Bitcoin and Uniswap take the lead as Ripple faces SEC this week

Bitcoin and Uniswap emerged as winners in the crypto and DeFi sectors, respectively, as Ripple top executives fired back in response to SEC subpoenas

Bitcoin surges past $51,000

The flagship cryptocurrency started the week strongly on the back of a solid upward momentum from the weekend that saw it gain 5%. The crypto rallied to a high of $51,477 mid-Sunday before dipping to $50,967 by the end of the day. Before the upswing, Bitcoin had remained relatively quiet with only minor price swings.

The leading crypto, however, retreated further on Monday but stayed above the $50k crucial level. It has since been on an uptrend path, with the only major slump happening yesterday when it dropped from a high of $57,123 to $54,547 as per data from Coinmarketcap. The crypto asset is currently changing hands at $56,761.31, up 3.8% in the past 24 hours and 19.02% in the last seven days.

UNI sets a new record high above $34

Elsewhere in the decentralised finance sector, Uniswap’s UNI token enjoyed a good run on at the start of the week leaping by 12% to set a new all-time high on Monday. The token’s price climbed higher to $34.87 – an upswing that saw it make its way into the top 10 cryptocurrencies by market cap. The surge comes after another positive week at the beginning of March that saw UNI price rise by more than 50%.

Coinmarketcap data shows the token’s price retreated to around $32 by the end of Monday before leaping to $34.61 on Tuesday. UNI swung around the $32 and $33 price level for the larger part of Wednesday and briefly fell to $29 towards the end of Thursday.

US lawmakers propose a bill to provide directions in crypto regulations

Several institutional investors in the US have previously cited the lack of clear crypto regulations as the main reason for their involvement in the booming crypto sector. This week, lawmakers in the US proposed a bill that is set to provide clarity on the murky crypto regulations in the country.

The bill recommends the creation of a working group that will evaluate regulations with input from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and Securities and Exchange Commission. The group will feature experts from both commissions. The bill was tabled by representatives Stephen Lynch (Massachusetts) and Patrick McHenry (North Carolina). It was co-sponsored by three others: Warren Davidson, Ted Budd, and Glenn Thompson.

Alpha Sigma Capital says Celsius Network is undervalued

The US-based digital assets investment firm Alpha Sigma Capital released a report early this week concluding Celsius network was undervalued. The review estimated the actual value of the crypto reward-earning platform to be over $3 billion.

Celsius whose customer base grew exponentially last year is also set to surpass 500,000 users soon. The industry-leading platform made headlines last month after distributing rewards of over $250 million – more than thrice the figure it had reported at the end of last year. It was also the town’s talk at the beginning of the month after it announced a 350% employee growth between March 2020 and March 2021.

The review, conducted by Alpha Sigma Capital, showed that contrary to the company’s current outlook, it is worth $3.13 billion. Alpha Sigma Capital also detailed that the crypto platform was on its way to recording a 25% annual surge in its assets under management in the coming four years.

Prior to the review, Celcius’s implied value [based on its 2020 financials] pointed that the company had a market cap of $1.2 billion. According to Alpha Sigma Capital, however, this estimate did not factor the $126.14 million revenue recorded by the company last year.

Bitcoin can become the internet’s ‘native currency’

Bitcoin is close to becoming the internet’s native currency, according to Jack Dorsey. Not long ago, his Square company sent shockwaves through the crypto community after revealing it had made a $170 million investment into Bitcoin.

Square isn’t the only major company to have made an entry to the crypto market. Tesla, PayPal, and MicroStrategy all have vast reserves of the flagship crypto as well. Visa and Netflix have also been touted as potential BTC investors.  It is almost impossible to think that the crypto asset will fall back to the ground soon as it keeps drawing more and more interest.

Companies are slowly becoming convinced of the asset’s potential, and many are gearing to board the bandwagon. As things stand, the overall outlook of Bitcoin is positive, which explains why Dorsey believes Bitcoin will become the native currency of the internet.

Ripple ends partnership with MoneyGram amid legal struggles

Blockchain firm Ripple announced on Tuesday via a press release that it was severing ties with the money transfer service provider MoneyGram. The company behind XRP said the decision to bring the partnership to an end was mutual and that the two companies were willing to work together in the future.

The two-year collaboration was going strong until the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filed a lawsuit against Ripple. The commission alleged that Rippled had knowingly sold unregistered XRP tokens. The regulator also sent a subpoena to six banking institutions seeking the banking records of Ripple’s Chris Larsen and Brad Garlinghouse.

The two executives responded yesterday through their lawyers, asking the judge to block the subpoenas. Their legal representatives argued that their banking records were not intermixed with those of Ripple. In writing, they said that the subpoena move was an overreach from the commission as the suit doesn’t involve any alleged fraud.

XRP has continued to suffer from the current legal troubles and has found itself 7th in market capital. Its price has also tumbled in the last few months despite occasional rallies. The token is currently trading at $0.4559, having lost 1.37% in the past seven days.