20th March 2025 > > You lucky, lucky people, the CCC is back!

tl;dr

You lucky, lucky people, the CCC is back!

Market Snap

Market Wrap

For most of my time in Mongolia, and all of my time in China, I had little to no access to news, and virtually no access at all to the price of BTC. Imagine nearly three weeks without knowing whether we are up, down, or sideways. I don’t mind admitting I found that very difficult to cope with.

Turns out that pricewise not a lot has happened.

Newswise the fake announcement of a US government BTC reserve was merely a short-term distraction, but regular readers already knew that. Trump has appointed a committee to report back in June about the arguments in favour and against a US BTC reserve. No decision will be taken before then so fading that piece of news was always the right decision.

It seems that all the important stuff during the bit of March I missed revolves around Trump – Ukraine, Gaza, and the Tariff Wars all place him centre stage, which is a little tiresome in many ways. I think we can be fairly certain that the world faces a long period of greater uncertainty than we have seen for a while, simply because of the way he operates. At some point, central bankers will resort to restarting QE, but until then, risk assets will continue to be buffeted with heightened volatility. All we can do is focus on the daily developments which continue to embed the crypto revolution into all of our lives.

Occasional Series – Interregnum in Mongolia

A 100-mile race, four days, in the minus 20s, across a frozen lake in northern Mongolia, was tougher than I thought it was going to be. This made it all worthwhile:

Definitely Type 2 Fun. And I didn’t come last …

Occasional Series – Interregnum in China

I have yet to fully process the shock of experiencing China, a visit that was purely about research. It wasn’t good on any level, except that it has reinforced my conviction and belief that we all need a decentralised world that co-exists with, and improves, the centralised world, for everyone’s benefit.

More details to follow at a later date.

Curious Cryptos’ meme corner

Curious Cryptos’ Commentary – XRP

The SEC has finally dropped its ill-advised and spiteful lawsuit against Ripple Labs, Inc.:

The price of XRP jumped just 10% or so on the news, a disappointing outcome if I am being honest, but risk markets are generally not in a good frame of mind for now.

What we do know for certain, is that the SEC’s previous aggressive stance against cryptos is finally over, once and for all. There is now a smooth and clear pathway to creating regulation that nurtures innovation and development by the crypto industry. You do not want to miss out on that.

Curious Cryptos’ Commentary – XRP futures

And straight out of the block, Bitnomial is launching a physically settled XRP futures contract today, pending CFTC approval which I am told is in the bag.

The launch of BTC futures proved to be a sign of a local top in 2021, but this is a different situation. Several applications for spot XRP ETFs are currently sitting with the SEC. A successful launch of the futures product can only encourage the SEC to approve one or more of the spot applications.

The outlook for XRP is looking rather rosy after yesterday’s news.