Crypto Market Update Oct 17th – Momentum Increases as Bitcoin and Ethereum Prices Recover

Cryptocurrency markets are showing significant improvement in trading volume and price this Monday as Bitcoin and Ethereum price trade above support lines. After struggling over the weekend with low volume and a bearish downtrend, BTC and ETH are up 2% and 3% in the past 24 hours as the new week begins. Let’s look at relevant news affecting cryptocurrency and global markets today.

Key Points:

  • Cryptocurrency markets are gaining momentum as prices start recovering above support.
  • Justin Sun joins Huobi as Exchange Advisor; Huobi Token pumps almost 50% this week.
  • Mastercards is launching a program to enable financial institutions to offer cryptocurrency trading services.
  • Coinbase is threatening to sue roughly a thousand users for exploiting a pricing glitch on their platform.
  • The crypto market remains in extreme fear, but the increasing trading volume suggests a bullish sign.

Crypto Market Update

The global cryptocurrency market cap remains in bearish territory, below $1 trillion valuation. Currently valued at $933 billion, today’s global crypto market cap is up 1.82%, showing slight bullish signs.

This week’s biggest gainer is Huobi Token, up 47% in the past seven days. One reason for Huobi’s excellent performance is Justin Sun’s new position in the company as Exchange Advisor. Justin Sun is the founder of Tron and has an excellent reputation in the community. With Justin Sun joining Huobi’s team, it’s no surprise that its token has increased by almost 50% in the past week.

Moreover, According to a report from Bloomberg Law, Justin Sun owns “Tens of Millions” of Huobi Tokens, further creating bullish momentum for the crypto asset.

In other news, Bitcoin is showing some bullish momentum today, with information regarding Mastercard taking a role in helping banks to offer cryptocurrency trading services. According to a report from CNBC, Mastercard is launching a program to let financial institutions offer crypto trading for clients. The integration will include the payment service Paxos, already used by PayPal.

Integrating cryptocurrency with traditional financial institutions has always been a struggle. Mastercard’s latest initiative is a step in the right direction regarding increasing cryptocurrency adoption and expanding crypto services to conventional financial institutions.

In other not-so-positive news, according to a report from Coindesk, Coinbase has threatened to sue cryptocurrency traders who profited from a recent price glitch.

Roughly a thousand users from the republic of Georgia made substantial profits from a pricing glitch on the Coinbase platform. The pricing glitch provided an arbitrage opportunity where the local currency was priced at $290 instead of $2.90 for roughly six hours. During that period, many users could exploit the price glitch and profit significantly from selling cryptocurrency. Now, Coinbase wants their money back and is planning to sue roughly 1,000 users.

Pricing glitches are inevitable, and while ethically, it’s not right to take advantage of the system, at the same time suing your users might do more harm than good for Coinbase. The platform already doesn’t have the best reputation among veteran crypto users, and a potential lawsuit from their customers will only worsen things.

Today’s fear and greed index remains exceptionally low, currently at 20 points, the lowest this week. The good news is that Bitcoin and Ethereum trading volume is up significantly, which means the market is picking up momentum for a potential bull run this week.

Disclosure: This is not trading or investment advice. Always do your research before buying any cryptocurrency or investing in any services.

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