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Bitcoin (BTC) is about halfway through its current bull market, which originated around the March 2020 price low, according to Peter Brandt, a veteran analyst and investor who’s been following commodity markets for more than four decades and serves as CEO of Factor LLC, which he founded in 1980. He’s been given credit for correctly predicting bitcoin’s steep price correction in 2018.

In an interview on CoinDesk TV, Brandt, a well-known author on interpreting chart patterns, explained the long-term BTC bull market remains intact. His technical analysis suggests BTC could continue to rally, albeit with corrections along the way.

• Brandt expects bitcoin to reach $180,000 to $200,000 by Q3 or Q4 based on its long-term trend channel.
• “I keep my eye on the broader picture. Bitcoin over the past 10 to 11 years, you get these big rallies that accelerate two to three years, and then you get a big correction,” said Brandt.
• Bitcoin is currently moving along its fourth parabolic advance on the weekly log-scale chart.
• The parabolic advance provides an anchor to BTC price from the March 2020 low.
• However, Brandt cautioned against the recent wave of exuberance on social media. “We’re in for trouble,” Brandt said, when people start “having laser-eyes on their Twitter feed.”
• “Bitcoin is taking the role of store of wealth and medium of exchange. It’s a binary bet. It will be be the best of what people really want it to become, or it will become nothing.”

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The state Senate of California has introduced a bill that would make permanent the use of blockchain technology for corporate records.

• At present, California corporations are allowed to use blockchain technology to record information relating to the issuances and transfers of stock until Jan. 1, 2022.
• This legislation, introduced Feb. 19 and set for hearing April 7, would make these provisions permanent.
• The state senate voted in favor of the bill by 32-4 at its first reading on Feb. 22.
• The bill would also amend the definition of blockchain technology to mean a decentralized system that stores “mathematically verifiable” data and uses distributed ledgers “to store specialized data in the permanent order of transactions recorded.”
• The existing definition is simpler, defining blockchain technology as a “mathematically secured, chronological and decentralized consensus ledger or database.”

See also: California Governor Signs Law Bringing State ‘New Tools’ to Regulate Crypto

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As bitcoin continues to grow beyond expectations, traditional financial institutions continue to seek ways to allow their customers access to this lucrative market. Now, the latest to join the trend is Morgan Stanley.

Bidding has closed on the auction for the first tweet ever sent by CEO Jack Dorsey, with a winning bid of over $2.9 million.

• The auction for the genesis tweet by the Twitter co-founder in March 2006 closed Monday.
• The winning bidder, Sina Estavi (@sinaEstavi), offered around 1630.6 ETH on March 6, which was not surpassed for the remaining 16 days of the auction.
• Estavi is the CEO of Bridge Oracle, a public oracle system on the Tron network.
• This amount was worth $2.5 million at the time but has increased to over $2.9 million with the appreciation in price the price of ether.
• Dorsey had listed the tokenized version of the tweet March 5 on non-fungible token (NFT) platform Valuables, a program for selling authenticated tweets created by startup Cent.
• The winning bidder will receive a digital certificate of the tweet, signed and verified using cryptography by its creator.
• The tweet was minted in December 2020, prompting a bidding war between Estavi and Tron founder Justin Sun.
• The Twitter CEO announced March 9 that proceeds from the auction will be donated to charity.

See also: Twitter Considering Bitcoin Options, Including on Balance Sheet, Exec Says

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Former U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chairman Jay Clayton assumed the top boardroom seat at Apollo Global Management on Monday after founder Leon Black, the $455 billion management firm’s longtime CEO and chair, unexpectedly announced his departure.

• In a press release, Apollo named Clayton as the new “non-executive chair of board.”
• Apollo co-founder Marc Rowan will replace Black as CEO.
• Clayton joined Apollo’s board in February as its lead independent director, quickly moving into the private sector after a three-year stint helming the SEC, the top U.S. investments regulatory body.
• Clayton ran the SEC during its early blockade against a bitcoin exchange-traded fund, the crackdown on unregistered and fraudulent initial coin offerings and, in his final weeks, the initiation of the lawsuit against Ripple Labs.
• Black had previously pledged to cede control of Apollo after fallout over his ties to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, but he was expected to retain the chairmanship.
• Monday, he credited health issues in explaining the full severance.

