The VeChain Foundation updates the cryptocurrency community on the recent buyback wallet hack. Following the agreement of the Authority Masternodes, by way of voting, VeChain released a patch to freeze the majority of the hackers accounts.

A little over a week ago, the VeChain Foundation admitted to the theft of 1.1 billion VET tokens.

CEO, Sunny Lu was quick to reassure investors that the VeChain network is as secure as ever. But the incident did highlight a weakness in their internal practices.

In a Periscope broadcast, Lu explained the circumstances behind the hack. He said a member of the team, who is responsible for overseeing the buyback process, did not follow procedures when creating the buyback wallet.

Lu expanded on this by admitting a trojan infected machine, with keylogging software, enabled the hacker to obtain private key information. From there, the hacker transferred cryptocurrency assets out of the buyback wallet, into an account he controls.

Its caused by a mis-mangement action The responsible person, who did not follow compliance protocol, will hold the consequence of internal management actions.

The cryptocurrency community, as a whole, has praised VeChain for its quick response and transparent approach to the matter. And, by all accounts, it seems as though VeChains reputation remains intact.

During the last AMA session, a couple of weeks ago, I was just talking about one of the major challenges to VeChain, which is the internal management. And yesterday, unfortunately we just had a really big lesson.

Yesterday, the VeChain Foundation issued an update on the buyback wallet hack. Through the use of cryptocurrency data analysis tools, the Foundation has compiled a list of hundreds of wallets that have received stolen funds.

The relevant exchanges were approached with a blacklist of addresses, in order to prevent the stolen deposits from hitting the market.

However, the Steering Committee decided that more decisive action is needed, to stem the rot. On 18th December they passed a motion to contact all Authority Masternodes, with a view to issuing an emergency patch to freeze these accounts.

The Authority Masternodes voted in agreement with this. And as a result, the hacker has lost control over the majority of the stolen funds.

Currently, 469 addresses owned by the thief have been blocked by the Authority Masternodes, which froze about 727 million VETs.

In addition, the VeChain Foundation will continue working with exchanges, regarding the retrieval of the rest of the stolen funds.

Its a well-known fact that VeChain has ambitions to decentralize its platform. And plans are already underway to achieving this goal, for example, in the recent announcement of their decentralized governance model.

And while many in the cryptocurrency community have praised VeChain, and Sunny Lu, for a professional and decisive approach to the mistake, in reality, their actions highlight just how centralized VeChain is. Even despite Authority Masternodes voting to agree to the patch implementation.

After all, this means Authority Masternodes can potentially collude to control the VeChain network. And while that is an unlikely scenario, it still highlights the centralized power held by the Authority Masternodes.

Whats more, for an international supply chain solution to have true value, it must be impartial. The patch implementation demonstrates, rightly or wrongly, that VeChain Masternodes are not neutral.

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How VeChain Cryptocurrency Was Able to Track and Freeze $6.1M of Stolen Funds - newsBTC

At the heights of last years so-called hash war, Bitcoin SV founder Craig Wright had threatened to crash rival cryptocurrency bitcoin to $1,000.

The threat itself came from the claim that Mr. Wright is Satoshi Nakamoto, the pseudonymous creator of bitcoin and that he holds billions of dollars worth of the benchmark cryptocurrency. Mr. Wright even sued people who refused to acknowledge him as the original bitcoin creator.

But the clock turned when he himself got sued for being 50 percent Satoshi. Ira Kleiman, brother of late Dave Kleiman who allegedly helped Mr. Wright mint the first batch of bitcoin, accused him of stealing Daves share of 1 million BTC.

The US court found Mr. Wright guilty. It ordered him to pay half of the BTC valued about $5 billion at the time of judgment back to Mr. Ira. Mr. Wright told the court that he and Late Mr. Dave had locked that bitcoin in a complicated trust. He said he could not retrieve the cryptocurrency anymore.

