The total crypto market cap lost $2.8 billion of value for the seven-day period and now stands at $177 billion. The top ten currencies are all in red for the same time frame with the only exception being bitcoin. The worst performers include Cardano (ADA) and EOS, with 11.9 and 12.9 percent respectively. At the time of writing bitcoin (BTC) is trading at $5,474 while ether (ETH) stands at $165. XRP’s Ripple is at $0.301.
BTC/USD
Bitcoin closed the trading session on April 18 with a 1.1 percent price increase. It moved higher to $5,311 on the Bitfinex daily chart.
On April 19, the coin formed its fourth consecutive green candle and registered a slight increase, this time to $5,316. In a highly volatile session, BTC/USD was trading in the $5,223 to $5,372 zone.
On the first day of the weekend, observers saw the pair trading as high as $5,405 before closing at $5,340. It closed the session on April 21 and the week with a small loss to $5,321, remaining flat for the period.
The largest digital coin opened the week with a 1.8 percent increase to $5,418, which was followed by another solid upward movement on April 23 when the coin closed at $5,547 with a 2.4 percent increase.
On April 24, bulls were able to temporarily push the price up to the $5,690 mark. This was also the highest point bitcoin reached since November 2018. Later in the day, commentators saw a huge market correction, which resulted in a drop to $5,480.
In other news, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) confirmed its anti-crypto stance in its latest “Draft Enabling Framework for Regulatory Sandbox” paper.
The document, which was published on April 18, aims to provide fintech companies with a government-regulated space to develop and test their services for a limited period of time.
Additionally, “the financial sector regulator will provide the requisite regulatory guidance, so as to increase efficiency, manage risks and create new opportunities for consumers” within the industry. Cryptocurrency services, including trading, investing and settling in crypto assets and Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs) have been explicitly excluded from the sandbox testing while smart contracts and applications under blockchain technologies make it to the list.
ETH/USD
The Ethereum token gained 4.7 percent of value on April 18 and formed a solid candle to $175. It was the third straight winning session for one of the most popular altcoins as bulls were looking to break above the hard resistance at $180.
On April 19, however, bears took control and were able to push prices lower to $174. This was the case during the trading session on April 20 as well, even though we saw the ETH/USD price peaking at $180 during the day trading.
The pair moved lower to $170 on April 21 and closed the seven-day period with a 2.3 percent loss.
Ether started the new week with a green candle to $172 on April 22. It successfully found its short-term support near the $170 level and followed the rest of the top ten cryptocurrencies on their way up. On April 23, it moved back down to $170 after trading as high as $178 during intraday.
It lost 2.3 percent of its value on April 24 and broke below the uptrend channel to $166. The Ethereum project token was trading in the $161 zone during the day session.
Societe Generale (SocGen), the third largest bank in France by total assets and sixth largest in Europe, announced on April 23 that it had issued €100 million (~$111,544,000) worth of bonds as a security token on the Ethereum blockchain.
The operation was executed by SocGen’s subsidiary Societe Generale SFH in collaboration with Societe Generale FORGE, a technical startup launched via its entrepreneur program Internal Startup Call. According to the official press release, the French bank is looking for a way to reduce costs and number of intermediaries through a more efficient process for bond issuances on the secondary market.
XRP/USD
After three consecutive green sessions on the Bitfinex daily chart, during which the Ripple token gained 6.7 percent in value, observers almost saw it break above the $0.34 resistance on April 18. XRP was trading as high as $0.35 during the day, only to close at $0.339.
Even though it was still far from the monthly high of $0.367 registered on April 5 and experienced a significant decrease during the previous week, the XRP/USD pair was able to hold the general uptrend.
On April 19, the coin dropped to $0.333, which was followed by another losing session the following day and further decline to $0.329. April 21 proved to be no different than the previous sessions and commentators saw a new red candle to $0.323.XRP was 2.4 percent down for the seven-day period.
The week began with a green session during which the coin was trading as high as $0.334, still, it only managed to climb up to $0.325. On April 23, bulls tried to push the price even higher to $0.331 but cracked under the bear pressure.
The XRP/USD trading pair closed the session in the red and declined to $0.321, close to the important level at $0.32.
The huge market selloff from April 24 impacted XRP as it lost 5.6 percent of its value falling all the way down to $0.302. What is even more surprising is the fact that during day trading, traders saw it drop as low as $0.289 – a level not seen since September 2018.
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