Sandie O’Connor, the former chief regulatory affairs officer at banking giant JPMorgan Chase, is joining Ripple’s board of directors. According to a Ripple blog post published yesterday, O’Connor will “provide counsel on key government relations and regulatory initiatives” as part of her role on the board. O’Connor worked at JPMorgan for 31 years, serving as chief regulatory affairs officer and treasurer for the bank before retiring in 2019. She has been a systemic resolution advisory committee member for the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, or FDIC, since July. CEO Brad Garlinghouse said O’Connor’s “extensive network and in-depth understanding of markets, capital …

Strategists at JPMorgan said in a note that MassMutual’s $100 million Bitcoin (BTC) purchase shows that insurance firms and pension funds are now adopting Bitcoin. According to the analysts, typically this class of institutional investors is conservative in their style of investing so the recent allocation is quite significant. However, the strategists said that even if the pension funds and the insurance companies in the U.S., Japan, the U.K., and the Euro area keep 1% of their assets in Bitcoin, that could amount to an additional inflow of about $600 billion into Bitcoin. These investments by institutions may have increased …

While Bitcoin (BTC) has hogged the majority of the mainstream limelight when it comes to the recent bullish action seen in the crypto market, the altcoin XRP has also surged over the past month, breaking out of a multiyear downtrend to regain some previously lost momentum. For example, in March, the price of XRP against the U.S. dollar was hovering around the $0.15 mark, only to scale up to a peak high of around $0.80 by the first week of December. However, despite all of the aforementioned positive developments, the value of XRP has not been able to break past …

XRP is another cryptocurrency that has been doing well alongside Bitcoin (BTC) in the past few months. However, its price has been slumping lately, dropping below $0.50 on Dec. 14, or down nearly 15% over the past two days. On higher time frames, the price of XRP broke upward from $0.20 in the summer, reaching a temporary top at $0.80 a few months later, a rally of close to 300%, making it one of the biggest moves this year. There were several reasons for the massive breakout. One of them was the Flare Network airdrop, which took place on Dec. …

Bitcoin (BTC) price has been gradually giving up ground for the past few days and that has a few investors afraid that a sharp correction or a bear market similar to the one in 2018 could occur again. However, there are major differences between the previous bull market and the current one. The most notable difference is the arrival of institutional investors. The latest institution to have taken a position in Bitcoin is Massachusetts-based insurance firm MassMutual, which recently purchased 5,470 BTC for roughly $100 million. To date, a variety of institutional players ranging from hedge fund managers to publicly …

As the second-largest altcoin by market capitalization, XRP is hardly far from consideration during periods of significant bullish enthusiasm in the cryptocurrency market. Despite being 85% down from its January 2018 high, recent price spikes have sparked noticeable interest in XRP as investors consider viable diversification candidates for their crypto portfolios. Any discussion about XRP often includes criticisms of Ripple, a blockchain payments firm that originally created the XRP token. Furthermore, XRP critics argue that Ripple’s ownership of the majority of the token supply, as well as its penchant for dumping “coins” on the market, is likely to erode any …

Digital asset exchange Bitstamp has apologized for sharing a crypto market report that it claims does not reflect the firm’s “views or values.” In a tweet from Bitstamp posted today, the exchange issued an apology for posting research firm Messari’s “Crypto Theses for 2021” report from founder and CEO Ryan Selkis. The report refers to XRP as “toxic waste,” with Selkis calling Bitcoin (BTC) forks, Stellar Lumens (XLM) and Litecoin (LTC) “piles of s---.” The report said: “These are toxic assets propped up by regulatory capture, and they go against everything that got me into crypto." Bitstamp has removed the …

In a recent Reddit “Ask Me Anything” session, billionaire Ray Dalio warned investors that the current astronomical pace of money printing is unlikely to stop in the near future and holding wealth in cash could lead to losses. Dalio said that Bitcoin (BTC) “could serve as a diversifier to gold and other such storehold of wealth assets.” A new report from CoinShares shows that the transition from gold to crypto products may have already started. The report highlights outflows of $9.2 billion from gold investment products and inflows of $1.4 billion into crypto products during the same period. Interestingly, along …

The price of several big-name alternative cryptocurrencies fell especially hard following a Bitcoin pullback to $17,650 on Dec. 9. Namely, XRP and top decentralized finance (DeFi) tokens YFI and AAVE dropped by as much as 10% to 20% in the past 18 hours, with Bitcoin (BTC) losing up to 7%. The two main reasons behind the short-term correction of altcoins are likely the current high level of uncertainty among traders and low overall volume. Bitcoin price at a crossroads: Bad news for alts Altcoins often reflect the price trend of Bitcoin, with steeper price movements to both the upside and …

Recent news reports suggest that U.S. lawmakers may announce a new round of economic stimulus worth about $908 billion before the end of today. This second package, if announced, will add to the existing debt pile and may send the U.S. dollar index (DXY) lower. The index is already trading near its lowest level since April 2018. The slow economic recovery, expansionary monetary policy, overvalued stocks and negative bond yields are some of the reasons that have forced investors to search for alternative assets to safeguard their portfolios. Gold has been one of the favorite safe-haven assets of investors for …

As Bitcoin (BTC) has been in the spotlight in recent months, the altcoin XRP (XRP) has been doing reasonably well in its own right. Bitcoin’s rally has been associated with institutions and Wall Street jumping on this new asset class and digital store of value. Meanwhile, XRP has broken out of a multi-year downtrend to regain momentum as well. However, XRP price has not been able to break the $1 barrier yet despite the Flare Network airdrop now just around the corner scheduled for Dec. 12. Is this recent move a classic example of "buy the rumor, sell the news" …

Ripple Labs has sold a huge chunk of its 2019 investment in MoneyGram. Per a Friday night filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Friday night, from Nov. 27 through Dec. 4, Ripple Labs managed to sell 2,264,113 shares of MoneyGram (MGI). The tech firm netted a total of $15,303,792.60 from the sales. MoneyGram's stock value has soared in recent months, from $2.94 on Oct. 1 to $8.53 on Nov. 23. In no small part thanks to news of Ripple's sell-off, MGI has slipped back down to $6.54 as of publication. Despite a flurry of announcements of expanding integration …