However, in an interview he gave later to Modern Consensus, Mr. Wright kept theorizing what Mr. Ira could do if he gains access to 1 million BTC.

They might have to convince Ira not to dump it, he told the interviewer. I cant convince him not to dump it. Ira has to do what Ira has to do. And it wouldnt have been me. And I dont need it. He does.

Mr. Wright never refuted the existence of the trust that apparently holds 1.1 million BTC. Nevertheless, he is adamant about not having any access to the private keys to those coins.

With a court order hanging by his neck, the market doubts that Mr. Wright might sell whatever bitcoin he currently holds (supposedly a large amount). He proclaimed after the courts ruling against him that Mr. Ira alone could tank the bitcoin market by $2-3 billion.

If youd left me alone, I would have sat on my f*cking money and you wouldnt have to worry, Mr. Wright said. And the biggest whale ever has to dump because he has to pay tax. Its not a transfer. Florida has an estate tax. Trust me. This is not an outcome I would have liked.

But to this date, Mr. Wright has not paid a penny to either Mr. Ira nor his legal counsels as ordered by the US court. In the last hearing held on December 18, Mr. Wrights lawyers played offense with Mr. Ira, questioning how he managed to pay $400,000 in cash for his home right after his brothers demise.

When Mr. Wright threatened to crash Bitcoin to $1,000 in November 2018, it appeared as he had a huge stash of the cryptocurrency. But since the court ruling, he is not making such threats.

In his latest interview with Bloomberg, Mr. Wright said he does not want to dump his Bitcoin fortune because the move would hurt many people in the industry.

The sum of all events leaves the market with two potential outcomes: Either Mr. Wright has about $3 billion worth of Bitcoin or he doesnt. If the controversial Satoshi has the money, he is bluffing about not having them. And if he does not have the money, he is straightforwardly lying.

The conclusion narrows down to one thing: that $3 billion-dump is not going to happen, after all. One bear at a time!

Continued here:
The $3 Bilion Bitcoin Dump Isnt Going to Happen - newsBTC

According to recent information, Chinas e-yuan will roll out in early 2020, and it will be very cautious, initially only focusing on consumer spending.

Recent reports regarding Chinas upcoming cryptocurrency claim that Beijing is preparing to launch the so-called e-yuan in early 2020. This will be the worlds first digital sovereign currency. However, the reports also indicate that China plans to be very tentative with its new coin and the initial rollout process.

The new technology is bound to be very disruptive, which is why China plans to take each step with extreme care, and initially focus on consumer spending.

As many are likely aware, there are many among the worlds largest monetary authorities that are currently studying cryptocurrencies. Some of them are even planning of creating their own versions of digital money. However, this time, the Peoples Bank of China is taking the lead, likely due to concerns about Bitcoin and Facebooks Libra.

Just like the space race from half a century ago, the world is in a rush to see who will be the first to gain the lead in the crypto space, with China currently being ahead of everyone else; especially the US. Of course, the country has been rather secretive and cryptic about its upcoming crypto.

But, earlier this year, in November, the Peoples Bank of Chinas head of digital currency research institute, Mu Changchun did give away a few hints. According to him, the e-yuan will come to the public via several commercial banks, including Ant Financial and Tencent. Both of them are the nations online payments giants.

While the new form of digital money will likely bring a number of benefits to its users, it will also greatly benefit the countrys government. Thanks to the underlying technology the blockchain, Chinas government will have the ability to follow all payments done with e-yuan at all times.

This will be very helpful to the countrys financial watchdogs, which would be able to detect criminal activities such as money laundering, tax evasion, and any other kind of fraudulent activity. As for the coins users, all payments and interbank settlements would become significantly more secure and efficient.

