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After plummeting to around $6500 over the past weekend, the price of bitcoin climbed over 6%, or just enough to surpass $7000. With the price mostly moving above and below that point, however, it is clear that there is some downward selling pressure. It should be noted that similar behavior was recorded at $8000 and $9000 as well, indicating that resistance levels may be common at every $1000 increase or decrease.
While Ethereum also recovered by 5% in the past day, it failed to reach the $400 price point once again. At around $385, however, it has finally performed somewhat equivalent to the rest of the market, particularly Bitcoin. For the past two weeks or so, its price has been dropping like a rock for no apparent reason.
VeChain, on the other hand, displayed what was, by far, the best performance by any cryptocurrency in the past 24 hours. After falling to a low of approximately $2.20, it managed to gain enough momentum to reach $3 before stabilizing at $2.7, an impressive net increase of 21%.
The observed price spike is likely due to Vechain finally being listed on Bithumb, a major cryptocurrency exchange in South East Asia. Given that VEN has been heralded as one of the most practical cryptocurrencies currently on the market and is hyped by almost every major crypto community, it is perhaps not surprising that such positive news routinely allows it to surge with immediate effect.
Litecoin, EOS and Stellar were also strong throughout the day, with the first two gaining an average of 6 to 7% and the latter shooting upwards by close to 11%.
Overall, the entire cryptocurrency market demonstrated a rather strong showing in comparison to the entirety of last week. However, with most cryptocurrencies still having lost 50% of their respective valuations since their December all time highs, it will take a sustained bull run for investor confidence to return for good.
Top news stories from the crypto world
1. Bitcoin Cash address support coming to Trezor hardware wallets “soon”
Bitcoin Cash addresses will finally be making their way to Trezor hardware wallets, according to a tweet by the Marketing Manager of the company. A few code changes in the company’s public Github repository also seems to reflect the eventual support.
Bitcoin Cash addresses will be supported on the platform with the help of a utility named ‘Cashaddr’, which is essentially a way to distinguish between Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash addresses.
Only a few weeks ago, however, the cofounder of Trezor had tweeted “This mess was made by bad architectural decision of [BCH] team. We warned them, they knew about the issues and they decided to ignore it. I refuse any responsibility for it. Cashaddr support is in standard development process and it’ll be ready when done.”
2. Russia releases a document detailing a strict set of regulations for ICOs
The Russian Ministry of Communications has announced a new set of regulation aimed at initial coin offerings taking flight in the country. The primary prerequisite that the Russian regulator demands is that the coin issuer must have control of at least 100 million rubles.
Companies offering the tokens will also need to prove that they can buy back all tokens distributed at a nominal price. Furthermore, ICOs will only be able to be held in exchange for the Russian Ruble and not any other cryptocurrency. The document, however, left out many important details, including pre-sales and lock-in periods.
With the United States Securities and Exchange Commission announcing a crackdown on fraudulent token sales, most other countries have also stepped up their game against ICOs. Russia, however, seems confused on the topic as a recent draft law entitled “On Digital Financial Assets” by the Finance Ministry took a more liberal approach to the issue.
3. Budget airline AirAsia unveils plans for its proprietary cryptocurrency
In an interview with Nikkei Asian Review, the founder and Chief Executive of AirAsia, Tony Fernandes, confirmed that the airline is indeed working on its own cryptocurrency named “BigCoin”. While details regarding the exact technical nature of the currency is unknown, the interview also revealed that the company will be hosting an initial coin offering.
The Malaysian company will be integrating BigCoin as a payment method for all its passenger flights as well as offer the tokens in exchange for frequent flyer points.
This is not AirAsia’s first foray into the world of financial technologies. In mid-2017, the airline promised to streamline in-flight purchases across its fleet of planes with a project named “The Big”. With other airlines also exploring the possible utility of blockchain technology, including Singapore Airlines, it is likely that the competition is heating up in the segment to deliver the first fully-featured application.