Bitcoin, the flagship cryptocurrency, has recently seen its price break through a critical resistance level, which saw some declare the end of the bear market. Given the cryptocurrency’s performance, the crypto ecosystem’s market cap surpassed $200 billion.

According to CryptoCompare, one bitcoin is currently trading at about $6,720, after rising 7.6% in the last 24-hour period. In the last 30 days, the cryptocurrency is up by nearly 30%, despite various negative headlines affecting the industry.



Notably, BTC jumped after breaking the $6,400 resistance, which acted as a support for it last year when it was dropping from a $20,000 all-time high. In November, the $6,400 support broke and BTC ultimately fell to a $3,200 low, before starting to recover. Since then, the cryptocurrency has now seen its price more than double, and so far this year has been outperforming commodities like gold, and the market’s benchmark index, the S&P 500.

What’s behind bitcoin’s price performance is unclear, although theories abound. Some believe that BTC breaking above its 200-day moving average and scoring a golden cross last month, where its 50-day moving average crosses above its 200-day moving average, justify the price performance.

Others point to growing adoption. As covered, a survey conducted for Fidelity Investments found that 47% of institutional investors believe cryptocurrencies are worth investing in, while 22% already own some form of cryptocurrency. The flagship cryptocurrency has also notably been shrugging off bad news, and kept on rising despite numerous incidents.

Earlier this month, crypto exchange Bitfinex was accused by New York’s Attorney General of covering up an $850 million loss and of engaging in fraud, along with Tether, a company it shares management with. More recently, leading cryptocurrency exchange Binance got hacked for 7,000 BTC (worth over $40 million).

As seen above, the cryptocurrency’s price quickly recovered from both events. After the Binance hack rolling back the Bitcoin blockchain was considered – a move that could hurt people’s confidence in BTC altogether – but nevertheless its price kept going up.

Altcoins Follow Bitcoin’s Lead
As would be expected, most altcoins have been following bitcoin in the rally, with most being up significantly. Ethereum’s ether, EOS, and NEO are all up between 6% and 7%, while XRP, Zcash, and Dash rose between 1.5% and 3%.

Notably, a few altcoins have been outperforming bitcoin itself in the last 24-hour period. Bitcoin Cash, for example, is up by 9.6%, while Litecoin is up by 14%. Brave’s Basic Attention Token,, which is now being rewarded to users who opt-in to see ads, rose 11.1%.

Thanks to these performances the crypto ecosystem has added over $10 billion to its market cap in the last 24 hours, helping it to go over the $200 billion mark.

source:  https://www.cryptoglobe.com/latest/2019/05/bitcoin-s-price-breaks-critical-resistance-as-crypto-market-cap-surpasses-200-billion/

Crypto exchange Bitfinex shareholder Zhao Dong has reportedly revealed that the exchange has sealed $1 billion in both hard and soft commitments for its initial native exchange token offering. The news was reported by crypto news outlet Coindesk on May 9.

As previously reported, plans to issue a native Bitfinex exchange token first surfaced in late April, with later details revealed by Dong and a subsequent ostensibly official marketing paper allegedly from iFinex, the company behind both Bitfinex and associated stablecoin issuer Tether (USDT).

A white paper published by Bitfinex on May 8 confirmed that the exchange intends to issue up to $1 billion in native “LEO” utility tokens, each worth 1 tether, in a private sale ending May 11.

In his latest disclosure on Chinese messenger service WeChat, Zhao reportedly stated that “there’s a high possibility Bitfinex will not conduct a public sale,” given that it has already allegedly sealed sufficient hard and soft commitments to purchase its $1 billion allocation from private investors.

Soft commitments refer to cases where investors can still decide to cancel the deal upon their review of the LEO white paper. Zhao had previously outlined that investors are able to cement their soft commitment to a hard commitment by providing a 10% deposit.

The ostensible $1 billion in both types of commitments thus means that there remains a chance that some investors will yet withdraw, in which case Zhao reportedly stated the leftover tokens would be issued to others on a first come, first serve basis.

As reported, alongside his stake in Bitfinex, Zhao runs a major Chinese BTC over-the-counter trading desk and is the founder of Singapore-based DFund.

