Bitcoin’s S&P 500 correlation hits a 5-month high and some analysts consider this to be a bearish factor for the cryptocurrency but let’s see why in our today’s Bitcoin news.

Bitcoin and the traditional financial markets were correlated highly n the past few months which was clearly seen over the past couple of weeks where the cryptocurrency followed stocks step by step. The data from crypto analytics resource skew showed that the realized correlation between Bitcoin’s S&P 500 correlation surged to a 5-month high which has happened back in November 2020. There are plenty of reasons why this could be the case but maybe the most obvious one is the involvement of institutional investors in the crypto space.

03/03/21 UPDATE: Net Assets Under Management, Holdings per Share, and Market Price per Share for our Investment Products.

Total AUM: $39.2 billion$BTC $BCH $ETH $ETC $ZEN $LTC $XLM $ZEC pic.twitter.com/66MdIBKKFT

— Grayscale (@Grayscale) March 3, 2021

As reported plenty of times, the institutional interest in the asset class surge when companies started flooding the market. Grayscale for example saw its assets under management skyrocket over the past few months. The company’s CEO Michael Sonnenschein said that the institutional interest in BTC increased in 2021. In any case, there are many implications of the soaring correlation. The correlation to stocks shows a few things but the most important one was the fact that BTC fails as a hedge against the traditional finance systems so if BTC Is moving along with stocks, then it doesn’t serve as a hedge.

This has implications on its own and for example, we saw one reason for the 25% correction for BTC that was actually due to Wall Street crashing as well. Back then, NASDAQ had a slump and the catalyst was that the government bond yields gave some boost and investors favored companies that benefit the broader economic recovery, as Peter Tuz who was the president of Chase Investment Counsel, said:

 “Rates matter. At 1.5%, the yield is comparable to S&P 500 dividend yield. […] And there’s no capital risk with a 10-year, you’ll get your principal back. All of a sudden it’s competitive with stocks.”

As much as it is bearish, in the case of higher correlation the broader macroeconomic events need to be factored in the price formation of the cryptocurrency. The US House of Representatives passed another $1.9 trillion stimulus bill which will be another major injection in the economy if passed so we can only imagine what it will do to the stock markets.

Checkout PrimeXBT
Trade with the Official CFD Partners of AC Milan
Source: https://www.dcforecasts.com/bitcoin-news/bitcoins-sp-500-correlation-is-at-5-month-high-is-this-bearish-for-btc/

Chainlink rolls out support for XDai which is a layer-two sidechain that saw centralization is not able to stop major dapp players so let’s read more in our latest chainlink news today.

The Chainlink oracles made their way to xDai as an ETH sidechain that saw growing adoption among Dapp developers that are not able to sustain themselves due to the high fees on the Ethereum mainnet. The price feeds are live on the xDai mainnet and offering price data for the initial set of trading pairs like AAVE/USD, LINK/USD, DOT/USD, and SUSHI/USD. More pairs should be expected if there’s more demand.

The integration was done by Protofire which is a development workshop and xDai validator with the team receiving a Chainlink Community Grant to port native oracles on XDai and the token bridge adapter that enables native LINK payments for the functionality of the oracle. The integration of the LINK price feeds is the latest in the series of positive adoption news as the chain has already been hosting major ETH-based Dapps like Perpetual Protocol and Omen. The inclusion of native Chainlink oracles will erase a huge barrier for projects that rely on them and will open up xDai for more dapps that want to avoid the congested ETH mainnet.

In the ETH community, xDai is known as a centralized layer two solutions and was launched by the PoA network that eventually transitioned to a POS model that is used by EOS and Binance Smart Chain. The number of validators can never surpass 19 which is a huge benefit that provides faster scalability with xDai offering 70 transactions per second. Friederike Ernst who is a chief operating officer at Gnosis said:

 “It is not as decentralized as mainnet, this goes without saying. Obviously these are for very different use cases: you don’t want to do things on xDai where you need the economic consensus guarantees of layer one. But for many things, you don’t actually need them.”

As chainlink rolls out support for XDai, the centralization concerns are not enough to stop the adoption. LINK’s head of integrations at chainlink Labs Johann Eid said that the smart contract developers should have the option to work with the best chain to fit their use cases.

Checkout PrimeXBT
Trade with the Official CFD Partners of AC Milan
Source: https://www.dcforecasts.com/chainlink-news/chainlink-rolls-out-support-for-xdai-amid-rising-ethereum-fees/

Binance Coin was heading towards $205 after Bitcoin fell below $49k on the price charts. Neo also moved below a strong level of support, with bearish momentum likely to push the price to as low as $32

The post Binance Coin, Neo, Enjin Price Analysis: 05 March appeared first on AMBCrypto.

Checkout PrimeXBT
Trade with the Official CFD Partners of AC Milan
Source: https://ambcrypto.com/binance-coin-neo-enjin-price-analysis-05-march

Bybit has shuttered its operations in the United Kingdom. According to its latest announcement, it will cease rendering futures trading services to customers in the country from March 31. It has asked customers to close positions and withdraw balances before this date.  

This action from Bybit complies with a ban on futures trading issued by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). According to the FCA, the ban was to take effect from Jan. 6, 2021.

It has also moved to restrict new signups from UK phone numbers and IP addresses.

While ensuring full compliance, Bybit said it will make efforts to engage in a dialogue with regulatory bodies and explore options.

The Prelude

A cryptocurrency derivatives ban has been in the picture since 2019. The FCA started considering this after it was reported that UK investors lost a total of $492 million on cryptocurrency derivatives between mid-2017 and 2018.

It further claims that a derivate ban will save its citizens about $289 million in potential losses.

FCA Finally Issues Ban

The UK independent financial regulatory body issued the ban on cryptocurrency derivatives, stating that they are “ill-suited for retail consumers due to the harm they pose.”

The UK financial watchdog outlined several other reasons for the ban, saying that cryptocurrency derivatives have no basis for valuation.

Another concern raised by the FCA is that most retail traders lack proper education on cryptocurrency derivatives. Speaking further on the ban, the regulatory body’s interim Executive Director of Strategy, Sheldon Mills said;

“This ban reflects how seriously we view the potential harm to retail consumers in these products. Consumer protection is paramount here.”

It also warned citizens to look out for and report scam cryptocurrency derivative platforms.

The post Bybit to Cease UK Operations in Compliance with FCA Ban appeared first on BeInCrypto.

Checkout PrimeXBT
Trade with the Official CFD Partners of AC Milan
Source: https://beincrypto.com/bybit-to-cease-uk-operations-compliance-fca-ban/