| Bitcoin | $27,059 | 7 day: +15% | | Ethereum | $728 | 7 day: +16% | | All crypto | $721B | 7 day: +11.3% | | Bitcoin dominance | 69.4% | 7 day: +2.3% | Prices as of 5 p.m. EST
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 Ripple's Brad Garlinghouse Coinbase is in the process of delisting XRP and will halt all XRP trading by Jan. 19, 2021. - The largest U.S. cryptocurrency exchange, Coinbase, notified users in a blog post dated Dec. 28 that it will discontinue Ripple (XRP) trading services due to its ongoing legal proceedings with the SEC.
- The post, issued by Coinbase's Chief Legal Officer Paul Grewal, includes a timeline as to how the exchange will suspend XRP (XRP) trading pairs on its platforms.
- XRP wallets will remain accessible for customers after Jan. 19, for withdrawals only.
- Coinbase suggested that the eligible customers will still receive Flare network's SPARK token airdrop, based on certain jurisdictions where Coinbase Custody and Coinbase Wallet are able to support XRP airdrops.
More delistings: - OKCoin has suspend Ripple (XRP) spot trading, margin trading, and deposits starting from Jan. 4, 2021, until further notice, in light of the SEC lawsuit.
- Bitstamp, B2C2, OSL, CrossTower, and Beaxy have also delisted XRP.
- Bitwise eliminated XRP from its index.
- Jump Trading and Galaxy Digital have stopped making markets in XRP.
- Crypto.com will delist XRP on Jan. 19.
- More delistings will likely occur over the next few days.
Coinbase 
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A judge has approved the SEC's emergency asset freeze against Stefan Qin's Virgil Capital LLC and its cryptocurrency trading fund, Virgil Sigma Fund LP. - The SEC has accused Stefan Qin of fraud.
- The 23-year-old cryptocurrency trader allegedly misappropriated millions of dollars in assets this year.
- The amount could exceed $92.4M, according to the SEC's lawsuit filed in Manhattan federal court on Dec. 22.
- Qin allegedly duped investors into putting money in various funds, all controlled by Qin.
- The civil action mentions Qin, five LLCs, credit lines, and Chinese loan sharks.
- Parties to the suit include Qin, Virgil Capital LLC, Montgomery Technologies LLC, Virgil Technologies LLC, Sigma Fund, Quantitative Research LLC, and VQR Partners LLC.
- The SEC revealed in the filing that Qin's Sigma fund held $112M. It seeks disgorgement of ill-gotten gains, interest, and a civil penalty.
Law360
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 The Overstock Coliseum The SEC disallowed a rule change proposed by tZero's Box Exchange LLC to modify equity securities trading through a Boston Security Token Exchange facility. - On Dec. 28, 2020, the SEC approved a rule change that would have allowed National Market System stocks to utilize Box Exchange's Boston Security Token Exchange LLC.
- A Canadian financial services company worth $5.5B called TMX Group (X.TO) owns BOX Exchange (formerly known as BOX Options Exchange).
- Box exchange also has joint venture with Overstock's (NASDAQ:OSTK) tZERO.
- The proposal suggested using the Ethereum blockchain for recording and publishing securities ownership balances.
- Less concerned about Ethereum, the SEC focused on the potential for misinformation using a so-called "omnibus wallet."
Coindesk
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Ripple Labs shareholder SBI Holdings Inc. (8473.T) says XRP is not a security in its interpretation of certain Japanese laws. - The $5.6B financial services group and a long-time partner of Ripple Labs published a supportive statement.
- Nevertheless, SBI admitted that it is not an investor in XRP.
- SBI's stock price does correlate with XRP's price from time to time.
- SBI's public statement suggests that XRP is not a security under certain Japanese laws, relying on research by Sadakazu Osaki, a fellow at the Nomura Research Institute.
- SBI Holdings Group concluded its support saying that it hopes to see more use cases for Ripple's distributed ledger technology in Japan and abroad.
- XRP has declined 58% in one week, losing more than $11B in market capitalization.
Coindesk
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MoneyGram (NASDAQ:MGI) says it received no notification of a negative impact on its commercial arrangement with Ripple. Moneygram is monitoring for "potential" impacts. - MoneyGram (NASDAQ:MGI) is a U.S.-based, $385M international remittance company.
- MoneyGram is not a party to the SEC's lawsuit against Ripple, Brad Garlinghouse, and Chris Larsen.
- MoneyGram does not utilize RippleNet for direct transfers of consumer funds, and does not invest in nor hold XRP.
MoneyGram
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- A Twitter user shared that Jed McCaleb, a co-founder at Ripple who left the company in 2014 to focus on Stellar (XLM), stopped selling his XRP holdings after the SEC filed a lawsuit clarifying that XRP is a security. McCaleb still owns a substantial amount of XRP tokens. In 2016, McCaleb settled a lawsuit with Ripple to sell 5.3 billion XRP tokens owned by him and his children.
- Shark Tank billionaire Mark Cuban sarcastically advised public companies to learn from bitcoin and commit to never issue new shares, "ever." Cuban tweeted that such an announcement could "immediately" boost their stock price.
- Marathon Patent Group (NASDAQ:MARA) entered into a contract with Bitmain to purchase 70,000 units of Antminer S-19 ASIC miners.
- White House Market, a popular darknet marketplace, reportedly stopped accepting bitcoin as a payment option because Morphtoken blocked access from Tor, according to a social media post. However, the privacy-centric market still accepts payments in Monero (XMR).
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 |  | Curated by Associated Press fanboy, eye-strained news terminal watcher, and bitcoin follower since $1, Aaron Wise. Temporarily listening to news squawk boxes in Florida while awaiting the construction of cryptopia. |  | | Editor | Jonathan Harris is a writer for Inside.com. Previously, he wrote for The Huffington Post, TakePart.com, and the YouTube channel What’s Trending. | |
