Folks, there has been MAJOR crypto developments in the last few weeks that have sent shockwaves through the crypto world and has started making some people a lot of money and I’m going to talk about exactly what has been going on. There is an article I posted around the end of October that is titled “Bull Run In Crypto: When Is It Happening?”. I talked about things such as legal issues with the SEC, market volatility, and other issues with crypto that at the time were hampering the crypto world.
Well folks, things have MASSIVELY changed since then like a massive earthquake that has happened. The biggest thing to happen that has made crypto suddenly explode is the US Presidential Election. Donald Trump is the US President once again and this time, he has stated how VERY pro-crypto he is and intends to make the US the crypto hub of the world. He said he would fire Gary Gensler on day one, create a crypto counsel and make sure that the SEC will have a new chair who will NOT hurt the crypto industry. The crypto bull run has arrived!
Bitcoin Makes History
A few weeks ago, Bitcoin made history by crossing the $100,000 mark for the first time ever. It is the first crypto to do so and has surprised many people including those that have said it will never get that high. So many people have been coming around to Bitcoin that it shows just how resilient the digital asset is. It is increasingly becoming one of the best kind of investments in the world, constantly being referred to as digital gold.
Now with that being said, there’s usually going to be some pull back and it has happened and continues to happen as I write this. It did retreat a beat back into the $90,000 range before going back up to $100,000 and now retreating once again. Just because its pulling back right now doesn’t mean that it won’t ever go back up again. There are still many bold predictions that Bitcoin will go up to $150,000 and even higher.
There are some experts who have made very bold predictions that Bitcoin will one day make it into the millions of dollars. I don’t think it will happen anytime soon, but I do believe it is certainly possible especially as we go into the next decade and beyond. For those who believed in Bitcoin since its beginnings and have held some, my congratulations goes out to you. Bitcoin is the one opportunity that I missed out on. Sure, I’ve invested a tiny bit now, but I will probably never be able to own a full Bitcoin.
If you missed out on Bitcoin though, there are other opportunities out there. You may have heard about altcoins. Altcoins are simply other cryptocurrencies that are not Bitcoin though there are some others that do have Bitcoin in the name. The interesting thing about altcoins is that there are a lot of them developed that have great promises of utility. Now I’ve already talked about some of them in a lot of my past articles, but I’m going to talk about one next that has FINALLY seen major action after an almost 7 year lull!
XRP Makes Historic Comeback!
Folks, I’ve talked a lot about XRP and why it is perhaps my most favorite of all the cryptocurrencies out there. In my opinion, it has the best utility out of all of them and the company behind it currently, which is Ripple, has the most financial partnerships and deals than any other cryptocurrency in the world as the main goal of Ripple is to have XRP be used as the token to transfer money anywhere in the world in 3 to 5 seconds.
The road that XRP has traveled on has been very rocky especially considering that around this time 4 years ago, the SEC launched a nasty lawsuit against Ripple which stated that XRP is a security and that the sales of it need to be labeled as such and that Ripple failed to register the token with the SEC. Ripple fought very vigorously and did get a partial victory as the Federal Judge stated that the sale of XRP is not a security on secondary markets such as cryptocurrency exchanges. Sales of XRP to institutions, however, have been deemed securities and the judge said that Ripple has to pay a $125 million dollar fine for that. The SEC appealed it though as they felt the fine should be higher.
It seemed like this never ending lawsuit was going to be dragged on for at least another year or so, but with major changes now happening with the US Government, mainly the incoming Presidential administration being very pro crypto, there is now very high speculation that this appeal will likely be thrown out soon thus ending this lawsuit. The incoming President Trump has made it known that he does not like Gary Gensler, the current head of the SEC especially since he has launched numerous lawsuits against crypto currency companies in the US and that is very troubling considering there isn’t any regulatory clarity yet for digital assets. I can promise you though, regulatory clarity is coming.
Now with all that I’ve mentioned above, it might seem like things are not looking great for the future of XRP. Well, things have taken a major turn. Gary Gensler has officially announced he is stepping down as head of the SEC on the day that President Trump takes office which will be on January 20th. Trump has nominated Paul Atkins to replace him and he is very pro crypto. It is speculated that he will accept the position and put an end to the SEC’s reign of terror against the crypto industry in the US. Because of these major announcements, the price of XRP has shot up drastically.
The price of XRP had been in the $0.50 to $0.60 cent range for a long time though it briefly shot up to $0.90 last summer after it was ruled that XRP is not a security on secondary markets. As of the writing of this post, XRP is around the $2.20 range. It hasn’t been over $1.00 in a few years so this is quite significant, especially now that it is over $2.00. It did get very close to $3.00 and it was believed that it was getting ready to get past its all time high of $3.84, but it has retreated and fluctuated quite a bit. Regardless of the current downturn in the cryptocurrency market, XRP is showing great interest again to retail investors and still holds above $2.00 which is a very good thing. It has shown that XRP has made a nice little comeback, and does have a promising future ahead.
