Crypto Today: Bitcoin drifts down as XRP gets ready for a pump

Here's what you need to know on 

Markets:

The BTC/USD is currently trading at $9,270 (-1.38% on a day-to-day basis). The coin reversed from the recent high of $9,614 and has been moving within a strong short-term bearish trend amid expanding volatility.

The ETH/USD pair is currently trading at $189.3 (-1.8% on a day-to-day basis). The Ethereum retreated from the intraday high of $195.35; now, it is moving within a short-term bullish trend amid shrinking volatility. 

XRP/USD settled at $0.2535 after a spike above $0.2600 on Monday. The coin is mostly unchanged on a day-to-day basis, however the short-term bullish momentum is gaining traction

Among the 100 most important cryptocurrencies, the best of the day are ICON (ICX) $0.4674 (+41.5%), Hedera Hashgraph (HBAR) $0.0176 (+37.00%) and Aion (AION) $0.1389 (+27.3%), The day's losers are, MonaCoin (MONA) $1.68 (-8.84%),  Horizen (ZEN) $9.74 (-8.0%) and BitShares (BTS) $0.0289 (-7.3%).

Chart of the day:

ETC/USD, daily chart

Market:

Tezos (XRZ) is one of the best-perfroming coins out of top-20. It has gained over 15% since the beginning of the week. While the fundamental reasons behind the growth remain unknown, the coin is influenced by speculative and technical factors. The coin hit an new all-time high above $2.00 and retreated to $1.75 by the time of writing. Some cryptocurrency experts believe that the coin may continue moving within the current bullish trend. The recent XTZ listing on major cryptocurrency exchanges including  Binance and Kraken. Also, in December Tezos was added to Coinbase.

The research department of the cryptocurrency exchange Binance published a report on current trends on the digital assets market. According to the data, compiled by the experts, the December brought a lot of disappointment for many cryptocurrency traders who expected a so-called Santa's rally. However, January brought some relief. If history is any guide, assets with small and medium capitalization tend to  grow faster  during the first month of the year. To prove this point, the experts point to DASH и ZCash that gained  181.5% и 179.7% respectively.

Industry:

The investment returns of cryptocurrency-based hedge-funds exceeded 16% in 2019, while traditional hedge-funds yielded only 10.4%, according to the data, provided by research companies Eurekahedge и HFR.  The industry experts believe that higher returns will attract new institutional investors. Steve Kurz, head of asset management at Galaxy Digital, explained:

Bitcoin has a higher return on a one, three and 10-year basis than any other asset class. When the returns are so high, investors will have to pile in.

Meanwhile, the engagement of traditional banks is a matter of time as they are likely to act as brokers and liquidity providers for the industry.

IOTA co-founder Sergey Ivancheglo notified the community that stopped working with David Sønstebø. Moreover, he accused him of embezzlement. 

I notify the #IOTA community that I no longer work with David Sønstebø and am contacting my lawyers to get my 25 Ti from him. He refuses to transfer the iotas to make me act for his own benefit and against mine. 

It seems that the dispute is centred around the financing of JINN Labs company that was founded by Sønstebø in 2014. JINN may be predecessor of IOTA project.  Now it is working on a trinary microprocessor.

Regulation:

The UK financial watchdog, The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), introduced a registration fee for cryptocurrency-related business. Small companies with the revenue up to 250,000 pounds would have to pay 2,000, while the registration fee for business with the revenue over 250,000 will be set at 10,000. The regulator considered a flar fee in the amount of 5,000; however, changed the fee structure after consultations with the industry participants. FCA stated:

“We are funded entirely by fees and levies from the businesses we regulate. We proposed a flat-rate application charge for registration of £5,000 to recover estimated gateway costs of £400,000 from approximately 80 potential applicants known to us.”