Summary:

• South Korea considers a cryptocurrency tax but a current ban on all financial institutions dealing virtual currencies is to be maintained
• Ripple (XRPUSD on xStation5) surges because of its new partnership with credit card American Express, a Bitcoin buying spree
• Ehtereum (ETHUSD) soars as well while the CryptoKitties-ecosystem-related concerns seem to settle down

Although the Bitcoin price has settled down lately its major peers have decisively drawn much more attention. We wrote about Litecoin (LTCUSD) yesterday, however there are subsequent digital currencies which successfully caught up BTC. Nonetheless, before we move to analyse them let’s begin with the South Korean thread which seems to slightly turn in BTC’s favour. Namely there was an emergency meeting in Seoul on Wednesday which resulted in an interesting outcome.

According to a statement obtained by Reuters the South Korean government will consider taxing capital gains from trading of virtual coins and will also ban minors from opening accounts on exchanges. However, in order to fulfil strict regulations cryptocurrency exchanges will need to uphold investors protection rules and disclose all bid and offer quotes. On the surface it could be slightly positive for the BTC price, however a current ban on all financial institutions dealing digital currencies will be kept. Finally let’s add that those measures need an parliamentary approval before implemented. One may assume that licensed cryptocurrency exchanges could increase credibility, certainty which could act in favour of the cryptocurrency after all.

Ripple (XRPUSD) doubled its value over the course of the past two sessions. A possible pullback toward a $0.4 mark could be a buying opportunity Source: xStation5

While Bitcoin responded very moderately to this topic, there were the two cryptocurrencies which stole the show during the several past hours. The first one is Ripple which doubled its value since Tuesday’s morning as it crossed $0.46 – the highest ever. The price surge could be ascribed to revelations suggesting that Ripple managed to get its new partnership with credit card American Express. Notice that American Express has a long history of integrating new technologies and for that reason that agreement could pave the way for further increases in Ripple. On top of that a Bitcoin buying spree could have also contributed to soaring demand for other virtual currencies.

Ethereum (ETHUSD) moved higher after concerns regarding building a dapp named CryptoKitties settled down. Source: xStation5

At first let’s explain that CryptoKitties in a dapp (decentralized application) built on Ethereum which could have been a possible reason why the ETH price lagged behind its peers as it slowed down transactions on the entire network. However, now the CryptoKitties ecosystem seems to be already successfully integrated and therefore it brought an influx of new users to Ethereum being a good reason for the latest spike. Do notice that both Ethereum and Ripple have made much more impressive rates of return compared to Bitcoin since the beginning of 2017.