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As we enter the last weekend of March, cryptocurrency markets continue to tumble with no positive news making its way to the public.
After dropping below $6700 in the middle of the day, Bitcoin corrected its course almost entirely to reach $7000 once again. The uptick, however, did not last too long and may represent what is often termed as the “dead cat bounce” in a bear market. The same general trend was followed by all major cryptocurrencies, including Ethereum, that found itself fall below the $400 milestone within the past 24 hours.
Ripple, Bitcoin Cash, and Litecoin all paint a rather similar picture, experiencing a drop in valuation of around 5 to 7%. While Ripple is currently fighting to stay at or above $0.50, Bitcoin Cash resigned any valuation above $700 and has been trading at around $690 for the majority of the past day.
Given that bitcoin dropped below the $7000 support level with little to no resistance, several experts have unanimously stated that the situation may continue to worsen until the cryptocurrency reaches $5000. A trip back to $5000 may be catastrophic to the brand value of bitcoin though, especially since it has been several months since the price was first surpassed.
Tron, the token that rose significantly yesterday against the flow of the market, is actually the day’s worst performer with a decline of close to 17%. At $0.40, it is now back to having the 12th largest market capitalization of all cryptocurrencies. It doesn’t appear as if the launch of Tron’s Test Net will actually spell good news for its price going forward.
1. Nvidia CEO says “blockchain will be here for a long time”
Jensen Huang, CEO of the famous graphics processor manufacturer, Nvidia, has made another public statement on the topic of cryptocurrency and blockchain.
In an interview with CNBC, Huang stated, “The ability for the world to have a very low-friction, low-cost way of exchanging value is going to be here for a long time – Blockchain will be here for a long time.”
There is no doubt that GPU manufacturers, including AMD and Nvidia, have benefitted the most from cryptocurrency mining popularity. Graphic cards, often used for gaming and other scientific applications, are out of stock worldwide due to large mining businesses buying them in bulk, hoping to turn a profit. As a result, Nvidia saw its stock price double within the past year alone.
Whether the statement represents a conflict of interest or not, however, remains to be seen. Nvidia’s share price may, after all, find itself in a free fall with the declining cryptocurrency markets.
2. Telegram raises another $850 million from 94 investors in the second round of ICO
Months after Telegram’s blockchain-based “Telegraph Open Network” platform was leaked across several cryptocurrency communities, it seems as if the project is attracting a great deal of funding from private investors. After raising the first $850 million from 81 investors in early February, the company reported another successful funding round to the United States Securities and Exchange Commission.
Among the rumored list of investors is the Russian billionaire, Roman Abramovich, who may have invested as much as $300 million by himself. The founder of Qiwi and Wimm-Bill-Dann foods, however, are confirmed to have invested in the ICO with both of them publicly stating their support for the project.
Despite the platform raising well over a billion dollars, not much information is available about Telegram’s blockchain endeavor. That is unlikely to change until the ICO is open to the public though, especially as the SEC mandates that in order for a company to approach individuals for funding directly in this way, it may only exercise that right with accredited investors.
3. Intel files patent aimed at reducing Bitcoin mining energy consumption
Computer and technology company Intel has reportedly filed a patent that may potentially reduce the power consumed by bitcoin mining. The document describes a “hardware accelerator” that would make the process more efficient by “reducing the space utilized and power consumed by Bitcoin mining hardware.”
While the patent was originally filed in Sept. 2017, the application was not released in the public domain until yesterday, March 29.
In short, Intel believes that its application can reduce over a third of the total power consumed by “optimizing the critical paths in the computation-intensive message digest and scheduler datapaths.” While no working implementation appears to be in the works, it is clear that the company is making significant strides in not only cryptocurrency mining but also blockchain technology.