Another exciting week for crypto! There’s some serious speculation that XRP's recent price surge is due to a potential settlement between Ripple and the SEC. And yes, there’s more!

I’m Wendy O, and I’m proud to bring you the top crypto news stories this week for The Street.

XRP has been pumping in the past 24 hours, with the price hitting over $0.64, its highest point since March 25, 2024. There were no new updates that could have triggered this price action, but many speculate that a settlement with Ripple and the SEC is imminent. Some insider info for all you traders: Ripple is set to release 1 billion XRP, worth $641 million, in August.

Earlier this week, according to multiple crypto media outlets, the SEC might shelve its allegation that Solana is a security in the Binance lawsuit. The SEC wants to pause its claims that SOL, ADA, MATIC, and many other crypto assets are unregistered securities. The key takeaway is that while this is exciting news, it doesn’t mean the SEC is dropping the allegations, nor does it mean a judge has dismissed them. The court’s decision on these tokens being securities is just delayed.

This next story is for all the Link Marines. 21Shares has integrated Chainlink Proof of Reserve on the Ethereum mainnet to enhance transparency for the 21Shares Core Ethereum ETF. $CETH is backed by ETH and tracks ETH’s performance. Chainlink was chosen for its history of enabling over $12 trillion in total value for on-chain markets. The integration offers clear visibility into CETH's ETH reserves. Remember, DeFi doesn’t work as well without oracles, and Chainlink provides that technology.

Now, let’s do a little market update!

Bitcoin has been trading between $65,000 and $70,000, which is nice. I personally like this price action; to me, it’s almost like a cool-off before the next big move up (fingers crossed).

Not only was it Ethereum’s 9th birthday on July 30th, 2024, but this week, ETH ETFs saw $340 million in net outflows during the first week, while Bitcoin ETFs had $1 billion in net inflows despite outflows from Grayscale’s fund. ETH dropped 5% last week, while Bitcoin increased 2%. New ETH ETFs attracted $1.15 billion in inflows, excluding Grayscale’s ETF. Ethereum is currently holding support above $3,200, but more importantly, above $2,800, which I think is a good sign given the outflows in the first week of Ethereum spot ETFs.