Steady As She Goes

The market has closed out our Friday-to-Friday stretch in the green. Recovering from the dip the market took last week, currencies around the board are up on their 7-day charts. Crypto’s total market cap gained a healthy 11% over the course of the week, climbing to $284 bln at the time of writing.

As always, time will tell if this rally has legs. If and when we continue to climb, keep an eye on Bitcoin’s key resistance levels ($7,600, $7,800, $8,000, etc.) to see if the market can surpass and stay ahead of these numbers. For the time being, being above $7,000 has been a blessing and a half; for the future, we’ll have to see if buy volume can keep up with this welcomed rise.

Bitcoin: At $7470, Bitcoin gained 17% on the week, the largest weekly gain we’ve seen in a while for any of our three top assets.

Ethereum: Ethereum was doing better in the middle of the week when it poked its head above $500. Still, it’s up 6% this week with a price of $462.

XRP: Positive but nearly insignificant, XRP rose 2% on the week to $0.45

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Domestic News 

Report: US Ranked as Most ICO-Friendly Country in the World: The United States government has been relatively quiet regarding crypto regulations, and the looming threat of a security classification has been the fear of many an ICO and cryptocurrency startup. Even so, research conducted by analysts in league with the Crypto Finance Conference found that the US is the most ICO-friendly of any nation in the world. The report sifted through 100 of the most-funded ICOs to date, finding that 30 of them were launched in the United States, with Switzerland (15) and Singapore (11) coming in second and third, respectively.

NY Department of Financial Services Awards BitLicense to BitPay: Cryptocurrency payment processor Bitpay has received a coveted BitLicense from New York State regulators. The license will allow the company to provide its services to businesses and individuals within the state, and it will also make it legal for businesses to use BitPay’s platform to accept cryptocurrencies from their customers. “New York state has one of the strictest policies around businesses involved in cryptocurrency and working through the approval processes to obtain a License was important to BitPay. We believe this hard work will pay off as New York presents significant business opportunities for BitPay,” BitPay CEO Stephen Pair said in a statement.

US Congress Holds Another Crypto Hearing, Industry Leaders Weigh In With Testimonies: The United States House of Representatives has held yet another hearing on crypto, this time picking the brains of some of the industry’s leading experts and entrepreneurs. Held by the House Agriculture Committee, it featured testimonies by Joshua Fairfield, William Donald Bain Family Professor of Law, Washington and Lee University School of Law; Amber Baldet, Co-Founder and CEO, Clovyr; Scott Kupor, Managing Partner, Andreessen Horowitz; Daniel Gorfine, Director, LabCFTC and Chief Innovation Officer, CFTC; former CFTC chair Gary Gensler, Senior Lecturer, MIT Sloan School of Management; and Lowell Ness, Managing Partner, Perkins Coie LLP. Each testimony seemed to represent a consensus that current regulations do not provide a sufficient framework for the emerging industry.

Missed the Congressional hearing about how cryptocurrencies are impacting the U.S.? Here's a list of what you need to know: https://t.co/9yv4V4cEDI by @RossowEsq pic.twitter.com/9MH4xj6kYo

— Forbes Crypto (@ForbesCrypto) July 19, 2018

Steve Bannon Wants to Launch a Token–No Joke: Trump’s former Senior Advisor and the co-founder of Breitbart News, Steve Bannon, has gotten into crypto. So much so, that the right-wing political figure is working on his own coin. In a recent interview with CNBC, he revealed that he holds an undisclosed amount of bitcoin and is working on building a cryptocurrency for populist movements. “We are working on some tokens now, utility tokens, potentially for the populist movement on a worldwide basis. But they have to be quality,” he stated in the interview.

Patent-palooza Round I: Major Banks File for Blockchain Tech Patents: Bank of America, JPMorgan & Chase Co., and Wells Fargo all filed for blockchain-related patents this week. Marking its nearly fiftieth patent, Bank of America’s looks to secure rights for a blockchain-based system to validate external data. JPMorgan’s own looks towards the blockchain to store and transact digital receipts tied to bonds and other assets, while Wells Fargo wants to use the technology to protect and store sensitive data.

Patent-palooza Round II: Barclays and Mastercard Seek Out Their Own Blockchain Patents: UK-based bank Barclays has filed three patents with the United States Patent and Trademark Office. The three related patents seem to create a framework for incorporating cryptocurrencies into traditional banking practices and could also pave the way for a stable coin. Meanwhile, Mastercard filed its own patent for a blockchain network the features a two-layered solution for users to store both cryptocurrency and fiat and swap between the assets with ease.