This article provides an overview of how Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), and Chainlink (LINK) have been doing over the past 24-hour period, covers recent news that might have affected their prices (or might do so in the future), and looks at interesting tweets about these cryptoassets from prominent members of the crypto community.
To give you a rough idea of how well the crypto markets are doing today, 18 out of the top 20 cryptoassets (by market cap) are currently in the green (against the dollar).
All market data used in this article was taken from CryptoCompare around 10:10 BST (UTC + 01:00) on 14 May 2020. Please note that all time information in this article is in the British Summer Time (BST) unless explicitly stated otherwise.
Bitcoin (BTC)
Bitcoin is currently trading at $9,685, which means that it is up 8.45% in the past 24-hour period:
Although Bitcoin is generally considered by most people as a non-correlated asset, if we compare the performance of Bitcoin against the S&P 500 index during the current COVID-19 pandemic, especially between 18 February and 30 April, we do find that Bitcoin did show some positive correlation with the S&P 500:
Here is popular macro-economist and crypto analyst/trader Alex Krüger commenting on this correlation on April 16:
Would depend on what stock indices do. Bitcoin continues to trade like a risk-on asset. Rolling correlations between $BTC and the S&P 500 remain around historical highs. pic.twitter.com/Pk9wItpc79
— Alex Krüger (@krugermacro) April 16, 2020
However, it appears that Bitcoin’s pre-Halving rally — which started around May 1 (when Bitcoin was trading around and took Bitcoin’s price all the way to around $10,013 on May 8) — has helped Bitcoin to manage a decoupling from the S&P 500.
This decoupling has certainly become more noticeable in the past two days which has seen the S&P 500 drop 4.06 whilst Bitcoin has gone up 13.03%.
BitMEX Co-Founder and CEO Arthur Hayes is one of those delighted by Bitcoin’s price action, and he is expecting Bitcoin to get back above the $10K level soon:
Stonks be rolling over, #bitcoin be mooning. SPX double bear market rally top at the 62% retracement, rut roh. Fire up those stimulus checks and let’s take out $10k bitcoin. pic.twitter.com/1vdRpDg5ZX
— Arthur Hayes (@CryptoHayes) May 14, 2020
Ethereum (ETH)
Ethereum is currently trading at $203.68, which means that it is up 7.10% in the past 24-hour period:
With regards to the upcoming launch of the Ethereum 2.0 network upgrade, there was an “Eth 2.0 Research Team AMA” that took place on Reddit on February 6, where Ethereum Foundation’s Danny Ryan and Justin Drake answered questions from the community.
When asked about the expected launch date for phase 0 of Ethereum 2.0, Drake said:
“I’m hoping we can launch by July 30, 2020 (the 5th anniversary of Ethereum 1.0). I think it’s unlikely we will launch in Q1 or Q2 2020 especially if we want three clients to be production ready for launch.”
He was then asked if he would consider it a failure if the launch of phase 0 did not happen in 2020:
“Yes, it would be a failure. I have 95% confidence we will launch in 2020 :)”
Ryan seemed even more confident about the launch of phase 0 in 2020:
“Phase 0 will certainly launch in 2020. Audits are out and testnets are getting stronger every week. Estimates depend on both the spec and clients getting (relatively) clean bills of health in 3rd party audits. The rest depends engineering concerns and stablizing/optimizing in this last mile of work.
“I don’t see a reality in which Phase 0 does not launch in 2020.”
Well, during an appearane on Monday (May 11) at CoinDesk’s “Consensus: Distributed” virtual conference, Ethereum Co-Creator Vitalik Buterin seemed to confirm the July 2020 launch date for Ethereum 2.0 that had been mentioned by Drake back in February.
When asked during an interview if the Ethereum 2.0 network upgrade was on track to launch in July, Buterin replied:
“I think so, yeah…
“Ethereum 2.0 has testnets already. So, there’s the Topaz Testnet and the Schelsi Testnet… There’s also rollups that are adding scalability. The Optimism team recently announced a demo with Synthetix… There’s also a lot of work on cryptography and privacy… It’s moving forward on all fronts.”
The following day (May 12), Afri Schoedon, who is the lead developer for the Schelsi multi-client testnet, said that Marco Levarato was correct in saying that a July launch date for Ethereum 2.0 was impossible given the current status of tesnets and that Buterin’s comments to Coindesk had been misunderstood:
It’s impossible that will go live in July, there isn’t an official multi client testnet and this “coming soon” testnet needs 2 months of flawless run. We are in the mid of May
— Marco Levarato (@Marcolevarato) May 12, 2020
What Marco said. It’s simple math.
The final spec is not implemented in any client and we didn’t launch a coordinated testnet yet.
— Afr (@a4fri) May 12, 2020
Going on stages or panels and putting out dates is not helpful at all. I don’t think Vitalik said July. But I didn’t see the talk.
— Afr (@a4fri) May 12, 2020
This last comment by Schoedon prompted Buterin to reply, saying that he had misheard the interviewer’s question:
Yeah I did not say July. Perhaps the question contained the word July but I did not hear July when it was asked.
— vitalik.eth (@VitalikButerin) May 12, 2020
OK I definitely should have heard July in the question, it was my mistake.
— vitalik.eth (@VitalikButerin) May 12, 2020
Later that day, Buterin offered the following clarification to Coindesk:
“I re-listened to the interview. The question indeed contained ‘July’, I don’t recall hearing ‘July’ so it sounds like it’s my fault for mishearing.
“Apologies for that… My actual stance is that eth2 is ‘on track’ in that there aren’t any unexpected bumps in the road, testnets are coming along, etc, but I defer to the client devs on timelines and if they are now saying ‘Q3’ more broadly then I believe them.”
On April 28, Schoedon tweeted that he believed that we won’t see the Beacon Chain, a system chain that is at the core of Ethereum 2.0, until sometime next year:
⌛ If we push hard, end of year is realistic. I would be careful about such an estimation though.
🏁 Given we have only 7-8 months left this year, I wouldn’t be surprised 2021 will be the year of the beacon chain.
— Afr (@a4fri) April 28, 2020
Chainlink (LINK)
Chainlink is currently trading at $3.765, which means that it is up 21.03% in the past 24-hour period:
In the year-to-date period, Chainlink, the 10th most valuable cryptoasset by market cap, has gone up from $1.76 to $3.765, which means an incredible 113.92% (against USD) increase of value.
On Tuesday (May 12), crypto/fiat on/off ramp aggregator Transak, which was founded in 2019, announced an integration with Chainlink that will make their “fiat/crypto onramp aggregator solution available to smart contracts.” Transak’s API currently “supports over 200 cryptocurrencies and fiat payments in 10 fiat currencies in 28 countries.”
According to Transak, here is how this integration will work
“Through Chainlink’s external adapter technology, Chainlink nodes can bi-directionally connect decentralized applications directly to Transak’s API, allowing dApps to initiate the buying and selling of crypto using traditional fiat payment gateways.
“It also allows Transak’s API to trigger on-chain transactions in DeFi protocols.”
Chainlink says that this integration will enable developers to use Chainlink oracles to “interact with Transak’s API for off-chain payments, automated portfolio allocation & more.”
Featured Image by “WorldSpectrum” via Pixabay.com. BTC-USD vs. S&P 500 Chart Courtesy of TradingView.
