Bitcoin had a great day moving up almost $1,000(10%), while the rest of the markets burned. The S&P 500 fell more than 3%, the Dow 30, tracking the 30 most prominent companies in the US and the world fell 2.9% or 767 points, and the Technology weighted index NASDAQ fell 277 points or 3.6%.
European and Asian bourses fell heavily as well. The London-based FTSE 100 dropped 184.2 points or 2.47%, while Frankfurt’s DAX 30 fell 214 points or 1.8%, and Tokyo’s Nikkei lost 724 points or 3.46%.
The current market Capitalisation of the crypto sector is at $308.892 billion, and the Bitcoin dominance moved to 68%. We must also say that the main price advances were achieved early morning. The rest of the day, the price has been trying to break the $12,000 barrier without success.
Today’s Crypto Heat Map:
What is happening?
Bitcoin Sales on Cash App doubled in Q2, 2019 according to a report by beincrypto.com, generating $2 million for the company out of $125 million sales in Bitcoin.
Square customers bought $125 million of Bitcoin last quarter on Cash App!
That’s 5 straight quarters of *accelerating* revenue growth for Square's Bitcoin business, and 237% growth YoY.
TO THE MOON 🚀 pic.twitter.com/6A3bNtaMTF
— Kevin Rooke (@kerooke) August 1, 2019
Charlie Lee calls the Litecoin halving event “a success.”
Litecoin halving was a success! And price just hit $100! 👍
Block 168,000 produced 12.5 LTC in block rewards.
Let's do this again in August 2023! 🎉 pic.twitter.com/aBvDJtH4FV
— Charlie Lee [LTC⚡] (@SatoshiLite) August 5, 2019
While it was true that at Litecoin halving time there was a peak that drove LTC price above $100, the spike deflated and is currently at $96.85. We’ll analyse its price action later.
The New York State Department of Financial Services (NYDFS) has announced it will establish the Research and Innovation Division, with its focus on “virtual business activity”. Source: beincrypto.com.
Japanese crypto exchange Bitpoint has partially resumed its exchanging business following a $28 million hack, suffered in mid-July. Source: coindesk.com.
Telegram was a driving factor in the recent Hong-kong protests, according to a beincrypto.com article.
The app, which has a maximum group member limit of 10,000, has brought together hundreds of thousands of protestors on the street seeking pseudonymity and digital security from their own government’s prying eyes.
Source: beincrypto.com
Hackers of the 7,000 BTC stolen from Binance are still trying to launder and obfuscate these Bitcoins. A report by cryptoslate.com explains that small amounts of BTC were sent to six exchanges, possibly to check if they would be detected: Kraken, Huobi, BitX.co, BTC-Alpha, Coingate and Bitpay. They have also sent at least 6.4634 BTC to ChipMixer, Bitcoin anonymiser that mix transactions together to conceal its origin.
Technical Analysis
Bitcoin
Bitcoin continues its bullish stance with increasing momentum. Today at 6:00 UTC (8.00 CET) it had an impulsive movement and has crossed the $12,000 with no hesitation. This may indicate the digital currency may attempt an assault at the yearly highs. To enter this market, we need to move to shorter timeframes (1H) and wait for pullbacks.
Ripple
Ripple is stalling. Although many cryptocurrencies are enjoying considerable price advances, XRP is moving weakly. Some evidence shows it is in a bullish movement (higher highs and higher lows) other sings show its weakness ( Stochastic and MACD). We see that the trend is fragile, and a pullback of the Bitcoin could trigger a much strong bearish response in this digital asset. We see much better investment options right now.
Ethereum
Ethereum is moving in an uptrend, in sync with Bitcoin (after retracing about 1/3 of its last wave). Right now the price is close to the $236 area which was a top on July 20 and now acts as resistance. The MACD is bullish, and the price moves above the +1 Bollinger line, so we think the price will continue advancing.
Litecoin
Yesterday, Litecoin had a spike after the halving event moving the price above $105, but that was short-lived, and sellers drove the price back below $100, although with lower volume. The price has respected the upward trendline, and the MACD and Bollinger lines point to more advances and a breach of the $100 barrier.