Cryptocurrency Market News: Bitcoin bulls scatter as selling activities intensify under $12k

Here is what you need to know on Wednesday, August 19, 2020.

Markets:

Bitcoin price has plunged from $11,955 (traded at the session opening) to intraday low at $11,657. The losses came into the picture following an initial rejection at $12,500. Support envisioned at $12,200 failed to rise to the occasion even as bears left no stone unturned above $12,000. At the time of writing, a shallow recovery has ensued, pulling BTC above $11,700 but the support turned resistance at $11,800 remains intact.

Read more: Bitcoin Price Prediction: BTC/USD extends fall $12,000 as $11,500 beckons unswervingly

Ethereum, on the other hand, has suffered a loss of 3.2% on the day. An increase in selling pressure saw buyers hit a barrier at $426 (intraday high), giving way to declines towards $400. Ether hit an intraday low at $406. Bulls are currently nurturing a reversal eyeing levels above $410 but the price is teetering at $408 at the moment.

As discussed earlier, XRP was not spared the ax by the bearish wave that swept across the cryptocurrency market on Wednesday towards the end of the Asian session. Prior to the retreat, XRP had recovered to test $0.3250 resistance. The dive from this barrier has refreshed $0.2863 intraday low but a reversal has already pulled XRP above $0.29.

The losses incurred by the major cryptocurrencies have also affected smaller cryptoassets in equal measure. For instance, Chainlink is down 9.64%, Tron 14.62%, IOTA 10.26%, Ontology 10.11%, BitTorrent 14.19% and Ox 10.24% among others. Intriguingly some digital assets have managed to hold onto their gains such as yearn.finance up 20.42% and Terra 12.99%.

Chart Of The Day: BTC/USD 1-hour

Market:

Renowned Billionaire, Warrant Buffet is reported to have had a change of heart regarding gold as an investment. For a long time, Buffet has been a critic of the precious metal and preferred to invest in stocks of companies and banks. However, that is all in the past now following a statement by his firm, Berkshire Hathaway, that it has dumped bank stocks in favor of a position in a gold miner. Gold prices recently hit $2,000 an ounce probably attracting the billionaire.

Warren’s flip on gold has made people in the industry guessing if the mogul will also change his stance on Bitcoin. Despite having lunch with Tron founder Justin Sun, Warren maintained that he will never own BTC. In fact, 1 BTC gifted to him was given to charity.

Jason Williams, the founder of Morgan Creek Digital reckoned that “Buffet sold banks and bought gold. He will buy Bitcoin soon.” Another investor, Max Keiser added that the billionaire “will start panic-buying Bitcoin at $50,000, just like Peter Schiff.”

Industry:

The race to get to the DeFi train before it is too far gone commenced a while back but cryptocurrency participants are not ready to give up. One such project is Qtum, an open-source public blockchain-enabled protocol that claims to leverage the security of UTXO while powering multiple virtual machines such as the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM). It is evident that the decentralized finance ecosystem is expanding rapidly (currently funds locked in DeFi have hit above $6 billion). According to Qtum:

“The combination of traditional finance and decentralized blockchain networks are creating a wonderful revolution. However, at this time of rapid development, the entire DeFi ecosystem still faces various constraints and challenges.”

The team wants to bring to the DeFi table solutions that match the complexity of the decentralized applications. The aim is to remove the limitations of networks such as Ethereum by ensuring that high transaction throughput, on-chain governance and lower transaction fees.  

Regulation:

A virtual meeting bringing together board members and specialists from several central banks is scheduled to take place on August 19. The discussion forms part of the OMFIF Digital Monetary Institute. The main topic to be discussed is how blockchain and distributed ledger technology (DLT) is going to aid central banks in the journey of launching CBDCs.

Among the speaker are Simon Scorer, the senior fintech specialist of the Bank of England, Cess Van Wijk, an IT team manager from the ING Nederland as well as Aniko Szombati, the chief digital officer from the Magyar Nemzeti Bank.