Live updates: Bitcoin nears $63,000 ahead of highly anticipated SpaceX IPO

XRP has slid to about $1.12, down roughly 7.5% on the week and 27% over the first quarter, per CoinDesk data. But the XRP Ledger has gone the other way as activity on it keeps climbing.

Alexis Sirkia, chairman of interoperability firm Yellow Network, and a former market maker for Ethereum and XRP, argues price is the wrong thing to watch. “Long-term value comes from real adoption and usage,” he said in a message to CoinDesk.

Messari’s first-quarter report put XRPL daily transactions up about 35% to 2.48 million. Tokenized real-world assets on the ledger, mostly treasuries, jumped 124% to a record $2.25 billion. Ripple’s dollar stablecoin RLUSD grew 45% to $340 million, the largest on the network.

None of that growth runs on XRP, however. RLUSD and the tokenized assets sit on the ledger without anyone needing to hold the token. XRPL fees are a fraction of a cent. So more activity does not mean more demand for XRP, and analysts reading the same numbers may keep wondering whether any of it would reflect on the price.

Until ledger activity turns into actual XRP buying, and not just volume in other tokens, the network and the token keep drifting apart.

Oracle (ORCL) shares fell about 10% in premarket trading on Thursday, as the rising cost of the company’s AI ambitions overshadowed better-than-expected fourth-quarter results.

The software giant reported adjusted earnings per share of $2.03, ahead of analyst estimates of $1.96, while revenue rose 21% year over year to $19.18 billion, topping expectations of $19.10 billion. Cloud infrastructure revenue surged 93% to $5.8 billion.

Yet the strong performance failed to reassure markets, with focus turning to Oracle’s mounting funding needs.

The firm said it plans to raise another $40 billion through debt and equity financing, after already raising $43 billion in debt and $5 billion in equity in fiscal 2026.

With capital expenditures hitting $55.7 billion and free cash flow deep in the red at negative $23.7 billion, investors appear increasingly uneasy about how the company will fund its aggressive AI expansion.

The European Central Bank (ECB) is expected to raise its benchmark interest rate by 25 basis points on Thursday to 2.25%, marking its first hike in borrowing costs since August 2023.

The move comes as eurozone inflation accelerated to 3.2% year over year in May, the highest reading since September 2023 and well above the ECB’s 2% target. The increase has been driven by higher energy prices and persistent inflationary pressures stemming from the conflict involving Iran and disruptions to shipping through the Strait of Hormuz.

The ECB’s policy decision is scheduled for 14:15 UTC.

Wednesday’s inflation report, in line on the annual figures with a softer core, does not give bitcoin a clear push either way, according to Iggy Ioppe, chief investment officer at tokenization platform Theo.

The data keeps the Federal Reserve cautious and in no rush to cut rates, Ioppe said in an email to CoinDesk. Markets had already stopped treating June as a likely cut after last week’s jobs report, and the CPI print validates that repricing rather than reversing it.

For bitcoin, “an in-line print is unlikely to be a clean catalyst either way,” he said, leaving liquidity expectations capped and risk assets trading on positioning rather than a fresh dovish impulse.

The pressure stays on for gold, however. Real yields, meaning interest rates after inflation, remain the key variable, and without near-term cuts the cost of holding a non-yielding asset stays high.

Ioppe argued the gold conversation is moving from price direction to carry – or the income earned from holding a position – with investors weighing passive exposure against gold-linked strategies that generate yield from market activity.

Crypto caught a modest bid on Thursday after Wednesday’s inflation report showed underlying price pressures staying contained. Bitcoin rose about 1.9% over 24 hours to roughly $62,600, leading the majors, per CoinDesk data.

Headline inflation rose 0.5% on the month and 4.2% over the year, the fastest annual pace since April 2023, but energy did most of the work, climbing 3.9% on the month and accounting for more than 60% of the increase as oil rose on the Iran conflict.

Core inflation, which strips out food and energy and is the gauge the Federal Reserve leans on, rose just 0.2% on the month, below the 0.3% forecast, and 2.9% over the year.

The bounce is shallow and concentrated in bitcoin. BTC is down less than 1% over the past seven days, holding its 200-week average, while the rest of the top tokens remain deep in the red on the week. Ether is off about 6.5% at roughly $1,651, XRP down 7.5% near $1.12, Solana down 7.4% around $65, and dogecoin off 7%. BNB held up better at a 2.1% weekly loss.

Traders now await Fed’s June 17 meeting, where markets expect no change to rates. The hot headline gives hawks cover to stay restrictive, while the soft core gives doves room to argue the pressure is narrow and energy-driven.

Another widely-cited catalyst is the public offering of Elon Musk-owned satellite, rockets and AI company SpaceX, which prices later Thursday and is expected to start trading on Friday at a $1.8 trillion valuation.

Shares for the company are already four times oversubscribed, with some singular entities bidding as much as $10 billion for the stock, per Bloomberg.