Thailand proposes banning Polymarket amid online gambling crackdown

Analysts are enthusiastic about the potential for a substantial increase in XRP, which has resurfaced in the public eye. Ali Martinez, a crypto expert, has emphasized the token’s recent price movement, describing it as “one of the most bullish scenarios” in the current market. Is this the catalyst that XRP investors have been anticipating?

XRP Technical Structure At A Glance

Martinez’s optimism is a result of XRP’s retest of the upper boundary of an isometric triangle on its four-hour chart. XRP’s capacity to maintain its position above this critical level is generating optimism for an upward advance, as this technical pattern frequently indicates the potential for a breakout.

Although some skeptics advise against relying solely on patterns, the retest is consistent with broader trends that suggest a bullish momentum could be in the offing. XRP has experienced a 13% increase in value in the past 24 hours, with a current price of $2.87 as of January 15, 2025.

Breaching A 7-Year Trend

Analysts have noted that XRP’s continuous performance in the face of market uncertainty sets it apart from many other altcoins. Investors seeking to make big bucks in an otherwise volatile market may feel more confident as a result of the altcoin’s current setup.

Bitcoin's rapid recovery from below $90,000 since Monday hints at bullish prospects. However, one factor casts doubt on the sustainability of these gains, indicating scope for significant downside volatility if the impending U.S. inflation data comes in hotter-than-expected on Wednesday.

That factor is the supply of major stablecoins, which has stalled, indicating the absence of fresh capital inflows into the market. Data tracked by Glassnode shows that the supply of the top four stablecoins by market value – USDT, USDC, BUSD and DAI – has stabilized around $189 billion, representing a 30-day net change of just 0.37%.

Stablecoins are cryptocurrencies with values pegged to an external reference like the U.S. dollar. These tokens are widely used to fund cryptocurrency purchases and acted as a safe haven during the 2022 bear market.

The latest slowdown in new liquidity via stablecoins, which suggests a weakened buying environment while heading into the U.S. consumer price index (CPI) release, starkly contrasts the expansion of stablecoin liquidity observed during the November-December rally and early last year.

"The fact that the late-2024 rally required almost 2x the capital inflow for a smaller price gain underscores the speculative demand and liquidity-driven momentum that has since cooled," Glassnode said in a Telegram note.

The data due at 13:30 UTC Wednesday is expected to show the cost of living rose 0.3% month-on-month in December, matching November's pace. The year-on-year figure is seen printing at 2.9%, up from November's 2.75. The core figure, which strips out the volatile food and energy component, is forecast to have risen 0.2% month-on-month and 3.3% year-on-year.

An above-forecast headline/core figure will likely bolster recent concerns about the central bank being less aggressive in cutting interest rates than expected. These concerns, bolstered by Friday's blowout jobs report, were partly responsible for BTC falling below $90,000 on Monday.

The latest drying up of stablecoin liquidity, often touted as dry powder waiting to be deployed for crypto purchases, starkly contrasts the $27.3 billion in inflows registered in November and December that partly greased the BTC bull run from $70,000 to over $108,000.

Meanwhile, a much lesser stablecoin inflow of $14.68 billion was seen during the first quarter of 2024, when prices rose nearly 70% to over $70,000.

TL;DR

XRP Makes the Headlines

The cryptocurrency sector experienced a substantial revival in the last 24 hours, with its global market capitalization rising above $3.5 trillion once again. Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), Solana (SOL), Cardano (ADA), and many more leading digital assets are well in the green today (January 15), but some lead the pack with double-digit price spikes.

One notable gainer is Ripple’s XRP, whose valuation recentlyhita 7-year high of almost $2.90. Currently, the price is hovering around $2.88 (per CoinGecko’s data), representing a 14% increase on a daily scale.

Alongside its significant surge, XRP became the top-trending cryptocurrency on January 14. According to Santiment, the reasons behind the buzz surrounding the asset are the increased optimism over its potential use in banking and financial transactions, the bullish predictions of a further rally, and the XRP ETF speculations.

The platform’s research estimated that the second most-trending cryptocurrency is Ethereum (ETH). The interest is supposedly fueled by the introduction of Soneium (an Ethereum layer-2 blockchain solution developed by Sony).

“There are multiple transactions involving significant amounts of ETH, highlighting active trading and investment throughout the Ethereum ecosystem,” Santiment added.

Other cryptocurrencies that have captured the attention of industry participants as of late include Bitcoin (BTC), Kaspa (KAS), and Peanut the Squirrel (PNUT).XRP Targets Fresh Peaks

As mentioned above, numerous analysts believe the price of Ripple’s native token could reach a new all-time high as soon as this year. X user CRYPTOWZRD recently claimed that the asset “has flipped previous resistance to support” of around $2 and is now poised to soar to $4 and then $8. They said such a scenario would mirror the pre-bull run in 2017 and the subsequent rally the following year.

The veteran trader Peter Brandt also chipped in. He outlined multiple bullish forecasts lately, assuming that XRP’s market capitalization could explode above $500 billion. Such a pump would result in a price increase of almost $9.50.

It is worth mentioning that Brandt has been predominantly anti-XRP for the past several years. Earlier this month, though, he apologized for his stance and wished the Ripple community all the best.

The developers of the interoperability platform LayerZero have introduced the Quick Merkle Database (QMDB), a high-performance verifiable database designed for blockchain optimization.

It was developed to address the limitations of traditional databases, which often lack efficient verification mechanisms essential for data integrity in decentralized and trustless blockchain environments.

QMDB distinguishes itself from traditional databases by being optimized explicitly for solid-state drives and capable of scaling across consumer-grade and enterprise-grade hardware.

