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The price of Bitcoin seems to have finally caught its breath after last week’s constant downward trend that saw it reach the low $7000 level. After reaching a high of around $8600 on March 19, the past day has seen it more or less hovering around the $8500 mark with no big swings in either direction.
The lack of price activity can probably be largely attributed to a general lack of news, positive or negative, in the cryptocurrency ecosystem. The recent spike to $8600 was likely due to G20 leaders dismissing the cryptocurrency market as a threat to the global financial ecosystem, which most believe is a favorable outcome for the industry.
Unlike Bitcoin, however, Ethereum has not managed to recover from the dip as much. This can be easily demonstrated by the fact that its 24-hour price change currently sits at -1.74%, while Bitcoin is just barely in the positive.
The lack of momentum displayed by Ethereum may come as a disappointment to several people in the cryptocurrency ecosystem who were hoping for it to overtake bitcoin in terms of market capitalization during the dip. As it stands though, both cryptocurrencies have lost over 50% of their value since the all-time high achieved in January.
Other currencies seem to have recovered proportional to Bitcoin though, with Bitcoin Cash notably finding its way back to the $1000 price point.
Ripple and Litecoin are also well in the green at this point. Over the weekend, XRP reached a low of around $0.55, while it currently trades at $0.69 – a 25% gain. Litecoin has also been hovering around $160 for the past few days and seems to be closely following the rest of the market.
Barring any sudden catastrophe in the cryptocurrency market, it is likely that the sell-off period is over, at least temporarily.
Top Stories from the Crypto World
1. Twitter joins Google and Facebook in banning cryptocurrency-related advertisements
Following the recent outburst of cryptocurrency-related scams on social media websites, it seems as if companies have finally decided to step in. Not too long after Google announced that it would be banning cryptocurrency advertisements on its ad network, reports have emerged that Twitter will soon follow suit.
Twitter is currently overrun with digital currency scams even outside of general advertisements. Bot accounts impersonating almost every major cryptocurrency personality are commonly found on the platform. Their tweets often instruct victims to transfer an amount of ETH to the scammer’s wallet while promising to send ten times as much in return.
The situation has been so dire, in fact, that Ethereum co-founder, Vitalik Buterin, has resorted to changing his name on Twitter to “Vitalik ‘Not giving away ETH’ Buterin”
2. Bittrex announces delisting of 82 altcoins from its trading platform
In a new support post on its website, Bittrex has announced the removal of as many as 82 different digital currencies, citing problems of low liquidity and/or unreliable infrastructure.
Out of the 82 altcoins to be delisted, at least 28 of them face problems of “broken blockchains or wallets that will not allow withdrawals.”
Moving forward, the company has stated that it will be vetting new altcoins and require that they adhere to a “strict coin listing criteria”. The exchange has requested users to withdraw their holdings prior to the delisting.
3. German researchers discover links to child abuse content on Bitcoin Blockchain
A research paper released by authors from Aachen and Frankfurt University in Germany has suggested that transaction data on the bitcoin blockchain may include links to content of objectionable nature. The authors claim that at least three instances of child pornography were found, an offence that would be illegal in most states around the world.
The report reads, “While largely harmless, potentially objectionable blockchain content is infrequently inserted, e.g., links to alleged child pornography or privacy violations.”
According to the researchers though, only 0.5 percent of all data present on the bitcoin blockchain is illegal in nature. While it is a rather miniscule amount right now, there is no stopping the number from growing given the decentralized aspect of the cryptocurrency.