Another bawdy day

Crypto seems enlivened by changing dynamics and wildly robust fund flows. Total crypto assets hit $3.95 trillion, a record. Bitcoin, on Monday afternoon, soared to $107,800, yet another new ATH. Ethereum crossed $4K and even flirted for a spell with $4.1K.

Extra excitement in the market this Tuesday morning owes to the launch of Ripple's payments-space-friendly stablecoin, RLUSD, set to begin trading today, lifting spirits surrounding the XRP Ledger on which it will be issued, in turn goosing the spot price of XRP, up 13% to about $2.70 as of 7:25 a.m. (EST). XRP's total market capitalization has reached $153 billion, cementing its spot as the third-largest digital asset, according to CoinGecko. This RLUSD launch comes with the industry at large leaning into a regulatory warm front that is transforming a once frigid U.S. landscape into something more closely resembling a land of milk and honey.

“We’ve been using stablecoins more and more in our flows," Jack McDonald, Ripple’s head of stablecoins, told CNBC. "That piqued our interest, that we should have our own native stablecoin.”

Another part of the impetus for Ripple's dollar-pegged foray is the growth it has witnessed in the area of cross-border payments, McDonald said.

Concurrently, payments rival Stellar saw its native Lumen (XLM) pop off, too. XLM, which is the 19th-largest token, with a market cap of $13.9B, gained 12% over the past 24 hours to hit $0.4581.

No. 5 Solana (SOL) and No. 9 Cardano (ADA) each gained 4%.

With a $4 trillion crypto highwater mark coming into view, it might seem picayune to single out a double-digit loser but what the heck, let's quickly go there. Yesterday, Vana Network, focused on a sub-genre of AI ("programmable data ownership"), went live and launched a token, VANA, which reached a high of $35 overnight but retraced in recent hours. VANA at last glance had shed 40% off its opening-day apex. With a market cap above $600M, VANA is the 185th-largest coin, according to CoinGecko.

Crypto funds, led by U.S. ETFs tied to Bitcoin and Ethereum, saw $3.2 billion worth of inflows last week, according to CoinShares. That lifts the YTD total to $44.5B, a figure four times as large as any prior annual mark. "Astonishing," said James Butterfill CoinShares' head of research.

Also on a jingling sleigh ride is MicroStrategy, a software company that has become a leveraged BTC proxy, and which is slated to enter the Nasdaq 100 next week. Yesterday marked the sixth straight Monday that MicroStrategy declared having snapped up more BTC. Roughly $45B worth of the largest crypto is sitting in the company's coffers (Bloomberg).

And here's another milestone for crypto take-up: El Salvador formally authorized Bitget to offer a range of Bitcoin-related services, paving the way for exchanges in a country that shocked the world in 2021 when it announced it was making BTC legal tender.

More recently, the Salvadoran government has adjusted its policies in connection with its pursuit of a billion-dollar loan from the International Monetary Fund, CryptoNinjas reports. The IMF reportedly nudged the nation to amend its laws pertaining to BTC acceptance. Previously, businesses were mandated to accept it; now it will now be optional.

For El Salvador, it's part of a delicate balancing act, as CryptoNinja pointed out. The small nation is "maintaining its ambition to become a crypto hub while addressing the immediate need for economic stability."

Bitget's native BGB, meanwhile, has gained 19% in the past day. It's now the No. 35 coin on CoinGecko's list. BGB has gained 150% over the past two weeks. It's record high of $3.94 came a few hours ago.