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The Danish Red Cross has partnered with a number of firms to launch the first $3 million blockchain-backed catastrophe bond for volcano-related disasters.

• The “first of its kind” catastrophe bond will allow the Danish Red Cross to access funds immediately to assist those in need should any one of 10 identified volcanoes erupt, according to a Reuters report.
• The volcanos, situated in Cameroon, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Guatemala, Indonesia and Mexico, were selected based on “the significant humanitarian threat they represent, with at least 700,000 individuals living within 60 miles (100 km) radius of a potential eruption,” reports the Intelligent Insurer.
• The charity worked with blockchain technology from Replexus, insurance firm Howden Group and risk management platform Mitiga Solutions to launch the bond, offering investors high yields that would not pay out if a catastrophe occurs, said the publications.
• “Our model can anticipate the trajectory of the volcanic ash cloud using prevailing winds to better estimate the impact and more effectively guide CAT bond proceeds,” said Alejandro Marti, CEO and co-founder of Mitiga Solutions.
• By using the private blockchain developed by Replexus the charity will reduce costs by $200,000-$400,000 per issue compared to using a traditional settlement system.
• Investors in the catastrophe bond include Schroder Investment Management, Solidum Partners, and Plenum Investments.

Read more: Bitcoin Community Funds Italian Red Cross Medical Facility to Combat Coronavirus

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Is it altcoin season? This week, Grayscale Investments announced a slew of new trusts, each focused on smaller-cap “altcoins.” (CoinDesk and Grayscale are both owned by Digital Currency Group.) Meanwhile, Ethereum’s native currency, ether, is outpacing bitcoin so far this year, rising 142% as of Thursday.  A dozen other assets on the CoinDesk 20 – our list of the assets that matter the most to the market – are also ahead of bitcoin, led by Web 3.0 assets cardano and algorand and DeFi asset 0x. 

“Altcoin season,” or “alt season,” is a meme for the idea that bitcoin returns move cyclically against other crypto assets, or “altcoins,” as in, alternatives to bitcoin. The notion is that investors take their bitcoin profits and play the altcoin casino with house money, and vice versa. 

There’s evidence to support that theory, at least anecdotally. In the fourth quarter of 2020, for example, bitcoin outran everything in the Digital Large Cap Index (DLCX), an index that represents 70% of the crypto markets’ value. The DLCX is replicable for U.S. institutional investors, and it’s updated every second by CoinDesk’s subsidiary company, TradeBlock.

Related: Osprey Funds CEO: Trust Funds Will Morph Into ETFs

In the chart you can see that only litecoin, which had an extraordinary run in the fourth quarter, managed to keep pace with bitcoin. 

Read more: Multiple Tokens See Rally Amid Looming ‘Alt Season’

Contrast that with 2021 for the year to date: Returns from litecoin and bitcoin cash have lagged, while ether has outpaced bitcoin by a significant margin. (The asset XRP, another long-time large-cap crypto, isn’t on this chart because it was excluded from the DLCX early in the first quarter after several exchanges dropped the Ripple-linked crypto, following a lawsuit by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.)

So is it altcoin season? Two of the three largest “alts” are underperforming bitcoin. At the same time, historically smaller alts are outperforming. The chart below shows CoinDesk 20 returns year to date, as of March 16. The CoinDesk 20 comprises the largest 20 digital assets by volume, measured over two consecutive quarters on a list of trusted exchanges. As the chart shows, 13 out of the 20 assets on the list are showing better returns than bitcoin, so far in 2021. (Stablecoins, also included in the CoinDesk 20 in order to track their market impact, are excluded from this chart.) 

