Crypto Today: Bitcoin makes its way above $7,000, altcoins follow the lead

Here's what you need to know on 

Markets:

BTC/USD is changing hands at $7,070. The coin has gained over 4% since the beginning of the day as the upside momentum is gaining traction. Currently, BTC is moving within a short-term bullish trend amid low volatility. 

At the time of writing, ETH/USD is changing hands at $150.40. The second-largest coin recovered from the Asian low of $142.88. Now ETH/USD is moving in a short-term bullish trend amid high volatility, over 5% higher from the beginning of the day.

XRP/USD stays above $0.1860, close to the intraday high of $0.1866. The coin has been moving with strong bullish bias in sync with the market.

Among the 100 most important cryptocurrencies,Zilliqa (ZIL) $0.0047 (+16.6%), Bytecoin (BCN) $0.00025 (+15.6%), Stellar (XLM) $0.0460 (+9.9%) are in the green zone. The day's losers are Steem (STEEM) $0.1717 (-3.5%), Algorand (ALGO) $0.1781 (-1.6%) Chiliz (CHZ) $0.0067 (-1.6%).

Chart of the day:

ETH/USD, 30-min chart

Markets:

Ethereum network growth has been gathering pace recently, despite the sharp price decrease in March. Experts from Santiment believe that this is a positive long-term indicator for the second-largest digital asset.

Here is a look at what $ETH's Network Growth has looked like over the past three months on a percent change basis compared to some other higher profile ERC-20 projects ( $KNC, $ZRX, $REP, $MKR). This is a key indicator of #Ethereum's long-term potential continuing to look.
Since January 2020, the number of Ethereum addresses increase from 40,000 to over 70,000, which means that more users are utilizing the Ethereum blockchain network.

Industry

Cryptocurrency exchange Poloniex announced the release of a token sale platform, Launchbase. The US0based cryptocurrency exchange will use the platform to support high-quality blockchain projects.

The LaunchBase platform will collaborate closely with projects, community members and industry-wide partners to seed and promote the adoption of quality cryptocurrencies worldwide, including via the sale of tokens to eligible participants on the Poloniex platform, according to the press-release.

The only cryptocurrency of the platform is TRX, as Tron Foundation is a strategic partner of Launchbase. The first project TRON-based lending platform JUST is the first project launched on the platform. It allows users to stake TRX to generate USDJ, a new dollar-pegged stablecoin.

Binance published a research paper on the state of the cryptocurrency market in March 2020. According to the poll, conducted by the exchange in the Telegram channel, about 21% of respondents confessed that their opinion about BTC as a safe-haven asset had changed following the massive sell-off in the middle of March. Bitcoin's correlation with traditional markets will remain a hot topic in recent months. However, the idea of Bitcoin's anti-inflationary measures has come to the fore as the global central banks set their printing presses to full speed. 

MakerDAO plans a shutdown, according to the project's founder Rune Christensen. First, he mentioned the planned obsolescence in the interview with CoinDesk a year ago. Now it looks like the team is getting serious about self-liquidation. 

On April 2, Christensen outlined a three-step plan to transfer the governance to the community, so that MakerDAO users wouldn't even notice when the foundation cease to exist. However, the also noted that it is done to achieve a higher level of decentralization.

 The Foundation team will not leave the community. The team will change and be in a different form," he said. "It's important that we now as a community begin to prepare governance for taking over full responsibility of the system.

Regulation

The Bank of International Settlements (BIS) came to the conclusion that COVID-19 pandemic would speed up the global adoption of online payments and push central banks' efforts on the development of Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC). The researchers noted that initially, countries may expand their digital payments infrastructure by increasing the number of online and mobile contactless payment options. However, BIS experts are concerned that the launch of CBDC might have a negative impact on millions of elderly people around the globe. 

Looking ahead, developments could speed up the shift toward digital payments. This could open access to payment instruments, which could negatively impact unbanked and older consumers. The pandemic may amplify calls to defend the role of cash – but also calls for central bank digital currencies.

Quote of the day

Lots of people think that Bitcoin’s total addressable market is ~$7T because that’s the market cap of gold. Problem is, with so much #brrr going on gold can easily triple from here. So the digital gold thesis now puts Bitcoin’s TAM at ~$20T, or $1M per coin...

Qiao Wang, Angel Investor