Review of the latest news of the crypto space 22.02.2021
This week, the whole world has been watching the movement of Bitcoin and the entire crypto market with bated breath. The past week has brought new ATN and new victories. Cryptocurrencies are increasingly integrated into our daily lives, and are becoming an integral part of it.
News digest of the past week
Another week has passed, full of significant events for both the crypto industry and the entire financial system of the planet. No one will deny that we are on the verge of another evolution of money-the transition from fiat funds to digital ones. Of course, you need to understand that these will not be cryptocurrencies, but digital currencies of central banks, but no one can ban Bitcoin and crypto.
And so, let’s see what interesting things have happened in the last seven days.
- Consumer Demand May Push JP Morgan to Bitcoin
Multinational US investment bank JP Morgan is optimistic about the first cryptocurrency as a tool for investment, but only if the demand for it from customers increases. According to the bank’s co-chairman and chief operating officer, Daniel Pinto, the need for crypto assets in the bank is currently insufficient. However, he believes that the appetite for Bitcoin will grow in the coming days.
Speaking on CNBC, Pinto revealed that JP Morgan is likely to join Bitcoin. He explained that the giant US banking institution needs to plan when it is best to do so. The last 10 months have been crucial for the crypto industry, which has succeeded and surpassed all traditional assets, even gold. It is not surprising that several well-known people and well-known organizations have invested in cryptocurrencies.
Bitcoin, in particular, has attracted the interest of many people, as well as large corporations. Yet despite Tesla, Square, and MicroStrategy all allocating funds to cryptocurrency, most banks are making their way to digital money. Financial institutions are a powerful key to proving the legitimacy of cryptocurrencies. By accepting Bitcoin, they will make a significant contribution to the global distribution of the asset.
While Pinto’s remarks are not a confirmation or anything close to an official announcement, they are good news for the crypto industry. Senior JP Morgan executives have previously ignored Bitcoin. For example, in 2017, the bank’s CEO called cryptocurrency a scam, saying ,” It’s worse than tulip bulbs. It won’t end well.” Despite later apologizing, JP Morgan’s relationship with Bitcoin is teetering between love and hate.
- DeFi success: The decentralized crypto exchange UniSwap Surpasses the $ 100 billion mark in total trading volume
A highly symbolic figure and an outstanding achievement for the decentralized crypto exchange UniSwap, whose total trading volume has exceeded $ 100 billion.
The price of UNI has risen significantly in recent months, taking advantage of the success in the decentralized cryptocurrency exchange sector, which has taken a significant market share from competitors such as Binance or Kraken.
The growth that makes people envious (SushiSwap), and owes its success to the impressive development of decentralised DeFi funding.
On the other hand, transaction fees on the Ethereum blockchain are skyrocketing, and can cost tens of dollars, and even more for large amounts. And this is very disliked by users.
The Ethereum blockchain is currently undergoing a transition from a proof-of-work mode to a proof-of-stake mode. Meanwhile, the blockchain remains saturated, and transaction fees are very high. This forces traders to look for alternative blockchains.
With the booming cryptocurrency sector and the continued rise in the price of BTC, DEX UniSwap is likely to see its activity increase in 2021 and break new trading volume records.
- Ripple and the SEC are still unable to part amicably
On February 22, 2021, the first preliminary hearing of the lawsuit between Ripple and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is scheduled to take place.
Recall that the charge against Ripple is based on the alleged illegal sale of XRP tokens in the amount of $ 1.3 billion, since according to the SEC, the XRP token is nothing more than a stock.
Lawyers for Ripple and the SEC have met, but no settlement agreement has yet been reached, as indicated in a joint letter to the judge on this matter.
The letter also states that the parties will notify Judge Analisa Torres if an agreement is signed between the SEC and Ripple before the first hearing, scheduled for February 22, 2021.
Most likely, the agreement will put an end to this lawsuit between Ripple and the SEC, in previous similar cases, crypto projects such as EOS simply paid a fine to stop the prosecution by the SEC.
So, there is no doubt that if an agreement is reached between the SEC and Ripple, we should expect the price of XRP to simply explode
- Another chatter of Elon Musk led to a jump in the price of the altcoin MarsCoin by 2500%
The impact of Elon Musk’s statements is impressive, whether it’s BTC or Dogecoin: everything he says is immediately reflected in the markets.
