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Another week, another round of Crypto Tidbits. Over the past week, Bitcoin has flatlined, trading between $6,500 and $6,800 for a number of days. Almost all altcoins followed suit, also posting close to no notable price action over the past few days. Ripple’s XRP, though, got some time in the spotlight, rallying 10% higher on Thursday and Friday to multi-week highs, despite there being no good news about the cryptocurrency or Ripple.
While Bitcoin could easily reverse lower, many investors have announced that the asset’s fundamentals are becoming stronger than ever. Placeholder Capital’s Chris Burniske, for instance, wrote that this crisis “will pass, and crypto’s fundamentals will have strengthened through it.” Burniske highlighted how “new technologies rise as old systems break, and often it takes a crisis to reveal the flaws of the old system in full.”
10/ Most importantly, I hope everyone is staying as well as possible. While the future weeks are full of uncertainty, I know that eventually, this virus will pass, and #crypto's fundamentals will have strengthened through it.
— Chris Burniske (@cburniske) March 21, 2020
Bitcoin’s bout of non-action comes as the stock market has seen an extremely strong bounce, with the Dow Jones registering an over 20% jump from the near-18,000 lows seen on the Friday before last. What’s interesting, of course, is that the correlation between BTC and the S&P 500 futures, which were neck-and-neck, has eroded.
Whatever the case, the cryptocurrency space saw an interesting week, with China’s national digital currency purportedly remaining on track for launch, Binance launching a debit card so Bitcoin investors can spend their stack in store, and some U.S. politicians proposing a “digital dollar” payment mechanism.
Related Reading: Crypto Tidbits: Bitcoin Surges to $7,000, COVID-19 Outbreak Brings Economy to Standstill, Ethereum DeFi Recovers
Bitcoin & Crypto Tidbits
- Crypto Companies Announce Coronavirus Initiatives: Unfortunately, the past few days have seen the outbreak of COVID-19 rapidly worsen; there are purportedly over 500,000 cases of the virus, many of which are located in the U.S. and Italy. With this, there’s been a mass mobilization of industry — with companies from Apple and Tesla to Dyson (yes, the vacuum company) and Ford making supplies or contributing dollars to stem the spread and to keep our health workers alive. Bitcoin and crypto companies, too, are joining the fight. Binance, for instance, has revealed a social media campaign during which the company will donate $1 (up to $1 million) for each retweet with the accompanying hashtag #CryptoAgainstCOVID. Ripple has followed suit, committing to donate $100,000 to two Silicon Valley-centric COVID response funds.
- Bitcoin Difficulty Drops 16% After Price Crash: If your Bitcoin transactions were abnormally slow and slightly expensive over the past 10 days, you’re not alone. Due to the crypto market’s crash sustained earlier this month, miners with low profit margins have been forced to turn off their machines to avoid mining coins at an unprofitable rate. And as a result, block times have slowed. But a fix was just implemented. On Thursday morning, the difficulty of the Bitcoin network adjusted -16%, the second-largest drop in difficulty in the blockchain’s history. This adjustment makes it easier for miners to “find” Bitcoin blocks, thereby decreasing transaction times.
- China Still Committed To Digital Currency Project: According to a report from The Global Times published on March 24th, “industry insiders” say that China’s central bank is “one step closer to issuing its official digital currency.” The outlet’s sources explained that the PBOC and private companies — purported to include China’s largest banks and telecom and tech companies — have “completed development of the sovereign digital currency’s basic function and is now drafting relevant laws to pave the way for its circulation.”
- Bitcoin Bull Case Gets Huge Boost With Fed’s “QE Infinity”: Announced Monday morning, the Federal Reserve will be implementing a series of programs to “support smooth market functioning and effective transmission of monetary policy to broader financial conditions and the economy.” These programs include the purchasing of corporate debt, Treasuries, and mortgage-backed securities until the economy normalizes again. While the word “infinite” was not mentioned in the Federal Reserve’s press package on this news, many economists and analysts have dubbed these measures “QE Infinity,” as the central bank has seemingly put no limit on how many assets it can buy in the foreseeable future. Many believe that this validate Bitcoin’s bull case.
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