Summary:

• Ripple (XRPUSD) has already climbed to its new all-time high being sped up be hopes related to tests of a Ripple-based payments system in Japan, South Korea
• A Japan’s company will begin paying a part of its employees’ salaries in Bitcoin (BTCUSD)
• A potential peak in Bitcoin could coincide with a possible bottom in gold prices – a brief recap post-FOMC meeting
• Bloomberg adds Ripple, Litecoin (LTCUSD), Ethereum (ETHUSD) to its terminal

Taking a closer look across cryptocurrencies Ripple has been one of the most standout one as it gained almost 100% just in 24 hours! The price of XRP tokens climbed as much as $0.8661 according to quotes delivered by CoinMarketCap. The cryptocurrency has surged more than 280% thus far this week and therefore it has a third place in terms of market capitalization being solely behind Bitcoin and Ethereum. The reason for a mind-bending rally is the same – tests of a Ripple-based payments system being conducted by some big banks in Japan and South Korea as we wrote about on Thursday.

Ripple (XRPUSD) keeps soaring this week on the back of a buying frenzy surrounding Bitcoin as well as hopes regarding a technology test in Asia. From a technical standpoint one may spot that after reaching its peak at around $0.85 the price plunged to ca. $0.651, the level being underpinned by a 38.2% retracement of the mind-boggling rally this week. Volatility remains extremely high, hence even as a weekly rate of return has to impress everybody, it also carries many hazards for traders being involved in the market. Source: xStation5

Apart from a surge in Ripple let’s mention another story being supportive of Bitcoin, the cryptocurrency has been indifferent though. A Japanese company GMO Internet will start paying a portion of salaries in Bitcoin from February 2018 in order to gain better understanding of the virtual currency, according to a firm’s spokeswoman. She added however that salaries in the cryptocurrency will not be mandatory and they will be introduced on a voluntary basis (just an employee who wants to get its salary in Bitcoin will be offered the digital currency). The offer will be open to around 4000 employees of the company in Japan and will cover payments up to 100,000 JPY ($890) monthly. Let’s add that the GMO Internet operates a range of web-related businesses including finance, online advertising and internet infrastructure.

Looking back to the past one may notice that peaks in Bitcoin tended to coincide with bottoms in gold around FOMC rate hikes. Source: Bloomberg

Quite the interesting story has been offered by Bloomberg as it tries to show some coincidences between peaks seen in Bitcoin and bottom in gold prices which came up during interest rate rises in the US. Take a look that a rate of change in Bitcoin slumped following the two past FOMC rate hikes, thus once this scheme is to repeat itself another pullback in the cryptocurrency could be on the cards. On the other hand, gold prices gained momentum twice in the past in the aftermath of rate hikes (December 2016 and March 2017) and slumped once in June 2017. To sump up, having regard to a healthy pick-up in Bitcoin and a slide in gold prices below $1250 there is a likelihood that both assets will correct their latest moves.

Finally let us spot that Bitcoin has struggled with a resistance placed at around $17,500 which could be a sign of buyers fatigue. In turn an ascending trend line might constitute the closest support. Source: xStation5

Along with rising popularity of cryptocurrencies Bloomberg decided to add three of them to its terminal. Thus beside Bitcoin there will be quotations of Ripple, Ethereum and Litecoin. Bloomberg declined to comment on the decision to add the new altcoins to the terminal, but a person familiar with the company said they were added as a feature for foreign-exchange traders.

Bloomberg adds three more cryptocurrencies to its terminal service. Source: Bloomberg