Top Ripple Executive Steps Down, Shibarium Nearing Major Block Milestone, Massive 407,510 LTC Changes Hands: Crypto News Digest by U.Today

U.Today presents the top three news stories over the past day. Take a closer look at the world of crypto!

Top Ripple executive steps down

Yesterday, Emi Yoshikawa, VP of Strategy & Operations at Ripple, took to X platform to announce her decisionto leave the company. A Harvard Business School graduate, Yoshikawa joined Ripple in 2016 and progressively advanced through various roles, including Director of Joint Venture Partnership, Senior Director of Joint Venture Partnership and Senior Director of Global Operations, before becoming Vice President of Strategy and Operations in 2020. During her eight years at Ripple, she significantly contributed to developing the company’s strategic roadmap while also engaging in thought leadership and advocacy. Yoshikawa also served as a board member of SBI Ripple Asia, a joint venture between Japanese financial giant SBI and Ripple. In a heartfeltX post, she expressed her pride at being part of Ripple and promised to continue to "root" for the XRP community.

Shibarium close to major block milestone

According to data provided byShibariumscan, Shiba Inu's layer-2 solution, Shibarium,is currently nearing the eight million block milestone. At the moment of writing, the protocol's number of total blocks stands at 7,983,203, driven partly by a massive increase in total transactions on the network. Shibarium's other metrics saw impressive growth as well, with the total transaction count exceeding 538 million and the number of registered wallets reaching 1,893,888. Additionally, Shibarium maintains an impressive average block time of five seconds, positioning it among the fastest layer-2 solutions on the Ethereum network. SHIB is now trading at $0.00002448, down 2.39% over the past 24 hours; still, despite this recent dip, the asset has seen a 34.32% increase over the past month. Although the overall market trend may influence the potential rise or fall of SHIB during this bull cycle, Shibarium could assist in reversing ongoing sell-offs.

407,510 Litecoin (LTC) in one sweep, what's happening?

Whale Alert blockchain tracker recentlyspotted a huge Litecoin transaction,with 407,510 LTC shifted on the Binance exchange to an unknown wallet. The value of this transfer is estimated to be approximately $35.4 million. This large transaction has led to speculation, with some analysts suggesting that a whale may be accumulating the asset or that it could represent an over-the-counter (OTC) trade. Regardless of the reasons, the transfer indicates renewed interest in Litecoin, as moving assets to a personal wallet typically reflects an investor's intent to hold and confidence in the cryptocurrency's long-term value. Notably, this transfer occurred despite a 3.7% decline in LTC's spot price. At the moment of writing, LTC is changing hands at $87.66, up 1.31% over the past 24 hours, per CoinMaketCap. The market factors that could have contributed to Litecoin's recent uptick in institutional interest include the potential for Litecoin ETF, with a filing from Canary Capital to launch a Litecoin ETF in the U.S.