What Happened in Crypto Today? Donald Trump to Support Bitcoin Miners | Japanese Firms Buys BTC

On June 13, 2024, the global crypto market shrank by 2% shedding over $58 billion in valuation, meanwhile, Donald Trump, Ripple Labs and Metaplanet, a Japanese Firm all dominated the headlines. 

Crypto Market Shrinks on Fed Rate Pause After Schocks

After a positive start to the week, the US Fed’s decision to hold interest rate unchanged on June 12 has sparked negative reaction among crypto investors. The decision effectively dashed hopes of a H1 2024 rate cut as widely anticipated by many analysts.

24 hours since the decision, sellers are still dominating the crypto market momentum. Bitcoin price dipped nearly 4%, while ETH price tumbled to  a 25-day low of $3,580.

However, altcoins performed slightly better with Toncoin (TON) and Injective (INJ) registering over 5% gains within the daily timeframe on Thursday.

Trump Courts Bitcoin Miner, Promises Support for Crypto Industry

A group of Bitcoin miners recently convened with former U.S. President Donald J. Trump at his Mar-a-Lago estate. During the meeting, the Presidential candidate expressed his understanding of cryptocurrency and acknowledged the role of Bitcoin miners in stabilizing the energy supply from the grid.

Matthew Schultz, the executive chairman of cryptocurrency mining firm CleanSpark, confirmed the gathering occurring and that Trump said he’d be an advocate for cryptocurrency miners’ interests in the White House.

In a post on his Truth Social account, Trump recently declared that Bitcoin mining might be “our last line of defense against a CBDC (Central Bank Digital Currency,” and voiced his desire for all remaining Bitcoin to be “MADE IN THE USA!!!”

Trump has increasingly focused Bitcoin and other digital assets during his recent campaign efforts, aiming to connect with new voter demographics. He has sought counsel from tech magnate Elon Musk and recently vowed at a Libertarian Party convention to commute the sentence of Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht.

Earlier, his campaign started accepting cryptocurrency donations via Coinbase Commerce.

Japanese Investment Firm Metaplanet Bolsters Bitcoin Holdings with ¥250 Million Purchase

Japanese investment firm Metaplanet has revealed it purchased an additional ¥250 million ($1.6 million) worth of Bitcoin, taking its total BTC holdings to 141, worth around $9.4 million.

The announcement coincided with a 9.9% surge in Metaplanet’s stock price and was the third time the company has revealed a Bitcoin purchase since it went public. The investment firm made Bitcoin a reserve asset in a bid to reduce its exposure to Japan’s high national debt and the resulting volatility in the yen.

According to data from Statista, Japan’s net debt to gross domestic product (GDP) ratio was the highest among G7 nations in 2023, reaching approximately 159%.

Metaplanet’s Bitcoin strategy seemingly mirrors that of software developer MicroStrategy, which started buying BTC back in 2020 and has since accumulated 214,400 coins valued at $14.3 billion to become the world’s largest corporate Bitcoin owner.

Ripple Labs Closes Acquisition of Standard Custody & Trust Company

Ripple Labs has finalized its acquisition of digital asset custodian Standard Custody, in a deal seen as central to the fintech firm’s planned rollout of a United States dollar-backed stablecoin and to its broader real-world asset tokenization goals.

Standard Custody, a New York-based firm, is particularly attractive over its regulatory approval from the New York Department of Financial Services (NYDFS), one of the most stringent financial regulators for digital assets.

Jack McDonald, CEO of Standard Custody, will assume the newly created role of Senior Vice President of Stablecoins at Ripple while retaining his position at Standard Custody. The acquisition follows Ripple’s 2023 purchase of Metaco, another digital asset custody firm, for $250 million.

Ripple’s acquisition of Metaco underscored the belief that the institutional cryptocurrency market will reach $10 trillion by 2030 as banks increase their focus on digital asset custody services for their customers.

Ripple, along with industry players including Chainlink and Algorand, sees real-world asset tokenization as a major growing market which, according to Chainlink, could balloon to over $800 trillion of all the world’s capital assets are tokenized.