The total crypto market cap remains flat at $180 billion since April 8 as Bitcoin dominance hovers around 50.9 percent. The top ten cryptocurrencies are seeing mixed gains for the 24-hour period with the EOS token moving 7.2 percent up. At the time of writing, bitcoin (BTC) is trading at $5,257, while ether (ETH) stands at $181 and Ripple’s XRP at $0.355
BTC/USD
Bitcoin started the new week with a fourth consecutive green candle on the Bitfinex daily chart. The BTC/USD pair climbed to $5,314 on April 8 and successfully stabilized above the psychological level of $5,000. Bull traders were already looking at $5,600 and $6,000 as a short to mid-term target.
On April 9, the leading cryptocurrency made a slight correction to $5,213, losing 1.8 percent during the day.
The Chinese National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) added bitcoin mining to a list of 450 activities it will be looking to restrict in the near future due to non-compliance with local regulations, security flaws or other reasons. The commission, which is a branch of the State Council, published its revised list of industries it wants to encourage, restrict or eliminate on April 9 and will be seeking public opinion on the matter by May 7, 2019.
In the meantime, the recent bull market confirmed the strong demand for bitcoin in China. Despite the anti-crypto stance from the official government, local news channel cnLedger revealed on March 7 crypto lovers are more than happy to pay a markup of three percent to get their hands on the most popular cryptocurrency.
According to a recent tweet by the media, Over-the-counter (OTC) platforms are still the only way to purchase stablecoins like USDT with the local fiat currency, the yuan (CNY) and then exchange it for BTC. OTC trades, however, are frequently “showing considerable dollar premium of 1 USDT = 7 CNY over the official rate of 1 USD = 6.7 CNY.”
Coinbase made another expansion by adding EOS, Maker (MKR) and Augur (REP) to its Coinbase Pro trading platform. According to the official blog post, EOS and REP will be available for users in all jurisdictions expect New York, while MKR will be offered outside of the United States.
ETH/USD
After a solid week during which the industry saw the value of ether increase by more than 27 percent, the Ethereum Project token gained 2.8 percent on April 8 and moved to $181. Bulls were able to push the price up to $188 during the day session, but the next target for them, before $200, will likely be the $196 to $197 zone, which proved to be a solid support during the September/October 2018 correction.
On April 9, the ETH/USD pair made an almost identical move but in the opposite direction to close with a loss to $176.
In the meantime, the long vs shorts ratio for ether contracts on Bitfinex is now at 7:1. The exact numbers as of April 9 are 576,000 “buy” trades vs 65,000 on the “sell” side for ETH/USD.
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