An uptick in the cryptocurrency market was observed after regulators in South Korea and Europe dialed back their rhetoric regarding regulation. At the time of writing, the total market capitalization of all cryptocurrencies stood at $460.41 billion which is an increase of about 6.6% from a day ago. At the same time, it is also 38% higher than the lows of last Tuesday at $279 billion.

The seep in the price trajectory pushed Bitcoin above the $9,000 mark and at the time of writing traded at $9,650, up 17.74% from its price a week ago. However, according to a report by Coindesk, the gains may not last. A bout of selling is expected on the back of Chinese Lunar New Year which falls on February 16, 2018 as traders exchange cryptocurrencies for fiat currencies.

During the week, South Korea, which threatened to ban trading of cryptocurrency earlier, softened its stance. Hong Nam-Ki, minister of the Office for Government Policy, in a video posted on the government’s website said they were focused on making crypto trading transparent opposed to banning the crypto exchanges. The statement was released after an online petition was circulated across the internet wherein people criticized the threat of the government to ban crypto trading and was signed by about 200,000 people.

In addition, president of the European Central Bank, Mario Draghi also rejected the idea of ECB regulation for bitcoin. He said during a video interview on Wednesday that “It’s not the ECB’s responsibility to do that,”.

It was immediately after South Korea’s announcements that the majority of the gains for crypto markets occurred. Litecoin, a cryptocurrency which was recently identified by Microsoft Corp. as a building block to create Decentralized digital ID (DID) became the fifth-most valuable cryptocurrency after it overtook Cardano’s ADA. At the time of writing, Litecoin traded at $222.44 up 51.03% from its price a week ago.

In the meantime, Ripple consolidated its gains and continued to rack up the positive press. In JP Morgan’s recent Bitcoin Bible, it was reported to be among the fastest networks for processing transactions. In other news, Western Union, a money transfer giant announced that it was testing the technology of Ripple for its business. Earlier this week, a similar announcement was made by UAE Exchange in which Ripple announced an agreement with UAE Exchange to test its blockchain technology, the exchange is said to have about 6.75% share of $575 billion global remittance market. Ripple’s cryptocurrency, XRP in the last week has pushed above the $1 mark and is currently traded at $1.11, up 4.98% in the last 24 hours.

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