Trading just under US$30k still, Bitcoin has decided, it seems, to set up shop somewhere between Nowheresville and Hopium.

The first is a swampy place built on uncertain, shaky foundations. The second is a bit more like Las Vegas – full of shiny dreams and holes in pockets.

One of those dreams is being touted by a big, croaky voice in US politics over the past day – the very-Bitcoin-friendly rogue Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

RFK Jr has vowed, when he reckons he takes Biden’s job, to use use Bitcoin (along with gold and silver) to stabilise the US dollar, as well as make Bitcoin profits exempt from capital gains tax.

He also backed up his previously stated position on Bitcoin back in May – in which he defended the public’s right to self-custody Bitcoin and generally just do lawful, Bitcoiny and crypto things.

“Backing dollars and US debt obligations with hard assets could help restore strength back to the dollar, rein in inflation and usher in a new era of American financial stability, peace and prosperity,” said Kennedy at a “Heal-the-Divide” Political Action Committee livestream event overnight.

The leader-of-the-free-world wannabe noted he would start the process “very, very small” with “perhaps 1% of issued T-bills” backed with “real finite assets”, such as gold, silver platinum and Bitcoin.

Crazier things have happened, right? Such as Trump becoming president, PEPE going to the moon and Jonny Bairstow holding a catch. Bitcoin and crypto has been a political talking point in the US all year, and what RFK Jr is suggesting doesn’t seem (to this Bitcoin-biased columnist anyway) a complete stretch some day. Even if he does have little chance of nabbing the top job.

 

Top 10 overview

With the overall crypto market cap at US$1.24 trillion, up about 0.5% since this time yesterday, here’s the current state of play among top 10 tokens – according to CoinGecko.

That place between Nowheresville and Hopium is probably actually Crabstown. We might be sidewinding it around there for the majority of the rest of 2023 if you believe the prevailing expectations we’re seeing around the Cryptoverse. It wouldn’t be the worst outcome.

In the meantime, while there’s a definite danger this year’s short-term traders, who are largely in profit with Bitcoin up 70% for 2023, could begin to sell out, sending the price of BTC lower, long-term hodlers are accumulating and the next Bitcoin halving is less than a year away.

Plus if the odd bit of positive news keeps trickling in, such as the XRP/Ripple court case boon and the likes of Larry Fink and Kennedy Jr talking things up, then we might just be able to slowly move on up and to the right.

Just on XRP, actually, its price has spiked again, sending the asset back above US$0.8 once more. There’s no fresh news, just the wake of positivity surrounding the favourable ruling for Ripple in the SEC lawsuit that keeps, well, rippling.

The judge presiding over the case has asked both parties to consider upcoming dates for a settlement conference, which seems the most likely outcome in this long, messy ordeal.

 

Uppers and downers

Some of the biggest 24-hour gainers and losers at press time. (Stats accurate at time of publishing, based on CoinGecko.com data.)

PUMPERS (11-100 market cap position)

• Stellar (XLM), (market cap: US$4.22 billion) +18%

• XDC Network (XDC), (market cap: US$522 million) +10%

• Optimism (OP), (market cap: US$1.06 billion) +10%

• Hedera (HBAR), (market cap: US$1.81 billion) +8%

• Maker (MKR), (market cap: US$892 million) +6%

It’s interesting to see XRP rival Stellar (XLM) pump pretty much whenever XRP does. The latter has the more market-focused news, but XLM generally seems to do pretty well riding on the coattails of the leading crypto altcoin payments rail asset.

That said, Stellar has some news of its own here, which might explain the 18% surge. As noted here by the CEO of Circle (USDC’s issuer) the Honeycoin App, powered by Stellar, now enables USDC cash outs at MoneyGram locations in Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Nigeria, Ghana and the UK…

 

PUMPERS (lower, lower caps)

• r/CryptoCurrency Moons (MOON), (market cap: US$47 million) +30%

• Multichain (MULTI), (market cap: US$43 million) +28%

• Nakamoto Games (NAKA), (market cap: US$27 million) +8%

 

SLUMPERS

• Sui (SUI), (market cap: US$465 million) -4%

• Frax Share (FXS), (market cap: US$434 million) -4%

• Rocket Pool (RPL), (market cap: US$637 billion) -3%

• Compound (COMP), (market cap: US$475 million) -2%

• GALA (GALA), (market cap: US$635 million) -2%

 

SLUMPERS (lower, lower caps)

• Pepe 2.0 (PEPE2.0), (market cap: US$16 million) -15%

• Rollbit (RBT), (market cap: US$354 million) -8%

• Pendle (PENDLE), (market cap: US$77 million) -6%

 

Around the blocks

Some pertinence and randomness that stuck with us on our morning moves through the Crypto Twitterverse.

 

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