Bitcoin price LIVE: BTC inches closer to $7k - Has the crypto-market ...

DAILY HEADLINES

Good morning and welcome to our rolling coverage of all things cryptocurrency, including price, regulation, innovation and financial crime.

A positive start to the week sees bitcoin and the rest of the market sweep up into the green, as charts show the bulls pushing prices back up.

Bitcoin rose 2.69 percent to trade for $6,916.40, as of 7am this morning.

Ethereum increased 2.47 percent to trade for $285.82.

Ripple went up by 3.38 percent to trade for $0.340703.

Litecoin also increased by 4.01 percent to trade for $60.28.

Confidence appears to be flooding back into the market as investors await the Securities and Exchange Commission’s response to the proposed bitcoin Exchange-Traded Fund.

All updates are in British Standard Time.

9.40am UPDATE: Crypto-funded app Brave Browser downloaded 10 million times on Google Play Store

Brave Software has announced that its eponymous web browser has been downloaded from the Google Play Store 10 million times, doubling its user base in just four months.

This was revealed in a post on its official Twitter handle last Friday.

The ad-blocking browser, which rewards readers and content publishers with its Basic Attention Token (BAT) aims to revolutionize the internet’s present content monetization model, which is dependent on advertising revenue, tracking of user behaviour, and sale of user data.

7.50am UPDATE: Bitcoin to end 2018 with an ‘explosive’ price boost, says Thomas Lee

Mr Lee of Fundstrat Global Advisors said there is an "important correlation" between emerging markets and bitcoin.

Speaking on CNBC, Mr Lee said: “In general, we thinking mining and fundamental factors like network effect really drive bitcoin’s value. But macro factors have an effect on network value.”

Mr Lee referenced a chart showing two lines - the MSCI emerging markets index relative to the S&P and bitcoin’s price.

He said: “EM actually rallied into the end of the year we had a huge bitcoin rally and as EM has since fallen we have seen bitcoin fall sharply.

“You might wonder ‘what’s the linkage? Why do we think they’re connected?’. Well, there are two factors.

“The first is hedge funds, which typically rent emerging markets stock. So they do risk on, risk off. When they are risk off bitcoin also suffers because they are risk off.

“The second reason has to do with wealth effect. Wealth effect means if you’re living in an emerging market and you see your stock market fall hugely it means you have a lot less money to buy bitcoin so that affects the network effect because you can’t buy bitcoin.

“So I think there’s two reason why an emerging markets index actually influences bitcoin.”

7am UPDATE: BTC jumps by $200 overnight

Bitcoin leaped by more than $200 overnight in an inexplicable boost in price.

The early hours of this morning saw bitcoin jump from $6,766 to $6,900 in less than an hour.

Analysts are yet to pinpoint the reason behind this jump, but it follows a bullish trend on the upswing which has affected the market in the last few days.

A cautious market has caused the price to drop significantly, but it appears prices may be on the upswing.

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