Image Source: Pixabay

Bitcoin breaks new records

Bitcoin has reached yet another peak, this week breaking through the $50,000 mark to trade at an all-time high above $58,000 on eToro. Buoyed by last week’s big-name investments and news of a number of large global banks considering the launch of crypto services, interest in the market continues to grow.

That being said, there are also some red flags which could slow its progress. Technical indicators such as the RSI (Relative Strength Index) and Stochastics across numerous chart timeframes are indicating that the crypto asset is overbought, implying that we could soon see a retracement. We’re also seeing signs of divergence, which will be a warning to many investors that the current price trajectory may be weakening, and that consolidation or change in price direction is on the horizon. 

Having spiked above $58,000 on Sunday, this morning it was trading off marginally at $55,800 (at 07:15 am).

David Derhy

Is the bubble burst imminent or are these yet more false promises?

Alongside the technical indicators, we’ve seen business personalities and economics experts weighing in on bitcoin’s future. Economist Nouriel Roubini, or Dr. Doom in some quarters, this week poured cold water again on bitcoin, stating that the Flintstones had a better monetary system. A long-time detractor of crypto’s potential, he asserted his views that it’s a bubble waiting to burst, with the market liable to manipulation. 

This is in stark contrast to Elon Musk, who last week said that bitcoin is a better investment than owning fiat currency. Following Tesla’s $1.5billion bitcoin purchase earlier this month, Musk last week tweeted: “When fiat currency has a negative real interest, only a fool wouldn’t look elsewhere”.

Simon Peters

Will America follow Canada and launch a Bitcoin ETF?

The New York Digital Investment Group (NYDIG) has submitted paperwork to launch a new bitcoin exchange-traded fund. As papers were filed with the SEC on Tuesday, it named NYDIG Trust Company LLC as the fund’s bitcoin custodian and Morgan Stanley as an authorized participant, following rumors about the bank’s appetite to get more involved with cryptoassets. Morgan Stanley’s role will revolve around selling shares to the public at prices that reflect the fund’s assets, supply and demand, and underlying market conditions. 

What’s most interesting is the fact that the move could result in the elusive SEC approval of a bitcoin ETF, following Canada’s approval of the first publicly traded bitcoin ETF in North America last week. This very long wait for such approval has not been for want of trying; several fund issuers have already tried and failed to get regulatory backing. Speculation about a US ETF approval has increased following the nomination of Gary Gensler as SEC chair. A crypto advocate, Gensler is best known for his work on derivatives regulation at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. 

Questions remain and it’s fair to say that this probably won’t be at the top of his to-do list, but 2021 could really be the year when a bitcoin ETF comes to America. 

Hail Mary – Cardano’s hard fork edges closer

News that Cardano’s upcoming Mary hard fork quality and assurance testing should be completed by February 24th has encouraged a strong rebound in the token’s price. With the hard fork slated for March 1st, ADA traded at $1.10 by the end of last week, a 60% increase from Monday’s $0.62. This performance shows a strong recovery from just 12 months ago when ADA traded at just $0.023.

The hard fork will allow developers to create tokens on Cardano more easily than on Ethereum, which requires custom code supported by the underlying blockchain. Tokens created on Cardano will be native, meaning no need for developers to write code just to communicate with the underlying blockchain, which would mean no gas fees or execution costs. This is particularly significant considering the controversy surrounding high gas fees on Ethereum and Bitcoin attracting attention for its energy requirements.

David Derhy

Dash continues steady gains

Following a predictable price pattern for most of 2020, Dash has continued its recent run and gained ~150% in the past two weeks. Some experts are predicting it could hit $400 soon, as it looks to build momentum like other cryptoassets. 

Airdrops continue as PoolTogether launches its own native token

Following Uniswap and 1inch, Defi projects on Ethereum continued airdropping tokens to their users. PoolTogether launched its own native token, POOL, and airdropped it to over 17,072 unique wallet addresses. The airdrop accounted for 14% of the total POOL supply, and over the next 14 weeks, a further 5% will be distributed.

Stargate upgrade to enable greater interoperability

Cosmos-based chains will soon be connected together thanks to the new Stargate upgrade. This improvement has impacted the price of Cosmos’ ATOM positively, which has increased over 200% since the beginning of February.

The upgrade has been highly anticipated in the Cosmos community, as it enables the introduction of Inter-Blockchain Communication (IBC), which will allow the exchange of transactions of value and data across compatible chains. These chains are currently siloed and therefore unable to communicate with each other. Other upgrade benefits will help to accelerate front-end developments and improve overall blockchain performance, as nodes will be able to synchronize 200 times faster.