Meanwhile, the New York Attorney General’s office has recently accused Bitfinex of having lost $850 million in user deposits, and subsequently secretly covering up the shortfall using funds from Tether — the latter of which has itself come under renewed criticism for being backed only 74% by USD reserves.

With Tether officially rebuffing the allegations — and both companies heavily criticizing New York authorities for the manner in which they raised their complaint — parent company IFinex continues to contest the legal allegations in court, with a judge on Monday partly siding with the co-defendants.

source:  https://cointelegraph.com/news/bitfinex-shareholder-says-1-billion-in-private-purchases-already-sealed-for-upcoming-ieo

Most of the top ten cryptocurrencies are rising, but Bitcoin (BTC) experienced one of the largest gains. BTC prices were above $5,800 by the time of publication, nearly $500 higher from the same time yesterday.

Bitcoin’s total value has also broken past the $100bn boundary for the first time since November, when the Bitcoin Cash fork caused a market-wide downturn.

Although the market as a whole is up, Bitcoin appears to be the main driver behind the rally. BTC dominance – the share of the market cap made up by Bitcoin – is now at 55%, the highest level of the year.

The total value of the market currently sits just above $186bn. If the present trend continues, it will be on course to hit the highest level for 2019.

What’s behind the rise?
The world learned yesterday that Facebook is busy developing its own cryptocurrency payments system. According to a report seen by the Wall Street Journal, ‘Project Libra’ will make a new Facebook stablecoin the centre of a whole new network. The tech giant is believed to be in discussions with Mastercard and Visa, and might use the token to incentivise users to interact with ads on its social media platform.

Some analysts believe the news might have sparked the bullish move in the markets. Tara Annison, Technical Product Manager of the PR9 Network, an institutional crypto trading and settlement platform, believed it represented a “strong display of confidence in the industry” in an email to Crypto Briefing.

Annison argued that it might also represent a crucial watershed moment in how industry players are perceived.“It’s not just start-ups and crypto-based businesses who are interested in blockchain technology and the power of cryptocurrency, but established businesses such as Facebook too,” she wrote.

Iain Wilson, an advisor at NEM Ventures, the venture capital arm for the NEM (XEM) project, said Facebook’s increasing involvement in the space represented validation for many investors. “Facebook’s Project Libra, combined with its recent pivot to privacy, reinforces the increasing bullish view that crypto is entering the mainstream,” he wrote in an email.

Similarly, Matthew Branton, Chief Technology Officer of Neutral, argued Project Libra was a “prime example” of business’ adoption of blockchain. A net benefit that would help develop viable use cases for the technology. “A project like Facebook’s would cement aspects of blockchain technology as viable and applicable with appropriate scale,” he said.

Other causes at play
But Mati Greenspan, senior market analyst at eToro is skeptical that yesterday’s Facebook news has anything to do with it. “As far as I know, Facebook is working on something separate to the current crypto market,” he said.
Greenspan believes that it’s more likely that the market is up partly because of sentiment’s “[general] bullishness” but also because of the news surrounding the Tether (USDT) stablecoin and Bitfinex.

Annison also highlighted that today’s Bitcoin rally reflected part of a longstanding trend.“It is worth noting that Q2 is generally a better quarter for bitcoin, after the lows that Q1 brings, and we’re now also around the one year mark away from the next halving, which may mean people start to accumulate,” she said.

If, as Greenspan suggests, today’s market move was sparked by concerns surrounding Tether, it would be interesting to see whether Facebook can develop a token which holds a stable store of value, said Annison.

“The success of the various stablecoin projects to date is questionable,” she said, “so it will be interesting to see how their approach develops and whether they can produce both a successful network and stable-priced cryptocurrency.”

source:  https://cryptobriefing.com/bitcoin-market-cap-facebook-crypto-plans/

This week, a scandal involving Bitfinex and Tether parent company iFinex being accused by the New York Attorney General’s office of misappropriating funds has shaken up the cryptocurrency market.

Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies have rallied in recent months, however, the latest negative news surrounding the leading stablecoin on the market has been enough to cut Bitcoin’s bullish rally short, and a technical indicator now suggests that further downside momentum is in the cards.

Bullish Bitcoin Gets Interrupted By Bitfinex and Tether Drama, Indicator Spits Sell Signal

According to Bloomberg, the GTI Vera Convergence Divergence indicator used to signal important trend reversals, has called for the first “sell” in Bitcoin price charts since halfway through March.

