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The price of Bitcoin suffered a slight pullback after it reached an all-time high of $18,353, with U.S. exchange GDAX pricing it as high as $19,697 at the height of the rally. Friday morning, the prices came sliding down to below $15,000 for a short while, but soon recovered back to $16,000 levels.
At the peak, Bitcoin carried the cryptocurrency market cap above $450 billion, making the entire crypto market more valuable than tech conglomerate Alibaba. Although, at the time of writing, the crypto market is down to $433 billion, which is still a 24-hour increase of approximately 4%.
Overall, the bullish momentum is still intact. Derivatives players like CMOE, CME and NASDAQ are buying Bitcoin in huge numbers. Such platforms will increase supply and demand on each trading side. These market giants getting into Bitcoin business might be what Bitcoin needs to become a safe-haven asset.
I wouldn’t be surprised if Bitcoin reaches $20,000 or even a superior level with such momentum. On the upside, all-time highs are the only resistance keeping Bitcoin from rising sky high. Any projection on a potential ceiling looks impossible to make right now. On the downside, the first support level is at $16,170, followed by $15,650 and then $14,890.
The week’s crazy rally was sufficient to propel Bitcoin into 18th on the list of the world’s most valuable liquid currencies, placing it ahead of Australia and Luxembourg.
Who would have thought Bitcoin will come so far? It’s surreal.
Top Stories from the Crypto World
1. South Korea preparing full crypto exchange ban
According to a local news outlet, the government is currently looking at changes to the law which would effectively criminalize exchanges in a method similar to China.
“We are actively considering ways to prohibit transactions on domestic exchanges by judging virtual currency trading as a deceptive means of defrauding people […] under the penal code,” the publication quotes an official as saying.
This news caused a slight dip in the price of Bitcoin. It went below $15,000 from $17,000 but soon recovered back to $16,000 range
2. NiceHash CEO confirms theft of $78 million
NiceHash, a cryptocurrency mining marketplace, founded in 2014, had incurred a hack and subsequent theft of $78 million yesterday. The founders confirmed the attack began in the early hours of Dec. 6 after an employee’s computer had been compromised.
CEO and co-founder Marko Kobal said that the team is working with law enforcement and they’re still conducting forensic analysis to determine how it happened.
The funds are still being held at this address.
3. Australian Stock Exchange to become world’s first to adopt blockchain
The Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) is implementing Blockchain to replace its current clearing and settling system, CHESS (Clearing House Electronic Subregister System). The distributed nature of Blockchain will provide to transact faster and more securely, reducing costs across the board.
The Australian exchange has spent the past two years researching and testing distributed ledger technology, which included two independent third party security reviews of Digital Asset’s solutions, a consulting company that helps financial institutions adopt distributed ledger technology.
ASX expects to transition to the new system at the end of March 2018.