Crypto Today: Bitcoin and major altcoins retreat from recent highs, still strong in the long run

Here's what you need to know on 

Markets:

BTC/USD is currently trading at $9,000 (+4.8% on a day-to-day basis). The coin has been moving within a strong bullish trend and hit a the intraday high at $9,149

The ETH/USD pair is currently trading at $170.90 (+2.8% on a day-to-day basis). The Ethereum retreated from the intraday high of $173.58; now, it is moving within a short-term bearishtrend amid high volatility. 

XRP/USD settled at $0.2331 (+1.7%) in recent 24 hours. The coin has been growing sharply since the beginning of the day amid strong bullisn trend on the intraday charts

Among the 100 most important cryptocurrencies, the best of the day are Kick Token (KICK) $0.000058 (+22.9%), Ethereum Classic (ETC) $10.61 (+12.6%) and Synthetix Network Token (SNX) $1.20 (+12.40%). The day's losers are, Bytecoin (BCN) $0.00028 (-6.0%), ICON(ICX) $0.1783 (-5.42%) and iExec RLC (RLC) $0.5434 (-5.92%).

Chart of the day:

BTC/USD, 4-hour chart

Market:

The precision of Bitcoin spending has reached all-time high, according to the recent research published by BitMEX Research. The experts found out, that over 70% of all transaction outputs have maximum precision (up to one satoshi) against 40% in 2012. The experts believe that this trend will gather pace in the nearest future along with the price increase and start reversing once Bitcoin is get adopted as a unit of account, which would mean that "goods and services are priced in Bitcoin, businesses report in Bitcoin and economic decisions are based on amounts denominated in Bitcoin."

Some obscure altcoin called 999 coin has gained over 200% in recent 24 hours and reached the market cap of $1.4 billion. The coin looks like a typical pump and dump scheme of another scammy project.

Industry:

A stale block was found on Bitcoin's blockchain for the first time since October 2019, BitMEX reports. This happened at the block at height 614,732, when two competing mining pools -  BTC.com and Poolin - discovered a valid block almost simultaneously. The researchers also spotted the double-spending event.

We have conducted a double-spend analysis. Apart from the coinbases, the stale block included 39 txs not in the winning block. 38 of these made it into the next block 614,733. The other had an input of 0.00034801 (US$3) & appears to have been double spent.

However, the probability of malicious reorgs is low due to the insignificance of the amount.

Poloniex customer support reminded the exchange users to withdraw the following coins - DigiByte (DGB), Factom (FCT), MaidSafeCoin (MAID), Omni (OMNI), Primecoin (XPM), Vertcoin (VTC), Viacoin (VIA) as they will be delisted on January 30.  According to Poloniex delisting policy, no withdrawal requests will be processed after the deadline, that's why they urge the coin owners to take care of their assets before it's too late.

Once the withdrawal deadline for a particular asset has been reached, withdrawals will be disabled and the asset will be fully decommissioned. From that point forward, we will no longer process withdrawals of impacted assets

Regulation:

China should not rush into creating digital yuan to counter potential challengers from private initiatives like Facebook's Libra. This view was aired by Zhu Min, a former deputy governor at the People’s Bank of China, who urged the government to reconsider its response to Libra and work closely with other countries to develop a consistent global approach. As Chinese yuan is not included in the list of fiat currencies Libra will be based on, China's officials are concerned that it may further strengthen the dominant role of the US dollar. However, according to Zhu Min, it is vital to adopt a coordinated approach to the issue.

“I think it’s critically important to join the discussions and take part in coordinated global regulation of Libra,” 

This view is shared by Ba Shusong, a former researcher at China’s State Council Development Research Centre. He believes that central banks and regulators should first develop a global regulatory framework for the new technology to avoid tensions in the future.

New Singapore legislation will allow the cryptocurrency-related companies to obtain operating licenses and expand their operations in the country. The Payment Services Act, effective as of January 28, is considered as the first comprehensive regulation for companies that provide services related to digital assets, including digital payments and cryptocurrency trading. Apart from that, the new legislation will grant the Monetary Authority of Singapore the power to supervise the companies and ensure that anti-money laundering and terrorism financing controls are in place.

Quote of the day:

The US Dollar loses 5% of its value within the day against bitcoin and still continues to fall. Seems like a pretty volatile asset if you ask me...

Rhythm (@Rhythmtrader)