Crypto Today: Bitcoin calms down as bulls get ready to a new assault

Here's what you need to know on 

Markets:

BTC/USD has been hovering around $6,500 since the start of the day. BTC has gained over 8% on a day-to-day basis and hit the intraday high at $6,709, but failed to hold the ground. Now it is moving within a short-term bullish trend amid high volatility.

ETH/USD has settled at $134.70, off the Asian high of $138.11. The coin has jumped by 8% on a day-to-day basis, moving in sync with the market. Now ETH/USD is locked in a short-term bearish trend amid expanding volatility.

XRP/USD has settled below $0.1600, off the intraday high of $0.1622. The coin has gained 3.4% on a day-to-day basis, now it is trading within a bearish bias.

Among the 100 most important cryptocurrencies, Nano (NANO) $0.4854 (+177%), Quant (QNT) $2.51 (+15.6%) and Crypto.com Coin (CRO) $0.0408 (+12.5%) are in the green zone. The day's losers are WaykiChain (WCC) $0.1515 (-2.4%), Binance USD (BUSD) $0.9890 (-1.4%), Paxos Standard (PAX) $0.9904 (-1.3%).

Chart of the day:

BTC/USD, 30-min chart

Market

The cryptocurrency industry reacted negatively to FED's proposal to flood the market with infinite cash. According to Neel Kashkari, the head of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, Congress authorized them to print as much money as needed to satisfy the demand for cash.

That's literally what Congress has told us to do. That's the authority that they've given us, to print money and provide liquidity into the financial system. And that's how we do it. We create it electronically. And then we can also print it with the Treasury Department, print it so that you can get money outta your ATM.

However, the founder of Cardano and the CEO of IOHK noted that dollar now looks very much alike a scandalous financial pyramid OneCoin.

The head of Galaxy Digital continues to believe that 2020 will become a year of glory for Bitcoin. He confirmed his position recently and said that the global economic crisis triggered by coronavirus will be a breakthrough for BTC. He tweeted:

$btc will continue to be volatile over the next few months but the macro backdrop is WHY it was created. This will be and needs to be BTC’s year.

Industry

The volume of retail cryptocurrency transactions in Europe jumped by 236% since the beginning of March, according to the statistical data provided by 2gether, a Spain-based collaborative financial platform that allows users to spend their cryptocurrency assets anywhere with full support from VISA. The analysts from 2gether found out that the COVID-19 outbreak and strick lockout measures in many European countries led to a sharp increase in cryptocurrency purchases on the platform. Bitcoin proved to be the most popular coin (63%), which is hardly surprising. The second place goes to Ethereum (27%), while the third place is occupied by Cardano (3%).

Blockchain company HashCash Consultants announced the launch of inverse ETF that will allow cryptocurrency traders to hedge the downside risks related to the Coronavirus scare. The new investment vehicle correlated to S&P500 will generate gains when its correlating index drops. Dubbed ‘Corona Fund Index Cryptocurrency (CFIX), will be launched together with the same-name cryptocurrency on April 2. The team claims that the index will be listed on major exchanges, while CFIX coin will be tied to stablecoin USDT (Tether). HashCash CEO Raj Chowdhury commented:

The inception of CFIX was motivated by HashCash’s aim to provide financial aid to nonprofits and research organizations battling the COVID-19 crisis. The ETF backing incentivizes CFIX, which benefits not only the traders but enables us to raise more funds for all who are affected by Novel Coronavirus, which is the ultimate goal of this initiative.

The South Korean cryptocurrency exchanges are losing trading volume, Two largest cryptocurrency trading operators in the region - Bithumb and Upbit - registered a drop by 70% and 63% respectively since 2018. The numbers were revealed by the parent company of the exchanges in the regulatory filing. The country used to be one of the biggest markets for Bitcoin trading; however, a long-term bear market resulted in the decreased demand in cryptocurrency trading and led to a drop in revenues.

Quote of the day:

the Japanization of all central bankers accelerates aging of the current fiat banking system, and the eventual death of it gonna be the phoenix moment of Bitcoin. This is what Bitcoin is born for.

Dovey Wan, the Founding Partner of Primitive Crypto