We’re starting this week with the price of Bitcoin back at $1,170 after it suffered a $35+ drop during weekend trading. The past couple of days have been fairly uneventful for the world of Bitcoins, which the price clearly reflected, as there have been no dramatic changes, apart from Saturday, and the buying interest remained strong throughout this time.
Just like we talked about on Friday, the hottest topic right now is the pending approval of the first Bitcoin ETF, which analysts believe will lend more stability and credibility to Bitcoins. However, while Bitcoin enthusiasts are hoping that this milestone will attract more serious investors, there is still skepticism among the traditional trading world in regards to Bitcoin’s value as a traded asset.
For instance, Paul Lambert, the head of currency investment at London’s Insight, says that Bitcoin is not a viable trading asset for as the cryptocurrency is “not liquid enough” to be considered as such, the CNBC report. However, it’s interesting to note that a similar stance has been taken by other investors before, and will likely to be taken again, but Bitcoin’s price still grew.
Bitcoin on a Rise
As discussed on Friday, the price of Bitcoin remained over the $1,165 range during the weekend and continued to grow on Sunday to touch $1,180 this early morning. The biggest change was during Saturday when the price dropped down to $1,136.16, only to keep growing steadily from Sunday onwards.
The high trading volume we saw at the end of the week has subdued to almost third of what it was on Friday, naturally taking a hit on the price. As of now, it is once again back at normal levels of $112,328,000, while the market cap sits at $19 billion.
Our technical analysis shows that buyers still have a firm grip on the market, as 8 out of 12 moving averages and 5 out of 12 oscillators are pro-buy. The SMA 100 is safely above the SMA 200 on this time-frame, so there is less resistance to the upside.
However, short-terms signals are showing a formation of seller pressure, which if persistent could take the price down. The overall market signal is heavily pro-sell on this time-frame, so don’t get your hopes up too soon. If sellers keep driving the price, we are likely to see a break below the $1,170 range. On the other hand, if buyers remain strong, we are likely to see a push over $1,180.
As always, keep watching the market for any long-term changes.
MySQL Servers Targeted by BTC Ransomware Attacks
While part of the cryptocurrency world is prepping up to see what the SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission) will decide on March 11, there are others with different concerns on their mind, as reports of MySQL ransomware attacks spread throughout the web.
Namely, reports are coming in that a group of attackers has hijacked hundreds of MySQL databases a month after servers like Hadoop and Cassandra fell victim to the same ransom. According to the news reports, a group from Netherlands has targeted a number of MySQL servers on February 12, leaving a note behind asking for 0.2 Bitcoin payments to a specified wallet address.
MySQL is one of the most popular databases used for thousands of sites, and the hackers were able to gain access to the databases by a brute force hack on the servers’ MySQL root accounts. There have been several payments to the address thus far, but it is unclear whether these were made by the group itself or affected users.