Crypto Today: Bitcoin on the verge of bearish breakthrough

Here's what you need to know on Thursday

Markets:

BTC/USD is hovering at $6,640. The coin has been mostly range-bound since the beginning of the day, though it has lost nearly 4% of its value in the recent 24 hours. The coin has recovered from the intraday low of $6,466, now it is moving within a short-term bullish trend amid low volatility.

At the time of writing, ETH/USD is changing hands above $153.30. The second-largest coin hit the intraday low $148.30 but managed to regain the ground. Despite the recovery, it is still 4.6% lower from this time on Wednesday. ETH/USD is moving in a short-term bullish trend in sync with the market. The volatility is low.

XRP/USD is changing hands at $0.1790 during early Asian hours, off the intraday low of $0.1741. The coin has lost 4.5% on a day-to-day basis and stayed unchanged since the beginning of the day.  From the short-term perspective, XRP/USD is trading within a bearish trend amid low volatility.

Among the 100 most important cryptocurrencies, ABBC Coin (ABBC) $0.1068 (+8.9%), Hyperion (HYN) are in the green zone. The day's losers are HedgeTrade (HEDG) $1.62 (-10.8%), Insolar (XNS) $0.9122 (-9.8%), Bitcoin Gold (BTG) $9.06 (-9.6%).

Chart of the day:

XRP/USD, 30-min chart

Markets

A world's largest cryptocurrency exchange Binance will hold the first token sale since February. The project called Cartesi will have its token sold via Binance Launchpad. The participants of the token sale will be chosen through a lottery system, where your chances are directly related to the amount of BNB you hold. The exchange will take a snapshot of BNB balances  from April 14 to April 21 to determine how many seats each user receives. 

The announcement caused a sharp BNB price increase. The native token of the exchange hit $15.77 on Wednesday; however, by the time of writing the price retreated to $14.60. Binance Coin is the 8th largest digital asset with the current market value of $2.2 billion and an average daily trading volume of $445 million.

Cryptocurrency traders believe the market volatility may return once US ends the lockdown and reopens the economy. According to Twitter crypto trader BigCheds, market players should keep an eye on BTC reaction in the contest of its correlation with the broader equities market. Meanwhile, the US President Donald Trump considers opening businesses. 

The plans to reopen the country are close to being finalized. The day will be very close," he said, pointing out that it may happen before May 1.  

Industry

A Seychelles-based cryptocurrency exchange KuCoin will build  enterprise currency desk (ECD) in partnership with  DigitalBits. According to the announcement released on Wednesday, ECD solution will provide over-the-counter (OTC) desk services to enterprise clients.  ECD will operate on a subscription basis and target business and brands, allowing them to access Bitcoin and Ethereum-based rewards programs using branded stablecoins.

Johnny Lyu, CEO of KuCoin Global, commented:

We are focused on assisting brands and other enterprises to easily obtain the cryptocurrencies they require for their business, without the need to internally employ experienced traders to pursue the complex task of purchasing significant amounts of tokens.

ETHProtect solution allows tracking compromized coins and addresses on Ethereum block explorer.

We are happy to announce the release of ETHPROTECT. Integrated directly into Etherscan it lets you know in advance if an address is potentially 'Tainted' so that you can better protect yourself and avoid unexpected surprises.

The new ETH Protect system will be able to trace funds and determine if there are connected to scams or illegal, activities including phishing. Suspicious coins will be marked with the red shield.

Regulation

Chinese commercial banks will start running tests of the state-issued digital currency, Bloomberg reports, citing people familiar with the matter. State-owned Chinese banks are also conducting internal tests of the new asset. The digital wallets are said to include the conversion functionality to allow users to transfer digital money between cash, bank accounts, etc.

Quote of the day

Lots of ppl asked me the China DCEP "leaked" screenshot, it didn't stir up major attention imo, it's long-expected project since 2 yrs ago. The screenshot is an HTML5 mock-up, whitelisted users can register, most likely it's one of N prototypes from M teams working on it.

Dovey Wan, Founding Partner of Primitive Crypto