Crypto Today: Bitcoin bulls hit pause button, major altcoins on fire

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Markets:

BTC/USD is currently trading at $10,467 (+1.1% on a day-to-day basis). The coin has been consolidating earlier gains close to the intraday high.

The ETH/USD pair is currently trading at $279.96 (+9.18% on a day-to-day basis). The Ethereum hit the intraday high of $274.84; now, it is moving within a short-term bullish trend amid low volatility. 

XRP/USD jumped above $0.33 during early Asian hours before retreating to $0.3262. The coin has gained 12.9% in recent 24 hours.

Among the 100 most important cryptocurrencies, the best of the day are Hedera Hashgraph (HBAR) $0.0688 (+47.5%), Holo (HOT) $0.0009 (+15.7%) and DxChain Token (DX) $0.0014 (+14.16%), The day's losers are, Synthetix Network Token (SNX) $0.9626 (-7.5%), NEM (XEM) $0.0697 (-7.2%) and Decentraland (MANA) $0.0626 (-5.72%).

Chart of the day:

XRP/USD, 4-hour chart

Market:

Now that the break above a pivotal resistance of $10,000 is confirmed, BTC/USD may be ready for another strong move towards $11,000. According to Craig Erlam, senior market analyst at Oanda Corp., Bitcoin tends to move in clips of $1,000, which means that $11,000 can be reached very quickly. Moreover once this barrier is cleared, the bullish trend may start snowballing as many traders have been sidelined, waiting for the momentum to gather pace, the expert believes.

A break above $11,000 would be an even more bullish action for me than this one above $10,000/

Industry:

The US-based cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase launched marginal trading functionality on Coinbase Pro accounts. 

Starting today, Coinbase Pro customers in 23 US states can access up to 3x leverage on USD-quoted books. Trading crypto on margin (or leverage) can amplify the impact of your trades by allowing you to borrow additional funds. 

Notably, Coinbase Pro is a rebranded GDAX platform that tried to launch marginal trading in 2017 but was forced to stop them due to regulatory scrutiny.

Regulation:

People's Bank of China filed over 80% of patents related to digital currencies, the Financial Times reports. They include proposals on a system for interbank settlements based on digital currency, central bank-issued digital currency (CBDC) supply and solutions that would allow integrating the existing retail bank accounts with digital wallets. The number and the contents of the patents shed the light on Chinese effort focused on CBDC creation.

Perianne Boring, president of the Chamber of Digital Commerce commented:

The theme is that China has made massive investments and are taking this very seriously. That is drastically different from the United States’ approach and this just highlights that.

The US plans to roll out a set of regulatory rules of the cryptocurrency industry and digital payment systems, the head of the US Treasury Steven Mnuchin said while speaking at the Senate Finance Committee hearings. He also added that the regulation would have transparency as its top priority. 

We will be rolling out new regulations to be very clear on greater transparency so that law enforcement can see where the money is going and that this isn’t used for money laundering, Mnuchin said.

Quote of the day: