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Analyze the provided historical prices, technical indicators, news, and social media sentiment from the last 60 days. Based on this context, predict the overall trend (up, down, or no change) and the specific daily closing prices for Bitcoin for the next 10 days.
|
[Technical Analysis for 2019-02-11]
BTC Price: 3648.43, BTC RSI: 54.06
Gold Price: 1307.00, Gold RSI: 59.49
Oil Price: 52.41, Oil RSI: 49.60
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
Japanese Finance Giant SBI’s Crypto Subsidiary Backs Mobile Wallet BRD: SBI Crypto Investment, a subsidiary of the Japanese financial giant SBI Holdings , has invested in crypto firm Breadwinner AG, Cointelegraph Japan reports on Jan. 15. SBI’s crypto investment fund did not disclose the amount contributed to Switzerland-based Breadwinner, the developer of mobile crypto wallet BRD. According to the announcement, BRD operates in 170 countries and has been downloaded by 1.8 million Android and iOS users. SBI’s Interim results announcement reveals that in the six months that ended Sept. 30, 2018, SBI Holdings registered over 176 million yen in revenue (about $1.6 million). BRD has not responded to Cointelegraph’s request for comment by press time. SBI Group as a whole has also invested in the crypto space previously. The company announced in August that it had invested in cryptocurrency exchange LastRoots for the second time. As Cointelegraph reported in December of last year, SBI Holdings’ own crypto exchange Vctrade has implemented Bitcoin ( BTC ), Ethereum ( ETH ) and Ripple ( XRP ) deposits. In September news broke that another subsidiary of SBI Holdings, Korea’s SBI Savings bank, had signed a memorandum of understanding with Dayli Intelligence, a company specializing in artificial intelligence and blockchain technologies. Related Articles: Google Reportedly Blacklists ‘Ethereum’ as a Google Ad Keyword, Startup Claims Japanese Banks Launching Digital Currencies Could Inspire the Traditional Cash Society Bitcoin, Ripple, Ethereum, Bitcoin Cash, EOS, Stellar, Litecoin, Tron, Bitcoin SV, Cardano: Price Analysis, Jan. 16 Security Report Gives A or A- Rating to 16% of Major Crypto Exchanges, None Get A+ || Crypto value unproven, blockchain years away from mainstream: JP Morgan: By Tom Wilson
LONDON (Reuters) - The value of cryptocurrencies is unproven and the widely-hyped blockchain technology that grew out of them will not make any real difference to banks for at least three to five years, JP Morgan analysts said on Thursday.
The comments underscored widespread scepticism about the assets by established finance firms, while offering some succor for advocates of blockchain who are still waiting to see it take root.
Last year bitcoin, the original and biggest digital coin, lost nearly three quarters in value, putting the brakes on cautious curiosity from mainstream finance and investors that emerged during its vertiginous ascent in 2017.
JP Morgan said it was skeptical of the value of cryptocurrencies - suggesting the assets would only make sense in a dystopian scenario where investors have lost all faith in gold, the dollar, other major reserve assets and the global payments system.
"Even in extreme scenarios such as a recession or financial crises, there are more liquid and less-complicated instruments for transacting, investing and hedging," it said in a report on on crypto and blockchain.
Using bitcoin futures trading volumes as a proxy, JP Morgan said participation by financial institutions in crypto markets had slipped over the last six months, with individuals taking up an increasing share of the market.
Pension funds and asset managers have largely stayed clear, despite some advances in market infrastructure that have seen safer methods to store digital money emerge, with most worried about volatility, security flaws and propensity for illicit usage.
The usage of cryptocurrencies for payments - the intended purpose of bitcoin - will remain "challenged," JP Morgan said, adding that it was unable to pinpoint any major retailers that accepted digital coins in 2018.
Marketplaces where small businesses and individuals have control over payment methods would prove most fertile ground for the spread of cryptocurrencies, it said, citing a Reuters analysis of the usage of bitcoin in commerce.
Bitcoin, which stood at around $3,565 in afternoon trade, is likely to have cost support at around $2,400, and could fall below $1,260 if a bear market persists, JPMorgan said.
The New York-based bank struck a more optimistic tone on blockchain.
The shared ledger technology, which can process and settle transactions in minutes without third-parties for checks, has the potential to cut costs for global banks and digitalize complex process, it said.
Trade finance would likely benefit from blockchain, the bank said, cautioning that the lack of integration between private platforms could present a stumbling block for wider use.
(Reporting by Tom Wilson; Editing by Andrew Heavens) || NASA Publishes Proposal for Air Traffic Management Blockchain Based on HyperLedger: The United States National Aeronautics and Space Administration ( NASA ) has proposed an air traffic management blockchain , according to a paper published on the agency’s official website on Jan. 10. The proposed system would employ an open-source permissioned blockchain to enable secure, private and anonymous communication with air traffic services. The document notes: “This framework features certificate authority, smart contract support, and higher-bandwidth communication channels for private information that may be used for secure communication between any specific aircraft and any particular authorized member.” The engineering prototype of the system reportedly employed the Hyperledger Fabric and demonstrated that such infrastructure could be rapidly deployed and economically maintained. In December of last year, Hyperledger — an open source project created by the Linux Foundation and created to support the development of blockchain -based distributed ledgers — onboarded 12 new members, including such major firms as Alibaba Cloud, Citi and Deutsche Telekom. According to the document, the Automatic Dependent Surveillance System (ADS-B) — which will be mandatory by 2020 — is subject to third-party spoofing as it publicly broadcasts aircraft positions. Spoofing, the researchers explain, is when false aircraft position are reported. The researchers note that implementing cryptography has been proposed in order to address both the privacy issues and spoofing. Furthermore, the proposal explains the difficulties of such solutions: “An outstanding issue in most of these PKI [Public Key Infrastructure] schemes is the difficulty of implementing the public key framework in a manner that can be utilized by aircraft in flight.” According to the proposal, enterprise blockchain solutions could be a practical PKI for aircraft applications. The document states: “A virtue of theses blockchain schemas is that they enable implementation of a PKI infrastructure in which end users are not required to belong to any single organization, or adhere 6 to any single client/server protocol.” Story continues In the prototype, the Fabric Certificate Authority is employed for the registration of entities, issuance, renewal and revocation of Enrollment Certificates. Such a system, according to the paper, would “enable ADS-B systems to meet or exceed the same level of privacy and security currently provided by radar-based systems in the NAS.“ As Cointelegraph reported in August 2018 in an analysis dedicated to blockchain in space NASA had awarded a $330,000 grant in 2017 that supported the development of an autonomous, blockchain-based spacecraft system, making its first move toward blockchain adoption. Also, in December of last year, news broke that blockchain development firm Blockstream has expanded its satellite service with the fifth satellite and is now broadcasting the Bitcoin ( BTC ) blockchain to all of Earth’s major land masses. Related Articles: Nevada Issues Almost 1,000 Marriage Certificates on Ethereum, But Gov’t Acceptance Varies University of Bahrain Will Issue Diplomas on the Blockchain Employing Blockcerts Cornered by Bear Market, Bitmain Is Facing an Unclear Future Blockchain Research Now Granted Tax Credit in South Korea || This Is What You Need To Know About Digital-Only Banking: Digital-Only Banking Is A Growing Industry Digital-only banking is a growing wave of consumer-oriented banking institutions focused on serving their clientele exclusively through online means. Imagine, a bank you never have to visit, lines you never have to wait in, and no hassles with onerous paperwork and cumbersome cash. In many cases, all it takes to open an account with a digital-only bank is an application and few verification documents. Documents include simple items like scans of ID cards and copies of bills whose account holder and address match the one on the account. A few of the benefits include, but are not limited to; Easy sign-up Quick balance check features through mobile platforms Photo-bill payments, snap a pic and the app pays your bill from your account. Access accounts exclusively through app, reset pins, order cards, etc. Easy expense management, through different hashtags like #expenses, #utilities and other spendings. Real-time data analytics One of the aspects digital-only banks are focusing on is real-time data analytics. This will allow banking apps to warn users when purchases or spending habits are outside their budget or notify them when geo-targeted deals are available. In fact, it is the convenience and customer experience that are driving so many Millennials to the digital-only banking sector. When they get there the speed of transactions and cost-effective fee structures make them want to stay. On the business end, the new-age of digital-only banks are more agile than their brick-and-mortar counterparts. They are virtually 100% cloud-based business leveraging the expertise of cutting edge digital networks rather than relying on stand-alone and often obsolete on-premise technology. Along with this, many of the leading digital-only banks are partnering with block-chain technology like Ripple, Ethereum, and Bitcoin payment services. Cloud-based infrastructure and lower operating costs (no physical presence means less cost) lead to a combined benefit for the bankers and the clientele. Banks can charge lower fees, one of their attractions, and make more money per client. The downside, for clients and banks, is that services are limited to simple banking like checking/debit and savings accounts. Story continues There Is Cause For Concern While digital-only banking offers many benefits to consumers and bankers there are still some risks and causes for concern. The leading risks are threefold; security, customer satisfaction, and scalability. Security at digital-only banks is the primary concern and there are risks for both bankers and clients. The bankers have to be wary of hacking, fraud, malpractice, and regulatory concerns. Clients need to be wary of all the same concerns, and the bankers too. Financial fraud is the #1 Internet crime worldwide and one very easy to perpetrate. Prospective users of digital-only banks are urged to use extreme caution when choosing an institution. Don’t take the word of a website that it is regulated or trustworthy, always check with local banking authorities to be sure your digital bank is legit. Customer satisfaction is also a concern and doubly so because it is tied to one of digital-banking’s biggest attraction’s; no physical locations. Without a physical location, there is nowhere for the customer to turn for help other than the apps, maybe a phone call, and that is a turn-off for many people. In addition, digital-only banks have a harder time making connections with clients so that is a top priority. The problem is that there is little a digital bank can do other than what’s already been done. The final hurdle and the one that may keep digital banking at a small scale is scalability. The digital-only banking sector is hampered by its limited product offering and this, in turn, is hurting customer growth and retention. How Many Digital-Only Banks Are There There are more than enough digital banks on the market to serve the needs of consumers. A quick search of the Internet will turn up at least two dozen top-rated financial institutions with no link to the traditional brick-and-mortar banking system. Digital-Only Banking, On The Rise But Still Just A Niche Market Digital-only banking is convenient, it is cheaper, and it is gaining traction among global consumers. Digital-banking is also shackled by a number of factors that will keep it a niche market, at least for now. Over time, the leading digital-banking institutions will overcome the problems of security and customer satisfaction and that will lead to better scalability. Until then, traders, investors, and clients of digital banks need to be prepared for volatility and churn as the market matures. There are several directions the digital banks can take to help expand their numbers of clients. One direction is cryptocurrency. Digital banks are already partnering with prominent block-chain technologies to power their function, it is only natural for these institutions to list the tokens that underlie the block-chains as well. In that light, it is also natural for the digital banks to expand their services in other directions including loans and other financial products. This Is The Future Of Digital-Only Banking Regardless of the path to growth, digital banks are going to have to work hard to cement their place in the financial landscape. They need to find a way to secure their place in the financial landscape or else run the risk of obsolescence, ironic as that is. The outcome, for the consumer, is likely to a blend of digital and traditional banking. The two will work hand in hand to provide financial products, access to markets, and account services across the spectrum of fiat and cryptocurrency. Imagine, shifting some money from a traditional bank to a digital bank for use on a trip. The digital bank can exchange your money into any currency you need, for access on your ATM card. The ATM card is accepted everywhere in the world because it is backed by block-chain and local currency. How easy is that? This article was originally posted on FX Empire More From FXEMPIRE: Bitcoin Cash – ABC, Litecoin and Ripple Daily Analysis – 10/02/19 Price of Gold Fundamental Weekly Forecast – With Dollar Relationship Skewed, Investors Will Turn to Stock Market Volatility for Direction Demand Worries Pressure Crude Oil, Natural Gas while Strong Dollar Caps Gold Oil Price Fundamental Weekly Forecast – Sideways to Lower Trade with Stock Market Adding to Volatility Dovish Central Bank Outlooks Make U.S. Dollar More Desirable Asset Total Makes Big Offshore Oil Discovery in South Africa || AUD/USD Forex Technical Analysis January 11, 2019 Forecast: The Australian Dollar is inching higher on Friday, putting it in a position to challenge a main top from December 13. The Forex pair has been grinding higher for several days, producing numerous higher-lows in the process which indicates buyers are presence. Todays rally is being helped along by better-than-expected Australian retail sales. The report showed that retail sales rose 0.4% in December, slightly higher than the 0.3% estimate. Throughout the week, the currency has been underpinned by the news that the Peoples Bank of China had reduced reserve requirements for banks in an effort to stimulate the economy. At 0753 GMT, the AUD/USD is trading .7212, up 0.0026 or +0.37%. Daily AUD/USD Daily Technical Analysis The main trend is down according to the daily swing chart. However, momentum is trending higher. The main trend will change to up on a trade through .7247. The minor trend is up. This move triggered the shift in momentum to up. The main range is .7394 to .6764. Its retracement zone at .7153 to .7079 is new support. Trading on the strong side of this zone is helping to generate the upside bias. Daily Technical Forecast Based on the early price action and the upside momentum, the first target is an uptrending Gann angle at .7244. Overtaking this angle will indicate the buying is getting stronger. This should lead to a test of the main top at .7247. Overtaking .7247 will change the main trend to up with the next upside target the downtrending Gann angle at .7259. Look for sellers on the first test of this angle. It is also the trigger point for an acceleration to the upside with the next target angle coming in at .7327. After inching higher for most of the session, turning lower today would signal the return of sellers. The nearest downside target is the major Fibonacci level at .7153. This article was originally posted on FX Empire More From FXEMPIRE: EUR/USD Mid-Session Technical Analysis for January 11, 2019 Bitcoin Cash ABC, Litecoin and Ripple Daily Analysis 11/01/19 GBP/USD Price Forecast British Pound To Trade Range Bound on Lack of Brexit Headlines Bullish setups on the EUR! Brexit, U.S Inflation Figures and the Oval Office to Influence the GBP and USD Gold Gains On Weak USD Post Fed Chair Powells Speech View comments || 10 Reasons Bitcoin Won’t Ever ‘Go to Zero’ as Davos Bears Claim: ByCCN.com: “I do believe it will go to zero. I think it’s a great technology but I don’t believe it’s a currency. It’s not based on anything,” said Jeff Schumacher, founder of BCG Digital Ventures, of the Bitcoin priceduring a CNBC-hosted panelin Davos, Switzerland.
To name just some–– it’s based on the largest deployment of public key cryptography in history, by civilians, to secure the network of a deadly clever system architecture for creating the world’s first open source, decentralized, peer-to-peer bank with no need to trust a banking institution.
Read the full story onCCN.com
. || PayPal Originally Aimed to Create Global Currency Similar to Crypto, Co-Founder Admits: PayPal’s co-founder Luke Nosek has said that his firm initially wanted to create a digital currency that would be independent from banks and governments , similar to crypto . The video of his comments was uploaded to crypto streaming service Bloxlive.Tv on Thursday, Jan. 31. At a panel at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland last week, Nosek was asked whether PayPal or WeChat Pay, an in-app payment system used by the major Chinese messenger, have already solved various problems related to online transactions, or whether cryptocurrencies can also solve those problems. Responding to that question, PayPal’s co-founder said: “Many people don’t know this, but the initial mission of PayPal was to create a global currency that was independent of interference by these, you know, corrupt cartels of banks and governments that were debasing their currencies.” The company succeeded building something economically very powerful, he continued. However, PayPal never achieved its initial goal and became too centralized, too attached to the biggest financial institutions, such as Visa , Mastercard and SWIFT , Nosek underlined. PayPal is obliged to do whatever it needs to do to keep those institutions happy, Nosek said. “We’ve learnt to play,” he added. Nosek, who is also a board member at SpaceX and a friend of another PayPal co-founder, Elon Musk, regrets that he and Musk did not have enough time to develop something that would be closer to the concept of a decentralized cryptocurrency. Their failure to do so was because they were pressured by investors to roll out the product as soon as possible, Nosek said. Finally, Nosek noted that he is grateful to Bitcoin and Ethereum developers for creating their own ecosystems and not pushing their adoption prematurely, adding that he hopes they will never have the same pressure from investors as PayPal did. PayPal, a payment system whose active number of users has surpassed 254 million in Q3 2018, has recently launched a blockchain-based reward system for its employees. PayPal employees are granted tokens for participating in innovation-related programs and contributing ideas, and can exchange them for over 100 “experiences” within the company. Related Articles: Crypto Payment Processor CoinGate Adds Support for Ripple’s XRP Germany's 2nd Largest Stock Exchange Boerse Stuttgart Launches Crypto Trading App Pantera Capital, Coinbase Back Crypto Startup Staked in $4.5 Million Round Coincheck Q3 Finance Report Shows Twofold Improvement Since Trading Resumed || Japan: E-Commerce Giant Rakuten to Move Crypto Exchange to New Payments Subsidiary: Japanesee-commerce firmRakutenhas announced a revision to its corporate restructure, setting up a new payments subsidiary that includes itscryptocurrencybusiness,Cointelegraph Japanreported Jan. 21.
Rakuten, known informally as ‘Japan’sAmazon,’ originally revealed in August last year it would seek to reorganize its various offshoots in order to improve accountability and decision-making processes.
Now, the company says it will rebrand its loyalty subsidiary, Spotlight Inc., to a new entity, Rakuten Payment, which will also run itscryptocurrency exchange.
Rakuten Payment, along with other details of the restructure, should go live by April 1, the company stated in an accompanyingpress releaseJan. 18.
Once launched, it will form an umbrella for two operations: cryptocurrency exchange Everybody’s Bitcoin, which Rakuten alsoacquiredlast August, and prepaid card service Rakuten Edy.
Officials explained in the press release:
“[W]e have been preparing the Group Reorganization through a company split, to clarify accountability, improve management efficiencies and optimize allocation of resources, and thereby further grow and expand the Rakuten Ecosystem and maximize corporate value.”
Rakuten has been interested in the cryptosphere for several years, firstoptingto accept Bitcoin (BTC) on its platform in 2015.
The hands-on approach to the industry mirrors that of other major Japanese internet entities such asSBI Group, which in addition to its own exchange alsoinvests heavilyin related startups.
• Report: Reverse Merger Could Take Bithumb Crypto Exchange Public in the U.S.
• New Analysis Suggests $16 Million in Crypto Stolen in Cryptopia Hack
• Swiss ‘Smart Card’ Crypto Wallet Tangem Gets $15 Million From Japan’s SBI Group
• Huobi Secures Its FSA License in Japan, Other Large Players Are Pending || Bitmex CEO: 24/7 Trading Of All Types of Assets Is The Future: Arthur Hayes, the CEO and co-founder ofBitMEX, an exchange which has done almost $1 trillion in volume over the past year, spoke on themost recent episodeof Laura Shin’sUnchainedpodcast from theCME Global Leadership Conferencein Naples, Florida. Shin asked her guests what they thought the future of blockchain technology would look like.
Hayes went first, telling the story of how he had gotten involved in crypto trading. Hayes worked at Citi Bank until May, 2013. He said that when he lost that job, he got into trading Bitcoin for a living. During that time, he got into derivatives trading. About 8 months after losing his job is when he co-founded BitMEX, in January of 2014.
Then he said that he believes in the future, 24/7 trading, as we have in crypto markets but not in most stock markets, will become the norm.
