First Mover: Short Shrift for XRP Token’s 169% Price Surge as Traders Obsess Over Bitcoin
Market moves
As bitcoin dominated headlines in November with its rally toward an all-time high, one of the most prominent alternative cryptocurrencies, XRP, quietly jumped 169% during the month to top the performance rankings among digital assets in the CoinDesk 20. The move left XRP, the payments token used in Ripple’s global payments network, up 225% in 2020, versus the older and larger bitcoin’s 165% gain.
CoinDesk 20 Asset Returns for November(CoinDesk)
Bitcoin watch
Bitcoin daily price chart showing market pause after surge to all-time high. CoinMarketCap says bitcoin prices haven't yet topped the all-time high based on its own records, at $20,089 in December 2017 versus CoinDesk's old $19,783 (and now $19,920) using the Bitcoin Price Index (CoinMarketCap)
Almost 20% of PayPal users have used app to trade bitcoin, Japanese securities firm Mizuho says (CoinDesk)
Russia says digital ruble will be only token allowed as form of payment in country, with law banning use of cryptocurrencies for payment set to take effect in January (CoinDesk)
Blockchair lead developer Zhavoronkov mounts campaign to stop Taproot upgrade on Bitcoin network (CoinDesk)
Libra Association rebrands to "Diem" in effort to distance itself from Facebook-led stablecoin push that brought international regulatory backlash (CoinDesk)
Cryptocurrency derivatives platform ErisX launches cash-settled contracts after physically settled futures fall flat (CoinDesk)
"We have built money for a world that’s geographically divided, but that’s not the word we live in anymore," Ajit Tripathi writes in op-ed (CoinDesk Opinion)
BlockFi announces early 2021 launch for bitcoin rewards credit card (CoinDesk)
Hottest debate on Wall Street is whether to buy bitcoin or gold (Bloomberg)
Australian crypto exchange BTC Markets accidentally exposes personal data of 270K users (CoinDesk)
Analogs
The latest on the economy and traditional finance
European Central Bank chief economist privately gave dovish assurances to Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, Citigroup, UBS, Deutsche Bank, BlackRock after ECB President Lagarde publicly made comments on Italian bond market, economy’s health that were seen by investors as hawkish (WSJ)
Bipartisan group of U.S. senators introduce new stimulus proposal worth about $908 billion (Washington Post)
In global markets, “everyone already expects everything to be really fantastic,” implying the optimism is already priced in, columnist James Mackintosh writes (WSJ)
Japan wants to attract foreign talent in the financial sector by slashing income taxes (Nikkei Asia Review)
Huawei Technologies gets foothold in Southeast Asia after partnering with Indonesian government (Nikkei Asia Review)
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