[NEWS] Singapore Startup To Launch Manny Pacquiao’s Cryptocurrency

Bitcoin (BTC) has flat-lined after creating a bullish pattern last week, and now only a move above $6,800 would put the bulls in a commanding position, according to technical charts. Stepping back, the leading cryptocurrency clocked a four-week high of $6,810 on Coinbase last Monday before ending the week (Sunday's UTC close) at $6,415. Despite the pullback from the multi-week highs, BTC ended up 3.7 percent higher on the week. The bull move last week saw the creation of what's called an inverted hammer candle. This is characterized by a long upper "shadow" (the difference between the weekly high of $6,810 and the weekly close of $6,415) and a small "body" (the spread between the weekly opening price of $6183 and the closing price of $6,415). The inverted hammer is considered a sign of a bullish reversal if it occurs around the bottom of the downtrend and the upper shadow is two times the size of the candle's body. Further, the longer the upper shadow, the more likely it is that a reversal will occur. In this case, the indicator appeared close to $6,000 – a level where the BTC has likely carved out a classic bottom. However, the upper shadow is only 1.7 times the real body, placing a bullish reversal in some doubt. As a result, the immediate outlook remains neutral and only a move above $6,810 would confirm a bullish breakout. At press time, BTC is changing hands at $6,400 on Coinbase.As seen in the above chart, the sell-off from the record high of $20,000 reached in December last year has likely run out of steam near $6,000. A convincing move above $6,810 (last week's high) would validate the bullish inverted hammer and boost the prospects of a sustained move higher toward $7,402 (September high).

Transaction fees on monero, the 10th largest cryptocurrency network, have fallen sharply after last Thursday's system-wide software update. The reduction comes in the wake of the platform's activation of a highly-anticipated new form of cryptography named "bulletproofs," a new technology that seeks to make the monero network's privacy features more scalable by restructuring how its confidential transactions are verified. According to data published by BitInfoCharts, average monero fees fell from about $0.54 cents on Thursday to roughly $0.021 cents as of Saturday – a 96 percent drop.Such a dramatic shift was previously predicted by monero developers speaking to CoinDesk. "I think you can safely say a typical [transaction] fee goes down by more than 95 percent," monero core developer "moneromooo" remarked last week. Moneromooo also said that fee reductions could even be lower, depending on the kind of transaction that users create. Alongside bulletproofs, the upgrade, performed via a mechanism called a hard fork, contained other features intended to improve privacy on the platform, as well as new code to deter manufacturers from building specialized mining hardware for monero. Speaking on IRC last week, developers celebrated the upgrade, with Sarang Noether, a cryptographer at the Monero Research Lab that led the work on the bulletproofs implementation, writing that "it's gonna be great seeing the blockchain growth charts." There were also predictions that the drop on fees might open the door to additional uses for XMR, the cryptocurrency that powers the monero blockchain. Core developer "hyc" said that the upgrade was "definitely making the notion of micropayments more palatable again."