Weekly Flip Thru: Billions of new crypto users & blazing fast crypto cars

Hola, crypto muchachos! It’s the beginning of spring and crypto prices are showing signs of a spring awakening. As the first quarter of 2023 comes to a close, price rallies were the big story to watch. Other news includes a report from Citi that makes the bold prediction that billions (with a ‘b’) of users will make their way into crypto – just not in the way that we might currently think about crypto. And finally, the fastest sport on earth is taking another lap with a fresh crypto company sponsorship deal.

Running up that hill (Decrypt)

A new report from Citi arrives at the consensus that crypto is “approaching an inflection point, where the promised potential of blockchain will be realized and be measured in billions of users and trillions of dollars in value.” The crypto adoption curve and crypto’s broader market cap are both poised to take off, in other words. Citi’s analysts identify two key trends as fueling the next boom for crypto: Central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) and tokenization of real-world assets.

Need a nifty example of what those analysts are talking about? The newly listed PAX Gold (PAXG) token that’s available at CoinFlip bitcoin ATMs offers investors a token that represents a physical asset. In the PAXG example, the underlying asset is gold that’s sitting in vaults in London.

Buying PAXG at a crypto kiosk or via CoinFlip Preferred gives the investor a tokenized version of a physical asset – gold. The report from Citi posits that more of these digital on-ramps will emerge for traditional financial holdings, including precious metals and central government currencies.

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Rising tide? Q1 closes with crypto price gains (Forbes)

Let’s look back at the first quarter of 2023. The price of bitcoin (BTC) was hovering near the $30,000 mark at the close of Q1 and prices rallied more than 70% during the first quarter of 2023. So far, this year has been all about bitcoin. Or has it?

The crypto community will be closely watching the trial of Ripple Labs, issuer of the XRP token, vs. the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The SEC charged Ripple Labs with selling unregistered securities in 2020, but Ripple contends that XRP is not a security.

The outcome of the long legal battle between Ripple Labs and the SEC could have broader implications for crypto markets. Many altcoin enthusiasts would be thrilled with a winning verdict for Ripple Labs as this could possibly lead to price increases for many other altcoins like DOT, SOL, and even DOGE.

In other altcoin action, the price of ETH gained nearly 30% since the beginning of the year. And Litecoin (LTC), the silver to bitcoin’s gold, posted a nice pickup around 32% for its YTD price. Stellar Lumens (XLM) had an outstanding month to close out Q1. Prices for XLM witnessed healthy gains of close to 30% since the beginning of March 2023.

Off to the races: Crypto exchange inks F1 racing team sponsorship (Cointelegraph)

Lastly, we’re zooming over to the world of Formula 1 racing, where the fast-paced sport is welcoming crypto money back to the sponsorship ranks. Crypto exchange Kraken announced a new partnership with the Williams Racing F1 team in March. Crypto company logos were a familiar sight in the F1 scene during the run-up to record high crypto prices in the previous bull market.

A prolonged crypto winter and several big bankruptcies (including the high-profile FTX) put the brakes on free-flowing crypto sponsorship dollars in 2022. If the trends from Q1 continue to run at their current pace, then more crypto brands could be revving their engines to get F1’s growing fan base acquainted with the world of digital assets, NFTs, and self-custodial crypto wallets.

Did you get all that? For a steady refrain of crypto news and insights like the above, smash the subscribe button for the CoinFlip newsletter. It costs nothing but gives much more than that. Keep in mind that all crypto transactions are final and irreversible. Safeguard personal information whenever buying, selling, or swapping digital assets like cryptocurrency. Catch you next time, amigos.

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