Incremental steps towards broader adoption occurred this week, highlighted by Cuba and its release of new regulations surrounding digital assets. On the technical side of things, a ‘golden cross’ has traders excited, despite scammers toying with markets earlier in the week.
Cuba Regulates
El Salvador has made BTC legal tender, Ukraine has formally recognized digital assets, and now Cuba has officially recognized and released regulations for digital assets and service providers. This is most definitely a positive trend, as while the list of nations which recognize and regulate BTC grows, so does the legitimacy and clout of the top digital asset.
It is believed that this decision by Cuba to recognize and regulate digital assets is partly in response to sanctions imposed upon the country by the United States. While this may be a thorn in the side of the United States, the ability to circumvent sanctions through assets like BTC will no doubt have great appeal to those in a similar situation to Cuba.
Litecoin Fake News
When Monday morning hit, the digital assets market was floored, as an unexpected announcement was circulated by just about every media outlet – Walmart had partnered with Litecoin, and would soon accept the digital asset as a means of payment. Unfortunately, this soon proved to be false, and the result of a poorly vetted new release being distributed, which was actually fake.
Naturally, this led to a sudden spike in LTC prices, pulling the broader market upwards. As quickly as this occurred, a crash ensued even quicker once it was deemed ‘fake news’. Although Walmart may one day accept digital assets as a form of payment, Monday was not that day.
Golden Cross
Aside from some early-week turbulence, BTC and the overall digital asset market has maintained a steady creep upwards over the past 5 days. Many analysts are attributing this partly due to the fact that BTC recently formed a ‘golden cross’.
This event, which refers to an assets short-term moving average rising above its long-term moving average, is typically associated with a strong, high-volume bull market on its way.
Market Reaction
Between positive developments from both a fundamental and technical standpoint, BTC in particular was able to quickly shrug off early week woes stemming from the Litecoin scammers. While Friday has been met with a modest amount of consolidation, the overall trend this week was a steady rise upwards.
With excitement growing around the possibility of a Bitcoin-futures based ETF being approved in the coming weeks, and talk of neighbouring nations following El Salvador’s lead in making BTC legal tender, the days of slowly trudging upward may soon be over – most likely with a sharp spike moon-wards.