Classifying XRP as a commodity could mean Ripple wins its case against the SEC, which some traders may consider bullish for the token.

Bitcoin (BTC) showed signs of resilience Wednesday, shedding tremors from regulatory action against crypto exchange Binance to recover above the key $28,000 level.

XRP tokens jumped for a second straight day, adding 11% in the past 24 hours. They were buoyed by speculation that the classification of bitcoin and ether (ETH) as commodities in the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) suit against Binance might mean XRP tokens are classified as commodities as well. That might hurt the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)’s case against Ripple, which says the tokens are securities. Classification as a commodity could mean Ripple wins the case – which some traders may consider bullish for XRP.

Other tokens also rallied. Ether rose 4% as Ethereum developers confirmed the Shapella upgrade, a fundamental release, for April 14. The upgrade will allow ether stakers to withdraw tokens for the first time, among other network improvements such as improved transactional fees.

Cardano’s ADA jumped 8%, bnb tokens (BNB) recovered 1.9%, erasing some of this week’s losses, and Polygon’s MATIC gined 7% on the introduction of its zero-knowledge Ethereum Virtual Machine in what may become one of 2023’s hottest blockchain trends.

XRP, however, may dip in coming days, some on-chain analysis suggests.

Data from on-chain analytics tool Santiment cited by FxStreet shows that transactions “in profit” have reached a 19-month high, suggesting traders could lock in recent gains and contribute to falling prices.

The post Bitcoin Regains $28K; XRP Surges for a Second Day appeared first on Crypto Insider.

The miner used almost 30 million gwei to pay for that transaction.

Crypto miner F2Pool mined the last-ever block of proof-of-work (PoW) ether (ETH) as the network shifted to a proof-of-stake (PoS) earlier this morning.

The last ether block before the Merge was 15537393, data shows. F2Pool paid some 29,991,429 gwei, the smallest unit of ether, as gas fees for that transaction.

The miner included a message in Mandarin in the block: “七彩神仙鱼F!,” it read, which translates to “Colorful Angelfish F!”

The miner, which was founded in 2013, was one of the earliest bitcoin (BTC) mining pools.

After the merge, new blocks on the Ethereum network continued to be produced as normal and without any hiccups. Ether traded flat after the Merge.

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The cumulative inflow of $1.2 billion is supposedly the largest in six months.

A huge amount of ether is being moved to centralized cryptocurrency exchanges leading up to Ethereum’s pivotal technological overhaul, the Merge.

The crypto community is worried about a price slide due to the influx of ether (ETH) into exchanges.

Cryptocurrency lender deposited 450,000 ETH worth $720 million to leading digital assets exchange Binance late Wednesday, according to data tweeted by Nansen’s CEO Alex Svanevik. While crypto exchange Bitfinex received 288,442 ETH worth $490 million.

The cumulative inflow of $1.2 billion is supposedly the largest in six months. The total number of ETH held in centralized exchange wallets has jumped to a two-month high of 25.34 million.

An influx of coins into exchanges is usually taken to represent investor intention to sell, while outflows typically represent an intention to hold for the long term.

“Highest exchange inflows in 6 months. Thanks, Svanevik, for alerting. Again be careful,” one Twitter user said.

Trader and analyst Alex Kruger said very high inflows point lower. However, Hal Press, founder of North Rock Digital, tweeted that the two inflows are likely fork-related rather than a predetermined sell program.

Perhaps coins have been moved to exchanges to collect potential Ethereum fork token ETHPOW on an exchange, so those can be liquidated immediately instead of receiving the so-called airdrop in a hardware wallet.

An influx of coins into exchanges is usually taken to represent investor intention to sell, while outflows typically represent an intention to hold for the long term.

“Highest exchange inflows in 6 months. Thanks, Svanevik, for alerting. Again be careful,” one Twitter user said.

Trader and analyst Alex Kruger said very high inflows point lower. However, Hal Press, founder of North Rock Digital, tweeted that the two inflows are likely fork-related rather than a predetermined sell program.

Perhaps coins have been moved to exchanges to collect potential Ethereum fork token ETHPOW on an exchange, so those can be liquidated immediately instead of receiving the so-called airdrop in a hardware wallet.

Hochan Cheung, head of marketing at Korea-based analytics firm CryptoQuant, said the coins have been moved to derivative exchanges, which indicates investors are trying to hedge their position in case of price volatility around the Merge, slated to happen in three hours from now.

The post Pre-Merge Ether Exchange Inflows of Over $1B Trigger Fears of Price Drop appeared first on Crypto Insider.

Bitcoin and ether lost pivotal support level leading to massive losses for long future traders.

Crypto futures racked up more than $1 billion in liquidations in the past 24 hours amid weak market sentiment and major assets losing pivotal support levels.

Bitcoin (BTC) fell as much as 8% in the past 24 hours. Ether (ETH), BNB Chain’s BNB, and XRP saw similar losses. Terra’s LUNA fell 50% as its UST stablecoin lost its peg with U.S. dollar, while memecoin dogecoin (DOGE) fared relatively better than the market with just a 6% drop.

Bitcoin temporarily fell under $30,000 in early Asian hours, buoyed by a weak broader market. U.S. technology index Nasdaq ended Monday 4.29% lower, while Asian markets began Tuesday over 1% lower.

Such price action led to this year’s biggest liquidations losses so far. Data shows traders of bitcoin futures lost $346 million, ether futures lost $321 million, while LUNA futures $87 million – a higher-than-usual figure for traders of that asset.

More than $793 million of the total liquidations arose from long traders, or those betting on higher prices, which represented 74% of the futures trades. Some $257 million of that occurred on crypto exchange OKX, followed by Binance at $181 million and FTX at $102 million.

Open interest, or the amount of outstanding derivative contracts that have not been settled, fell 5.6%, implying traders closed their positions in anticipation of a further drop. As such, the crypto market lost nearly 8% of its overall capitalization in the past 24 hours.

Markets seemed to gradually recover at writing time. Bitcoin traded above $31,800, while ether regained the $2,800 level. An extended recovery would depend on how broader equity markets trade this week, however, as market observers previously pointed out.

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