Plan B : Bitcoin Still On Track Despite Closing March With $46,517

PlanB, a renowned yet anonymous Dutch Bitcoin analyst, is optimistic about the performance of Bitcoin despite a recent 5.2% dip.

 Bitcoin has been trending up in recent weeks and has seen an increase of 15% over the past week alone. The climb extends a surge that started earlier this month after the Federal Reserve’s announcement that it would raise interest rates for the first time in three years.

 It is not out of place to deduce that PlanB’s optimism is majorly influenced by Bitcoin’s recent comeback the past week.

 Nevertheless, as at the time of writing, Bitcoin has dipped by 5.20%, and for the first time in the last four days since Bitcoin started soaring again, it has now slipped under $45,000. 

This dip in Bitcoin comes as the European Union (EU) Parliament voted in favor of new harsh rules that call for the crackdown of unhosted or non-custodial wallets. On Thursday, March 31st, more than 90 lawmakers from the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs (ECON) and the Committee on Civil Liberties (LIBE) voted in favor of imposing new regulatory measures that would essentially prohibit anonymous cryptocurrency transactions.

 The new measures will require crypto services providers, such as exchanges, to collect the personal details of individuals who transact over 1,000 Euros of crypto using self-hosted wallets before the transfer is allowed. Self-hosted wallets are the ones wherein the individual maintains their private keys instead of relying on other third-party institutions or intermediaries acting as custodians.

Some lawmakers are also opposed to the proposed regulations. Markus Ferber, the economic spokesperson for the European People’s Party (EPP) agrees that anti-money laundering (AML) checks in crypto should be taken seriously, but suggested that the new rules are commensurate with an outright ban on self-hosted wallets. In his words, speaking about the proposed regulations, he said:

Such proposals are neither warranted nor proportionate. With this approach of regulating new technologies, the European Union will fall further behind other, more open-minded jurisdictions.

Amid all these recent developments, Kevin Svenson—crypto investor and market analyst—notes that Bitcoin is now wedged inside the breakout zone between the 200d/SMA resistance and the possible 128d/SMA support.