This week, the digital market had an ambiguous dynamic. Main currencies corrected downwards, except for Ethereum, which continued growth attempts and became the second one in capitalization, pushing Ripple to the third place, and Litecoin came in fourth, leaving EOS in fifth. Currently, Bitcoin is trading at 3550.00 (-1.1%), Ethereum –120.70 (+3.2%), Ripple – 0.297 (-1.5%), Litecoin – 42.00 (-8.5%), EOS –2.86 (+3.2%). The overall market capitalization remained stable, at about USD 120 billion. Bitcoin share is 52.6%.
The sharp growth last Friday was driven by statements of members of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Commissioner Robert J. Jackson Jr. said that ETF approval for Bitcoin is "inevitable" in the future. Later, commissioner Hester Peirce noted that tokens sold for use in a functioning network, rather than as investment contracts, should "fall outside the definition of securities".
This week, investors were disappointed when Reality Shares ETF Trusts was forced to withdraw its application for Bitcoin ETF at the request of the regulator. A recent study by the New York Fed says that cryptocurrencies will not be actively used in international payments in the short or medium term.
In late February, one should also follow Ethereum’s preparation for the release of the Constantinople update, which has been postponed since November. This should improve the performance of the Ethereum network, reduce the remuneration of miners from 3 to 2 ETH per block and stabilize emissions at 13,400 ETH per day. The creators of Bitcoin are trying to stimulate currency mining since the remuneration has recently decreased significantly.
Luke Dashjr proposed to reduce the size of the commissioned block to 300 kilobytes, which can be implemented soon. Litecoin representatives, on the contrary, plan to reduce the remuneration for mining during the year, and this, according to experts, pushes the currency up. Reducing the commission from 25 to 12.5 LTC will reduce the volume of coins on the market, so investors buy them in advance. This week, Ripple was attacked several times, which, however, did not greatly affect his position.
Coinmotion exchange said XRP is not a cryptocurrency because it is too centralized and is "in the hands of Ripple". Representatives of the SWIFT payment system noted that the blockchain is not suitable for solving the problem of increasing the speed of cross-border payments since it cannot ensure the complete confidentiality of such operations.
Next week, the price stabilization or the continuation of a smooth downward movement are more likely, since the medium-term downward trend continues.
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