Ripple XRP Looks for a Breakout at Key Resistance, BTC, LUNC, LDO, Jun 5

XRP added 5% but surrendered gains. Bitcoin suffered with a Binance lawsuit. LUNC rises ahead of an upgrade. LDO rose as TVL rises.

XRP

The price of Ripple XRP returned 5% this week, outperforming the rest of the top fifty cryptocurrencies, but the coin gave up some of its 10% rally. 

Attorney John Deaton has said there’s a 25% chance Ripple will claim an outright victory against the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Deaton said on the Good Morning crypto podcast there was also a 50% chance that U.S. District Judge Torres delivers a “splitting the baby” ruling.

That would mean Judge Torres “drawing a line in the sand,” where she could potentially rule that XRP was offered as an unregistered security before 2018.

“I think that XRP itself is going to be deemed not a security and that I think that secondary market sales show that. Even if Judge Torres does rule finding that Ripple violated the law, that doesn’t apply to secondary market sales,” Deaton explained.

XRP has a key resistance level at $0.5480 which it hit this week. A move above that level can see continued gains for XRP. Deaton said that if a positive ruling for Ripple happens, the coin can hit $10. 

I certainly believe that somewhere believe $2 and $10 is reasonable.

BTC

The price of Bitcoin was lower by 7% for the last week after the passing of the U.S. ceiling deal.

Another controversial deal divided political parties but keeps the government functioning past the 2024 election. A bout of weakness in the stock market added to the losses in Bitcoin. There was larger bearish news for crypto this week with the announcement that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) was suing the Binance exchange.

The lawsuit claims that Binance, Binance.US, and Changpeng Zhao offered unregistered securities to the public in the form of the BNB token and the Binance-linked BUSD stablecoin, violating securities laws

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission sued crypto exchange Binance, the operating company for Binance.US, and Binance founder and CEO Changpeng “CZ” Zhao on allegations of violating federal securities laws on Monday.

Binance, Binance.US, and CZ offered unregistered securities to the general public in the form of the BNB token and Binance-linked BUSD stablecoin said the suit, which also alleges that Binance’s staking service violated securities law. There are similar charges against BAM Trading – the operating company for Binance.US – and Binance itself, including failure to register as a clearing agency, failure to register as a broker, and failure to register as an exchange. The SEC also alleged that Binance allowed for the commingling of customer funds, that CZ was “secretly” controlling Binance.US, and that a CZ-owned and operated entity was inflating Binance.US’s trading volume.

“As a second part of Zhao’s and Binance’s plan to shield themselves from U.S. regulation, they consistently claimed to the public that the Binance.com Platform did not serve U.S. persons, while simultaneously concealing their efforts to ensure that the most valuable U.S. customers continued trading on the platform,” the suit said.

In a press release, SEC Chair Gary Gensler said, “Through thirteen charges, we allege that Zhao and Binance entities engaged in an extensive web of deception, conflicts of interest, lack of disclosure, and calculated evasion of the law.”

Binance Coin (BNB) was trading over 8.8% lower on the news of the lawsuit. The Binance USD stablecoin continues to see an exodus of investors with a market cap of $5.1 billion, which peaked at $23 billion in late-2022.

Bitcoin has an important support level at $25,212 which will determine the path ahead for the world’s largest cryptocurrency.

LUNC

The Terra Classic (LUNC) coin was a gainer with a 5% improvement on the week, but the coin gave up much of its earlier gains.

Terra’s Luna Classic project is set for a June 7 vote on a new version 2.1.0 upgrade. The slated upgrade would go live on June 14 and includes a 5% validator commission to attract further validators to the protocol. There will also be additional security updates.

The upgrades include the implementation of Cosmwasm, a Cosmos-based platform that simplifies the development of smart contracts. The Cosmwasm GitHub says that examples of those smart contracts, including those geared toward DeFi or token usage.

The Luna Classic project rose from the May 2022 collapse of the Terra ecosystem. The project’s founder Do Kwon continues to face a legal battle after being bailed from a court in Montenegro. Kwon will be able to leave detention while he awaits a court appearance on June 16. Kwon, and his former chief financial officer Chang-joon Han, are facing up to five years in prison for using false identity documents.

The price of LUNC is potentially trading in a price channel and will need to hold the week’s gains in a bearish market for a further advance.

LDO

Lido (LDO) rose 10% this week as the project continues to see growth in its Total Value Locked (TVL) metrics.

The project is currently the largest project by TVL with $13.62 billion locked on the staking network. Lido saw its deposits drop below $5 billion after the collapse of the Terra UST stablecoin. 

The market for high-yield staking was also hit by the Federal Reserve’s strategy change to raise interest rates significantly on its government bonds. Lido has emerged from the turmoil of the last year to become the most popular staking project for Ethereum holders.

The price of LDO was flat on the week after giving up initial gains of around 10%. The coin will look for support at the moving average around the $1.75 mark.