The new technology would also improve the situation in parts of China that were not previously covered properly. Not to mention the fact that it would help the countrys efforts to clean up as much as $341 billion of bad debt. It will also solve some of Chinas biggest problems, such as the practice of pledging the same asset for multiple loans. With distributed ledgers potential for storing and quickly retrieving this type of data, the country will become a lot more efficient at identifying and eliminating this type of fraud.

Finally, it will also be able to improve the situation for a lot of local businesses, which still trade discounted acceptance notes. Their digitization will also lead to a reduction of fraud, which will help businesses and the country, in general, move forward.

With blockchain and crypto still being unregulated and uncertain around the world, many have speculated whether or not Chinas decision to accept blockchain and launch e-yuan is such a good idea. Bitcoinist discussed this at length in one of their posts published around a month ago. However, there are some who support the move and believe that the new mechanism will allow Chinese yuan to be used in everyday transactions around the world, such as Circles CEO, Jeremy Allaire.

Do you think that Chinas acceptance of blockchain and its launch of a national cryptocurrency are a good decision? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.

Images via Shutterstock

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How China's National Cryptocurrency Will Improve the Nation's Economy - Bitcoinist

Cryptocurrency has long been trumpeted and used as a tool to escape the hardships of abusive, inflationary financial regimes. Step forward an audacious plan to economically jailbreak the entire population of Zimbabwe with Dai.

Bitcoin use has soared in Zimbabwe over the past year, as the government has applied increasingly oppressive legislation on citizens in an attempt to prop up the failing economic system. A ban on foreign currency transactions sent LocalBitcoins use soaring, resulting in large premiums on BTC price in the region.

US Dollars are still transacted on the black market but this leaves a heavy reliance on cash, as digital payment methods are not accessible. For digital payments, citizens were using local mobile phone-based cash-in cash-out services. These were also banned in October, but reinstated after a public outcry.

But still, any payments in local currency are affected by increasing inflation, and the volatility of bitcoin makes it a less than ideal alternative.

Team Toast, developer of the decentralised and oppression resilient fiat-to-crypto gateway, DAIHard, has put forward a plan for the entire nation. A Blueprint for an Economic Jailbreak if you would,which they have published as The ZimDai Whitepaper.

Utilising the Dai stablecoin, DAIHard and Bis as its major tools, it attempts to overcome challenges such as user education and ease of use, state opposition, patchy and government-controlled internet connectivity, and funding issues.

The core of the plans revolves around recruiting a network of ZimDai agents. These agents could initially be anybody who can use cryptocurrency/Dai services with confidence, and use this to offer bank-like services to others.

Services would include inter-city transfers, international Dai to cash-in-hand for remittances from abroad, access to South African bank accounts, or simply education on how to set up and use the Dai stable cryptocurrency. Agents would charge a small commission for these services, but user would still be avoiding the huge fees charged by banks and other financial institutions.

The project is currently looking at a potential token sale to raise funds from the cryptocurrency community in order to put the plan into action and start recruiting agents.

Clearly, there is still much work to do. But at Christmas, it is nice to see a project using cryptocurrency for the good of others, rather than a desire for profit. After all, wasnt that a big part of the whole idea in the first place?

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Zimbabwe Could End Corruption With This Cryptocurrency Initiative - Bitcoinist

The High Court has granted a freezing order over GBP1.5million worth of Bitcoin and Ethereum cryptocurrency against a trading platform and its directors, in only the second known example of the court treating cryptocurrency as property. The question of whether cryptocurrency is property is relevant to determining competing rights parties may have in it: Elena Vorotyntseva v Money-4 Limited t/a Nebeus.Com, Sergey Romanovskiy, Konstantin Zaripov [2018] EWHC 2596 (Ch)

Until recently, Robertson v Persons Unknown was thought to be the first time that the English High Court had engaged with the question of whether cryptocurrency is property for the purposes of making a proprietary order. However, that was preceded by the present case, a decision from September 2018 only published in November 2019. The claimant, Elena Vorotyntseva (EV), had transferred to Money-4 Limited (trading as Nebeus.Com) (Nebeus) a significant amount of Bitcoin and Ethereum cryptocurrency (the Cryptocurrency) to be held on Nebeus trading platform. The Cryptocurrency was valued at the time at around GBP1.5m.