What really struck me about Bitcoin and the world of crypto assets was that for the first time, you basically have access for people who otherwise wouldn’t interact with financial markets. […] I think 24/7 trading of all different types of assets is something that’s going to be the future, and that will bleed into other markets we’re all familiar with, you know, FX, fixed income, and equities.
Later in the podcast, Shin asked her guests whether crypto assets are a new asset class. Hayes said that he think it’s a “blend.” He pointed out that Apple’s cash reserves outsize the whole market capitalization of cryptocurrency. He said that currently cryptocurrency is too small to be considered a “bonafied asset class” but that in the next ten years, it “maybe” could become one.
The jury is out on whether Bitcoin is actually secure over the long run. It’s had a decade, which is pretty good, but it’s still an experiment. So I say the jury is out, but it could be a new way of raising capital and sending value around the world.
This is an interesting perspective for the CEO of a relevantly sized Bitcoin exchange to have and demonstrates what can only be termed as intellectual honesty. The hype parader or the exuberant bull in any crowd would unequivocally answer “yes” when asked if Bitcoin were a new anything. Part of thecriticismof the blockchain world has been in relation to how many people seem to think it can solve virtually any problem.
Bitcoin saw a slight uptick on Monday, rising well above the $3,600 mark, potentially indicating an end to the bear run that has plagued it for weeks.
Featured image from Shutterstock. Arthur Hayes portrait fromLinkedIn.
The postBitmex CEO: 24/7 Trading Of All Types of Assets Is The Futureappeared first onCCN. || The Week Ahead – Trump, the FED Chair and the Shutdown in Focus: For the Dollar, it’s a quiet week ahead, with key stats limited to house price figures on Wednesday, December consumer confidence and new home sales numbers on Thursday and pending home sales figures, trade data and PMI numbers out of Chicago on Friday. Focus will be on the housing sector and consumer confidence numbers, though expect some market response to Friday’s trade data, another widening in the trade deficit likely to rile U.S President Trump and the markets. Outside the numbers, talk of Trump looking to fire FED Chair Powell could give the market some swings in the shortened week. The Dollar Spot Index ended the week down 0.50% to $96.956.
For the EUR, it’s a particularly quiet week with the European markets in a shortened week, the ECB economic bulletin and job seekers numbers out of France the first numbers to consider on Thursday. While we would expect some market response to the ECB’s economic bulletin, which is unlikely to be EUR positive, prelim inflation numbers out of Spain and Germany will also provide direction for the EUR on Friday, Spain’s finalized GDP number unlikely to have an impact on the day. The EUR/USD ended the week up 0.58% to $1.1372.
For the Pound, there are no material stats scheduled for release through the week, leaving market sentiment towards Brexit and the state of UK politics to provide direction through the week, neither a positive. The GBP/USD ended the week up 0.48% to $1.2645.
For the Loonie, there are no material stats scheduled for release through the week, leaving the Loonie in the hands of crude oil prices, the combined effect of a dovish BoC and sliding crude oil prices doing the Loonie bulls few favours. The Loonie ended the week down 1.63% to C$1.3602 against the U.S Dollar.
Out of Asia, it’s a quiet week ahead.
For the Aussie Dollar, economic data is limited to November private sector credit figures due out on Friday, which will provide some direction, with general sentiment towards the global economy and reaction to China’s decision to ease policy further to support growth drivers through a shortened week. The Aussie Dollar ended the week down 1.84% to $0.7040.
For the Japanese yen, economic data scheduled for release through the week includes November employment figures, prelim industrial production and retail sales figures and December inflation numbers out of Tokyo on Friday. While the numbers will provide further guidance on the state of the Japanese economy through the 4thquarter, impact on the Yen is likely to be minimal at best, with market risk appetite the key driver. Outside of the numbers, November’s BoJ policy meeting minutes and a scheduled BoJ Governor Kuroda speech will be there for consideration, though there’s unlikely to be anything new to hit the Yen. The Japanese Yen ended the week up 1.91% to ¥111.22 against the U.S Dollar.
For the Kiwi Dollar, there are no material stats scheduled for release, leaving risk sentiment to provide direction through the week. The Kiwi Dollar ended the week down 1.02% to $0.6728.
Out of China, with no material stats scheduled for release through the week, it’s all about the ongoing U.S – China trade war and the Chinese government’s attempts to prevent an economic meltdown.
Brexit: Its Christmas week, which means no votes of no confidence and no last minute dashes to Brussels by the British PM. Britain’s departure date from the EU is looming however, with the 14thJanuary parliamentary vote expected to bring an end to 2-years of wrangling, assuming the EU stands firm on its no negotiation position. With the global economy looking ripe for a slowdown, the Establishment may be giving it a long hard think, a no deal Brexit forecasted to have a material impact on the world’s 5thlargest economy, which won’t be ideal for a slowing EU economy.
U.S – China Trade War: There’s no progress, with more news of espionage a negative, a lack of progress on trade talks likely to raise the prospect of fresh tariffs. It’s going to be a quiet week, but there’s plenty to consider ahead of the markets resuming normal trade later in the week.
On the monetary policy front,
For the JPY, the BoJ’s November monetary policy meeting minutes are due out on Wednesday, which will provide little to no direction for the Yen, the BoJ now in a spot of bother, with economic indicators suggesting a possible economic slowdown and a lack of monetary policy tools an alarming situation for the Japanese economy.
Thisarticlewas originally posted on FX Empire
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[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
0.05BTC --> 20BTC We need Just a Week
Join : http://t.me/Monsterpumper
$BTC $ETH $BNB $EOS $ONT $SNRG $BLITZ $SLS $BYC $SPHR $QTUM $UNO $EMC $CURE $CPC $TX $BRX $BTCD $GOLOS $DTB $DYN $SWIFT $AGRS $ICX $BLZ $TRX $VEN $BNB $NANO $HSR $DGD $CTR $AE $MTL $YOYO $PPT $LEND $VIBE || bien dit, mec, je recommande aussi, c’est une si bonne pièce dans des moments comme ceux-ci où le bitcoin est aussi bas. bien dicho hombre, también lo recomiendo, es una gran moneda en tiempos como estos cuando Bitcoin es tan bajo. || #WINGS - Rapid Long Period increase 1h: 55.6% V: 3.2M$ on http://binance.com
Users are notified 1H ago via http://Coinalert.Live & App.
#blockchain #cryptocurrency #altcoins #coinalert #crypto $WINGS $BTC $ETH $XRP $BCH $LTC $EOS $NEO $TRX $XVG #binance #okexpic.twitter.com/qm59kgMTqI || It is sad that most people still don't understand how much Bitcoin could set them free. The time for understanding will come and I hope as many small investors as possible at least have a few % of their wealth in Bitcoin. || Total Market Cap: $121,776,010,350
1 BTC: $3,647.15
BTC Dominance: 52.37%
Update Time: 17-01-2019 - 20:00:06 (GMT+3) || APOLLOCURRENCY
The coin of 2019
Big things coming
Welcome to MASS ADOPTION
#crypto
#CryptoCurrency
#apollocurrency
#bitcoin
#trx #tron $trx
#ETH
#XVG
#etn
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#Moneropic.twitter.com/CsdQzNJwRD || One Bitcoin now worth $3614.53@bitstamp. High $3669.860. Low $3534.680. Market Cap $63.196 Billion #bitcoin pic.twitter.com/VeDlF8cRdV || CRYPTOTAB BROWSER : Update your browser for FREE and Start Earning Free Bitcoins: https://lnkd.in/eVGnWG3 #bitcoin #free #cryptocurrency #google #android #online #crypto #network #infohttps://lnkd.in/eqGjs4M || Do you know about how the Mormons are working with the Chinese? || Watch as #TNABC speaker @CharlieShrem shares about @Intellisys_LLC https://buff.ly/2VYpyj5 #Fintech #WBF #BTCMiami #Bitcoin #Cryptocurrency #Cryptopic.twitter.com/JCuAu79ZJT
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Trend: up || Prices: 3653.53, 3632.07, 3616.88, 3620.81, 3629.79, 3673.84, 3915.71, 3947.09, 3999.82, 3954.12
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Analyze the provided historical prices, technical indicators, news, and social media sentiment from the last 60 days. Based on this context, predict the overall trend (up, down, or no change) and the specific daily closing prices for Bitcoin for the next 10 days.
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[Technical Analysis for 2019-09-04]
BTC Price: 10594.49, BTC RSI: 54.34
Gold Price: 1550.30, Gold RSI: 70.38
Oil Price: 56.26, Oil RSI: 52.71
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
Overstock Rallies After CEO Byrne's Resignation: Shares of Overstock (OSTK) rallied on Thursday after the news that founder Patrick Byrne would resign his role as CEO and his seat on the board after his comments last week about his involvement in an FBI investigation and a romantic relationship with a convicted Russian operative as well as alleging involvement of the “deep state” and referring to federal investigators as the “men in black.” Overstock shares had declined 36% after Byrne’s cryptic comments but gained back some of that ground amid rumors of a shakeup and were up as much as 16% in intraday trading on the heels of Byrne’s resignation. Overstock was founded by Byrne in 1999 as a liquidator of excess inventory from the then-new e-commerce industry and went public in 2002. Byrne became embroiled in controversy from the start, alleging that big Wall Street firms conspired to hold down the value of Overstock shares because they were cut out of the IPO when Byrne chose to sell them to the public via a Dutch auction rather than engage the services of traditional underwriters. Byrne later became engaged in a protracted battle with several large money managers over the practice of naked short selling, during which he again alleged a conspiracy that involved journalists, lawyers, Pakistani jihadists, the SEC and then-New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer. Overstock shares mostly languished in the $12-20/share range for almost a decade until the company became one of the first large retailers to accept Bitcoin as a payment method. Overstock invested heavily in blockchain technology and was briefly known more as a “crypto” business than as a retailer of goods. In early 2018, Overstock shares his a closing high of $84.35/share before falling back to Earth with the crypto crash, trading mostly back near $20/share for the past year. Like many other enigmatic and eccentric company founders, Byrne has been viewed as a genius in the best times and a distraction in the worst. His entrepreneurial drive and creative marketing ideas made Overstock a household name and allowed the company to thrive even as competitors failed, but his willingness to engage in complicated conspiracy theories often made him the butt of jokes in the financial world and ultimately led to Thursday’s resignation. Story continues Overstock is currently a Zacks Rank #3 (HOLD) with stable revenues of roughly $1.65B a year while reporting net losses each quarter since Q1 2017. Generally, the resignation of a long-time CEO suffering public embarrassment would be viewed as a negative development, but Thursday’s rally would seem to indicate that investors believe that there remains a path forward for Overstock under new leadership. Byrne’s public statement announcing his departure expressed sadness to have to cut ties with the company he founded but said it was “for the good of the firm.” Overstock board member Jonathon Johnson will act as interim CEO during a search for a permanent replacement. It’s Illegal in 42 States, But Investors Will Make Billions Legally In addition to the companies you read about above, today you get details on the newly-legalized industry that’s tapping into a “habit” that Americans spend an estimated $150 billion on every year. That’s twice as much as they spend on marijuana, legally or otherwise. Zacks special report revealing how investors can profit from this new opportunity. As more states legalize this activity, the industry could expand by as much as 15X. Zacks’ has just released a Special Report revealing 5 top stocks to watch in this space. See these 5 “sin stocks” now>> Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report Overstock.com, Inc. (OSTK) : Free Stock Analysis Report To read this article on Zacks.com click here. Zacks Investment Research || Bitcoin Falls; Mnuchin Says U.S. Likely to Issue New Rules on Crypto: Investing.com – Prices of Bitcoin fell again on Friday after U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said U.S. regulators are likely to issue new rules on cryptocurrencies to ensure that they do not negatively impact the financial system.
Bitcoin fell 3.2% to $9,785.6 by 12:52 AM EY (04:52 GMT). Ethereu fell 2.8% to $213.70, while XRP and Litecoin dropped 2.2% and 1.9% respectively.
Mnuchin on Wednesday repeated concerns that Bitcoin is being used for criminal activity and urged regulators around the world to work together on the issue.
“We’re looking at all of the crypto assets," Mnuchin said in a CNBC television interview. "We’re going to make sure we have a unified approach and my guess is that there are going to be more regulations that come out from all these agencies.”
Questions over Facebook’s proposed plan to launch its own cryptocurrency have pushed Bitcoin down about 17% so far this month.
In other news, Australia said it is setting up the world’s first dedicated office to police Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) and Google (NASDAQ:GOOGL) to address concerns on anti-trust issues.
"These companies are among the most powerful and valuable in the world," Australian Treasurer Josh Frydenberg told reporters in Sydney after the release of a much-anticipated report on future regulation of the dominant digital platforms.
"They need to be held to account and their activities need to be more transparent."
Meanwhile, Bloomberg said the world’s largest cryptocurrency by market value appears to have solid support around $9,500, its 50-day moving average -- it bounced off that level twice last week, during which the coin lost close to 12%.
s
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Croatian Post Launches Pilot Program for Crypto-to-Fiat Exchange || Is Ethereums tokenization throne at risk? Binance thinks so: Ethereum has long been the network that businesses flock to in times of blockchain need. But the networks appeal could soon fade, according to a new report from Binance Research. Binance, the worlds largest cryptocurrency exchange by volume, suggests that Ethereums scalability issues are giving several other programmable blockchains a chance to catch up and support their own token standards. While still the go-to blockchain for creating new tokens, those scalability issues have led to other problems, such as slow transaction times and high gas fees, according to the report. So while Ethereum is still at the top of tokenization heap, Binance claims that the blockchain network is also overstuffed, and several competing blockchain systemsincluding its own Binance Chain, of courseare finding new ways to make their mark when it comes to gaming, compatibility, storage and ease of fee payments. One such example is Tron, according to Binance, which famously helped launch two Tron-backed IEOs on its Launchpad platform. The Tron network aims to provide its users with more efficient distributed storage solutions, along with faster transactions so users can receive their funds within minutes rather than hours. Tron has also placed a big emphasis on blockchain gaming to drive user adoption. Vitalik Buterin absent from Ethereums next upgrade In fact, Binance suggests that gaming could be a way for competing chains to distinguish themselves. Both EOS and Tron, the report claims, are stronger platforms for blockchain gaming at the moment, since more than 80 percent of the dapps on these networks are devoted to gambling and online casinos. On the Ethereum network, by comparison, only about 33 percent of the dapps are gaming related. And while Ethereum currently boasts the highest number of tokens running on its own blockchain, Binances report classifies many of these tokens as worthless, given the issuance costs associated with deployment of their smart contracts incurred in gas fees. Consequently, the many useless tokens on the Ethereum blockchain result in spam that clouds up the network, the report claims. Story continues Binance identifies several competing blockchainssuch as EOS, Tron, NEO and Steemitthat also bear worthless tokens, though in smaller numbers compared to Ethereum. According to Binances research, it is, in fact, its own network Binance Chainthat holds the highest number of positively-valued tokens after Ethereum. Shocker. But the biggest problem with Ethereum, according to Binances report, is that its fees are too highsome transactions requiring gas fees exceeding 30 cents eachwhich can hinder greater network participation. In addition, users cant conduct transactions unless they own ether. Sending funds in BTC, EOS or any other cryptocurrency can be done granted the sender can pay associated fees in ether. This leads to issues if the person is not an active Ethereum trader. Some chains, such as TomoChain and (cough, cough) Binance Chain, are supposedly better options in this category, since they allow fees to be paid in any tradeable cryptocurrency. What it all means is that the many blockchains contenderspresent and futureare learning what to do and what not to do from Ethereum. Ethereum remains the primary platform to build new tokens, and its still the second-largest cryptocurrency network by market cap. But the contenders are coming. And some might bring advantages that ultimately give them the edge. || Turkey ETF Retreats After Erdogan Fires Central Bank Governor: This article was originally published onETFTrends.com.
A Turkey country-specific exchange traded fund was among the worst hit on Monday as investors dumped Turkish assets after President Recep Tayyip Erdogan sacked the country's central bank governor.
TheiShares MSCI Turkey ETF (TUR) was among the worst performing non-leveraged ETFs of Monday, retreating 2.6%.
Erdogan released a presidential decree Saturday, dismissing central-bank chief Murat Cetinkaya without much of an explanation,The Wall Street Journalreports.
Traders acted negatively to the news, sending the Turkish lira down as much as 3% against the U.S. dollar.
Investors have long been worried about Erdogan's hand in the central bank as many saw the president overreaching into what should be an independent institution. Erdogan told lawmakers from his party that he removed Cetinkaya because the governor had failed to implement instructions to cut rates.
“We told him repeatedly in economy meetings that he should cut rates,” Erdogan was quoted as saying by Hurriyet. “He didn’t do what was necessary.”
Investors are now worried the newly appointed central bank chief, Murat Uysal, who had previously served as deputy governor of the bank, will fall under pressure to cut rates despite the high inflation.
Piotr Matys, emerging-markets strategist at Rabobank, argued it would be “a major mistake” if the central bank decides on a large rate cut later this month, following the central bank's shuffle.
“The decision is set to undermine the credibility of the central bank,” Matys said.
The central bank previously raised its main policy rate to 24%, which has helped push down annual inflation to 15.7% from a peak of 25% last summer.
“Erdogan has no intention whatsoever to improve the quality of macroeconomic policies in Turkey despite his recent disastrous defeat in the Istanbul mayoral election,” Jan Dehn, head of research at emerging-markets investment manager Ashmore Group, told the WSJ. “In fact, he is doubling down on his own misguided economic policies.”
For more information on the Turkish markets, visit ourTurkey category.
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READ MORE AT ETFTRENDS.COM > || Intercontinental Exchange Inc (ICE) Q2 2019 Earnings Call Transcript: Image source: The Motley Fool.
Intercontinental Exchange Inc(NYSE: ICE)Q2 2019 Earnings CallAug 1, 2019,8:30 a.m. ET
• Prepared Remarks
• Questions and Answers
• Call Participants
Operator
Good morning, and welcome to the Intercontinental Exchange Second Quarter 2019 Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions]
I would now like to turn the conference over to Warren Gardiner, Vice President of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.
Warren Gardiner--Vice President, Investor Relations
Good morning. ICE's second quarter 2019 earnings release and presentation can be found in the Investor section of theice.com. These items will be archived, and our call will be available for replay.
Today's call may contain forward-looking statements. These statements, which we undertake no obligation to update, represent our current judgment and are subject to risks, assumptions and uncertainties. For a description of the risks that could cause our results to differ materially from those described in the forward-looking statements, please refer to our 2018 Form 10-K.
In our earnings supplement, we refer to certain non-GAAP measures, including adjusted income, EPS, operating income, operating margin, expenses, effective tax rate, free cash flow and EBITDA. We believe our non-GAAP measures are more reflective of our cash operations and core business performance. You'll find a reconciliation to the equivalent GAAP term in the earnings materials, and an explanation of why we deem this information to be meaningful, as well as how management uses these measures in our 10-Q.
When used on this call, net revenue refers to revenue net of transaction-based expenses, and adjusted earnings refers to adjusted diluted earnings per share. Please see the explanatory notes on the second page of the earnings supplement for additional details regarding the definition of certain terms.
With us on the call are Jeff Sprecher, Chairman and CEO; Scott Hill, Chief Financial Officer; and Ben Jackson, our President.
I'll now turn the call over to Scott.
