Kategorie: Crypto Markets

• Brad Garlinghouse, CEO of Ripple, says that they are open to an XRP ETF.
• His comments come after the SEC approved spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) in January and amid speculation over an XRP ETF.

Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse has said the company would welcome an exchange-traded fund (ETF) for its token XRP. 

The Ripple executive commented on this during an interview with Bloomberg, noting that the crypto industry will see more spot ETFs in future.

According to Garlighouse, the SEC’s approval of spot Bitcoin ETFs in January this year was largely down to the regulator’s hand being forced. He highlighted the court’s decision in the Grayscale vs. SEC case as what pushed SEC Chair Gary Gensler to give the spot ETFs a nod.

“You know, the sad reality of what we saw with the Bitcoin ETF is it was only because the courts forced the SEC’s hand, and really chair Gensler’s hand, that we saw that [approval] finally come to fruition,” he noted.

Ripple okay with XRP ETF

The Ripple chief believes that the eventual approval of spot Bitcoin ETFs in the US is good for the crypto markets and the broader investment community. About what recent developments mean for a potential XRP ETF, and whether Ripple welcomes this, Garlinghouse said:

“We would certainly welcome it. And I think it’s inevitable that there’ll be, you know, multiple ETFs around different tokens. I think you’ll even see ETFs potentially around baskets that also, I think further diversify that risk given there’s so much excitement around the ETF dynamic here.”

While he could not comment on whether Ripple had engaged BlackRock and other large ETF holders (most of these asset managers have submitted filings for Ethereum spot ETFs), the Ripple CEO did agree that the outlook for a potential approval for one makes sense for XRP community.

Ripple won against the SEC last year on two separate occasions – when a US court declared XRP is not a security and when the lawsuit against Garlinghouse and Ripple founder and Chairman Chris Larsen was “dismissed with prejudice.” 

Although XRP price rose sharply around these victories, it remains well off its all-time highs.

The Ripple exec says the headwinds that followed the SEC’s lawsuit contributed to this. XRP price hovers around $0.53 on Wednesday morning, down 5% as crypto dips ahead of FOMC minutes.  The altcoin reached highs of $3.40 in 2018.

The post Brad Garlinghouse says Ripple will welcome XRP ETF appeared first on CoinJournal.

• Nvidia will release its Q4 earnings today and market anticipation is high.
• AI tokens, including Fetch.AI, Render and SingularityNET have rallied amid the AI narrative.
• New meme token Memeinator is emerging as one of the top projects to invest in as crypto and AI sentiment picks momentum.

Nvidia has been the talk of Wall Street for a few days now, and the spotlight gets even more intense when the chip maker releases its Q4 earnings after the bell on Wednesday.

With Nvidia’s results likely to dominate the AI space, crypto investors seeking to diversify their portfolio could look at key AI related tokens in the market. Thinking of Render, Fetch.AI or, although not a pure-play AI token, the Memeinator? Here’s more.

All eyes on Nvidia Q4 earnings report – and these AI tokens

Nvidia has had a blockbuster year or so, riding its massive success in the AI chip sector to record huge stock market gains. Demand for the firm’s flagship H100 chips is very high. It could explode with the upcoming B100 chip.

At $1.72 trillion, Nvidia is currently the sixth-largest company in the world by market cap. Last week, the company’s market cap briefly surpassed that of Amazon and Google-parent Alphabet, and this year, NVIDIA stock price is up 44% year-to-date and 236% in the past 12 months. Wall Street is abuzz about the chip maker’s potential and AI crypto tokens are poised.

As such, decentralized GPU rendering and other AI-driven marketplaces could be projects set to ride the upward momentum in the AI investment space. Investors are thus hyped about Render, Fetch.AI and SingularityNET.

OpenAI’s recent unveiling of its text-to-video AI model Sora also buoyed crypto AI tokens, including Livepeer and Ocean Protocol.

But what other AI related crypto tokens could investors be eyeing? Also poised to benefit from the expected artificial intelligence ecosystem growth could be Memeinator.

Memeinator: Meme token leveraging AI

Memeinator is a project that offers a solid utility-laden alternative to the fleeting madness that weak meme coins conjure before fading into oblivion.

Powered by the native MMTR token on Ethereum, the Memeinator leverages AI technology and blockchain to bring the best of crypto utility tokens to users, including via gaming, staking and NFTs.

The goal is to destroy all worthless meme tokens and give the community a robust ecosystem for long term investment.

Is Memeinator a good altcoin to buy?

Memeinator is a meme coin that market analysts say could be one of the best altcoins to buy due to its potential to dominate the meme coin industry.

A recent partnership with Red Apple Technologies, the game and app developer that will help bring the Meme Warfare game to fruition, suggests confidence in the Memeinator’s gamification strategy and potential. 

With Meme Warfare utilizing AI, the future outlook for MMTR is strong. This boosts the project’s goal of reaching an initial target of $1 billion market cap post presale. Taking a position in Memeinator offers the chance to grab an early opportunity in a token at the intersection of AI and crypto. Both of these are key trends for 2024 and beyond.

Find out more about this project and the ongoing presale here.

The post As Nvidia grabs Wall Street’s attention, Is this AI token worth buying? appeared first on CoinJournal.

• Ethereum (ETH) price hit $3,005 on Coinbase on Tuesday, rising to its highest level since April 2022.
• About 879,000 addresses were in a loss and could sell when prices break above this level.
• While ETH fell below the psychological level, analysts outline $3k as a “a relatively small obstacle”.

