Bitcoin and Ether Market Update: August 15, 2019

Total crypto market cap lost $40.7 billion of its value since Monday, August 12 and now stands at $258.2 billion. Top ten coins are all in red for the last 24 hours with most of them registering double-digit loses. EOS (EOS) and Litecoin (LTC) were the worst performers with 15.8 and 14 percent of loses respectively. At the time of writing bitcoin (BTC) is trading at $9,712 on the Bitstamp daily chart, while ether (ETH) dropped to $181 and Ripple’s XRP fell to $0.257.

BTC/USD

Bitcoin climbed up to $11,535 on Sunday, August 11 and closed the previous seven-day period with 4.1 percent of the price increase.

After failing to regain $12,000 during the weekend, the BTC/USD pair gave up some of its recent gains and fell back down to $11,392 on the start of the new week. It was trading as low as $11,123 on the Bitstamp daily chart or right at the breakpoint of the uptrend channel we created on our last reports.

On Tuesday, August 13, the most popular cryptocurrency decreased to $10,861 after losing 4.6 percent. The majority of the crypto analysts agreed that a breach below the mid-$10k levels would leave the door open for further loses and a drop below the mentioned psychological level in the short-term.

On August 14, bitcoin formed its third consecutive red candle and lost the stunning 8 percent closing at $10,023. The coin broke below the $10k support in the early hours of August 15.

The British multinational investment bank Barclays discontinued its partnership with the US-based cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase. This resulted in the platform losing access to UKs Faster Payments Scheme (FPS) and its support for local GBP-based deposits and withdrawals. While end users might experience slowness in fund transfers, from Coinbase have struck a new deal with the local clearing bank ClearBank.

China is on its way to introduce its very own Central Bank digital currency. According to recent reports, the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) has been working on the project for at least 5 years and is now very close to rolling out its local cryptocurrency. Mu Changchun, who is Deputy Chief in the Payment and Settlement Division of PBOC confirmed during China Finance 40 Group meeting on August 10 that the new digital currency will most probably replace m0 or the cash in circulation tier and will support the Chinese Yuan (CNY) through the country’s commercial bank system.

ETH/USD

The Ethereum Project token ETH added 5.6 percent to its value on Sunday, August 11 and closed the week at $216 or 4 percent down for the period.

Ether, which was caught in the $230-$200 zones since July 14, started to move downwards since the last time it was rejected at $230 on August 8.

It opened the new week on August 12 with a drop to $211, which was followed by another losing session, this time to $208 on Tuesday, August 13.

The ETH/USD pair fell off a cliff on August 14 and lost 11 percent of its value just to close at $185. The ether stormed pass the $200 support and is now eyeing the levels around $180.