27
Feb

Bitcoin Slides; Saves Venezuelan Family

This week brought us another price drop for Bitcoin, the world’s most dominant cryptocurrency by market capitalization which sharply slid on Sunday, losing over $300 of its price in a matter of hours. The price advancement we saw last week was lost as the market was swarmed by a high trading volume – one that set a new February record. Still, current market signals show that it’s not time to worry yet as the overall mood is bullish.

According to Billy Bambrough, a contributor at Forbes magazine, Bitcoin is showing signs that it may have finally “bottomed out”. After repeatedly failing to stay above the psychological level of $4,000, Bitcoin just reached a new important milestone. The 50-week moving average has finally fallen down below the moving average of 100 weeks, something that hasn’t happened since April in 2015.

This event hints that the bear market may have finally come to an end and that a new bull run could appear that would drive the price up. This view is supported by a number of Bitcoin bulls, including people like Tim Draper and Zhao Dong. Paired with the expected adoption increase as new services like Bakkt are released, 2019 is predicted to be a good year for the coin.

Bitcoin Saves Venezuelan Economist’s Family

In other amazing news from the crypto-industry, a Venezuelan economist shares his story about Bitcoin’s real world use as a haven from failing economies. In a new opinion piece published by the New York Times, Venezuelan economist Carlos Hernández explains how Bitcoin is helping his family survive in times of repeated food shortages and nation-wide economic crisis.

In a country where the daily inflation rate is 3.5% while the annual rate is nearing 1,700,000%, more and more people are protecting themselves from the losses their national currency – the Bolivar – is inflicting by buying and selling Bitcoins. As Hernández tells it, he once invested in BTC and now uses Local Bitcoins to sell the cryptocurrency for Bolivars any time he needs to make a simple purchase, including everyday groceries like milk.

In his example, Bitcoin’s label as “borderless money” really proved to be true, even helping his brother cross the Venezuelan border with money held in BTC.  And as the numbers show, he’s not the only one, with Venezuela ranking second on Local Bitcoins, just behind Russia, with $6.9 million in completed transactions by February 16th,2019.

Bulls Refuse to Leave

In the past seven days since our last update on Wednesday, Bitcoin’s price slid down from a peak of $4,201.24 that was hit on Sunday morning to reaching a new low point of $3,807.00 the following day. Looking at the market statistics, it’s clear that the price moves were triggered by increased trading interest. The 24-hour trading volume jumped from $7.3 billion to reach $10.7 billion at the time of the price drop, setting a new record level this month.  And naturally, along with the price decline came a drop in market capitalization, which reached $67.7 billion today.

Our technical analysis shows that the market has now turned bullish, with 9 out of 12 technical oscillators and 7 out of 12 moving averages being pro-buy. Similar trends can be observed on the short-term charts as well, which signals that there might be room for another push upwards. However, with resistances formed on three different levels, Bitcoin will need to close over the $3,900 mark to be able to trigger a bigger increase. So, keep a watch on the market signals over the next couple of days for more signs, especially over the weekend.

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