Category: Crypto market

The American Senate voted to proceed with legislation regulating stablecoins. The procedural vote on Monday, which passed with a 66-32 majority, keeps one of President Donald Trump’s top legislative priorities on track for passage and demonstrates the cryptocurrency industry’s increasing political clout after investing heavily in the previous election and building a sizable war chest for the midterm elections next year.

Several Democrats changed their minds and voted in favor of the legislation following discussions with Republicans in recent days,

The outcome of the law governing the activities of stablecoin issuers in the United States had been unclear in recent weeks, despite early bipartisan support. Due to concerns about Trump and his family profiting from private cryptocurrency ventures, such as a recently established stablecoin, Senate Democrats blocked it earlier this month.

After tightening rules on foreign issuers, increasing enforcement, and prohibiting major tech firms like Meta and Google from issuing their stablecoins, Republicans gained the support of Democrats.

The Senate may vote on the bill’s final passage as early as this week, depending on the number of amendments proposed by Republicans and Democrats. Democrats remained divided. Senator Elizabeth Warren and others believe the bill requires more robust safeguards and could aid Trump in enriching himself.

Ripple’s XRP introduced cross-border blockchain payments in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to boost XRP adoption in a nation receptive to digital assets.

 

According to a May 19 Ripple announcement, the primary users of the blockchain payments system will be Zand Bank, the first all-digital bank in the UAE, and Mamo, a fintech company that provides a digital payment platform for businesses.

Several adjustments made by the UAE could further elevate its ranking. Some emirates like Dubai and Abu Dhabi have worked to position themselves as cryptocurrency hubs. Zand Bank and Mamo will utilize “Ripple Payments” to enable cross-border blockchain payments.

Ripple Payments is a platform that integrates stablecoins, cryptocurrencies, and fiat, facilitating fast settlement, a feature that traditional cross-border finance systems often lack.

The Dubai Financial Services Authority (DFSA) granted Ripple a license to accept cryptocurrency payments. Acquiring this license “allows Ripple to better serve the demand for solutions to the inefficiencies of traditional cross-border payments, such as high fees, long settlement times, and lack of transparency, in one of the world’s largest cross-border payments hubs,” according to Reece Merrick, managing director for Ripple in the Middle East and Africa.

The nation is still working on plans to create a digital dirham, or digital currency issued by the central bank.

Circle Internet Financial plans to sell itself to the largest U.S. exchange, Coinbase Global, or the crypto payments firm Ripple. Sources who wished to remain anonymous while discussing sensitive matters stated that Circle is positioned to accept at least $5 billion.

Circle filed for its IPO last month and is still working out the terms for the IPO, as there is no set launch date for the roadshow.

Coinbase Circle partnered with Centre Consortium, which mints the USDC stablecoin, in 2018. It was reported that when those terms ended in 2023, Coinbase acquired an equity stake in Circle, and USDC governance shifted entirely to Circle. The firms have been sharing revenue from reserves’ interest on USDC, but this arrangement is beneficial for Coinbase.

Coinbase has considerable operational control over Circle under the current agreement.

This includes a clause that, in the event of insolvency, grants Coinbase partial control over Circle’s intellectual property and prohibits Circle from entering into any significant new distribution or partnership agreements with a third party for USDC revenue without Coinbase’s approval. Many people believe Coinbase is the most sensible buyer of Circle.

However, Ripple possesses a sizable war chest. The company had previously tried to purchase Circle for $4 billion to $5 billion; however, the bid was declined as too low.

The remittance token experienced moderation, bringing its value to about $2.33. XRP has had a rough 5 days. The token is among the worst-performing of the top 10 digital assets category, losing 10% in just the last four days. Now that momentum is waning and important technical indicators are flashing red, XRP is at a crucial juncture.

A correction toward $2.15 may be in play unless buying activity picks back up.

A popular momentum indicator, XRP’s Relative Strength Index (RSI), is up from 35 to 18 yesterday to 45.

The resistance at $2.54, or the 0.618 Fibonacci level, must be retaken by XRP for a more pronounced upward move. However, XRP has displayed multiple buy signals, which have increased optimism.

Generally speaking, these are indicators of short-term bullish setups, suggesting that a rebound may be imminent.

In addition to price charts, sentiment indicators show an increase in confidence. Larger wallet activity, sometimes known as “smart money,” and general public sentiment have recently moved toward greater optimism.

