Following last week’s news that PayPal was backing out of the Libra Association, almost all of the payment firms initially linked to the project have now announced their departure.

Over the weekend, news emerged that Stripe, Visa, Mastercard, Mercado Pago, and eBay have all abandoned Facebook’s beleaguered cryptocurrency, striking a blow to Mark Zuckerberg’s plans to create a global payments mechanism.

Cryptocurrency markets are remaining fundamentally similar to last week’s landscape. Few movements were seen this weekend, and Monday so far is not proving to be an exception. As before, Bitcoin remains tightly range-bound, trading around the same $8,300 level of the previous week, while altcoin movements are mostly defined by project-specific news.

Notable gainers today are XRP, Huobi Token (HT), 0x (ZRX) and Cosmos (ATOM), posting +4%, +6%, +10% and +6% respectively.

• Ripple has turned bullish over the short-term, but remains medium-term bearish while trading below the $0.3400 level
• The four-hour time shows that a bullish inverted head and shoulders pattern may be forming
• The XRP / USD pair faces a major technical battle with the $0.3000 level

Ripple is on the rise, after the third-largest digital asset found strong dip-buying demand from the $0.2650 level last week. The cryptocurrency has been gradually gaining bullish momentum, since recovering from the $0.2140 level last month.

It ain’t easy moving to America these days, but Smartlands is bucking border-tightening trends with its latest announcement. The UK-based project, launched in 2017 on the Stellar (XLM) network, is setting up house across the pond, following the signing of a cooperative agreement with IIP Securities.

In the software world, code names are everywhere. You’ve probably noticed that Google names Android updates after desserts (at least, until the latest one), and you might remember when Apple named OSX releases after wild cats. If you’re a Linux fan, you probably know that Debian releases are named after Toy Story characters.

Many blockchain code names follow similar patterns.

Is the BNB Token a security or a utility token? It’s a question that Binance appears keen to answer, if a recent blog post and a new hashtag, #UseBNB, are anything to go by.

In the post, Binance published an exploration of its multiple use-cases for BNB, which already number over 120 in total.

Entrenched interests stand to lose out should cryptocurrency find a foothold in consumer transactions and cross-border payments. SWIFT processed over $300bn worth of transactions daily in 2018, according to its annual review. Some seven percent of the value of remittances is smuggled away by middlemen.

Over the last few weeks, the U.S. Federal Reserve has enacted policies that will have critical repercussions for the economy. These maneuvers cast a spotlight on the role of central and private banks, and provide an opportunity to think about how decentralized technologies can restore fairness to U.S. consumers.

• Ravencoin is currently bullish over the short-term and bearish over the medium-term
• The four-hour time shows that a bullish ascending triangle pattern has now formed
• The RVN / USD pair has been rejected from the neckline of a head and shoulders on the daily time frame

Ravencoin has undergone a bearish reversal after rallying to its highest trading level since late August. The RVN / USD pair has given back around ten percent of its trading value as the broader cryptocurrency market comes under pressure.

The cryptocurrency markets are seeing a small retracement today. Bitcoin continues its low-volatility trading around the $8,400-8,500 level, while altcoins are still pulling back from their previous gains.

Notable exceptions are 0x (ZRX), Algorand (ALGO) and Chainlink (LINK), which gained 3%, 10% and 5% over yesterday respectively.