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Mooners & Shakers: BlackRock boss says crypto will ‘transcend’ trad currencies

The market has calmed since last week’s excitement, but BlackRock boss Larry Fink has not, making some startling claims about crypto’s future.

Rob Badman
3 min read
12:25PMJuly 17, 2023.
Updated 2:08PMJuly 17, 2023
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'Mummy, can I give this weird, levitating bloke some Bitcoin?' Picture: Getty Images
'Mummy, can I give this weird, levitating bloke some Bitcoin?' Picture: Getty Images

The crypto market’s calmed down since the XRP-fuelled excitement late last week, with Bitcoin trading around US$30,300.

Meanwhile, the SEC – a it wipes egg from its face – has accepted BlackRock spot Bitcoin ETF application for review

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And BlackRock’s boss has made some huge comments about the future of crypto.

What’s been happening?

Meanwhile, what’s doing in the cryptoverse? A bit of a refresh on happenings since late last Friday:

RIPPLE (and its blockchain payments-rail asset XRP) scored a crucial victory over the US Securities and Exchange Commission and the bloke many on the crypto scene consider its dastardly overlord Darth Gensler (known in less agitated circles as SEC chair Gary Gensler).

SPEAKING of overlords, BlackRock CEO Larry Fink (while unable to comment specifically about favoured asset Bitcoin due to its BTC ETF review with the SEC) has made some further eye-popping comments about crypto in general. Here’s some of what he told CNBC the other day, and an accompanying video to boot …

Fink said he expected crypto to “transcend” traditional currencies, including the US dollar. The BlackRock boss, who tarred the market as an “index of money laundering” a handful of years ago, now believes that crypto assets could “revolutionise finance”.

Fink added a couple of days ago: “It has a differentiating value versus other asset classes, but more importantly, because it’s so international it’s going to transcend any one currency.”

THE SEC has formally accepted the BlackRock spot Bitcoin ETF application for review, and other major filings, too.

Look, it’s nothing too get too foamy at the mouth just yet, as it’s merely a procedural move that indicates Gensler and co are shifting the filings from the in-tray to the “sigh, I suppose we’d actually better take a look at this” tray.

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The BlackRock-instigated flurry of BTC ETF filings, and the formal acknowledgment from the SEC, does, however, represent the most closely watched, largely hyped Bitcoin-related proposals that the US financial agency has been forced to consider so far.

A spot Bitcoin ETF is considered the holy grail of institutional investment vehicles for the crypto space, because it would track the actual value of BTC (backed by actual Bitcoins), as opposed to a BTC futures ETF, and it would also be tradeable on a traditional stock exchange.

Other than these quite massive developments, then, what else is going on? Price action, of course … Let’s take a quick squizz.

Top 10 overview

With the overall crypto market cap at $US1.26 trillion at noon Monday (AEST), down about 0.2% since the same time Sunday, here’s the current state of play among top 10 tokens – according to CoinGecko.

Source: CoinGecko
Source: CoinGecko

Right then, the crypto market has certainly settled down a tad since Friday’s froth, with bull goose cryptos Bitcoin and Ethereum coming back to earth somewhat.

The former had busted above $US31k amid “the bull run is DEFINITELY here this time, honest!” chatter.

It wasn’t to last, and neither did XRP’s attempt to crack the fabled $US1 mark. That said, the Ripple asset is still up about 60% on the week.

Blockchain analytics gurus Santiment has noted a “second $XRP upswing” is possible once the “FOMO turns back to FUD”. We shall watch and see.

Santiment also noted in some further XRP analysis that: “If key whale and shark addresses are increasing their supply going into this pump, then it is a get foreshadowing signal that the pump may just be getting started, and it’s a sign of good things to come.”

As for Bitcoin, here are a couple of hot takes before we look at who’s performing lower down the batting order.

Uppers and downers

Some of the biggest 24-hour gainers and losers at noon Monday (AEST). Stats based on CoinGecko.com data.

PUMPERS (11-100 market cap position)

  • 1INCH (1INCH), (market cap: $US429 million) +25.3%
  • Kaspa (KASPA), (market cap: $US671 million) +18.9%
  • Maker (MKR), (market cap: $US887 million) +7%
  • Stellar (XLM), (market cap: $US3.64 billion) +4.7%
  • Optimism (OP), (market cap: $US973 million) +3.6%

PUMPERS (lower, lower caps)

  • Aleph.im (ALEPH), (market cap: $US20 million) +56.6%
  • Trac (Ordinals) (TRAC), (market cap: $US16 million) +53.6%
  • r/CryproCurrency Moons (MOON), (market cap: $US15 million) +49.8%
  • Ben (BEN), (market cap: $US28 million) +29.1%

SLUMPERS (11-100 market cap position)

  • Pepe (PEPE), (market cap: $US648 million) -6.9%
  • Fantom (FTM), (market cap: $US732 million) -5%
  • Injective (INJ), (market cap: $US719 million) 4.9%
  • Lido DAO (LDO), (market cap: $US1.9 billion) 4.8%
  • Synthetix (SNX), (market cap: $US863 million) -4.3%

SLUMPERS (lower, lower caps)

  • Railgun (RAIL), (market cap: $US19 million) -20.7%
  • Jim (JIM), (market cap: $US15 million) -17.1%
  • Electroneum (ETN), (market cap: $US37 million) -13.5%
  • GET Protocol (GET), (market cap: $US16 million) -11.5%

Around the blocks

Some pertinence and randomness that stuck with us on our morning moves through the Crypto Twitterverse.

This content first appeared on stockhead.com.au

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Original URL: https://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/stockhead/mooners-shakers-blackrock-boss-says-crypto-will-transcend-trad-currencies/news-story/af4adf3230c7090f1b8f0b20d26b6a3f