Scott Hill--Chief Financial Officer
Thanks, Warren. Good morning, everyone and thank you for joining us today. I'll begin on Slide 4, with some of the key highlights from our second quarter performance. Earnings per share totaled $0.94, up 4% versus the prior year and equal to our record fourth quarter performance.
During the second quarter, we generated the second highest quarterly revenues in our Company's history, which yielded record adjusted operating income and record adjusted EBITDA. And importantly, first half free cash flow increased 13% year-over-year, enabling us to return over $1 billion to shareholders through dividends and share repurchases.
Consolidated net revenues in the quarter were $1.3 billion, with trading and clearing, and data and listings both increasing 5% year-over-year on a constant currency basis. Adjusted operating expenses totaled $540 million in the quarter, including roughly $5 million non-recurring benefit primarily in tech expense. Additionally, second quarter expenses reflect both the reclassification of certain licensing agreements from net revenues to expenses, as well as a small amount related to our acquisition of Simplifile in late June.
Looking forward to the third quarter, we expect adjusted operating expenses to be in the range of $552 million to $562 million. This includes $9 million to $10 million related to Simplifile, and roughly $10 million related to the aforementioned revenue reclassification. These expenses will be more than offset by around $25 million of revenue and thus accretive to the bottom line.
On a basis comparable to our original expense guidance, we now expect full year adjusted operating expenses to be around the low-end of that range and between $2.14 billion and $2.16 billion, adding in roughly $50 million for the full year amounts related to Simplifile and the revenue reclass, and noting again that, those expenses will be more than offset by additional revenue. Adjusted operating expenses are expected to be in the range of $2.19 billion to $2.21 billion. We've included Slide 11 in the appendix to provide additional clarity on this update.
Now, let's move to Slide 5, where I'll provide additional color on the performance of our trading and clearing segment. In the second quarter, net revenues were up 4% year-over-year or 5% on a constant currency basis. In our energy markets, average daily volumes or ADV were down 2% year-over-year. However, total energy revenues increased 2% versus the prior year on a constant currency basis, resulting in the second best quarter in our history. This strong performance was driven primarily by continued growth in our European natural gas and global oil products. Average daily volume in our European natural gas business established a new record during the second quarter, and open interest is up 29% over the prior year through July.
In addition, ADV and a broad suite of crude and refined oil related contracts that make up our global oil business increased 14% year-over-year in the second quarter with open interest up 25% at the end of July. Overall, July energy trends remain positive with ADV up 9% and open interest up 4% on a year-over-year basis. ADV in our agriculture and metals markets also set a record in the second quarter, driven by strong performance in both our sugar and coffee products. This was mitigated somewhat by a weaker rate per contract driven by customer and product mix. ADV remains strong in July, up 7% year-over-year.
Revenue in our financial futures business, which includes both our interest rate and equity index products declined year-over-year. A difficult political and economic environment, as well as the tough compare versus the prior year impacted interest rate volumes. However, we're off to a really good start in July with interest rate ADV increasing 29% year-over-year , led by a 60% increase in Euribor volumes. Importantly, open interest across our rates business is up 10% year-over-year, including Sterling open interest, which is up 40%. In our equity index business, MSCI ADV was up 16% in the second quarter and remain strong in July with ADV up 7%.
Turning next to Slide 6, I'll discuss our data and listings segment. Second quarter listings revenues totaled $111 million. The NYSE raised nearly $20 billion in IPO proceeds during the quarter, ranking first globally. During the first half of 2019, the NYSE helped to raise 55% of total U.S. IPO proceeds, including 75% of U.S. tech proceeds.
Moving to data services, on a constant currency basis, revenues grew 6% year-over-year to a record $553 million. In pricing and analytics, revenues grew 4% on a constant currency basis, held by a strong growth in our index business. Entering the third quarter, pricing and analytics ASP is up 6% year-over-year on a constant currency basis, and we expect revenue growth will reaccelerate in the second half.
Exchange data and feeds grew 9% on a constant currency basis. Strength in our futures business, which grew 7% in the second quarter as well as higher tape revenue related to share increases at the NYSE drove this strong performance. While we expect demand for our futures related exchange data products to continue to grow, lower tape revenues and continued softness in NYSE prop data will likely result in a sequential decline in total exchange data revenues in the third quarter.
And finally in desktops and connectivity, revenue increased 5% year-over-year on a constant currency basis. Growth in the ICE Global Network, as well as our desktop and chat platform was partially offset by weakness in some of our NYSE connectivity services.
Moving forward and despite currency impacts, we remained on track to our original full year data revenue guidance and we expect data revenues to be in the range of $550 million to $555 million during the third quarter.
Our continued focus on serving our customers combined with disciplined investments to support growth and profitability across our diverse business once again delivered solid results in the first half of 2019. We grew revenues, operating income, earnings per share and free cash flow. We returned more capital to shareholders in the first half of 2019 than in any other half year period in our history. And we are laser focused on building on this momentum to deliver a strong second half of the year and to strengthen the foundation for continued success in 2020.
I'll be happy to take your questions during Q&A. But for now, I'll turn it over to Ben.
Benjamin Jackson--President
Thank you, Scott, and good morning to everyone on the call. I'll begin on Slide 7. Over the last 20 years how energy is produced and consumed has rapidly evolved, so to have global trade flows, as well as the technology and data available to market participants. We have continuously invested alongside this evolution, building a global platform that today is one of the most diverse and liquid energy marketplaces in the world.
In our oil business, Brent crude stands as the cornerstone of a franchise spanning key price benchmarks such as Gasoil, WTI and Platts Dubai, which is one of the leading markers for crude traveling through Asia. Together these benchmarks form the foundation for a cohesive web of more than 600 related oil products such as locational spreads, product spreads and refining spreads. These are precise risk management tools that benefit from the deep liquidity in and their relationship to our global oil benchmarks. Driven by the breadth of our commercial customer base, we have become the natural home for liquidity in these products with open interest in our global oil products up 25% year-over-year to over 5.5 million contracts or over 40% of our total oil open interest.
Our global natural gas complex spans trading hubs across North America, Europe and Asia. The globalization of natural gas is a trend we've been investing in for over five years. Beginning with our investment in index. That investment established us as a leader in European gas trading. With Asia as the largest buyer of global LNG, the relationship between our European benchmark and Platts JKM, our Asian benchmark is driving global price formation. These new dynamics demand that commercials, investors and traders have a global view. European customers must be aware of supply and demand factors in Asia. Just as a buyer in Asia must be cognizant of trends facing European markets.
LNG shipments out of the Gulf are increasingly pricing away from Henry Hub. And as our benchmarks become more global, we are seeing participation increase with the number of trading firms in our European TTF market doubling since 2015, while average daily volume has increased a 124% this year alone.
In addition, a few weeks ago, we announced an agreement to extend our partnership with Platts to bring the eWindow platform to the global LNG trading community, replicating our successful strategy in the oil markets. The Platts eWindow will leverage our unique WebICE technology, enabling customers to transparently submit bids and offers, and execute trades, while simultaneously participating in the Platts price assessment process.
The globalization of natural gas alongside a global focus on decarbonization, is also critical to the environmental markets. In Europe and the U.S., regulators are increasing the focus on incentivizing the use of renewables and cleaner fossil fuels such as natural gas over coal. Incentives include introducing cap and trade programs and renewable energy standards. Built off of our acquisition of the Climate Exchange nearly a decade ago, we operate the world's largest emissions markets. And as demand for transparent pricing in carbon grows, our markets are well positioned to capture these trends.
Economies around the globe are demanding and consuming more energy. Sources such as renewables will continue to be introduced into the mix and these energy sources are unpredictable by nature. Their interplay with fossil fuels and energy production has the potential to drive additional volatility in global energy markets, and will require traders to consume more data and integrate more robust analytics into their workflows. This is an evolution that we have long envisioned and have positioned our business to benefit from, and we're excited about the future opportunities that lie ahead.
And with that, I'll turn the call over to Jeff.
Jeffrey Sprecher--Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Thank you, Ben, and good morning to everyone on the call. The evolution of our energy markets is one example of how we're continuously investing and developing customer-driven solutions across asset classes, as well as the creative approach we've taken to leverage our infrastructure, our technology and our expertise to drive value creation. In areas such as data services, we're leveraging our core fixed income pricing and reference data, developing new fixed income benchmarks, such as our suite of uni-industries, [Phonetic] and launching real-time fixed income yield curves and credit risk tools. We're investing in our fixed income analytics, enhancing the functionality and now delivering it through an API to broaden the addressable market.
In the second quarter, we launched the ICE Data Vault, a cloud-based data repository, that leverages our consolidated feed business and delivers historical data from over 600 global sources. And we've invested in our sales footprint, adding coverage across both the EMEA and Asia-Pacific regions. These are just a few examples of the initiatives and the new products that we're bringing to the market. They demonstrate, how we are taking the former IDC foundation, one that traditionally served the back and middle offices. And we are enhancing it to drive transparency and liquidity, while we also expand our addressable market further into the front office.
When we combine the long tail secular trends, such as the electronification of bond markets, workflow automation and the shift from active of the passive fund management, our comprehensive data offering is positioned to continue to deliver compounding growth well into the future.
Towards the end of 2019, we expect to launch our ETF Hub, an innovative solution that will serve the $1 trillion fixed income ETF industry, an industry that some expect will double in size over the next five years. With the ETF Hub, we'll bring to market a single portal, one would -- that will be unique to the market to connect multiple participants and provide a more efficient solution for sponsors and traders to manage and execute their primary market orders.
In addition, the SEC is reviewing regulation around the use of custom baskets for the broader ETF sponsored community, a change that over time could provide additional tailwinds for activity on our ETF Hub platform. Ultimately, we view the ETF Hub is one of the first steps toward building a more automated, efficient and complete ecosystem, serving the fixed income trading and investing community.
We're also investing in our equity derivatives business, launching eight new MSCI contracts in the first half of the year. Led by the flagship emerging market index, open interest in our MSCI complex has more than doubled over the last five years to nearly 2 million contracts at the end of July, while average daily volume is up 12% year-over-year.
At the New York Stock Exchange, we executed our second successful direct listing, as Slack went public through this innovative offering. An offering that's maximized by NYSE's hybrid model, coupled to a dedicated market maker, that is compensated under the rules of the exchange, thereby combining dedicated human judgment with state-of-the-art technology. During the quarter, we also launched the NYSE Board Advisory Council, a creative initiative that leverages the unmatched network of the NYSE and one that seeks to address some of the important ESG issues that face corporations today.
As we look at opportunities across other asset classes, such as mortgages in digital assets, we're applying our unique approach to platform building and innovation. In our mortgage business, we closed on our acquisition of Simplifile on the second quarter and added a key piece of infrastructure, one that complements our suite of digital solutions aimed at bringing more efficiency to the $11 trillion U.S. mortgage industry.
At back subject to final regulatory approvals, we plan to launch our physically delivered Bitcoin futures in the very near future. As use cases for digital assets and payment flows advance, Bakkt is working to build a regulated digital asset ecosystem that serves the evolving needs of institutions, merchants and consumers around the world.
Let me close by have you turn to Slide 9. As we turn back to the first half of this year, we're focused on building on our long track record of growth, while we stay concentrated on the execution and investing for our future. I want to close by thanking our customers for their business and their trust. And I want to thank my colleagues for their efforts that contributed to yet another very, very strong quarter for ICE.
And with that ends my prepared remarks. Let me turn our call back to Kerry to conduct the question-and-answer session, which will operate until 9:30 AM Eastern Time.
Operator
We will now begin the question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions] First question will come from Richard Repetto of Sandler O'Neill.
Richard Repetto--Sandler O'Neill -- Analyst
Yes. Good morning, Jeff, Scott and Ben. It's been an early morning for some of us. And I guess with the LSE repetitive confirmation of the announcement this morning, it seems like they taken a page out of your playbook with a focus on market data, and certainly they have some fixed income and FX trading platforms as well. I guess the question, Jeff, is how do you see this impacting your businesses, this one-stop shopping for market data? And how would you differentiate what you're offering versus what could be a potential, the LSE, Refinitiv combined platform?
Jeffrey Sprecher--Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
That's a great question. Thanks for asking it. First of all, we are fortunate that we saw the move to that kind of pivot very early, so that we were able to acquire some very, very strategic assets that what today would be viewed as incredibly attractive valuations to build the foundation for what we offer today. And as you see the footprint that we pivoted toward in data was really around fixed income data more than anything.
And in that space -- unique space and one of the things that we were able to acquire with IDC was a 50 year plus history of a high-quality fixed income data that with -- is hard to replicate for new entrants, simply because of time. And what we find is people, the buy side and sell side that are doing analytics and what have you, you need that rich robust data set in order to back test portfolio theories and other things.
Separately, the fixed income business is interesting, in that only a very tiny amount of fixed income trades on any given day. It's -- that's probably less than 5% of fixed income names in the muni space, where we've really put a big investment, it's less than 1%. And so the algorithms and knowledge base that comes from that foundation is really important, a much more so than the trading platforms, which is why we -- as we realize that, we pivoted hard into acquiring indices, legacy data sets and other relationships as opposed to execution venues, as you've seen. Because that will not change with the electronification of the business in our mind.
So we're well positioned. It's a space we expect more competition in. It's a space we expect more consolidation around. One of the facts that I mentioned years ago that we began to see partly by acquiring the New York Stock Exchange is that it's very hard to have connectivity to many, many customers because of cyber security issues. People want a smaller number of large vendors that have the scale to guarantee that connectivity -- direct connectivity to company is safe. And and so it was somewhat inevitable that there was going to be a roll-up in this space. And as I said, that's why we chose some assets quickly and went hard at them very early.
Operator
The next question will come from Michael Carrier of Bank of America.
Michael Carrier--Bank of America -- Analyst
Good morning. Thanks for taking the question. First Scott, maybe just on the expenses and the guidance on Slide 11, just with the growth in the net expense guide. Can you just provide some color on the revenue offsets and maybe which lines that will be flowing through for the second half?
Scott Hill--Chief Financial Officer
Sure. Yes. So Slide 11, again when we look at, I think the key point I would highlight there is effectively what we did this quarter was bringing the midpoint of our original guidance down by $25 million and then we added $50 million on top of it. And that's roughly $28 million, which was simply a change in how we're treating some revenue share agreements that we have, we're going to treat those as net revenue now, not growth, so that's about $28 million. And the vast majority of that is on our financials business and you saw that in our RPC which we adjusted the rolling three months is up a couple of pennies. It was about $8 million in the second quarter and then $10 million at quarter end, and third quarter and fourth quarter.
The other piece is the addition of Simplifile. As I mentioned, that's $9 million to $10 million in the quarter. You could double that and assume for the half, it will be $18 million to $20 million. And that's where, for the second half, we expect revenues in excess of $30 million. And so we've now got a mortgage business, that annualized is a $140 million plus business at very attractive margins. And so we're really excited about that.
So I think the way to think about expenses, they brought the midpoint down $25 million for the year. The gross to net change is no impact to the bottom line, and Simplifile immediately accretive and add to a really large mortgage business in a quickly digitalizing space.
Operator
The next question will come from Ken Worthington of J.P. Morgan.
Ken Worthington--J.P. Morgan -- Analyst
Hi. Good morning and thank you for taking my question. Maybe S -- on ASV, it's up less now than it had been in the past. I think the calculation was something like 5.7% organic constant currency. It had been in high -- as high as maybe 6.7% a couple of quarters ago. So what are the biggest drivers in the decline in ASV? I think you guys mentioned equity data. Is there something else as well? Pricing and analytics growth seems to be around 4% now. That's less than it's been in the past; maybe is that a driver as well? And then lastly, ASV does not capture all the outlook for data. Can you give us an update on the part of data that's not captured by ASV, how is that progressing?
Scott Hill--Chief Financial Officer
Yes. That's a big bundle of questions. Let me see if I go -- work my way through that. So first of all, you are 100% right to be looking at the ASV metric. That is the key indicator of the very good health of our data business because that ASV number represents the 90% of our revenues, roughly give or take that Lynn and her team are outselling every day. The other non-ASV stuff is session fees and NMS and tape data. And we don't sell that. We don't really control that to a great extent. So you're focused on the right metric.
I look at an ASV number, I think it was maybe 6.4% last quarter. 6.1% this quarter on a constant currency basis. They're between 5.7% and 6.7% in a given quarter, I don't lose much sleep on. As long as we're pivoting around 6%, I think that's really indicative of a data business that's positioned to deliver the kind of growth that you've seen from us over the past couple of years. So I think the ASV is well positioned. There is a little bit of weakness on the NYSE exchange data. And that weakness is not that it's going backwards. It's just not growing. And so that does have a bit of a downward impact.
But the good news is, you look at futures exchange data, as I said, growth in the quarter plus 7%, but no customer erosion at all. You hear from others that customers are going away, we're not seeing that. I think that reflects the commercial orientation of our markets. You look at pricing and analytics where it dipped a little bit in the second quarter, but again an instructive point in that audits come and go. And last year we had a few. The year before that we had a few. This year we didn't. And I mentioned that business is going to reaccelerate 5%, 6% in the third quarter, 6%, 7% in the fourth quarter. And coming off a 6% year headed back toward or another 6% year in pricing and analytics. So again, feel really good about that business, feel really good about the execution from Lynn and the team. And I think the ASV metric is a really good indicator that, that business is healthy and growing.
And the thing that I also hope you noted in the quarter was as we start to get some of the foundational investments behind us in that data business, you're starting to see the margin expansion that we would expect from the incremental revenue growth. So we were up a couple of points year-over-year in the quarter. And again I think that's reflective of the fact that, that a business that's positioned to continue to grow is also likely to have very solid incremental margins and expansion overall.
Jeffrey Sprecher--Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
And Ken, let me just pile on by mentioning that Ben went over on Slide 7, how our energy business has really changed. We started -- when I started the Company, we had natural gas was U.S. Henry Hub. Today, you look at the map on Slide 7 and you see that the energy business has pulled us to Europe and then EMEA, Asia. And so I mentioned in my prepared remarks, we're investing in sales and marketing people in these new areas. In other words, the flow of data sales is following the flow of commercial interest in our products. And so it gives us some confidence. We get asked a lot about the changes in large banks like euros, [Phonetic] changes that are going on around Brexit, changes in Europe, and what have you. But when you really look at the flow of the way people are integrating with our network, you see that it's broadening globally and that's helping to drive those data sales.
Operator
And the next question will come from Kyle Voigt of KBW.
Kyle Voigt--Keefe, Bruyette & Woods, Inc. -- Analyst
Hi. Good morning. Maybe just one more follow-up on the LSE, Refinitiv transaction. It sounded like from LSE's call this morning that the Refinitiv deal wasn't really shaft or wasn't a highly competitive deal. So I guess my question is were you able to look at the asset prior to the LSE announcement last week? And then I guess part two of that is just clearly is moving LSE bigger into the front office, which you mentioned in your prepared remarks, with their desktop business at Refinitiv, would that be an area you'd focus on if assets were available in that space in terms of M&A? Thanks.
Jeffrey Sprecher--Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
It's a good question. I'm unable to speak to the current transaction. But let me just say to you that we had -- we've been relatively aggressive at the way we've built ICE over the last couple of decades. And we have had conversation around those assets for more than a decade with multiple management teams who have had multiple ideas on how we might interface with those, including acquisitions, joint ventures, bundling, cross licenses you name it. And we've watched those management teams and discuss with those management teams as they have made major investments in those assets, as they have pulled back from investments in those assets, as they've tried to do cost cutting around those assets, as they've tried to bundle with us, as they've focused on price increases, as they've focused on price decreases. And because it was a public company, we have watched with tremendous detail how those assets have evolved over decades.
