Crypto Today: Bitcoin still struggles on approach to $7,000; pressure is growing

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Markets:

BTC/USD has been hovering above $6,700. The coin has stayed mostly unchanged both on a day-to-day basis and since the beginning of Thursday. BTC hit the intraday high at $6,795 but failed to hold the ground. Now it is moving within a short-term bearish trend amid shrinking volatility.

ETH/USD has settled at $137.70, off the Asian high of $138.95. The coin has jumped by 1% since the beginning of the day and stayed unchanged as compared to this time on Wednesday. Now ETH/USD is moving in a short-term bearish trend amid low volatility.

XRP/USD has settled at $0.1625. The coin has been locked in a tight range since the beginning of Thursday. The short-term trend is bullish.

Among the 100 most important cryptocurrencies EDC Blockchain (EDC) $0.0180 (+860%), Tachyon Protocol (IPX) $0.1124 (+19.6%) and Synthetix Network Token (SNX) $0.5657 (+12.5%) are in the green zone. The day's losers are Basic Attention Token (BAT) $0.1495 (+6.5%) KuCoin Shares (KCS) $1.08 (-5.4%), Bytecoin (BCN) $0.00023 (-4.4%).

Chart of the day:

BTC/USD, daily chart

Market

Coin Metrics analysts noted the increased importance of stablecoins amid growing trading fees and widening spreads in the cryptocurrency universe caused by unprecedented turbulence. They pointed out that an aggregate volume of transactions from cryptocurrencies to stabelcoins hit the record at $444.2 million on March 13, when the market was especially volatile. The experts believe that massive inflow in stablecoins was caused by investors' quest for stability amid increased market volatility.

USDC has been the biggest gainer percentage-wise, with a 57% market cap increase over the last 30 days. Ethereum-issued Tether (USDT-ETH) also had huge growth - close to 40% over the same period.

The Bitcoin price may reach $350,000 by 2044 if millennials invest at least five percent of their wealth in the first coin, according to the recent report published by Kraken Intelligence. The in-house research team of one of the world's largest exchanges retains an optimistic view of the industry. 

According to the estimates, millennials and Gen X will control an aggregate wealth of $50 trillion within the next two years, which is supposed to be one of the largest wealth transfers in the industry. Considering millennials' interest in cryptocurrency, their engagement may push the price significantly higher.

Industry

Twitter users discovered a fake extension for Google Chrome that steals code phrases for password recovery. The cybercriminals stole over 200,000 XRP using this malware. The extension dubbed Ledger Live mimics the real tool developed by Ledger for the hardware wallet users. The clone was found out at the beginning of March. The scammers ask users to sync the extension with their wallet using the seed phase. Later they use the obtained private data to steal the coins from the wallet.

Fake “Ledger Live” chrome extensions are used to collect user backup passphrases. They are advertised in Google searches and use Google Docs for collecting data. Accounts are being emptied and we have seen more than 200K XRP being stolen the past month alone.

Amrita Ahuja, the Chief Financial Officer of Square's Cash App, noted growing investment interest in Bitcoin amid financial crisis on the global markets. 

Adoption and engagement of fractional equity investing in Bitcoin have accelerated in recent weeks given recent market interest and volatility.

A similar trend was noted by the Spain-based collaborative financial platform 2gether, where the trading volumes jumped by over 230% in less than a week.

Regulation

Telegram filed a notice of appeal to the United States Court of Appeals to fight against the decision of the Federal Judge in New York. The FXStreet earlier reported that the recent court decision may delay GRAM's distribution for an indefinite time.

Quote of the day: 

As we get used to talk about Trillions, a modest $2 trillion market cap of #bitcoin will put 1 BTC at $100,000. Not such a hard to imagine number now, right? As most BTC are not for sell (HODLers), we only need a small portion of that $2t to buy to reach it.

The head of the cryptocurrency exchange Binance Chanpeng Zhao