Ripple case dismissed as Bitcoin dominance sets fresh 2023 highs

Major crypto developments for the week

• Bitcoin dominance sets fresh 2023 highs
• Updated ETF deadlines released
• Bitcoin reclaims 200 week and 200 day moving averages
• NYAG sues DCG and Gemini over earn program
• MicroStrategy’s $4.7 billion Bitcoin bet is now back in the green
• Blackrock CEO Larry Fink calls crypto price action “a flight to quality”
• Stablecoins revealed to be 16th largest sovereign holder of US treasuries
• Ripple case dismissed

Bitcoin dominance sets fresh 2023 highs

This week Bitcoin dominance has set fresh 2023 highs, reflecting Bitcoin’s significant outperformance relative to the rest of the crypto market throughout the year.

Past performance is not an indication of future results.

Did you know? $BTC is part of eToro’s @Index-Coop portfolio, one of eToro’s Partner Portfolios series.

Updated ETF deadlines

This week James Seyffart from Bloomberg posted an updated table of the most important ETF deadlines to keep in mind moving forward. As you can see in the table below, the first batch of major ETF deadlines for the SEC to abide by comes on January 10th of next year, with Ark Invest’s final deadline. Next is a swath of several filings reaching their final deadlines on March 14th of next year, including Blackrock/iShares, Bitwise, WisdomTree, Invesco, and Fidelity/Wise Origin. Earlier in the week we saw Blackrock file an addendum to their current ETF filing, a reflection that Bitcoin ETF filers have been in talks with the SEC on the specifics of their respective fillings.

Bitcoin reclaims 200 week and 200 day moving averages

Bitcoin has reclaimed both its 200 day and 200 week moving averages, and has soared past the crucial $34K level, which is the most significant resistance for Bitcoin in the near term. As indicated in the chart below, this level brings Bitcoin back within the $30k-$60k range that it traded in throughout 2021-2022.

Past performance is not an indication of future results.

Did you know? $BTC is part of eToro’s @CryptoCurrency portfolio, one of eToro’s Smart Portfolios series.

NYAG sues Gemini and DCG over Gemini Earn Program

One of the biggest stories of last week came on Thursday as New York Attorney General Letitia James filed a lawsuit against Gemini Trust Company, Genesis and Digital Currency Group for allegedly defrauding over 230,000 investors out of over $1 billion. According to the press release from the NYAG, Gemini mis-represented its “Earn” program as low risk, when in reality funds contributed to Gemini Earn were utilized by Genesis to make risky loans to numerous entities throughout the digital asset industry, including overconcentration to failed hedge funds Three Arrows Capital and Alameda Research. The suit also alleges that Genesis and DCG concealed the health of the organization’s balance sheet after taking substantial losses throughout mid-2022.

SEC drops claims against Ripple Labs

This week revealed another substantial development on the legal front, with the SEC dismissing its claims against Ripple executives Bradley Garlinghouse and Christian Larsen for allegedly violating securities laws in the distribution/sales of the XRP token. While the public sale of XRP was not deemed to be in violation of securities laws by the Southern District of New York, the court had deemed institutional sales to be unregistered securities in its July summary judgment decision. With the SEC now dropping these claims as well, the trial, which was set for early 2024, has now been cancelled. This marks a significant win for Ripple and XRP.

Did you know? $XRP is part of eToro’s @FuturePayments portfolio, which is designed to explore the future of finance and emerging payment technologies.

Stablecoins revealed to be 16th largest sovereign holder of US treasuries

Stablecoins continue to solidify themselves as one of the clearest use cases of crypto, with roughly $120 billion of stablecoins in circulation despite the broader market decline. One interesting statistic from a recent presentation given by Castle Island’s Nic Carter is that of the top sovereign nation US treasury holders as of June 2023. In the chart below we can see that stablecoins, which are largely backed by US treasuries, in aggregate would be the 16th largest US treasury holder in the world. As stablecoins presumably grow over the coming years with individuals around the world looking for access to digital dollars, the importance of stablecoins as an entity for the sake of the US financial system will increase, and at some point over the coming years may be deemed “too big to fail”.

Past performance is not an indication of future results.

Source: Nic Carter, CoinMetrics, The Block, US Treasury Data

The material in this blog post was created exclusively for eToro by Reflexivity Research.

This communication is for information and education purposes only and should not be taken as investment advice, a personal recommendation, or an offer of, or solicitation to buy or sell, any financial instruments. This material has been prepared without taking into account any particular recipient’s investment objectives or financial situation, and has not been prepared in accordance with the legal and regulatory requirements to promote independent research. Any references to past or future performance of a financial instrument, index or a packaged investment product are not, and should not be taken as, a reliable indicator of future results. eToro makes no representation and assumes no liability as to the accuracy or completeness of the content of this publication.

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