Crypto Today: Bitcoin failure to gain bullish momentum builds the case for another fall

Here's what you need to know on Thursday

Markets

BTC/USD is currently trading at $6663 (+0.65%), the price is moving within consolidation mode, ahead of another attempt at $7000.

ETH/USD is currently trading at $136 (-0.45%), heavy supply runs from $140-150.

XRP/USD is currently trading at $0.16 (-0.20%), narrow trading continues with a chunky barrier at $0.17 and key support at $0.14.

Among the 100 most important cryptocurrencies, the best of the day are NMR $16.65 (+22.00%), QNT $2.99 (+19.65%) VET $0.111478 (+15.15%). The day's losers are EDC $0.013185 (-24.42%), SXP $0.509168 (-10.55%), HOT $0.000324  (-4.60%).

Chart of the day

LTC/USD daily chart: Risks remain tilted to the downside with the price moving within a bearish pennant

Market

Cardano launched its off-chain scalability protocol, Ouroboros Hydra, after 5 years of development. According to a spokesperson of IOHK — the firm behind Cardano — Hydra is the result of a five-year European Union-funded collaborative research project, and could theoretically scale to a million transactions per second. Such a throughput is — according to him — in excess of the current generation of global payment systems.

According to a recent report released by the cryptocurrency exchange Kraken, a generational shift could give Bitcoin a $1 trillion boost. As per the report, a 5% investment allocation and a 2% inheritance tax could help Bitcoin receive $1 trillion in investments by 2044.

The Neo Foundation announced on March 25 that they have released the necessary funds to continue operating for the 2020 Fiscal Year (FY). A total of 1,660,865 NEO worth approximately $11 million was released, with 27,800,303 NEO ($190 million) still remaining. According to its blog post, the Neo whitepaper allows the Foundation to sell its stake of NEO to “support Neo's technological development, ecosystem growth, community expansion.”

Tron (TRX) partnered with the cryptocurrency service provider, Metal Pay, to enable instant purchase of TRX in the United States. According to an announcement, TRX will now be available for purchase with fiat currency in the Metal Pay mobile application. Users can pay for the crypto asset via debit card or checking account.

The EOS Worker Proposal System (WPS) introduced by the top block producer EOS Nation,  has passed stage one of the implementation process. This first approval is the first of four planned multi-signature (MSIG) approvals.

Regulation

Malta’s financial regulator has issued warnings against two crypto websites that falsely claimed to be licensed by the nation.  The Malta Financial Services Authority (MFSA) called out the “COINMALEX” and “Crypto Foxtrades” crypto exchanges in twin warnings Wednesday. Both entities had claimed to be licensed, registered or domiciled in Malta, all of which MFSA denied. 

Industry 

Reports suggest Mt. Gox is moving towards a final investor compensation process. According to a company announcement published earlier this week, creditors will be meeting later today to examine a reimbursement plan, which will determine where things go from here.

Coinbase Wallet lead Sid Coelho-Prabhu has announced via the Coinbase blog that users will have the possibility to lend crypto and earn interest. The DeFi applications like Compound and DYDX already received millions of dollars from the investors.

Privacy-focused browser Brave Software is hoping to facilitate in-browser cryptocurrency trading. Brave announced Tuesday it was partnering with Binance to develop an in-browser crypto trading tool which will ultimately let users deposit, swap, purchase and trade crypto right from Brave Browser’s launch and new tab windows. 

Crypto taxation tool CoinTracker has released a report comparing the prevalence of cryptocurrency ownership across major cities in the United States. The report is based on user data that CoinTracker has been collecting since 2013. CoinTracker found that the top four ranked cities by average crypto portfolio size are all in California’s San Francisco Bay Area, with San Francisco proper at approximately $55,000 followed by Palo Alto with $39,000, Oakland with $35,000 and San Mateo with $30,600.

Quote of the day

Congratulations Bitcoin hodlers. It looks like Bitcoin may actually be living up to its status as a non-correlated asset after all.  Every asset class is rallying today accept Bitcoin!

@PeterSchiff