XRP, XLM, MKR dazzle 🌟

Hello and welcome onboard our crypto spaceship. We invite you to begin your crypto trading journey with a quick update on how the market has been trading in a tight range this last week despite plenty of token-specific action. But first, let’s fuel up at the “Beginner’s pit stop” as you prepare to grow your money.

Most of us work hard, but one thing that makes some of us wealthier than others is knowing what to do with that hard-earned money. Do you know how to make your money work for you? If you think you could use a few tips, not to worry. Because we’ve got you covered with our latest episode of Money Moves.

Join us as our host Jayadevan PK talks to Lakshmi Iyer, the CEO of Investment and Strategy at Kotak Investment Advisors, who offers some wonderful insights on wealth creation. Watch the video below if you’re looking for tips on planning your savings, assessing risk and managing it, or investment options.

We strive to bring you fresh content on finance every week, so keep an eye on this space and follow the CoinSwitch Money channel for more! For now, let’s take a look at the markets.

XRP’s sustained trading volume from last week is worth highlighting. On multiple days, it even superseded the trading volume of BTC. Thanks to its historic win against the SEC last week, XRP is now the 4th largest crypto by market cap—just ahead of BNB.

However, broader markets remain muted in terms of directional strength. The broader crypto market, along with BTC and ETH, thus continued to trade in a tight range for the fourth week in a row. The overall market cap is hovering around the $1.25 trillion mark at press time. BTC and ETH are trading slightly lower than $30K and $1.9K levels, respectively.

There were also some developments on the regulatory front. The UK government, for one, has strongly denied the House of Commons Treasury Committee’s proposal to regulate crypto like gambling. Instead, it took a positive stance stating, “A financial services regulatory framework is more appropriate for addressing the risks of unbacked crypto assets and creating the conditions for safe innovation.”

The next big trigger for the market could be the Fed meeting later this week. The meeting is likely to make the next steps on interest rate hikes clear.

Up almost 20% last week Stellar’s XLM has been surging after the recent Ripple ruling. Chainlink launching an interoperability standard was also met with huge investor cheer. The project’s token, LINK, rose by over 15% during the week!

Meanwhile, Maker’s decision to buy back tokens, along with increasing real-world asset tokenization, has helped sustain its token price rise. MKR was up almost 10% last week.

SOL came under some selling pressure after strong gains in the past few weeks. Correcting by over 10% during the week, SOL seems to have settled below $25 level for now.

To sum it up:

• XLM $0.15 ⏫ 17.60%

• LINK $7.75 ⏫ 16.06%

• MKR $1,043.14 ⏫ 8.74%

• SOL $24.62 🔽10.83%

And of course, continue keeping an eye on the Ripple counter:

• XRP $0.72 🔽 3.07%

(All data here is as of 1.15 pm, 24 July 2023.)

As an investor, you probably want to understand what’s causing market movements. So here’s some news to help you process all the action.

• Ethereum’s Vitalik Buterin suggests making crypto transactions between wallets as sending an email via modern account abstraction. Read more here.

• Payments network Ripple has applied for registration as a crypto asset firm with the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). Read more here.

• Aave launched its new dollar-pegged algorithmic stablecoin GHO on Ethereum mainnet, with $2.19M worth of GHO minted so far. Read more here.

• Futureverse, a platform leveraging both AI and metaverse technology, raised $54 million in a Series A funding round led by 10T Holdings where Ripple Labs also participated. Read more here.

• Chainlink (LINK) project has launched a cross-chain protocol, enabling interoperability between traditional financial firms and blockchains. Read more here.

• Indonesia’s Commodity Futures Trading Supervisory Agency (CFTRA) plans to launch a national crypto exchange in July 2023. Read more here.

Before you get on with your day, don’t forget to flex those brain muscles with our weekly crypto crossword.

That’s it for now. Thanks for sticking around.

See you later, folks!

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