According to Coinglass (a platform that sounds suspiciously like a video game cheat code), Ethereum led the charge with $248 million in liquidations, while Bitcoin trailed behind with a modest $87.65 million. Poor Bitcoin, always playing second fiddle to its flamboyant cousin. 🎸📉
Lo and behold! The numbers have spoken, and they speak in the language of obliteration. A cool $207 million vanished into thin air from short positions alone, leaving their long counterparts with a measly $40 million loss as consolation. Bulls stampeded over bears like a herd of caffeinated elephants, all thanks to a sudden upward surge across major assets. Truly poetic justice. 🐂
Yet, amidst this theatrical downturn, the crypto whales-those grand, elusive creatures of the deep-have been spotted accumulating select altcoins with a fervor that would make even the most ardent collector blush. Let us delve into this curious phenomenon.
On this fateful day, August 22, our illustrious Federal Reserve chair will deliver what is expected to be his last keynote at Jackson Hole. The stakes are higher than a tightrope walker at a circus, with political pressures, conflicting economic signals, and his impending departure next spring looming over us like a dark cloud. ☁️
If you want panic in graphs, look no further than Google Trends. Dreams of altcoin riches once bubbled up like moonshine on August 13, but after Ethereum’s nosedive, interest in ‘alt season’ toppled 88%, dropping faster than Grandpa’s hat in the wind. The whole affair gently coincides with the price of Ethereum deciding to try out gravity for a change. 🪂
Matthew Galeotti, the Acting Assistant Attorney General from the DOJ’s criminal division, made this earth-shattering announcement at the American Innovation Project Summit in Jackson, Wyoming. He boldly proclaimed that the DOJ is moving away from charging developers simply for failing to register as a money transmitter. “Merely writing code, without ill intent, is not a crime,” he said. Well, thank goodness for that, or I guess all programmers would be in jail by now. 💻💥
Mr. Pompliano, ever the eloquent orator, framed the matter not as a technological debate but a philosophical one: to own or not to own, that is the question. Or, as it might read in a tavern sign: “Wilt thou clutch thy coins like a miser, or entrust them to the whims of custodians?” A dilemma as old as the hills, though with more zeroes and fewer donkeys.
Their game plan? Targeting those mysterious B2B markets and those regulation-loving entities that feel left out of all the crypto party. They want to make international money transfer as easy as sending a text-minus the chaos and the dollar bills flying everywhere.
Meanwhile, Swan Bitcoin’s No Second Best (a show so named it could be a Discworld tavern) tackled the claim with the seriousness of a man watching a cat chase a laser. Host Hurley dismissed the NSA-origin myth as a “persistent ghost,” redirecting attention to the real Trojan horse: stablecoins and U.S. debt. “While Tucker chases shadows,” he said, “the real action is in the vaults and the ledgers.” A sentiment that would make Rincewind proud.
Ah, XRP, the third-largest cryptocurrency, a creature of both hope and torment. In the dying breaths of 2024, it surged from the ashes, climbing from $0.6 to a staggering $3. January brought further ecstasy, as it kissed its 2018 high of $3.4, only to be denied the sweet release of surpassing it. Months of agony followed-corrections, sideways trading, the market’s cruel indifference. But then, in July, the bulls roared, and a new peak of $3.65 was born. A moment of triumph? Nay, for the fickle market demanded its pound of flesh, and XRP tumbled, shedding 10%, then 20%, now languishing below $2.8. The once-mighty $3.00 support has turned traitor, a resistance mocking its former glory. All eyes now turn to Jerome Powell, whose words tonight may seal its fate. Or will they? 🌪️🤡