Currency Forecast

In a thrilling meeting at the National Assembly on Monday (the drama! the suspense!), the PPP outlined seven shiny new initiatives to totally revamp the country’s digital asset market. These include ditching some pesky restrictions on banks working with crypto exchanges, and—wait for it—introducing legal frameworks to back the development of tokenized assets and spot exchange-traded funds (ETFs). I mean, who needs sleep when you’ve got this much excitement?

XRP today is, in the most literal sense, going sideways. The token dances in circles, more lost than a Russian poet at a Paris soirée. No dramatic surges, no stunning collapses, just idling in place while Bitcoin, that noisy neighbor, stubbornly guards the heights of $95,000. As for any spectacular fireworks, the SEC has politely asked us all to wait: the fate of Franklin Templeton’s XRP ETF will unravel, perhaps, on June 17. Until then, the flatlining continues. Perhaps XRP dreams, as we all do, of more eventful days.

Meanwhile, the entire planet and your mother’s friend Dave are eyeing that mystical $100K mark. (Dave’s already telling everyone he “knew” this would happen.) There’s drama brewing beneath the price charts: more than 85% of all Bitcoin is now technically making people money. Some say this could mean euphoria is on the way—or it might just mean people will get fidgety and start swapping their Lambos for lawnmowers. Who can say?

The clever bit—and there has to be a clever bit, since this is digital finance we’re talking about—is Ripple’s approach. Forget tedious old supply caps. RLUSD is designed with the flexibility of a yoga instructor at a limbo contest. It breathes, it expands, and, theoretically, it stays pegged to a dollar even as everyone in the DeFi world tries to test its elasticity. Somehow, this mixture of structure and chaos is helping RLUSD edge into decentralized finance while maintaining the faintly smug expression of a token that’s never been rugged.

“The $94K–$95K wall holds $BTC back. A pullback looms, but once retail stops, we’ll break through.”
(Translation: ‘Someone please tell the retailers to stop panicking—you’re scaring the whales!’)

Now, it doesn’t take a Wall Street banker with polished shoes to know when a deal’s gone sideways. FTX claimed they reached out to these fellas time and again, like calling a neighbor to borrow a cup of sugar only to get left knocking in the rain. The Delaware bankruptcy court’s got itself two fresh lawsuits—one with the fancy scent of digital tokens and another with that tang of missed opportunity that makes folks’ lawyers pop out of the woodwork like spring jackrabbits.

Now enter Charles Hoskinson, the ever-dramatic soothsayer, uttering prophecies of ADA at $10 per token—presumably after he discovers the Philosopher’s Stone. Ambitious, or simply the crypto equivalent of promising to elope with a duchess at dawn? One must wonder.

Beginning April 29—mark your Outlook calendar as if you’ll remember—Bunq customers scattered across the Netherlands, Spain, France, Belgium, Italy, and Ireland (plus whichever countries Bunq can remember exist) can take a wild swing at crypto investing directly from their banking app. No more toggling between a banking interface and a crypto exchange designed by someone who last saw a graphic designer during the Napoleonic Wars.

Apparently, the SEC has had a sudden urge for more “time to think” (and maybe reconsider their entire life choice?) so they’ve extended the review period to June 17 from the original May 3 deadline. Yep, just a little extra time to weigh those regulatory concerns that everyone’s talking about. I mean, who wouldn’t need more time to decide on *that*? 🤷‍♀️

In a thrilling development, Nasdaq filed a proposal on April 28 to list and trade shares of the 21Shares Dogecoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Ah yes, because nothing says “serious investment” like a cryptocurrency famously associated with Shiba Inus and internet memes.