Ripple CTO Shuts Down Debate About XRP Centralization, MicroStrategy Announces $1.1 Billion Bitcoin Purchase, XLM and SHIB Get Prime USDC Listings: C

U.Today presents the top three news stories over the past day.

Ripple CTO ends speculation about XRP centralization

The ongoing debate regarding Ripple, XRPL and the potential inclusion of XRP in a U.S. crypto reserve continues to escalate. The discussion, however, took a new direction when  allegations of centralization were made against Ripple. Pierre Rochard, VP of Research at Riot Platforms, argued that the control Ripple allegedly holds undermines any claims of decentralization. In his recent critical  X post , Rochard wrote that Ripple could "fork the XRPL software and add trillions more XRP or remove the escrow locks."  In response , Ripple's CTO, David Schwartz, defended the XRPL's decentralized nature by explaining its consensus algorithm and emphasizing the lack of incentives for dishonest behavior among validators. He also reassured readers that while changes to the XRPL can be proposed, the decentralized structure needs a collective agreement, which prevents unilateral action. Finally, Schwartz dismissed Rochard's legal concerns regarding Ripple's ownership of the XRP trademark, asserting that such claims would be inconsequential in a U.S. legal context.

MicroStrategy announces gargantuan $1.1 billion Bitcoin purchase

According to MicroStrategy's  announcement made on Monday, Jan. 27, it acquired an additional  $1.1 billion in Bitcoin , marking its 12th consecutive weekly purchase. The average price for this latest acquisition reached $105,596, the highest price level so far. MicroStrategy's total Bitcoin holdings have now reached 471,107, valued at nearly $47 billion at the moment of purchase. Following this most recent purchase, the company's average buying price for Bitcoin stands at $64,511. Despite this announcement, MicroStrategy's stock (MSTR) experienced a nearly 6% decline in premarket trading, coinciding with a broader downturn on the crypto market that was caused by the launch of a highly affordable and open-source model by DeepSeek, an obscure Chinese AI startup; Bitcoin dropped by 5% to $99,103, shares of Nvidia (NVDA) were down as much as 13% and Microsoft (MSFT) plunged by nearly 7%.

XLM and Shiba Inu (SHIB) get prime USDC listings

According to Bitget's  X post from Monday, it has added  five new trading pairs against Circle's major stablecoin, USDC. Apart from tokens like Injective's INJ, Phala Network (PHA) and RENDER, this new wave of listing also introduced such popular digital assets as Stellar (XLM) and Shiba Inu (SHIB). The key point is not just that these coins are now listed with USDC but that the second-largest stablecoin has gained acceptance on this exchange, particularly alongside one of the most popular cryptos at the moment. Currently, the USDC vs. USDT pair ranks 11th among all trading options on Bitget with $32.43 million. It appears that the exchange's strategy is to reduce USDT's dominance by offering USDC trading options. If that is the case, the selection of tokens for listing is what one might call more conventional. SHIB is among the largest meme cryptos, backed by a strong community of supporters, while XLM is receiving significant attention due to the rise of XRP.