By In the past 24 hours, every major cryptocurrency including Bitcoin, Ripple, Bitcoin Cash, and Litecoin posted gains of at least 8%. Litecoin went a little overboard and surged more than 30%.
At the time of writing, the entire cryptocurrency market at $460 billion with Bitcoin trading at $9,637, which translates into $162 billion market cap.
Since yesterday, the price of Bitcoin rose from by more than $1,000 overnight. The daily trading volume of Bitcoin across large cryptocurrency exchanges remain solid, and short-term momentum indicators such as moving average convergence divergence (MACD) demonstrates strong short-term momentum for Bitcoin.
There is a good chance this rally will continue and soon Bitcoin will once again cross much anticipated $10,000 mark. A major correction at this stage is unlikely, unless a massive sell-off occurs on February 16, during Chinese new year. Historically, the market has seen some minor corrections during the Chinese new year, because it had experienced a major correction earlier in January, it is unlikely that the Chinese new year will largely affect the market.
There are speculations floating around that Litecoin might be in for a hard fork soon. The cryptocurrency recorded a 30% increase in value, overtaking Cardano to become the fifth largest cryptocurrency in the market for the first time since early January.
If rumors come true, Litecoin Cash, will be rewarded to every Litecoin holder prior to block 1371111. While hard fork could be the reason behind the rally, Litecoin creator Charlie Lee noted that the introduction of Coinbase Commerce will allow merchants to adopt Litecoin alongside other major cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, which could have given more push to the surge.
It is important to keep in mind, from here on, a bearish scenario could take the Bitcoin price back to below $7900. Next resistance level is at $11,000 in case bulls continue the rally.
Top Stories from the Crypto World
1. South Korea backpedals on cryptocurrency trading ban
The South Korean government in response to a petition signed by hundreds of thousands of locals tipped its hand toward cryptocurrency policy, and the outlook is much better than expected.
While traders were gearing up for an all-out ban on cryptocurrency trading, it turns out they had nothing to sweat, as the South Korean government appears to be leaning toward green-lighting cryptocurrency exchanges.
Rather than take the approach of China, South Korea has opted to make transparency a key focus of cryptocurrency trading in the spirit of “fostering blockchain technology.” It’s a testament to what a concerted effort among a country’s population can do, particularly in a government system that’s willing to listen.
”I can assure you that the government has consistently maintained a close and careful approach to market conditions and international trends, keeping all possible means open,” according to Hong Nam-ki, minister of the office for government policy coordination, in a statement.
2. Cryptocurrency mining is stopping us from finding aliens
Over the years we’ve heard many criticisms against cryptocurrencies, but nothing like the latest one. This latest assault comes from researchers at the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence Institute (SETI) and other similar institutions, who complain that they are having trouble acquiring the resources they need to expand operations at their observatories.
“We’d like to use the latest GPUs [graphics processing units]… and we can’t get ’em,” SETI researcher Dan Werthimer told the BBC. “This is a new problem, it’s only happened on orders we’ve been trying to make in the last couple of months.”
No worries though. Nvidia and Samsung are upping the ante to make more powerful GPUs due to mining demand. Perhaps, then SETI can get their hands a some GPUs they direly need.
3. Bitcoin isn’t the only crypto to get lightning tech
Much anticipated lightning tech technology that will make Bitcoin transaction instant and considerably decrease the transfer fees, could be rolled out any day.
Although the tech was originally designed for use on Bitcoin only, but with scalability emerging as a pressing issue across the industry, developers of other cryptocurrencies aren’t letting the once-novel idea go to waste.
Entering 2018, Litecoin, Zcash, Ethereum, and Ripple are just a few of the many cryptocurrencies planning to implement or test some form of the lightning network.
Known as the “silver to bitcoin’s gold,” it’s perhaps not a surprise that Litecoin is one of the furthest along, working closely with startup Lightning Labs to launch its version at the same time as Bitcoin’s.