New SEC Chair Has Been Nominated
You read in the above paragraph about someone being nominated as the new SEC Chair who will replace Gary Gensler. As stated above, his name is Paul Atkins. Who is Paul Atkins exactly? He’s a securities lawyer, but he also was an SEC commissioner back during the time that George W. Bush was President. He’s made numerous statements about digital assets and how they will revolutionize the American economy.
One of the things he will more than likely do if he accepts the nomination (which it is believed he will), is that he will quickly evaluate what the SEC has done in regards to the crypto industry, end the current round of lawsuits the SEC has issued against crypto companies, and come up with a new frame work that will make it easier for crypto ETFs to be approved as well as help frame regulatory clarity for cryptocurrencies in the United States that will help digital assets to flourish in the US rather than be a hinderance. I think a lot of this will happen with speed and urgency in 2025 and once it does, we’re going to see money pour into digital assets like never before.
Major institutions will no longer have to hold back and can start heavy investment into cryptocurrency, especially those tokens that will help their operations such as XRP and XLM. With institutional investment combined with retail investment, there are going to be a lot of people that are going to become wealthy because of it. I plan to be one of those, that’s why I’ve invested in cryptocurrency and have done so since 2017. I do my research to see what a cryptocurrency project is all about and if it’s worth my time investing in it or not.
A lot of people are emotional investors and what that means is they try to invest in a crypto or other asset that is doing really good, but then panic when it starts to decrease in value and so they sell off in a hurry because they think they’re going to lose out on profits. They don’t realize that a lot of times assets will have a correction, but the long term prospects of some assets far outweigh the short term loss so when it starts to rebound and even goes up higher than what it was before the correction (temporary downward trend), they end up kicking themselves and try to get back in it, but having to spend more because they didn’t stick with it during the downward slide.
Getting back into Paul Atkins, what also will more than likely happen is that he’ll get a number of people in other positions that will be more favorable or at least fair to crypto so that can help the industry flourish. Once that happens in the US, more countries, companies, and other entities will want to get fully into the crypto fold now that the US is finally onboard.
Other Altcoins Start Popping
Since I’ve talked about XRP and its historic come back, I want to get into other altcoins that have started popping as well. Cardano is one that had been sleeping for awhile, generally staying in the $0.20 to $0.30 cent range, but since election has yielded a pro crypto administration coming in, it has popped fairly decently as well. It managed to get over $1.00 for a bit, before retreating and is now holding steady at around $0.90.
XLM is one that was close to the $0.10 cent range, but had gotten to over $0.50 before retreating to the mid $0.30 cent range. I certainly believe XLM will go up much more soon as it does hold a lot of promise since it primarily deals with the tokenization of real world assets and is growing rapidly in that realm. HBAR and XDC are 2 more cryptos that hold great promise as well in the world of tokenization and have seen some nice pops in price too.
There are many other altcoins that have seen a lot of gains here recently such as Ethereum, Solana, Render, ICP, Chainlink and more. With Bitcoin leading the way with its record breaking price, other coins that have promising utility are going to want to have a lot of investment themselves and so the future does appear to be bright in that regard. So what does this mean for the future?
Is A New Golden Era of Cryptocurrency Here?
It’s easy to get excited about cryptocurrency and the more recent price increases, but nothing goes up forever and that has been the case recently in the crypto markets. Sometimes news comes out that can cause crypto prices to crash or cause people to panic and a recent statement by the head chairman of the Federal Reserve about Bitcoin caused some negative sentiment. Also, a recent interview by the CEO of Ripple on 60 Minutes did not lead to positive things about Ripple and XRP that a lot of people in the crypto world were hoping for, myself included.
These things happen and it does cause a lot of volatility, but you have to remain strong and look at the bright long term future of crypto that looks to finally be taking shape. It’s time to look ahead to the incoming year of 2025 as it promises to be the year that crypto starts being widely adopted or becoming mainstream since we have an incoming pro crypto administration in the US. There are already a lot of great promises taking shape for the crypto industry that will hopefully bring about fully the utility cases and mass adoption of a lot of the cryptocurrencies out there.
I for one am looking forward to what’s coming in 2025 and beyond to the crypto world. We may be witnessing a new golden era of cryptocurrency, but only time will tell. I am not a financial advisor so if you do decide to invest in crypto, it is definitely at your own risk, but my goal is to bring you relevant information in the crypto world so you can make the best decisions as to which cryptos you feel will be best for you and hopefully be a great long term investment for you that you may be able to take some profits from.