Total crypto market cap increased by $1.8 billion to $171.1 since Wednesday, April 17. Top ten currencies are mostly in red for the 24-hour period with Binance Coin (BNB) once again being the exception with 8.2 percent gains. At the time of writing, bitcoin (BTC) is trading at $5,259 on the Bitfinex daily chart, while ether (ETH) stands at $172 and Ripple’s XRP dropped to $0.332.
BTC/USD
Bitcoin successfully confirmed its uptrend by bouncing back from the $5,040 level on April 16 and forming its second consecutive green candle on the Bitfinex daily chart on April 17. It closed the session at $5,254 after trading in the $5,300 – $5,210 zone.
On April 18, the BTC/USD pair moved even higher, this time to $5,314 and is once again eyeing the mid-$5,000s levels.
One of the most popular cryptocurrency exchanges, Binance, officially marked the launch of the Binance Chain mainnet by producing the genesis block. As per the official blog post, the Mainnet Swap will occur on April 23 and all Binance Coin (BNB) tokens will be automatically converted and moved from the Ethereum blockchain to the new platform.
On the same day, the company will enable BNB withdrawals to Binance Chain address and all users will be urged to either convert ERC20 BNB tokens into BEP2 BNB tokens by moving them or withdrawing their current holdings to an external wallet. The Malta-based exchange will then cease withdrawals for Ethereum-based BNB’s and will only support deposits for a certain period of time.
At the same time, Coinbase, the US-based competitor of Binance, has reportedly expanded to 11 more countries in South America and Southeast Asia. Users in in Argentina, Mexico, Peru, Colombia, Chile, India, Hong Kong, South Korea, Indonesia, the Philippines and New Zealand will now be able to use the Coinbase and Coinbase Pro platform as well as the Android and iOS mobile application for trading and storing cryptocurrencies.
ETH/USD
The Ethereum Project token defended the $160 level on April 16 and gained 4.3 percent during the trading session. It remained around that level on the next day, April 17 as the overall crypto market conditions were improving for bull traders.
On April 18, the ETH/USD pair climbed up to $175 after gaining 4.7 percent of value. Next target for bulls naturally is $180 and the psychological level at $200.
Ernst & Young (EY), one of the Big Four accounting firms, announced on April 16 its new service called EY Smart Contract Analyzer. The tool will allow users to monitor and test smart contracts and tokens issued on the Ethereum blockchain for security flaws and vulnerabilities.
According to the press release, the product of the EY Blockchain Security Lab in Israel is built to perform more than 250 standard security, coding and performance tests in order to guarantee a token or a blockchain is behaving according to the industry standards. Later this year it will be integrated with the company’s blockchain analytics, tax and monitoring platform, the EY Blockchain Analyzer.
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