The fact that Tesla bought Bitcoin is sure to draw the SEC’s attention to his next Twitter posts, once he once again discusses the price of the crypto asset. On the other hand, people on Twitter came up with the idea of launching token for Musk, and Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao immediately suggested the name MarsCoin. Elon Musk replied that if he launches a token, it will definitely be called MarsCoin.
However, there is already a cryptocurrency called MarsCoin (MARS), and its price has increased sharply after the statements of the founder of Tesla and SpaceX. Everything is as usual!
The price of MarsCoin jumped 2,500%, reaching a price of $ 2.50, according to CoinMarketRate.
Thus, the lucky holders of this MarsCoin were able to sell their tokens at a huge profit. They were able to take advantage of this opportunity, but it did not last long, since the token is only listed on unknown crypto exchanges, such as Finexbox or Folgory.
Sometimes you can find cryptocurrencies with similar names, and if Elon Musk did launch a token called MarsCoin, there would be a lot of confusion among the general public.
Thus, Elon Musk again blew up the price of cryptocurrency. He, of course, did not know that there was already a token bearing this name. But the most amazing thing is what happens to the market simply because of some empty statements of a person who has nothing to do with the crypto industry at all. There is an obsessive feeling of gregariousness.
Can you tell us about investing $ 1.5 billion in Bitcoin? Elon Musk himself said that this is not his decision, but the company Tesla, which is absolutely contrary to his opinion about Bitcoin.
- Bitcoin: We want more
On February 18, 2021, BTC continues to reach new ATH. Can BTC fall below $ 40,000 again during a major short-term correction?
Bitcoin has reached a new ATH of $ 52,640. BTC then fell to the $ 50,950 level before climbing above $ 52,300 in less than 3 hours.
According to MicroStrategy CEO Michael Saylor, the current growth is different from 2017, and Bitcoin is not expected to experience a major 80% price drop like in 2018.
He recalled that when BTC underwent a major correction after breaking above $ 40,000, it fell to $ 30,000. Thus, BTC has fallen by 25%, not 80%.
Despite this forecast, the number of whales reached a new ATH. Thus, large wallets continue to actively accumulate Bitcoins, reducing the likelihood of a major correction due to the massive and cascading liquidation of the asset by whales.
Analysts at Glassnode say that 94,000 BTC addresses now contain more than $ 1 million worth of coins. Therefore, in the short term, the whales should not play a “bear game”, as institutional investors demontrate a growing interest in BTC.
It seems that nothing will prevent the conquest of new ATH in the coming days. However, the current growth may be halted by the excessive indebtedness of the BTC futures markets.
Indicators say that the funding rate for the BTC and ETH futures markets exceeds 0.5%, while the normal rate hovers around 0.01%.
The indicators point to a continuation of the bullish rally in the near term. Will Bitcoin reach $ 60,000 by the end of this week? The current increase differs in many ways from the 2017 figure, and this is good for the bulls! The threat of falling below $ 20,000 now seems distant and not real.
- Finally, the price of Ethereum overcomes the symbolic bar of $ 2,000!
When the price of BTC reached $ 56,000, the price of ETH finally broke the symbolic mark of $ 2,000.
The crypto community has been looking forward to this move to a $ 2K price tag as the leading smart contract blockchain faces increasing demand. Thanks to the success of DeFi’s decentralized funding, the Ethereum blockchain concentrates more than 80% of smart contract activity in the sector.
As a result, the blockchain is being saturated, and transaction fees on the network are reaching huge and absurd amounts. The Binance crypto exchange suspended the withdrawal of ETH tokens due to network congestion and exorbitant fees, but the trading platform later resumed withdrawals.
Against the background of the bullish movement of Bitcoin, we can say that the prices of all cryptocurrencies have increased significantly. It remains to be expected that the price of Ethereum will rise to $ 4,500.
The same goes for the Litecoin LTC price, which is still lagging behind the 2018 high of $ 375.
The price of Ripple XRP, for its part, is still at its lowest level – $ 0.56, we will have to wait for news about the lawsuit against the SEC, the first hearing on which will be held on Monday, February 22, 2021.
The rest of the cryptocurrency market is very optimistic, and altcoins such as BNB or Polkadot are reaching new heights. BNB ranked 3rd in the CoinMarketRate ranking after reaching $ 384.
As such, 2021 is very different from Bitcoin’s last bull run at the end of 2017, and institutional investors continue to buy BTC en masse.
The fact that the price of Bitcoin has crossed the symbolic mark of $ 50,000 has not gone unnoticed and is beginning to attract more and more traders and investors.