Ethereum (ETH) price rose to the psychological level of $3,000 for the first time in nearly two years on Tuesday, February 20. The cryptocurrency saw its value jump from lows of $2,880 to touch $3,005 on Coinbase, and $3,003 on Binance.

ETH price and the $3k hurdle

Ethereum‘s upside, which comes amid a significant move of over 25% in the past two weeks, means several Ethereum addresses that were in the red managed to turn profitable.

This in turn, suggests a potential retreat for the second-ranked crypto by market cap if these addresses decide to sell or break even. It could see ETH trade to support levels again, possibly below $2,900 before bouncing to target higher price levels.

According to IntoTheBlock, the on-chain picture for ETH at the $3k level indicates this should be a “relatively small obstacle” for bulls.

While a look at on-chain data shows more than 16 million ETH addresses, or about 14.7% of the wallets, were still in a loss with prices below $3k, more than 83% are in profit. Going by this, the 879k addresses likely to turn profitable above $3k might not present a major hurdle. However, there may still be some struggle to break past $3,400.

ETH is extremely close to breaking $3k. Here’s what the onchain picture looks like👇
➖In total, there are still over 16 million ETH addresses holding at a loss (~14.7%).
➖There are about 879k addresses that would become profitable as Ethereum breaks $3k.
➖These addresses have… pic.twitter.com/P4hby7NdJJ

— IntoTheBlock (@intotheblock) February 20, 2024

ETH traded to highs of $4,800 during the previous bull market and analysts have called for a break to above $5,000 in coming months. The potential approval of the first spot Ethereum exchange-traded fund (ETF) in the US and network developments amid the Dencun upgrade could be key catalysts.

At the time of writing, ETH/USD changed hands around $2,924 on Binance.

The post ETH price outlook: Analysts say $3k “a relatively small obstacle” appeared first on CoinJournal.

• Humanity Protocol emerges from stealth with Human Institute, Polygon Labs and Animoca Brands partnership.
• The protocol provides for a privacy-preserving alternative to the more invasive biometric methods such as iris scans.

Human Institute has announced the launch of Humanity Protocol, a zkEVM Layer-2 blockchain protocol that leverages the Polygon CDK to offer a new palm recognition technology for Web3 identity verification.

The protocol has emerged from stealth with the backing of Polygon Labs and Animoca Brands, according to details shared in a press release.

Non-invasive biometrics

Humanity Protocol founder Terence Kwok, Animoca Brands co-founder Yat Siu, and Polygon Labs co-founder Sandeep Nailwal form the founding council for the new project.

Per the Human Institute, the new protocol provides for a privacy-preserving alternative to the invasive biometric methods. Such methods includes Worldcoin’s (WLD) iris scans.

“Existing Proof-of-Personhood technologies can be invasive, complex, or burdensome. By leveraging the cutting-edge technology using non-invasive biometrics that lies at the core of the Proof-of-Humanity consensus mechanism, Humanity Protocol is building a user-centric ecosystem that can onboard millions to a verifiable digital identity solution that is truly decentralized and respects the principles of true digital ownership, in the process enabling better equity and inclusion for all participants,” Yat Siu said.

According to the Human Institute, the technology will benefit various decentralized applications. These will include fully on-chain games, Decentralized Social Media (DeSO), Real World Assets (RWA), enterprise DeFi solutions, and Decentralized Physical Infrastructure (DePIN) systems.

“As the world’s first blockchain ecosystem to not only be truly sybil-resistant but also to natively integrate verifiable credentials into a decentralized validator node network, Humanity Protocol lays the foundation for a wide variety of blockchain and real-world applications to be built on top,” Sandeep Nailwal commented.

Users will easily access the zkVM-powered protocol through smartphones. The testnet will allow onboarded users to earn rewards.

The post Polygon Labs, Animoca Brands partner with Human Institute to launch ZKP-powered palm recognition appeared first on CoinJournal.

• Starknet (STRK) price swung sharply as trading opened on major crypto exchanges.
• The Starknet Foundation’s distribution of STRK to eligible airdrop participants started at 12:00 UTC.

The price of STRK, the native token of Ethereum Layer-2 platform Starknet, has dropped sharply after its market debut.

On the crypto exchange KuCoin, STRK rose as high as $5 before swiftly falling to lows of $2.10. Meanwhile, data on CoinGecko showed the token’s value rose to $4.41 on most exchanges but also fell sharply – STRK declined 47% to $2.30 and was changing hands around $2.66 at the time of writing.

STRK trading and distribution live

The Starknet (STRK) price performance comes after the token’s distribution went live today February 20. Over 700 million tokens airdropped to 1.3 million addresses are now available for claiming, the Starknet Foundation announced on Tuesday.

At the same time, STRK began trading on major exchanges, including Binance, KuCoin and Bitfinex.

Starknet Foundation said the provisions program would see the community collect 50% of the airdrops with those to benefit including early contributors and Starknet users. Also eligible are StarkWare employees, Starknet developers and ETH stakers.

It’s time.

Congratulations to all those who have pioneered Starknet, and to everyone that will now guide its future!

To claim STRK, visit https://t.co/D7Jtse1JCP

Note: Provisions claims are open now, and until June 20th 2024. pic.twitter.com/flrtVrOZXC

— Starknet Foundation (@StarknetFndn) February 20, 2024

Binance, which added support for STRK trading today and announced support for the distribution to its ETH stakers, said it had distributed 10,178,280 STRK to all eligible users who staked ETH on its platform. The distribution was completed at a ratio of 10.26375 Binance said in an announcement.

STRK tradng on Binance opens at 13:00 UTC on February 20.

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