Top Headlines
- The price of Bitcoin shattered the $30K mark early this morning, jumping to over $32K at the time of publication (Coindesk)
- Bitcoin mining stocks followed the price surge as investors looked for crypto-adjacent opportunities to capitalize on the hype (Business Insider)
- As the demand for Bitcoin increases, Grayscale continues to corner the market, controlling over $20B in Bitcoin as 2020 came to a close. The company’s Bitcoin purchasing now outpaces production nearly three to one (Coin Telegraph)
SEC vs Ripple Labs, Inc.:
- The SEC’s lawsuit against Ripple for selling XRP as unregistered securities moved forward this week as the U.S. District Court of the Southern District of New York set a pretrial conference for February 22nd (BTC Manager). The meeting was set one day after a Coinbase user filed a suit against the crypto exchange for “illegally” selling XRP even as they knew it was a security (Bloomberg). In fact, many crypto exchanges across the cryptosphere delisted XRP, including Coinbase, crypto.com and OKCoin (Business Insider).
- Ripple refused to back down, releasing a statement on December 29th attacking the SEC for impacting “innocent XRP retail holders” instead of protecting them, stating that the suit “needlessly muddied the waters for exchanges, market makers and traders” (Bitcoin.com)
- Members of the XRP community are also striking back, publishing a petition on We the People, the White House-based website that allows for the creation of petitions whose issues are addressed once 100K signatures are received within 30 days. The petition calls for the halting of SEC action, using a prior FinCEN ruling that XRP is a currency to bolster its argument (Coin Telegraph, FinCEN.gov)
Cryptocurrency Spotlight:
- FinCEN plans to amend the Bank Secrecy Act’s Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts regulations to require Americans to report if they hold more than $10K in cryptocurrency with foreign service providers (Coindesk)
- Investment management firm Vaneck has filed a new proposal for a Bitcoin exchange-traded fund with the SEC, seeking to receive approval from the yet-to-be-named new SEC chairman as former chairman Jay Clayton has resigned (Bitcoin.com)
- The Santiment Research Company found that cryptocurrency whales holding Ethereum have increased their holdings by 84% over the past month (Nairametrics)
Equity Crowdfunding:
- After the tragic passing of founder Rodrigo Niño earlier this year, real estate crowdfunding company Prodigy Network has seemingly collapsed after raising over $690M during its tenure. Real estate news site The Real Deal began to investigate Prodigy as investors reported unanswered emails and phone calls, downed websites and widespread rumors that the company had gone under. Multiple lawsuits have been filed against Prodigy alleging fraud or the mismanagement of investments; as more is uncovered, it seems the company was under water far before Niño’s passing. Check out The Real Deal’s deep dive above.