And so we've had many opportunities to engage and we haven't found a way obviously that did something that would -- that we felt would really be accretive to ICE shareholders. That in no way as a comment on the current deal. David Schwimmer, and David Warren are two people who I have known for years and highly respect, and our tremendous at what they do and have given us guidance from time-to-time. And also Joe Baratta, and Martin Brand at Blackstone are amazingly sharp and savvy, and so I've got nothing but good feeling about those people in that deal that they did. But as it respects to ICE, over many, many years we were not able to find a way that we can create value.
Operator
The next question will come from Alex Blostein of Goldman Sachs.
Alex Blostein--Goldman Sachs -- Analyst
Hey, guys, good morning. Thanks. So maybe just to round up the discussion around LCE and Refinitiv, any way you guys kind of help us think about exposure ICE Data Services has to Refinitiv? I think most of that is going to be a mixed change that aside. But within pricing and analytics, is there any sort of revenue exposure there as well and how do you guys think of any potential risks twice on the back of that transaction?
Jeffrey Sprecher--Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
This is Jeff. I don't want to answer that question only because that particular transaction is going to go through a global antitrust review, and I don't want to say something that in any way is used in that review positively or negatively. So don't take that to mean anything other than there is a transcript being made of this call, and I'd rather not have us discussing that particular thing. You're going to give me a pass?
Operator
The next question will come from Dan Fannon of Jefferies.
Dan Fannon--Jefferies -- Analyst
Thanks. Can you talk about the ETF Hub in more detail, and timing of launch, kind of your expectations, and maybe some of the incentives that you're going to put out there to attract participants to that offering?
Benjamin Jackson--President
Sure, Dan. This is Ben. And thanks for the question. So we -- we've been talking about this on many calls and we're really excited about it because we are deep in the testing phase right now with a lot of the institutional buy sides and sell sides that are going to on-board onto this platform as it launches. And our our target launch date is in the fourth quarter of this year, and we feel really good about it on how the testing process has gone.
One of the things that excites us about this is -- and Jeff had highlighted in some of the comments he made that we have a multi-decade relationship on the institutional side of these buy side and sell side firms between our pricing, our reference data, our analytics and our index offerings. And what this is enabling us to do is we're going to be really combining that set of offerings with our execution capabilities in TMC and BondPoint that have historically been in the wealth management space, but have protocols that are really oriented toward the new wave of electronification in fixed income with central order book trading. And you're obviously hearing that other platforms out there are trying to race to build similar capabilities to what these platforms already have.
So as we're now going through the testing process and we're now onboarding customers into the ETF Hub, these institutional customers through the testing process for the technical integration process, as well as the legal onboarding, we are coupling the onboarding process of that ETF Hub for a lot of these institutional buy sites that are traditionally not been on our venues to also onboard onto TMC, BondPoint or auction in our RFQ protocols. So for the first time, a lot of these institutional buyers and sellers will have an opportunity to use our venues that have historically not interacted with that order flow in the secondary market. So that's all upside for us to be able to compete in an area that we traditionally have in secondary trading.
And in primary trading, which is where the ETF Hub is, we're going to have as Jeff highlighted in his comments, the unique solution for the industry that solves a ton of inefficiency that there is. And because we're solving that inefficiency and helping all these market participants save an additional amount of cost, reduce risk and hopefully continue to grow an asset class that have seen explosive growth, we see recurring revenue opportunities coming from this, from clients onboarding on it as a natural output of it.
Operator
[Operator Instructions] The next question comes from Brian Bedell of Deutsche Bank.
Brian Bedell--Deutsche Bank -- Analyst
Great. Thanks. Good morning, folks. I was going to ask one on the Refinitiv as well, but Jeff, you might not answer, given the global antitrust review. But one I'll ask and then I'll have a second question, you can pick there one of the two.
Jeffrey Sprecher--Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Okay. Fair enough.
Brian Bedell--Deutsche Bank -- Analyst
The Refinitiv one was just longer term thoughts on how it could change pricing in the industry given how you've gone out to a lot of large customers and have been able to successfully bundle a lot of data services together; whether the Refinitiv transaction changes that dynamic longer term in that strategy?
And then the second question would be on energy. And the question there is, given that product range that you guys outlined a lot in this call, is there a view of broadening out the customer base there? You've traditionally been very heavy in the commercials, any thoughts to doing things to introduce more market, making in a proprietary trading, and perhaps even retail usage of energy futures?
Jeffrey Sprecher--Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
I think, we'll try to answer both questions. So yes, I think you threaded the needle. So yes, the notion of trying to bundle content and distribution is something that's unique to financial services. It is the play in media and transportation and many other industries around the world. And so I do think that, that trend will continue. I do think that the competition authorities are going to pay attention to that. And which is why I'm not prepared to get too in depth with somebody else's strategy versus our strategy.
But I think ultimately our industry has been going through consolidation, not just in platform providers, if you will like ICE, but buy side firms and sell side firms, and the way assets are gathered and managed. And so it's somewhat of an inevitability in my mind that you're going to see winners emerge. And as I mentioned, I'm glad that we made the transition early, so that we had a look at all of these assets and could figure out which ones really would work for the specific kind of platform and distribution, and content that we think can continue to deliver top line growth . You can bundle downward growth as well. So the idea here is to create compelling bundles that more customers want that can drive EPS growth. And I know we've done that.
Warren Gardiner--Vice President, Investor Relations
You want to pick up the [Speech Overlap]
Jeffrey Sprecher--Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Yes. Go ahead.
Benjamin Jackson--President
So on the energy side, just to pick up on the question -- second question you had there. So you're right, we have focused on the commercial hedger in building out a diversified product suite around the world. And when we say that, we're focused on the commercial hedger. I think one of the important distinctions that not everyone appreciates is what we mean by that. What we mean is that we've established a set of diversified products. So the product that people are actually consuming, whether it's various grades of crude oil or it's refined products and also enabling at the point of consumption of those goods, putting locations around the world where these customers are either buying or selling the end commodity. That enables them to as precisely as possible manage their exposure to price risk where they have the most acute risk, which is at that point of consumption. And this is distinct from many of the other peers that are out there, where they primarily focus on a single product and trying to attract customers, which could be a halfway around the world to interact with the product that they may have no commercial connection to.
If you look at products that we've developed in Asia for example like Singapore Gasoil, Fuel Oil, Singapore Jet Kerosene, these are small sample set of hundreds and hundreds of products that we have around the world in our global oil and refined product suite that we've been partnering with our customers to build. And we have an -- have had -- have today and continue to build on and grow market share in this part of our business as Scott had pointed out, open interest, up 25% and volumes even accelerated this month to up 17% in this week.
The last thing I'd point out is the reason we focus on the commercials is that they have a real vibrant market. It starts with the Cornerstone, which has to be the commercial trader that really cares about that physical instrument that's underpinning the price formation and the really the real risk around consuming the end good at the particular location. And what we've seen is, if we get that right, market makers, financials and those follow into that market. And that's what we've seen in all of the markets that we've developed.
So we do focus on each of those areas that you had mentioned, but we really focus on getting the commercial aspect of it right first. And that's why we're seeing this area of our business significantly grow.
Operator
The next question will be from Chris Harris of Wells Fargo.
Chris Harris--Wells Fargo -- Analyst
So part of ICE's value proposition in fixed income data is really offering valuation services for harder to value securities. So I'm wondering as more trading moves to electronic and becomes more transparent, how do you think this part of the data business will evolve?
Benjamin Jackson--President
Thanks, Chris. This is Ben. I'll take this. So I think one of the comments Jeff made in an answer to a question earlier today is very important to highlight. In that if you look at the corporate bond space where you have 30,000 instruments, on a given day, the number of instruments out of that 37 -- or 30,000 corporate bonds that are out there, less than 2,000 of those trade every single day. So even as electronification takes hold, you're talking about 5% or less of the market that's actually trading in a given day.
And with the explosion of data and the more precision that people want around managing their risk and pricing instruments moving not only from end of day, but to intraday, you can imagine the algorithm that's needed to understand what the correlations are of all the different instruments that actually do trade in a given day, and having to figure out what does that mean for something that hasn't traded in a day, a week or a month.
And when we talk about that multiple decades of being that trusted pricing and reference data provider to our customers, having that history, having that trust of being able to build out that complex algorithm, having trained it over many, many decades puts us in a position that I think is very, very strong. We will continue to grow as data and information assets continue to grow around this space.
Operator
And this concludes our question-and-answer session. I would now like to turn the conference back over to Jeff Sprecher for any closing remarks.
Jeffrey Sprecher--Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Thank you, Kerry, and thank you all for your participation in today's call. And we'll look forward to being back next quarter to similarly give you our great results.
Operator
[Operator Closing Remarks]
Duration: 45 minutes
Warren Gardiner--Vice President, Investor Relations
Scott Hill--Chief Financial Officer
Benjamin Jackson--President
Jeffrey Sprecher--Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Richard Repetto--Sandler O'Neill -- Analyst
Michael Carrier--Bank of America -- Analyst
Ken Worthington--J.P. Morgan -- Analyst
Kyle Voigt--Keefe, Bruyette & Woods, Inc. -- Analyst
Alex Blostein--Goldman Sachs -- Analyst
Dan Fannon--Jefferies -- Analyst
Brian Bedell--Deutsche Bank -- Analyst
Chris Harris--Wells Fargo -- Analyst
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Motley Fool Transcribershas no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Intercontinental Exchange. The Motley Fool has adisclosure policy. || China's economy grows at slowest pace since 1990s: Morning Brief: Monday, July 15, 2019 Get the Morning Brief sent directly to your inbox every Monday to Friday by 6:30 a.m. ET. Subscribe WHAT TO WATCH Traders this week will have plenty to sink their teeth into, between the start to second-quarter earnings season, hearings on Facebooks controversial new cryptocurrency project and Amazons Prime Day extravaganza . Meanwhile, big banks including JPMorgan Chase ( JPM ), Goldman Sachs ( GS ), Morgan Stanley ( MS ) and Bank of America ( BAC ), along with several major tech names Netflix ( NFLX ) and Microsoft ( MSFT ) deliver quarterly results this week, setting the tone for the rest of second-quarter earnings season. Read more TOP NEWS Garment factory workers stitching apparel in a factory in Hanoi. (Photo by Manan VATSYAYANA / AFP) (Photo credit should read MANAN VATSYAYANA/AFP/Getty Images) China's economy grows at slowest pace since 1990s : Chinas economy grew at its slowest pace since the early 1990s, expanding just 6.2% in the three months to June, from a year earlier. While the result was in line with forecasts, it shows that the worlds second largest economy is in a quandary over how it tries to stimulate its finances, by boosting its spending by delivering tax cuts, while fighting a fierce trade war with the U.S. [Yahoo Finance UK] Amazon Prime Day: Workers across the world stage strikes and protests : As Amazon ( AMZN ) kicks off its annual Prime Day discount-shopping bonanza, its workers in the U.S. and the EU are planning a series of strikes and protests over salaries and unsafe working conditions at Amazons fulfillment centers. [Yahoo Finance UK] Also: How Prime Day lifts Amazons sales [Yahoo Finance] Facebook, Google, Amazon, Apple will be under fire on Capitol Hill this week : Silicon Valley will have a big presence in Washington, D.C., this week as big tech companies get ready for the spotlight, with several high-profile Congressional hearings scheduled for this week. [Yahoo Finance] Bitcoin drops more than 10% : Bitcoin ( BTC-USD ) slumped more than 10% over the weekend to a two-week low as fears of a crackdown of cryptocurrencies grew on mounting scrutiny of Facebook's planned Libra digital coin.Bitcoin fell 11.1% from Friday to $9,855 early on Monday, its lowest since July 2. [Reuters] Story continues MORE FROM YAHOO FINANCE Andre Iguodala on AOC's and Warren's wealth tax proposals: 'I'm all for it' Make no mistake, the Fed will pay a premium when it cuts rates this month Jeffrey Epstein's prep-school students remember their 'flamboyantly' dressed teacher Why Oscar winner Mira Sorvino is not a fan of the stock market The best and worst states for retirement To ensure delivery of the Morning Brief to your inbox, please add newsletter@yahoofinance.com to your safe sender list. Follow Yahoo Finance on Twitter , Facebook , Instagram , Flipboard , SmartNews , LinkedIn , YouTube , and reddit . || 5G Stocks With 10X Potential: Almost one year ago, on August 2, 2018, Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL ) became the first American company to cross the threshold of $1 trillion in market value. Future of 5G Source: Shutterstock Thats a 1 with 12 zeros after it. Apples crossing of that mark was a big, hyped event that made all the major news outlets. InvestorPlace - Stock Market News, Stock Advice & Trading Tips Less hyped was the fact that three other companies were hot on Apples heels in the race to join the $1 trillion club. Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN ) surged past that market cap a month later on September 4, 2018. Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT ) joined the $1 trillion club in April of this year. Another company with a good shot of being worth over $1 trillion soon is Alphabet (NASDAQ: GOOGL ). Think about that list for a moment. Theres no car maker on it. No big manufacturer like General Electric (NYSE: GE ). Theres no oil company, no mining company, no steel company, and no banking company. The market has spoken. Technology with its ability to create smartphones, software, time-saving apps, social media platforms, online shopping experiences, and the like is now the most dominant, most valued part of our economy. Tech entrepreneurs and investors are making fortunes as a result. If Apple, Google, Amazon, and Microsoft are the tallest skyscrapers the commanding heights of our economic city its no exaggeration to say their foundations rest on the bedrock of our communications grid
aka the internet. Without this bedrock, those skyscrapers crash to the ground. As you read this, the next trillion-dollar companies the next Amazon, the next Alphabet, etc. are being hatched in research facilities and garages around the world. These firms will change the world and revolutionize our economy. If you follow technology the least little bit, you know what fields these companies are in: self-driving cars, artificial intelligence, virtual reality/augmented reality, blockchain, mobile payments, and the Internet of Things (IoT). Story continues Just like how the businesses of Apple, Alphabet, Amazon, and Microsoft cant function without the internet, the next generation of world-changing, $1 trillion mega winners cant survive without the subject of this essay. Its the bedrock our future will rest on
and its a giant investment opportunity. Let me tell you more about it today. Then, be on the lookout for more research from me over the next week as we begin a special series looking at seven transformative trends changing our world that have the potential to double, triple, or even multiply your money 10X . How Building Toll Roads Can Make You a Millionaire One way to view the internet buildout of the 1990s is as the construction of a vast network of toll roads. These toll roads linked friend to friend
family member to family member
and most importantly from a capitalists point of view: business to consumer. Millions upon millions of people wanted to send their messages, data, and advertisements over the internets toll roads. It was a communications revolution. History shows building the revolutions toll roads was incredibly profitable. Cisco (NASDAQ: CSCO ), the leading maker of networking equipment, enjoyed a 34,000% increase in market value during the 1990s. Intel (NASDAQ: INTC ), which made computer chips, saw its stock soar more than 3,500% during the 1990s. EMC, which made data storage devices, saw its shares advance more than 80,000% during the 1990s. As incredible as the internets first toll roads were, their size and capacity pales in comparison to the next generation of toll roads
which will lead to your doorstep soon. They go by the name of 5G. You Aint Seen Nothing Yet The path to the 5G wireless communications network began 45 years ago on Tuesday, April 3, 1973. Martin Cooper, a senior engineer at Motorola, stood on 6th Ave. in Manhattan. He was about to make the first cell phone call in history, and he was nervous about whether it would work. Martin didnt call a family member, friend or even a co-worker. Instead, he called his chief competitor, Dr. Joel Engle at Bell Labs. The two had been in a race to get to this day first. Joel, this is Marty, he said. Im calling you from a cell phone, a real handheld personal cell phone. Consider those the first words in the mobile communications revolution. Mobile phones were then introduced to the public nearly a decade later, and by the 1980s, cell phones were creeping into the cars of wealthier individuals. The first devices weighed a couple of pounds and were bigger than your head they are referred to as bricks for a reason but they did what had never been done before. The first generation of mobile technology kicked off the trend toward an increasingly connected world. The second generation of networks (2G and 2.5G) were introduced in the 1990s. They gave us the ability to text, another step forward in communication. We now take texting for granted a lot of people text more than they make actual phone calls. The move into the new millennium was accompanied by the move to 3G, which brought major advances in the speed and capabilities of cellular networks. With the third generation , devices were able to access broadband technology, which made possible entertainment, web browsing, and shopping on a mobile device. There is now a generation of people who find it hard to believe that 20 years ago there was no Amazon app to instantly reorder your toilet paper. Just as semiconductors were part of the infrastructure for the internet, they were also the backbone of the move to 3G. As a result, chip stocks made big moves during this era. Qualcomm (NASDAQ: QCOM ) rallied more than 1,000% in the 1990s ahead of when 4G networks started to appear. As nice as it was to be able to browse the internet on your phone, the fourth generation of wireless connectivity took mobile technology to another level with the ability to stream video without waiting for buffering. It was more enjoyable, yes, but it also opened up business opportunities for content companies. Still, the biggest advancement was real-time information, which led to the sharing economy. Mobile devices could talk to other devices in real-time, connecting people instantaneously. Without real-time data transfer there would be no Uber, GrubHub, or any other app that relies on a fast connection. Once again, there were big investment returns in the 4G phase. Cell tower companies were among those enjoying huge rallies. As more data was being transmitted with the increasing use of video, new and better towers were required. But honestly, we havent seen anything yet. The most advanced breakthrough of all is right around the corner. Just as there were fortunes made in prior generations, there will be big money made once again. In fact, I think the opportunity is even bigger now because the leap ahead will drive some of the most powerful tech trends the world has seen. I think of it as the next-generation toll road. The road to the future passes through 5G, and its time to set up our booth and start collecting . 5Gs Widespread Impact The next-generation network will take speeds to levels that seem almost unimaginable. How fast? Well, 5G will in theory increase the level of speed to match that of human reflexes, so were talking the blink of an eye, perhaps literally. 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Just as investors who were able to get in early during prior transformational trends profited to the tune of 20 to 50 times their money, the AV/5G mega-trend is one current transformational trend that cannot be ignored. When a $7 trillion industry like transportation is completely transformed for the first time in nearly a century, it will have huge ramifications. The full rollout of the 5G network will provide the much-needed communications infrastructure for auto manufacturers to introduce AVs to the masses. Its reliability and real-time data sharing that make that possible. Imagine a self-driving car traveling down the highway at 75 miles per hour and the network suddenly experiences a 100-millisecond delay. In any other circumstance, that delay would never be noticed, but it could be devastating in an AV. It could result in the braking system stopping the vehicle 10 feet beyond where it would have otherwise. That 10 extra feet could lead to a major accident. Future AVs will essentially be data centers on wheels. The amount of data that will be stored in the brain of the vehicle will be beyond what we can imagine. Morgan Stanley predicts that a 2050 AV will produce 40 terabytes (TBs) of data per hour. Today, your iPhone produces data in the range of 1-2 gigabytes (GBs) per month. That would mean a 2050 AV will produce about 20,000 times more data in one hour than your iPhone currently produces in an entire month! Such enormous amounts of data will be required due to the number of decisions taking place at all times. The AV will have to take in data from sensors surrounding the vehicle and instantaneously decide when to accelerate, brake, turn, etc. Not only will the vehicle need 5G for computing within itself, it will also be talking to the sensors in other vehicles, the roads, cell towers, satellites, and even smart cities. The thought of vehicles talking to each other makes me think of some pretty creepy sci-fi images. It also makes me think of the movie Cars . In reality, vehicles talking to each other will look nothing like the animated movie but more like the image below. Notice that everything has a sensor that is talking to the other sensors in the area. Even the man pushing the child in the stroller and the bicyclist are talking to the vehicles! This stuff is coming. Toyota Motor (NYSE: TM ) has plans to deploy its vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) and vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) technology in the U.S. by 2021. Again, the rollout of V2V and V2I is impossible without widespread 5G. The current 4G network is great for streaming videos, but the speed and latency would create major safety issues for AVs. Get in Position Now You can see how 5G networks will pave the way for so many breakthrough innovations , not just faster phones but in self-driving cars, smart homes and cities, virtual reality, healthcare, and so much more. When exactly does all of this excitement happen? Its already starting. You may have seen advertising for 5G home internet service in limited cities. Smartphone manufacturers are already rolling out the first 5G-enabled phones. The pace will only pick up from here. Thats true of the stock prices, too, which will move ahead of specific developments. Long-term winners in this sector will be 5G gear makers like Nokia (NYSE: NOK ), 5G infrastructure providers like Crown Castle (NYSE: CCI ), and specialized chip makers like Skyworks Solutions (NASDAQ: SWKS ). Consider that short list a jumping off point for 5G ideas, but by no means a complete or static guide. The early days of any technological revolution are full of change. My advice is to follow this sector closely, study it frequently for emerging winners , and own a handful of companies to get a good blend of risk/reward. Youll end up owning some of the worlds most valuable toll roads
just like the smartest investors of the 1990s did. Matthew McCall is the founder and president of Penn Financial Group, an investment advisory firm, as well as the editor of Investment Opportunities and Early Stage Investor. He has dedicated his career to getting investors into the worlds biggest, most revolutionary trends BEFORE anyone else. The power of being first gave Matts readers the chance to bank +2,438% in Stamps.com (STMP), +1,523% in Ulta Beauty (ULTA), +1,044% in Tesla (TSLA), +611% in Liquefied Natural Gas Limited (LNGLY), +324% in Bitcoin Services (BTSC), just to name a few. If youre interested in making triple-digit gains from the worlds biggest investment trends BEFORE anyone else, click here to learn more about Matt McCall and his investments strategy today . More From InvestorPlace 2 Toxic Pot Stocks You Should Avoid 9 Retail Stocks Goldman Sachs Says Are Ready to Rip 7 Services Stocks to Buy for the Rest of 2019 6 Stocks to Buy and 1 to Sell Based on Insider Trading The post 5G Stocks With 10X Potential appeared first on InvestorPlace . || Hong Kong ETF Surges After Withdrawal of Extradition Bill: This article was originally published on ETFTrends.com. Hong Kong ETFs jumped Wednesday, with Hong Kong stocks enjoying their best single-day gain of the year, after the government's formal withdrawal of the previously proposed extradition bill that triggered three months of protests. On Wednesday, the Franklin FTSE Hong Kong ETF ( FLHK ) rose 4.7% and iShares MSCI Hong Kong ETF ( EWH ) advanced 4.4%. “There are people covering their short positions and bargain hunting on local blue chips,” Alex Wang, director at Ample Finance Group, told Reuters , adding that investors hoped the formal withdrawal of the bill “will calm down the situation in the society.” Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam announced the withdrawal of the extradition bill at a meeting after markets closed. “The government will formally withdraw the bill in order to fully allay public concerns,” Lam said. “I pledge that the government will seriously follow up on the recommendations of the IPCC (Independent Police Complaints Council) report. From this month, I and my principal officials will reach out to the community to start a direct dialogue ... we must find ways to address the discontent in society and look for solutions.” Escalating Protests Have Evolved Widespread protests in Hong Kong against the bill, which would have allowed extraditions to mainland China where courts are controlled by the Communist Party, began in March but quickly escalated in June and have since evolved into demonstrations for democratic reforms. While the withdrawal of the bill has met one of protestors' five demands, it was not clear if it would help end the widespread unrest. Initial reactions remained skeptical, and it is to be seen how many people will continue to take to the streets. “We still have four other demands. We hope people won’t forget that,” Ms. Chan told Reuters, speaking for the protest movement and not giving her full name. “The mobilization power won’t decrease.” Story continues Related: Global Risk-On Mood Lifts U.S. Stock ETFs The drag on business activity due to the protests, along with the protracted U.S.-China trade war, have gripped the local economy, with the Hang Seng Index retreating 7.4% in August. Paul Chan, Hong Kong’s financial secretary, said the operation of the stock market “continues to be smooth and orderly.” “We are monitoring closely trading volume and shorting on a daily basis, and have not seen anything peculiar,” Chen said at a televised press conference. For more information on the Asian markets, visit our Asia category . POPULAR ARTICLES AND RESOURCES FROM ETFTRENDS.COM SPY ETF Quote VOO ETF Quote QQQ ETF Quote VTI ETF Quote JNUG ETF Quote Top 34 Gold ETFs Top 34 Oil ETFs Top 57 Financials ETFs VanEck And SolidX Take First Steps For Bitcoin-Related ETF Approvals Could Inverse ETFs Thrive In September? Social Media Stock SNAP Gets An Upgrade Gold, Precious Metals ETFs Surge on Geopolitical Uncertainty Q&A With Barry Ritholtz on New WealthStack Conference READ MORE AT ETFTRENDS.COM > || Gundlach: Gold should keep rising if negative-yielding debt keeps growing: Prominent bond investor Jeffrey Gundlach, the CEO of $140 billion DoubleLine Capital, nailed his bullish gold call from September 2018, and now he sees further upside for the yellow metal as the supply of negative-yielding bonds balloons.
