Crypto Today: XRP is the huge outperfomer rocketing above the game-changing $0.3000 mark

Here's what you need to know on Thursday

Markets

BTC/USD is currently trading at $10,200 (-1.40%), the price must hold during minor pullback the $10,000 mark or risk reversal. 

ETH/USD is currently trading at $268 (+1.80%), price underwent some minor cooling in the session, making way for further moves north.

XRP/USD is currently trading at $0.3288 (+9.20%), XRP as the bulls firmly break above $0.3000.

Among the 100 most important cryptocurrencies, the best of the day are HBAR $0.069323 (+64.55%), CHZ $0.018063 (+54.49%) THETA $0.157127 (+21.75%) The day's losers are NEM $0.067683 (-9.42%), MANA $0.059689 (-8.50%),  QNT $4.61 (-8.22%).

Chart of the day: XRP/USD daily chart

Market

Binance’s futures contracts trading platform – Binance Futures – announced the launch of BAT/USDT perpetual contracts with up to 50x leverage. The contracts begin trading from February 13, 08:00 AM (UTC) onwards.

 OKEx, cryptocurrency and digital assets platform recently launched BTCUSD options trading feature on the platform, which are reportedly seen chunky volumes of around $176 million within a span of one month. The figures announced by OKEx puts it at the second place right under Derebit – the largest BTC options platform.

Regulation

The United States Senate held a hearing to go over the 2021 budget and US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin was asked: "How will the Treasury's proposed budget increase in monitoring suspicious cryptocurrency transactions and prosecuting terrorists and other criminal organizations financing illicit activities with cryptocurrency?" 

He replied:

“...we’re about to roll out some significant new requirements at FinCEN [Financial Crimes Enforcement Network]. We want to make sure that technology moves forward but on the other hand, we want to make sure that cryptocurrencies aren’t used for the equivalent of old Swiss secret number bank accounts.”

Industry 

Blockchain accelerator MouseBelt announced the welcoming of 11 founding members into its Blockchain Education Alliance. Mastercard, Ripple and crypto exchange Binance; and representatives from Neo, KuCoin and ethereum scaling solution Matic Network. They will join the 13 companies, including Stellar, TRON and Wanchain, that became part of the alliance when it was announced in October.

An alliance of strategic policymakers for formulating rules (led by chairman Akira Amari) for Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party decided on a proposal to urge the government toward preparing for the issuance of digital currency. The lawmakers will be handing the proposal over to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe soon, according to Japanese press Nikkei. 

Spanish soccer powerhouse FC Barcelona, or Barca, has teamed up with fintech platform Chiliz to create a blockchain-based token for the sports franchise. As part of the partnership with FC Barcelona, Chiliz created Barca Fan Tokens (BAR) for use on its social mobile app called Socios

Quote of the day

Bitcoin will never issue more bitcoin.=

Tyler Winklevoss