Payments-focused XRP’s immediate prospects look bleak, with its price chart flashing a «rising wedge» breakdown.

A rising wedge comprises two converging trendlines that connect higher lows and higher highs. This convergence suggests that upward momentum is weakening. When the price moves below the lower trendline, it signals a shift to a bearish trend.

XRP dived out of its rising wedge pattern during Wednesday’s early Asian hours, suggesting that the attempted recovery from the April 7 lows near $1.60 has likely lost momentum, allowing sellers to regain control.

According to technical analysis theory, analysts should identify the starting point of the rising wedge as the initial support level following the breakdown, which means XRP can now fall back to $1.60. The cryptocurrency has also fallen below the Ichimoku Cloud, a momentum indicator, on the hourly chart, reinforcing the bearish outlook indicated by the rising wedge breakdown.

Tuesday’s high of $2.18 is the level for bulls to beat to invalidate the bearish outlook.

Noble, a blockchain for issuing real-world assets (RWA) and stablecoins, announced Wednesday that it will expand its platform by introducing “AppLayer,” an Ethereum-compatible rollup that allows developers to create their own RWA applications and infrastructure.

Noble’s AppLayer aims to let developers build new financial tools optimized for real-world assets like stablecoins — digital assets whose value is pegged to another asset, like the U.S. dollar.

AppLayer will leverage Celestia, a data availability blockchain that aims to bring down storage costs for data-intensive blockchain networks. Celestia, like Noble, is plugged into the Cosmos blockchain ecosystem and is compatible with the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM), meaning it can read smart contracts from other Ethereum-based chains.

The Noble team stated in a press release viewed by CoinDesk that it will launch its Ethereum-compatible AppLayer rollup in the third quarter of 2025.

“Noble plans to unlock its cross-ecosystem potential as EVM applications continue to seek reliable and seamless access to native stablecoin liquidity,” the team wrote. “Noble’s AppLayer will be seamlessly integrated with a number of blue chip DeFi projects born in the Ethereum ecosystem.”

Stablecoins have received considerable attention in recent weeks, with the U.S. Congress preparing significant stablecoin legislation later this year. Entities including President Trump’s World-Liberty Financial, banking giant Fidelity, and the U.S. state of Wyoming have also expressed plans to create their own stablecoins.

Noble launched in March 2023 as an application-specific blockchain, or «appchain,» purpose-built for stablecoin issuance within the Cosmos ecosystem. Initially, it aimed to expand liquidity Cosmos by enabling native asset issuance through the Inter-Blockchain Communication (IBC) protocol, which is the technology used by Cosmos-based blockchains to transfer assets and other data.

Over time, Noble has extended its reach beyond Cosmos, integrating with Ethereum and other ecosystems to facilitate quick stablecoin transfers. Additionally, in March, Noble introduced USDN, a yield-bearing stablecoin backed by U.S. Treasury bills.

“Building stablecoin issuance infrastructure over the past two years has given us a deep appreciation for the transformative potential of stablecoins to onboard the world to crypto,” said Jelena Djuric, co-founder and CEO at Noble, in the press release. “The Noble AppLayer, built with Celestia’s technology underneath, finally gives builders the freedom to build highly scalable and performant stablecoin-native applications.”

Read more: How a Ph.D. Student’s Research Paper Turned Celestia Into $345M Blockchain Project Overnight

Seychelles-based cryptocurrency exchange OKX is expanding to the U.S., establishing a new regional headquarters in San Jose, California and rolling out access to its platform and its native OKX Wallet to U.S.-based crypto traders.

In a Tuesday evening announcement, newly-appointed CEO Roshan Robert said the expansion was “a commitment to responsible growth.” Robert was most recently an executive at institutional crypto lending platform CLST, and was a founding team member of crypto prime broker Hidden Road, which was recently acquired by Ripple for $1.25 billion.

“As regulations evolve, OKX is working closely with US regulators and policymakers to ensure we operate transparently and compliantly,” Robert wrote. “We’ve built a comprehensive, risk-based global compliance program that includes enhanced due diligence, a robust KYC process, customer risk rating systems, advanced fraud detection, AML tools, geo-blocking, and market surveillance technologies. These are all part of our commitment to a secure, compliant trading environment.”

Two months ago, a subsidiary of OKX settled charges that it had operated in the U.S. without a money transmitting license, agreeing to pay the Department of Justice (DOJ) over $500 million in penalties and forfeited fees. The DOJ alleged that, despite having an official policy prohibiting U.S.-based users from accessing its platform, OKX “sought out customers in the United States, including in the Southern District of New York.”

Read more: After Binance’s $4.3B Lesson, Do Rival Exchanges Risk Running Afoul of U.S. Rules?

OKX is not the first crypto company to eye an expansion or a return to the U.S., which has grown considerably friendlier to the crypto industry under U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration. Earlier this month, token launch platform CoinList announced a return to the U.S. after five years away, and bigger names — including Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange — are reportedly considering returning to the U.S.

Existing customers of OKCoin, the U.S.-accessible sister company of OKX, will be “seamlessly migrated” to the OKX platform, which will offer customers “deeper liquidity, lower fees and advanced trading tools,” according to the company’s launch announcement.