Bitcoin rose to around $59.8k just before press time as the embattled bulls made a late recovery. The largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization endured a difficult last week as the bears managed to pin down the bulls in the short term. Altcoins on the other hand posted some mixed recoveries too. More on that later on.
In other news, Jack Dorsey, the Twitter founder and CEO has released a new whitepaper for his envisaged cryptocurrency exchange. The new exchange is called tbDEX and is quite different from the plethora of crypto exchanges currently populating the market. More on that later on.
Speaking of cryptocurrency exchanges, Kraken crypto exchange has announced that it would be delisting the Monero (XMR) cryptocurrency from the platform for UK users. The move comes after increasing regulatory onslaught on the privacy-focused coins including Monero, XMR and ZCash. Regulators suspect that these cryptos are used for illicit activities and are hard to trace around the blockchain.
From Florida to New York, the US is seeing a grassroots pro-crypto movement around the country. Despite the federal government and agencies being very strict on the sector, it is still managing to prosper in the largest economy in the world. This is evident from a number of newly elected mayors in different cities who have promised to take a part of their pay in Bitcoin and implement pro-crypto reforms in their respective administrative localities.
Major brands and iconic companies are entering the NFT market in droves. McDonald’s, Burger King and the National Basketball Association (NBA) all have embraced the fast-growing sector and have NFT offerings in place.
Famous English football club Manchester City signed and then hurriedly retracted a new contract with a supposedly shady digital currency company. What is further interesting is that they backed out of it without any explanation. The company named 3Key reportedly had its contract nullified by the sports team after it was found out by the officials that the crypto company’s founders had little online digital footprint, a recipe for a big scam.
Bitcoin Rebounds Near $60k
Bitcoin rebounded strongly just before press time to get to as high as $59.7k. The cryptocurrency endured a tough week overall but it may be looking to end it at a high.
The last 24 hours started with Bitcoin at around $57.7k. It started rising and reached $59k as early as 3:30 AM in the morning. However, the bulls couldn’t just carry on this price appreciation and proceeded to trade sideways for a long time following it. At 3:50 PM in the evening, the digital currency began to tank once again. It went down below $58k and at that point it appeared as if that it would close around that mark. However, the bulls soon regrouped strongly and at 7:15 PM made the index rise to $59.7k in a matter of minutes and the index has stayed around that valuation ever since.
Going forward, Bitcoin is currently below $60k and such that a move below it will keep bearish hopes alive and well. So, the bulls need to make a stronger comeback to revive the upwards trend line. The bears on the other hand may come back into action on Sunday and close the week on a lower note.
The total market capitalization of Bitcoin was around $1.12 trillion and its share of the proceedings was 42.86%.
Altcoins Post Mixed Outings
Other cryptocurrencies aka altcoins had a mixed day overall as some posted gains while other posted losses. Leading the charge was Avalanche (AVAX, 15%) that posted yet another record new high to go #11 on the charts. Ethereum (ETH, 3%), Cardano (ADA, 2.5%) and Crypto.com Coin (CRO. 2%) also posted small gains. Much of the rest of the market remained quite steady overall.
In Other News…..
Twitter CEO Unveils New Crypto Exchange Whitepaper
Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey has unveiled a new whitepaper for his crypto exchange platform. He is undertaking this move through Square, his crypto investment initiative that holds around $200 million in Bitcoin for him.
The exchange is named tbDEX and is named as a decentralized exchange (DEX). While its actual proposed working has much fewer features than a regular DEX platform, there are some positives to be derived from it. In essence, it is for swapping your crypto coins and not a conventional exchange of sorts. There is the requirement for KYC compliance that might put off some users from it too.
But, overall, it is the first major attempt at a DEX from one of the mainstream social media companies. Dorsey is known to be a fan of the Bitcoin and the crypto community in general and has enabled a crypto tipping feature on Twitter itself for fundraising platforms like Patreon.