Image from http://symbot.io

While the market goes up and down like a rollercoaster, at  the very least it provides us with the certainty that there will always be some action and things to talk about. Another week has gone by; let's look at some of the major news catalysts since not everyone has time to be reading crypto news all day every day. Let's dive into some of the biggest moments this week in the crypto-sphere!  

Crypto to be Accepted Across 80,000 European Stores?

Four of the largest cryptos (BTC, ETH, XRP, LTC) are slated to potentially gain adoption across 80,000 European stores! That's one small step for crypto, and one giant leap for ma...ss adoption. It stems from a new partnership between Coingate and Prestashop. Consumers will pretty much be able to use any coin in the coingate portfolio for making purchases anywhere that uses the Prestashop software. 

Verge Drama

Verge took to Twitter to ask their followers in aiding a donation campaign looking to raise 75,000,000 XVG. They were met by a mix of support and backlash on social media. With promises of an announcement after the goal was met, something just didn't bode well for me personally with this stunt. TokenPay came through and made a massive donation to help Verge actually reach their goal, however a lot of investors have decided to run away from the project due to the lack of professionalism shown through this and their past.   

With excuses like "there was no pre-mine or ICO" I still find it hard to believe that Justin Vendetta, Sunerok, and co. don't have massive bags of XVG. I also find it hard to believe that they didn't lock in some profits during the insane bullrun that had XVG up well over 100,000% on the year, and if they didn't that might actually be an even scarier thought. For me, Verge is a fine coin to trade if the T.A. (Technical Analysis) and/or F.A. (Fundamental Analysis) are leading towards a buy signal, but it's never something I would hold in my long term portfolio. 

LitePay Ceased and Charlie Lee is a Liar

LitePay ceased operations and shut down with the company apparently being put up for sale. The Litecoin Foundation said " To the full LTC community, we are greatly disheartened that this saga has ended this manner. We apologize for not doing enough research that could have discovered a number of these issues earlier. We are working hard to tighten our due diligence methods and ensure that this does not happen again." 

Twitter user CryptoMedication called out Charlie Lee for blatantly lying about having zero knowledge with regards to LitePay, with some users in the comments pulling proof of a $50,000 donation from The Litecoin Foundation to LitePay.  

Bitcoin Transaction Fees are Cheap Again,  But Why?

Bitcoin transaction fees have returned to the lowest they've been in a long time. This isn't necessarily a great, or permanent change however, and is mostly due to the fact that the transaction volume with bitcoin has taken a fairly sharp decline. That being said, you can send $10,000 worth of bitcoin for around 10 cents at the moment, which is significantly cheaper than banks or other financial sending services, and also a fraction of what transactions cost during the previous bull run. 

Good news for the time being, but behind bitcoin (the current heart of the crypto markets) lie the politics, manipulation, institutions, governments, etc. The markets have a lot of maturing to do, and we can only focus on the things we can control for the time being. Whether bots are manipulating the prices doesn't stop us from looking to capitalize on the volatility and lock in profits.  

Circle Internet Finance, Ltd Now a Profitable Company. Bullish Sign?

Circle Internet Finance, Ltd, which is a startup backed by Goldman Sachs, recently purchased one of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges in Poloniex. Purchasing an exchange during a bear market shows a sure sign of confidence that they too believe it's not a matter of if, but when, the markets recover and go on the next bull run. 

Circle has been hiring a lot of new employees, and will potentially be doubling their entire workforce. Sometimes when the markets are down, news like this is exactly what we need to keep the positivity flowing.  

Canada Leading the Way With the First Exchange-Owned Crypto Brokerage in the World   

The TMX Group is a Canadian company that operates a variety of exchanges, ranging from equities, fixed income, derivatives, and energy markets. Shorcan, who is one of TMX subsidiary companies has announced its plan to launch its own cryptocurrency brokerage.  

Expected to launch in the second quarter of this year, Shorcan Digital Currency Network (Shorcan DCN) will have a primary focus on bitcoin and ethereum, however they plan to add many more based on the demand of customers. This is very big news and Canada is putting a stamp on legitimizing cryptocurrencies!   