Back in mid-March, the previous sell signal was short lived, closing only a couple daily candles before the same GTI Vera Convergence Divergence indicator spit out a buy signal. It was days later when Bitcoin rallied nearly $1,000 over the course of an hour, breaking through key resistance and reaching its current trading range above $5,000.

This latest sell signals comes just as news has broke regarding Bitfinex being accessed by the NY AG’s office for potentially hiding a loss of $850 million. The attorney general’s office also says that Bitfinex used Tether reserves to hide the lost funds, shaking up crypto investors in the process.

Cryptocurrency investors often sell their Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies into the stablecoin Tether in order to prevent losses from falling volatile crypto assets. Investors have become worried about the overall integrity of the market, fearing that much of the value of cryptocurrencies is overblown due to Tether artificially inflating numbers.

The fears sent the price of Bitcoin plummeting on Thursday night, but bears have still been unable to break below $5,000 with conviction.

The price of Bitcoin is currently trading at around $5,150 and has been locked to a range since the downward spike. However if the GTI Vera Convergence Divergence indicator is to be believed, further downside movement may be imminent.

There’s no need to panic yet, as the previous time the GTI Vera spit out a sell signal, it almost immediately gave a buy signal right after. Indicators giving false or conflicting information is why technical crypto analysts use a variety of indicators on price charts to base their predictions on.

Before Bitcoin’s bullish rally was interrupted by the Bitfienx drama, many analysts had believed that the bottom was indeed in, a new bull trend had emerged, and that the price of Bitcoin would soon reach over $6,000 – the price of Bitcoin prior to November 2018’s plunge through the critical support that is now acting as just as strong resistance.

source:  https://www.newsbtc.com/2019/04/30/technical-indicator-tether-trouble-bitcoin/

Binance announced that it has completed Binance Coin (BNB) mainnet swap meaning that the users can now deposit and withdraw the BNB tokens that exist natively on Binance Chain. Earlier today, Binance burned 5 million ERC20 tokens and allocated BEP2 (native) BNB tokens to its wallets.

Binance will continue to support the deposit of ERC20 BNB to let users convert to BEP2 for the foreseeable future but encourages to convert within 90 days (until mid-July). As more users convert their ERC20 tokens to BEP2, more BEP2 will be released and the same amount of ERC20 BNB will be burned. Binance will no longer support the withdrawal of ERC20 BNB starting from April 23rd, 2019.

source:  https://www.theblockcrypto.com/tiny/binance-completes-bnb-mainnet-swap-burns-5-million-erc20-tokens/

Major industry proponents have called the bottom on multiple occasions, only for the market to plunge further afterward. However, it does seem that the situation may have changed.

On April 2nd, Bitcoin entered into a long-forgotten positive rally, jumping from around $4,150 to around $5,000 in hours. The run continued throughout the rest of the week, as the cryptocurrency is currently sitting comfortably above $5,100. Naturally, this drove the entire market up, with almost all major altcoins marking serious gains as well.

One thing that has to be noted, however, is that the latest Bitcoin rally was also backed by serious volume. In fact, Binance, the world’s leading cryptocurrency exchange, saw Bitcoin volumes surging past its all-time high. The volume also surged on other platforms, including Bitcoin margin exchanges such as BitMEX.

Is Increased Volume Signaling the End of Bear Market?

Typically, increased buying volume for Bitcoin is considered to be a bullish sign. It suggests that more people are getting into the market, interested to buy the digital currency. Moreover, however, it needs to be sustainable. Large volume can also be caused by whales buying in, but if it is spread over time and it is consistent it could signal that more people are getting involved.

On the other hand, it’s important to look at other market factors which might signal that the bear market has come to an end.

Another important factor to consider is the so-called market breadth. It’s a prominent indicator which takes into account the overall condition of the market. In the sense of cryptocurrencies, market breadth would also indicate how many of the other digital currencies are noting gains.

A positive market breadth occurs when more cryptocurrencies are advancing than declining. During the last rally, almost all of the top 100 digital currencies were trading in the green. While this is oftentimes the case when Bitcoin is rallying, it’s still an important consideration nonetheless.