Funds were transferred to Nebeus on the understanding that it would hold and deal with the Cryptocurrency on EVs behalf. When EV became concerned that the Cryptocurrency may have been dissipated, she sought confirmation from Nebeus that it was still in Nebeus possession. In the absence of any such confirmation, EV applied for a freezing order against Nebeus and its two directors (the Respondents).

Risk of dissipation

The Respondents were represented at the hearing, having been given very short notice of the application the night before. Nebeus offered an undertaking to maintain the Cryptocurrency pending further order, but EV wanted confirmation that she still had control of the Cryptocurrency. The Respondents produced two screenshots at the hearing, one in relation to each form of cryptocurrency. The court accepted EVs submission that the Bitcoin screenshot was insufficient to establish that Nebeus still held EVs Bitcoin. The Ethereum screenshot was even more problematic, since it appeared to have been altered to make it look as if EVs name appeared on the screenshot, when in fact it did not.

The Respondents failed to produce evidence to demonstrate that Nebeus still held the Cryptocurrency, and the questionable nature of some of the evidence bore out EVs concern about the risk of dissipation. Satisfied that there was a real risk of dissipation of the Cryptocurrency, Mr Justice Birss granted a freezing order against the Respondents to prohibit their disposal of the relevant quantities of Bitcoin or Ethereum.

Cryptocurrency as property

This decision is notable for the courts willingness to grant a proprietary injunction as part of the freezing order. This prohibited the disposal of the relevant quantities of Bitcoin or Ethereum (rather than their sterling equivalent value). Birss J was satisfied that the court could make a proprietary order in this case, noting only that there was no suggestion that the Cryptocurrency did not belong to EV, nor any suggestion that cryptocurrency cannot be a form or property or that a party amenable to the courts jurisdiction cannot be enjoined from dealing in or otherwise disposing of it.

The decision does not shed light on the basis on which the court held that Bitcoin and/or Ethereum should be treated as property, but Birss Js readiness to do so is noteworthy.

Comment

This decision will provide further reassurance, alongside Robertson, of the English courts willingness to deal with cryptocurrency as property (albeit both are interlocutory decisions). Although the orders and legal tests the court considered in this case and Robertson (where an Asset Preservation Order was granted in respect of stolen Bitcoin) were different, both decisions required the court to proceed on the basis that cryptocurrency could be personal property. In neither case did the court directly address on what legal basis cryptocurrencies could be property.

This direction of travel was also reflected in the Legal statement on cryptoassets and smart contracts recently published by The UK Jurisdiction Taskforce (UKJT) of the LawTech Delivery Panel. The UKJT pronounced that cryptoassets are capable of being property. Being decentralised, intangible and not fitting within a classification as either chose in possession or action should not, in the UKJTs view, disqualify them. The UKJT proposed that they be recognised not as choses in possession or choses in action but as some other intangible assets.

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Cryptocurrency treated as property in freezing order - Lexology

An alleged teen crook stole the identities of 75 people and swiped $1 million in cryptocurrency all from the comfort of his Brooklyn apartment, authorities said.

Yousef Selassie, 19, used a sophisticated SIM-swapping scheme to take over the phones of people in 20 different states between Jan. 20 and May 19, 2019, according to the Manhattan District Attorneys Office.

He allegedly transferred his victims phone numbers to his own iPhones, enabling him to reset their passwords and gain access to their Gmail, cryptocurrency and other accounts. Meanwhile, his victims phones would suddenly go offline.

The stolen $1 million came from just two victims, authorities said. Selassie was arrested Dec. 5 in Corona, California, and extradited to New York.