Related: Financial Watchdog Group Updates Guidance Affecting DeFi, NFTs

At the top of the chart, the leaders for 2021 year to date are cardano, 0x and algorand. The cardano and algorand assets are connected to smart contract platforms that rival Ethereum. The 0x token is a token built using Ethereum’s ERC-20 standard, connected to a decentralized exchange. The 0x exchange is part of the decentralized finance, or DeFi, category, built mostly on Ethereum.

Read more: Chainlink Hits Record High, Altcoins Rally Amid Bitcoin Consolidation

What’s happening isn’t necessarily a cyclical shift in momentum between bitcoin and alts but a changing of the guard among alts. In this market, the laggards are currencies – competitors or complements to bitcoin. The leaders are smart contract platforms – competitors or complements to ether. 

What comes next: pendulum swing or new paradigm?

Looking through the lens of programmatic indexes and lists such as the DLCX and the CoinDesk 20 makes it easier to identify patterns in a turbulent market. How to interpret the pattern is another matter. I see two possibilities:

1) Investor enthusiasm for “digital gold” or “digital cash” is consolidating behind bitcoin. The Bitcoin Core developers have won confidence with a conservative approach that has shown movement, evidenced by the Taproot proposal. Projects that gained attention as faster moving or varied flavors of Bitcoin will continue to lose relevance.

2) New investors are entering crypto. They are used to thinking in terms of potential cash flows and they prefer an investment that involves a product or a service. The need for decentralized applications has yet to prove itself beyond speculative uses but it is a narrative technology investors can understand.

Read more: Expected Rise in Ether-Bitcoin Volatility Points to Altcoin Season Ahead: Analyst

Whether either of these interpretations applies, time will tell. Either way, it seems a more significant change is underway than just a seasonal swing between bitcoin and altcoins.

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Taiwanese tech giant Acer may have fallen victim to a malware attack demanding the biggest cyber-ransom ever.

• Ransomware gang “REvil” is said to be demanding $50 million in the privacy coin monero to decrypt Acer computers, according to a Tech Radar report Monday.
• Sleuthing by an intelligence analyst from Malwarebytes and cyber news site The Record is said to have uncovered a REvil portal with details of the demands.
• The attack, not yet confirmed by Acer, is said to have locked up the firm’s back-office network, but not its production systems, per the report.
• In screenshots posted on the portal, REvil called the Acer representative they were communicating with an “incompetent negotiator,” asking for their superiors to be brought into the negotiations.
• The gang has reportedly set a deadline of March 28 for its demands to be met.
• Acer is the world’s fifth-largest computer maker, with almost 6% of global PC sales in Q4 2020, according to the latest Gartner data.
• CoinDesk reached out to Acer for comment, but did not receive a response by press time.

Read more: Kia Motors America Victim of Ransomware Attack Demanding $20M in Bitcoin, Report Claims

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Front-running Ethereum miners are suffering from a bout of food poisoning.

Maximal Extractable Value (MEV) – the practice of manipulating a transaction queue to squeeze profits from other unsuspecting traders – is making a hot splash in Ethereum’s decentralized finance (DeFi) markets. But players in the know aren’t always as safe as they might think, as evidenced by one trader who netted 130 ETH, worth an estimated $250,000, by preying on the predators. 

Friday, bot trader and LocalCoin Swap CTO Nathan Worsley released two token contracts named “Salmonella” and “Listeria” on the Ethereum blockchain with the intention of luring unsuspecting bot traders into an ambush. Mining pool Ethermine – which only publicly announced its MEV strategy last Wednesday – became entangled in the token trap, netting Worsley a quarter-million dollars after a few hours’ work.

Related: Osprey Funds CEO: Trust Funds Will Morph Into ETFs

Ethermine, Worsley and other MEV trailers are playing the blockchain equivalent of high-frequency trading (HFT) strategies that recently came into the public spotlight with the Robinhood, r/WallStreetBets and Melvin Capital spectacle. 

Trades on decentralized exchanges (DEX) are sitting ducks while they remain idle in the processing queue. A small cohort of developers can and do take advantage of this lag time between hitting the trade button and the trade executing on-chain by front-running, back-running or, in this case, “sandwiching” a transaction.

