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The past 24 hours have not been particularly productive for the cryptocurrency market with the prices of most currencies finding themselves at similar price points as yesterday. Bitcoin, that was around $8500 as of a day ago, dipped slightly to sub $8400 levels throughout the day before finally making its way up to $8700, or a net gain of 0.55%
Ethereum seems to have not moved at all in comparison though, with it being almost fixed at the same $530 price it was at yesterday. From observations over the past few days, it’s likely that ETH’s price will react only to the market swinging heavily in one direction or another.
Overall, the market appears to be mixed. On one hand, some currencies such as Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash showed small gains, that was almost inconsequential at best, while on the other, Litecoin and Ripple also behaved similarly, if only in the negative direction instead.
For the second time this week though, EOS found itself outdoing every other top 10 cryptocurrencies after gaining as much as 6% overnight.
In the vacuum of any news coming from the cryptocurrency ecosystem, good or bad, it seems as if the reduced trading volume is really slowing down the growth of the market.
Currently, the cumulative market cap of all cryptocurrencies is at approximately $350 billion and has been hovering at that level for the past few days.
Top stories from the crypto world
1. Starbucks may use blockchain technology for payment app
If reports are to be believed, Starbucks may soon integrate blockchain technology into its mobile app infrastructure. The move may seek to provide users with transparency regarding their coffee purchases.
The executive chairman of the company, Howard Shultz, said “I think blockchain technology is probably the rails in which an integrated app at Starbucks will be sitting on top of.”
Several companies have announced successful blockchain-based trials for logistics tracking in the past few months, including South Korea-based Samsung and Hyundai Merchant Marine.
2. Monthly user traffic at major cryptocurrency exchanges falls by half
According to the market intelligence tool, Similarweb, most digital currency exchanges have had their traffic decline by at least 50%, with the figure going as high as 56%.
Binance, for instance, saw its website traffic fall from 191.5 million hits to 87.3 million, making it one of the worst offenders on the list.
It is possible that with falling cryptocurrency prices, investors are not keen on moving their holdings between different altcoins anymore. The continued downtrend has also somewhat demotivated people against making speculative investments for now.
3. Dutch Court rules Bitcoin to be “transferable value”
In an unexpected ruling involving a dispute over 0.591 BTC, a Dutch Court motioned in favor of a plaintiff being rightfully entitled to his bitcoin mining proceeds from an unlisted mining company, Koinz Trading BV.
The suit, first filed on February 2, 2018, was finally settled after the company was ordered to either pay the Bitcoin amount or declare insolvency by a lower court.
The court ruling said:
“Bitcoin exists, according to the court, from a unique, digitally encrypted series of numbers and letters stored on the hard drive of the right-holder’s computer. Bitcoin is ‘delivered’ by sending bitcoins from one wallet to another wallet. Bitcoins are stand-alone value files, which are delivered directly to the payee by the payer in the event of a payment. It follows that a Bitcoin represents a value and is transferable. In the court’s view, it thus shows characteristics of a property right. A claim for payment in Bitcoin is therefore to be regarded as a claim that qualifies for verification.”