Market Trend｜SBF Pleads ‘Not Guilty’ To Bribery, XRP Trading Volume Surges In The Billions On South Korean Exchanges

Across the past week, the majority of the cryptocurrency market has begun to stagnate and begin trading horizontally, leading to minute valuation movements across the market. While there are inevitably some outliers to this horizontal trend, the overarching sentiment of the market currently appears poised for stability and recovery.

However, despite this positive price outlook, the institutional side of crypto has remained relatively bearish and controversial. In the past week, Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) has pleaded not guilty to bribery and campaign finance law violations in the US following 3AC founder, Kyle Davies, being court-ordered to respond to a subpoena in two weeks.

However, on a more positive institutional note, UNICEF has announced their upcoming plans to create a DAO following a crypto fund injection. On a similarly positive note, XRP trading volumes have accelerated into the billions on an array of South Korean crypto exchanges.

The Latest News

SBF Pleads ‘Not Guilty’ To Bribery

In the latest installment of SBF’s complicated legal plights following the FTX bankruptcy proceedings, it has been announced that SBF has pleaded not guilty to bribery and campaign finance law violations. SBF’s lawyer, Mark Cohen, has pleaded that SBF is not guilty on the behalf of this client before Judge Lewis Kaplan. Cohen has stated he intends to fight the charges as they were filed following SBF being deported from the Bahamas.

Prosecutors filed a superseding indictment against Bankman-Fried in February of this year, adding a total of four charges to the existing eight filed late last year. This indictment has since been revised, according to recent reports, and includes a charge encompassing the bribing of Chinese officials as a means of accessing frozen cryptocurrency and trading accounts linked to SBF’s market-making firm Alameda Research. As a result, SBF has now pleaded not guilty to thirteen criminal counts after blaming FTX’s collapse on inherently poor risk management.

SBF Indicted For Bribing Chinese Officials Illustrative Art (Image Courtesy of Protos)

UNICEF Plans For A Prototype DAO Following Crypto Injection

UNICEF, a United Nations agency that provides relief and humanitarian aid to children across the globe, has announced its intentions to test concepts for DAOs. Having established a crypto fund as a part of its venture arm in 2019, UNICEF has long been a stakeholder in the blockchain world and is now treading the waters to see the practical application of blockchain technology in humanitarian aid, before finally taking the plunge and deploying a DAO.

Representatives of UNICEF have suggested that a DAO could facilitate seamless and streamlined communication in regard to new features and news within the business, as well as potentially support funding initiatives for digital public goods projects. It has been revealed that an early-stage prototype is currently under construction on the Polygon network and that for now, it remains a ‘closed DAO’ and it inspires to capture the interest of all digital public goods (DPG) stakeholders.

UNICEF (Image Courtesy of UNICEF)

XRP Trading Volume Surges In The Billions On South Korean Exchanges

Having had a wildly successful month of trading, XRP has further ridden the wave, having amassed over 26% growth across the last week as South Korean exchange inflow volumes have soared and propelled XRP’s trading volume into the billions. Trading volume for XRP spiked to billions of dollars on UpBit, Bithumb, and Korbit, three of South Korea’s top exchanges based on volume. Across the past day, XRP made up 37% of all volume on Bithumb, 18% of volume on UpBit, and a substantial 50% of volume on Korbit, according to CoinMarketCap.

With South Korean traders synonymous with the pushing of euphoric price-rallying tokens on platforms and in their circles, it comes as no surprise that XRP’s successful streak across the past month is further being capitalized upon across the pond. Providing XRP can continue to take advantage of this bullish streak, it is possible that XRP could test the $0.6 resistance zone and potentially eye up breaking the $1 threshold – however, only time will tell.

XRP Illustrative Art (Image Courtesy of Vauld)

Current Project Trends

Based on data provided by CoinMarketCap, the top-gaining project across the past week was ADAMANT Messenger (ADM), a decentralized anonymous open-source messenger based on blockchain technology. As a result, ADAMANT has accelerated by 7726% in the past 24 hours and a staggering total of 7726.97% across the past week.

The Current BTC Trend

Weekly btc price Data (Data Courtesy of Coinmarketcap)

Across the past week, Bitcoin has begun to stagnate in terms of price progression, leading it to decline by 0.46% in the past week and 0.88% in the past 24 hours respectively. Starting the week at 28.22k, Bitcoin immediately declined into the $27k region and began to sharply volley between the mid to upper $27k regions throughout the 23rd to the 27th. However, on the 27th, Bitcoin plummeted through the $26k floor and reached a weekly low of $26,684 and traded consistently around this level until the 29th, where it then began to regain some footing and push through its 7-day SMA and back into the $28k zone. As a result, BTC realized a weekly high of $29,124 on the 30th and currently stands at an average of $28,100.

In light of this, Bitcoin’s MVRV (market value to realized value) progressively declined prior to accelerating in the latter half of the week. Beginning the week at 1.41, BTC’s MVRV began to fall from the 23rd to the 29th, bottoming at a weekly low of 1.37. However, BTC’s MVRV began to rebound and soared to 1.403 and closed the week at this level. This suggests that BTC’s valuation is continuing to move away from the undersold territory and that its true value is being realized.

7-Day BTC MVRV Data (Data Courtesy of Blockchain.com)

The Situation of ETH Staking

As of the 30th of March, the state of Ethereum staking remains positive, primarily due to the upcoming deployment of the Ethereum Shanghai upgrade, which will allow all validators who have staked Ethereum to progressively redeem their tokens and subsequent yield earnt. In addition, the volume of Ethereum deposited to the Beacon Chain has continued to grow at a steep rate since the start of 2023, with this beginning to see an uptick throughout March.

(Data Courtesy of Dune)

Here are some key figures from across the past week to consolidate this:

Total validators: 512,657
Depositor Addresses: 90,200
Total ETH Deposited: 16,353,927
Liquid Staking Percentage: 35.61%
Staked Share Of ETH Supply: 14.91%

The Current Macro Situation

World Bank Warns Global Economy Is At Risk Of Lost Decade Of Growth

The World Bank has recently issued a warning suggesting that the global economy is in danger of suffering a lost decade of growth, which could be further exacerbated by the current financial turmoil causing a global recession. Based on recent World Bank findings, it has been revealed that the COVID-19 pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine have seemingly caused currently irreversible damage to economic performance and have severely deteriorated international initiatives to improve global living standards, tackle climate change, and minimize poverty. Ultimately, the World Bank has suggested that these significant global events will have lasting effects that will linger for a decade, and could reduce growth rates by a third in comparison with the first ten years of this century.

What Could Be Coming In The Week Ahead?

As the crypto market continues to stagnate and reach a stable level in terms of valuation and volume, it is likely that this momentum will carry into the coming week. However, with the outpour of bearish institutional news, it is plausible that this collation of data and news reports could begin to leech into the market and create a bearish sentiment.