The State of The Market — February 20, 2019BTC: $3,972.86 (-0.23%)ETH: $146.76 (-1.21%)XRP: $0.329170 (-2.75%)
The market remains stable after the gains made early this week. Both Bitcoin and Ethereum are struggling to push past their resistances at $4,000 and $150 respectively. The total market cap changed by less than $50 Million in the last 24 hours. Binance Coin (BNB) is the only coin which has made double-digit gains, and the market is giving mixed signals today. While yesterday’s volumes were the highest in the past few months, more volume is required to push Bitcoin above its resistance. If it fails to do so, Bitcoin could once again fall to $3,600 or even lower.
In other news, Ethereum experienced a huge surge in price this week, pushing its daily trading volume to $5.56 Billion yesterday. This is the highest amount of Ethereum traded in a day in the past year. Ethereum had a rough 2018 in which it lost nearly 95% of its value. However, investors are interested in Ethereum once again with its upcoming Constantinopole update scheduled for the end of this month. Also, during a recent interview with Tesla CEO Elon Musk, the tech entrepreneur got on to the topic of cryptocurrencies and said that Bitcoin’s structure is “quite brilliant” and that “paper money is going away, and crypto is a far better way to transfer value than pieces of paper.” He did go on to discuss his concerns about the energy intensiveness of cryptocurrency mining and stated that “it would not be a good use of Tesla resources to get involved in crypto.
1) World’s largest cryptocurrency exchange Binance has launched its decentralized platform Binance DEX on testnet. It is now live for public testing where users can create wallets and interact with the exchange. Binance will use its own blockchain platform called Binance Chain, boasting one-second block times. Binance has also launched a blockchain explorer for Binance Chain. Traders hold their own private keys for trading crypto assets. Trust wallet and Ledger have already integrated with Binance DEX, and BNB will be moved to Binance Chain after its final launch. Just last week, Binance revealed that the listing fee for Binance DEX would be $100,000. (Read More)
2) American cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase has acquired blockchain analytics startup Neutrino for an undisclosed amount. The acquisition was made to support Coinbase’s ambition of supporting multiple cryptocurrencies in various jurisdictions. The startup will help coinbase identify which tokens are gaining value and traction for them to list. All of Neutrino’s 8 employees will move into Coinbase’s London office this week. However, they will work as a separate entity and continue serving their existing clients. The startup will also help identify undesirable activity on Coinbase. This comes just days after it was discovered that a terrorist organization was funneling Bitcoin donations through Coinbase. (Read More)
3) Search engine giant Google has just added Bitcoin’s “B” symbol to its keyboard. However, it is only available on iOS now. Google is known to make its releases first on iOS, even before its own Android platform. Also, Apple has not made the jump yet. Users of Google keyboard on iOS can press and hold the dollar ($) symbol to replace it with Bitcoin. This is a sign of Bitcoin’s legitimacy and wider acceptance. (Read More)
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