Bitcoin Forum

This week was relatively calm in the crypto market. The key event was the deepening of cooperation between Reddit and the Ethereum Foundation, which is already predicted to have great prospects. Of course, we could not ignore the regular Dogecoin pump, the Ripple disclosure, and new flows of institutional money into the crypt. Read about and more in our weekly review.
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Ripple Labs spent about $700,000 lobbying in the US
Ripple Labs is one of the few companies that has consistently been on everyone’s lips over the past 2 months. This time, the news about lobbying for Ripple’s interests in the US government threw wood on the fire. According to open sources, the company allocated $690,000 in 2020 to promote its program at the White House.

Ripple’s lobbying spending is almost 3 times higher than that of other leading players in the crypto industry. But even with such a trump card in the hands of the company, it was not possible to avoid a lawsuit from the Securities and Exchange Commission. So far, Ripple Labs is in limbo, but that hasn’t stopped XRT from skyrocketing 60% in price this week.

It is not gusting one day that Ripple has allocated large sums to promote its program in the US Congress. In particular, in 2019, nearly $450 000 was allocated for this purpose. However, Ripple’s spending still pales in comparison to the tech giants. For example, Facebook spent more than $5 million on lobbying in Q4 2020 alone.

Ripple’s main interest is in promoting the Token Taxonomy Act, which precludes the classification of cryptocurrency as a security. So far, Ripple’s efforts to advance his interests in the United States have not been crowned with great success, but as they say, a lost battle is not a lost war.

Rally Bitcoin and DeFi boom become the main drivers of the crypto market
2020 was a turning point for the crypto market thanks to two internal factors, namely, Bitcoin’s parabolic rally and the hype around DeFi. But is there a relationship between these drivers?

Analysts point out that Bitcoin and DeFi played a great duo last year, and this trend is likely to continue in 2021. As the total trading volume on the DEX has increased significantly over the past year, some experts have linked Bitcoin’s rise to the increased use of DeFi platforms.

According to Robert Leshner, CEO of Compound, “BTC’s vertical rise to $40,000 was driven not only by the influx of institutional money into the market but also by the surge in WBTC activity.” According to analysts, the rise in BTC prices is also an extremely positive signal for the scaling of DeFi.

The world’s largest investment company BlackRock is interested in crypto 
Institutional players who are already on a train called “cryptocurrency” are likely to be joined by the world’s largest investment company BlackRock. The financial giant controls over $8.7 trillion in assets. BlackRock’s interest in cryptocurrency is evidenced by the filing of an application with the SEC to consider trading Bitcoin futures based on its two funds.

The first signals about a warming attitude towards cryptocurrency from BlackRock sounded back at the end of 2020. Extremely revealing is the words of Rick Reeder, the company’s chief IT director, that “Bitcoin has a great chance to squeeze Gold and take its place.” Larry Fink, CEO of BlackRock, also spoke about the value of Bitcoin as an investment tool in early December. He suggested that “cryptocurrency can transform into a global market.”

The news of BlackRock’s potential accession to the crypto market was received with enthusiasm in the crypto space. Analysts are optimistic about the initiative as another step towards building confidence in Bitcoin as a mature and reliable asset class. If BlackRock enters the Bitcoin futures market, it is a high probability that a chain reaction will follow, and new large asset management companies will soon enter the crypto market.

Public companies own over $3.6 billion of BTC
This week, analyst Kevin Rook published a study that demonstrates the dynamics of the influx of institutions into the crypto market in an extremely revealing way. According to the data presented, in 2019, there were only 20,000 BTC on the balance sheets of public companies. Within 12 months, this figure skyrocketed to 105,837 BTC, the equivalent of over $3.6 billion.

There are 19 publicly traded Bitcoin companies on the market today. MicroStrategy remains the obvious leader, with 70,784 BTC on its balance sheet. This company has invested a record $1.125 billion in Bitcoin and, apparently, is not going to reduce its appetite for buying crypto. The top three also included GalaxyDigital Holdings, which acquired more than 16,400 BTC, and Square (4,700 BTC.)

As for the price of Bitcoin, analysts have been extremely cautious in their predictions this week. On January 27, the price of the flagship crypt briefly dropped below $30,000 but was able to rebound. Bitcoin has been stuck in the $29,000 to $35,000 range so far and is likely to fluctuate in this price region in the near future.

Reddit announced a partnership with Ethereum Foundation
On January 27, the largest social platform Reddit announced its deepening cooperation with the Ethereum Foundation. Some experts have already dubbed this initiative as a landmark event for the crypto industry in general and Ethereum in particular.

The first steps towards this blockchain partnership were taken back in May 2020. Then Reddit initiated the launch of the Community Points application, with the help of which editors could receive ERC-20 tokens for the publication of useful and interesting content. The app is currently in beta testing in the CryptoCurrency and Fortnite communities.
The Reddit announcement also states that “we will do our best to ensure that Ethereum reaches the scale of our platform in the future.” It sounds ambitious enough. Experience shows that Reddit, with a daily audience of more than 50 million users, can influence market processes. Well, let’s see.

Dogecoin soared in price by 900% in 2 days
Once again, Dogecoin (DOGE) was at the epicenter of the excitement. This time, the price of the token was “sent into space” by users of the Reddit platform, who this week also featured a pump from GameStop. According to crypto enthusiasts, it is the inflating of the gaming company’s shares by 400% that has led to an artificial increase in the price of DOGE.

Despite attempts by moderators to suspend the spread of calls to buy “Elon Musk’s favorite crypto”, the snowball could not be stopped. As a result, on January 28-29, the price of DOGE soared by 900% to 0.078% of the dollar. The market capitalization of the token exceeded $3.1 billion, leaving behind Tezos, Monero, and EOS. At the time of writing, DOGE is ranked 14th in terms of market cap and continues to be in the green zone.

At the same time, the hype around the token instantly migrated to Twitter. According to the analytical company “The TIE”, the volume of tweets mentioning DOGE increased by 1787% compared to the average for 30 days. A total of 89,991 tweets were posted about DOGE in 24 hours. DOGE became the first altcoin in history to surpass Bitcoin in the number of mentions on Twitter per day.