Crypto Today: Bitcoin bulls get ready for a weekend run to $8,000

Here's what you need to know on Thursday

Markets:

BTC/USD is changing hands at $7,380. The coin has stayed mostly unchanged both on a day-to-day basis and since the beginning of Thursday as the bullish momentum has faded away on approach to $7,400. Currently, BTC is moving within a short-term bearish trend amid low volatility. 

At the time of writing, ETH/USD is changing hands at $170.90. The second-largest coin recovered from the Asian low of $168.42, though it is still 1.3% lower from the start of the day. ETH/USD is moving in a short-term bearish trend amid low volatility.

XRP/USD is hovering below critical $0.2000, down 1.2% since the beginning of the day.  The coin is mostly range-bound with short-term bullish bias.

Among the 100 most important cryptocurrencies, Bitcoin Gold (BTG) $9.94 (+17.6%), Seele (SEELE) $0.0747 (+13.9%) and Aave (LEND) $0.0253 (+13.5%) are in the green zone. The day's losers are Maker (MKR) $326.9 (-4.7%), Synthetix Network Token (SNX) $0.7399 (-4.3%), HedgeTrade (HEDGE) $1.84 (-3.25%).

Chart of the day:

ETH/USD, 30-min chart

Markets

Ripple's co-founder and former chief technical officer Jed McCaleb received 63.7 million XRP tokens worth $12.3 million under the agreement between McCaleb and Ripple. According to the data provided by the Whale Alert Twitter service, the tokens were transferred by McCaleb's former employer.

Also, the experts of the service noted that the coins transferred under this agreement are usually sold for fiat. If the theory is correct, XRP may experience a selling pressure in the nearest future. 

Industry

Bitcoin Association Switzerland launched Bitcoin backed token tzBTC on Tezos blockchain. The company says that the new coin will allow to use Tezos blockchain features with Bitcoin.

Today, the Bitcoin Association Switzerland (BAS), together with the involved companies, announces yet another way to use Bitcoin: tzBTC, a token on the Tezos blockchain-backed 1-1 by Bitcoin. With Bitcoin being the de facto reserve-currency of cryptocurrencies, tzBTC is one of the first examples of tokenization on Tezos. It enables the use of the Tezos blockchain features with Bitcoin.

Notably, Tezos Foundation is one of the largest Bitcoin holders, which makes its blockchain a natural choice for Bitcoin-backed token.

Four cryptocurrency gurus made their way to Forbes List of Billionaires. Micree Zhan, the head of Chinese mining company Bitmain, is the richest crypto entrepreneur with $3.2 bln in his coffers. He is followed by former Ripple's CEO Chris Larsen ($2.6 bln) and Jihan Wu from Bitmain ($1.8 billion).

80% of Swiss cryptocurrency startups went bust due to the coronavirus crisis, according to a survey conducted by the Swiss Blockchain Federation. The report says that the Swiss blockchain industry has been having rough times even before COVID-19 became an issue. 

The industry does not qualify for the financial aid promised by Swiss government, which puts may companies on the brink of extinction. over half of them said that they had already laid off staff, while 90% admitted that lay-offs are inevitable in the nearest future.

Regulation

Justice Gendall in the High Court of New Zealand declined creditor claims and confirmed that the digital assets on the balance of the liquidated cryptocurrency exchange Cryptopia belong to the customers of the exchange.

Today, 8 April 2020, Justice Gendall delivered his judgment finding firstly, cryptocurrencies are “property” within the definition outlined in s2 of the Companies Act 1993 and secondly, that account holders' cryptocurrency was held on multiple trusts, separated by individual crypto-asset type. This means that the cryptocurrencies are beneficially owned by the account holders and are not assets of the company. 

Effectively, those digital assets cannot be classified as a loan and be included in the bankrupt assets.