Crypto Today: Bitcoin bulls hit pause button before a new push towards $10,000

Here's what you need to know on 

Markets:

BTC/USD is currently trading at $9,760 (+1.7% on a day-to-day basis). The coin has been moving within a strong bullish trend and hit a new 2020 high at $9,841.

The ETH/USD pair is currently trading at $217.3 (+5.6% on a day-to-day basis). Ethereum retreated from the intraday high of $220.16; now, it is moving within a strong bullish trend in sync with the market.

XRP/USD settled at $0.2811 after a spike to $0.2875 during early Asian hours. The coin is up 0.37% in recent 24 hours.

Among the 100 most important cryptocurrencies, the best of the day are KickToken (KICK) $0.00017 (+26.5%), 0x (ZRX) $0.2865 (+10.75%) and Matic Network (MATIC) $0.0243 (+10.16%), The day's losers are, Molecular Future (MOF) $0.9885 (-13.5%), Hedera Hashgraph (HBAR) $0.0207 (-9.42%) and Ethereum Classic (ETC) $11.79 (-9.04%).

Chart of the day:
ETC/USD, 1-hour chart

Market:

Bitcoin is poised to an extended growth as it sits above critical technical levels. Also, according to popular cryptocurrency crypto analyst Plan B, SMA200 weekly has been increasing by 4% per month and never reversed to the downside, which is a clear bullish signal in the long run. 

Ripple released another 100 million XRP tokens from the escrow wallet. The reaction of the cryptocurrency community was negative, wich means that XRP may be on the verge of a massive sell-off.

Industry:

Tron's founder finally had a lunch with Warren Buffett that cost him $4.5 million. He was accompanied by other crypto gurus, including Litecoin's creator Charlie Lee, the head of investment platform Yoni Assia, financial director of cryptocurrency exchange Huobi Cris Lee, the head of Binance Charity, Helen Haiyu.  

Amazing dinner with WarrenBuffett finally! Thx for your support & advice on how to take #TRON to the next level! Loved our talk on #Bitcoin,
Tesla & TRON! Glad to support.

According to Sun's post, they paid $515 for lunch, but it was absolutely worth  those $4.5 million he paid earlier, as the legendary investor gave them precious insights. Meanwhile, Sun presented him Samsung Galaxy Fold with one Bitcoin and nearly 2 million TRX tokens. Curiously, the lunch took place on January 23, but Sun posted the story only two weeks later.

Chinese authorities want to close a large mining farm located on the territory of the country to stop the deadly virus outbreak. The news was shared by the founder of mining pool BTC.TOP. He said that the authorities visited the farm on Tuesday, February 4.

Epidemic prevention measures in some places is already a mess. I have a mining facility in a remote suburb. The police told us that we should not resume operations. The problem is that we haven’t stopped work in the first place. Maintenance personnel have been living on the facility since the Spring Festival. There are no new arrivals.It is understandable to take a regular temperature measurement, roll call, and strictly prohibit going out, but what are the benefits of unplugging mining machinery for epidemic prevention? [Google translated from Chinese]

He was concerned that the closures would affect many people who work on the mining facilities. 

Regulation:

The Federal Reserve System (FED) considers issuing its own CBDC (central-bank issued cryptocurrency), the Board member Lael Brainard said during the conference in Stanford Business School. She also added that over 80% of global central banks were engaged in studying the concept of digital currencies and CBDC. Chinese Bank is moving fast towards issuing its own coin. She said:

Given the stakes, the public sector must engage in order to ensure that the payments infrastructure is safe as well as efficient and fast, assess whether regulatory perimeters need to be redrawn or new approaches are needed in areas such as consumer data and identity authentication, and explore the role of central bank digital currencies in ensuring sovereign currencies stay at the center of each nation's financial system.

One of the most vocal cryptocurrency supporters within the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Hester Peirce, says that the regulator should allow the companies selling digital tokens easily, without facing strict rules. However, this proposal is unlikely to gain traction. Peirce, also known as Crypto Mom, believes that the companies should be able to trade coins for three years, before the securities rules come into effect. However, the SEC's chairman adopts tough approach and wants to have a tight control in place to prevent and weed out fraud.