Worsley’s gambit was a “poisoned” sandwich trade. In a sandwich, a transaction is both front-run and back-run (the bread), which causes price slippage for the transaction in between (the meat, or perhaps cheese).

“In layman’s terms, you see that someone will buy an asset, so you buy it first to artificially inflate the price, before selling afterwards at a profit,” Worsely explained in a post mortem.

A ‘poisoned’ sandwich for front-running bots

Related: Financial Watchdog Group Updates Guidance Affecting DeFi, NFTs

Nimble solo bot traders can take advantage of large players moving into the market. One method Worsley developed was poisoning a sandwich trade.

Worsley deployed a proprietary token contract with tweaked parameters, including notifications if anyone was trying to trade with the toxic contract. Additionally, the contract would return only 10% of the asked-for tokens in the Uniswap pool Worsely setup.

“It has some special logic to detect when anyone other than the specified owner is transacting it, and in these situations it only returns 10% of the specified amount – despite emitting event logs which match a trade of the full amount,” he said.

Worsley then sent out transactions with a both a low transaction fee and high slippage. Ethermine’s bots raced ahead to take advantage of the slippage as Worsley’s bait lingered in the transaction queue. 

“Instead of giving them a juicy payout, the token itself in the trade exploits the sandwich trader by giving them only a fraction of the tokens they thought the swap would yield,” Worsley explained. “After this happens, the ‘sell’ order of the sandwich trader now fails and they are left holding the Salmonella token. Instead of making a bunch of ETH in profit from my bait, they are instead left with a stomach full of Salmonella.”

Worsley remains unapologetic about his MEV strategy, telling CoinDesk DeFi is merely a game of poker.

“Nothing against Ethermine or the other traders personally, but this is a game of high-stakes poker and they sat down at the table intending to take all of my chips. Maybe next time they will be the ones walking home with all my chips. That’s the game,” he said.

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New York’s Greenidge Generation is set to become the first publicly traded bitcoin miner with its own power plant through a coming merger.

• Greenidge’s holding company announced Monday the merger has been agreed with Nasdaq-listed IT support solutions provider Support.com.
• The merger is expected to be completed in Q3 2021.
• Support.com will become a wholly owned subsidiary of Greenidge, with shares divided roughly 92-8 in Greenidge’s favor.
• Greenidge’s natural gas plant currently powers 19 megawatts of mining capacity, which it expects to reach 41 MW by the middle of 2021.
• The company also has goals to reach at least 500 MW of mining capacity by 2025.
• Shares of Support.com (Nasdaq: SPRT) exploded roughly 350% on the news, briefly trading above €7.50 (US$8.94) Monday, up from roughly €1.70 ($2.03) earlier in the day.

See also: A New York Power Plant Is Mining $50K Worth of Bitcoin a Day

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A Nigeria-based decentralized finance (DeFi) platform that allows users to pool capital for the creation of their own credit unions has launched its mainnet.

Backed by Binance, Google Launchpad and more, Xend Finance is a decentralized credit union protocol designed to “optimize” and “add value to the core operations” of credit unions, according to a company white paper.

It’s also the first DeFi protocol to launch from the African continent using the Binance Smart Chain (BSC) platform, aiming to make financial markets more accessible to underserved communities, according to a press release shared with CoinDesk on Monday.

Related: Osprey Funds CEO: Trust Funds Will Morph Into ETFs

See also: What Is DeFi?

“The problem for the citizens of many countries in Africa is that their currency valuations fluctuate wildly, often devaluing greatly compared to other regions,” said CEO Ugochukwu Aronu. “Through our platform and Binance Smart Chain, people can channel their savings into stable currencies, without worry that their money will devalue overnight.”

The platform allows users to earn annual percentage yields from savings held in personal or credit union accounts created by the protocol. Interest can be earned by converting cryptocurrency or fiat currency to stablecoins for staking – a way to participate in transaction validation on a “proof-of-stake” network by committing assets for a period of time.

Alongside its mainnet launch, the platform is introducing its $XEND token through a token generation event via automated market maker Balancer due later today.