He was arraigned Wednesday in Manhattan Supreme Court, where he pleaded not guilty to 87 counts of grand larceny, identity theft and other charges. Justice Mark Dwyer ordered him to surrender his passport and check-in weekly with a supervised-release program. The judge did not set bail.

Authorities executed search warrants on Selassies Brooklyn and California residences, where they seized half a dozen iPhones, two Rolex watches, a monogrammed Gucci wallet and numerous pieces of high-end jewelry, according to court papers.

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Teen crook hacked into 75 phones and stole $1M in cryptocurrency: authorities - New York Post

As the year and decade come to an end, cryptocurrencies once again outperform other major asset classes.

Despite trading significantly down from their record highs of late December 2017, large-cap cryptocurrencies had a phenomenal year and remain one of the greatest investment success stories of the decade.

Cementing themselves as the worlds leading asset class for yearly performance, cryptocurrencies have risen well above annualized returns of the U.S. equities, commodities and bond markets for 2019.

Ryan Alfred, President and co-founder of Digital Assets Data said large-cap crypto assets possess significantly higher returns versus traditional markets for this year.

Looking back at the performance of the top ten large-caps (Bitwise 10) in comparison to other major asset classes, we can see their special signature, Alfred said.

Crypto versus traditional assets

As seen in the chart above, research provided by Digital Assets Data shows how this years performance of the top 10 cryptos by market capitalization fared against other major asset classes such as gold, oil and equities.

Of course, 2019 didnt start out that way. Back in February, the top 10 crypto began a fairly dismal run, resting well below all other traditional asset classes when viewing their return on investment figures. However, sentiment began to pick up significantly in March and by mid-year, cryptocurrencies were far out ahead of other the other assets.

That gap has begun to narrow as stocks, bonds and commodities begin to increase their lead. Yet cryptocurrencies remain significantly ahead of all other asset classes as the year comes to a close.

Much of this rally is courtesy of bitcoin (BTC). The world's first cryptocurrency is currently up 100 percent since the year began. Meanwhile, Ether, the worlds second-largest crypto is up 35 percent year-to-date, though XRP is down 25 percent from where it traded on Jan. 1.

The big picture: Cryptos success story

In the year before the decade began, the world was in the throes of a financial crisis. Since then, stocks have rebounded. From its March 2009 market meltdown lows to now, the S&P 500 has gained a respectable 369 percent. Similarly, the Dow Jones Industrial Average has also had a good run, up 326 percent in that same time period.

However, BTC has blasted those figures, rising well above a staggering 12 million percent (yes, you read that correctly) over a one-year-shorter time frame, beginning March 2010. Thats when the price of 1 BTC was around $0.05, data taken from Messari shows.

Cryptos success can likely be attributed to its most defining characteristics: high volatility and liquidity, allowing market participants to quickly and easily trade between digital and fiat currencies.

Lorenzo Pellegrino, CEO of Skrill, a cross-border payments platform utilizing crypto, said digital assets resembled a nascent market. Prices bouncing around in a frantic manner enable the asset class to outperform all others based on irrational sentiment and low barriers to entry.

As it (crypto) matures we should start to see increased stability and the core fundamentals will become more apparent," Pellegrino said.

The leader in blockchain news, CoinDesk is a media outlet that strives for the highest journalistic standards and abides by a strict set of editorial policies. CoinDesk is an independent operating subsidiary of Digital Currency Group, which invests in cryptocurrencies and blockchain startups.

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Cryptocurrencies Are Still the World's Best Performing Asset Class This Year - CoinDesk

The former Quadriga CX CEO Gerald Cotten died suddenly this year, taking the keys required to access cryptocurrency funds belonging to investors with him.

Now, these same traders, devoid of millions in investment, have requested that the body of the firm's former CEO be exhumed to confirm his death.

The story of Cotten's passing exploded in February when it emerged the former executive was the only one in possession of the passwords required to access Quadriga CX cold wallets, containing roughly $250 million in cryptocurrency.

