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Ripple (XRP) on Tuesday established a bullish setup after rising more than 10 percent against the US dollar.

The pair broke above the October peak to set a new one-month high at 0.569-fiat. It was previously stuck in a narrow trading range for multiple weeks amidst lower volatility. While the lack of bias-defining price action is itself not significant, the absence of solid bullish momentum, coupled with failed rally attempts of the recent weeks, confirms XRP’s overall downtrend. The latest rally marks the asset’s latest attempt to break above a strong resistance trendline.

However, nothing concrete is backing the XRP rally at this moment. The coin’s fundamentals have remained strong even in the times of bearish actions. The launch of xRapid, the presence of Bill Clinton and the financial market’s key players at Ripple’s Swell Conference, and many strategic partnerships are all favoring XRP’s rise in the long term. The company has also expanded its operations to the Middle East, with its Global Head Dilip Rao confirming that banks in the region would be using XRP to settle cross-border payments.

The volume indicators in the last 24 hours point to a massive traffic coming from Japanese and Korean markets. At the same time, tether is also contributing about 18% of the volume in XRP markets, hinting the influence of USDT traders on the altcoin.

XRP/USD Technical Analysis (4H Chart)

The latest upside breaks in the XRP/USD chart now look to correct some of its action. Those who closed their long positions already could allow the rally to step back for a while before confirming an extended bullish momentum. That said, the pair could likely repeat the September 26 action, while targeting its low at 0.496-fiat as the potential support.

The corrective action is further confirmed by the RSI momentum indicator and the Stochastic Oscillator, both of which are inside their oversold areas and should attempt a pullback anytime.

To the upside, the XRP/USD pair is testing the falling upper trendline in red as a potential breakout threshold. The pair has previously failed to break above the said level, so its invalidation could fuel the bullish bias further. Any such upside action could put XRP traders’ long position towards 0.624-fiat.

A full-fledged assault on bears could be confirmed once the XRP/USD pair breaks above 0.93-fiat, the April high. Until then, sharp corrections on every near-term rally should not surprise traders.

Featured Image from Shutterstock. Charts from TradingView.

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It’s not Thursday, but this story sure feels like a throwback to headlines from last year’s cryptocurrency mania: crypto enthusiasts have begun using their tokens to take out real mortgages on virtual land.

Decentraland & Ripio Partner for Crypto Mortgage Service

This phenomenon has been made possible through a partnership between Decentraland, an Ethereum-based virtual reality platform, and Ripio Credit Network (RCN), a borderless peer-to-peer cryptocurrency lending network.

Decentraland is a decentralized application (dApp) that hopes to provide the infrastructure for a 3D-virtual world. That world, which has finite space, has been divided into 10m² parcels, each of which is represented by a non-fungible Ethereum token called LAND that can be bought and sold in the platform’s marketplace.

Developers can build games and other applications on their parcels using the Decentraland SDK, and, once the platform receives a full release, users will be able to use VR to explore the virtual world and interact with these applications.

Decentraland is still several major releases away from fulfilling this goal, but developers and speculators have nevertheless been sinking serious cash into virtual LAND. Just this week, one user set a record by paying $215,000 for a 126-parcel estate.

Now, thanks to Decentraland’s partnership with Ripio, users will not necessarily have to plunk down all of that cash — specifically MANA, the platform’s native Ethereum token — at once.

“Decentraland is dedicated to making the exciting new world of virtual reality decentralized—ruled by open standards as opposed to one central organization. This partnership will help us fully commit to that mission, as the buying and selling of land—the basis of all the exciting things our users can create in VR—will not just be decentralized, but done on the leading global blockchain-based credit network,” stated Decentraland CEO Ariel Meilich.

RCN CEO Sebastian Serrano added that the decision to support LAND mortgages was an “exciting new horizon for Ripio” and noted that it serves as an example of how Ethereum dApps can work together to improve their services.

“The partnership between RCN and Decentraland…is one of the first examples that highlights how different smart contracts-based applications can work together,” said Serrano. “At RCN we drive our efforts to connect lenders and borrowers and offer them. Doing so in virtual reality is an exciting new horizon.”

