Crypto Recap March 12: Bitcoin Fails at $10k, Shocking Findings on Volume

Market Summary

The crypto market could not find enough buyers to see a bullish follow-through extension on Monday, although Sunday's reversal in Bitcoin remains a valid set-up while $8.4k support holds. Bitcoin closed at $9.2k after a failed attempt to break the $10k immediate resistance. The best performers of the day included Cardano, NEM, and VeChain, all hanging onto recent gains, while the rest of Alts saw losses of 4 to 7% on average in the last 24h. The (artificially) market value stands at $470b.

The total number of transactions was quite uninspiring. Whether or not it had an impact, it's worth noting that an article titled 'Chasing fake volume: a crypto-plague,' by crypto-trader Sylvain Ribes, garnered plenty of attention. The report includes publicly available data to create a model in which it reveals how much of the trading volume in popular crypto exchanges is non-existent. The findings were astonishing, especially on the Chinese-based exchanges OKEX and Huobi, but also in Binance.

"A bit of wash trading and artificial volume inflation is to be expected in a thoroughly unregulated market. What I did not expect was the magnitude of the fraud," Ribes writes.

As much as $3 billion dollars of daily volume could essentially be nonexistent. The report may have certainly had an impact on the overall confidence of participants, as it'd suggest that the market is artificially inflated by a large margin.

In the short-term, as any news with negative connotations, it may lead to uncertainty and loss of trust but it definitely adds to the bullish macro picture, as it implies the market is nearing under-valued levels based on a logarithmic regression non-linear chart.

Throw into the mix the recent findings by Fundstrat Global Advisors co-founder Thomas Lee, who recently stated how depressed the bitcoin misery index is. Lee hints that we are nearing a great time to be invested in Bitcoin, if only based on his proprietary index.

"Think of this index as a way to measure how happy or sad you are owning bitcoin. As of Friday, the index was around 18.8 on a scale of 100, telling us that bitcoin holders are miserable right now," Lee said and added that "when the bitcoin misery index is at 'misery' (below 27), bitcoin sees the best 12-month performance. The last four times this was below 27...there was not a single instance with bitcoin not up 12 months later."

"The index is telling us, it's really tough to own it for the next week or even two weeks, three weeks. But we're getting through this," Lee concluded. Think about it for a second, the misery is the lowest it's been for years and yet Bitcoin was until a few hours ago re-testing the $10k level, food for thought.

What would the value of Bitcoin and the entire market be like when the index recovers its footing? As we like to reiterate, think on the big picture.

Subscribe to our Newsletter to receive these daily recaps

* Headlines below are listed in chronological order, as seen in CoinLive News Terminal

Top Headlines Industry / Regulations

• Update on The MTGox Insolvency Proceedings - The next creditor’s meeting will be held at Tokyo District Courtroom for Creditors’ Meeting No.1 on September 26, 2018.
• Update: Korean FSC may Repeal the Ban on ICOs - According to Korea Times, there are pending discussions at Korean FSC to reverse the ban on ICOs.
• Korea: Bithumb to Launch Crypto-Kiosks for Food Orders in Restaurants - In an effort to accelerate the adoption of cryptocurrency in Korea, Bithumb is planning to introduce kiosks in restaurants.
• G20: Current Crypto Regulation Status - A summary of the state of affairs regarding crypto regulations in members of G20.
• Praetorian Group Could Become First SEC-Registered ICO - The Praetorian Group could soon become the first ever SEC-registered ICO, after filing a registration back on March 6.
• Millenials - The Largest Group of Crypto Investors - While millennials form the largest group of crypto investors, the older groups take the pie for the most money spent on investments, shows a new study.
• Coincheck Starts Repayments - Coincheck revealed that they are planning to repay their customers starting March 12th.
• Finnish Crypto Exchange Prasos Faces Backlash from Banks - Prasos is forced to use a single bank account after having four of its bank accounts closed due to concerns over anti-money laundering compliance.
• EU: Mining of Cryptocurrency Is Not an Illegal Activity - European Commissioner for Digital Economy and Society stated that the mining activity was not illegal and the Commission didn't need to track it.
• Researcher Compares Crypto Exchanges to Reveal Fabricated Trading Volume - Crypto-trader Sylvain Ribes used publicly available data to analyze trading volumes in popular crypto exchanges.
• Indian FinMin Official Suggests to Ban Crypto Transactions - A member of the 15th Finance Commission of India, argued that it wouldn't be possible to regulate cryptocurrencies effectively.
• Bitpanda Suggests Gold-like Regulation on Cryptos - According to Bloomberg, European crypto exchange Bitpanda suggests a regulatory approach to cryptos similar to gold-standard.