"At this point, I think the way to think about it is, as long as the volume of negative interest rate bonds outstanding increases, it’s quite likely that gold moves higher in a similar vein," Gundlach told Yahoo Finance in an interview on Tuesday evening.
When looking at the markets broadly, Gundlach's view is that the global stockmarket hit its peak on January 26, 2018. And while certain indices did breach record levels again, not all of them did.
"The New York Stock Exchange Composite (^NYA) never did. The Transportation Average (^DJT) never did,” he said. “But then, one by one, the global stock markets started to slide during the middle of 2018. And finally, on October 3rd, basically, every index in the United States hit a peak or had previously hit a peak and then moved down very sharply into December 26th of last year, and I talked about that as being the start of a bear market.”
He also noted that economic data globally also peaked out in January 2018 amid that narrative of synchronized global expansion.
"We've never really seen economic data that strong since,” he said. “It’s held up better in the United States to October/November, but we have much worse economic data pretty much across the board."
Subsequently, central banks have responded with what Gundlach calls "increasingly negative interest rate manipulation."
"We are now, I think it's today or yesterday over$15 trillion of global debt is at a negative yield. And the US bond market is being dragged to lower yields by a combination of the race to ever more negative yields in parts of the developed world, and by weak economic data," Gundlach said.
With that backdrop, there's been a direct correlation between the volume of negative-yielding bonds in the world and the dollar price of gold that's moved up very much in sync, with very little divergence along the way.
As negative-yielding bonds moved from $10 trillion to $15 trillion in April and May, gold has moved up close to 20%. Gold futures (GC=F) settled at $1,473.40 on Tuesday. It was last seenaround $1,517 on Wednesday.
"It makes all the sense in the world,” he said. “It's one thing when bonds yield negative a basis point. That's painful. This amount of pain isn’t really excruciating.”
“But now that you’re getting into some more significant negative yields, it’s not surprising that people might want to buy things that have a higher yield than bonds,” he added. “With the yield of 0, gold has a higher yield than bonds. And if you store the gold, you now have a lower cost of carry on gold than you have on 10-year bunds.”
Gundlach turned positive on gold last summer. In June 2018, he said that if gold checked the $1,200 level he would be a buyer. Gold bottomed on August 16 at around $1,174. Then, on aSeptember 11, 2018 webcast, he called gold a "really good buy" at the $1,200 level. This June, he reiterated his long gold position on another webcast, noting that he thought it would "break out to the upside."
"[If] this pace of negative-yielding bonds continues with this kind of linear track, then gold should go another 20% higher, if that happens. So, the initial target for gold was $1,400. We finally took that out. Now, I think the target is probably something in the $1,600 to $1,700 category. As long as the trends that are behind all this continue," Gundlach told Yahoo Finance.
Gundlach noted that Bitcoin (BTC-USD) has also gained, "probably for some of the same reasons."
In his January "Just Markets" webcast, he made bullish comments on the cryptocurrency, noting that it could "easily make it to $5,000." While he didn't recommend betting "your savings," he said that it could be an easy way to make 25%. In just a few months, he was proven right.
Bitcoin was last trading around $11,747, but Gundlach emphasized the cryptocurrency is "highly speculative."
"Gold is something which is much more for the conservative crowd," he said.
The present levels for gold haven't been seen since around May 2013. Gold hasn't touched the $1,600 level since February/March of 2013. The precious metal took a big spill that year.
"Now, we basically have the conditions to head back to those levels, I think," he said.
What's more, the demand from gold isn't coming from the U.S., yet.
"Americans aren't really buying gold at all. It's mostly foreign demand. Most of the gold dealers in the United States say that business is very slow. The orders aren't there yet. And, you know, the public doesn't get involved in the United States with these types of things until the move is largely over," he said.
He explained that in 2011 people would ask him about gold because inside a three year period it had moved from $700 to $1,900.
"Suddenly everybody wants it because they see it's a big momentum ride," he said. "That could happen here if the public gets involved, particularly if U.S. interest rates are manipulated down."
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Julia La Roche is a finance reporter at Yahoo Finance. Follow her onTwitter.
Follow Yahoo Finance onTwitter,Facebook,Instagram,Flipboard,SmartNews,LinkedIn,YouTube, andreddit.Read the latest financial and business news from Yahoo Finance
• Bass: Hong Kong’s political turmoil sits atop a ‘financial time bomb’
• Bass: The China-U.S. trade war is ‘bigger than economics’ || ‘There’s Bitcoin and Then There’s Shitcoin (Libra)’. Congress Finally Gets It: Congress savaged Facebook’s cryptocurrency Libra during a two-day Congressional hearing this week. But Rep. Warren Davidson (R-Ohio) saved the best, and most brutal, comment for the end:
“There’s bitcoin, and then there’s shitcoin.”
His statement reveals something important. There ishidden support for bitcoin among ranking members of Congress.
Davidson joins other members of Congress who publicly praised bitcoin over the last two days.
Davidson’s comments weren’t the only pro-bitcoin statements in Congress yesterday. Ranking member of the Financial Services Committee Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.)praised bitcoin’s creator:
“The world that Satoshi Nakamoto, author of the bitcoin white paper, envisioned is an unstoppable force. We should not attempt to deter this innovation … those who have tried have already failed.”
[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
Binance - BTC Market
#HOT - Unusual selling activity
47.47 BTC in 39 seconds (56%)
B: 0.00000008 🔴 (11.11%)
A: 0.00000009 🔴 (10.00%)
24H Vol: 131.73 BTC
Last signal: 6 hours ago (7/7D) || Did Bitcoin Definitively Break Down With Wednesday's Drop? https://t.co/MpT5jC25Nt || $upremepookie || $EPAZ's Bitcoin Sharing & Blockchain Social Media App Webbeeo Is In Alpha Testing Phase https://www.owltmarket || @deled2017 to kya ye #btc ko samil krne wale h || #BTCUSD Market #1H timeframe on August 11 at 12:00 (UTC) is #Bearish. #cryptocurrency #bitcoin #btc #crypto #trading #idea #report technical analysis || 1 bitcoin is exchanged for 10023.18 USD, as of July 25, 2019 at 02:06PM #BTC || $EPAZ's Bitcoin Sharing & Blockchain Social Media App Webbeeo Is In Alpha Testing Phase https://www.owltmarket || Advanced Business Informaticist - Cancer Strategic Initiatives - [ ➡ https://t.co/NwUU8JnJNR ] #AI #AiJobs #ArtificialIntelligence #jobs #Hiring #Careers #Cryptocurrency #Blockchain #BTC #BitCoin #ETH #crypto https://t.co/mVEiJTXz87 || Crypto Market & Bitcoin Extended Losses: BCH, EOS, TRX, ADA Analysis https://t.co/2b3uWBvopH https://t.co/aFZPDEkVzj
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Trend: down || Prices: 10575.53, 10353.30, 10517.25, 10441.28, 10334.97, 10115.98, 10178.37, 10410.13, 10360.55, 10358.05
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Analyze the provided historical prices, technical indicators, news, and social media sentiment from the last 60 days. Based on this context, predict the overall trend (up, down, or no change) and the specific daily closing prices for Bitcoin for the next 10 days.
|
[Technical Analysis for 2016-10-07]
BTC Price: 617.12, BTC RSI: 61.53
Gold Price: 1248.90, Gold RSI: 24.59
Oil Price: 49.81, Oil RSI: 62.28
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
This infographic shows the questionable effectiveness of UN Peacekeeping missions: UN soldiers (French UN soldiers run from Sarajevo's Radio and Television building on July 27, 1993 after it came under attack by artillery shells.Chris Helgren/Reuters) The United Nations has long been a purported force for change in developing countries and other international crises. Public opinion on their undertakings have been mixed at best, with the role of UN Peacekeeping missions particularly under the microscope. Wearing their recognizable light blue berets and helmets, UN peacekeepers have been both successful in resolving conflicts and criticized for their lack of action during life-threatening emergencies. The following infographic from Norwich University Online explains UN Peacekeeping missions and seeks to explain if the missions are even effective in the long run. Norwich University Online Masters in Diplomacy NOW WATCH: The Pentagon made a move that will revolutionize thousands of soldiers' lives More From Business Insider The man who accurately predicted 5 market crashes has 3 more dates we need to worry about THE PAYMENTS INDUSTRY EXPLAINED: The Trends Creating New Winners And Losers In The Card-Processing Ecosystem Fintech could be bigger than ATMs, PayPal, and Bitcoin combined || Cyber threat grows for bitcoin exchanges: By Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss NEW YORK (Reuters) - When hackers penetrated a secure authentication system at a bitcoin exchange called Bitfinex earlier this month, they stole about $70 million worth of the virtual currency. The cyber theft -- the second largest by an exchange since hackers took roughly $350 million in bitcoins at Tokyo's MtGox exchange in early 2014 -- is hardly a rare occurrence in the emerging world of crypto-currencies. New data disclosed to Reuters shows a third of bitcoin trading platforms have been hacked, and nearly half have closed in the half dozen years since they burst on the scene. This rising risk for bitcoin holders is compounded by the fact there is no depositor's insurance to absorb the loss, even though many exchanges act like virtual banks. Not only does that approach cast the cyber security risk in stark relief, but it also exposes the fact that bitcoin investors have little choice but to do business with under-capitalized exchanges that may not have the capital buffer to absorb these losses the way a traditional and regulated bank or exchange would. "There is a general sense in the bitcoin community that any centralized repository is at risk," said a U.S.-based professional trader who lost about $1,000 in bitcoins when Bitfinex was hacked. He declined to be named for this article. "So when investing, you always have that expectation at the back of your head. I lost a small amount compared to the others, but I know of traders who lost millions of dollars worth of bitcoins," the trader said. The security challenge for the bitcoin world does not appear to be letting up, according to experts in the currency. "I am skeptical there's going to be any technological silver bullet that's going to solve security breach problems. No technology, crypto-currency, or financial mechanism can be made safe from hacks," said Tyler Moore, assistant professor of cyber security at the University of Tulsa's Tandy School of Computer Science who will soon publish the new research on the vulnerability of bitcoin exchanges. Story continues His study, funded by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and shared with Reuters, shows that since bitcoin's creation in 2009 to March 2015, 33 percent of all bitcoin exchanges operational during that period were hacked. The figure represents one of the first estimates of the extent of security breaches in the bitcoin world. In contrast, data from the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, a non-profit organization, showed that of the 6,000 operational U.S. banks, only 67 banks experienced a publicly-disclosed data breach between 2009 and 2015. That's roughly 1 percent of U.S. banks. Among the world's stock exchanges, however, security breaches are much higher, with hackers attracted to the large pools of cash moving in and out of these trading venues. The latest survey of 46 securities exchanges released three years ago by the International Organization of Securities Commissions and World Federation of Exchanges found that more than half had experienced a cyber attack. Moore collaborated on the research with Nicolas Christin, associate research professor at Carnegie Mellon University and Janos Szurdi, a Ph.D. student also at Carnegie. In 2013, Moore and Christin wrote a research paper on security risks surrounding bitcoin exchanges when Moore was still a professor at Southern Methodist University. That research entitled Beware of the Middleman: Empirical Analysis of Bitcoin Exchange Risk was peer-reviewed and presented at the 17th International Financial Cryptography and Data Security Conference in Okinawa, Japan in 2013. In the most recent study, the rate of closure for bitcoin exchanges in Moore's research edged up to 48 percent among those operating from 2009 to March 2015. Hacking did not necessarily trigger the closure in each case. "A 48 percent closure is not acceptable, but not surprising given that bitcoin is a new technology," said Richard Johnson, vice president of market structure and technology at Greenwich Associates. Johnson has written reports on risk and security issues in the crypto-currency world. Profitability is a big problem for bitcoin exchanges, with many of them unable to generate enough volume to keep afloat. Bitcoin exchanges overall could be launched for as low as $100,000 up to $1 million, said Erik Voorhees, founder and chief executive officer of digital currency exchange ShapeShift. That is a fraction of what U.S. forex exchanges' are required to put up. Retail FX trading platform FXCM, for instance, is required by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to have at least $25 million in capital at all times. RECOVERING LOSSES A key factor tied to the risk posed by exchanges is whether customers are reimbursed after closure or after the loss of bitcoins following a hack. Each closure and breach have been handled differently, but Tandy's Moore said the risk of losing funds stored in exchanges are real. In the case of Bitfinex, which is now up and running after the hack August 2, customers lost 36 percent of the assets they had on the platform and were compensated for the losses with tokens of credit that would be converted into equity in the parent company. At Tokyo's MtGox, customers have yet to recover their investments more than two years after closure. Experts say trading venues acting like banks such as Bitfinex will remain vulnerable. These exchanges act as custodial wallets in which they control users' digital currencies like banks control customer deposits. "The big exchanges that hold customer deposits are a big target for hackers," said ShapeShift's Voorhees, "and unfortunately most bitcoin exchanges store user funds." When customers' checking accounts are hacked, there is always a third party at the bank that can step in to deal with the theft. Not so with bitcoin, said Seattle-based Darin Stanchfield, chief executive officer at KeepKey, a hardware wallet provider. He expects more of these attacks to happen despite efforts to improve security at bitcoin exchanges. "Unfortunately because of its irreversible nature, bitcoin requires near perfect security." (Reporting by Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss; Editing by Edward Tobin) || 'Grumpy hold-outs' could sink Bitfinex recovery plan after Bitcoin theft: By Clare Baldwin HONG KONG (Reuters) - Crypto-currency exchange Bitfinex's plan to impose losses on all its trading clients for the theft by hackers of $72 million in Bitcoin rests on two flawed pillars, according to lawyers. The Hong Kong-based exchange said on Aug. 2 that hackers had stolen 119,756 bitcoins from some clients' accounts, the second-biggest such hack in dollar terms, and later said it would spread the losses across all its customers, whether or not they had been hacked or even held bitcoin. It said customers would forfeit 36 percent of their holdings and be given "BFX tokens" instead that could be redeemed by the exchange or converted to shares in its parent company iFinex. Both elements of the plan are open to legal challenge, lawyers said. Imposing losses on customers who were not hacked appears to go against the company's terms of service, said Ryan Straus, a Fenwick & West lawyer who advises financial technology companies on regulation and co-authored the U.S. chapter of a book on bitcoin law. The terms state "bitcoins in your multi-signature wallets belong to and are owned by you", which Straus said implied a special banking relationship with clients that the Bitfinex plan would breach. "The depository ... is obligated to return, on demand, the same monetary objects deposited," he said, quoting a line from his book. The exchange's tokens could also be problematic, said Zach Zweihorn, a lawyer at DavisPolk who specializes in U.S. securities and trading laws. The way they are currently being described - redeemable by the exchange or convertible to shares in iFinex - places them somewhere between a bond and a security and makes it highly likely that issuing them and trading them would require licenses in the U.S. that Bitfinex doesn't have. "If they are issuing an equity interest in their parent company, I don't really think the fact that it's evidenced through an electronic token ... really changes the analysis of whether it's a security," said Zweihorn. Story continues The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission did not return a request for comment. Bitfinex did not respond to requests for comment on either issue. "ROBBED" Bitfinex's website acknowledges there are "protocol level details" still to be worked out for the tokens, and that U.S. residents can sell but not buy them for the time being. "I feel like I was robbed," a 33 year-old investor who had a five-figure U.S. dollar amount on the platform told Reuters. He said he took a 36 percent "haircut" across all assets, including U.S. dollar reserves, and as a U.S. trader he couldn't properly deal in the IOU token. "Basically they took customers' funds in order to try to stay afloat. Nowhere in their terms of service did it mention that this was a possibility," said the user, who works in the financial services industry. Bitfinex is nevertheless hoping that traders will be patient and accept that they won't get a better deal if legal challenges force it into liquidation. "This is the closest approximation to what would happen in a liquidation context," it told traders in a blog post a week ago, while the tokens gave them some hope of ultimately recovering their losses. Traders will be aware of the fate of Tokyo-based crypto-currency exchange Mt Gox, which suffered the biggest bitcoin theft of all time in 2014, and consequently went bankrupt. Traders have not recovered any losses, and court proceedings are still ongoing. "People are afraid to see their assets completely frozen if they sue Bitfinex too early," said 28-year-old Nathan Bourgeois, who is based in France and moderates a 2,000-member traders' messaging group called Whaleclub under the username dr Helmut. He said he thought people would agree to the deal if there was a chance of getting some of their money back. But Patrick Murck, a fellow at Harvard University's Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society, said the Bitfinex plan was unlikely to survive a legal challenge. "It might be a pyrrhic victory. You might still end up with less money," said Murck, who is also co-founder of the Bitcoin Foundation and its former general counsel, but the "odds are fairly low" that nobody will test it in court. "It takes one grumpy hold-out ... to blow the whole thing