Applying for a Virtual Mortgage

To register for a mortgage in Decentraland, prospective “real” estate purchasers must complete a short application form and place a down payment of at least 10 percent of the market value of the property. The RCN dApp will then publish the loan request so that interest lenders can claim the mortgage; the request will remain live as long as the land parcel is for sale.

Once a lender claims a mortgage request, the platform will create a smart contract that locks the land parcel and transfers partial ownership to the purchaser, who can use the parcel as he or she sees fit throughout the duration of the mortgage and may claim full ownership from the smart contract upon repaying the loan. Borrowers can even establish an RCN credit rating by consistently paying off their mortgages on time, likely enabling them to receive more favorable interest rates in the future.

However, if the borrower fails to pay off the mortgage within seven days following its expiration date, the lender may request the mortgage back through the smart contract, which will move the borrower into default and transfer full ownership of the parcel to the lender.

But, while select LAND purchases have begun to rival the cost of actual real estate, buyers are unlikely to find the borrower-friendly interest rates or 30-year payoff dates available from traditional mortgage providers. At present, active RCN loans feature annual interest rates ranging from 28 percent all the way up to 78 percent, with most lenders opting to fulfill loan requests with payoff dates denominated in months — not years.

Featured Image from Shutterstock

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Bitcoin on Tuesday confirmed another bull flag formation after reversing from its downside correction action.

The BTC/USD pair has almost negated the losses made during yesterday’s trading session, bringing the 24-hour gains to 0.46 percent. The pair found a strong intraday support level at 6372-fiat, just ahead of testing the lower trendline of the parallel channel introduced in the previous analysis. It reversed from the said level to retest its interim resistance at 6421-fiat. The BTC/USD pair is now trading at 6427-fiat on a comparatively high volume day. Coupled with the bull flag formation, it is also signaling further upside action as the US session comes into play.

The hourly signals are turning more bullish as BTC/USD continues to trend above its 100- and 200-period simple moving averages. At the same time, the RSI is also reversing to the north from its current neutral area, hinting a possibility of a strong push towards the overbought region. The Stochastic Oscillator movements are also biased towards the north, moving right towards the area defined by strong buying sentiment.

The upside bias nevertheless remains capped by a medium-term descending trendline depicted in blue. A break above it could bring BTC/USD inside a bull trap. But, an extended momentum that takes the pair above 6810-fiat could confirm a medium-term upside sentiment in the market.

BTC/USD Intraday Analysis

Our focus is likely to remain on our intraday positions, to take out the maximum profits regardless of the direction of the BTC/USD price action. So, without further ado, let’s have a look.

Our intraday positions from yesterday have allowed us to exit our long position towards 6421-fiat on a decent profit. As we now gear up for another day of trading, the levels we are watching stand slightly modified. A break above 6421-fiat has allowed us to find an ideal long target at 6450-fiat instead while keeping 6472-fiat in view. A stop-loss order at 6515-fiat is defining our risk management perspective on these long positions.

A breakout action above 6421-fiat only puts BTC/USD in a bull trap, meaning the pair could attempt a strong reversal nevertheless. So a sign of reversal coupled with an increase in volume could have us open a short position towards the lower trendline of the parallel channel formation while eyeing 6329-fiat as a potential downside target. In both these positions, maintaining a stop loss order just 5-pips above the entry point will minimize our losses.

Featured Image from Shutterstock. Charts from TradingView.

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Venezuela’s Supreme Court of Justice (TSJ) has recently ordered a national institute to pay indemnities to one of its employees after she suffered a workplace injury in its oil-backed cryptocurrency petro.

According to Sputnik, the Supreme Court’s ruling was based on a decree on “Cryptoassets and the Sovereign Cryptocurrency Petro,” which was approved in April by the country’s Constituent National Assembly and establishes the “basis for the management of these alternative mechanisms in financial and commercial activity”.

