Ledger Chaos, XRP, and Meme Coins

Crypto news: Here’s what’s been happening in crypto in this week’s roundup. Ledger faces a PR disaster with new recovery features, while Ripple investors face uncertainty as its case with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) nears a conclusion.

Google’s revamped artificial intelligence predicted Shiba Inu’s price while boxer Andrew Tate received backlash on Twitter for promoting a misogynistic meme coin.

Ledger Wallet Recovery Faux Pas

The crypto community criticized hardware wallet manufacturer Ledger for giving itself access to a seed phrase recovery feature embedded in its new firmware.

Subscription-based wallet users can recover lost seed phrases to access funds, a feature community members argue negates the purpose of a hardware wallet. 

Vocal critics of the recovery included Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao and Polygon Labs executive Mudit Gupta.

Ledger CEO Pascal Gauthier responded to the criticism by saying that Ledger Recover dovetails with a broader push to promote wider crypto adoption.

XRP and Ripple Labs Suffer as U.S. Case Drags On

BeInCrypto reported that investors this week continue to face losses as the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) lawsuit drags on.

The SEC’s case against Ripple Labs has restricted the company’s access to its reserves, creating liquidity issues for traders and the company, which has struggled to build its U.S. business.

If courts uphold an SEC ruling that XRP is security, the company may need to pay fines or adjust its business model.

Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse said this week that the company bucked resistance to its U.S. business by buying Swiss crypto custody firm Metaco for $250 million.

On Thursday, the firm announced a new central bank digital currency ledger for banks and governments.

Crypto News – Socially Speaking

Google Bard Predicts That SHIB May Never Reach $1 

Positive uses for crypto surfaced this week saw Google’s assistant predict Shiba Inu’s price by year-end. 

Bard predicted that while SHIB is unlikely to reach $1 since such a valuation will increase its market cap to over $589 trillion, increased demand could push SHIB’s price toward the goal. 

At press time, SHIB’s price rose to $0.0000087, dropping 1.32% in the last 24 hours.

Do Your Own Research Importance Highlighted This Week

Boxer Andrew Tate this week highlighted the dangers of meme coins after he tweeted a dud crypto project. The token imbued with the crude ticker SLUTS, was missing important project information.

On the surface, the token appeared to be a pump-and-dump scheme, replete with an airdrop, giveaways, buy calls, and tweets about wealth creation.

Crypto trader Gainzy said that Tate is aware of his tweets’ impact, even if he didn’t know about the meme coin. Such tweets can amount to market manipulation. That’s why it’s still advisable to do your own research.

Crypto Coin News

Render Token (RNDR) has risen since the start of the year to cross the $2.10 horizontal resistance area at the end of April. A rise after a previous brief fall will likely see it increase to $3.10.

The Pepe meme coin (PEPE) could soon rise to the next resistance area at $0.0000020 or reclaim the $0.00000013 support area.

An increase in the Lido DAO (LDO) governance token could see it move above a descending wedge’s $2.80 resistance line. This action follows a previously suspected breakout above the descending wedge on May 17.

The MASK token price could break the $5.05 horizontal resistance area to reach $6.80. A reversal will cause the token to drop to $3.80. 

The next rise in Conflux (CFX) price could see it breach a $0.48 resistance area.

Mutant Grandpa Club Tops LunarCrush AltRank List

LunarCrush’s alt ranking pegs Mutant Grandpa Club as the number one non-fungible token (NFT) collection for the week. The AltRank metric measures a collection’s traction in the market and considers market volume, social score, and social volume.

Despite declining interest in the metaverse, Sandbox NFTs saw social engagements rise 294%.

For BeInCrypto’s latest Bitcoin (BTC) analysis, click here.