After experiencing a drop on Saturday, Bitcoin and the rest of the market showed an uptick this morning, as all top 10 cryptos were in the green. Bitcoin Cash led the way, climbing more than 5% over the past 24 hours. The ongoing US-China trade war, the US presidential race and an interesting piece of news from New Jersey may impact markets this week.
Today’s Highlights
- Trade war galore
- Musk endorses Yang
- New Jersey crypto Task Force
The Crypto-Yuan Connection
President Trump has been exchanging blows with China, further escalating the ongoing trade war between the two nations. Just last Friday, Trump tweeted that he’s “not doing anything yet” about China. Earlier last week, China set the Yuan’s price to its lowest level in more than 11 years, impacting mainstream market, and, according to some analysts, also uppind Bitcoin demand. On Saturday, the People’s Bank of China announced that its digital currency is ready, expanding the connection between the Yuan and blockchain.
Bitcoin’s trading frequency was also on the rise last week, hitting 4 trades-per-second on Thursday.
However, despite the recent bullish factors, Bitcoin has yet to breach the $12,000 level.
Musk and Yang
On Saturday, serial entrepreneur Elon Musk, who currently heads Tesla and SpaceX, voiced his support for Democratic candidate Andrew Yang. Replying to a thread on Twitter, Musk simply wrote “I support Yang.”
Yang is known to be pro-crypto, to the extent that his campaign accepts donations in Bitcoin and Ethereum. Musk’s support is somewhat unsurprising, as he is a long-time advocate of crypto. However, whether or not this is a positive endorsement for Yang remains to be seen, as Musk has had his fill of scandals in recent years.
The Jersey Turning Point?
Could mainstream adoption of blockchain in the U.S. start in New Jersey? Over the weekend, Governor Phil Murphy signed the Blockchain Initiative Task Force bill into law, which will look into the benefits and risks of blockchain technology. The Task Force will examine the use of public and private blockchain, distributed ledger technology, consensus algorithms and more, in order to see if these could be implemented in the State. Members of the Task Force will have around 6 months to submit their findings, so don’t expect any news on that front soon.
The Week Ahead
The relationship between the crypto market and mainstream markets will be tested again this week. The ongoing US-China trade war could see either side taking drastic measures to cripple their counterpart, resulting in mainstream market volatility that could have a ripple effect and impact crypto.
The UK is still in disarray after recent GDP data pushed the Pound down to a two-year low. While currency volatility is the bread and butter of many day traders, the unpredictable nature of the market of late may prompt some of them to dip their toes into crypto.
eToro USA LLC; Virtual currencies are highly volatile. Your capital is at risk.