The company known as Ripple Labs seems to have a decent shot at replacing Swift as the way that banks move money around globally. The way banks currently send money from one place to another is archaic and certainly needs to be changed.
One of the biggest hurdles for mass adoption of Ripple's XRP system however, are the current battles playing out in the US court system.
Ripple currently has several lawsuits against it with the plaintiffs claiming that the XRP token is actually a security. If so, the company will likely need to pay dearly for not registering with the SEC before raising money from the public.
In a "slick move" the company has now consolidated all of these cases into one hoping for a positive decision from the federal court.
We continue to keep an eye on this case with great interest and in the meantime, traders are working hard to defend the 50 cent per coin price. Though many of the popular cryptos have given back their gains from the early November rally, XRP is standing its ground quite well so far.
In a surreal coincidence, if we apply the famous Fibonacci Retracement Tool to XRP's price rise, we see that the 50% mark comes out to exactly $0.50 per coin. Let's hope it holds.
It's important to note that even if we're very generous and say that Ripple does have a 50/50 chance to replace the banking system (a recent report written by Ripple execs only gave it a 25% chance), it's still a huge risk to take in the event that it doesn't work out. That's why it always pays to diversify your portfolio.
Today's Highlights
Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) Falls
Oil Slick
Crypto Volumes Spike in South America
Please note: All data, figures & graphs are valid as of November 14th. All trading carries risk. Only risk capital you're willing to lose.
Traditional Markets
Stock indices are down today as it seems investors prefer to take risk off the table. There was an attempt at a rally on Wall Street yesterday after positive comments from Larry Kudlow on China trade, but it did fade by the end of the day.
The tech sector is being watched particularly closely and Apple stock is a concern for investors wondering if iPhone sales may have peaked. Apple has now fallen 17.5% from it's all-time high and is now trading below its 200 DMA (blue line).
As much as it pains me, what goes up must come down. Wonder what Sir Isaac Newton would say about this.
If people are scared of tech, they're terrified of oil. Crude extended its losses yesterday but we are seeing a bit of a bounce this morning. As we discussed in Monday's market update (titled: Line in the Sand), a move below $60 (yellow dotted line) could be devastating and indeed it was.
This morning we've seen a bounce off $55 (thin red line)
A move below $55 is certainly possible but the tendency of a market that's moved this much so quickly is usually to take a break.
Nobody is taking the oil slide more seriously than Nicolas Maduro, the President of Venezuela. In fact, Venezuela is now making a push to end the era of the petrodollar entirely..
This comes at an interesting time when Iran's Crypto-Rial is set to go live within the next few days and even the IMF seems to be advocating for state-backed digital currencies around the globe.
BCH Hard Fork Tomorrow
Near as I can tell, the drama happening in BCH isn't a great concern. Let's face it, if prices weren't as flat as they've been in recent months, we probably wouldn't even be talking about this.
Preliminary results of a poll that I put out on Twitter this morning is showing people's sentiment about this pretty clearly.
So, nobody really seems to care. For those of you who are watching though, I'd recommend keeping your eyes on the following two websites.
Number one is Coindash's cash.coin.dance. They've got a nice cointdown timer and show the hashwar pretty well.
The other is called forkmonitor.info that was set up by BitMex for this purpose. Though I don't really understand what they're trying to show in the Bitcoin Cash tab, I'm hoping they'll have more info as the situation progresses.
Volume Spikes in South America
Prices seem to be declining slightly this morning but overall things are pretty stable. With the exception of Tether, which traded as low as $0.96 on some exchanges last night.
All eyes are on BTC to see if it holds onto its current support level of $6,000 but more important than these short-term price movements is a growing trend that we've been tracking of rising volumes, especially in several key areas.
One of those areas that I've noticed in South America. This site showing volumes by country isn't a pure indicator since it only tracks trades made on the peer-to-peer site localbitcoins.com. However, if we look at the various countries on the list you'll notice that all the Latin American countries listed are showing increasing volumes lately.
Now, I'd rather not repost all the charts here but I do urge you to visit coin.dance/volume/localbitcoins to see for yourself.
Volumes are on the rise in Mexico, Dominican Republic and Argentina and are near their all-time highest levels in Colombia, Chile, Peru, and Venezuela.
As the economic cycle continues and the United States continues to raise their interest rates, they put pressure on the emerging market economies, but as we can see, people are getting smarter, the global economy is getting freer, and we now have the tools to protect ourselves from poor monetary policy.
Let's have a wonderful day ahead.
eToro, Senior Market Analyst
Disclosure: This content is for information and educational purposes only and should not be considered investment advice or an investment recommendation. Past performance is not an indication of future results. All trading carries risk. Only risk capital you're prepared to lose.