Per the ruling, the National Institute of Agricultural Research (Inia), will have to pay Venezuelan citizen Maria Elena Matos “the equivalent of 266 petros” following a workplace injury. The value of 266 petros is estimated to be of $15,960.

A note the Supreme Court released on social media reads:

“It is established that the Supreme Court set this criterion taking as a reference the value that the National Executive sets for the petro, in order to materialize justice in favor of whoever is affected in their rights and interests, and to counteract the actions that have sought to destabilize the national economy.”

As CCN covered, the Venezuelan government, after months of speculation, announced the Petro was available for sale on November 5. It can be purchased with bitcoin and litecoin, and is presumably not available for purchase with the country’s fiat currency, the sovereign bolivar.

A Controversial Cryptocurrency

While the government has been pushing its citizens and businesses to adopt the Petro, by getting Venezuelans to pay their passport fees in the oil-backed cryptocurrency, by ordering the country’s banks to adopt it, and by pegging it to its devalued fiat currency, a look into its whitepaper seems to show there’s little original about the Petro.

Digging into the cryptocurrency’s whitepaper seemed to show only it was a ‘blatant’ copy of Dash, as it uses the same mining algorithm, has similar features, and even appears to have a part of the document lifted from that of the cryptocurrency.

The cryptocurrency, initially announced late last year, is reportedly not only backed by the country’s oil reserves, but also by natural resources. Per Sputnik, its value comes from oil (50%), iron (20%), gold (20%), and diamond (10%). When it was first announced, Venezuela’s National Assembly declared it unconstitutional, while the country’s Congress dubbed it “illegal.”

Nevertheless, Chinese credit rating giant Dangong Global Credit Rating revealed it believes the cryptocurrency “may help the global currency system return to its basic value,” as it can “generate useful lessons on how defects of the international currency system can be mended.”

Featured image from Shutterstock.

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Contrary to the notion among many crypto enthusiasts that bitcoin is a speculative investment with major upside potential, a stakeholder in the legacy financial sector has rubbished the value attached to digital assets, describing them as mere software algorithms with no utility.

The verdict was given by the general manager of Bank for International Settlements (BIS), Agustin Carstens, before an audience in Miami on Nov. 1. The Mexican economist underscored reforms in payment systems being embarked upon by Central Banks. These reforms were, according to him, of more economic value than the attention given to digital assets such as bitcoin.

“The use of ‘currencies’ is misleading. Cryptocurrencies, such as bitcoin, ether, and tether, do not serve the core functions of money,” he stated. Lending credence to his stance, he referred to the volatility in their value (which has ironically decreased dramatically in recent weeks), adding:

“No cryptocurrency is a true unit of account or a payment instrument, and we have seen this year that they are a poor store of value. Buyers of cryptocurrencies are buying into nothing more than a software algorithm.”

While shedding light on the strengths of retail payments from a wider perspective, Carstens highlighted statistics relating to the value of card payments over a period of 16 years.

“Globally, the value of card payments reached 25% of GDP in 2016, compared with 13% in 2000, according to the Committee on Payments and Market Infrastructures. Already widespread mobile phone applications are boosting cashless payments,” he argued.

Carstens, who was the former governor of the Bank of Mexico from 2010 to 2017, also highlighted some of the efforts made by central banks in upgrading the existing payment infrastructure as superior to innovations in the nascent blockchain field.

“While this work is not as attention-grabbing as crypto-this and crypto-that, developing new hardware, software and processes to safeguard your money, strengthen financial stability and protect the economy are of immense importance,” he alleged.

At a recent interview with Swiss German newspaper Basler Zeitung, Carstens had urged crypto-curious young people to “Stop trying to create money!” He advised them instead to focus their energies on technological advancements that could make the world a better place, rather than focusing on a currency that doesn’t “fulfill any of the…purposes of money.”

More pointedly, he called bitcoin a “bubble, a Ponzi scheme and an environmental disaster” during a February speech at Goethe University’s House of Finance.

Featured image from Flickr/International Monetary Fund

 

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