Bitcoin (BTC) fell below $26,000 on Dec. 29 as fresh fallout from Ripple’s threatened lawsuit with the United States Security and Exchange Commission was felt throughout crypto markets. BTC price dips as Coinbase halts XRP trading Data from Cointelegraph Markets, Coin360 and TradingView showed BTC/USD hitting lows of $25,830 during Tuesday trading. $27,000 support failed to hold overnight, sparking a retest of lower levels that now center on $26,000. On the weekend, Bitcoin hit all-time highs of $28,400 before swiftly reversing. The latest losses come as XRP, the fourth-largest cryptocurrency by market cap, hits $0.23 thanks to major U.S. exchange …

Several central banks have resorted to unprecedented monetary expansion and aggressive rate cuts to support their respective economies badgered by the coronavirus pandemic. Record liquidity has resulted in sharp rallies in the S&P 500, gold, and Bitcoin (BTC), which suggests that investors are plowing money into assets of their choice. While gold is way below its all-time high set in August, both the S&P 500 and Bitcoin are near their all-time high. The last five trading days of the year and the first two of the next year have historically been bullish for the S&P 500, dubbed as the "Santa …

The current crypto bull run has been spearheaded by Bitcoin (BTC). As the United States Securities and Exchange Commission has previously hinted that Bitcoin is not a security, the regulator’s current lawsuit against Ripple is unlikely to stop the institutional inflow of money into Bitcoin. However, a few altcoins that may be at risk of facing a similar fate as Ripple could face selling pressure. Due to a change in sentiment, retail investors may sell some of their altcoin holdings and shift to Bitcoin. Even retail investors who plan to spend their stimulus checks for buying crypto-assets may prefer Bitcoin …

MicroStrategy CEO Michael Saylor recently tweeted that he purchased another 29,646 Bitcoin (BTC) at an average price of $29,646. With this purchase, the company has deployed the $650 million raised through a recent convertible debt offering. The business intelligence firm now holds 70,470 Bitcoin and that makes it the fifth-largest individual holder of Bitcoin. The current Bitcoin bull run has largely been driven by institutional investors. Analysts at JPMorgan Chase believe that in order for the uptrend to continue, fresh institutional money needs to keep trickling in as it has done in the past few weeks, or Bitcoin could witness …

Christopher Wood, the global head of equity strategy at Jefferies, has dumped five percent of their physical gold position in order to buy Bitcoin (BTC). This move shows that a growing number of institutional investors consider Bitcoin to be at par or a better store of value than gold. Wood also said that if Bitcoin were to have a big correction, he would buy more. The fact that institutional investors are content purchasing in the $16,000 to $20,000 range suggests that institutional investors are not worried about a pullback as they view it as an opportunity to accumulate for the …

Ethereum 2.0 has already emerged as the fourth-largest proof-of-stake network by total value locked in staking within roughly six weeks of the Eth2 deposit contract going live. Despite withdrawal functionality not yet enabled and no precise estimation for its full launch date, nearly $1 billion worth of Ether (ETH) has already been designated for staking. According to crypto data aggregator Staking Rewards, more than 1.5 million Ether or 1.35% of Ethereum’s supply has been deposited for staking. Ether staking rewards are currently estimated at approximately 13.20%, meaning that a single stake of 32 ETH would earn $2,725 over one year …

Since breaking through the critical psychological resistance at $20,000, Bitcoin (BTC) price has moved even higher. In the early trading hours, the top-ranked digital asset pushed as high as $23,800 before pulling back to $23,000 but the trend of investors purchasing each dip appears to still be in play. Although Bitcoin is clearly in a bull phase, many investors are wary to buy at the current levels due to fears of a sharp reversal taking place. Therefore, they are on the lookout for other 'less expensive' tokens that are backed by strong fundamentals and also look attractive on the charts. …

Crypto traders and investors received an early Christmas gift today as Bitcoin (BTC) price cleared the $20,000 psychological milestone for the first time in history. Today's breakout is equally significant as it serves to heal the scars of the traders who may have bought right at the top in 2017 and held their positions until now. The current uptrend in Bitcoin has been all about institutional adoption. The latest institutional investor to have announced a position in Bitcoin is the United Kingdom-based investment manager Ruffer Investment Company Limited. As has been the case with most institutional purchases this year, Ruffer …

Strategists at JPMorgan said in a note that MassMutual’s $100 million Bitcoin (BTC) purchase shows that insurance firms and pension funds are now adopting Bitcoin. According to the analysts, typically this class of institutional investors is conservative in their style of investing so the recent allocation is quite significant. However, the strategists said that even if the pension funds and the insurance companies in the U.S., Japan, the U.K., and the Euro area keep 1% of their assets in Bitcoin, that could amount to an additional inflow of about $600 billion into Bitcoin. These investments by institutions may have increased …

Cross-chain decentralized finance lending protocol Equilibrium is set to bring its U.S.-dollar-pegged stablecoin to Moonbeam, a Polkadot project building an Ethereum-like blockchain. DeFi projects building on Moonbeam will be able to use Equilibrium’s stablecoin as if it were native to the blockchain. This includes decentralized exchanges, single-purpose lending protocols and other DeFi building blocks. Moonbeam can be described as the “Ethereum on Polkadot” project. It uses the same smart contract environment seen in Ethereum, featuring an Ethereum Virtual Machine and using the same convention for accounts and wallets. As a consequence, Moonbeam supports Solidity smart contracts and allows developers and …

Bitcoin (BTC) price has been gradually giving up ground for the past few days and that has a few investors afraid that a sharp correction or a bear market similar to the one in 2018 could occur again. However, there are major differences between the previous bull market and the current one. The most notable difference is the arrival of institutional investors. The latest institution to have taken a position in Bitcoin is Massachusetts-based insurance firm MassMutual, which recently purchased 5,470 BTC for roughly $100 million. To date, a variety of institutional players ranging from hedge fund managers to publicly …

Decentralized e-commerce platform Bondly will be the first decentralized finance project to run on the Cardano blockchain as part of the platform’s roll-out of the Goguen smart contract functionality. In the Twitter announcement, the firm that built the Cardano platform, IOHK, called the partnership, “A huge step in continuing both companies’ mission to bring decentralized finance to the masses.” The Goguen roll-out, which is expected to be completed by Feb. 2021, allows decentralized applications to be built on the network and ushers in the integration of DeFi projects to Cardano’s ecosystem. IOHK CEO Charles Hoskinson said the introduction of apps …