Which Coin Had Gained 4500%? Crypto Weekly Update: Bitcoin’s 2019 High, South Korea’s Back, Bakkt and More

Following last week’s correction, Bitcoin started yet another cycle as the enthusiasm around Initial Exchange Offerings (IEOs) continues and more exchanges are stepping in.

However, it’s important to determine whether the current price action will be beneficial for the cryptocurrency market in the long-term or if the current hype will fade-away just like it did back in 2017.

In any case, it appears that the IEOs trend is one of the main causes for the recent gains, as there is no other reason to attribute these gains to except for the halving which is scheduled for May next year.

This week’s market events include Cosmos trading with ATOM, which started in the first few hours and traded at a staggering 4500% dollar-wise. It’s important to consider that investors haven’t yet received their tokens and that a correction is expected.

Apart from that, a lot of the altcoins were trading in the green this week. Cryptocurrencies such as Tezos (XTZ), Basic Attention Token (BAT), and Binance Coin (BNB) were amongst the leaders, providing their investors with impressive gains.

Meanwhile, the market dominance is slowly shifting in favor of Bitcoin as the BTC Dominance index is currently at 53.3 percent after a nice weekly increase.

To wrap it up, we’ve had yet another positive week and 2019 continues to be a rather successful year for the entire cryptocurrency market.

Market Data

BTC: $5,596 9.2%

ETH: $175.3 6.9%

XRP: $0.32 1.2%

Crypto News

Former E&Y Blockchain Big Hitter Quits Overcrowded Crypto Space. Angus Champion de Crespigny, former cryptocurrency leader at Ernst and Young has said that he’s taken a role outside of the crypto industry as he thinks the market won’t become rational in the foreseeable future. However, he also maintains his belief that Bitcoin can truly transform the world but not in the short term.

LedgerX Reveals bid to Beat Bakkt to Physical Bitcoin Futures Launch. Popular provider of cryptocurrency derivatives, LedgerX, has announced plans to become the first US company to offer physically settled Bitcoin futures contracts. LedgerX’s product will be geared toward investors of all sizes and not just institutional participants.

Will Visa, Mastercard, PayPal Be Eclipsed By Crypto? Bitcoin Data Shows It’s Already Happening. Recent research by Blockdata revealed that traditional payment processors such as Visa and Mastercard pale in comparison to Bitcoin by many measures, particularly in their expensive transaction fees.

You Can Now Shop With Bitcoin on Amazon Using Lightning. Moon, a cryptocurrency payment processing startup, has recently announced its browser extension which will allow any lightning-enabled wallet to shop at e-commerce sites such as Amazon. While the extension is currently being reviewed by the Chrome Web Store, it’s expected to launch on Wednesday, April 24th.

Hacked Crypto Exchange Zaif Resuming Full Services Under New Owner. In 2018, Japanese cryptocurrency exchange Zaif was hacked for about $60 million. Now, the company announced that it has signed over its business to Fisco – a local investment firm and expects to resume full operations.

South Korean Comeback? Korean Crypto Investments Rise by 64.2 Percent in 12 Months. Despite the prolonged bear market, South Korea has seen a notable surge with 64.2 percent in the overall value of cryptocurrency investments over the last year. While the number of investors is nowhere near that during the peak in 2017, the study gives signs of positivity.

Charts

This week we have a chart analysis of Bitcoin, Ethereum,Ripple,SIA and Chainlink – Read more here.