Halving is Incoming

Yet another thing to be positive about when it comes to the cryptocurrency market is that Bitcoin halving is approaching. The event which will slash miners’ block rewards in half is scheduled for May 2020.

This will reduce the supply of Bitcoin on the market and if the demand remains the same or it gets higher, the price should in theory, increase.

Additionally, certain analysts have also outlined that Bitcoin typically starts to increase in value “around 1 year on average before its halving date,” which is particularly close.

source: https://www.newsbtc.com/2019/04/16/do-the-recent-trading-volume-highs-mark-an-end-to-the-bitcoin-bear-market/

Have you checked Coinmarketcap lately? Everything's green. Such a remarkable sight. Bitcoin and other digital assets spiked to fresh multi-months highs within several hours on Monday and managed to settle at new levels. That spectacular price growth was just unbelievable. Bitcoin is still above $5000 level and looks like it's staying put. Altcoins demonstrated similar momentum. Dormant bulls seem to have woken up to mark the beginning of Crypto Spring. Is it really?
What could be the reason behind all this? Needless to say, i really do not care of what took place, who, or why. I am just so happy with all the positive things surrounding the crypto world nowadays. Aren't you?
Will it be safe to say that our dilemma is finally over?

Bitcoin, which has soared over the last two days to top $5,000 for the first time this year, taking the market by surprise, and causing many bitcoin bulls to celebrate (perhaps prematurely) a return to the glory days of late 2017, where bitcoin and many other cryptocurrencies added thousands of dollars to their individual prices almost overnight.

The bitcoin price has risen by almost 30% since Sunday after steadily gaining throughout March and left many analysts and traders scratching their heads over the precise cause of the bitcoin price breakout.

If that reason isn't based on strong fundamentals, it could mean the latest rally is short-lived, with some major coins, including ethereum, Ripple's XRP, binance coin, stellar, monero, and tron already somewhat giving up their latest gains.

The bitcoin and wider cryptocurrency market has added an eye-watering $30 billion since Monday morning, with a big leap taking it up by $15 billion in a matter of minutes on Tuesday.

The cause of the sudden bitcoin price boom is still uncertain but many traders and analysts have put it down to a major order place by an anonymous buyer, which set off a wave of algorithmic buying as computer programs scrambled to place orders of their own and not miss out on the sudden price surge.

Now, the likes of bitcoin rivals ethereum, Ripple's XRP, binance coin, stellar, monero, and tron have already begun falling back, losing between 0.5% and 4% each over the last 24 hour trading period, according to the latest prices from CoinMarketCap, which tracks most major cryptocurrencies.

Despite those latest falls, these so-called alt coins, a term to refer to any cryptocurrency other than bitcoin, remain far above the levels they were trading at last week—though some analysts are wary these gains will last.

"You can't slay what was never really there in the first place," said Mati Greenspan, senior market analyst at brokerage eToro. "Price action has been bullish lately but we need to see it sustained over a longer period of time to call it a bull market.

"Last night's pullback is hardly discouraging though. It's usual to see some sort of profit taking after a surge like that. The key question is how far the retracement will take us?"

Meanwhile, traders and analysts were still upbeat about bitcoin's prospects.

"Bitcoin has sprung back to life on a new wave of momentum," said eToro's Simon Peters. "Though some bears still remain, this move could signal that the majority of investor sentiment is now turning bullish. Breaking above the $5,000 psychological barrier means bitcoin’s next resistance level is due for recalibration.

"The new resistance level of $6,000, where price held for months last year, is now in play. What happens next will be crucial. How price reacts to a retest of the $6,000 level will have a lasting impact on the mid- and long-term outlook for bitcoin."

Elsewhere, some bullish market commenters were quick to jump on the bitcoin price rise, calling an end to the bitter bitcoin bear market that's gripped the sector for months, branded crypto winter for its debilitating effect on the sector.

"After being in bear territory there is a growing sense that bitcoin is back," said Nigel Green, founder and chief executive of deVere Group. "I’m now calling that the market has bottomed and the so-called crypto winter has come to an end.

"I believe bitcoin will now move higher over the next few weeks and months, making steady gains for investors. As the largest cryptocurrency by market cap, this will have a positive impact on prices in the wider crypto sector."

source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/billybambrough/2019/04/04/the-bitcoin-market-bull-run-is-already-over-for-these-coins