The third week of August saw yet another wave of bearish news concerning the cryptocurrency markets. On Thursday, reports showed that the Chinese government is set to ban more than 120 offshore cryptocurrency exchanges and delete many crypto social media channels, as the national crackdown on digital currencies ramps up.
Also, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) issued two more rejections of the proposed Bitcoin-backed exchange-traded funds (ETFs) from ProShares, GraniteShares, and Direxion. But the SEC will soon review the denials. Now all eyes are on the September 30 decision on whether to approve the listing of the CBOE VanEck/SolidX Bitcoin ETF.
Here is the rest of the week in review:
The Chinese government's China Electronic Information Industry Development (CCID) department released its fourth round of public blockchain index rankings. This round of rankings was notable as it added two new projects to the list: Tezos (XTZ) and Nuls (NULS). According to CCID's index scoring, which is categorized by technology, application and innovation, South Korea-based EOS (EOS) grabbed the top spot for the third consecutive time.
A whale investor who originally received 314,000 ETH from the Ethereum network's Genesis block, as part of the initial coin offering (ICO), has transferred approximately 20,000 ETH (~$5.5 million) to Bitfinex, one of the world's most popular cryptocurrency exchanges. This is not the first large transaction from this anonymous account. In May, the investor moved 116,000 ETH out their wallet, most of which made its way onto the Bitfinex exchange.
Bakkt, the new crypto exchange venture backed by Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), the parent of the NYSE, will not allow Bitcoin margin trading on its platform, but instead will assure that each transaction is fully collateralized. According to a recent letter from Bakkt CEO, Kelly Loeffler, the upcoming exchange will adhere to a strict policy of physical delivery. This means that the exchange's daily Bitcoin contract will not be able to be traded on margin, use leverage, or serve "to create a paper claim on a real asset."
Financial media giant CNBC is notorious for overzealous predictions, whether in the stock market, FOREX, housing market or cryptocurrencies. In the case of Bitcoin, CNBC's predictions have turned out to be 95% accurate as a counter trade indicator, according to a TradingView post and YouTube video made by Jacob Canfield. This means that 95% of the time that CNBC makes a call, taking the opposite trade will give investors positive returns.
Crypto prices remained relatively stable this week, reclaiming the $225 billion level. BTC remains at a high dominance of 53%. The majors have all rebounded nicely as well.
The author owns a small amount of BTC.