Price Watch: Bitcoin, Ethereum, Ripple, Bitcoin Cash and Litecoin Starting to Recover 🚨 This article is 6 years old...
Price Watch: Bitcoin, Ethereum, Ripple, Bitcoin Cash and Litecoin Starting to Recover
4 min read
Updated: Apr. 25, 2020 at 9:34 am UTC
Photo by John Robert Marasigan on Unsplash
The cryptocurrency market continues to display strong volatility, but some coins are showing signs of recovery as of Friday morning. While drops are slowing down and becoming smaller, traders are again being offered a solid showing of just how vulnerable the cryptocurrency space remains.
Bitcoin (BTC)
Bitcoin has fallen by more than $200 since our last price piece and is now trading for $7,502. The price experienced a serious drop earlier this week, toppling from over $8,000 to the mid-$7,000 range – the lowest it has been since early April.
These sudden and continual drops have raised serious questions regarding the vulnerability of Bitcoin’s price and its exposure to outside manipulation. Authorities from the United States Justice Department are now beginning an investigation of illicit trading practices and price manipulations in both Bitcoin and altcoin arenas.
Representatives of the Department have explained that they will be examining specific tactics that can potentially cause negative swings in crypto prices. These include spoofing (also known as market rigging) and fake order market flooding, which can trick traders into poorly evaluated buys and sells. Federal prosecutors are also working with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) to gather relative data.
Per University of Texas finance professor John Griffin, Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies remain heavy targets of criminals and illicit activity. As a teacher of monetary policy and regulation, Griffin has studied price manipulation in the past, including manipulation in digital coin markets.
Griffin stated that there’s very limited oversight regarding crypto-trading, making it a natural target for financial schemes:
“There’s very little monitoring of manipulative trading, spoofing and wash trading…It would be very easy to spoof this market.”
Ethereum (ETH)
Ethereum has lost nearly $20 in price since our last article, dropping from $616 to $599.
During the recent Ethereal Summit, Viant – an Ethereum-based platform backed by ConsenSys – used blockchain technology in a supply chain management project to help users track the source of their seafood in order to build a more “ethical and human fishing industry.”
The process works by attaching radio-frequency identification numbers to fish that are caught. This allows the fish to be monitored via geolocation and helps to determine if the animal was caught in sustainable waters without forced labor.
The data is accessible to virtually anyone and passes through multiple parties, creating a trustless and unchallengeable record for all to examine.
Ripple (XRP)
Since our previous price discussion, Ripple remains largely unchanged and is trading for about 60 cents.
Positive news emerged for XRP after London-based fintech startup Revolut announced it would be adding Ripple to its crypto-trading app, allowing users to purchase and trade XRP for any of the platform’s listed currencies.
Revolut chief technology officer Vlad Yatsenko explained:
“We’ve been asking the Revolut community which cryptocurrencies they would like to see next, and the demand for XRP has been absolutely overwhelming.”
Bitcoin Cash (BCH)
Bitcoin Cash also remains similar to our last price discussion and is trading for roughly $1,020.21.
BCH will be joining XRP on Revolut’s crypto-trading app, but the currency has ultimately lost about 17 percent of its value over the last 24 hours.
UK managing director at E-Toro Iqbal Gandham says that BCH is experiencing great difficulty in convincing the crypto community that it truly is a derivative of Bitcoin, and that it can provide a stable framework for transactions.
Gandham commented:
“This lack of clarity has repeatedly called into question the authenticity of Bitcoin Cash. Until that is resolved, the direction of price movement will always carry an air of uncertainty.”
Litecoin (LTC)
Litecoin has fallen to $121. That’s two dollars less than where it stood during our previous price article.
The #paywithlitecoin movement has been doing wonders for the currency, as Charlie Lee – founder of Litecoin – recently announced on his Twitter page that LTC is now accessible to over 130,000 businesses thanks to newfound partnerships with platforms like iPayment Inc. and Aliant Payment.
Market Summary
The cryptocurrency market has continued to shed its weight in billions. This time, however, the total market cap sits at $335 billion – roughly $7 billion higher than our previous price piece.
Investors are warned to stay privy to these price swings and trade only what they can afford to part with.
Posted In: Crypto, Price Watch