up, he said. (Reporting by Clare Baldwin; Additional reporting by Hera Poon and Tris Pan; Editing by Will Waterman) || 'FlowRio2016Extra' App Among Top Downloads in the Region: MIAMI, FL--(Marketwired - Aug 9, 2016) - The ' FlowRio2016Extra ' App peaked at the #2 spot alongside the worldwide phenomenon Pokemon Go , as Olympic fans in the Caribbean downloaded the latest feature from Flow, the Official Broadcast Partner of the Rio 2016 Olympic Games . ' FlowRio2016Extra ' App, which is free to all users, is trending on both iOS and Android and is part of Flow's commitment to transform the Olympic Games viewing experience across the Caribbean. Customers are raving about the service; GregFF from Jamaica declared, " Flow has done something exceptional here . I have never been able to follow or experience the Olympic Games like this. Bravo @FLOWJamaica" - GregFF (Jamaica), Aug 06 2016 09:39 AM Trinifido of Trinidad was elated and added, "Okay @FlowTT I have to rate you with this #FlowRioapp. It's awesome. #RioOlympics2016." Fellow Trinidadian, Lizimberlis reported being "...happy I have @Flowtt...Olympic coverage of basketball, cycling and even equestrian." Lizimberlis of Trinidad, Aug 06 2016 12:13 PM. As news of the impressive ranking broke, Michele English, Acting President of Flow, stated, "This is a proud moment for us at Flow, considering this has come literally on the first day of the 2016 Olympic Games. To actually be in the trending category alone counts as a major accomplishment, to be second place to Pokemon Go which is also the #1 trending search for i OS is beyond impressive. Our goal is to continue to delight our customers with innovations such as the ' FlowRio2016Extra' App and we are thrilled that they are responding to the investments to serve them better." According to English, "the downloads have so far exceeded our initial expectations, and as the Olympic Games progress and more of our Caribbean athletes spring into action, we anticipate even more activity, more searches and in effect more downloads." Downloads are free to everyone, however, Flow customers have the added benefit of watching the live streams. Story continues For English, the rating has taken on additional significance for the brand in light of the mammoth task the company has undertaken to prioritize and transform the customer experience. "As we place the customer at the heart of everything we do, we aim to complement, empower and enhance the consumers' ever-evolving lifestyle," English also said. Olympic fans have been gravitating to the ' FlowRio2016Extra' App because of its ease, convenience and complete access to all things Olympics, wherever and whenever the consumer wants. The ' FlowRio2016Extra ' App allows the user complete freedom to carry on with life as usual even while enjoying the Games and not be restricted to the confines of the living room sofa. The ' FlowRio2016Extra' App has amazing features including multiple camera angles, giving viewers a sense of actually being up front and center at all events across all 32 Olympic venues in Rio de Janeiro. Download the Free app today! http://hyperurl.co/FlowRio2016Extra NOTE TO EDITOR: To view ranking visit the G oogle app store -- it is indicated in the trending section of the store: https://play.google.com/store/apps/collection/topselling_free?hl=en For iOS, it displays in the trending searches , which once again are based on algorithms similar to Android. These trending searches are also region specific. The store displays by region -- and is updated on a regular basis based on a complex algorithms, usually based on high volume downloads and usage over a short period. A mobile consumer survey reveals that nearly half of all mobile app users identified browsing the app store charts and search results (the placement on either of which depends on rankings) as a preferred method for finding new apps in the app stores. Simply put, better rankings mean more downloads and easier discovery. As of July 2016; Android users were able to choose between 2.2 million apps. Apple's App Store remained the second-largest app store with 2 million. About C&W Communications CWC is a full service communications and entertainment provider and delivers market-leading video, broadband, telephony and mobile services to consumers in 18 countries. Through its business division, CWC provides data center hosting, domestic and international managed network services, and customized IT service solutions, utilizing cloud technology to serve business and government customers. CWC also operates a state-of-the-art submarine fiber network -- the most extensive in the region -- in over 30 markets. Learn more at www.cwc.com , or follow C&W on LinkedIn , Facebook or Twitter . About Liberty Global Liberty Global is the world's largest international TV and broadband company, with operations in more than 30 countries across Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean. We invest in the infrastructure that empowers our customers to make the most of the digital revolution. Our scale and commitment to innovation enables us to develop market-leading products delivered through next-generation networks that connect our 29 million customers who subscribe to over 59 million television, broadband internet and telephony services. We also serve 11 million mobile subscribers and offer WiFi service across seven million access points. Liberty Global's businesses are comprised of two stocks: the Liberty Global Group ( NASDAQ : LBTYA ) ( NASDAQ : LBTYB ) ( NASDAQ : LBTYK ) for our European operations, and the LiLAC Group ( NASDAQ : LILA ) ( NASDAQ : LILAK ) ( OTC PINK : LILAB ), which consists of our operations in Latin America and the Caribbean. The Liberty Global Group operates in 12 European countries under the consumer brands Virgin Media, Ziggo, Unitymedia, Telenet and UPC. The LiLAC Group operates in over 20 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean under the consumer brands VTR, Flow, Liberty, Mas Movil and BTC. In addition, the LiLAC Group operates a subsea fiber network throughout the region in over 30 markets. For more information, please visit www.libertyglobal.com . Image Available: http://www2.marketwire.com/mw/frame_mw?attachid=3043152 || Bitcoin is money, U.S. judge says in case tied to JPMorgan hack: By Jonathan Stempel NEW YORK (Reuters) - Bitcoin qualifies as money, a federal judge ruled on Monday, in a decision linked to a criminal case over hacking attacks against JPMorgan Chase & Co (JPM.N) and other companies. U.S. District Judge Alison Nathan in Manhattan rejected a bid by Anthony Murgio to dismiss two charges related to his alleged operation of Coin.mx, which prosecutors have called an unlicensed bitcoin exchange. Murgio had argued that bitcoin did not qualify as "funds" under the federal law prohibiting the operation of unlicensed money transmitting businesses. But the judge, like her colleague Jed Rakoff in an unrelated 2014 case, said the virtual currency met that definition. "Bitcoins are funds within the plain meaning of that term," Nathan wrote. "Bitcoins can be accepted as a payment for goods and services or bought directly from an exchange with a bank account. They therefore function as pecuniary resources and are used as a medium of exchange and a means of payment." The decision did not address six other criminal counts that Murgio faces, Nathan wrote. Brian Klein, a lawyer for Murgio, said he disagreed with the decision. "Anthony Murgio maintains his innocence and looks forward to clearing his name at his upcoming trial," he added. Prosecutors last year charged Murgio over the operation of Coin.mx, and in April charged his father Michael with participating in bribery aimed at supporting it. Authorities have said Coin.mx was owned by Gery Shalon, an Israeli man who, along with two others, was charged with running a sprawling computer hacking and fraud scheme targeting a dozen companies, including JPMorgan, and exposing personal data of more than 100 million people. That alleged scheme generated hundreds of millions of dollars of profit through pumping up stock prices, online casinos, money laundering and other illegal activity, prosecutors have said. Shalon has pleaded not guilty, and is being held at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Manhattan. He hired new lawyers last month and is seeking permission to replace lawyers who joined the case in June, a Monday court filing showed. The case is U.S. v Murgio et al, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, No. 15-cr-00769. (Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by David Gregorio and Diane Craft) || Hacking group claims to offer cyber-weapons in online auction: By Joseph Menn (Reuters) - Hackers going by the name Shadow Brokers said on Monday they will auction stolen surveillance tools they say were used by a cyber group linked to the U.S. National Security Agency. To arouse interest in the auction, the hackers released samples of programs they said could break into popular firewall software made by companies including Cisco Systems Inc, Juniper Networks Inc and Fortinet Inc. The companies did not respond to request for comment, nor did the NSA. Writing in imperfect English, the Shadow Brokers promised in postings on a Tumblr blog that the auctioned material would contain cyber weapons developed by the Equation Group, a hacking group that cyber security experts widely believe to be an arm of the NSA. [ http://reut.rs/2aVA7LD] The Shadow Brokers said the programs they will auction will be better than Stuxnet, a malicious computer worm widely attributed to the United States and Israel that sabotaged Irans nuclear program. Reuters could not contact the Shadow Brokers or verify their assertions. Some experts who looked at the samples posted on Tumblr said they included programs that had previously been described and therefore were unlikely to cause major damage. The data [released so far] appears to be relatively old; some of the programs have already been known for years, said researcher Claudio Guarnieri, and are unlikely to cause any significant operational damage. Still, they appeared to be genuine tools that might work if flaws have not been addressed. After examining the code released Monday, Matt Suiche, founder of UAE-based security startup Comae Technologies, concluded they looked like "could be used." Other security experts warned the posting could prove to be a hoax. The group said interested parties had to send funds in advance of winning the auction via Bitcoin currency and would not get their money back if they lost. The auction will end at an unspecified time, Shadow Brokers said, encouraging bidders to "keep bidding until we announce winner." (Editing by Cynthia Osterman) || John McAfee's MGT receives SEC subpoena, shares slump: By Noel Randewich and Jim Finkle (Reuters) - Shares in a firm led by anti-virus software pioneer John McAfee fell 24 percent on Monday after it disclosed that it had received a subpoena from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The company, MGT Capital Investments Inc (MGT.A), said in a statement that it was cooperating with the SEC after receiving the subpoena on Thursday and that it does not believe it is or will be subject to any enforcement proceedings. In May of this year, shares in MGT surged more than 1,200 percent after the mobile gaming company said McAfee would become its chief executive. It said it would enter the fast-growing cyber-security market through acquisitions. MGT shares fell 97 cents to $2.47 in late-afternoon trade, trimming its market capitalization to about $64 million. An SEC spokesman declined to say why it subpoenaed MGT and what information it wanted. An MGT spokesman also declined to comment. With McAfee at the helm, MGT has said it plans to acquire security technologies to address threats to mobile and personal devices. McAfee was the subject of a media frenzy in 2012 when he fled his home in Belize after police sought to question him about the murder of a neighbor. They ultimately said he was not a suspect. Chipmaker Intel (INTC.O), which bought McAfee Inc for $7.7 billion in 2010, long after its founder had left the company, said recently that it would spin off the unit. McAfee and MGT recently sued Intel for the right to use the McAfee name. McAfee said during a conference call on Thursday that he expected MGT to begin generating revenue in the second quarter of next year after launching its first product at the end of 2016. He declined several requests from callers to provide financial projections. "I really can't say now about future revenue streams, but I certainly tell you that what we are doing and what we are building is going to be monumental," McAfee said in response to one of the questions, from a man identified as an individual investor. Story continues "Good enough for me, man. Good enough," the man replied. MGT also said it launched a Bitcoin mining operation, which involves using customized computers to earn Bitcoins in return for recording and verifying transactions in the crypto-currency. (Reporting by Noel Randewich and Jim Finkle; Editing by Dan Grebler) || You're So Money: NY Judge Rules Bitcoin Qualify As 'Funds': A New York judge ruled bitcoin qualifies as money as part of a judgment related to a case over hacking attacks against JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE: JPM ) and other companies, according to a report on Fortune . The report said U.S. District Judge Alison Nathan in Manhattan rejected Anthony Murgio's bid to dismiss two charges regarding his alleged operation of Coin.mx. Prosecutors have called Coin.mx an "unlicensed bitcoin exchange." Related Link: What Is Blockchain, And Why Should You Care? But, Nathan ruled bitcoin satisfies the definition of a virtual currency. "Bitcoins are funds within the plain meaning of that term. Bitcoins can be accepted as a payment for goods and services or bought directly from an exchange with a bank account. They therefore function as pecuniary resources and are used as a medium of exchange and a means of payment," Fortune reported, quoting Nathan. Brian Klein, a lawyer for Murgio, said he disagreed with the decision. Last year, prosecutors charged Murgio over the operation of Coin.mx and in April charged his father, Michael, with participating in bribery to support the exchange. Full ratings data available on Benzinga Pro. Do you have ideas for articles/interviews you'd like to see more of on Benzinga? Please email feedback@benzinga.com with your best article ideas. One person will be randomly selected to win a $20 Amazon gift card! See more from Benzinga On Deck Has 'More Powerful Future Operating Leverage' © 2016 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || John McAfee's MGT receives SEC subpoena, shares slump: By Noel Randewich and Jim Finkle
(Reuters) - Shares in a firm led by anti-virus software pioneer John McAfee fell 24 percent on Monday after it disclosed that it had received a subpoena from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
The company, MGT Capital Investments Inc (MGT.A), said in a statement that it was cooperating with the SEC after receiving the subpoena on Thursday and that it does not believe it is or will be subject to any enforcement proceedings.
In May of this year, shares in MGT surged more than 1,200 percent after the mobile gaming company said McAfee would become its chief executive. It said it would enter the fast-growing cyber-security market through acquisitions.
MGT shares fell 97 cents to $2.47 in late-afternoon trade, trimming its market capitalization to about $64 million.
An SEC spokesman declined to say why it subpoenaed MGT and what information it wanted. An MGT spokesman also declined to comment.
With McAfee at the helm, MGT has said it plans to acquire security technologies to address threats to mobile and personal devices.
McAfee was the subject of a media frenzy in 2012 when he fled his home in Belize after police sought to question him about the murder of a neighbor. They ultimately said he was not a suspect.
Chipmaker Intel (INTC.O), which bought McAfee Inc for $7.7 billion in 2010, long after its founder had left the company, said recently that it would spin off the unit.
McAfee and MGT recently sued Intel for the right to use the McAfee name.
McAfee said during a conference call on Thursday that he expected MGT to begin generating revenue in the second quarter of next year after launching its first product at the end of 2016. He declined several requests from callers to provide financial projections.
"I really can't say now about future revenue streams, but I certainly tell you that what we are doing and what we are building is going to be monumental," McAfee said in response to one of the questions, from a man identified as an individual investor.
"Good enough for me, man. Good enough," the man replied.
MGT also said it launched a Bitcoin mining operation, which involves using customized computers to earn Bitcoins in return for recording and verifying transactions in the crypto-currency.
(Reporting by Noel Randewich and Jim Finkle; Editing by Dan Grebler) || At your service: cyber criminals for hire to militants, EU says: THE HAGUE (Reuters) - Cybercriminals offering contract services for hire offer militant groups the means to attack Europe but such groups have yet to employ such techniques in major attacks, EU police agency Europol said on Wednesday. "There is currently little evidence to suggest that their cyber-attack capability extends beyond common website defacement," it said in its annual cybercrime threat assessment in a year marked by Islamic State violence in Europe. But the internet's criminal shadow the Darknet had potential to be exploited by militants taking advantage of computer experts offering "crime as a service", Europol added: "The availability of cybercrime tools and services, and illicit commodities (including firearms) on the Darknet, provide ample opportunities for this situation to change." Overall, the report found, existing trends in cybercrime continued to grow, with some of the European Union's member states reporting more cyber crimes than the traditional variety. "Europol is concerned about how an expanding cybercriminal community has been able to further exploit our increasing dependence on technology and the internet," its director, Rob Wainwright, said in a statement. "We have also seen a marked shift in cyber-facilitated activities relating to trafficking in human beings, terrorism and other threats." "Ransomware" - programmes which break into databases and demand payment for unlocking codes via virtual currencies such as Bitcoin - continued to expand as a problem, as did highly targeted "phishing" attacks to extract security data from senior figures - "CEO fraud" - and video streaming of child abuse. Attacks on bank cash-machine networks were also increasing, the report found, as were frauds exploiting new contactless payment card transactions, while traditional scams involving the physical presence of a card had been successfully reduced. (Reporting by Alastair Macdonald in Brussels; Editing by Jonathan Oatis)
[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
$605.31 #itBit;
$611.25 #bitfinex;
$604.53 #bitstamp;
$607.00 #btce;
$602.49 #OKCoin;
$606.73 #GDAX;
#bitcoin news: http://bit.ly/1VI6Yse || Cryptografando BTC mineração .. money money money
Preço cotação 1BTC 580,00 $ dolares Reais 1,980
BITCOIN... http://fb.me/NVsibhtx || One Bitcoin now worth $579.06@bitstamp. High $579.80. Low $563.00. Market Cap $ 9.159 Billion #bitcoin pic.twitter.com/hE0y5CHWFF || Wow what a work out with 5:00 pm! Proud of our BTC family kicking off their weekend with an Awesome work out. http://fb.me/5JgECQdIh || ♤※ new PCIe Express x1 to x16 Adapter Extender Cable 1X To 16X http://ebay.to/1OGyqBs pic.twitter.com/T2YxIU0J3Y || 1 KOBO = 0.00000000 BTC
= 0.0000 USD
= 0.0000 NGN
= 0.0000 ZAR
= 0.0000 KES
#Kobocoin 2016-08-11 01:00 pic.twitter.com/dUUu605wtZ || coinr.me:
Thank you for your deposit of 2.00 BTC.
