Crypto Today: Bitcoin, Ethereum, Ripple climb higher, beat mid-week slump even as selling pressure persists

• Bitcoin trades above $58,000 on Wednesday, following two consecutive days of positive inflows in Spot ETFs this week.
• Ethereum trades above psychological resistance at $3,000 as founder Vitalik Buterin and key influencers speak at EthCC conference on Wednesday. 
• Ripple sustains above $0.43 as traders await end of SEC lawsuit and analyst predicts double-digit target for XRP in 2025. 

Bitcoin, Ethereum, Ripple update

• Bitcoin trades at $58,103 at the time of writing. The largest asset by market capitalization extended gains on Wednesday even as the German government continued its BTC transfers and market participants remained fearful. The crypto fear and greed index reads fear on Wednesday, signaling there could be a buying opportunity for sidelined traders. Bitcoin price struggles around $58,000 despite investors quietly accumulating.
• Ethereum trades above the psychological barrier at $3,000 on Wednesday. The second largest cryptocurrency has noted a decline in its social dominance on July 10, despite the Ethereum Community Conference (EthCC) and the upcoming Exchange Traded Fund (ETF) approval awaited by traders. Key Ethereum personalities like founder Vitalik Buterin and Gavin Wood of Polkadot spoke at the event on Wednesday, per an official update. 

Ethereum ETFs poised to defy market underpricing

• Ripple lawsuit rages on while XRP traders await a final ruling in the case. Pro-crypto attorney Fred Rispoli expects an end to the lawsuit as early as July 13 and latest by the end of July, 2024. XRP trades at $0.43 at the time of writing, up 0.5% on Wednesday. Ripple lawsuit ruling awaited while analyst sets double-digit target for XRP in 2025

Chart of the day

OP/USDT daily chart 

Optimism (OP) is currently in an uptrend. The Layer 2 Ethereum scaling token is likely to extend its gains by over 21% and rally to the lower boundary of the Fair Value Gap (FVG) at $1.961, as seen in the OP/USDT daily chart. 

OP faces resistance at the upper boundary of the FVG at $1.733. 

The momentum indicator Moving Average Convergence Divergence (MACD) supports the bullish thesis. The green bars above the neutral line and the MACD line crossing above the signal line are signs of underlying positive momentum in OP’s upward trend. 

OP could find support at the July 5 low of $1.222. 

Market updates

• Vitalik Buterin said at the EthCC that Ethereum needs to be prepared for a 51% attack with an automated response mechanism to reduce the burden on the social level, per Colin Wu’s report. 

• MetaMask, a digital asset wallet, announced that MetaMask Portfolio now supports more than 30 DeFi protocols. 
• On-chain intelligence tracker Lookonchain identified a large wallet investor’s purchase of AAVE and Uniswap (UNI) early on Wednesday. Typically, whale accumulation is a bullish sign for an asset. 

Industry updates

• Coinbase Chief Legal Officer Paul Grewal said in a tweet on X that the exchange platform has filed an amicus (Friend of the court) brief in support of Legit.Exchange and the Crypto Freedom Alliance of Texas’ suit against the SEC. 

• Ripple was recognized by CNBC and Statista Charts as one of the World’s Top Fintech Companies in 2024. 

• Bank of Israel’s Deputy Governor told Reuters that the bank will wait for the European Union’s (EU) decision before declaring its stance on Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC).