Bitcoin Flat Near $61K as Whales Continue to Accumulate; XRP Down 10% as SEC Appeals Case

• Bitcoin remains relatively stable above $61,100, while ether experiences a 4% drop to $2,390 amid geopolitical tensions following Iranian airstrikes on Israel, influencing a broader market sell-off.
• Despite the downturn, there's significant whale accumulation of Bitcoin, suggesting anticipation of a future bull run. Meanwhile, bitcoin ETFs see outflows, whereas ether ETFs attract inflows.
• XRP drops over 10% after the SEC's decision to appeal a ruling on its regulatory powers over crypto markets.

Bitcoin {{BTC}} and ether {{ETH}} continued in the red at the start of Asian trading hours Thursday as the market withstood another sell-off.

BTC is flat, trading above $61,100, while ETH is down 4% and trading at $2,390. Crypto markets took a hit from Tuesday night after Irani airstrikes on Israel, which the latter has vowed to retaliate, in a move that has dented a rally in risk assets, including bitcoin.

However, whales continue to accumulate bitcoin at unprecedented rates despite the macro environment and market dullness, CryptoQuant founder Ki Young-Ju said in an X post.

Whales colloquially refer to influential entities that hold largest amounts of any asset - and on-chain data shows new bitcoin whales are making sizeable purchases in anticipation of a bull run ahead.

Look at how fiercely the new whales are stacking #Bitcoin; this market has never seen such accumulation. pic.twitter.com/o314O54G0a

— Ki Young Ju (@ki_young_ju) October 2, 2024

The CoinDesk 20 (CD20), a measure of the performance of the largest digital assets, was down over 3% as investors continue to sell most major cryptocurrencies.

Outflows from the BTC exchange-traded funds (ETFs) continued with $91.76 million in outflow during the Wednesday U.S. trading day. Ether ETFs experienced the opposite, with inflows of $14.45 million, breaking a two-day streak of outflow.

XRP plunged more than 10% in the past 24 hours after the U.S. SEC said on Wednesday that it is appealing a court ruling restricting its ability to regulate cryptocurrency markets. The SEC will ask the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to review a July 2023 decision that the XRP token sold by Ripple Labs on public exchanges did not meet the legal definition of a security.

Memecoin mog (MOG), the second-largest cat-themed token behind popcat (POPCAT), saw little price movement despite being mentioned on Republican candidate Donald Trump's X account.

A Polymarket market tracking Trump's mention of the word "mog" - or related adjectives - before December 31 was unchanged at 13% of "yes" votes, leading to some drama among voters.

Elsewhere in the market, LDO, the native token of non-custodial staking solution Lido, is down nearly 9%, following Ether's decline.

Artificial Intelligence tokens are also not moving, despite an announcement from OpenAI that it had raised $6.6 billion at a valuation of $157 billion.

CoinGecko data shows that the category, which includes {{NEAR}}, {{TAO}}, and {{ICP}} is down 1.8%. Worldcoin, which was founded by OpenAI's Sam Altman, but has no formal ties otherwise to OpenAI, is down 4%.