Related: Financial Watchdog Group Updates Guidance Affecting DeFi, NFTs

Also read: Financial Watchdogs Have DeFi in Their Sights, Alter Wording Around NFTs

The Xend protocol charges credit unions created on its platform a small fee on transactions, as well as per complete customer save cycle, according to the white paper.

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Cybercriminals in Russia are going to extreme lengths to untraceably cash out cryptocurrency: The word used in online ads is “клад,” literally “buried treasure.”  

Cashing out crypto on Hydra, the sprawling Russian darknet marketplace, has evolved to include services that offer to hide large volumes of physical cash at a specified location, where the cash can be retrieved by the customer.

Ransomware, darknet markets and exchange thefts generate large volumes of cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin. The criminals behind this activity, however, face a challenge in terms of how to remove any link to identity when turning the proceeds into cash. Darknet users that are proficient in laundering crypto are willing to provide fiat off-ramps for a fee, according to new research from blockchain analytics firm Elliptic.

Related: Osprey Funds CEO: Trust Funds Will Morph Into ETFs

Russia’s illicit treasure hunts are not an entirely novel idea. The physical exchange of rubles for crypto using a GPS location is adapted from Hydra’s very sophisticated drug selling and delivery methods, which work like a secret gig economy based on reputation, courier vetting, potency testing and so on.

Hydra’s army of illicit sellers and buyers sometimes handle a bitcoin payment by topping up a prepaid debit card, or sending rubles to an online wallet service or bank account. 

But burying cash is increasingly seen as a fail-safe fiat off-ramp for criminals looking to avoid the long arm of cybercops (and analytics firms like Elliptic working on their behalf).

“It’s an interesting way of cashing out that people are starting to use,” Elliptic CEO Tom Robinson said in an interview. “It’s difficult to do at scale and requires that you are in Russia, but that’s where a lot of Hydra users are based.”

Outrunning AML

Related: Financial Watchdog Group Updates Guidance Affecting DeFi, NFTs

In the early days, when many crypto exchanges were not checking the provenance of customers closely and blockchain analytics tools were in their infancy, cashing in cryptocurrency proceeds of crime was less of a challenge. 

The situation today, involving global anti-money laundering (AML) regulators armed with blockchain sleuthing tools to trace and screen transactions is dramatically different, said Robinson.   

The darknet listing above advertises a service where, in return for a cryptocurrency payment, the vendor will bury vacuum-packed (all drugs and cash are vacuum packed to prevent dogs sniffing them out) physical cash “5-20 cm under the ground.”  

The service is costly, with fees of around 7% of the amount being exchanged, according to Elliptic. There are also other risks because thieves known as “seekers” sometimes trail the treasure men and steal the deliveries. 

Hydra is by far the biggest darknet marketplace to have ever existed, with about $125 million worth of transactions per week. (At its peak, Alphabay, the nearest rival, clocked between $50 million and $60 million per week.)

“I’m surprised Hydra hasn’t had more coverage because it’s absolutely huge,” Robinson said. “I think it’s probably because it’s Russian language that people don’t really think about it as much as that Western problem.”

Russian darknet markets are all about innovation, said Patrick Shortis, an expert on such marketplaces from the University of Manchester, citing the continually updated rule book known as the Kladman’s (Treasure man’s) Bible. 

“Russian dark markets differ from their Western counterparts in that the postal service in Russia is not as reliable, and so the dead-drop method is preferred,” Shortis said in an interview. “Also, in the West we care a lot about using PGP (pretty good privacy) and cleaning our coins and using monero and whatnot. Whereas in Russia, they generally tend to be more relaxed when it comes to a threat from the state.”

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Jordan Belfort, the author and former stockbroker known as “The Wolf of Wall Street,” has changed his previous critical stance on bitcoin, predicting the cryptocurrency’s price will go on to hit $100,000.

