Yahoo Finance Bitcoin Takes 2nd Shot at $10,000 as Litecoin and Ripple Lead Weekly Gains
Investing.com - Cryptocurrencies were trading mostly higher on Friday, as Bitcoin fought to hold above the $10,000 mark for a second consecutive session.
The largest digital currency by market cap recovered $10,000 on Thursday but pared gains by the end of the day to fall back below that level. Bitcoin wavered around the psychological level overnight and in early morning trade and was last holding above it.
Easing regulatory fears provided a stable backdrop for a sharp move higher throughout the week in the popular digital currency with other rivals swept along in a generally bullish move.
Rising inflows into the market continued amid fading regulatory fears after South Korea appeared to pivot toward more ‘friendly’ approaches to regulate the crypto industry.
“We are positively considering the adoption of an exchange approval system as the additional regulation on cryptocurrencies,” a South Korean government official said this week, according to a report from BusinessKorea. “We are most likely benchmark the model of the State of New York that gives a selective permission.”
That paved the way for cryptoinvestors to return to the market as initial fears that South Korea – which accounts for a large part of cryptocurrency trading activity – would issue an outright ban on cryptocurrencies was one of the chief reasons for the recent crash.
Still reeling from the selloff that saw bitcoin tumble to a low of $6,000 on the Bitfinex exchange, investors appear to have adopted a somewhat measured approach in their return to the market.
At 11:57AM ET (14:57GMT), Bitcoin gained 2.07% to $10,021.00, recovering more than 20% in the last seven days. Though still short of its intraday high at $10,271.00, it remained far from its 2018 low of $6,000 reached on February 6 amid the widespread crypto selloff.
Though Ripple was trading around the unchanged mark for most of Friday, it was sporting superior weekly gains of more than 30%. The digital coin -the third largest by market cap that was designed for banks and global money transfers and with one of the more affordable price tags- jumped this week after the UAE Exchange announced that it will be adopting Ripple for its cross-border payments. According to the report from Arabian Business, “this makes it the largest UAE-based exchange to incorporate blockchain technology into its daily operations.”
However, the clear winner this week was Litecoin, trading up around 3% on Friday but on track for gains of nearly 50% in the last 7 days. The fifth largest cryptocurrency by market cap was supported by news that it will undergo a fork, in a move similar to that of Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash sometime on February 19 in order to create Litecoin Cash that will have a faster transaction time. Adding to the bullish feeling earlier in the week, it was reported that LitePay, a payment infrastructure for the digital currency, was set to be launched as soon as February 26.
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