Crypto Today: BTC/USD breaks free from the range, bulls aim at $8,000

Here's what you need to know on Friday

Markets:

BTC/USD has settled at $7,500 after a strong recovery to $7,765 on Thursday. The coin has gained over 6% in the recent 24 hours and stayed unchanged since the beginning. Now it is trading with the short-term bearish bias amid low volatility.

At the time of writing, ETH/USD is changing hands at $187.00. The second-largest coin hit the recent high at $194.46 but failed to hold the ground. Despite the correction, the coin has gained over 3.5% in the recent 24 hours and stayed unchanged from the start of Friday. ETH/USD is moving within a short-term bullish trend. The volatility is low.

XRP/USD is changing hands at $0.1945 during early Asian hours, off the recent high $0.1998. The coin has gained 4.5% in the recent 24 hours.  From the short-term perspective, XRP/USD is trading within a bullish trend amid shrinking volatility.

Among the 100 most important cryptocurrencies, DigiByte (DGB) $0.0120 (+27.8%), Matic Network (MATIC) $0.0151 (+20.9%), Aave (LEND) $0.0355 (+19.8%). The day's losers are Synthetix Network Token (SNX) $0.6962 (-3.6%) MaidSafeCoin (MAID) $0.1078 (0.7%) and Swipe (SXP) $0.5889 (-0.5%)

Chart of the day:
BTC/USD 1-hour chart

Market

Bitcoin futures expiration. Bitcoin jumped to a new April's high $7,725, on Thursday as traders were buying ahead of the expiry for CME April bitcoin futures, which is considered as a primary catalyst for the rally.  Also, according to data from Skew, Bitcoin contracts worth $68 million were liquidated on BitMEX, during early US hours on Thursday, which added bullish pressure to the market. Bitcoin gained 100% from the lowest point of 2020 reached at the end of Q1 2020.

Retail traders are back. According to the market analyst from Oanda Corp., Ed Moya, retail investors are returning to the cryptocurrency market to protect their wealth from the disastrous consequences of money-printing policies of the global central banks. 

With worldwide stimulus efforts showing no signs of easing, some traders are jumping into cryptos as a hedge against currency wars, he said in a note to clients.
 

Industry

Malicious bot mined Monero. The cybersecurity experts from ESET discovered malicious software used to mine Monero. While the botnet named VictoryGate has been around at least since May 2019, it has not been documented yet. Apart from that, the experts identified three different versions of the original bot and about 10 secondary payloads that are downloaded from file hosting websites.

The botnet is engaged in Monero mining, while its botmaster can send commands to the nodes to download and execute new secondary payloads. Moreover, the team identified compromised traffic from the public sector and organizations in the private sector.

Another crazy bitcoin forecast. Silk Road Founder, Ross Ulbricht, came up with another insane Bitcoin forecast. He ates that the first cryptocurrency might climb to $333 mln. In this case, the market cap of the world's leading cryptocurrency will reach $7 quadrillion, which is ten times more than the global GDP. He based his forecast on Elliot Waves' theory.

For those of you upset by my short-term bearish forecast, I want to reiterate I am still bullish long-term. It is possible that wave III will be even more impressive than wave I, as 3rd waves often are, he wrote

Regulation

Japan welcomes HT. Huobi Global's native exchange token, Huobi Token (HT) got approval from the Japanese financial regulator, Japan Financial Services Agency (FSA). Now HT is approved for trading on one of the most vibrant cryptocurrency markets in the world; however, the trading will start in May. HT is now one of 25 tokens approved by the Japanese FSA. Also, it is the first token of the cryptocurrency exchange in the pack. 

The exchange considers it a big move forward as the Japanese regulator is known for its tough and meticulous approach towards financial services and digital assets in particular. Initially, HT trading in Japan will be available in Huobi Japan. The Japanese branch of the exchange has been launched in 2018 after the Group received the license of the Japanese Ministry of Finance.