and the judge has also partly ruled in favor of the SEC. It is possible that direct sales of Ripple to institutional investors do fall under the securities law.
In addition, another crypto company often associated with Ripple has just suffered a major defeat in its own lawsuit with the SEC.
The social media platform LBRY has been ordered to pay a hefty fine to the SEC, and the company itself has to close down completely. This does not necessarily mean the end of the platform, which can be maintained by LBRY’s supporters. It is not yet clear whether this will happen.
Meanwhile, the House of Representatives has been debating a blanket ban on crypto in the Netherlands. Fortunately, both VVD member Heinen and (outgoing) Minister of Finance Sigrid Kaag believe that a general ban on crypto goes too far. Instead, the European MiCA regulation should be sufficient to avoid problems in the future.
US inflation is falling, bitcoin price is indifferent
In addition, the inflation figures for the month of June for the United States were announced last Wednesday. The annual Consumer Price Index (CPI) was 3% in June. That is a lot lower than last month, when the benchmark was still at 4%.
This means that inflation is still somewhat too high compared to the same month last year, but that it is cooling off quickly. Expected volatility for the bitcoin price largely failed to materialize following this news.
