Weekly News [9.3.-15.3.] | The most interesting news from the world of cryptocurrencies!

We have prepared a brief overview of the most important news for this week.

You can monitor the current cryptocurrency prices – here.

News 09.03. – 15.03.20

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Cryptocurrency

• Bitcoin is falling and cryptomarkets with it due to the onset of economic recession in Europe and the US
• Belgian government will sell at a public auction Bitcoin for 125 thousand USD
• Founder of IOTA confirmed that he will pay off the victims of the crypto attack, nearly 2 million USD
• Chainalysis: Only 1.1% of cryptotransactions are associated with unfair activities
• Coronavirus is a black swan-type event that also affects cryptofirms
• Cardano triggers scalability with Hydra Sharding
• Whales allegedly manipulate the BTC price to get it under $ 6,000
• Mati Greenspan went all-in to Bitcoin, selling all the altcoins
• Edward Snowden: Bitcoin’s downfall is due to panic, it’s a good opportunity to buy
• Peter Brandt: Bitcoin could fall below $ 1,000

 

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Cryptocurrency exchanges

• Kraken wants to expand its activities to India after lifting the ban on cryptocurrencies
• Bittrex announced credit card support
• Bithumb joins Chainalysis despite tightening regulations in South Korea
• Kraken starts trading with fiat currencies
• CME will close its trading center due to coronavirus on Friday
• Huobi and Bithumb back online after yesterday’s congestion
• OKEx outperformed BitMex in terms of bitcoin futures

 

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Blockchain, Technology

• China’s central bank will pour $ 47 million into the blockchain trading platform
• Blockchain will monitor the use of renewable energy in Germany
• AliPay wants to expand online services due to higher demand
• FarmVille creators launch Gala game platform on blockchain

 

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Regulations, State digital currencies

• US Congressman introduced a new law for cryptocurrencies
• After a record cut in the Fed’s interest rates, interest in cryptocurrency loans increased
• The Fed pumped another $ 168 billion into the US economy – more than the BTC marketcap
• US cryptocurrency law violates financial privacy by tracking transactions
• Central Bank of Great Britain presented the CBDC study
• New York regulators require cryptofirms to submit coronavirus plans
• Hungary will isolate billions of cash for two weeks

 

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Bitcoin is falling and cryptomarkets with it due to the onset of economic recession in Europe and the US

 

While the economy may enter into a substantial recession, some have hoped for Bitcoin to remain stable. Last week appeared to show Bitcoin having staying power, as it decoupled from the stock market. However, the weekend revealed that the cryptocurrency was following in the footsteps of the Dow with massive losses. On Sunday alone, a decline of more than 10% left traders and Bitcoin faithful reeling.

 

Amid threats of exiting the market completely, many traders have found themselves holding bags. A host of traders had entered in January, hoping for returns on the pre-halving run-up. However, as outside economic forces pull the plug on growth, the digital asset has seen dramatic losses.

 

Cardano triggers scalability with Hydra Sharding

 

Cardano is bringing sharding to its blockchain through Hydra, its latest scalability innovation, announced IOHK founder Charles Hoskinson. Hydra is the result of five years of research and the efforts of more than two dozen team members, Hoskinson says. Though the team published its initial build paper in November and submitted its conference paper to USENIX in September, the paper is now publicly available for the fist time.

 

Hoskinson adds that Hydra is a key part of Cardano’s overarching efforts to create Oroborous, a scalable proof-of-stake protocol that is capable to maintaining performance as adoption grows. “The capstone of this entire research agenda is Oroborous Hydra,” said Hoskinson. More details.

 

Hail Hydra!!! You get a second live video today: https://t.co/I0tmAqy5iH https://t.co/XRJrpJXADK

— Charles Hoskinson (@IOHK_Charles) March 9, 2020

 

After a record cut in the Fed’s interest rates, interest in cryptocurrency loans increased

 

Last Tuesday, the Fed cut the interest rates by 0.50% to a target range of 1.00% to 1.25%. For many crypto lending applications, that was a great stimulation. Figure Technologies, which itself leverages blockchain to transform the crypto lending market, said that it had seen loan applications surging by 300% during the last week. Thus, the total amount of loans that the company has funded hit over $1 billion.

 

“The 300 percent increase in applications suggests consumers are eager to take advantage of unprecedented lower rates across mortgages, HELOCs and student loan refinancing. Consumers will benefit through lower debt costs and, for cash-out refi and HELOCs, more cash on hand.” commented co-founder and CEO Mike Cagney. More details.

 

OKEx outperformed BitMex in terms of bitcoin futures

 

Despite the spot market is slowing down, Bitcoin’s derivatives market has been getting more attention, and the enthusiasm is quite visible in the Bitcoin futures market. Regarding the Bitcoin futures, BitMEX has been long dominated in the market, but now OKEx, another cryptocurrency giant, continues to closely follow BitMEX’s footprints and made a breakthrough in the Bitcoin futures trading volume.

 

According to SkewAnalystics, OKEx outperformed BitMEX in terms of the 24h BTC Futures volumes, leading the Futures volume by reporting 15.95 billion, followed by BitMEX at 12.55 billion. Not only retail investors, but the flow of institutional capital is also tremendous in the market, which requires the crypto asset exchanges to have a professional and robust level of infrastructure to support the trading demands of the institutions, especially during the extreme market. More details.

 

Whales allegedly manipulate the BTC price to get it under $ 6,000

 

According to some analysts, today’s free fall of the BTC is due to price manipulation by whales, which wants to get below $ 6,000, before the next bullish market, of course except for concerns about the global economic recession and the collapsing traditional financial markets.

 

@SinkTrader has reminded the community of the current global market recession with the coronavirus narrative as a major trigger. He believes crypto whales are pushing the Bitcoin price down to $6,000 in order to buy the dip before the next bull market breaks out.

 

$BTCUSD

– Markets collapsing
– Global Economic Recession
– CoronaVirus fears#Bitcoin is being manipulated down to below 6K for whales to buy in at the bottom before the next bull market.

Trust me, I won't be wrong. pic.twitter.com/qwZ8ZyrVmj

— SinkTrader (@SinkTrader) March 10, 2020

 

Others point out that this is the first time that crypto markets operate at a time of sharp decline in global financial markets and panic sales, and it is difficult to predict how BTC will behave.

 

CT opinions about #BTC dump:
Normal GAP filling/correction#coronavirus related panic Sell off
Plus token
Whales manuplation before halving

Reality(imo):
This is the very first time for #Crypto markets to witness global markets sell-off, so NO ONE knows how #Bitcoin will react

— Feras_Y (@FeraSY1) March 10, 2020