Cryptocurrency News Update: Elon Musk trolls Dogecoin, Bitcoin and major altcoins stay range-bound

Here's what you need to know on Monday

Markets:

BTC/USD settled at $9,180 after a move to $9,223 during early Asian hours on Monday. The first digital coin has barely changed both on a day-to-day basis and since the start of the day; The coin is moving within the short-term bearish trend amid low volatility.

At the time of writing, ETH/USD is changing hands at $238.58. The price touched $239.88 during early Asian hours but failed to hold ground. ETH/USD has grown by 1.4% in the recent 24 hours and stayed unchanged since the start of the day. The coin is moving within a short-term bullish trend amid low volatility.

XRP/USD tested area above $0.2000 during early Asian hours and retreated to $0.1984 by the time of writing. The price has stayed unchanged on a day-to-day basis and since the beginning of the day moving in sync with the market. Now the short-term bearish trend amid low volatility.

Among the 100 most important cryptocurrencies, Swipe (SXP) $1.78 (+39.5%), Terra (LUNA) $0.3647 (+36.3%), Band Protocol (BAND) $4.06 (+31.5%) are the most successeful. The day's losers are Flexacoin (FXC) $0.0030 (-24.7%) , Elrond (ERD) $0.0135 (-8.5%), Reserve Rights (RSR) $0.0120 (-7.4%).

Chart of the day:
BTC/USD, 30-min chart

Elon Musk trolled Dogecoin on the weekend. He pumped the coin by posting a meme that inspired a lot of bullish speculations and caused DOGE price to soar by nearly 16%. Later he posted another tweet asking whether Dogecoin was a valid form of currency, which caused another massive price increase. DOGE jumped by nearly 8% to $0.003738 in less than 30 minutes and swiftly retreated to $0.003372. The coin is down 4.5% on a day-to-day basis, though it is still well above the pre-pimp levels. 

Industry

PayPal has chosen Paxos to handle the crypto-related services and offer its massive user base new payment options with digital assets, CoinDesk reports citing two people familiar with the matter. New York-based Paxos has recently launched an AI-based brokerage solution, Paxos Crypto Brokerage. The service offers a wide range of functionality, including cryptocurrency buying, selling, holding, and sending.

The Ethereum (ETH) market capitalization is only about 50% of the entire ETH blockchain, according to the recent research published by Messari. The total value of ERC-20 tokens like LINK and stablecoins skyrocketed to $25.6 billion, which is roughly 49% of the total value of the assets on the Ethereum (ETH) blockchain. Ryan Selkis, CEO of crypto analytics firm Messari, commented: 

Ether now only accounts for 51% of the value secured on the Ethereum blockchain, which is the smallest amount on a percentage basis that it’s accounted for in its history. The other 49% of the value stored on Ethereum now incentivizes economic activity beyond the maintenance and execution of the Ethereum blockchain.

Regulation

 Malaysia Securities Commission warned that the cryptocurrency exchange Binance had no legal right to operate in the country. The regulator blacklisted the company as it was breaking securities laws “operating a recognized market without authorization from the SC.” The cryptocurrency exchanges should obtain a license and register with the regulator, otherwise, they may be liable for hefty fines and imprisonment. Meanwhile, Binance has no plans to cease its operations in the country, Decrypt reports citing the comment from Binance customer service.

The Bank of Japan (BoJ) has established a “Digital Currency Group” to speed up the development fo digital yen. The group will study digitization of the yen and the potential CBDCs under the umbrella of the Payment and Settlement Systems Department. Akio Okuno, deputy director-general at the Department and the former head of the policy planning division in the Monetary Affairs Department will head the new formation.