Once the owner passed away in India due to reported complications with Crohn's disease, the assets were deemed lost, leading to the Canadian cryptocurrency exchange to file for Companies' Creditors Arrangement Act (CCAA) protection -- and later instigate bankruptcy proceedings.

"We did not enter into this decision lightly," Quadriga CX said. "We have worked extensively to address our liquidity issues, which include locating our very significant cryptocurrency reserves held in cold wallets required to satisfy customer cryptocurrency balances on deposit and sourcing a financial institution to accept the bank drafts being transferred to us. Unfortunately, these efforts have not been successful."

The company was able to continue operating for a number of weeks after the chief executive passed away, but once the news was made public by his widow, Jennifer Robertson, the exchange's operations rapidly unraveled.

Ernst & Young is now overseeing liquidation proceedings.

The cold wallets were only accessible through Cotten's laptop, and while attempts were made to obtain access including hiring external IT specialists and an extensive search for a paper copy of the credentials, none have borne fruit.

Reddit subthreads mentioning the cryptocurrency exchange are alight with conspiracy theories and it appears that some former traders do not believe that the former CEO is dead -- suggesting that instead, Cotten is still alive and is living off the proceeds of an unusual form of exit scam.

Investors are now demanding concrete proof of his passing.

In a letter (.PDF) dated 13 December, representatives of the users that have lost access to their cryptocurrency as appointed by the Supreme Court of Nova Scotia -- where Quadriga CX used to call home -- lawyers from Miller Thomson LLP and Cox & Palmer have asked that the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) perform an exhumation of his body.

See also:DoJ arrests Ponzi operators planning to retire 'RAF' through cryptocurrency scam

No autopsy was requested at the time of Cotten's death. Now, a post-mortem examination has been requested to confirm the body belongs to Cotten, who died aged 30, as well as his cause of death.

The representative counsel says the procedures should take place "given the questionable circumstances surrounding Mr. Cotten's death and the significant losses of affected users."

In addition, the letter says there is a need for certainty "around the question of whether Mr. Cotten is in fact deceased."

The legal team hopes the exhumation and autopsy can be completed by early 2020, as noted by The New York Times. The lawyers claim time is of the essence, citing "decomposition concerns."

A lawyer for his widow told the publication Robertson was "heartbroken" to learn of the request.

In June, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) sent out a request asking former QuadrigaCX users to fill out a questionnaire as part of an investigation into the firm, conducted with the Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation (IRS-CI), the United States Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia, and the Department of Justice (DoJ).

TechRepublic:Survey: Customers want integration and strategic support from security vendors

An Ernst & Young report into the financial workings of Quadriga CX has also raised some troubling issues. According to the monitor, the cryptocurrency exchange's operating infrastructure was "significantly flawed," with Mr. Cotten "failing to ensure adequate safeguard procedures were in place to transfer passwords and other critical operating data to other Quadriga representatives should a critical event materialize."In addition, Ernst & Young was unable to find any accounting or basic corporate records separating company and investor funds.

CNET:How we evaluate and review VPNs

Last month, cryptocurrency trading platform Upbit revealed the theft of $48.5 million in Ethereum (ETH) from the organization's hot wallet. Upbit has pledged to cover the stolen funds, and after the suspension of trading for several weeks, normal services have begun to resume.

Have a tip? Get in touch securely via WhatsApp | Signal at +447713 025 499, or over at Keybase: charlie0

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Executive dies, taking investor cryptocurrency with him. Now they want the body exhumed - ZDNet

Binance Coin (BNB), the eighth-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, opened on Tuesday in a severely negative area as a string of poor fundamentals scared investors away.

BNB plunged by 5.78 percent, or $0.77, to trade at $12.65. The latest downside move came as a part of an extended bearish correction seen across the entire cryptocurrency market. Like BNB, top coins including Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), and Ripple (XRP), too suffered intraday losses.

