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.

This Monday, the latest cryptocurrencies news show that all of the tokens in the top 10 are in the red and bleeding. Even though the losses are not that big, the BTC price rebounded and found that the $10,000 level is hard to breach through. Compared to the price action of the previous two weeks, this weekend has been relatively relaxed for Bitcoin traders. On Saturday, we saw the price come as close as $9,990 before pulling back to $9,794 and then meeting the resistance at $9,900. On the 6-hour timeframe, the volume profile visible range (VPVR) shows that the price rejected at the high volume node at $9,883 but at the same time, we can see that the purchasing volume is beginning to outpace the selling volume. The BTC price rebounded and despite its inability to hold above $9,900, it painted higher lows and the price is holding wel above the 20-MA now. In other words, a high volume surge in the Bitcoin news now could easily push the price to the upper Bollinger band arm at $10,126 but Bitcoin would still have some challenges ahead. If the cryptocurrency can hold the $9,850 support and push above $9,883, we could see the price rising to $10,200 as it is currently sandwiched between VPVR nodes at $10,210 and $9,892, accordingly. An earlier analysis by an analyst named Keith Waring explained that $10,000 is not that important level now when considering that a significant resistance at $10,300 awaits. The analyst also noted that even though the BTC price rebounds again, the current setup strengthens the probability of the price retaking the $10,000 mark. Moreover, the CME close at $9,740 on February 21 means traders believing in the CME gap narrative will hold their powder with the expectation of the price revisiting the gap. Meanwhile, the crypto analyst Michael van de Poppe took a more bullish point of view and tweeted the above chart, stating:

“Retest done. As long as this level remains support, I'm expecting continuation towards $11,000 / $11,600.”

https://twitter.com/CryptoMichNL/status/1231579499449503746?s=20 While the BTC price rebounded this weekend, now it continues to push along the descending trend line at $9,989. A break above this trend line would put the price above the VPVR high volume node and closer to the 61.8% Fibonacci retracement. This would also strengthen the possibility of Bitcoin taking out the previous daily high at $10,250.

The country of Turkey is making huge strides towards becoming one of the best locations for blockchain and cryptocurrency adoption. The latest cryptocurrency news show that this is a nation that has often been seen as a key strategic partner to the world's biggest and most influential countries mainly because of its positioning between east and west. These are some of the reasons why Turkey is becoming the central hub for this nascent industry. What's very interesting is that the country had its inflation levels at 25% as of October 2018, shortly after the US sanctions crippled an already struggling Turkish economy which failed to recover from the 2016 coup attempt. All of this coupled with the low interest rates and an upcoming debt crisis led to a hugely volatile lira which is forcing Turks to look elsewhere to generate profits. A bright ray of opportunity is now presented as Turkey is settling in a prime position to capitalize on its passion and enthusiasm for the technology. In fact, 2020 is set to be the year that catapults the Turkish ambitions onto the global stage. Later this year, reports show that Turkey is expected to launch a digital lira dubbed "Turkcoin" while the Capital Markets Board is set to provide clear regulation of cryptocurrencies, offering a safe and regulated environment to launch and incubate projects. The research made by ING also found that Turkish people are already using and investing in cryptocurrencies more than people from any other country in Europe. The Turks apparently have a strong relationship with cryptocurrencies and an enthusiasm about using them. According to the survey in the blockchain news, Turkey is helping drive the adoption of both cryptocurrencies and their underlying blockchain technology. Turkish people also reported very positively towards cryptocurrencies - even 62% of them are positive about the future use of crypto. This compares to 24% of Brits and 20% of Germans and is double the 31% recorded for the United States citizens' attitude towards this technology. In addition to this, when asked if traditional banks should offer current accounts in crypto, a massive 63% of Turkish people agreed which is three times the number of Brits who felt the same way.