Crypto Industry News:

The Central Bank of France plans to launch a pilot of the Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) for financial institutions in 2020. Francois Villeroy de Galhau, President of the Bank of France, announced that the bank will start testing the digital euro project by the end of the first quarter of 2020.

The Bank of France confirmed the messages on Twitter, noting that it was announced at a conference co-organized by two major French financial supervisory authorities, the French prudential resolution authority and Autorite des marches financiers.

According to the publication, the digital euro release will only target private sector entities and will not include retail payments by individuals. Villeroy noticed that the digital currency for retail customers "would be the subject of particular vigilance."

The initiative aims to increase the efficiency of the French financial system while ensuring confidence in the currency. Moreover, the project aims to confirm France's sovereignty over initiatives related to private digital currencies such as Facebook's Libra stablecoin, said Villeroy.

Villeroy's position is in line with earlier statements by French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire, who argued that regulators cannot allow Libra to be introduced in European territories because of concerns over monetary sovereignty. According to some reports, France fought against Libra along with Germany, Italy, Spain and the Netherlands.

According to the Bank of France tweet, its president emphasized that France should become the first country in the world to release CBDC and provide an exemplary model to other jurisdictions.

Technical Market Overview:

The ETH/USD pair has broken below the short-term trendline support located at the level of $145.00 and made a new local low at the level of $142.81, just below the old 50% Fibonacci retracement. From a wider perspective, the market is still trading inside of a narrow range located between the levels of $151.37 - $142.24 and the market participants are waiting for a breakout from this range. The downside momentum is increasing so the odds are more in favor of a downside breakout.

Weekly Pivot Points:

WR3 - $162.22

WR2 - $157.56

WR1 - $153.69

Weekly Pivot - $148.38

WS1 - $144.67

WS2 - $138.97

WS3 - $135.22

Trading recommendations:

The best strategy in the current market conditions is to trade with the larger timeframe trend, which is down. All the shorter timeframe moves are still being treated as a counter-trend correction inside of the downtrend. When the wave 2 corrective cycles are completed, the market might will ready for another wave up.