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The price of Bitcoin rallied from $6,500 to $9,500 in the past two weeks before finally taking a breather today and settling at $8,800 range amid general sell-off on the crypto markets.
It is clear that bulls need to regain breath and find some new catalysts to push above this threshold, which means that a period of consolidation with mild downside bias may be in the waiting before the coin resumes the upside movement.
Currently, the support is registered at $9,160. The intraday picture is also supportive as long as the price stays above $9,160. A move below will expose $9,000 handle and pivotal $8,400.
However, Bitcoin is still enjoying bullish momentum as it broke past the $9000 mark and could be nearing $10,000 in the next few days. Price could find resistance around this area, which previously held as support and resistance.
Bitcoin is still riding from the rally after the tax season as investors reopen positions to profit from the new developments in the industry. Sentiment has been more and more positive over the past couple of weeks, driven by news of big hedge funds investing in the space and acquisitions by well-known entities.
Looking ahead, an extension of risk-taking in the markets should prove more bullish for bitcoin, with more and more analysts predicting that bitcoin could surpass its $20,000 highs soon.
Remarks from the Federal Reserve Bank of St Louis on bitcoin turned out positive for the cryptocurrency as the report showed that they believe there is demand for virtual currency that is issued by a trusted party and can be used to save outside of the private financial system.
Meanwhile, PayPal CEO Bill Harris joint the chorus of Bitcoin doomsayers, saying that it is nothing more than a scam on a massive scale, driven by speculations and greed. While he is considered to be an influential figure in the financial circles, cryptocurrency markets seem to get accustomed to gloomy predictions from mainstream experts.
Top Stories from the Crypto World
1. Bitstamp to be sold to South Korean Gaming firm for $350 million
The world’s oldest surviving Bitcoin exchange – is close to finalizing a sale to Nexon, a South Korean gaming company that is now headquartered in Japan.
Bitstamp, which was founded in 2011 and is headquartered in Luxembourg, became the world’s oldest-surviving exchange last year when China-based BTCC shut its doors after the country banned cryptocurrency trading platforms. The platform’s 24-hour trading volume is above $500 million, which makes it the world’s 10th-largest exchange.
Nexon, which released its first game in 1995, is worth approximately $13 billion and has developed Korean and Japanese version of high-profile PC and mobile games such as Counter Strike and FIFA Online.
Neither Nexon nor Bitstamp is commenting on the matter publicly, but the former is rumored to be paying $350 million for Bitstamp, which is currently Europe’s only licensed cryptocurrency exchange.
2. OKEx suspends ERC20 deposits on discovery of critical Ethereum smart contract bug
In a statement published Tuesday, the Hong Kong-based exchange – third-largest in the world as measured by daily trading volume – announced the suspension of deposits, explaining that attackers have exploited a newly-discovered smart contract bug called “batchOverflow” to generate “an extremely large amount of tokens” out of thin air and then deposit them into a normal Ethereum address.
“To protect public interest, we have decided to suspend the deposits of all ERC-20 tokens until the bug is fixed. Also, we have contacted the affected token teams to conduct investigation and take necessary measures to prevent the attack,” the exchange operator added.
Changelly, a cryptocurrency trading service that acts as a broker between users and exchanges, has also suspended ERC20 token trading in response to the exploit.
A Medium post published over the weekend claims to have discovered the vulnerability, which the author says affects “more than a dozen ERC20 contracts.”
3. We’ll ‘Certainly Consider’ Becoming a Cryptocurrency Exchange, says Nasdaq CEO
Nasdaq, the world’s second-largest stock exchange with a $9 trillion market cap, is open to becoming a cryptocurrency exchange in a regulated market.
“A lot of people are frustrated that even if they go into [the cryptocurrency] market, they have no liquidity [at an] exchange,” host and ‘Shark Tank’ shark Kevin O’Leary said, quipping: “Nasdaq would be a natural place for that, would it not?”
‘It’s an unregulated space today, so it’s not something that we’ve decided to go into becoming a exchange but we are providing our technology now to other crypto exchanges,” she replied, pointing to Nasdaq’s surveillance technology that will be put to use by Gemini to monitor its cryptocurrency trading pairs in bitcoin and Ethereum.
“Over time though, if we do look at it and say people are ready for a more regulated market for something that provides a fair experience for investors, certainly Nasdaq would consider becoming a crypto exchange, over time.” she said.