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Pro-XRP lawyer John Deaton has tipped less than a 3% chance for the United States Securities and Exchange Commission to score an outright win against Ripple, as an end to the long-running lawsuit draws closer.

The CryptoLaw founder has been a vocal advocate for Ripple against the SEC, which filed a lawsuit against the company in December 2020, alleging that the sale of its XRP $0.53 token represented an unregistered securities offering.

In a June 3 episode of The Good Morning Crypto podcast, Deaton said he tipped a 25% chance that presiding U.S. District Judge Torres rules in outright favor of Ripple, and a 50% chance that Ripple claims victory by way of a “splitting the baby” ruling.

This refers to Judge Torress “drawing a line in the sand,” where she could potentially rule that XRP was offered as an unregistered security before 2018. However, in the wake of the Hinman documents — which refer to internal SEC messages related to a 2018 speech given by former SEC Director William Hinman — it’s possible that cryptocurrencies can transition from securities to commodities once they become sufficiently decentralized.

“I think that XRP itself is going to be deemed not a security and that I think that secondary market sales show comment. Even if [Judge Torres] does rule finding that Ripple violated the law, that doesn't apply to secondary market sales,” Deaton explained.

While Ripple executives including its CEO Brad Garlinghouse have long been predicting an imminent end to the rollercoaster lawsuit from SEC, Deaton highlighted that Judge Torres will most likely come to a final decision before Sept. 30 this year.

Deaton brought attention to what he called a “six-month list” that district judges must file to Congress. The list details all of the summary judgements that have been pending for longer than six months. It gets published on the last day of March and the last day of September.

“She [Judge Torres] has never been on this list. It’s like a public shame list that says ‘look I’m shitty at my job.’”

Additionally, Deaton also gave his predictions for the price of Ripple’s native XRP token following a positive ruling.

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Investing.com-- Gold prices fell slightly on Monday amid uncertainty over whether the Federal Reserve will hold interest rates steady later this month, while concerns over weakening economic growth pulled copper prices down.

The yellow metal fell on Friday after U.S. nonfarm payrolls data read much stronger than expected for May, which posited a hawkish outlook for the Fed as it moves to bring down high inflation.

But some Fed officials also suggested last week that the central bank may hold rates steady in June, as it gauges the impact of its monetary tightening measures on the economy over the past year. 

Regardless of its decision in June, the central bank is most likely to keep rates higher for longer- a scenario that bodes poorly for non-yielding assets such as gold. Strength in the dollar, on the prospect of elevated interest rates, weighed on bullion prices on Monday.

Increased risk appetite, after the U.S. government passed a bill to raise the debt ceiling, also kept investors out of risk-averse assets such as gold. 

Spot gold fell slightly to $1,947.89 an ounce, while gold futures fell 0.3% to $1.963.90 an ounce by 21:14 ET (01:14 GMT). Both instruments were trading close to over two-month lows.

Fed Fund futures prices show that markets are pricing in a nearly 80% chance the Fed will keep rates steady in June. But given that recent inflation and labor data read above market expectations, the bank may still hike rates further.

Gold is still expected to benefit from increased safe haven demand this year, especially as global economic conditions worsen amid pressure from high interest rates. 

But this notion weighed heavily on copper prices, which retreated on Monday. Copper futures fell 0.4% to $3.7180 a pound.

A string of weak economic readings from the U.S., Euro Zone and China had battered copper prices in recent weeks, pulling them to six-month lows as markets feared a slowdown in demand for the red metal.

Focus this week is on more cues from the world’s largest economies, including trade data from China and U.S. service sector activity. 

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Investing.com - The U.S. dollar gained in early European trading Wednesday after weak Chinese activity data hit risk sentiment, while the U.S. debt ceiling deal cleared an important hurdle.

At 03:55 ET (07:55 GMT), the Dollar Index, which tracks the greenback against a basket of six other currencies, rose 0.2% to 104.300, just below the two-month high of 104.420 seen earlier in the week.

