Cryptocurrencies Remain Bullish Following China's Praise For Blockchain

The cryptocurrency market saw a significant spike in prices after a long bearish market.

China’s President Sends Bitcoin On A Bull Rally

China’s President Xi Jinping chaired a meeting of the country’s top government officials on blockchain technology on Oct. 24. Xi highlighted blockchain’s use-cases across industries and called for increased research and adoption during the meeting.

“[Blockchain will play] an important role in the next round of technological innovation and industrial transformation,” Xi said, according to SCMP.

“...Greater effort should be made to strengthen basic research and boost innovation capacity to help China gain an edge in the theoretical, innovative, and industrial aspects of this emerging field,” he added.

Bitcoin swung more than 40% upwards in the days following his statement, making it third-largest price gain in history, as analyst Yassine Elmandjra noted.

U.S. Authorities One Step Closer to Solving Cryptocurrency Manipulation ‘Racket’

Crypto Capital Principal Oz Yosef was indicted on three criminal counts by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District on Oct. 23, Coindesk reported. This might be the first steps in the long-standing investigation against exchange desk Bitfinex and stablecoin Tether.

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Libra As Good As Dead?

Facebook Inc FB CEO Mark Zuckerberg testified before the U.S. Congress last week that the company will not launch the Libra cryptocurrency until all regulatory hurdles are cleared in the country.

With a lot of founding partners, including PayPal PYPL, Visa V, Mastercard MA, Stripe and eBay EBAY pulling out, things aren’t looking good for Libra, the future for the “centralized” digital currency is unclear.

When The Verge asked Twitter TWTR CEO Jack Dorsey if his company would be willing to join Facebook to create Libra, he said, “hell no!”

Cryptocurrency Market Gains Over the Last Week

Almost all of the major cryptocurrencies made gains over the seven-day period.

• Bitcoin, the world’s largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, added 16% over the week.
• Among other top currencies, Bitcoin SV, a Bitcoin hard fork, has gained nearly 43%. BitTorrent CEO Justin Sun’s TRON grossed 32.77%.
• Ethereum, the second-largest cryptocurrency by the capitalization, has grown by a modest 5% gain.