The cryptocurrency market reached levels of greed after spending much of the second half of last year in fear of further downside in the asset class. However, the latest cryptocurrencies news show that the retail crypto sentiment has just flipped back to bearish after spending the first two months of 2020 bullish. Is this a signal that the crypto market is nearing a crash? Or is this a contrary signal that more upsides will follow? Since the start of 2020, we can see that the market has added more than 70% in new value to its total aggregate market cap. The increase in valuations comes as Bitcoin and other altcoins broke free from downtrend resistance and initiated a wild rally that has been lasting for over two full months now. While the local bottom was set in mid-December at $6,400, the low for 2020 is so far at $6,800 - marking the last time collective retail crypto traders were bearish on Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. Since the date, BTC rose from $6,800 to as high as $10,500 and the retail crypto sentiment increased. The leading coin is now back to current prices and it is only now that the rally is over that the greater crypto market has turned bearish once again. A sentiment poll shows that traders are expecting downsides in Bitcoin before the new highs are reached. This is the first time that voting results in a bearish outcome since the start of the year. https://twitter.com/BTCtrademaster/status/1232070177665114113 The flip in sentiment voting would see BTC growing back again. It could also suggest that Bitcoin and altcoins are getting ready for a new leg up. This would take crypto traders by surprise given their expectations of a deeper drop in the days to come. Right now, the retail crypto sentiment shows that if the BTC price pushes up from here, the iconic investor's theory will be proven once again and retail crypto investors could be left FOMOing into Bitcoin and altcoins at a higher price. Currently, the Bitcoin price news show that BTC is at $9,417 with a 3.15% loss on the day, inspiring many other altcoins to also drop and shed a couple of percentage points off their current prices.

The lighting Bitcoin which recently grew to almost $10,000 is a main topic in the crypto news. According to recent rumors, the billionaire investor Tim Draper left stocks for Bitcoin 6 months ago - which he claimed as the bullish momentum for the dominant coin rose to new heights. Draper was speaking to CNBC on February 24 and the VC investor and serial Bitcoin proponent revealed that he had significantly added to his crypto holdings since last year, adding: “It’s a lot, it’s a lot, a lot.” This was his response to the question on how far his faith in Bitcoin extended.

“I’m just a believer — and I look and I say, ‘Hey, this is just better.’ Long term, people move to things that are better.”

Draper spoke in his characteristic Bitcoin logo tie as stock markets plummeted worldwide due to the concerns over coronavirus. Tim Draper left stocks years ago and as he said, the exposure to the crisis was limited due to previous concerns that stocks were too "frothy" for him.

“It just got too frothy — the market got too excited and Uber drivers were doing day trading, all the signs were there,” he said.

He also added that his VC firm, Draper Associates, was still active in private markets and his other investment, Tezos (XTZ), has more than doubled since the start of the year. It turns out that it is good that Tim Draper left stocks for Bitcoin and Tezos. As he pointed out, we could see a $250,000 Bitcoin by 2022. Draper also pointed out to the comments that one of the richest people in the world, Warren Buffett had a while ago. "Of course he’s worried,” Draper retaliated. For those of you who don't follow our Bitcoin news now, Buffett was seen stating a lot on the topic of crypto, saying:

“Cryptocurrencies basically have no value and they don’t produce anything. So you can look at your little ledger item for the next twenty years and it says you’ve got X of this cryptocurrency or that — it doesn’t reproduce, it doesn’t deliver, it can’t mail you a check, it can’t do anything. And what you hope is that someone else comes along and pays you more money for it.”

As we reported a while ago, BTC/USD remains the star investment of 2020 with its year-to-date gains netting 40% at one point.

The latest cryptocurrency news put one crypto friendly banking app from the United Kingdom in the focus. We are talking about Revolut, the startup which raised $500 million in a fresh funding round and tripled its valuation to hit the $5.5 billion mark. As the Financial Times reported on February 25, this makes the cryptocurrency supporting app one of Europe's most valuable fintech firms. Ever since 2017, the app has enabled the users to complete transactions in cryptocurrencies which include Bitcoin (BTC), Litecoin (LTC), Ether (ETH) as well as Ripple's native token, XRP. In December 2018, the firm also received a banking license in Lithuania which paved the way for this crypto friendly banking app and allowed it to offer a fuller suite of banking services. The new funding round, as we can see, was led by the Silicon Valley venture capital group TCV which invests in major tech players such as Facebook, Airbnb, Tripadvisor, LinkedIn and Spotify. The $5.5 billion valuation of Revolut by TCV equals the previous record which was set by a private European fintech - Sweden's Klarna back in 2019. The fact that this app is mentioned in the Bitcoin news for its cryptocurrency and stock trading features tells a lot in the regulation crypto world, signifying that a bright future is here for the project. With a user base of 10 million, Revolut saw major customer growth and rose by over 150% last year. Alongside its crypto and stock trading features, the firm is also looking to expand into lending services and is actively pursuing a regulation crypto UK banking license. So far, the UK proved to be a highly lucrative market for Revolut but disrupter banks, too. Many times, these banks are dubbed "neobanks" and have had their users soaring from 7.7 million to 19.6 million last year, according to reports released yesterday by Accenture. Right now, the first half of 2020 is seen as a crucial period for the crypto friendly banking app and one which may see Revolut launching in the United States, if the firm manages to clear the regulatory hurdles. It has also been eyeing an expansion to the Latin American and Asian markets. All of this shows that crypto-related banking services are on the rise.

Bitcoin lightning does solve the speed issue that Bitcoin has but according to a new study, the lightning cannot really escape the fraudsters as we are about to read more in the lightning bitcoin news below. Lightning bitcoin has the strong potential to become a popular way of making payments and remittances but somehow people are getting disappointed at this front still. Bitcoin payments just never caught on with the wider masses while the usage of Fiat-based person-to-person payment tools such as Square Cash exploded. The new lightning bitcoin layer sparked the dream of bitcoin being accepted as a medium of exchange and although the Bitcoin lightning solves the speed issue, it was always prickly to use. Some users even choose other lightning applications such as Strike’s Zap that aims to popularize BTC payments by making the lightning more user-friendly. The goal behind Strike is to create a fiat-based payments app such as Venmo but with payments being conducted in Bitcoin. The Hybrid-fiat bitcoin payments app is a great idea but connecting fiat with bitcoin will involve challenges. The bitcoin network is open to everyone and is censorship resistant so it will allow for pseudonymous usage. This feature will cause a lot of issues that regular payment platforms such as Venmo or Square Cash don’t have to worry about. We still need to wait and see whether hybrid-fiat bitcoin platforms will be able to connect with two systems in a form that still is attractive for the mainstream user base. Writing a transaction to bitcoin’s core takes time and it has to be broadcast to the network and confirmed by miners and also a processing fee has to be paid. This fee can get expensive and the users don’t want that plus they will also have to wait. The delays and fees will put off mainstream users so the lightning bitcoin can help the regular people be more comfortable with bitcoin payments in the future. Lightning doesn’t solve the roller coaster problem that Bitcoin has and new users outline this as a major problem why they will never hold Bitcoin again. Strike tries to solve this issue by letting people load funds onto an app but when they make a payment, they will be routed to the recipient via lightning bitcoin.