Cryptocurrency Market News: Bitcoin in a slow recovery mode, $9,000 unconquered

Here's what you need to know on Wednesday

Markets:

BTC/USD is changing hands above $8,900, having recovered from the intraday low of $8,806. The coin has gained over 2% on a day-to-day basis and 1% since the beginning of Wednesday, though it is still below critical $9,000. Now Bitcoin is trading within the strong short-term bearish bias amid low volatility.

At the time of writing, ETH/USD is changing hands at $190.50. The price tested a high of $191.65 during early Asian hours but reversed to the downside. The second-largest coin has barely both on a day-to-day basis and since the beginning of the day. Now ETH is moving within a short-term bullish trend. The volatility is low.

XRP/USD is hovering at $0.1970 after a failed attempt to test the upper boundary of the current consolidation range $0.2000-$0.1900. A sustainable move outside the range is needed for the momentum to gain traction. XRP/USD is trading within a bearish trend amid low volatility.

Among the 100 most important cryptocurrencies, Electroneum (ENT) $0.0050 (+31%), DigiByte (DGB) $0.0224 (+27%), and KuCoin Shares (KCS) $1.02 (+21.2%)

 The day's losers are, Status (SNT) $0.0307 (-8.3%), Aave (LEND) $0.0595 (-6.2%), Augur (REP) $12.84 (-6.0%)

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

Market

According to the Coin Metrics report, the value of the assets used to back all stablecoins surpassed $10 billion, with is 70% higher than two months ago. The experts noted that the stablecoins supply has been growing as cryptocurrency traders preferred trading altcoins with dollar-backed digital tokens instead of bitcoin. 

Altcoin traders have historically preferred to use bitcoin or even ether as the currency that prices other tokens. But during the past two years, that trend has shifted significantly. Now they mostly trade against stablecoins.

Tether remains the largest and the most popular stablecoin that represents 90% of the total stablecoin supply. Its trading volume is generated mostly by Asia-based cryptocurrency exchanges Binance and Huobi that attract users by a wide range of available coins.

Industry

TON’s creator Pavel Durov officially announced that the project was closed. He cited the decisions of the US court decision to ban GRAM from being distributed both on the territory of the US and globally. 

US court declared that Grams couldn't be distributed not only in the United States but globally. Why? Because, it said, a US citizen might find some way of accessing the TON platform after it launched. So, to prevent this, Grams shouldn’t be allowed to be distributed anywhere in the world – even if every other country on the planet seemed to be perfectly fine with TON.

Durov also added that Telegram’s involvement in TON was over, while the projects using the Telegram brand or the "TON" to promote their products should not be trusted.

Chainlink developers announced the launch of a Verifiable Random Function (VRF) that will be used to create verifiable random numbers. The solution is compatible with Ethereum blockchain and available in the testnet.

We’re excited to launch a Verifiable Random Function (VRF) capability. Smart contract developers can now access verifiable randomness through #Chainlink oracles, enabling a new set of blockchain applications in gaming, security & layer-2 protocols.

Regulation

Speaking during Consensus: Distributed workshop devoted to the future of fiat money,  the BoE's senior fintech specialist, Simon Scorer, stated that the central bank would not allow technology providers to influence the design principles if digital pound if BOE chooses to create one.

We're clear that any choice of technology around a CBDC should be led by a set of requirements and not the other way around. We would not let the choice of technology dictate the design; instead, what we would do is decide what functionality the CBDC requires, what our design principles are, and then we would choose what technology is most appropriate.