Cryptocurrency News Update: Bitcoin ready for breakthrough as the storm is brewing on the stock markets

Here's what you need to know on Thursday

Markets:

BTC/USD touched the intraday high at $9,977 and stopped within a whisker of critical $10,000 during early Asian hours. At the time of writing, the first digital coin is changing hands at $9,850, having gained about 1.5% on a day-to-day basis. Now it is trading within the short-term bearish bias amid expanding volatility.

At the time of writing, ETH/USD is changing hands at $248.30. The price touched the area above psychological $250.00 during early Asian hours, but failed to hold the ground. ETH/USD has gained 1.7% in the recent 24 hours and now it is moving within a short-term bearish trend. The volatility is high.

XRP/USD is changing hands at $0.2025. The coin has been sitting in a tight range above $0.2000 for the most part of the week. From the short-term perspective, XRP/USD is trading within a bearish trend amid low volatility.

Among the 100 most important cryptocurrencies, DigiByte (DGB) $0.0202 (+23.5%), Ren (REN) $0.1036 (+22%), Kyber Network (KNC) $1.12 (+19.7%). The day's losers are WAX (WAXP) $0.0601 (-22.9%), Divi (DIVI) $0.0494 (-7.8%), Nano (NANO) $1.19 (-4.2%).

Chart of the day:

BTC/USD, 30-min chart

Market

Yoni Assia, the CEO of a popular social trading platform, predicts a new stock market crash that may have consequences for the cryptocurrency markets. In a series of tweets on June 10, he said that the crash may happen within weeks.

There is a crash coming soon (in the equities market), in the next 3 weeks, someone, not sure whom, is going to sell/short their position and crash the markets. Buyers beware. Caveat emptor.

While Bitcoin has been uncorrelated to stocks and macro developments recently, some experts pointed out that a major sell-off may become a catalyst for BTC collapse. This view was shared by an independent trader Alessio Rastani, who believes that BTC/USD will fall in tandem with S&P500.

Industry

Coinbase clients frustrated by the technical issues of the trading platform, have been withdrawing money from their accounts. Coinbase has recorded the largest outflow of Bitcoins against the background of interruptions. On June 1, the US largest cryptocurrency blacked out amid during the surge of traffic as Bitcoin price rose above $10,000. 

After the incident, users started to take their coins from the exchange. On June 7, users withdrew 22,000 more coins than contributed. In dollar terms, this outflow amount to $214 million and became the largest one in the history of the exchange.

A Malta-based cryptocurrency OKEx announced today the launch of a new token sale project. WaykiChain Governance Coin (WGRT) will become the 14th token launched on OKEx Jumpstart. WGRT is a proprietary token of WaykiChain’s DeFi ecosystem, that claims to provide fair and transparent decentralized collateral lending services for users across the globe. WUSD is another token of the project. It is s stablecoin pegged to USD.

Jay Hao, CEO of OKEx, commented:

We believe that DeFi is one of the most important applications of blockchain technology, while stablecoin is the bridge between DeFi and traditional finance, which helps users participate in DeFi at a lower cost to fulfill their financial needs. We are glad to cooperate with projects like WGRT, to jointly promote the development of DeFi, letting more people benefit from blockchain technology.

Regulation

The Bank of Korea considers CBDC development as one of the priorities for the nearest future and plans to launch several blockchain-related initiatives by the end of 2020, according to the recently published 10-year development plan for the nation’s economy. The regulator of the South Korea invests in talent and fosters collaboration in the space to keep up with China and other countries engaged in creating their own Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs).

The local media outlet reported that BOK wanted to be ‘more flexible and in line with the changes in the times,’ in terms of its new ten-year plan. 

Chinese law enforcement agencies continue freezing assets in the bank accounts of over-the-counter (OTC) traders and mining equipment owners, 8bt reports.

Miner from Sichuan reported that their account had been blocked at the request of the police of Dongguan city in Guangdong province. The officials explained that they were investigating a major case of online fraud. They said the owners of the frozen accounts will be able to regain access to their assets once the authorities get enough evidence that they have not been involved in money laundering.

Four thousand bank accounts have been subject to sanctions since June 4. Most of the accounts are owned by cryptotraders who buy and sell cryptocurrency through OTC trading platforms.