Data released earlier Wednesday showed that Chinese manufacturing activity shrank for a second consecutive month in May, and at a sharper pace than the prior month.

This weakness in the important manufacturing sector, which is a key driver of local growth, meant that overall growth in business activity in the world’s second-largest economy also contracted, hitting risk sentiment to the benefit of the safe haven dollar.

USD/CNY rose 0.3% to 7.0979, with the yuan falling to a six-month low after crossing the 7.1 level for the first time since late November.

The bill to suspend the $31.4 trillion U.S. debt ceiling advanced late Tuesday when the Republican-controlled House Rules Committee voted 7-6 to advance it to the floor of the House of Representatives for a vote on Wednesday.

This makes a disastrous U.S. default less likely, but could also embolden the Federal Reserve to continue raising interest rates as inflation remains elevated, further helping the dollar.

Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland President Loretta Mester said on Wednesday, in an interview with the Financial Times, that she sees no "compelling" reason to wait to implement another interest rate hike.

Elsewhere, EUR/USD fell 0.5% to 1.0685 after the German state of North Rhine Westphalia, the most populous state in the country, recorded an annual inflation rate of 5.7% in May, considerably below the 6.8% expected and the revised prior number of 6.7%.

This news, coupled with Tuesday’s drop in Spanish consumer prices, support the European Central Bank officials who say the continent’s historic price spike is fading and interest-rate increases can soon end. 

The other German states are also due to release their CPI data later Wednesday, culminating in a national figure, along with French and Italian numbers, ahead of Thursday’s eurozone release.

GBP/USD fell 0.2% to 1.2384, following a 0.4% gain the previous day, while AUD/USD dropped 0.4% to 0.6494, with the Aussie dollar weighed by the weak Chinese PMI numbers even as Australian data showed consumer inflation moved back towards 30-year highs in April.

USD/JPY traded 0.2% lower to 139.47, having climbed as high as 140.93 in the previous session before a report indicated that Japanese officials "will closely watch currency market moves and respond appropriately as needed."

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Investing.com -- Gold bulls are still counting on another record high if the Chicken Little metaphor of saving the world — or more precisely, the U.S. economy, from a government debt default or recession — doesn’t come true. Yet, the path of least resistance for the yellow metal over the past three weeks has been lower.

Gold for June delivery on New York’s Comex settled Friday’s session at $1,944.30 an ounce, up just 60 cents, or 0.03%, on the day. The benchmark gold futures contract fell to a nine-week low of $1,936.90 earlier in the session, after hitting an all-time high of $2,085.40 on May 4. For the week, June gold was off 2% after another 2% loss the prior week and 0.25% the week before that.

The spot price of gold, which reflects physical trades in bullion and is more closely followed than futures by some traders, was at $1,945.04 by 14:00 ET (18:00 GMT) on Friday, up $4.19, or 0.2% on the day. Spot gold fell to a three-week low of $1,936.85 during the session, after a record high of $2,073.29 earlier this month, according to Investing.com data. For the week, spot gold was down 1.7%, after another 1.7% loss the prior week and 0.3% the week before that.

“The short term trend has turned bearish and unless we see signs of a rebound, which requires strong acceptance above the 38.2% Fibonacci level of $1,975 on a weekly closing basis, a further drop to 61.8% Fibonacci level $1,910 can hardly be ruled out,” said Sunil Kumar Dixit, chief technical strategist at SKCharting.com.

“But there's a possibility of gold buyers resurfacing at the test of $1,926 and $1,910 if gold drops to this zone,” Dixit added.

Craig Erlam, analyst at online trading platform OANDA, was also in the camp of a cracked upside for gold that wasn’t entirely broken.

“Gold’s rough week is ending as some investors seek protection in case debt ceiling talks hit a major roadblock at the 11th hour,” Erlam said. “It is crunch time for [Washington] DC and a possible TARP scenario [from 2008] could occur when Congress initially failed to pass the bank bailout program, which is why some traders are running to gold ahead of the long weekend. If it weren’t for another round of hawkish [inflation] data, gold would be finishing the week on a much stronger note.”

