This week in crypto

The total market cap for all cryptocurrencies is currently standing at $339,787,682,540 and the volume is $19,627,528,116, with Bitcoin’s dominance growing dimmer at 38 percent. That signals a loss of around $20 billion in market capitalization in the week, although the market is showing some recovery since yesterday. The majority of the drop came on

It is thought that the drop has been happening as a result of three factors: Bitfinex's taxation policy, the scandal involving South Korea’s two largest cryptocurrency exchanges UPbit and Bithumb, and the initial sell-off of the Mt. Gox trustee’s bitcoin funds.

Bitfinex, which is based on British Virgin Islands, on May 17, requested a portion of its users to forfeit their tax IDs and social security numbers. While the British Virgin Islands does not have a taxation policy relating to cryptocurrencies and therefore had attracted a large number of investors in this sector. However, pressure from the United States and other governments may have a negative impact on the Islands and the policies. For instance, the U.S. may decide, according to recent developments, a crackdown on US-based investors using Bitfinex to buy and sell cryptocurrencies to avoid taxes. The cryptocurrency exchange said last week that,

“The government of the BVI may then exchange information with the tax authorities of the customer’s country of residence, consistent with the British Virgin Islands law, the U.S. Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FACTA), and the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development Common Reporting Standard (CRS).”

Whalepool and other major crypto trading group have announced that they will stop using Bitfinex until its taxation policy changes and encouraged others to do the same. The scare caused a major sell-off -- which is the biggest bitcoin-to-USD exchange. The scare caused major or large-scale investors to withdraw from Bitfinex in favor of other exchanges and thus led to resumption of over-the-counter markets. However, the market is regaining from that situation.

Elsewhere, Upbit scandal claim is beginning to wane down after a release of the official audit report of leading accounting firm Yoojin, which confirmed that Upbit funds identically matched its balance sheet. This is likely to boost investor confidence in the exchanges, which may boost markets.

South Korea authorities accused Upbit of fraud after visiting it on May 10 and 11 and seized hard disks of the computers containing, in particular, data about accounts. They said the company had transferred funds belonging to customers to a separate account owned by management of the platform. The sudden visit by authorities also coincided with Mt. Gox trustees' selling of a further chunk of client liquidation funds, resulting in several days of price drops. Under scrutiny was also the liquidity of coins listed on the exchange. The exchange lists 137 cryptocurrencies but 40 of these do not all have wallets and authorities said the exchange was “book-trading” such that it facilitates trading of cryptocurrencies without actual coins in possession.

All the major cryptocurrencies lost in terms of prices, led by Bitcoin that hit the highest of $8561 on Monday and the lowest of $7335 on Thursday. The cryptocurrency has now lost 7.08 percent in the week.

Bitcoin, which is now trading at $7,612.31 (some markets in Japan are already above $8000 at the time of writing), briefly hit a six-week low of $7,272 on Thursday morning after falling below the $8,000 mark this Wednesday. This came after the U.S. Department of Justice opened a criminal probe into whether traders are manipulating prices of cryptocurrencies. The announcement said that the Commodity Futures Trading Commission is assisting in the investigation. Bitcoin then recovered the day loses.

The North American Securities Administrators Association announced on Monday, the "Operation Cryptosweep" crackdown on cryptocurrency-related fraud that has resulted in 70 inquiries and investigations nationwide since the beginning of this month. Additionally, 35 enforcement are pending or completed according to a CNBC announcement.

According to analysts, there is not much strong support at $7000 and a potential fall to $6850 is likely. The key resistance levels are $7670, $7850, $7975, $8103, $8196, $8513 and the 200-SMA is at the $8871 mark. It is very much possible that the cryptocurrency could return to bullish, although there is some room to cover. For instance, buyers have responded to the $7500 level positively with some interest, which may help with the prices.

Ethereum, which is trading at $609.58, went as high as $712 on Sunday and as low as $561 Thursday. The cryptocurrency has lost 12.28 percent in the week starting last Friday to now. It is following a similar trend like Bitcoin. According to analysts, the key levels for the bulls to beat are $608, $620, $660, $667 and a very important resistance at the $700 level. At this level, there is a confluence of an important price congestion level, the 100-SMA and the 200-SMA.

Enterprise Ethereum Alliance (EEA) has launched the much awaited Enterprise Ethereum Client Specification (CS) 1.0, which is an open-source, cross-platform blockchain system that guarantees and builds trust in smart contract-based frameworks. Built for enterprises, it will replace costly multi-platform protocols and allow associations from a range of business sectors banking, law, communications, and healthcare to create customized blockchain systems that fit their requirements.

The client is built on the recently launched Architecture Stack software. Steve Wozniak one of the Apple's co-founders, said this week at the WeAreDevelopers conference in Vienna that Ethereum platform could become the next Apple.

Ripple is trading at $0.6 and hit the highest of $0.7 on Monday and lowest of $0.58 on Thursday. In total, the cryptocurrency has lost a total of 7 percent in the week. Ripple has got supports at $0.57, $0.55 and $0.50 and these are the main targets for bears according to analysts. However, there are several barriers containing bulls, including $0.59, $0.61, $0.63 and strong resistances at $0.66 and $0.70.
The only positive gainer in the week among the top tens was TRON at 5.32 percent.

Litecoin, which is trading at $120 today, got a boost since iPayment INC will now be processing their payments via the Aliant Payment. The latter is a third party that works with merchants to facilitate seamless transactions. After rejection of lower price of $110 by buyers on May 23, analysts expected the price to push past $130.

Reports

Goldman Sachs is launching its own coin with a name Circle USD coin. The announcement came on last week, and it marks the first time a major U.S. financial institution has planned to release a cryptocurrency.

It comes after the bank said it would add a Bitcoin trading desk, becoming the first major financial institution to do so.

Meanwhile, John McAfee claims that EOS will hit $32 by the end of July 2018. This follows the launch of Tron Virtual Machine on May 24. EOS community is also likely to see the EOS-Ethereum split, which will make EOS independent and not synching with the ERC-20 standards.

The cryptocurrency has gained 11.66% in the last 24 hours although lost by 3.52 percent in the week.

Tron is launching a gateway that would allow Ethereum DApp developers to easily switch camps from Ethereum’s EVM. TRX tokens will not be affected by the launch but the platform will split from Ethereum on June 25, 2018, and launch their own coin. The holders will require to move coins otherwise risk losing them.