Crypto Today: Bitcoin now has big task of breaking back above $8500

Here's what you need to know on Friday

Markets

BTC/USD is currently trading at $8,400 (+1.40%) in the afternoon in U.S. hours, the price remains vulnerable underneath $8500 barrier.

ETH/USD is currently trading at $161.58 (-0.30%), a critical daily support at $160 at risk of being breached by the bears. 

XRP/USD is currently trading at $0.2235 (-0.90%), narrowing nine-day range block is being breached by the bears. 

Among the 100 most important cryptocurrencies, the best of the day are CENNZ $0.082038 (+22.95%), LSK $0.792217 (+13.49%) and CKB $0.0069531 (+11.27%) and The day's losers are KMD $0.576252 (-12.50%), BCH $316.92 (-5.49%) and XLM $0.539637 (-5.30%).

Chart of the day: BTC/USD 60-minute chart (price action fell below the breached pennant pattern and now struggling to break back above $8500 barrier).

Market

TRON (TRX) is now the second most used DLT protocol for the development of decentralized applications (dApp), after Vitalik Buterin’s Ethereum, according to the Dapp.com 2019 Annual dApp Market Report.

Ripple Labs, the San Francisco-based blockchain startup, secured the highest funding in comparison to other peer blockchain companies in 2019. The latest report from CB Insights shows that Ripple raised $200 million in the Series C round last year.

Ripple’s XRP sales continued to drop in the second half of 2019, with sales of the token reaching a historic low in Q4. Total XRP sales in Q4 2019 accounted for $13.08 million, down more than 80% from the $66.24 million reported in Q3 2019.

Stablecoin issuer Tether has announced the launch of Tether Gold (XAU₮), a new stablecoin that is pegged to physical gold, in response to “growing demand for a digital asset that provides exposure to the world’s most enduring asset and a geopolitical need for an alternative financial system.”

Ray Dalio is the founder of Bridgewater Associates, which is among the biggest hedge funds on the globe. He was speaking and noted Bitcoin in Davos: “There’s two purposes of money, a medium of exchange and a store hold of wealth and Bitcoin is not effective in either of those cases now.”

Regulation

Ruling party lawmakers in Japan are suggested to be working on a proposal to issue a national digital currency, according to Reuters reports. The proposal is worked on by a parliamentary group comprised of 70 Liberal Democratic Party lawmakers. The group plans to submit the proposal to the government some time in February.

A fully regulated tokenized real estate fund has been approved by officials in Liechtenstein. The AARGOS Global Real Estate Fund was approved as an alternative investment fund (AIF) by Liechtenstein’s Financial Market Authority (FMA), the company announced. 

Industry 

Ukrainian authorities will be able to “block crypto wallets” in order to seize illegally obtained assets, a notice on the country’s Ministry of Finance says. Oksana Markarova, Ukraine’s Finance Minister, reportedly said that the State Financial Monitoring Service of Ukraine (SFMS) will be the responsible authority for tracking the sources of origin of the funds on citizens’ crypto-wallets.

Quote of the day

There are two purposes of money, a medium of exchange and a store hold of wealth and Bitcoin is not effective in either of those cases now.”

Ray Dalio