U.Today presents the top three news stories over the past day.
Ripple CEO reacts to major XRP milestone
Yesterday, May 19, CME Groupannounced the launch of XRP and Micro XRP futures on the X platform. Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghousepraised the development, calling it "a key institutional milestone for XRP." From now on, institutional players will be able to gain exposure to XRP without owning the actual coin. Traders can also trade futures outright or agree to buy or sell them on a fixed basis to the day's index close, with large trades facilitated through block trades. According to Garlinghouse, Ripple's acquired prime brokerage firm, Hidden Road, executed the first block trade at market open. Despite the futures launch, XRP is now trading down 0.33% over the past 24 hours, per CoinMarketCap. However, the lack of volatility is not surprising, as the futures were initially announced in April.
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Bitcoin enters ATH season, Samson Mow believes
In a recentX post, Samson Mow, CEO of JAN3 and vocal Bitcoin supporter, stated that the world's largest cryptois entering a season during which it can potentially reach new historic highs. Although Mow did not mention BTC directly, writing simply "Feels like ATH season," there is no other digital asset he regularly posts about. Bitcoin's previous all-time high was reached at the $109,114 level on Jan. 20. Over the weekend, BTC managed to spike to $107,140; however, after a pullback, it is now trading at $104,668. Samson Mow is not the only one predicting an all-time high for Bitcoin this year; last week, “Rich Dad Poor Dad” author Robert Kiyosaki stated that Bitcoin could reach $250,000. Another notable figure, Mike Novogratz, told CNBC he expects Bitcoin to reach $130,000 first and then $150,000.
Key update on upcoming SHIB L3 Alpha released by SHIB team
@Shibizens, a SHIB-affiliated X account that shares news related to Shibarium, has recently posteda new update on the SHIB Alpha layer, which is currently being tested on Puppynet. According to the update, this layer-3 solution will have seamless compatibility with ZK and Optimistic rollups. Additionally, the post emphasized that the SHIB Alpha Layer is "built to power scalable, low-cost infrastructure across a global network state—enabling real-world applications and next-gen dApps." At the end of the post, to protect the SHIB community from any fraud and malefactors, the team reminded followers that the layer-3 solution is currently in development and has not been publicly released yet. However, the SHIB Alpha Layer has already attracted interest from institutional partners, such as the UAE Ministry of Energy.
