CBX Weekly Newsletter // 8 April 2020
- Bitcoin Enters Historically Strong Quarter
- Ethereum up by over 20% (ETH 2.0 Upgrade)
- China Central Bank Says is creating a Digital Yuan
Bitcoin Enters Historically Strong Quarter
Data suggests that Bitcoin alongside the cryptocurrency market could put in a positive performance in the second quarter. Bitcoin (BTC) kicked off the historically strong second quarter on a positive note, scoring gains overnight as many major stock indexes moved higher.
Bitcoin performing gains amid the risk-off action in financial markets is a notable change for observers who believe the cryptocurrency is a haven asset like gold. Most cryptocurrencies largely tracked the S&P 500 in March as fears of a coronavirus-led recession.
Although bears had an upper hand in the second quarter of 2013 and 2018, the losses were restricted to single digits. The 161 percent rally seen in the second quarter of 2019 is the third biggest quarterly gain on record.
With the upcoming Halving event in May and markets recovering globally it looks like Bitcoin could have a great performance this Q2 2020.
Ethereum up by over 20% (ETH 2.0 Upgrade)
Ether (ETH) has been outperforming the market these last couple of days, the price this week has increased over 20 percent.
Industry experts believe the rise can likely be attributed to growing confidence in a planned system-wide upgrade known as Eth 2.0 slated for July 2020.
The 2.0 upgrade, often called Serenity, promises higher transaction throughput and a new security model under proof-of-stake (PoS). Eth 2.0 has been in development since 2015 but had failed to gain traction due to the highly technical expertise required to pursue it, until now.
China Central Bank Says is creating a Digital Yuan
“The People’s Bank of China (PBoC) will undoubtedly further its research and development of the national digital currency with enhanced top-down design,” the bank said in an April 4 notice according to sources from Coindesk.com.
The notice is a summary of the 2020 National Currency Gold Silver and Security Work Video and Telephone Conference, convened on Friday by Yifei Fan, the central bank’s vice-governor. One of the annual meeting’s goals was to layout top priorities for the bank in this coming year.
While this was at least the third time a digitized yuan, or Digital Currency Electronic Payment (DCEP), was mentioned in the annual meeting, the unequivocal language used indicates a firmer stance on the project than before.
Researchers at the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) recently said the coronavirus pandemic could encourage digital payment adoption and inspire more talks about digital currencies among central banks across the world.
This is very positive news for the cryptocurrency space.
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