Sullen start to September

After a bruising Tuesday for U.S. equities, futures tied to the Nasdaq were blinking red early Wednesday. The tech stock dung shower splattered shares in Asia and simultaneously spread to cryptocurrencies. Bitcoin, as of 7:30 a.m. (EST), lost 4% in 24 hours. It's now roughly $56,500. Total crypto market cap was down 5% to $2.08 trillion, according to CoinGecko.

A fresh macro data puzzle piece connected with manufacturing, suggested an economic slowdown, but the elephant in the auction house was AI juggernaut Nvidia which saw shares drop 10% amidst reports that the dominant provider of AI processors is facing scrutiny over said dominance as part of a wider DOJ antitrust probe.

But take note. The digital markets are not entirely ensconced in doom/gloom.

We're following the No. 77 coin, Bitcoin SV (BSV), oddly up 4% to roughly $45, per CoinGecko. Supposedly, or so goes some scuttlebutt on social media, BSV recently became the beneficiary of a cloud computing/blockchain collaboration between Aerospike and Teranode, which is the BSV network's core processing technology. But the incongruous pump might tie more into the inglorious return of Craig Wright to the X platform where he is posting under an account named "S Tominaga."

Wright, an Australian computer scientist who helped create BSV, has claimed, unsuccessfully, to be Satoshi Nakamoto, the name used by the presumed pseudonymous person or persons who developed Bitcoin.

A six-year-old hard fork of Bitcoin Cash (BCH), BSV reached an all-time high of nearly $490 back in April of 2021. This past March, when BTC reached a new ATH near $74,000, BSV crossed $110. It's definitely less expensive than its larger, more well-known namesake. BSV has been sub-$50 since late July. 

Around that time, Wright was forced to publicly disavow his claims about being Satoshi Nakamoto. The mortifying disclaim came after a court ruled Wright not only wasn't the original BTC white paper author but also that he'd forged documents as part of his legal effort to prove he was.

Most Top 100 cryptos are down 3%-4%. Several are nursing losses in the double digits, percentage-wise. No. 63, THORChain (RUNE), plunged 13% in the past day. We are not sure why. Nvidia's steep slide seems to have inspired risk-takers to display a more reticent side. Japan's Nikkei 225 fell 4% in the just-concluded session. Oil and gas are down. Even gold prices skidded.

Uh-oh, did a tech bubble just pop? 

“September has commenced with a widespread rush to the sidelines,” Cointelegraph said, citing The Kobeissi Letter. "Crypto is falling like risk appetite has disappeared."

In a matter of "weeks," Ripple intends to launch a USD-backed stablecoin, declared Brad Garlinghouse, the company's CEO, speaking earlier today at an event connected with Korea Blockchain Week. The coin has been in the works since the spring and last month it underwent a limited trial phase.

“It’s called Ripple USD," Garlnghouse said, CoinDesk reports.

"RLUSD has been minted.”

Plans for RLUSD apparently have been afoot since March of 2023. That's when USD Coin (USDC), the second-largest stablecoin, lost its dollar peg.

“We felt like there was an opportunity for a credible player already working with lots of financial institutions to lean into that market,” the Ripple chief said.

In early August, Ripple, in conjunction with some "enterprise partners," began testing RLUSD, said to be fully backed by "U.S. dollar deposits, short-term U.S. government Treasuries and other cash equivalents.”

To begin, the stablecoin is scheduled to be deployed onto Ripple's institution-focused XRP Ledger and the Ethereum blockchain. It'll be based on Ethereum's ERC-20 token standard.

Per CoinDesk, plans for the stablecoin come amid further boosts to the XRP Ledger network via smart contracts, opening up a world of DeFi development across a range of financial services and compatible with the Ethereum network.