President Joe Biden declared Thursday the United States would avoid a disastrous credit default even as lawmakers went on a 10-day break without a deal on raising the nation's borrowing limit to keep paying the bills. There are seven days until June 1 -- the earliest possible point when the government estimates it could run out of money to service its debts -- and missed loan repayments would likely spark a recession, roiling world markets. But members of the House of Representatives began hitting the road for the Memorial Day recess after their final vote Thursday morning and are not due to return until June 4.

“Gold is in the danger zone as optimism remains that a debt-ceiling standoff will be resolved and as U.S. economic resilience will force the Fed to keep rates higher for longer,” Erlam said. “Gold can benefit if inflation doesn’t prove to be too sticky and the labor market starts to soften. The week ahead will provide clarity on what happens with the U.S. default watch and if the U.S. economy remains too strong and warrants further Fed tightening.”

Gold was pressured Friday after the Federal Reserve’s favorite gauge for U.S. inflation came in hotter-than-forecast for April, indicating that the central bank will raise interest rates again in June and July versus expectations for a pause.

All key metrics in the so-called Personal Consumption Expenditures, or PCE, Index rose for last month against forecast levels as the Fed keenly looked for indicators that would compel a hold on its higher-for-longer monetary policy that has already seen 10 rate hikes over 15 months.

For the year to April, the PCE Index expanded at 4.4% versus forecasts for 3.9% and previous growth of 4.2%. For the month of April itself, it jumped 0.4%, as expected and versus a prior expansion of 0.1%.

“Core” PCE, which strips out volatile food and energy prices, gained 4.7% on an annualized basis versus both the projected and previous rate of 4.6%. On a monthly basis, it rose 0.4% against the forecast and prior rate of 0.3%.

“Inflation is a problem and the consumer remains red hot,” economist Adam Button said on the ForexLive forum. “The Fed is going to hike again and now the odds are 58-42% for June and July is 100% with a slight chance of another hike. At some point the Fed will have to pause and evaluate but we're lapping some very high energy numbers now and it's not enough to get inflation to a 3-handle. At minimum, the Fed needs to start seeing some monthly numbers at +0.3% or lower.”

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Decentralized finance protocol Voltz now allows Avalanche users to trade interest rate swaps of the Secured Overnight Financing Rate (SOFR), a benchmark dollar rate used throughout the global economy. 

The new feature allows investors to hedge their exposure to interest rate changes and speculators to bet on whether the rate will go up or down, according to a May 24 announcement from Voltz seen by Cointelegraph.

SOFR is the interest rate on overnight loans paid by institutions when they use United States Treasury bonds as collateral. It was created to replace the older London Interbank Lending Rate (LIBOR). Because loans secured by Treasury bonds are considered very low risk, SOFR is often used as a benchmark to calculate other rates. SOFR is heavily influenced by the Federal Funds Rate set by the Federal Reserve.

In traditional finance, companies have used interest rate swaps based on SOFR for years to help protect themselves against rate fluctuations. For example, a company that wanted to borrow could use these products to protect itself against Fed rate hikes. 

The Voltz feature makes this traditional finance product available on the Avalanche network, potentially opening its use case to a wider group of investors. 

Simon Jones, CEO and co-founder of Voltz Labs, said that the new feature would help level the playing field between retail investors and large institutions. 

“Everyone is exposed to what the Fed decides to do [but] only a handful of institutions have access to interest rate swap markets that allow them to hedge that exposure, until now,” he said. In his view, the launch of the Voltz protocol makes “traditional financial markets accessible on DeFi rails.”

Traditional financial products have been making their way into DeFi slowly but surely. Securities broker-dealer INX launched shares of Greenbriar Capital via Ethereum on April 3 and developed a compliance-friendly wallet for institutions to go along with it. On April 27, Neobank released a Soulbound token protocol to simplify the Know Your Customer process for DeFi. Neobank hopes the protocol will enable banks to integrate more with the growing Web3 ecosystem.