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Crypto Wrap: Cboe Stops Trading Bitcoin Futures; Bitcoin Cash Surges

Published 18/03/2019, 12:35
Updated 18/03/2019, 16:05
© Reuters.

© Reuters.

Investing.com - Cryptocurrency prices rose over the last week, led by a 25% surge in Bitcoin Cash, against a backdrop of further signs of weakness in fiat currencies such as the dollar.

Bitcoin rose 2.7% over the week to $3,982.00 on the Investing.com Index, continuing to flirt with reaching the $4,000 mark. Trading volumes of the coin have risen slightly, but still remain below peak levels.

Bitcoin Cash jumped 25% over the last seven days to a two-month high of $165.29, as trading volumes have skyrocketed. Reports suggest that trading has been concentrated in South Korea. BCH emerged from a 'hard fork' with the original Bitcoin, created by miners concerned with the scalability of BTC.

On a weekly basis, Ethereum gained 3.8% to $138.06 and XRP inched up 1.5% to $0.31396 while Litecoin was up 8.5% to $59.527.

Cryptocurrencies overall rose to $139 billion at the time of writing, compared to $132 billion a week ago, despite a lack of obvious positive catalysts.

Indeed, CBOE Global Markets announced it will stop trading in Bitcoin futures just one-year after its launch. The Chicago-based group said Friday it will not list new contracts for the coin, meaning trade will end when open contracts are settled in June. Interest in Cboe futures has waned, as trading volumes at Cboe are much lower than those on rival CME, which is still live.

CBOE still has an application to list a bitcoin ETF and is waiting for a decision on the matter from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

Meanwhile, the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision called on banks to report their exposure to virtual currency assets, as they have “the potential to raise financial stability concerns” and “increase risks” for banks.

The committee called on banks to publicly disclose their exposure to such assets, as well as assessing material risks associated with exposure to digital currencies.

Regulators have been concerned over the potential of digital tokens as a way to get around money laundering rules, as the transactions and wallets of cryptocurrencies are often anonymous.

SEC senior advisor for digital assets Valerie Szczepanik was quoted as saying at SXSW on Friday that stablecoins - which were created to address some of the risks that regulators have flagged - could themselves "raise issues under securities laws," and consequently expose them to strict regulation.

Stablecoins are digital coins that are meant to minimize price volatility, most often by being pegged to another asset such as a fiat currency held in reserve.

Szczepanik warned that “where there is one central party controlling the price fluctuation over time,” the asset in question “might be getting into the land of securities.”

This could arise when the coin's price is "tied to the issuance, creation or redemption of another type of digital asset tied to it, or whether it is controlled through supply and demand in some way to keep the price within a certain band,” Szczepanik said.

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