• Belfort told Fortune in an interview he believes bitcoin holds advantages over stocks such as its limited supply, which could see the cryptocurrency reach the $100,000 level.
• He also cited the increase in support bitcoin has received from institutional investors compared to its previous bull run in 2017.
• At that time, Belfort voiced his agreement with JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon’s assertion that bitcoin was a “fraud.”
• “I don’t think it’s a great model,” Belfort told The Street in September 2017, adding that cryptocurrencies would require some backing by central governments.
• “Sooner or later, a central bank or a consortium is going to issue their own cryptocurrency and that’s what will take hold.”
• Belfort pleaded guilty to stock fraud and money laundering in 1999, subsequently writing a memoir called “The Wolf of Wall Street,” which was turned into a film in 2013.

See also: Billionaire Investor Howard Marks Warming to Bitcoin

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The director of the People’s Bank of China’s (PBoC) Digital Currency Research Institute says designing its digital currency to be fully anonymous isn’t “feasible.”

Mu Changchun said the bank needs to balance privacy for users with “international consensus” on risk control, according to a report from STCN, a state-owned daily newspaper.

“The anonymity of the central bank’s digital currency is limited under the premise of controllable risks,” Mu said at the China Development Forum in Beijing on Saturday. “A completely anonymous central bank digital currency is not feasible” as it would would violate anti-money laundering, anti-terrorist financing and anti-tax evasion regulations, he said.

Related: ‘Wolf of Wall Street’ Jordan Belfort Predicts Bitcoin Hitting $100K

However, Mu argued the digital yuan would provide more privacy than commercial payments products like bank cards, WeChat or Alipay, which are tied more closely to the banking system.

The most anonymous digital yuan wallet would be linked to a cellphone number and allow users to make small payments. Those wishing to transact larger amounts would need to upgrade to one with more know-your-customer verification procedures, according to Mu.  

China is leading major nations in the development and piloting of a central bank digital currency (CBDC), but the project has raised concerns around the amount of insight it would give authorities into users’ financial data and behavior.

Read more: China, Singapore Look Ahead to CBDC Future at World Economic Forum

Related: Crypto Is Banned in Morocco, but Bitcoin Purchases Are Soaring

Its planned “controllable anonymity” will mean the central bank could observe and monitor transactions taking place while the transacting parties would remain private. But it still allows the PBoC to analyze transactions to monitor “crimes.”

Mu said digital yuan wallets use “ID anonymization technology” meaning personal information is concealed from “counterparties, operating agencies and other commercial institutions.” However, too great an emphasis on anonymity raises the cost of fighting crime, and could bring severe consequences, he said.

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Bitcoin-related Internet searches are jumping in Turkey after President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s ouster of the nation’s top central banker sent the local currency, the lira, plunging in foreign-exchange markets.

The Google search value for the term “Bitcoin” more than quadrupled to 100 on Sunday after Erdoğan dismissed central bank governor Naci Agbal, triggering fears of a sharp slide in the lira (TRY).

The lira plunged at least partly on concerns the new top central banker might implement capital controls as a way of tamping down the nation’s high inflation rate. Such a move would represent an alternative to implementing rate hikes, which are known to preserve the fiat currency’s value.

Related: ‘Wolf of Wall Street’ Jordan Belfort Predicts Bitcoin Hitting $100K

It’s possible some Turks see bitcoin as a way to deal with any potential capital controls or as a store of value if inflation accelerates or if the currency’s value falls further against global counterparts.

At press time, Google Trends, a barometer for gauging general or retail interest in trending topics, was returning a value of 41 on “Bitcoin” – still significantly higher than the levels seen last week. Meanwhile, search values for gold remain flat in Turkey in the wake of the latest financial upheaval.

Google Trends provides access to a mostly unfiltered sample of actual search requests made on Google and scales searches on a range of 0 to 100, according to the company. A score of 100 indicates it is the maximum number of searches observed for a term during a given time frame.  

Agbal raised interest rates by 200 basis points last week and has been widely credited for bringing stability to the lira’s exchange rate during his four-month tenure, as Bloomberg noted. As such, his dismissal has pushed the lira lower.

