Crypto News Recap: Bitcoin on Seesaw, Ether Is Back from the Dead, XRP Falls from Grace!

Bitcoin rounded up 2020 with great performance and began 2021 with a big bang. The flagship coin's price skyrocketed to $38,000 before plummeting back to $32,898 in a parabolic downtrend move. 

^{Source: coinmarketcap.com}

According to Cointelegraph, analysts suggest that the recent rally above $30,000 might be jolted by aggressive buying from institutional investors and pure FOMO. Anyhow, yesterday's bearish sentiment might be due to the uncertainty of Ripple's future, or maybe the bull traders want to catch a breather after the amazing end-of-year rally.

Nevertheless, BTC’s market cap soared to $611,557 Billion surpassing that of Visa, MasterCard, Warren Buffett’s finance giant Berkshire Hathaway.

Altcoins market

For the first time since January 2018, Ethereum is trading above $900. The second-highest cryptocurrency by market cap (trading $1,061 at press time) is approaching a record price levels as it continues to consolidate gains.

Still struggling legally, Ripple’s XRP price is still teetering on the brink. Trading $$0.239331 at press time, XRP is in freefall losing almost 40% of its value as exchanges began dropping the token support left and right. 

^{Source: coinmarketcap.com}

Without further ado, here are the top stories this week:

NotaryChain is the world’s first blockchain-based new platform that allows people to notarize and verify documents securely, remotely, and timely. NotaryChain was launched by JustChain, a UAE-based startup supported and funded by Mohammed Bin Rashid Innovation Fund (MBRIF), an initiative launched by the UAE Ministry of Finance.

JustChain focuses on implementing blockchain-based tamperproof solutions for justice and public safety. 

Ripple’s XRP suffers more losses as SEC legal action sparked a chain of XRP delisting from 26 crypto exchanges - including Binance, eToro, Coinbase, and Bittrex.

Ripple’s CEO, Brad Garlinghouse, said in an announcement on Twitter that his company is filing a response in a few weeks to address these unproven allegations against Ripple.  

In light of these actions, Ripple lost almost 60% of its value in just 2 weeks.

Visa, the global payments technology company, has announced new partnerships with Simplex, a fiat-to-crypto on-ramp service, to issue new crypto debit cards.

This partnership aims at increasing the usage of cryptocurrencies in our daily transactions as well as making the conversion of crypto into fiat currency easier.

 European Blockchain Conference Barcelona 2021 (Jan 25, 2021 - Jan 26, 2021) in Catalonia, Spain

^{Disclaimer: The Cryptocurrency market is considered highly speculative, risky, and largely unregulated. Anyone mulling investing in it, should be aware there's a risk of losing their entire investment.}