Hi traders, I have some good news and some really bad news for you.

Ethereum.

Good news came yesterday from the SEC. William Hinman, head of the Division of Corporation Finance, said in a speech at the Yahoo All Markets Summit: Crypto conference in San Francisco that the SEC didn't regard Ether as a security but didn't rule out that the possibility that many ICO tokens are indeed securities:

"The token — or coin or whatever the digital information packet is called — all by itself is not a security, just as the orange groves in Howey were not. Central to determining whether a security is being sold is how it is being sold and the reasonable expectations of purchasers”.

“The digital asset itself is simply code. But the way it is sold — as part of an investment; to non-users; by promoters to develop the enterprise — can be, and, in that context, most often is, a security — because it evidences an investment contract. And regulating these transactions as securities transactions makes sense.”"

This is good news for Ether and probably opens the door to a CME futures market sometimes in the future. The news also triggered a spike in the price of Ether and has stabilized around the $510 USD at the time of writing. Whether or not the price of ETH will keep climbing will now depend on the meta-trend. And things are not looking too rosy from that angle.

Tether.

A just released academic paper argues that Bitcoin was probably manipulated using the cryptocurrency Tether to pump its price and create fake volume on exchanges.

If true, this manipulation could be largely responsible for propping up a two years Bitcoin bull market and suggests that any crypto-currency which price is pegged to Bitcoin is considerably overvalued.

Such news shed a considerably bearish light on the whole market and implies that, even though most crypto assets have already considerably retraced, the bubble might not have completely burst as some analysis using Metcalfe's Law have indicated:

Bitcoin.

Bitcoin itself is showing signs of imminent breakdown unless it manages to break out above previous support turned resistance:

I remain bearish until proven otherwise.

---