Crypto Today: Bitcoin moves above $7,000, new bullish leg or a dead-cat bounce?

Here's what you need to know on Thursday

Markets:

BTC/USD is back above $7,000. The coin retreated from the intraday high $7,191 as the recovery momentum faded away. BTC/USD has lost 1% since the beginning of the day, though it is still 2.65% higher from this time on Wednesday. Now it is trading with the short-term bearish bias amid low volatility.

At the time of writing, ETH/USD is changing hands at $180.40. The second-largest coin hit the intraday high $187.19 but failed to hold the ground. Despite the correction, the coin has gained over 4.5% in the recent 24 hours and lost 1.6% from the start of Thursday. ETH/USD is moving within a short-term bullish trend. The volatility is low.

XRP/USD is changing hands at $0.1860 during early Asian hours, off the intraday high $0.1910. The coin has gained 1.2% in the recent 24 hours.  From the short-term perspective, XRP/USD is trading within a bearish trend amid shrinking volatility.

Among the 100 most important cryptocurrencies, DigiByte (DGB) $0.0094 (+20.8%) , Stellar (XLM) $0.0575 (+10.9%), Aave (LEND) $0.0575 (+8.8%). The day's losers are Terra (LUNA) $0.1923 (-3.5%) DigixDAO (DGD) $32.15 (2.7%) and Swipe (SXP) $0.5990 (-2.0%)

Chart of the day:

BTC/USD, 30-min chart

Market

Ripple's XRP is again at risk to lose its third position in the global cryptocurrency market rating. COVID-19 has brought stablecoins to the forefront of the cryptocurrency universe as traders parked their assets in those assets to protect them from volatility. Also, fiat holders also bought stablecoins to be able to purchase digital coins once the opportunity arises. As a result, Tether moved into the fourth position on the list of top-10 coins. At some point, Tether's capitalization exceeded $8 billion. At the time of writing, Tether's market value is registered at $6.3 billion. Some experts believe, that USDT may oust XRP from the third place if the trend stays in place.

Industry

Users consider centralized solutions as better and safer options than decentralized services. The recent survey performed by Dappradar showed that users are not ready to adopt decentralized finances as they do not have enough knowledge about how they work and do not trust them. The cohort of knowledgeable users that understand the value proposition of DeFi apps, are still in the minority. For example, the most widely adopted DeFi solution, Synthetix, has about 260 daily users. MakerDAO had 216 users in the recent 24 hours that performed 151 transactions.

Hackers managed to submit false data to the decentralized stablecoin network PegNet and turned a balance worth of $11 into nearly $7 million. Effectively, PegNet fell victim of attack 51% as four mining units that jointly control 70% of PegNet hashrate submitted data with artificially inflated price of a native PegNet, "pJPY". The scammers tried to cash out their lout on spot exchanges and distributed the bull of the coins among hundreds of different wallet addresses.

Regulation

The central bank of Netherlands, De Nederlandsche Bank (DNB), believes we are moving fast towards a cashless society and the central bank digital currency (CBDC) may become a game-changer. Thus, the regulator wants to keep up with the trend and play a key role in creating digital euro.  

According to the report, published by DNB, 60% of all payments in the country are digital, which means the transition to the cashless society may be faster than expected. In this respect, CBDCs have potential in a modern economy. 

A question that naturally springs to mind is whether central banks should provide a new type of money that is better attuned to the needs of citizens and firms, the paper said.

Quote of the day

A few weeks ago financial markets kept dismissing #Bitcoin as nonsense. In a short few weeks, after trillions in QE, 22 million newly unemployed, massive bailouts, UBI checks, negative treasury rates and negative oil prices, #Bitcoin seems to make more sense than most markets. (@gaborgurbacs)