The most dominant cryptocurrency Bitcoin (BTC) is in the latest cryptocurrency news for a new price reversal trend that it established overnight. After moving closer and almost breaching through $11,000, Bitcoin lost $700 in just minutes as traders gazed at the charts in awe. According to data from CoinMarketCap, we can see that Bitcoin got the loss of support overnight and right when it was strengthening at $10,900. A few hours later, BTC was at $10,100, failing to bounce higher and dipping to retain the five digits. The coming altcoin news showed that as always, altcoins were more affected by the fact that Bitcoin lost $700. Ether (ETH), Ripple (XRP), Bitcoin Cash (BTC), Litecoin (LTC) and practically all of the coins in the top 10 have lost anywhere from 3% to 7% overnight. The $10,200 level is significant right now. After Bitcoin lost $700, we can see that the cryptocurrency is at $10,175 at press time and trying to breach the $10,200 level. The total cryptocurrency market cap also declined. As many best cryptocurrency news sites showed, it is now at $264 billion.

“Currently bouncing off long term trend line and wanting to watch a close above $10,200,” the popular analyst Josh Rager summarized in his fresh analysis on Wednesday.

Despite trading at around $9,300 since mid June, the sentiment around BTC has dramatically changed in the recent days as metrics show. Now that Bitcoin lost $700, the Fear & Greed Index is among the most interesting ones right now, tracking price moves based on whether investors are too eager to buy or sell. On a scale of 1 to 100, right now the index is at 11 which indicates extreme fear and suggests that the markets are oversold. Bitcoin lost $700 and could recover soon. However, if the dominant cryptocurrency drops to four figures once more, the longer term predictions will diverge in their optimism. According to some figures from crypto research firm Digital Asset Research, the Bitcoin block reward halving scheduled for May 2020 will see the BTC/USD pair balloon to over $60,000. For the time being, however, it is the altcoin investors who are feeling the worst pain because of Bitcoin's drop. The worst performance still belongs to Bitcoin SV (BSV) which is down by around 7% at a current price of $133.

The head of over the counter (OTC) trading at the major cryptocurrency platform Kraken recently stated that the Kraken OTC desk has seen a 2,000% increase in its trading volume compared to the last year numbers. Nelson Minier is the head of the desk and the person who gave the remarks in a new episode of The Block's podcast named The Scoop - on August 20. According to the Kraken OTC desk head, “Bitcoin and Ether are the big — the whales of our desk." He additionally estimated that at press time, Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH), Bitcoin Cash (BCH), Monero (XMR) and Tether (USDT) are the top five cryptocurrencies traded by volume. Minier was also featured on many best cryptocurrency news sites for his prediction on the Bitcoin price.

“I don’t see demand for this asset going down. But I do know that supply is gonna get cut in half, some time May 2019. And I think another thing I know about Bitcoin is that higher price is the best marketing tool we have,” the head of the Kraken OTC desk said.

What's interesting is that in April this year, the altcoin news featured a lawsuit by a former Kraken employee named Jonathan Silverman, who sued the platform for more than $900,000. According to the ex-Kraken employee's claims, he was not compensated in accordance with an oral agreement with the founder (Jesse Powell) for managing Kraken's trading desk. Silverman also said that Kraken was lying about not operating in New York. As his lawsuit stated:

“Misrepresenting to the public and government regulators that it was not operating in New York; when in reality, Kraken’s OTC practice, and OTC trading (including logging into the Kraken exchange and negotiating wire transfers) occurred almost exclusively in New York.”

A spokesperson for Kraken named Christina Vee later retorted and said that Silverman was "both lying and in breach of his confidentiality agreement." Besides this lawsuit and the new announcement by the Kraken OTC desk, the latest cryptocurrency news showed that Kraken has recently seen some troubles with its website as well as its application programming interface (API). On August 13, Kraken announced that it was receiving reports of connection issues for its API as well as its website performance.  

The popular messaging service WhatsApp is apparently in talks with a lot of digital payments firms and a state-owned bank in order to launch digital payment services in Indonesia. As the latest cryptocurrency news show, Reuters first reported that the Facebook owned WhatsApp is negotiating with several services to bring this initiative to life. According to the report by Reuters, the company is negotiating with the transportation booking service Go-Jek, the mobile payments provider DANA, the fintech startup OVO as well as the state-owned Bank Mindri. The coming altcoin news also show that Bank Mindri operates a digital wallet service, too. The Facebook owned WhatsApp has a lot of plans for Indonesia. For starters, the messaging giant wants to support payments through digital wallets in the region, as Reuters proves. The report also speculates that Facebook's dealings in Indonesia could become a solid template that would be later used to dodge local regulations, which mostly include bans on foreign digital wallets. A Facebook spokesperson confirmed that WhatsApp was negotiating with the financial partners in Indonesia, however, they declined to provide any specifics. As the Facebook owned WhatsApp is portrayed in the report:

“WhatsApp is in conversations with financial partners in Indonesia about payments, however the discussions are in early stages and we do not have anything further to share at this stage.”

The sources, however, say that Facebook has a deal with three payment firms which is going to be finalized imminently. The launch of these services, as many best cryptocurrency news sites reported, is not expected until 2020. This is why WhatsApp is looking to launch in India at the same time or sooner. According to the report, Facebook is still waiting on regulatory approval from India before the Facebook owned WhatsApp payments can be finalized and announced via the messaging app. On the other hand, we have Libra in WeChat - which is also part of Facebook's plan. As reports show, the giant wants to integrate its crypto wallet service, Calibra, into WhatsApp and all of its platforms.

“The libra blockchain will be global, but it will be up to custodial wallet providers to determine where they will and will not operate. Calibra won’t be available in U.S.-sanctioned countries or countries that ban cryptocurrencies,” a Calibra spokesperson confirmed in April.

Hong Kong demonstrations and the major global uncertainty have only made bitcoin’s status as a safe-haven much stronger than it was before according to the Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire after he spoke in an interview which we are reading more about in the latest cryptocurrency news below. Allaire pointed out during the interview that the investors are very much attracted by the non-sovereign digital assets and mainly Bitcoin since the safe-haven status of the coin is now more important than ever. Only last week, Bitcoin broke below the $10,000 price point and then again on Friday. The coin hit the weekly low on August 15^th and reached up to $9,685 but it bounced back quickly and is currently trading at $10,712. Allaire explained that the recent decline in the market could be driven by holders who decided to take profit and he even stated:

‘’Last week was a significant risk off week for equities. There were a lot of holders of digital assets whose portfolios were taking a hit and if they had gains, Bitcoin is up over 100%, almost 200% over the past 9 months, it was a place to take some gains.’’

The correction, however, does not affect bitcoin’s appeal as a method of preserving value. Bitcoin’s price has previously been pushed by multiple economic and geopolitical factors including the Hong Kong demonstrations and the China-US trade war. The heads of the G7 countries will soon meet in France and will talk about bitcoin and the entire crypto space according to Allaire. It is unlikely that there will be a crypto-related policy as he pointed out:

‘’I don’t know that we’re going to see specific policy but certainly we’re going to hear some perspective out of there.’’

As it turns out, most of the investor’s don’t recommend investing in bitcoin or even consider it as a safe haven asset but gold, for example, might not be the best investment choice despite the uncertainty in the global markets. The portfolio manager of Valley Forge Capital Management stated in an interview as well as we read in the altcoin news previously:

‘’They [Bitcoin and gold] are collectibles. You are actually not buying any protection, you’re simply speculating. To me, it’s no different than any other speculative activity in your life.’’