U. Today presents the top three new stories over the past day.
Following Ripple’s major legal win against the SEC, the fintech giant is set to face a new class action lawsuit. As stated in a recent notice, the court allowed the lawsuit, which was filed in the Northern District of California, to be a class action on behalf of two classes, a Federal Securities Claims Class and a California State Securities Claims Class; these classes encompass all persons or entities who purchased XRP from July 3, 2017, through June 30, 2023, and have either retained the asset or sold it at a loss. The lawsuit itself alleges that Ripple and its CEO, Brad Garlinghouse, along with its subsidiary XRP II, LLC, have violated federal and California securities laws by offering and selling the digital asset XRP without proper registration. Denying any misconduct, Ripple and the other defendants assert that they were not obligated to register XRP as a security. The move has potentially paved the way for a long-running legal battle.
In a surprising development, the Shiba Inu community created a petition, requesting the Grayscale team to consider establishing a Shiba Inu Exchange Traded Fund (ETF). Justifying their plea, the members of the Shiba Inu army provided the following arguments: first, they stated that the SHIB token notably satisfies the Howey test, thus affirming its nonsecurity status. Second, per recent Google Trends data, SHIB is the United States’ second favorite crypto after Bitcoin, which shows the asset’s popularity and market’s readiness for an ETF centered on SHIB. Last but not least, proponents of the SHIB ETF believe the product will broaden accessibility to Shiba Inu for every class of investor. At the moment of writing, the petition has scored 1,963 signatures, gaining significant traction. It remains to be seen whether Whether Grayscale Investments will respond to the SHIB community’s demand for an ETF.
Michael van de Poppe, crypto analyst and trader from Amsterdam, has recently taken to X platform to share his latest Bitcoin price prediction. According to the analyst, the current Bitcoin rise will likely peak around $54,000 or could even reach $58,000. This should presumably occur before the Bitcoin halving event that is set to take place in two months. However, van de Poppe threw some cold water on those who believe that the halving will immediately fuel Bitcoin’s bullish surge, as he expects a “substantial correction to $40,000-$42,000” after the halving has arrived. In general, van de Poppe believes that the price of the leading crypto will rise much higher than his prediction. Last week, he wrote on his X account that the price is likely to reach as high as $300,000-$600,000 thanks to institutional demand for Bitcoin.