You will recive 4.00BTC in 100 hours.
Show coinr.me to... http://fb.me/6FxbHLQku || Decentralized Sports Platform FirstBlood Raises 465,312.00 ETH, Set To Improve https://goo.gl/lJbbF5 http://ohiobitcoin.com/buybitcoin #bitcoin || #UFOCoin #UFO $ 0.000017 (-0.14 %) 0.00000003 BTC (-0.00 %) || 18Sep2016 06:00 UTC #Bitcoin #Blockchain status - Last 24h: 151 blocks mined - 1,424,507 BTC output - 201,051 transactions Vía OliChapiteau
|
Trend: up || Prices: 619.11, 616.75, 618.99, 641.07, 636.19, 636.79, 640.38, 638.65, 641.63, 639.19
|
Analyze the provided historical prices, technical indicators, news, and social media sentiment from the last 60 days. Based on this context, predict the overall trend (up, down, or no change) and the specific daily closing prices for Bitcoin for the next 10 days.
|
[Technical Analysis for 2016-11-17]
BTC Price: 740.98, BTC RSI: 66.10
Gold Price: 1216.50, Gold RSI: 28.48
Oil Price: 45.42, Oil RSI: 44.32
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
Winklevoss brothers name State Street as bitcoin ETF administrator: (Adds dropped word "bitcoin" in 7th paragraph, fixes typographical error in 10th paragraph and corrects source to say ... according to company data ... instead of ... Gemini said on Tuesday) By Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss NEW YORK, Oct 18 (Reuters) - Investors Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss on Tuesday filed amendments to their proposed bitcoin exchange-traded fund, naming State Street as administrator, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The Winklevoss brothers, identical twins, had filed their first application for a bitcoin ETF called Winklevoss Bitcoin Trust three years ago. Investors have shown keen interest in the Winklevoss ETF. If approved by the SEC, this would be the first bitcoin ETF issued by a U.S. entity. According to the amended filing, State Street will provide the fund administration and accounting services, including calculating the bitcoin trust's net asset value (NAV). Another major change involved the ETF's custodian, Gemini Trust Company, doing monthly "proof of control" exercises and publishing the reports on the ETF's website. "Custodian's cold storage system was purpose-built to demonstrate 'proof of control' of the private keys associated with its public bitcoin addresses," the filing said. "The sponsor and the custodian have engaged an independent audit firm to verify that the custodian can demonstrate 'proof of control' of the private keys that control the Trust's bitcoin on a monthly basis." Burr Pilger Mayer, based in San Francisco and known for working with venture-backed digital currency companies, has been named the ETF's auditor, the filing said. In addition, the SEC filing said Gemini's daily auction price at 4 p.m. EDT will now be used to price the NAV of the ETF. The previous pricing mechanism was the Gemini spot price. Gemini runs a digital currency trading venue. Since its launch in September, the Gemini auction has transacted more than 1,900 bitcoin on average per business day, which represents more than 16 percent of all U.S.-based bitcoin exchange volume, according to company data. Story continues The daily auction along with Gemini's expansion has increased the company's market share to about 9 percent of all U.S. dollar-denominated exchange-traded bitcoin volume. The ETF would trade under the ticker symbol COIN. Late on Tuesday, bitcoin traded at $632.88 on the BitStamp platform. (Reporting by Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss; Editing by Tom Brown) || The dark web marketplace where you can buy 200 million Yahoo accounts is under cyberattack: (Shutterstock)
The popular dark web marketplace where a hacker is selling 200 million user accounts stolen from Yahoo says it is currently under cyberattack.
The site, called The Real Deal, is one of the go-to spots for hackers trying to sell off databases in exchange for Bitcoin. In the case of thereported Yahoo hack, that means upwards of 200 million user credentials are available for sale on the site for 3 Bitcoin, or roughly $1,800.
Yahoo is expected to confirm the breach of its service soon,accordingto a report from Recode published Thursday.
That reporting comes as the site hosting the database is under cyber attack and inaccessible to users. It's unknown who is behind that attack; The Real Deal only says "Market under DDoS" when a user goes to the login screen on its site, which is only accessible throughthe Tor browser.
Keeping up the site isn't affected by a possible influx of dark web users looking for the goods from Yahoo. Instead, as the message indicates, The Real Deal is being hit by a DDoS, or distributed denial-of-service attack, a crude way to take down a website by flooding it with traffic.
Here's what The Real Deal looks like now:
(The Real Deal)
(The Real Deal)
NOW WATCH:NASA just took these incredible images of mysterious rock formations on Mars
More From Business Insider
• Hackers Steal £3.4 Million From UK Bitcoin Exchange Bitstamp
• UPDATE 1-Yahoo to provide details on massive data breach - Recode
• Notes From Yahoo-Microsoft Conference Call On Search Deal || C&W Networks and TE SubCom Extend Pan-Caribbean Partnership to Provide Capacity Upgrades to Multiple Cable Systems: EATONTOWN, NJ and MIAMI, FL--(Marketwired - Sep 21, 2016) -C&W Networks, a division ofCable & Wireless Communications, (C&W), one of the largest full service communications and entertainment providers in the Caribbean and Latin American region, now part ofLiberty Global(LiLAC Group), is pleased to announce that it has signed an agreement withTE SubCom, aTE Connectivity Ltd. (NYSE:TEL) company and an industry pioneer in undersea communications technology, to complete an immediate upgrade to the ECLink (Trinidad-Curacao) system. ECLink is the latest regional system within C&W Networks' 48,000 km of subsea fiber to receive an upgrade to its capacity using TE SubCom technology. The agreement upholds TE SubCom's presence in the Caribbean and extends its 15-year-long relationship with C&W Networks.
Highlights / Key Facts
ECLink Upgrade
• Built in 2007 by TE SubCom, ECLink is a 938 km regional undersea cable system connecting Trinidad and Curacao.
• The upgraded system will be designed to accommodate five 100 Gb plug-and-play wavelengths and will have two 100 Gb wavelengths activated.
• The plug-and-play design enables cable station personnel to easily install and provision the transceiver to efficiently provide additional capacity and meet consistently growing customer capacity needs.
Fifteen Years of Successful Partnership
• The ECLink upgrade follows a similar 100 Gb plug-and-play upgrade to C&W Networks' CFX-1, the fastest route between the United States and Colombia.
• CFX-1 is a 2,500 km regional cable system manufactured and installed by TE SubCom and entered into service in 2008 to provide high bandwidth connectivity between Boca Raton, Florida, U.S.A., and Cartagena, Colombia and a branch to Morant Point, Jamaica.
• Since first engaging with C&W Networks in 2001, TE SubCom has constructed and upgraded three regional systems, including the ARCOS, Trinidad Curacao and CFX-1 networks. Each originally designed for 10Gbps transmission, TE SubCom has, in recent years, increased capacity by 2Tb/s across the three networks.
"We're excited to once again partner with TE SubCom and pleased to have chosen them as the provider for the ECLink regional upgrade," said Paul Scott, president of C&W Networks. "Our capacity upgrades across the Pan-Caribbean region will help us meet the high performance and network reliability needed so we can offer better and faster services that meet the ever evolving needs of our wholesale carrier customers."
"We value C&W Networks' continued preference for our company's technology portfolio and regional expertise in support of these upgrades," said Michael Rieger, vice president, TE SubCom. "As with all our customers, our goal is to build a partnership based on long-term vision, support and dependability."
About TE SubComTE SubCom (SubCom), a TE Connectivity Ltd. company, is an industry pioneer in undersea communications technology and marine services, and a leading global supplier for today's undersea communications requirements. As a vertically integrated supplier, SubCom designs, manufactures, deploys, and maintains the industry's most reliable fiber optic cable systems. Its solutions include long-haul and regional systems, repeaterless networks, capacity upgrades, offshore oil and gas, and scientific research applications. SubCom brings end-to-end network knowledge and global experience to support on-time delivery and the needs of customers worldwide. To date, the company has deployed more than 100 cable systems and enough subsea communication cable to circle the Earth 15 times at the equator. For more information, visitwww.SubCom.com.
About TE ConnectivityTE Connectivity (NYSE:TEL) is a $12 billion global technology leader. Our connectivity and sensor solutions are essential in today's increasingly connected world. We collaborate with engineers to transform their concepts into creations - redefining what's possible using intelligent, efficient and high-performing TE products and solutions proven in harsh environments. Our 72,000 people, including over 7,000 engineers, partner with customers in close to 150 countries across a wide range of industries. We believe EVERY CONNECTION COUNTS -www.TE.com.
About C&W NetworksC&W Networks is a wholly owned subsidiary of Cable & Wireless Communications and a wholesale telecommunications service provider that offers broadband, IP capacity and a growing portfolio of managed services and integrated solutions to global, regional and local telecom carriers, TV cable companies, Internet Service Providers and Network Integrators. C&W Networks operates the largest subsea multi-ring fibre-optic network throughout the greater Caribbean, Central American and Andean region along with the most comprehensive fully meshed MPLS network in the region. Connecting over 40 countries, the company's fully protected ringed submarine fibre optic network spans more than 48,000km. Cable routes include the Caribbean Optical-ring System (ARCOS-1), Colombia-Florida Express (CFX-1), EC-Link cable system, Fibralink, Maya 1, Eastern Caribbean Fiber Express (ECFS), Taino-Carib, East-West, Cayman-Jamaica Fibre system, Caribbean-Bermuda U.S (CBUS), Americas II, Gemini Bermuda, Pan America (PAN-AM), Antillas 1 and Pacific Caribbean Cable System (PCCS). For more information, visit:www.cwnetworks.com.
About C&W CommunicationsCWC is a full service communications and entertainment provider and delivers market-leading video, broadband, telephony and mobile services to consumers in 18 countries. Through its business division, CWC provides data center hosting, domestic and international managed network services, and customized IT service solutions, utilizing cloud technology to serve business and government customers.
Learn more atwww.cwc.com, or follow C&W onLinkedIn,FacebookorTwitter.
About Liberty GlobalLiberty Global is the world's largest international TV and broadband company, with operations in more than 30 countries across Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean. We invest in the infrastructure that empowers our customers to make the most of the digital revolution. Our scale and commitment to innovation enables us to develop market-leading products delivered through next-generation networks that connect our 29 million customers who subscribe to over 59 million television, broadband internet and telephony services. We also serve 11 million mobile subscribers and offer WiFi service across seven million access points.
Liberty Global's businesses are comprised of two stocks: the Liberty Global Group (NASDAQ:LBTYA) (NASDAQ:LBTYB) (NASDAQ:LBTYK) for our European operations, and the LiLAC Group (NASDAQ:LILA) (NASDAQ:LILAK) (OTC PINK:LILAB), which consists of our operations in Latin America and the Caribbean.
The Liberty Global Group operates in 12 European countries under the consumer brands Virgin Media, Ziggo, Unitymedia, Telenet and UPC. The LiLAC Group operates in over 20 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean under the consumer brands VTR, Flow, Liberty, Mas Movil and BTC. In addition, the LiLAC Group operates a subsea fiber network throughout the region in over 30 markets.
For more information, please visitwww.libertyglobal.com. || Bitcoin is money, U.S. judge says in case tied to JPMorgan hack: By Jonathan Stempel NEW YORK (Reuters) - Bitcoin qualifies as money, a federal judge ruled on Monday, in a decision linked to a criminal case over hacking attacks against JPMorgan Chase & Co (JPM.N) and other companies. U.S. District Judge Alison Nathan in Manhattan rejected a bid by Anthony Murgio to dismiss two charges related to his alleged operation of Coin.mx, which prosecutors have called an unlicensed bitcoin exchange. Murgio had argued that bitcoin did not qualify as "funds" under the federal law prohibiting the operation of unlicensed money transmitting businesses. But the judge, like her colleague Jed Rakoff in an unrelated 2014 case, said the virtual currency met that definition. "Bitcoins are funds within the plain meaning of that term," Nathan wrote. "Bitcoins can be accepted as a payment for goods and services or bought directly from an exchange with a bank account. They therefore function as pecuniary resources and are used as a medium of exchange and a means of payment." The decision did not address six other criminal counts that Murgio faces, Nathan wrote. Lawyers for Murgio did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Prosecutors last year charged Murgio over the operation of Coin.mx, and in April charged his father Michael with participating in bribery aimed at supporting it. Authorities have said Coin.mx was owned by Gery Shalon, an Israeli man who, along with two others, was charged with running a sprawling computer hacking and fraud scheme targeting a dozen companies, including JPMorgan, and exposing personal data of more than 100 million people. That alleged scheme generated hundreds of millions of dollars of profit through pumping up stock prices, online casinos, money laundering and other illegal activity, prosecutors have said. Shalon has pleaded not guilty, and is being held at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Manhattan. He hired new lawyers last month and is seeking permission to replace lawyers who joined the case in June, a Monday court filing showed. The case is U.S. v Murgio et al, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, No. 15-cr-00769. (Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by David Gregorio) View comments || C&W Business Launches Hosted Collaboration Solution (HCS) on Demand at Cisco Live!: CANCUN, MEXICO--(Marketwired - Nov 7, 2016) - Cisco Live! -- C&W Business , part of C&W Communications (C&W), one of the largest full service communications and entertainment providers in the Caribbean and Latin America region, now owned by Liberty Global (LiLAC Group), is excited to announce the launch of Hosted Collaboration Solution (HCS) on Demand, a managed Unified Collaboration Service, at Cisco Live! . Cisco Live is one of the main IT conferences in the Latin America region and is expected to draw more than 5,500 customers, experts and partners from different business segments and levels. Cisco Live! will be held from November 7-10 in Cancun, Mexico and C&W Business will be present at booth #506 showcasing live demos of its next-generation platform, HCS on Demand. The launch of HCS on Demand, powered by Cisco, is a managed unified collaboration platform that will enable customers in 24 countries across the Caribbean and Latin America to leverage a full suite of IP-enabled collaboration tools. HCS on Demand will be hosted by C&W Business at their data centers and be delivered to customers over the Company's world-class, SIP-enabled fiber IP (terrestrial and submarine) and fault-tolerant network. This network encompasses over 42,000 kilometers (26,000 miles) of fiber across the Caribbean and Latin America and is the only MEF CE 2.0 certified network across the region, allowing C&W Business to deliver highly secure and reliable data, voice and video services efficiently to its customers. "C&W Business HCS on Demand helps accelerate customers' day-to-day business processes, helping achieve better and faster business outcomes across the region. Customers won't have to worry about burdening their IT staff with the effort to deploy and operate their own PBX or UCC platform. Customers will only pay for what they need, with no upfront costs, making unified communications more affordable and the costs more predictable in a fixed monthly service charge per user," said Daniel Peiretti, SVP Product Development and Management, C&W Business. "Our HCS on Demand solution is secure, offers strong SLA's, and is supported by a business-class infrastructure with a certified team that uses a simplified deployment model. We will have customers up and running in no time, from anywhere, anytime and from any device," added Peiretti. Story continues As a Cisco Master Managed Service Provider, C&W Business utilizes its highly secure and connected fabric of datacenters to deliver the most comprehensive, integrated solutions for clients. This crucial element enables clients to have a single point of contact, avoiding the challenge of managing multiple vendors. In addition, business applications and unified communication applications are hosted in the same datacenter significantly reducing latency and enhancing data security. C&W Business HCS on Demand will offer customers: Voice and video communications, mobility, messaging, presence, web and video conferencing, and contact center. Access to cloud-based resources in a fast and easy way so customers can get up and running faster than with traditional models. Predictable per-user monthly costs without having to incur upfront capital expenditure investments. Ability to easily ramp up or down to address seasonal needs. Deployment of different license types to individuals across work groups or departments as required. Elimination of the costs and problems of equipment maintenance and software upgrades. Customers most likely to benefit from this solution are those with a need for enhanced remote worker integration, mobility, cost reduction, reduced travel cost, simplified user experience, accelerated decision making, improved customer service and better work-life balance for its employees. In addition, existing Cisco collaboration customers can migrate their "on premises" solution into this cloud and maintain their investment in licensing. Cisco Live! is the premier IT conference in Latin America -- which gathers customers, experts and partners from different industries, segments, and countries. Cisco Live! is held annually in four cities worldwide: Las Vegas, Berlin, Melbourne and Cancun. Learn more at #CiscoLiveLA Visit C&W Business at Cisco Live! C&W Business will be an exhibitor at booth #506 during Cisco Live!, at the Moon Palace Golf & Spa Resort Cancun, Mexico. To learn about our technology-driven solutions that offer unique Cisco collaboration technologies using hosted and managed models. Meet our technology experts and join us for demo presentations on our solutions on November 9 from 10:30 am - 12:30 pm and on November 10 from 12:30 - 2:00 pm in the Cisco Powered booth. NOTES TO EDITORS C&W Business To Offer Cisco Collaboration As A Service Over Its MPLS Networks About C&W Communications C&W is a full service communications and entertainment provider and delivers market-leading video, broadband, telephony and mobile services to consumers in 18 countries. Through its business division, C&W provides data center hosting, domestic and international managed network services, and customized IT service solutions, utilizing cloud technology to serve business and government customers. C&W also operates a state-of-the-art submarine fiber network -- the most extensive in the region. Learn more at www.cwc.com , or follow C&W on LinkedIn , Facebook or Twitter . About Liberty Global Liberty Global is the world's largest international TV and broadband company, with operations in more than 30 countries across Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean. We invest in the infrastructure that empowers our customers to make the most of the digital revolution. Our scale and commitment to innovation enables us to develop market-leading products delivered through next-generation networks that connect our 29 million customers who subscribe to over 60 million television, broadband internet and telephony services. We also serve 10 million mobile subscribers and offer WiFi service across seven million access points. Liberty Global's businesses are comprised of two stocks: the Liberty Global Group ( NASDAQ : LBTYA ) ( NASDAQ : LBTYB ) ( NASDAQ : LBTYK ) for our European operations, and the LiLAC Group ( NASDAQ : LILA ) and ( NASDAQ : LILAK ) ( OTC PINK : LILAB ), which consists of our operations in Latin America and the Caribbean. The Liberty Global Group operates in 12 European countries under the consumer brands Virgin Media, Ziggo, Unitymedia, Telenet and UPC. The LiLAC Group operates in over 20 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean under the consumer brands VTR, Flow, Liberty, Mas Movil and BTC. In addition, the LiLAC Group operates a subsea fiber network throughout the region in over 30 markets. || Bitcoin is money, U.S. judge says in case tied to JPMorgan hack: By Jonathan Stempel
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Bitcoin qualifies as money, a federal judge ruled on Monday, in a decision linked to a criminal case over hacking attacks against JPMorgan Chase & Co and other companies.
U.S. District Judge Alison Nathan in Manhattan rejected a bid by Anthony Murgio to dismiss two charges related to his alleged operation of Coin.mx, which prosecutors have called an unlicensed bitcoin exchange.
