Bitcoin, Ether, and XRP Weekly Market Update: November 15, 2018

The three largest cryptocurrencies by market cap experienced a turmoil of sorts this week as the long-held stability was broken and prices plunged across the board.

BTC/USD

Bitcoin lost $100 of its value on November 8, erasing all the gains from the previous two days and closed the day at $6,474. The $6,600 level proved to be out of scope for bulls to break and hold. The BTC/USD pair was eyeing the next support at $6,400.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) took enforcement action against the cryptocurrency exchange EtherDelta due to failed registration as a national securities exchange despite offering the buying and selling of security-like assets on a secondary market. Zachary Coburn, who is the founder of the platform, neither affirmed nor denied the claims, but agreed to pay $75,000 in penalties, $300,000 disgorgement, and $13,000 in prejudgment interest. The news is important as it marks the first enforcement action by The SEC against a cryptocurrency exchange.

Additionally, the Commission is reportedly planning to release “plain English” guidance for developers to refer to when planning token offerings. SEC director William Hinman explained that “the idea is a plain English instrument that people can look at and they’ll bring together sort of my Howey-meets-Gary speech and that analysis” There is already an ICO section on the official government agency web page, which can be used by entrepreneurs: https://www.sec.gov/ICO.

Germany’s Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin) issued a warning over crypto-offering company Crypto-Capitals and its unregulated activity in Germany. According to the institution, Crypto- Capitals is putting investor’s capital at risk by not complying with its financial legislation. This is not the first time the watchdog warns the public to be extra careful when trading crypto-related products. Last November, it advised consumers against ICOs.

Bitcoin price moved even lower on Friday, November 9 and closed the workweek just above the $6,400 mark (at $6,417). Looking at the bigger picture, BTC is in the $6,200-$6,800 price range since September 9, with volatility at its lowest point this year.

The most popular cryptocurrency moved 0.2% up on November 10 and 0.26% up on November 11 to close the week at $6,447 or 0.67% down for the 7 day period.

Binance, one of the world’s biggest crypto exchanges in terms of volume, once again made the news announcing it will form research division to publish ‘Institutional Grade’ reports. Binance Research analysis division will help boost transparency and improve the quality of information available in the cryptocurrency sector. There are two reports already published – Loom Network and GoChain with a lot of metrics, data, news and research information available to help evaluate the projects.

In an interview for CNBC Crypto Trader, Changpeng Zhao (CZ), the CEO of Binance stated that compared to January, his platform trading volume is down 90%, but he’s personally not concerned about current trends. And “sooner or later” something big will trigger a bull run everybody’s waiting for.

We didn’t see any sudden price moves on November 12, and November 13 and BTC was trading in the $6,445-6,465 range. A flash crash on November 14, however, sent Bitcoin below $6,000 (to $5,920) for the first time since June and the overall crypto market cap dropped below $200 billion for the first time in November. The leading cryptocurrency lost 8.3% on that day and continues moving south during early hours on November 15, now sitting at $5,760.

Bulls will need a push above $5,800 and $6,000 to regain control, but it is hard to tell where the bottom is. Crypto is in sync with financial markets recently, and they are all in red.

(Source: Tradingview)

ETH/USD

The price of Ethereum followed the movement of Bitcoin and dropped 3.2% to $212 on November 8. ETH/USD lost another dollar on November 9 and closed the workweek at $211, still above the critical levels at $215 and $220.

Not a lot was ongoing on the ETH front regarding news for the last few days. It was the Ethereum co-founder and founder of Consensys Joe Lubin who shared his thoughts on blockchain development by telling German media t3n that Blockchain will take a little longer to develop than the Web because it is “much more complicated. “[Blockchain projects] will enable people to build more things that will come in handy again. That’s how the web was developed.

It will probably take a little longer because it is much more complicated. Also, because we work on topics such as digital money, Blockchain will permeate society more than the Internet. Everything will be networked in a Web3.” he added.

The most popular altcoin made a slight movement upwards to $213 on November 10 and remained mostly flat on the next day, November 11. It closed the week with a negligible drop of less than a half percent.

ETH/USD started to show signs of an imminent downward correction on November 12 and November 13 dropping to $209, but it was on Wednesday, November 14 when most of the top 100 coins saw a two-digit loss. Ethereum followed the crowd and lost approximately 11% of its value, breaking below the critical support at $200 to reach $187.

In the early morning hours on November 15, it is sitting at $183. Last time we saw price below that level was September 12, 2018, but ETH hasn’t closed a candle on the daily chart below that level since July 2017, so all eyes on Ethereum.

(Source: Tradingview)

XRP/USD

The Ripple company token experienced a sharp price drop on November 8 and found itself at $0.4966, 8% down from the previous day. From there it started moving upwards and once again broke the $0.50 resistance on November 9.

On Sunday, November 11 XRP/USD stopped at $0.51 and closed the week 8.5% up for the seven-day period.

The pair extended winnings on November 12 for the fourth consecutive day and continued chasing the $0.53 level closing at $0.524.

Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse interviewed for Bloomberg TV saying that at least 100 SWIFT-connected banks have signed on with Ripple already and Ripple has no intention of co-existing with SWIFT. “What we’re doing and executing on a day-by-day basis is taking over SWIFT.” he added.

The XRP started moving lower on November 13 and dropped below $0.50 on November 14 when it briefly touched $0.415 during the trading session to close at $0.486.

At the time of writing the Ripple currency is sitting at $0.47 holding to its next line of support at $0.47.

(Source: Tradingview)