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Bitcoin’s price maintained its position above $31,000 on Friday, having crossed the threshold a day earlier in the wake of a ruling from a U.S. judge that suggested the XRP token isn’t necessarily a security if sold on an exchange.

The price of the world’s largest crypto currency was up 1% over the past day to $31,251 as of 12:51 p.m. in New York, according to CoinGecko.

Approximately $56 million worth of Bitcoin short positions have been liquidated in the past 24 hours, according to data from CoinGlass.

Coinbase stock also rallies

The news has also been positive for Coinbase. It’s shares have rallied 37% this week, although trading was mostly flat on Friday. 

“The XRP news highlights the important role of exchanges as accessible trading venues for digital assets, and it enables increased investment into infrastructure for the growing asset class,” Enclave Markets CEO David Wells told The Block.

Scott Freeman, co-founder at JST Capital, echoed that view, saying the ruling was positive step for the crypto community, especially for exchanges and protocols.

“While there is still plenty of work to be done in Congress, recent court decisions like this one help as we wait for clearer legislative guidance,” he said.

“Investors hope that the coins sued by the SEC may now carry reduced risk, enabling Coinbase to secure more revenue from these altcoins,” BTCM chief economist Youwei Yang said.

Less optimism from some quarters

There has been less enthusiasm about the ruling from some analysts, however.

Konstantin Anissimov, an independent digital asset analyst, told The Block that he “noticed lawyers being a lot less optimistic about this news than everybody else.”

CoinShares head of product Townsend Lansing shared that view.

“In regards to direct sales to institutional investors, the court has confirmed that the law was indeed violated, marking a considerable victory for the SEC. It sets a precedent for legal actions against other cryptocurrencies,” he told The Block.

Youwei Yang said uncertainties and lack of clarity remain on closer examination of the court document.

“The SEC determined institutional sales of XRP to be unregistered investment contracts, while programmatic sales were not. Other distributions were not deemed investment contracts. This ruling sets a precedent that tokens can be classified as both ‘security’ and ‘not a security’ depending on circumstances,” he added.

© 2023 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

Binance, the world’s biggest cryptocurrency exchange, has laid off more than 1,000 employee in recent weeks, The Wall Street Journal reported, citing a source.

Binance could continue to lay more people off, potentially dismissing “more than a third of its staff,” the person said.

Earlier this month, Binance chief strategy officer Patrick Hillman confirmed he was departing the company, saying he was doing so on good terms. Fortune had reported that he, along with other top executives, were departing the company.

Last week, Binance CEO Changpeng “CZ” Zhao painted a somewhat optimistic picture, saying he was readying his platform for increased trading volume over the next six to 18 months. “We’re still very early. I think the industry still has a lot of room to grow,” Zhao said. “So I’m always bullish. I’m a builder, so I always have a positive outlook on things.”

At the end May, Binance laid off non-performers and non-culturally fit people, the exchange said. Before the move, the company’s total headcount was around 8,000.

Although it has maintained its position as the top crypto exchange, Binance recently saw a 3% decrease in market share, according to a report from crypto research firm TokenInsight.

 

 

© 2023 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

Web2 economics don’t work for artists and writers, says CoinDesk’s Michael Casey.

Binance has laid off over 1,000 workers globally in recent weeks, the Wall Street Journal reported.

Belgium-based quantitative trader Kasper Vandeloock, 23, raised $450,000 for his new fund Musca Capital as he attempts to bounce back from losing the majority of his net worth on collapsed crypto exchange FTX. 

The Luxembourg-based fund is backed by one of the founders of NFT project Hashmask, although Vandeloock declined to specify which one, plus two other unnamed individuals.

Vandeloock, known in the crypto circles partly for his trading acumen but also for his parrot named Kiko, said he has been rebuilding his trading systems for the last two years. With the funds, he plans to work on some automated strategies, mostly directional ones. He will start with trading liquid tokens on centralized exchanges.

Exploiting gaps in the market

Over the last few years, Vandeloock found success with a few key trades. One was with crypto exchange BitMEX, where he managed to place what are called stink bids and stink asks at times when its trading engine would get overloaded and stop working for a few seconds. This enabled him to profit from sudden jumps in the crypto prices as the exchange caught up with live prices.

Another was during the 2019 March meltdown, when Bitcoin dropped to $3,000. At the time, he profited from the large spread between the price of the swap contract on BitMEX and the index price.

Yet after building up a sizable net worth, Vandeloock made the mistake of keeping nearly all of it on FTX, an exchange that he had trusted and had personal connections with. When the exchange collapsed in November 2022, more than 90% of his funds were stuck there. Only bankruptcy proceedings will see any of the funds get returned.

“Not a great thing that I lost all my funds on FTX but it’s a lesson that I learned,” he told The Block, noting that going ahead he plans to look for red flags on exchanges and be more cautious with where he stores his funds. “My approach to calculating the counterparty risks of centralized exchanges has changed a lot.”

© 2023 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

This week, Google made a big shift in their policy towards NFTs, allowing apps in the Google Play store to include the ability to buy, sell or earn tokenized assets. Meanwhile, Starbucks Odyssey, the brand’s Web3 loyalty program, announced their next Stamp would be “designed by Aku,” the NFT character launched by former LA Dodgers player-turned-artist Micah Johnson. In other news, Snoop Doog and a16z-backed decentralized music venture Sound announced a $20 million funding round and we got another “phygital” sneaker drop.

The app allows over 4 million Shopify businesses to implement blockchain-based loyalty and rewards programs from their storefront.

Global shoe and apparel brand Puma and Roc Nation, the record label founded by Jay-Z have, have dropped a new series of sneakers which come with a “cryptographic identity” chip that enables owners to access exclusive content.

The release of three new pairs of sneakers, which cost $130 a piece, coincides with celebrations of Hip-Hop’s 50th anniversary, the companies said in a statement. The blockchain-enabled Pumas come with an NFC-powered chip which, when scanned, unlocks “exclusive content, weekly mixtape drops, and unfettered access to life behind the scenes as a Roc Nation artist,” the statement also said.

“Evolution of the Mixtape” is the name of the promotion, which is considered “the second iteration of the Mixtape Series,” the companies said. The shoes can be purchased through Puma, Foot Locker, and Champs stores online and across North America.

More phygitals

This marks the latest attempt to marry the popularity of exclusive and original lines of sneakers with blockchain technology’s ability to tag and authenticate limited-edition merchandise. Both Puma and Nike have been actively experimenting with NFT shoes and physical products tied to digital assets.

Puma and Roc Nation partnered with tech company Legitimate on the new line of shoes. Founded in 2021, Legitimate helps create the “phygitals,” which are items meant to bridge the gap between “physical products and digital experiences” through its proprietary technology that includes a magnetic tag embedded in products.

© 2023 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

The company says it’s the “first self-custodial lightning wallet that runs on the web” – a design feature that may avoid any restrictions that might be placed on the technology from app stores run by the likes of Apple or Google.

Trading XRP on Binance.US began Friday.