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In the past three days, Bitcoin has surged from $4,300 to $4,893 – an increase of a colossal $593. It is likely that profit taking would happen at these levels before Bitcoin heads any further north. At the time of writing Bitcoin is trading at $4828, posting a market cap of $80.2 billion.
Despite the upcoming hard fork, Bitcoin price is continuing an upward momentum and most of the volumes are coming from major markets such as Japan and the US. Bithumb, largest Korean exchange, earlier today was trading Bitcoin at $4999 a piece.
Bitcoin analyst and investor, Tuur Demeester, previously said that the Bitcoin price has a chance of achieving the interim target of $5,000 if SegWit2x turns out to be a minority fork.
Past week we saw Coinbase coming out with a statement on how they will handle Segwit2x hard fork. Today, Bitfinex development team revealed that it plans to utilize the moniker “B2X” to list the SegWit2x fork of Bitcoin upon the completion of its hard fork in November.
So far the market has shown that Segwit2x hard fork will not have a major impact on the price of Bitcoin. Another reason why we’re seeing Bitcoin rallying could be because of the money flowing from alt coins to Bitcoin.
It is important to note that Bitcoin’s dominance in the cryptocurrency market is now at 52%. There is a good chance traders are looking to get some “free S2X coins” via the airdrop, hence selling their alts and buying BTC.
The short-term momentum indicators including moving average convergence divergence (MACD) are demonstrating a strong rally ahead. Altcoin prices, on the other hand, will continue to bleed until the hard fork happens.
Top Stories from the Crypto World
1. Russia planning to outlaw Bitcoin exchanges
According to a report by Reuters, Sergei Shvetsov – first deputy governor of the Central Bank of Russia (CBR) has stated today that Russia will block access to websites belonging to exchanges and trading platforms offering cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin.
These comments are in stark contrast with what Russia’s finance minister Anton Siluanov said last month. “There is no sense in banning them, there is a need to regulate them,” said Anton.
As per the central banker, the blockade is to protect retail everyday investors from Bitcoin’s volatility. Sergei Shvetsov said:
“We think that for our citizens, for businesses the usage of such cryptocurrencies as an investment object carries unreasonably high risks.”
2. Ethereum’s Byzantium hard fork is a week away
Ethereum’s network upgrade Byzantium is a hard fork that will allow all Ethereum’s nodes to shift uniformly.
Vitalik Buterin and the rest of Ethereum’s core developers have divided Metropolis into two phases: Byzantium and Constantinople. Both phases of Metropolis will necessitate hard-forks, Byzantium is the first of two.
Why it matters: Byzantium hard fork will improve the performance and security of the Ethereum network. This is a huge deal for Ethereum. It will help the platform to run more and more ICOs on its network efficiently without any hiccups.
3. Lagarde says IMF could look into regulating cryptocurrencies
Lagarde earlier suggested that digital currencies could give fiat-based setups “a run for their money” provided a powerful alternative perspective to bankers’ “fraud” accusations.
Speaking at the Bank of England conference, Lagarde said, “To make things smoother—at least a bit—we need dialogue,”
“Between experienced regulators and those regulators that are just beginning to tackle fintech. Between policymakers, investors, and financial services firms. And between countries.” she added.