With one week until the end of this fairly turbulent month, the price of Bitcoin is still struggling to recover to its December highs. Just like we discussed in our last update, Tuesday brought another negative price change, one that was probably due to the official introduction of trading fees in China’s biggest BTC exchanges. And judging from the current trading situation, things are not looking any better.
Other noteworthy news that hit the Bitcoin world was that Israel is now close to passing a legislative that would hinder virtual currency trading by imposing an income, sales, and capital gains taxes on buying and selling any cryptocurrency, including Bitcoin. But what’s interesting to note is that under this new legislation, digital currencies are classified as “assets” and not currencies.
The wording of the legislation draft would label any income made by sale of Bitcoins as “capital income”, which would make it subject to the country’s 25% capital gains tax that wouldn’t apply if BTC were classified as a “currency”. The controversial draft has still to undergo a public hearing process, but according to Bloomberg BNA, not much will change during it.
Seller Pressure Persists
During the past 24 hours, the price took yet another plunge that once again took the Bitcoin value down below $900. The highest point was early yesterday morning when the price hit $914.65, only to start showing signs of volatility in the next couple of hours and reach its lowest point of $885.75 right around midnight.
Volume-wise, the Bitcoin market remained less crowded during the past two days. Currently, the trading volume is at $89,265,400 and dropping, thus subduing any hopes of major upticks at this time. The market cap is also lower than previous days, at $14.5 billion, to be more precise.
Our market analysis shows that the market is pro sell, with 7 out of 12 technical oscillators and just as many moving averages being in the sell zone. However, Stochastic also indicates a return in buyer pressure, which is likewise evident on all indicators on a short time frame. For now, the price seems headed for a further consolidation around the $895-900 range, unless a change of winds occurs.
Libraries in St Louis Missouri Held Ransom for BTC
This week also brought another report of BTC ransomware attacks, this time the victims being the city libraries in St Louis, Missouri, the Guardian reports. Namely, according to the news update, all the city libraries were infected with ransomware by an unidentified group of attackers which demanded $35,000 worth of Bitcoins to restore the 700-computer system in St Louis’ 16 city libraries.
But unlike previous cases of ransomware attacks, this time the city’s authorities refused paying any ransom. Instead, what they’ve decided to do is to clean wipe their entire system and re-install it from the bottom up in the upcoming weeks. The authorities have, for now, reinstated control over their servers and their IT staff is working to restore the library’s borrowing system.
A spokeswoman from the city, Jen Hatton, commented to CNN that the hack caused the most damage to the poor and schoolchildren who have no other access to the internet but from the library’s computers. The computers will now remain shut down until further notice, while the libraries will continue working.