Related: People’s Bank of China Official Says Fully Anonymous Digital Yuan ‘Not Feasible’

The lira hit a 4.5-month low of 8.28 per U.S. dollar early Monday and was last seen changing hands near 7.92 per U.S. dollar, representing a 10% drop on the day, according to data source TradingView.

Arresting the sell-off may be challenging because the new central bank head, Sahap Kavcioglu, isn’t a fan of rate hikes as a way of curbing inflation or exchange rate slide, according to Bloomberg. Also, Erdogan appears to believe interest rate hikes cause inflation rather than control it.

It remains to be seen if there is a sustained decline in the lira and a rise in hedging demand for bitcoin. Some observers maintain that an impending currency crisis would accelerate the adoption of bitcoin in Turkey. The activity on local exchanges has picked up in the past 24 hours or so.

Also read: Bitcoin and Inflation: Everything You Need to Know

“There was a spike [in volumes] during the weekend because classical finance markets were closed,” Onur Gözüpek, cryptocurrency consultant at crypto exchange BtcTurk Pro, told Coindesk in an email.

Gözüpek added that users are buying stablecoin tether (USDT) as an alternative to the greenback. “Banks have lately stopped exchanging the dollar and euro on online banking systems,” Gözüpek said. “Currently USDT/TRY has the second highest trading volume after the BTC/TRY pair on BtcTurk.”

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A lawyer has described as “bombshells” comments made by the magistrate judge in the ongoing lawsuit between the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and blockchain payments tech provider Ripple.

In a YouTube video published Saturday, attorney Jeremy Hogan, who is not involved in the case, said Judge Sarah Netburn of the Southern District Court in New York interrupted the discussion to apparently suggest the XRP cryptocurrency is more like a currency than a security.

“My understanding about XRP is that not only does it have a currency value but it has a utility, and that utility distinguishes it from bitcoin and ether,” the judge said, according to Hogan.

Related: Osprey Funds CEO: Trust Funds Will Morph Into ETFs

This matter is at the heart of the SEC’s case against Ripple because the regulator claims XRP had been sold by the company and its executives without either being registered as a security or the firm seeking an exemption.

“No matter what the SEC may try and argue, a currency and a security are, by definition, in opposite … These are two different things,” Hogan said. He added the judge offering the view that XRP has utility is “exactly what Ripple wants the court to be thinking.”

Netburn’s comments came during a virtual hearing, observed by Hogan, over the SEC’s attempt to obtain personal financial information from Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse and Executive Chairman Chris Larsen.

The second “bombshell,” said Hogan, came as Netburn questioned whether “everyone who sold XRP – including you and me – are selling illegal securities” based on the SEC’s prior argument. The SEC attorney responded by saying that, under Section 4 of the Securities Act, only Ripple and its affiliates (meaning employees, Hogan said) could be accused of illegal sales.

Related: Financial Watchdog Group Updates Guidance Affecting DeFi, NFTs

This being the case, exchanges that have stopped selling XRP since the SEC action could now potentially relist it, according to Hogan, who stressed he wasn’t offering legal advice.

However, Park Bramhall, senior counsel at Lowenstein Sandler LLP, takes a different view. “The fact that the SEC has apparently stated that parties other than Ripple and its affiliates can resell XRP under Section 4 of the Securities Act doesn’t mean that exchanges are free to relist XRP,” he said.

“What the SEC appears to be saying here is that, in its view, parties other than Ripple and its affiliates can rely on the exemption from registration provided under Section 4(a)(1) of the Securities Act for resales of XRP, and that exemption is only relevant if XRP is deemed to be a security,” he told CoinDesk.

See also: Ripple’s Chris Larsen Files Motion to Dismiss SEC Case Over XRP Sales

Netburn is not the primary judge in the case but she is assisting District Judge Analisa Torres with aspects of the case such as discovery and mediation.

“If I’m Ripple, I’m feeling pretty good that my mediator and consulting summary judgment judge just said on the record what I essentially argued in my pleadings,” Hogen said.

There was no official court documentation on the hearing available at press time.

UPDATE (15:25 UTC, March 22 2021): Add comment from Park Bramhall.