In a whitepaper, LayerZero developers claimed that QMDB achieves a performance advantage over other database products, offering up to six times the throughput of the commonly used verifiable database, RocksDB, and surpassing others like NOMT.

The developers detailed that QMDB could handle 2.28 million state updates per second and manage 1 million transactions per second for transfers.

It supports datasets of up to 15 billion entries, roughly ten times the size of Ethereum’s state in 2024. The developers explained that by conducting Merkle tree operations in memory, QMDB can reduce disk read and write operations, which improves processing speed.

Moreover, QMDB incorporates Merkle trees into its architecture, meaning each state update automatically enhances the Merkle tree, which is crucial for verifying data integrity within blockchain applications.

“QMDB’s promising results enable the ability to provide substantially higher throughput while increasing decentralization in many systems by lowering capital costs and reducing infrastructure barriers,” LayerZero developers said.

The database is available under the MIT and Apache-2 licenses and has been released as open source. LayerZero is a blockchain protocol that aims to make applications unified across different blockchains, a concept they refer to as “omnichain.” LayerZero Labs has raised $263.3 milion across its funding rounds, with the latest 2023 round valuing it at $3 billion.

Disclaimer: The Block is an independent media outlet that delivers news, research, and data. As of November 2023, Foresight Ventures is a majority investor of The Block. Foresight Ventures invests in other companies in the crypto space. Crypto exchange Bitget is an anchor LP for Foresight Ventures. The Block continues to operate independently to deliver objective, impactful, and timely information about the crypto industry. Here are our current financial disclosures.

© 2024 The Block. 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.

As the cryptocurrency market grapples with a broader decline, altcoins have faced significant challenges, with Ethereum (ETH) leading the way with losses nearing 20%.

This drop comes after Ethereum’s repeated failures to break through the crucial resistance level of $4,000, a barrier that has proven formidable in recent months also preventing the cryptocurrency to reach new record levels as Bitcoin (BTC) did to close 2024.

Mid-Cycle Correction For Altcoins: A Path To Recovery?

Market expert Ash Crypto has recently offered insights in a social media post on X (formerly Twitter), into the current state of altcoins, suggesting that they are undergoing a “mid-cycle correction.”

According to Ash Crypto, this phase is a natural part of the bull market cycle and may set the stage for a recovery of previously lost value and potentially even higher gains for these digital assets.

In his social media post, the expert highlighted historical precedents, noting that similar price actions were seen in January 2021, just before the onset of an altcoin season that captivated investors.

Despite recent fluctuations, Ethereum and other altcoins have shown slight signs of recovery, with ETH managing to surge above $3,200, rebounding from its nearest support level of $3,100.

This recent uptick prevented further losses and sparked hope among traders. However, Ash Crypto cautions that another dip may be on the horizon before a more sustained recovery can take hold.

Market Whales May Shake Out Retail Investors

In his analysis, Ash Crypto projected that altcoins could experience one final market correction before entering what he believes will be a full bull mode later this year.

The expert referenced a chart he shared, depicting the total market capitalization of altcoins excluding Bitcoin and Ethereum, which showed potential consolidation between the $926 billion and $930 billion levels.

This consolidation phase could precede a move towards a bullish cycle peak, estimated to reach as high as $3.39 trillion.

Adding to the intrigue, Ash Crypto remarked that Bitcoin’s dominance appears to have topped out, suggesting that an altcoin season is imminent. However, he warns that before this potential surge, market whales may attempt to shake out retail investors by manipulating prices.

At the time of writing, ETH is trading at $3,215, up over 3% in the 24-hour time frame. Other altcoins such as XRP, Solana (SOL) and Cardano (ADA) have also risen by 5%, 3% and 5.3% respectively in the same time frame.

Taking into account Ash Crypto’s analysis, it remains to be seen whether further consolidation or another correction will take place for altcoins before what could be the most notable gains for these digital assets in history.

Featured image from DALL-E, chart from TradingView.com

Thailand’s top financial authority is considering allowing bitcoin exchange-traded funds to list on local exchanges.

Pornanong Budsaratragoon, Secretary-General of the Securities and Exchange Commission, said on Tuesday that the regulator is contemplating permitting individual and institutional investments in local bitcoin ETFs that would offer direct exposure to bitcoin, according to Bloomberg.

Thailand’s SEC previously permitted asset management firms in March 2024 to launch funds for investing in U.S. spot bitcoin ETFs available for institutional investors. In June, One Asset Management launched a fund-of-funds — limited to professional and institutional investors — offering exposure to overseas bitcoin ETFs.

Budsaratragoon said in the news report that the country has to “move along with more adoption of cryptocurrenices worldwide,” and that the regulator must adapt and ensure that investors “have more options in crypto assets with proper protection.”

The SEC did not immediately respond to The Block’s request for comment.

The regulator previously said in January 2024 that it was monitoring the development of overseas spot crypto ETFs but had no plan to allow such products in the country.

Thailand has attracted some global crypto exchanges, such as Binance, to set up shop in the country. In January 2024, Binance announced that Gulf Binance — a joint venture between Binance and Thailand’s Gulf Innova — launched crypto exchange services to the general public in Thailand.

Disclaimer: The Block is an independent media outlet that delivers news, research, and data. As of November 2023, Foresight Ventures is a majority investor of The Block. Foresight Ventures invests in other companies in the crypto space. Crypto exchange Bitget is an anchor LP for Foresight Ventures. The Block continues to operate independently to deliver objective, impactful, and timely information about the crypto industry. Here are our current financial disclosures.

© 2024 The Block. 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.