Bitcoin (BTC) is struggling to stay above US$10,000 mark following recent bearish price action. Last week, BTC dropped nearly US$2,000 within 48 hours, and while there was a week of relief in between, the sell pressure appears to have picked up steam yet again.
BTC and a
slew of other digital assets dropped significantly on Wednesday. At press time, there’s been around US$59 billion worth of daily trades happening between the most popular coins. BTC holds the top position and commands 69 percent of the US$264 billion dollar market cap. BTC has an overall market valuation of about US$181 billion.
The top fiat currencies that traded with BTC earlier in the week included JPY and USD. Tether (USDT) captured more than 66 percent of all BTC trades. Bitcoin has lost 5.8 percent over the last 24 hours and 15 percent over the last 14 days.
'No Nukes'
Sources say Ukraine’s top
law-enforcement and counterintelligence agency has uncovered crypto mining equipment onsite at a nuclear power plant.
According to local media reports, the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) confiscated six Radeon RX 470 GPU video cards, a motherboard, power supplies and extension cords, a USB and hard drive, and cooling units installed in the South Ukrainian Nuclear Power Plant on July 10, 2019.
All of the equipment was located in a single office in the facility’s administrative wing separate from the power facility, from the state-owned Energoatom enterprise.
The power plant is registered as a state secret and outside computer equipment is not authorized to enter the property. The same day, a National Guard of Ukraine branch uncovered additional crypto mining equipment at same nuclear plant. In this search and seizure, 16 GPU video cards, 7 hard drives, 2 solid-state drives, and router were uncovered.
GPUs have recently fallen out of favor in the crypto mining community, as more specialized equipment has come to market. It’s unknown what type of cryptocurrencies were being mined. The SBU did not respond to requests for comment.
Take a Chance on Me
According to a
CryptoCompare report published on August 21, so-called untrusted exchanges still command the lion’s share of global cryptocurrency trading volumes.
As of July, D to E-rated inferior-quality exchanges represented 64 percent of trading volume – a staggering US$316 billion – whereas top-rated AA platforms accounted for only 5 percent or US$31 billion.
Nonetheless, A-rated exchanges are increasing share. Lower quality crypto trading volume looms large over the sector, yet there is a silver lining. In July, volume from the highest-rated trading platforms – AA and A – increased by 29 percent and 10 percent respectively. Conversely, E-rated exchanges, representing US$142 billion, saw a 20 percent decrease in volume as compared with June.
And finally…
Bitcoin and cryptocurrency traders and investors were nervously watching prices after market sentiment appeared to take a turn for a worse, dropping to its lowest level since December 2018. Forbes
reports.