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A lawyer has pointed out two “bombshells” dropped by the magistrate judge in the ongoing lawsuit between the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and blockchain payments tech provider Ripple.

In a YouTube video published Saturday, attorney Jeremy Hogan, who is not involved in the case, said Judge Sarah Netburn of the Southern District Court in New York interrupted the discussion to apparently suggest the XRP cryptocurrency may not be a security as the SEC claims.

“My understanding about XRP is that not only does it have a currency value but it has a utility, and that utility distinguishes it from bitcoin and ether,” the judge said, according to Hogan.

Related: ‘Wolf of Wall Street’ Jordan Belfort Predicts Bitcoin Hitting $100K

This matter is at the heart of the SEC’s case against Ripple because the regulator claims XRP had been sold by the company and its executives without either being registered as a security or the firm seeking an exemption.

“No matter what the SEC may try and argue, a currency and a security are, by definition, in opposite … These are two different things,” Hogan said. He added the judge offering the view that XRP has utility is “exactly what Ripple wants the court to be thinking.”

Netburn’s comments came during a virtual hearing, observed by Hogan, over the SEC’s attempt to obtain personal financial information from Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse and Executive Chairman Chris Larsen.

The second “bombshell,” said Hogan, came as Netburn questioned whether “everyone who sold XRP – including you and me – are selling illegal securities” based on the SEC’s prior argument. The SEC attorney responded by saying that, under Section 4 of the Securities Act, only Ripple and its affiliates (meaning employees, Hogan said) could be accused of illegal sales.

Related: People’s Bank of China Official Says Fully Anonymous Digital Yuan ‘Not Feasible’

This being the case, exchanges that have stopped selling XRP since the SEC action could now potentially relist it, according to Hogan, who stressed he wasn’t offering legal advice.

See also: Ripple’s Chris Larsen Files Motion to Dismiss SEC Case Over XRP Sales

Netburn is not the primary judge in the case but she is assisting District Judge Analisa Torres with aspects of the case such as discovery and mediation.

“If I’m Ripple, I’m feeling pretty good that my mediator and consulting summary judgment judge just said on the record what I essentially argued in my pleadings,” Hogen said.

There was no official court documentation on the hearing available at press time.

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Bitcoin (BTC) has been stuck in a range of $54,000 to $60,000 over the past few days. The near 40% rise from the Feb. 28 low is slowing as traders continue to take profit from the March all-time high around $61,000.

• The 50-period volume weighted moving average (VWMA) on the four-hour chart has flattened over the past week, which signals a slowing uptrend.
• The last time the VWMA declined was during the February sell-off.
• A flatter moving average could also be a sign of sideways price action, reflecting indecision between buyers and sellers.
• Bitcoin will need to defend lower support around $54,000 and break above $61,000 to resume the short-term uptrend.
• On the daily chart, initial support is around $50,000.

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India’s digital asset investors face more uncertainty amid reports the government is mulling a block on internet protocol (IP) addresses of exchanges and companies that trade cryptocurrencies.

• The claim comes via a report Monday from local magazine Business Today, citing a source with knowledge of the matter, but cannot be verified.
• Previously, India has attempted to block IP addresses of adult sites and some apps, according to Business Today, but with limited success due to the use of virtual private networks (VPN).
• India’s government has said it plans to introduce a bill in the current session of parliament that would ban “private cryptocurrencies,” though its scope is far from clear.
• There have been mixed signals regarding the planned legislation, with one government official stating India would completely ban cryptocurrency use, and another suggesting that will not be the case.
• Minister of Finance and Corporate Affairs Nirmala Sitharaman said earlier this month, “From our side, we are very clear that we are not shutting all options. We will allow certain windows for people to do experiments on the blockchain, bitcoins or cryptocurrency.”
• In February, Indian cryptocurrency exchanges launched the #IndiaWantsBitcoin campaign, an initiative to convince parliament to regulate cryptocurrencies rather than impose an outright ban.

Read more: India’s Central Bank Chief Airs ‘Major Concerns’ About Crypto Risks

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