What happened last week
The Ripple decision kicked the week off on a good foot for crypto but the momentum started fading yesterday with XRP posting daily losses again, likely caused by Traders taking profits on their positions in combination with liquidations from the derivatives market – the risk of an appeal is still present with polarized opinions on whether that could change the verdict or not. Regardless of the potential outcome, the likelihood of increased negative sentiment should an appeal be filed seems more likely than positive sentiment. Also XLM was a notable performer throughout the week trading in lockstep with Ripple due to the similarities with respect to the underlying technology and use case they share. Both networks are aiming to improve the ease of completing transactions for payment providers and financial institutions. In fact, Jed McCaleb, Stellar’s creator, served as the CTO of Ripple before leaving the project to create Stellar Lumens. The House introduced a bill to overhaul US crypto markets which aims to make the SEC write crypto specific regulations but the SEC remains reluctant to cooperate. GBTC hit daily volume highs and the delta to NAV continues to tighten.
Earnings season is far from over yet, markets experienced an uptick on strong reports from the banking sector in the beginning of the week which culminated in mixed trading on Thursday. Dow Jones continues its streak of gains with today marking its 9th consecutive day of appreciation while Nasdaq posted losses as the index heavyweights Netflix and Tesla stocks plunged following their missed earnings projections. Johnson & Johnson seems to be the likely reason why the Dow Jones Index saw limited impact from the bad earnings in Nasdaq. Today American Express is expected to file their earnings.
Food commodities are up this week unsurprisingly as Russia withdrew from the Black Sea grain deal which allows Ukraine to export 32.9 million tonnes of mostly corn and wheat. In fact the sharpest increase in wheat prices in a year followed when looking in America, however prices remain well below the peak levels seen in May last year. Eastern European countries have also followed with restrictions on Ukrainian imports as they fear for a squeeze of their native farmers but transit remains free. The withdrawal surely doesn’t aid the supply chain efficiency and the costs must naturally be paid for by the consumers. As for rice, India also imposed a major rice export ban. India is responsible for 40% of global rice exports according to Reuters.
The FTX saga continues as they announced the launch of a claims platform which was quickly taken down again for unknown reasons but is now running again. A lot of phishing attempts have been reported but whether they were successful or not we don’t know. SBF has also been sued by FTX for $1 billion and also for using misappropriated funds to pay for his defense lawyer. A personal diary of Ellison is also said to have been published by SBF. Clawbacks continue.
