Norges Bank, the central bank of Norway, has released its annual “Financial Infrastructure Report." It devoted a considerable part of the report to crypto assets and the question of whether Norway should depend on international regulatory examples to control its market.

The European Union’s Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) regulation will come into force in a year or two, and it “will probably also apply to Norway.” However, “the Ministry of Finance will assess EEA relevance and implementation in Norway,” Norges Bank noted. Norway is a member of the European Economic Area but not the EU.

In the wake of transitioning back to traditional work environments after several years of widespread remote employment, an increasing number of people have found themselves leveraging their mobile devices and online services as essential tools for both professional and recreational trading.

With crypto markets rebounding since the beginning of 2023, retail investors are rediscovering their appetite for cryptocurrencies and other digital assets. For example, the Crypto Fear and Greed Index hit its highest index score earlier this year, recording 66 on March 20. This index aims to numerically represent current sentiment toward the crypto market, with the highest score being 100. A score of 66 has not been recorded since November 2021, when Bitcoin hit an all-time high of $69,000.

In addition, XRP weakened against both of the crypto market leaders Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH) over the last 24 hours. At press time, XRP was down 0.72% against BTC and 1.34% against ETH. As a result, 1 XRP was worth 0.00001723 BTC and 0.0002556 ETH.

XRP Current Market Standing
XRP (XRP) is ranked as the sixth biggest crypto based on its market cap, according to CoinMarketCap. It experienced a 1.70% drop in price over the last 24 hours, taking its price down to $0.4624 at press time. This also put its total market cap at approximately $23.987 billion.

In an exclusive interview during the Bitcoin 2023 conference in Miami, Thiel disclosed the strategy behind Marathon’s figures in the first quarter of 2023, when the firm reduced its net loss from $12.9 million ($0.12 per share) from Q1 2022 to $7.2 million ($0.05 per share) this year.

A combination of more hash rate coming online from mining plants and a price protection approach is shielding Bitcoin mining firm Marathon Digital Holdings through the bear market, CEO Fred Thiel told Cointelegraph.

At press time, CoinMarketCap indicated that BTC had printed a 0.25% gain over the last 24 hours. As a result, the price of Bitcoin (BTC) stood just below the key $27K level at $26.9K. This added to the leading crypto’s already-positive weekly price performance – taking the total weekly gain to +0.28%.

The crypto trader and analyst, Crypto Rover, predicted in a tweet this morning that a weekend breakout for Bitcoin (BTC) is imminent. This is after a parallel wedge had formed on BTC’s 3-day chart.

Technical indicators on BTC’s chart suggest that BTC will climb to above $27K in the next 48 hours.

At press time, BTC continued to trade below the $27K mark according to CoinMarketCap. It was, however, able to recover slightly since the whale’s selloff and was only down 1.01% for the previous 24 hours. The leading crypto’s weekly price performance was able to remain in the green at +2.82% as well.

This recent drop in the market leader’s price has led to traders becoming more worried that BTC will revisit the $20K-$25K range soon, according to Santiment. In a recent tweet, the blockchain intelligence firm indicated that BTC’s social dominance had spiked again over the last 24 hours, and that increases in this off-chain metric are typically a product of fear.

Data from on-chain analytics firm Glassnode confirms that as of May 18, there are over 1 million addresses that hold at least 1 BTC.

On May 10, the United States House of Representatives Financial Services Committee and Agriculture Committee held their first joint hearing on digital asset regulation. The event felt like a logical continuation of another recent hearing where representatives lambasted Securities Exchange Commission Chair Gary Gensler for perceived regulatory overreach.

In the last seven days, all the top 10 NFT collectibles on Solana recorded over $13,000 in trading volume. The least among them, Degenerate Ape Academy, registered a trading volume of $13,100, with the highest performer, Mad Lads NFT, accumulating about $87,300 during this period.

A distinctive contrast exists between the activity level in Solana’s NFT space and the price behavior of the blockchain’s native cryptocurrency, SOL. While the buzz continues to increase among Solana’s NFT traders, SOL is tending to minimum volatility.

Solana’s native cryptocurrency, SOL, is trading within a tight range. In the past seven days, SOL’s price ranged between $19.81 and $20.84. The current sideways trend is the narrowest range in which Solana has traded since the beginning of 2023.

One significant factor affecting BTC’s growth is the decline in holdings by US institutional investors. Historically, during major bull markets, an increase in BTC holdings by US institutional investors has correlated with significant price surges.

The absence of new BTC smart money players was also an issue pointed out in the report.