This Week in Crypto: Elon Musk Lauds Bitcoin, Ripple Eyeing IPO, Binance Helps Coronavirus Victims
Crypto Market Drops By 10% in a Week:
Over the past week, the crypto market hasn’t that fared well, showing some weakness after weeks of gains that brought Bitcoin from $6,400 to a high of $9,200. This downturn after the strong bear market rally has brought BTC to $8,500 as of the time of writing this, down 8 or so percent from the local high. Altcoins have posted similar losses.
Tesla’s Elon Musk Talks Bitcoin and Crypto Again
While Elon Musk is known not to have a large stake in Bitcoin or cryptocurrency, when he talks about this industry, people listen. This week in a n episode of the Third Row Tesla Podcast, the Telsa and SpaceX CEO shared his thoughts about digital assets. Starting his train of thought first with “clever” to “What did you think of Satoshi’s white paper?,” the Tesla visionary said that there are obviously Bitcoin transactions not made in “the balance of the law.” Musk did, though, say that he sees “crypto as effectively a replacement for cash,” yet made it clear that he doesn’t expect a digital asset to become “the primary database.”
Ripple CEO Announces Intent to Issue IPO… Eventually
This week, Brad Garlinghouse, CEO of Ripple Labs, and many other of the world’s executives descended on Davos in Switzerland to talk finance. During a Wall Street Journal event, the leading Ripple executive said that he believes in the next 12 months, “you’ll see initial public offerings in the crypto/blockchain space.” Garlinghouse, touching on the long-held sentiment that Ripple will eventually issue shares on the public market, said that “We’re not going to be the first and we’re not going to be the last, but I expect us to be on the leading side… it’s a natural evolution for our company.” In the same interview, he said he sees value in Bitcoin as a store of value, but not as a medium of exchange.
It Won’t Happen
Despite Garlinghouse’s hope that his company will go live, not everyone sure it will happen, at least not on time. Jake Chervinsky, a lawyer working as a General Counsel for the Ethereum DeFi app Compound, wrote that Ripple’s claim that it will IPO doesn’t make much sense: “‘We might IPO in twelve months’ is something you might say to reassure your Series C investors, but not something you actually do when your book value derives largely from a digital asset that could be an unregistered security. This, of course, was in reference to XRP’s regulatory status or lack thereof, with some saying its a security while others say its a mere commodity just like Bitcoin and Ethereum.
Binance Supports Coronavirus Victims
Changpeng “CZ” Zhao, the Chinese-Canadian businessman that heads the world’s largest crypto exchange Binance, revealed in a tweet published hours ago that his company has pledged “10m RMB ($1.5m USD) to help coronavirus victims.” Zhao seemingly denied any use of crypto assets in this, writing that it “is not realistic to do crypto to end beneficiaries [for the Wuhan outbreak].” Binance is purportedly still working on the logistics for this move, with the industry executive writing: “We didn’t make any announcements. But BCF/Binance team has been busy for the last few days. Still need help to arrange logistics locally.”
Article Produced By
Nick Chong
https://news.livecoinwatch.com/week-crypto-elon-musk-lauds-bitcoin-ripple-eyeing-ipo-market-drops/