President Maduro pegs devalued Venezuelan bolivar to the oil-backed cryptocurrency

Summary:

• China Zheshang Bank, a Chinese privately held bank, issues securities worth $66 million using blockchain technology

• US Govt. supports blockchain researchers with over $800 thousand grant

• Bitcoin (BITCOIN on xStation5) moves close to the $6500 handle again

Early trading on Tuesday can be named rather upbeat in regards to the cryptocurrency market as most major digital currencies managed to recoup some losses achieved over the night. The capitalization of the cryptocurrency market sits around the $212 billion mark while the Bitcoin market cap stands around the $110 billion handle. News presented today concern the Chinese bank that has issued securities via blockchain as well as the governmental grant for blockchain researchers in the US.

Let’s start with news from Venezuela. President Maduro decided to go further with the overhaul of country’s economy. The runaway inflation has ruined the Venezuelan currency, Bolivar, encouraging country’s authorities to issue an oil-back cryptocurrency, Petro. As the Bolivar was sinking Venezuela decided to significantly devalue the currency (by 95%) and… peg it with Petro. It is the first time when one country’s official monetary unit is anchored with a cryptocurrency. Given the state of the Venezuelan economy we will have a chance to witness first hand if digital currencies are really a remedy for all economic problems as some claim. However, given how deep is the Venezuelan crisis a quick revive of the economy seems unlikely to happen.

BITCOIN price is still fluctuating around the 33-period moving average on the H4 interval (a purple line on the chart) being unable to distance away from this technical indicator. The most famous cryptocurrency seems to be locked in between the support level around $6200 and the resistance level around $6500. Lack of a bombshell news may be a reason while this trading range could be maintained for the extended period of time. Source: xStation5

China Zheshang Bank (CZB), one of the biggest Chinese privately held banks, has issued securities using its proprietary blockchain platform called Lianrong. According to China Securities Journal, Zheshang Bank finished the issue of securities worth $66 million via self-developed platform on Friday. Let us note that the aim of the platform is to help companies stream account receivable assets to potential investors and later on to allow them (investors) settle company’s invoices as peer-to-peer securities.

ETHEREUM price fell from nearly $300 to around $260, but the cryptocurrency has recouped a part of declines since then. The virtual currency with the second largest market capitalization is trading a little below the $280 handle, around the 8-period moving average on the H4 interval (a yellow line on the chart) at press time. Source: xStation5

Subhashini Sivagnanam, the researcher from the San Diego Supercomputing Centre, won over $800 thousand grant from the National Science Foundation for developing distributed ledger platform. The platform is said to help researchers with processing data collected through scientific experiments. The grant will start with the beginning of September 2018 and will be carried until the end of August 2021.

LITECOIN is another coin that has been struggling for direction as of late. Just like its other major peers the cryptocurrency took a dive over the night but managed to recoup most of this losses in the morning. Source: xStation5