Welcome to the Daily Crypto News: A complete News Review, Coin Calendar and Analysis. Enjoy!
🗞 Market Wrap: Bitcoin Hovers Around $27K While ETH/BTC Pair Goes Bullish
Bitcoin has mostly traded in a tight, low-volume range Monday while some profit-taking from bitcoin into ether is appearing on the ETH/BTC charts.
Bitcoin (BTC) trading around $26,822 as of 21:00 UTC (4 p.m. ET). Gaining 2.3% over the previous 24 hours.
Bitcoin’s 24-hour range: $25,759- $27,447 (CoinDesk 20)
BTC very near its 10-hour and 50-hour moving averages on the hourly chart, a sideways signal for market technicians.
After Sunday’s run that saw over $4 billion in volume on major CoinDesk 20 exchanges, Monday’s spot trading tally is much lower, at $1.8 billion as of press time. “Given the speed of the rise yesterday, especially after the last few days’ rally, a slight contraction is normal,” said David Lifchitz, chief investment officer of quant trading firm ExoAlpha.
Other analysts agree with QCP that bitcoin’s price push is allowing other cryptocurrencies, particularly ether, to start getting more attention. “I think the BTC price slowdown is giving some breath for the altcoin season,” said Misha Alefirenko, founder of crypto market maker VelvetFormula. The ether futures market is trending back up after a record-high $2.2 billion in open interest lost some steam after Dec. 19.
ETH/BTC Goes Bull Mode
Some profit-taking from bitcoin into ether is the main culprit, according to Vishal Shah, an options trader and founder of derivatives venue Alpha5. “I think it’s the spillover effects of BTC exhaustion,” Shah told CoinDesk. He also added it is likely hardcore crypto traders ekeing out more gains in this bull cycle pushing the ETH/BTC hourly chart up. “This entire rally has been born of bitcoin, so [its] hard to see it simply shift gears. And if it does, it’s probably not the same ilk of investor.”
🗞 Coinbase to Suspend Trading of XRP Next Month Following SEC Suit
Coinbase announced today that it would suspend trading for XRP, the fourth-largest currency by market cap, after the US Securities and Exchange Commission accused Ripple Labs of raising $1.3 billion by selling the coin in unregistered securities sales.
"Given the SEC’s recent action against Ripple, all XRP books have been moved to limit only and Coinbase plans to fully suspend trading in XRP on Tuesday, January 19, 2021, at 10 AM PST. Afterwards, users will continue to retain access to their XRP funds," it said in an announcement today.
The coin has dropped in price by 42% since the SEC announced the charges, from $0.47 to $0.27. The coin has already dropped in value by 8% following the news to $0.25.
Coinbase joins the growing list of cryptocurrency exchanges that have suspended trading of XRP after Bitstamp, Beaxy, CrossTower, OKCoin and OSL. XRP is still open for trading on Binance, Kraken, and Huobi.
🗞 SEC Obtains Emergency Freezing Order Against Crypto Algo-Trading Firm
A New York court has granted the SEC the right to freeze assets under control by Virgil Capital.
The SEC alleges that Virgil and its managing director defrauded investors.
Instead of putting funds toward a crypto trading bot, it conducted off-the-books investments.
The US Securities and Exchange Commission today announced that a New York court has granted it the right to freeze the assets of crypto-asset firm
Virgil Capital LLC and its managing partner, Stefan Qin, for misappropriating money Qin told investors was earmarked for a crypto trading bot.
The SEC obtained the rights to freeze the assets of the firm, which claims to control $112 million, over allegations that Qin has defrauded investors in Virgil Capital's Sigma Fund since 2018 by misrepresenting its strategy, assets, and financial condition.
The SEC alleges that Qin, a 23-year-old Australian with offices in New York and Shanghai who is believed to currently reside in Seoul, misled investors by telling them that he would invest their money in a crypto trading algorithm that profited from price differences between exchanges.
"Qin allegedly made false promises to lure investors and then continued his deception to conceal his misuse of investor funds," SEC Cyber Unit Chief Littman said in a statement.
And when investors wanted to take their money out, the SEC alleges that Qin convinced them to instead move funds from its Sigma Fund (which the SEC alleges was just...Qin) to its $25 million VQR MultiStrategy Fund.
Then Qin reportedly told investors that the bank had delayed their transactions between the two funds. “In reality, the wire transfers were rejected because there were not sufficient funds in the Sigma Fund’s account to complete the wire transfers,” the SEC alleges.
🗞 Cover Protocol Attack Perpetrated by ‘White Hat,’ Funds Returned, Hacker Claims
The decentralized finance (DeFi) insurance project Cover Protocol was hacked earlier Monday in an infinite printing scheme, causing the price of the COVER token to plunge. Hours later, Grap.Finance, a “white hat hacker” claimed responsibility for the attack via their Twitter account, saying all funds had been returned.
The exploiter has cashed out over $4 million including about 1,400 ether (ETH, -0.33%), one million DAI (+0.08%) and 90 WBTC. The attacker earlier created 40 quintillion COVER tokens and sold $5 million worth of them on Monday morning. More than $3 million has been returned.
Cover Protocol later announced it was exploring launching a new token through a snapshot “before the minting exploit was abused.”
“The 4350 ETH that has been returned by the attacker will also be handled through a snapshot to the LP token holders. We are still investigating,” according to the project’s Twitter account, which urged users not to buy any COVER tokens now.
The hacker tricked the protocol into minting new tokens as rewards by exploiting a bug in the smart contract Solidity, which involves using memory and storage incorrectly in the programming language.
The Cover DeFi protocol, designed as an insurance product that could help users reduce smart contract failure-related risks, merged with Yearn.Finance a month ago
🗞 Daily Crypto Calendar, December, 29th💰
KardiaChain (KAI)
"Join our journey towards an accessible blockchain for millions | Save the date 29th Dec 2020"
Blockstack (STX)
Muneeb Ali to have a live AMA on Binance China.
XIO (XIO)
"... The Q1 2021 Token Reveal date is moving from December 22nd to December 29th."
Veros (VRS)
"VRS/USDT listing on UNISWAP V2! Soon DECEMBER 29, 2020"
CREDITS (CS)
Trading and deposits for CS will cease by 9/12/20 at 11:00 AM UTC, while withdrawals will remain open until 29/12/20 at 11:00 AM UTC.
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