Top Headlines Crypto-Asset Fundamentals

• Facebook AMA with Mike Kayamori, CEO of Quoine - On Mar 9, Mike Kayamori, CEO of Quoine, discussed all the latest developments and progress at Quoine in a Facebook AMA.
• Lightning Mainnet Coming up Soon - João Almeida, a developer on Lightning Network, tweeted that the first mainnet is going to launch soon.
• Substratum CEO Discusses the Future of the Project - Justin Tabb, the CEO and co-founder of Substratum, sat down with "Young and Investing" for an interview.
• Thomson Reuters Launches Bitcoin Sentiment Gauge - Thomson Reuters is creating a sentiment index that tracks and analyzes chatter about bitcoin on the news and social media websites.
• Consensys and TrueDigital Combine to Make Ether Ready for Institutional Trading - New York-based blockchain application startup Consensys has announced a partnership with TrueDigital.
• Former Docker CEO to Helm Storj - Storj, the decentralized data storage startup, took some major steps today towards boosting their growth by announcing their new CEO, Ben Golub.
• Neon Wallet 0.2.0 Is Out - Earlier today, City of Zion, an independent, international group of open source developers working on NEO blockchain, has released Neon Wallet 0.2.0 on Github.
• New Twist in "Monero Mining Malware" Saga - Reportedly, unknown entities at a telecom company affiliated to the Egyptian government are using a malware to con Middle Eastern Web users into mining XMR.
• BitPay Implements Bitcoin Cash to Merchant Processing Platform - BitPay has released a platform update to allow merchants to accept payments in BCH.
• BBVA Compass to Explore Further Uses of Ripple Technology - In an interview with the Dallas Business Journal, CEO of BBVA Compass talked about using Ripple technology in the future.
• 0x's Will Warren Talks on Importance of Decentralized Exchanges in Podcast - In its latest episode, Blockcrunch Podcast featured Will Warren, co-founder of the 0x Project.

Key Events on Top Cryptos for Mar 13 (Tue) **

• Bytecoin (BCN) - AMA on Reddit
• Dash (DASH) - Money20/20 Asia in Singapore
• Gas (GAS) - Koinex lists GAS
• Monaco (MCO) - Meetup in Singapore, Money20/20 Asia Sponsorship
• Nebulas (NAS) - Meetup in Kensington
• NEO (NEO) - APAC Blockchain 2018 in Melbourne
• Nexus (NXS) - APAC Blockchain 2018 in Melbourne
• Quantum Resistant Ledger (QRL) - APAC Blockchain 2018 in Melbourne
• Ripple (XRP) - Money 20/20 Asia in Singapore
• SophiaTX (SPHTX) - NEWMATEC 2018 Conference in Tále
• Stellar (XLM) - Meetup in Singapore
• VeChain (VEN) - APAC Blockchain 2018 in Melbourne

source: www.coinmarketcal.com

Main Gainers / Losers Top 100 Coins

CoinLive curates, examines, and summarizes news from external services while producing its own original material. Copyrights from external sources will be credited as they pertain to their corresponding owners. CoinLive’s purpose is to make use of partial 3rd party content or pictures as either allusion or promotional endorsement of mentioned sites.