Ironically enough, BMO (Bank of Montreal) has recently announced it was be banning its users from making cryptocurrency purchases with their credit, and debit cards. This has sparked a lot of outrage in people having the right to choose where, and how they spend their own money. The reason this is ironic, is that BMO is listed as a partner for this upcoming crypto brokerage with TMX Group. What a world we live in. 

Surprise! Binance is in the News! Move to Malta, Decentralized Exchange, Fiat Pairs?  

Image from coincentral.com Binance has gone from a startup in 2017 to the largest, highest volume crypto exchange in the world. They've already brought in over 200 million dollars worth of profits in the first quarter this year. Very impressive! 

Aside from some complaints about the interface on the site, what's not to love? They have a great selection of coins and are constantly adding new ones, a good referral program, massive volume, and have announced upcoming fiat pairs plus the launch of their own decentralized exchange. Oh, and they thwarted a hack job recently, recovering all funds and proceeding to put a (non-claimed as of yet) bounty out on the hacker(s). 

Slightly concerning is the need for constant movement of their HQ locations. I'll save judgement on that topic however, as a company profiting to the likes of Binance, one could only assume they're moving forward with changes to continue the incredible momentum they're riding.  

What Time is it? Donation Time for Ripple! 

In a huge move, Ripple has donated almost 30 million dollars worth of XRP to the charity  DonorsChoose.org. It's been noted that the donation is enough to cover every single request on the website, which will aid over 30,000 schools in the United States and reach over 1 million students. 

In a statement released on their website, Ripple noted, “Every Rippler, from the executive to our newest hires, started their careers in the classroom, the place where children’s dreams are forged and legacies begin.”  

Whether or not you like Ripple/XRP or hate the centralized system that supports banking, this is a pretty awesome move for a great cause. 

Market Sentiment 

The overall sentiment of the market looks to be low-neutral for the time being. While there are quite a few news catalysts that scream bullish, the road to recovery is still looking like it's going to take a while longer. Coins/tokens are down anywhere from 60-90% from ATH (All Time High) and most charts are fairly beat up, and riding a downward channel for the most part.  The total market cap has been floating between 300-350 billion as of late, and is sitting at 282 billion at the time of writing this. Bitcoin is bouncing around the $7500-8k area, however the majority of people seem to concur that we have further down to go.

Bitcoin has been following its historical trends eerily similar to the past, and if this is the case, there's a high likelihood that we return to the $4-6k range to return to the mean average before rallying out of this downward channel. Because history tends to repeat itself doesn't mean it will though. One major news catalyst can always trump any amount of T.A. and shift the markets in a positive or negative direction.  

Charts 

Bitcoin

Highlighting some key areas on the chart here. We Still believe Bitcoin is going to drop lower, but right now it's just bouncing around the $7500-8k level.   Short term case for the bulls - Need to get back over 9k and hold it as support. There is support on the bottom near $7300 that is a must hold or we are headed back to 6k.   Case for the bears - We are still in a downtrend with low volume. Market sentiment is low. People are depressed and not many buyers are jumping in. We need some positive news!  

BAT

BAT is one of my Coinbase picks that I'm going to hold for the long term! I will also like to keep accumulating on good buying opportunities (2400 sats was the most recent).   This was a great short term play based on the previous signal in our Pro group at cryptotraderspro.com but also a longer term play for those who wish to hold. People are speculating on this getting added to Coinbase as one of the leading ERC 20 tokens that ticks all their boxes to qualify in getting added. This is why we saw the massive volume spike! I think this is just getting started again and look forward to another uptrend! 

This chart has played out exactly as predicted! Up about 60% from the signal. I think it still could run a bit, but to be safe I have moved my stop loss up so I'm automatically going to profit from this play.   Justin Sun announced that the Testnet was going to launch by March 31st. I think this will cause some volume to come in and we have a massive spike in the price! It all depends if it's a successful launch, though.  

Conclusion

It's been another exciting week in the wild world of crypto while we sit on the sidelines and watch this metaphorical game of tug o' war play out between the bears and bulls! There's only 3 certainties in life. Death, taxes, and enough crazy stuff happening in the next week for another jam packed article for you to read!  

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Thanks for taking the time to read and we'll see ya's on the moon!