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Cathie Wood said Monday that she had an upbeat view on crypto exchange Coinbase after a court ruling last week handed Ripple Labs a partial victory in an ongoing dispute with the Securities and Exchange Commission. And that’s despite Ark Invest’s recent sales of the company’s stock. 

“We’re very positive on Coinbase, especially in light of the court ruling for Ripple and against the SEC,” she said on Bloomberg television. “There were some puts and takes, but by and large, very positive for exchanges.”

Ark Invest sold off an additional $50 million worth of Coinbase stock on July 15 as the stock rallied. Wood attributed the selling activity to simple profit taking to reallocate “capital to perhaps some laggards.”

Coinbase shares were mostly flat on Monday, rising 0.2% to trade at $105.55, according to TradingView. It’s rallied 189.3% so far this year.

© 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.

BlackRock’s recent application to start a Bitcoin ETF has raised hopes that the SEC would soon approve an instrument seen as key to crypto’s growth. But a range of market watchers contacted by CoinDesk said several roadblocks still lie ahead.

Crypto exchange Kraken saw its share of U.S. spot volume more than double in the past 18 months.

The increase coincides with increased interest in the Kraken Pro app, which allows users to access spot trading, margin trading and staking. The platform experienced a five-fold increase in users from January to June 2023. 

“We’ve seen a dramatic increase in usage and activity of clients for using the new Pro platform versus the previous platforms,” Kraken product director Shannon Kurtas told The Block. “It’s a segment that we’ve doubled down on for the past 18 months.”

Kurtas said that Kraken’s global spot market share doubled within the last 18 months as well, though it’s still not as high in the U.S.

Kraken leads in Europe

“In Euro-quoted markets, we been a leader for quite a number of years, and our share has gone from 35% to just over 50% in the past 12 months,” Kurtas said. 

Kurtas added that the exchange will add a number of features to augment user experience, such as price alerts to keep users informed of their favorite markets and engaged with the platform. 

© 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.

Paradigm announced the hiring of Alexander Grieve as its new government relations lead.

The venture capital firm said Grieve has “over a decade of experience in DC politics and financial policy,” adding that their new employee “joins Paradigm as it leads the industry to push for clearer regulations.”

“I’m thrilled to share that today – after a decade in Washington politics, and six years in crypto and crypto policy – I’m joining @paradigm
 as its government affairs lead,” Grieve said on Twitter.

Paradigm has invested in top crypto companies including Coinbase, MoonPay and OpenSea.

Grieve’s hire comes during a time of both sharpened debate over how the U.S. government will regulate cryptocurrencies and turmoil amid a raft of actions targeting major players in the digital assets market. Exchanges like Coinbase and Binance continue to come under scrutiny, while U.S. authorities wrestle with the fallout from collapses at FTX and the crypto lender Celsius Network.

Grieve has experience lobbying for crypto while working at Tiger Hill Partners, Paradigm said in a statement. Matt Huang and Fred Ehrsam co-founded Paradigm.

© 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 jobs market remains strong, a concern for the U.S. central bank which seems intent on raising the Federal Funds rate 25 basis points.

XRP, SOL and LDO lost more than 5% in the last 24 hours.

U.S. Securities and Exchange Commissioner (SEC) Chair Gary Gensler said Monday he was disappointed with the court’s decision in a part of the Ripple case.

Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Gary Gensler had a mixed reaction to a judge’s decision last week that gave both Ripple and the regulator the ability to proclaim a partial win in the ongoing case about whether or not XRP should be considered a security.

Specifically, Gensler said the agency was “pleased” that the decision protected institutional investors and pushed back against a fair notice argument, a defense lodged by Ripple. The judge’s decision on retail investors, though, was more of a sticking point. 

“While disappointed on what they said about retail investors, we’re still looking at it and assessing that opinion,” Gensler said on Monday at a National Press Club luncheon where he was discussing artificial intelligence.

The SEC accused Ripple in 2020 of illegally raising $1.3 billion through the sale of XRP. Judge Analisa Torres of the Southern District of New York ruled last week that XRP was not a security when sold on the secondary market, but would be a security when sold to institutional investors. 

Torres said that Ripple’s “blind bid” or “programmatic” sales, where the firm used algorithms to sell XRP on trading platforms, was not a securities offering. 

Buyers “could not have known if their payments of money went to Ripple,” and so most people who bought XRP on exchanges did not invest in Ripple, Torres said. Torres also noted that since 2017, programmatic sales made up less than 1% of the global XRP trading volume. 

More enforcement on the horizon

The agency has taken on a number of big crypto firms, including crypto exchanges Binance and Coinbase over the past few months. The SEC accused both of failing to register with the agency, while also alleging that Binance lied to customers. 

“So what’s next? We’re going to continue to try to bring firms that may not be into compliance into compliance without prejudging any one of them and trying to ensure that we protect the investing public,” Gensler said. 

© 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 Portugal-based startup also plans to launch a bond token built on the stablecoin platform in the third quarter of 2023.