Crypto Today: Volatile Wednesday took ETH above $200.00, Bitcoin on the verge of major breakthrough

Here's what you need to know on Wednesday

Markets:

BTC/USD settled above $7,900 during early Asian hours, but $8,000 remains untouched so far. The first digital coin has gained 2.2% since the beginning of the day and 1.8% on a day-to-day basis. Now it is trading within the short-term bearish bias amid low volatility.

At the time of writing, ETH/USD is changing hands at $204.60. The price broke above the critical $200.00 and extended the upside during Asian hours. The second-largest coin increased by 4% both on a day-to-day basis and since the beginning of Wednesday. Now ETH is moving within a short-term bullish trend. The volatility is expanding.

XRP/USD is changing hands at $0.2158. The coin has barely changed since the start of the day and gained nearly 10% in the recent 24 hours amid growing bullish sentiments caused by the technical breakthrough above $0.2000.  From the short-term perspective, XRP/USD is trading within a bullish trend amid low volatility.

Among the 100 most important cryptocurrencies, Hyperion (HYN) $0.2577 (+51.8%), DigiByte (DGB) $0.0135 (+23.8%), Unibright (UBT) $0.3523 (+13.2%). The day's losers are Hive (HIVE) $0.4267 (-26.2%), Digitex Futures (DGTX) $0.0458 (-7.3%), Steem (STEEM) $0.2055 (+4.6%),

Chart of the day:
BTC/USD, 30-min chart

The Bloomberg Galaxy Crypto Index has reached t a key inflection point. Technical resistance at 350 used to serve as a support, thus, if the price moves above this line, the upside may gain traction towards 400 implying a near 15% gain. The Index tracks several of the largest digital currencies. Bloomberg Intelligence’s Mike McGlone, commented: 

Bitcoin volatility in decline is indicative of maturation and a consolidating bull market,” McGlone wrote in a note. “The original cryptocurrency appears to have weathered the financial-market storm and is on sounder footing on the back of a price decline into good support with indications of increasing adoption.

Industry

Bitfinex has integrated a Whale alert service into its brand new social network, Bitfinex Pulse.  Whale alert tracks major cryptocurrency transactions from and to exchanges and serves as a source of information in the digital assets space. Now the users of  Bitfinex Pulse will be able to receive real-time, high-quality market intelligence right inside the platform. Frank van Weert, Co-Founder at Whale Alert, commented: 

At Whale Alert we are glad to be able to provide both amateur and professional traders with important blockchain data through Pulse. The addition of Whale Alert represents an important plank in enabling us to achieve our vision for Bitfinex Pulse, namely a service that provides high-quality, real-time data and trustworthy news,” said Paolo Ardoino, CTO at Bitfinex.

The analytical company CipherTrace developed a tool to identify bank payments to Virtual Asset Service Providers (VASP) with a high level of risk. The new tool, called Armada, traces money flows, monitors account numbers and identify suspicious transactions that may be potentially related to money laundering. It offers various investigations programs on payments across the established financial infrastructure. They may be of interest to exchanges and law enforcement investigators. John Jefferies, a chief financial analyst for CipherTrace: 

Armada helps VASPs open and keep bank accounts, which is critically important because they typically have problems maintaining banker relationships that can lead to risky behaviour.

Regulation

The trading platform for cryptocurrency derivatives BitMEX was forced to halt operations in Japan after the local regulator, Financial Services Agency (FSA), released amendments to its rules and regulations for exchanges. BitMEX says the change will take effect on April 30.

This will mean a user who is a Japanese resident registering on the BitMEX platform for the first time will be unable to trade and any existing registered customers who are Japan residents will not be able to place orders that would open a new position or increase an existing open position.

However, the company works with regulators to find out how to comply with the rules and allow Japanese customers user the services of the exchange.