Crypto Today: Bitcoin is creeping down, ready to go below SMA50 weekly

Here's what you need to know on Friday

Markets:

• The BTC/USD is currently trading at $7,752 (-1.5% on a day-to-day basis). The coin has been range-bound with bearish bias after a retreat from $8,464.
• The ETH/USD is currently trading at $135.7 (-2.12% on a day-to-day basis). The Ethereum stays close to the intraday low of $135.27. 
• XRP/USD settled at $0.2013 after a spike to $0.2255 on Tuesday. The coin is down 2.2% in recent 24 hours.
• Among the 100 most important cryptocurrencies, the best of the day are Lisk (LSK) $0.6974 (+12.5%), Cosmos (ATOM) $4.3 (+6.57%) and Ren (REN) $0.0426 (+5.6%), The day's losers are, Bytecoin (BCN) $0.0002 (-12.31%), Quant (QNT) $3.33 (-10.0%) and THETA (THETA) $0.0918 (-7.62%).

Chart of the day:
ETC/USD, daily chart

• The Chief Commercial Officer of BitPay Sonny Singh expects to see Bitcoin at new all-time highs, above $20,000 this year. However, he believes that Bitcoin's halving scheduled in May 2020 has been already priced in, which means this event cannot be regarded as a catalyst for a new bullish trend. Speaking in the interview with Bloomberg, Singh said that Bitcoin is driven by a combination of technical factors and unforeseen events that attract new buyers to the market and set the ball rolling.
• The CEO of Blockstream Adam Back suggested that the CEO of Ripple BradGarlinghouse was buying BTC with the money raised from XRPs dumped on retail investors. The comment triggered another episode of a holy war between Bitcoiners and XRP-supporters. 

Industry:

• Bitmain, one of the world's leading manufacturer of Bitcoin mining equipment, plans massive layoffs that may happen before the end of January. According to the Chinese sources, the employees of the mining giant are protesting against "illegal layoffs" that are presented like "employee structure optimization". 
• Malta-based cryptocurrency exchange Binance added support for Czech Koruny (CZK), Bulgarian Leva (BGN) and Romanian Lei (RON) Fiat Gateways. Now the residents of the respective countries can use Visa cards to buy BTC, BNB, ETH и XRP. Mastercard support to be added in the nearest future.

Regulation:

• In accordance with new Anti-Money Laundering (AML) regulations, all cryptocurrency companies in Austria must register with the Financial Market Authority and apply for the FMA license. The applicants must prove that they meet the minimum criteria in terms of sufficient capability, coherence, and solvency, required to run the business. Unregistered companies will have to face a fine of up to €200 000.
• The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filed a lawsuit against Donald G. Blakstad. He is accused of scamming investors out of $3.5 million. Partially, the scam was related to fraudulent crypto mining operations. Blackstad took money from investors to cover the equipment costs, however, instead, he spent the money at casinos, restaurants, and hotels.

Quote of the day:

Deribit is relocating from the EU to Panama because of 5AMLD. Only a matter of time until Binance and OKEx, both based in Malta, are forced to do the same.

Larry Cermak, Director of Research at The Block