Today in Crypto: Elad Roisman to be New SEC Chairman | Ripple Partners Respond To SEC Lawsuit | Binance Korea Shuts Down

The SEC lawsuit against Ripple yesterday dominated the headlines today with several of its key strategic partners formally addressing the issue and offering their stand in regards to their association with the crypto company. Another major news that made the headlines was the announcement of the new SEC chairman after the former one exited early. Let us take a look at some of the key stories of the day,

• Elad Roisman is replacing Jay Clayton as the new SEC chairman
• Ripple key partners SBI Holdings and MoneyGram respond to the SEC lawsuit.
• Binance Korea shuts down within a year of opening owing to low trading volume.
• Bitcoin Remains Above $23,000 While XRP Slips Below $0.25.

Pro-Crypto Elad Roisman Takes Over as The New SEC Chairman

Elad Roisman is the new chairman of the Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) replacing Jay Clayton, a Trump appointee. Roisman’s appointment was well received by the crypto community since he is known to be pro-bitcoin and cryptocurrencies in general. The news was broken by SEC commissioner Hester Pierce.

Congratulations, Chairman Roisman! I look forward to your leadership of the SEC.

— Hester Peirce (@HesterPeirce) December 24, 2020

Jay Clayton was scheduled to step down by June 2021, however, owing to the US Presidential election results Clayton has concluded his term 6 months early. Clayton’s tenure was seen as a little regressive and the crypto community primarily hold against him for rejecting several Bitcoin Exchange Traded Fund (BTC ETF) proposals. The new chairman on the other hand is seen as pro-crypto and many believe he could pave the way for positive regulations in his tenure.

Ripple Key Partners SBI Holdings and MoneyGram Respond to SEC Lawsuit

The SEC lawsuit against Ripple and two of its executives are currently the hottest topic in the crypto space. Yesterday multiple exchanges announced the delisting of XRP token, while today two of its key strategic partners SBI Holdings and MoneyGram also formally addressed the issue, but gave quite contrasting responses.

SBI Holdings extended its unconditional support to Ripple and assured that even if the lawsuit goes against them, they really need not worry as 90% of its customers are outside the US while 80% of the remittance volume it generates also comes from outside the United States. On the other hand, MoneyGram is taking a cautionary approach and suggested they would wait for the lawsuit to unfold and until then they won’t be using its remittance corridors. They went on to claim that even though Ripple is one of their key remittance partners they don’t use their ODL services.

Binance Korea Shuts Its Operation Within a Year of Launch

Binance today announced the closure of its Korean subsidiary also known as Binance KR owing to low trading volumes and liquidity within a year of its launch. The official announcement read,

Binance KR will terminate the local exchange operations due to low usage and volume with limited trading pairs of BKRW, resulting in limited liquidity for its users.

Binance also announced a closure schedule post which customers won’t be able to access their accounts on the exchange. The closing schedule is as follows:

• Closure of BKRW charge up and new registrations at Binance KR: 24th December 2020 at 1:00 PM KST
• Closure of all trading services at Binance KR: 10th January 2021 at 1:00 PM KST
• Hard Shutdown (anticipated): 29th January 2021 at 1:00 PM KST
• Delisting of BKRW/BUSD Liquid Swap and BKRW trading pairs: 29th January 2021 at 1:00 PM KST

Bitcoin Remains Above $23,000 While XRP Nosedives Below $0.25

The crypto market was in recovery mode today after a considerable dump yesterday owing to the Ripple lawsuit which saw the third-largest cryptocurrency lose its position to Tether owing to a 40% price crash. XRP before the SEC lawsuit was consolidating above $0.50 but fell to $0.25  and currently trading at $0.26.

Bitcoin on the other hand continues to maintain its position above $23,000 despite most of the altcoins registering a dump with hundreds of millions worth of positions liquidated yesterday.