Cryptocurrency Market News: Bitcoin recovers weekly losses, aims at $10,000

Here's what you need to know on Thursday

Markets:

BTC/USD is changing hands at $9,530, having gained over 6% in the recent 24 hours. The first digital coin recovered from the intraday low of $9,260, however, the short-term trend remains bullish. The next critical resistance is created by $10,000. 

ETH/USD moved above $201.00 and retreated to $199.70 by the time of writing. The second-largest coin has barely changed since the beginning of Thursday and increased by 4.3% on a day-to-day basis. Now ETH is moving within a short-term bullish trend. The volatility is shrinking.

XRP/USD is hovering marginally above $0.2000 after a successful attempt to break the upper boundary of the recent consolidation range $0.2000-$0.1900. While a sustainable move outside the range is a positive development, we still need to see a follow-through for the momentum to gain traction. XRP/USD is trading within a bearish trend amid low volatility.

Among the 100 most important cryptocurrencies, Hyperion (HYN) $0.5117 (+24%), Crypterium (CRPT) $0.5133 (+19.7%), and Zilliqa (ZIL) $0.0091 (+16.9%)

The day's losers are, KuCoin Shares (KCS) $0.9372 (-10.2%) Enjin Coin (ENJ) $0.1581 (-6.3%), Numeraire (NMR) $27.49 (-5.2%).

Chart of the day:
BTC/USD, daily chart

Market

The expert from the cryptocurrency research company Messari, Willson Withiam concluded that about 90% of the real cryptocurrency trading volume is related to Bitcoin, Ethereum and Tether-backed USDT. He wrote on Twitter:

Crypto trading volume in 2020 has been all about BTC, USDT, & ETH. These three now represent ~90% of real vol within the top 10 compared to 75% just 1 year ago.

He also added that the growing popularity of USDT is a natural thing as the world still regards SU Dollar as the principal store of value and a safe-haven in turbulent times.

According to Elias Simos, the lead analyst of venture fund Decentral Park Capital, ETH holding on the cryptocurrency wallets of Bitfinex increased to 4 million coins (over $785 million), which is more than the number of coins frozen on DeFi accounts (about 2.6 million coins). 

There is now more $ETH locked in @bitfinex than in the whole of #DeFi (source: @glassnode) Since mid-March, the balance of ETH on Bitfinex has increased from ~2.5M to ~4M ETH. Over the same period, ~3B Tether has printed on the Ethereum chain, he wrote.

Industry

Whale Alert, a Twitter-based bot that traces large cryptocurrency transactions, detected that  137 ETH stolen by hackers from Upbit in November 2019, was moved to Binance account. However, the head of the exchange, Changpeng Zhao promised to freeze the assets to stop the bad actors in the industry. He said, that Binance was working with Upbit and law enforcement agencies to confirm the malicious nature of the transactions. 

CoinFlip, Bitcoin ATM provider in the U.S, has launched a new service, called CoinFlip Preferred. It offers a personalized approach for high-wealth individuals and step-by-step assistance with the trading process. Commenting on the news, Daniel Polotsky, CEO and Co-Founder of CoinFlip, said:

Our mission has always been to help regular people build their wealth by demystifying cryptocurrencies and giving them easier access to these burgeoning markets. With CoinFlip Preferred we can provide more Americans with the kind of high-touch investment service many companies reserve for their wealthiest clients.

Regulation

According to FinCEN Director Kenneth Blanco, over 70 000 cases of suspicious activity reports (SARs) related to cryptocurrency have been filed since 2013. About 50% of them were submitted by the cryptocurrency companies, he said during CoinDesk's Consensus: Distributed virtual conference on Wednesday. However, some offshore companies were not willing enough to detect and report illicit behavior.

We are increasingly concerned that businesses located outside the United States continue to try to do business with U.S. persons without complying with our rules, Blanco said. If you want access to the U.S. financial system, and the U.S. market, you must abide by the rules. We are serious about enforcing our regulations.