On the whole, the cryptocurrency market had erased approx $16bn off its capitalization from Monday until 1523 UTC today.

The entire cryptocurrency market had plunged by 8 percent from Monday | Source: TradingView.com, CoinMarketCap.com

The rapid decline in the BNB price also came two weeks before the enforcement of the European Unions Anti-Money Laundering Directive (5AMLD).

In retrospective, 5AMLD requires Europe-based cryptocurrency exchanges to register with the local authorities. It also orders them to perform KYC checks on all their users.

Binance, which is based in Malta, do not impose strict KYC on users withdrawing less than 2 BTC. That leaves the exchange with two options: Either it can impose new regulations on its hundreds of thousands of traders, or it can decide to stop offering services to European clients altogether.

Historically, geo-blocking users have not helped BNB, a de-factor reward token at Binance. Back in June, when Binance had announced that it would stop offering trading services to the United States citizens, the price of BNB had taken a toll.

The token though established a year-to-date high of $43.15 but has since erased a large portion of its profits. As of 1523, it was changing hands at a 70 percent lesser price.

The 5AMLD directive has prompted smaller cryptocurrency businesses, including Bottle Pay, which had raised $2mn earlier this year, to shut down. Irrespective of what Binance does, it would lose a huge chunk of traders that want to circumvent KYC checks.

The latest shakedown has brought Binance Coin closer to testing its 78.6 percent Fibonacci level of $12.455 as support. So it appears, it is one of the last levels standing before BNB and a vast breakdown.

BNB price is undergoing a vast bearish correction | Source: TradingView.com, Binance

The prevailing bearish sentiment could see traders eyeing targets below the $12.45 support. Ideally, a break below the said level could have them open short positions towards $8.96, an interim downside target. A further breakdown, meanwhile, could have traders extend their shorts towards $4.086.

Conversely, a pullback from $12.45 could open an attractive interim long opportunity towards the 50-daily MA in orange.

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Even 2019s Strongest Cryptocurrency is Unable to Escape the Bear Market - newsBTC

Bitcoin could not afford to leave investors ungifted before Christmas. Santa had indeed lost his way to the crypto space, allowing Bitcoin to retestthe lows traded in November. However, the recovery experienced remained unique toBitcoin because other cryptoassets including Ethereum and Ripple were largely unchanged.

Meanwhile, the total market capitalization rose significantly from $177 billion posted at the close of the session on Tuesday to $193 billion at the time of writing. The trading volume shot up as well from $77 billion to $106 billion in the same period. Bitcoin market dominance seems to be picking up the pace once again, besides it stands at 68.2%. In other words, altcoins are losing ground against Bitcoin and this could mean that the much-anticipated altcoin season is just but a mirage.

Although Bitcoin is trading 1.48% lowertowards the end of the Asian session on Wednesday, the reaction from lows slightly above $6,500 was remarkable. Bitcoin broke several barriers in a very unexpected move that left most people surprised. The uptrend aimed for $7,500 but formed a high at $7,475 before adjusting to the current $7,169.

Moreover, the price is trading above the moving averages where the 50 SMA and the 100 SMA on the 4-hour chart are in line to provide support. Bitcoin upward correction also made it above the wedge pattern resistance, which further contributed to the momentum. In the meantime, the focus should stay at $8,000 while the bulls work hard to sustain the price above $7,000.

Ethereum and Ripple gave a blind eye to Bitcoins impressive bullish reaction. Instead, the two cryptos are stuck close to their key support areas. For instance, Ethereum is trading 3% lower on the day at $129 while Ripple has shed 2.66% of its value to trade at $0.19098. The bearish trend coupled with the high volatility suggested that the downward momentum has the potential to continue.

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Cryptocurrency Market Update: November lows blast Bitcoin towards $7,500, Ripple and Ethereum sluggish - FXStreet