Crypto Today: Bitcoin bulls hit the pause button and let BTC slip under $8,000

Here's what you need to know on Thursday

Markets:

• The BTC/USD is currently trading at $7,933 (-4.6% on a day-to-day basis). The coin has been moving within a strong bearish trend amid decreasing volatility.
• The ETH/USD pair is currently trading at $139.6 (+4.3% on a day-to-day basis). The Ethereum retreated from the recent high of $147.96; now, it is moving within a short-term bearish trend. 
• XRP/USD settled at $0.2058 after a spike to $0.2255 on January 7. The coin is down 3.15% in recent 24 hours.
• Among the 100 most important cryptocurrencies, the best of the day are Bitcoin Diamond (BCD) $0.3731 (+11.5%), 0x (ZRX) $0.2025 (+6.06%) and DxChain Token (DX) $0.0009 (+6.02%), The day's losers are Bytecoin (BCN) $0.0002 (-14.5%), Synthetix Network Token (SNX) $0.8915 (+10.45%)  and Centrality (CENNZ) $0.0931 (-9.38%).

Chart of the day:

ETC/USD, 4-hour chart

Market:

• Billionaire money manager Jeffrey Gundlach expects that Bitcoin will reach $15,000 in 2020 due to the weakening dollar. The expert noted that a growing trade deficit will encourage foreigners to divest from the US economy, which will lead to a weaker dollar and stronger gold and commodities.
• The US-based cryptocurrency exchange Kraken added five trading pairs with the Coinbase-backed stablecoin, USDC. XBT/USDC, ETH/USDC, USDC/EUR, USDC/USD and USDC/USDT are available for Kraken customers since January 8. Notably, Binance recently delisted USDC due to low liquidity.
• Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) may launch options on Bitcoin futures as early as on January 13, provided that regulators grant their approval. The derivative will provide traders with new trading opportunities and expand their hedging strategies. 

Industry:

• The oldest bank of Thailand, Siam Commercial Bank (SCB), announced a partnership with Ripple aimed at building a blockchain-based mobile application for instant, low-cost cross-border payments. The app known as SCB Easy was launched in a demo mode during Ripple’s annual customer event, Swell. It allows users to send cross-border payments instantly.
• Cryptocurrency lending platform BlockFi will pay interest for holding Litecoin and USDC stablecoin. BlockFi’s customers both from retail and institutional segment will also have access to loans in LTC and USD Coin. The initial annual percentage yield (APY) is 8.6% for USDC and 3.8% for Litecoin deposits on interest-bearing accounts.

Regulation:

• The head of the European Central Bank Christin Lagarde confirmed that the regulator wants to play a leading role in a major shift that is happening now in the financial services industry. She admitted that there is a growing demand for faster and cheaper cross-border payments; the central bank has been working on the solutions for some time now. Speaking about digital euro or central bank-issued digital currency, she said that the costs and benefits ratio was still unclear.

Quote of the day:

Public Electrum servers are unreliable and may be honeypots or even malicious. If you're using Electrum as a wallet and already running a Bitcoin node, consider installing ElectrumX, Electrs, or Electrum Personal Server on the same machine and point your wallet to it.

Jameson Lopp, CTO of CasaHODL

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