Vivek Ramaswamy has become the United States’ second presidential contender to accept Bitcoin payments for the forthcoming 2024 elections. While on stage, he flashed a QR code to send users to a payment gateway that accepts a variety of payment methods, including BTC and Satoshi (sats). Eligible U.S. citizens and permanent residents can contribute up to $6,600 to the campaign, which is not tax deductible as a charity gift under federal income tax law. Kansas House of Representatives lawmakers filed a bill in February proposing a $100 cap on crypto political donations. News Sorce

The difficulty of Bitcoin achieved an all-time high on May 18, 2023, at block height 790,272. The network’s difficulty is now 49.55 trillion hashes away from 50 trillion hashes, making it the most difficult to uncover a block reward ever. Bitcoin miners are currently committing 363.84 exahash per second (EH/s) to the Bitcoin blockchain, and block intervals are slightly longer than the usual ten-minute average. Foundry USA is the most popular bitcoin mining pool, with a hashrate of roughly 109.04 EH/s. Despite the increased difficulty, Bitcoin miners have kept the hashrate high by putting more computational power into the network. News Sorce

The price of Solana (SOL) has fallen since it failed to break through a long-term resistance level. The price action is positive in the short term, but the RSI is negative. The resistance line is currently intersecting with the $26 resistance level, highlighting its significance. The weekly Relative Strength Index (RSI) is sending conflicting signals, indicating that bulls still have the upper hand, while levels below 50 indicate the opposite. Since April 16, the SOL price has been trading inside a falling wedge, which is a bullish pattern. On May 11, the price bounced, verifying the wedge’s support line, the 0.618 Fib retracement support level, and the $20 horizontal support area.The RSI cannot predict whether or not the price will break out, but a breakout might take the price to $23.50, while a breakdown could result in a drop to $16.50. News Sorce

On Thursday, Xrp, formerly known as ripple, increased for a fifth straight session as the token approached a two-week high. The next observable ceiling for the relative strength index (RSI) is at the point of 61.00 after it passed through a crucial resistance level at 55.00. Cardano (ADA) also increased significantly today, reaching an 11-day high. ADA/USD increased from Wednesday’s low of $0.3658 to an intraday high of $0.3798 earlier today. Cardano has increased overall by as much as 7% over the last week, rising as the 10-day (red) moving average picks up speed. The RSI will need to break out of a ceiling at 47.00 for this to occur. News Sorce

Bitcoin (BTC) tumbled back below $27,000 on Thursday afternoon, reversing its advance from a day ago. Over $20 million of BTC futures were liquidated in the past four hours, with 87% of them being long positions. The CoinDesk Market Index (CMI) was down 2.2% on Thursday. Equity markets closed higher, with a late rally pulling the Nasdaq higher by 1.5%, the S&P 500 by 0.95%, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average by 0.35%. Alex Tapscott, managing director of the digital asset group at Ninepoint Partners, said BTC has recently performed more like a technology stock than a pure store of value. Ninepoint Partners’ Tapscott believes that the debt ceiling debate could boost “safe-haven” assets such as gold and bitcoin, but he is not convinced that BTC’s price will go up in the event of a government default. Noelle Acheson points out that if the debt ceiling is raised, money will move out of cash and risk assets into US government bonds, which could be unfavorable for bitcoin and gold. Messari Research Analyst Sami Kassab suggests that bitcoin has consistently entered a bull market within 12-18 months prior to each halving event. Charlie Morris, chief investment officer at ByteTree Asset Management, said the halving likely isn’t fully priced in. News Sorce

Because of a choice made by its third-party provider, Binance Australia has suspended its Australian dollar services. Bank transfer withdrawals and PayID deposits will also be impacted, but withdrawals will continue to be processed for an unknown amount of time. The halt is effective right away, but withdrawals will continue to be accepted for an unspecified amount of time. Although the ability to buy and sell cryptocurrency using credit or debit cards is still available, Binance is working to find a substitute provider so that it can continue to offer Australian dollar deposits and withdrawals to its users. The suspension comes one month after Binance Australia Derivatives’ financial services licence was revoked by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission. The suspension may have a significant impact on a sizable number of Australian cryptocurrency users and investors. News Sorce