The open interest (OI)-weighted funding rate is almost unchanged. This implies that the market is not presently controlled by long or short traders, suggesting that futures traders have a cautious and even balanced approach. Consolidation periods are typically preceded by stable funding rates and stable OI, which may act as a launchpad for a breakout or a collapse.

Ripple announced that Mercy Corps Ventures, in collaboration with traceability technology provider WËIA, will begin its second pilot project to promote agricultural finance in Colombia. A component of Ripple Impact’s larger “Unlocking Opportunity” program, this project aims to raise smallholder farmers’ income through blockchain technology.

According to Ripple, the project’s goals are to: Through blockchain-powered traceability on the XRP Ledger (XRPL), this pilot project, which is being carried out in partnership with WËIA, aims to improve financial inclusion and income for smallholder farmers in Colombia.

To track the production of agricultural products, specifically panela, a traditional unrefined cane sugar, from planting to harvest, the pilot uses WËIA’s traceability platform, which is based on the XRP Ledger.

The system responds to the growing demand for transparency in global food supply chains by providing verifiable sustainability information through a QR code assigned to each product. XRPL’s carbon-neutral architecture, speed, and cost effectiveness offer the technical foundation for dependable and unchangeable recordkeeping.

Furthermore, the pilot provides a financing option known as “Farm Now, Pay Later” (FNPL), which enables farmers to purchase inputs ahead of time and postpone repayment until after harvest

Historically, farmer productivity has been constrained by liquidity issues, which this mechanism seeks to address. About 300 smallholder farmers will process 240 tons.

The pioneer crypto asset fell to $103,000 when writing on Saturday after being repeatedly rejected at the crucial $105,000 resistance level during the week.

Traders exercise caution as this could cause volatility in the cryptocurrency market.  Whales have aggressively reduced their holdings by selling over 30,000 BTC in the last 3 days.

Additionally, FTX plans to start its next round of creditor settlements in May. The business disclosed that eligible creditors will begin receiving distributions totaling more than $5 billion on May 30. These creditors’ funds transferred to the exchanges would cause a sell-off in the cryptocurrency market.

At the same time, according to IntoTheBlock, Large Holders Netflow plummeted, falling 176.22 percent over seven days and 71.25 percent over 30 days. Instead of accumulation, this data shows a distribution pattern. As a result, whales don’t seem to believe in the immediate future.

Their frequent market withdrawals indicate that caution is beginning to set in. The markets for bitcoin derivatives are more active but less confident. While options volume increased by 45%, futures volume increased by 36%.

Options open interest decreased by 5%, and futures open interest increased by 1%. It draws attention to speculative trading that lacks a solid long position. Despite active participation, traders continue to exercise caution.

The deep leverage commitment observed during significant rallies is absent from the current momentum. The purchasing power of stablecoin is increasing. Increased reserves were indicated by the Exchange Stablecoin Ratio, which increased 4.49 percent to 0.00005. This implies that investors are likely waiting for better offers.

The super altcoin lost resistance at the 200-day Simple Moving Average (SMA) but found support at the $2.5K key level following a rejection at $ 2.7 K.

 

Ether’s trading volume has also decreased, returning to late-April levels. Should this low volume continue and ETH maintains the $2.5K support, it may post a consolidation. If ETH drops below the $2.5k key level, it may find support in the $2,260–$2,100 range.

According to CryptoQuant data, most of the accumulated ETH may be moving to staking protocols because the total amount of ETH staked has been rising since May 6, which is further boosting the bullish momentum.

The Relative Strength Index (RSI) and Stochastic Oscillator (Stoch) are in their overbought regions, meaning the altcoin will likely trend lower.

Abraxas Capital was on an ETH buying spree on Friday, another significant factor contributing to the increased exchange ETH net outflows. Data from the on-chain wallet tracker Lookonchain shows that since May 7, the company has taken  278,639 ETH from centralized crypto exchanges.

The massive withdrawals on Friday followed a minor drop in ETH’s price between Wednesday and Thursday, which was partially caused by investors realizing they had made over $1.05 billion from the cryptocurrency’s recent surge.

More than 11,000 EIP-7702 authorizations have already been processed in a week, demonstrating the rapid adoption of the Pectra upgrade.