Murgio had argued that bitcoin did not qualify as "funds" under the federal law prohibiting the operation of unlicensed money transmitting businesses.
But the judge, like her colleague Jed Rakoff in an unrelated 2014 case, said the virtual currency met that definition.
"Bitcoins are funds within the plain meaning of that term," Nathan wrote. "Bitcoins can be accepted as a payment for goods and services or bought directly from an exchange with a bank account. They therefore function as pecuniary resources and are used as a medium of exchange and a means of payment."
The decision did not address six other criminal counts that Murgio faces, Nathan wrote.
Lawyers for Murgio did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Prosecutors last year charged Murgio over the operation of Coin.mx, and in April charged his father Michael with participating in bribery aimed at supporting it.
Authorities have said Coin.mx was owned by Gery Shalon, an Israeli man who, along with two others, was charged with running a sprawling computer hacking and fraud scheme targeting a dozen companies, including JPMorgan, and exposing personal data of more than 100 million people.
That alleged scheme generated hundreds of millions of dollars of profit through pumping up stock prices, online casinos, money laundering and other illegal activity, prosecutors have said.
Shalon has pleaded not guilty, and is being held at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Manhattan. He hired new lawyers last month and is seeking permission to replace lawyers who joined the case in June, a Monday court filing showed.
The case is U.S. v Murgio et al, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, No. 15-cr-00769.
(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by David Gregorio) || Blockchain could soon power stock markets, music sales, and even prevent child labor — here's how it works: bi graphics_future of blockchain (.) It's a technology conceived by the mysterious creator of bitcoin — the digital currency championed by a motley crew of privacy-obsessed libertarians, social activists, and some criminals. Bank of America (AP Photo) Now the idea of blockchain has gripped Wall Street's biggest institutions. Its enthusiasts think it could change the world. Sure, it would make contracts more enforceable and speed up the settlement of stock trades — hence the interest from big banks. But some see it going much further, cracking down on sex trafficking , music piracy, and child labor. And the key to all that — what attracts these different factions — is something that, on the surface at least, sounds rather banal: a digital ledger, like the one in your checkbook. "Blockchain is a truly extraordinary technology that does really mundane things," said Paul Brody, Ernst & Young's global blockchain leader. But for all the promise, these big questions remain: Who will foot the bill, and is it really as secure as supporters say? What is blockchain? In the non-blockchain world, we keep separate records of transactions. If you write your friend a check, you balance your own checkbook and your friend does the same when they deposit it. But things can go wrong. They might forget to update their checkbook ledger. And each bank has no way to know immediately if the person has enough in their bank account to cover it. checkbook, checks, writing a check (Flickr / oblivion9999) With a blockchain, instead of two separate checkbooks with two records of debits and credits, you'd both look at the same ledger of transactions. It's private (encrypted, in computer-speak), and decentralized, so neither of you controls the ledger. This "distributed ledger" operates on consensus. Both of you can look at the ledger. Each transaction gets put into a block. If you both say that block is valid and correct, it's added to a chain. And that chain is protected by sophisticated cryptography: No one can change the chain after the fact. Now imagine this in a more complex form. This is what gets people in finance and technology excited. Say you want to buy a stock. Right now, your bank, brokerage, the stock exchange, and the company you're buying all have separate, private records of transactions. They can't see each other's ledgers. Nor can they verify that everything is accurate among all involved. With blockchain, they can all be on the same page — literally. Your bank can verify that you have enough money to transfer to your brokerage. That transfer is added to the ledger of transactions that everyone involved can see. Then your broker executes a trade for 100 shares. That gets added to the blockchain, too. Everyone involved verifies it's legitimate. Story continues The exchange receives the order — also added and verified. And then the company's shares end up in your account. You could see the record of all the shares you buy and sell in the permanent record. If you decide to sell the shares later, that transaction gets added to the blockchain. And because it's a consensus model in which every party confirms a transaction, "it gets more secure the more people you add" to the blockchain, Brody said. "When a transaction is completed, everyone has to get a copy of the transaction." That's blockchain in its purest form. In reality, however, different companies are experimenting with different forms. A blockchain used in financial services could be private, or a hybrid model between the decentralized vision and a more traditional centralized model that bankers are used to. A regulator, for instance, could hold the key to a blockchain, and some companies are thinking about how to maintain a middleman. Mysterious beginnings No one knows who invented blockchain. The idea for it came from a paper published online eight years ago that unveiled bitcoin, the digital currency. The author, Satoshi Nakamoto, is thought to be using a pseudonym. The true identity remains a mystery, and there's debate over whether it was created by an individual or group. At first, bitcoin got all the attention. The idea of a secure, private currency, divorced from a specific government, captured the imaginations of technologists, libertarians, and people concerned about the power of big banks and government regulation. Bitcoin transactions occur peer-to-peer, meaning no government or third party is involved. Goldman Sachs recruiting video (Goldman SachsYouTube/Goldman Sachs) Today, bitcoin and blockchain still attract privacy-minded and antigovernment types. But it also increasingly appeals to people like Grainne McNamara. She spent years building out technology at banks like Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs. Now she's a leader of PricewaterhouseCooper's blockchain for financial services. And that means she spends a lot of time attending and hosting blockchain conferences. At one, a speaker showed a picture of a shed in his presentation. McNamara remembers him jokingly saying, "Take the bankers behind the shed and kill them." He didn't know his audience. McNamara was sitting next to former bankers, who found the whole thing humorous, she said. Despite the shed metaphor, "it's a peaceful cohabitation," McNamara told Business Insider. "People genuinely appreciate the disruptive element to spawn innovation." A contract with a brain One area blockchain proponents get excited about is the idea of a "smart contract." While most bank agreements are still paper documents — banks are awash in paper, even in 2016 — a smart contract is a computer program that helps keeps everyone accountable. video games (People play a video game on the stand of Acer at the IFA Electronics show in Berlin, Germany, Sept. 2, 2015.Reuters/Axel Schmidt) Let's say you're a company that designs and sells video game consoles. You work with suppliers and shipping companies, and have a number of serious concerns. You want to make sure they're manufactured well and on time. You want to make sure there are no labor violations, such as children working on the assembly line. And you want to make sure everyone gets paid on time. In the old way of doing things, numerous contracts might be involved to manufacture one video game console. And each side may have its own paper copies. Smart contracts provide automated accountability. bi graphics a smart contract (Samantha Lee / Business Insider) Because this is blockchain, everyone involved looks at the same contract; no one can change it without the permission of most others. Here's an example: When a truck picks up finished video game consoles from a factory in, say, China, the shipping company scans each box. Those are added to the blockchain, triggering a release of funds from the video game company's bank account. No one has to invoice and chase a payment. "You can marry up the delivery and payment of services," Brody said. It can go beyond getting paid, too. Each worker on the assembly line could scan their identification card, which is then verified by multiple sources such as government agencies and third-party auditors, ensuring the workers are not underage or overworked. And because it's a blockchain, no one can alter the record later. Some have discussed blockchain as a possible tool to help prevent sex trafficking and other scourges. And there are other uses for it that may become big parts of our lives. Healthcare bi graphics possible uses for blockchain (Samantha Lee / Business Insider) Smart contracts in healthcare could do things such as trigger an insurance payment to a doctor when a patient undergoes a CT scan. A blockchain could also be a secure place to store electronic medical records. It would detail all patient-doctor communication, illness and treatment information, vaccination records, medical bills etc. Every subsequent doctor visit or treatment would be added to the blockchain, including those in different cities and countries, creating a complete, historical record of the patient's health. In this case, the blockchain is private, and only certain participants would have the encryption keys to see the record. Music and media Musicians may wish there had been blockchain when Napster undermined music sales around the turn of the century through file-sharing. Music (Blockchain could prevent music piracyFlickr/Kelsey) Now some are thinking blockchain could prevent piracy and help boost sales. Artists could provide their music directly off a ledger, and smart contracts might ensure the right people are paid and only those with rights play the tracks. A similar model could help fund news outlets and other media organizations. Property records Some companies' whole job is tracking down property records. Blockchain could change that. If property deeds were on a blockchain, the other participants (known as "network nodes") that validate the transaction could be real-estate agents, financing banks, and a land registry authority. Once the transaction is validated, it is added to the blockchain, and the updated state of the blockchain is broadcast to the participants in real time. As the blockchain maintains the history of all transactions, the entire history of the property and its owners is on the blockchain. Trading and banking The Australian Securities Exchange — ASX — plans to decide by mid-2017 if it will replace its post-trade clearing and settlement system with a blockchain version . This could be a turning point for blockchain and potentially a catalyst for widespread adoption. Bank of England (Bank of EnglandJim Edwards) Central bankers are also getting in on the action. The Bank of England and the People's Bank of China are discussing issuing their national currencies — the pound and the renminbi, respectively — on blockchain. If successful, the technology would make the currencies more traceable, allowing the banks to track them through the financial system in real time. Right now, this use of blockchain is limited to discussion and research papers, but if implemented, other central banks are likely to follow suit. The US Federal Reserve is closely following developments as well, with Fed Gov. Lael Brainard in charge of keeping an eye on the new technology. It's also rumored that other items such as diamonds, art, and food could be put on blockchain so the entire history of the items could be traced. Buzz vs. reality There are over 120 blockchain projects spanning a variety of industries, and the annual budget for blockchain initiatives in 2016 is estimated to be $1 billion. In financial services, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, and Bank of America are among the big names that have partnered with R3, a startup trying to bring blockchain technology to the finance world. But if blockchain is going to work, it needs an industrywide standard. For the first bank to adopt this digital system and overhaul existing infrastructure, it could mean a risky and expensive investment, and that bank would have to hope others follow suit. No one wants to be the first to test that theory. That's why this is one of the few cutting-edge technologies that is generating a lot of talk but not a lot of action among banks. While they are dabbling in the technology, attending conferences and partnering with R3, no bank is taking the lead and going from proofs of concept to using it in the real world. "To get the true value, you need the network effect," said Graham Warner, head of global transaction banking product development in the Americas at Deutsche Bank. The more people and companies use blockchain, the more valuable the technology becomes. Other challenges For all its promise, some major impediments could prevent blockchain's widespread deployment, including regulation, cost, and security issues. Implementing and standardizing blockchain could cost in the billions of dollars, and it would mean an overhaul of legacy systems that people are used to and understand. Today's technology works, and replacing it with something unproven is seen as an expensive risk. Blockchain technology would also potentially mean a huge number of job losses, especially in middle- and back-office functions. Banks would have to get the remaining employees up to speed on the new technology, and using it would initially be a trial-and-error process. Security and privacy issues ethereum (Ethereum) In August, hackers stole $72 million worth of bitcoin from accounts at the Hong Kong cryptocurrency exchange Bitfinex. And in June, hackers stole $55 million worth of ether, a bitcoin rival. The nonprofit that runs ether, Ethereum Foundation, just rolled back the chain. It's as if the hack never took place, and business returned to normal. But that worries purists. The Ethereum hack — and the response to it — led Accenture to create an "editable blockchain model," to "resolve human errors, accommodate legal and regulatory requirements, and address mischief and other issues," according to a news release . Blockchain enthusiasts say this threatens the very nature of the blockchain itself. One of the fundamental benefits of blockchain technology is its immutability — the blockchain represents a "golden record" of transactions, a complete, historical record that technically cannot be interfered with or undone. But there "isn't one blockchain to rule them all," Warner said. "It will be an evolutionary, Darwinian process" to figure out which version of the blockchain applies to which use case. What's next When McNamara learned about blockchain, she said she was "a little bit of a skeptic. But I've been proven wrong." The ecosystem is evolving, she said, and people involved, whether they're activists or bankers, are getting together and talking about "shared values and pain points." ASX Australia Stock Exchange Trader (ASXAP) While some big players like the ASX may be using some form of blockchain as early as next year, some issues are holding blockchain back. Different versions of blockchain are in development, and there's little agreement on what's the best or purest version to deploy. And dozens of startups are working on their own takes on blockchain. Innovation is happening, but all the competing ideas makes big companies cautious to commit to any one type. But most proponents think everything will be worked out in due time, and that in the next few years, blockchain and its smart contracts would improve our lives, even if it operates quietly in the background, invisible to most people. NOW WATCH: Ken Rogoff explains why he's been advocating to eliminate the $100 bill More From Business Insider Now is the worst time to buy a new computer John Kasich's dire warning for the Republican Party: EVOLVE OR DIE Amazon Prime members have access to one of the best smartphone deals out there right now View comments || Payments In The Marijuana Industry: How Blockchain Can Increase Profit And Security: Blockchain was born with the bitcoin, conceived as a way to make databases secure but not managed by one single person. This allows “people who do not know or trust each other [to] build a dependable ledger,” an article fromThe Economistexplained.
As the technology evolved and became more programmable, other applications like tracing a product’s identity/authenticity were found for it. In some cases, blockchain technologies have even managed to replace banks and services like those offered byPaypal Holdings Inc(NASDAQ:PYPL),Moneygram International Inc(NASDAQ:MGI) orThe Western Union Company(NYSE:WU), making transactions faster, cheaper and more secure.
Related Link:You're So Money: NY Judge Rules Bitcoin Qualify As "Funds"
“While software reduces global inequalities through intellectual capital, the blockchain today is helping to reduce global inequalities through financial capital,” Forbes contributor Jonathan Chester explained in arecent piece.
The Marijuana Industry
The legal marijuana industry often finds big hurdles in the banking system; afraid of federal regulators and the money laundering risk derived from such a cash intensive space, most banks don’t want to open accounts for these companies. In this vacuum, a few companies have come up with creative solutions.
For instance,Tokken, provides online banking services to companies in the emerging marijuana industry. As per their site, they offer “safe payment methods to consumers, and a robust compliance platform to partner banks... [eliminating] the risk of money laundering by creating a virtual barrier to cash transactions.”
“Using an indelible Blockchain ledger to ensure data integrity and a proprietary compliance program based on structured analytic techniques, Tokken is designed to comply with every relevant regulatory requirement and provide a sustainable banking solution for the cannabis,” the site added.
CEO Lamine Zarrad recently sat down with Chester and explained that operating in cash costs the marijuana industry between 20 and 25 percent of its revenue. “This is typically lost through the costs of security, storage and shrinkage, a euphemism for employee theft,” he stated. “In order to get cash back into the banking systems, Marijuana companies will work with holding companies that will hold funds on behalf of the dispensary, which the dispensary can then access. In order to get funds into the accounts, these dispensaries need to hire groups of runners who take the cash to ATMs throughout the city to deposit cash in small batches.”
But, how can the company achieve this without recurring to a bank?
Related Link:Reads For The Weed-Kend: Franchising, Canada And Snoop Dogg, Damian Marley's Cannabis Prison Venture
As Chester expounded, blockchains were created specifically to avoid banks while still meeting most audit requirements — as each transaction is both public and protected from “book-cooks.” Tokken, for example, notarizes its transactions via Tierion, a platform that “puts an immutably cryptographic summary of business records on the blockchain, which permits verification while maintaining customer privacy,” Chester concluded.
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© 2016 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Mergers and Acquisitions Surge; MandA Funds Flat: There’s been another wave of headline-making mergers and acquisitions this year following a hot year for deals in 2015, the latest of which was the blockbuster $85 billion AT&T-Time Warner deal announced this week. If you are an ETF investor, does a pickup in M&A activity offer you any investment opportunity? In theory, yes. There are two ETFs in the market today that look to capitalize specifically on these types of corporate deals through long/short hedge-fundlike portfolios. They are: IQ Merger Arbitrage ETF (MNA) , $130 million in AUM ProShares Merger ETF (MRGR) , $5.4 million in AUM But the reality is that the pickup in M&A activity does not necessarily mean an uptick in the performance of these funds. Consider that, other than the AT&T-Time Warner deal, there have been some pretty notable ones recently, as Bloomberg reported : the British American Tobacco-Reynolds American $58 billion deal; the Qualcomm-NXP Semiconductors $46 billion deal; the Anheuser-Busch InBev bid to buy SABMiller for $100 billion; and talks of a “possible” CBS-Viacom $30 billion deal. And yet, here’s how these two ETFs have performed relative to the SPDR S&P 500 (SPY) this year—they have practically not gone anywhere: Chart courtesy of Stockcharts.com Flood Of Deals Don’t Boost Performance “Both ETFs seek to benefit from a merger arbitrage situation, where a stock will not trade as high as the terms of the deal, on risks the deal may not close as expected,” said Todd Rosenbluth, head of ETF research at S&P Global. “While M&A activity has picked up recently, these ETFs have lagged the S&P 500 index, as their performance is less tied to the traditional catalysts for U.S. equities.” In the case of the AT&T bid to acquire Time Warner, Time Warner stock traded at a “discount to the deal’s value” because investors aren’t sure this deal will actually close, Rosenbluth notes. This is where merger arbitrage opportunity lies, but also the challenge. It’s not easy to predict where the next big deal is going to happen, and when the news is made public, the potential to capture outsized premiums tends to diminish. Story continues How MNA Works MNA tracks an index that takes long positions in firms that are acquisition targets, and shorts broad equity indexes to manage downside risk associated with the deals. Any money left over is tied to short-term bonds. The design is meant to capture any premium associated with the companies being acquired, much like a hedge fund would do. The long side of the portfolio weights deals based on liquidity—on average dollars traded—of a company. The short side of the portfolio can represent as much as 40% at times. One of the main risks associated with this strategy is that a deal can be broken, and when that happens, stock prices of the target companies tend to drop. In the case of MNA, stocks aren’t removed immediately from the portfolio if that happens—they stay on until the next monthly rebalance. That can impact returns. Bonds Top Allocation Right now, the portfolio’s largest single allocation is to short-term bonds in the form of a 19% allocation to the SPDR Barclays 1-3 Month T-Bill (BIL ) and a 6.3% allocation to the iShares Short Treasury Bond (SHV) —that’s roughly a quarter of the portfolio. These ETFs are in the black year-to-date, but not by much. They have each returned less than 1% so far in 2016. Leading individual companies with a 9.6% weighting is LinkedIn, followed by St. Jude Medical and Rackspace—all takeover targets. On the short side of the portfolio, the largest weighting is to a few sector ETFs. The Healthcare Select Sector SPDR (XLV) and the Energy Select Sector SPDR (XLE) are at a combined weighting of about -10%. XLV’s share price is down this year, but XLE has rallied more than 16%. MRGR Similar Build MRGR, launched in 2012, goes head to head with MNA and is built in much the same way. The fund is vastly smaller, however, having gathered only about $5.5 million in assets in four years. MRGR longs stocks of companies that are the targets of acquisition, and it shorts the acquiring firms, with the goal of capturing the spread between the two. The fund also has a currency-hedge component given that it’s global in scope. The underlying index in this strategy usually comprises about 40 announced deals. Among the fund’s largest single company holdings right now are names such as Yadkin Financial, Starz and Valspar Corp. Perhaps due to a positive stock market, or to low interest rates, or to companies’ need to grow through acquisition, or to all of the above, M&A deals continue to pop up as the year-end nears. Some even say that the massive AT&T/Time Warner deal “could potentially trigger another M&A wave due to the strategic merits of vertical integration,” according to Rosenbluth. These funds offer a direct vector for ETF investors to tap into the deals themselves, but it’s important to remember that more and bigger M&A deals don’t necessarily translate into more and bigger returns in these hedge-fundlike ETFs. Contact Cinthia Murphy at cmurphy@etf.com Recommended Stories Top ETF Picks For 2017 Core Stock & Bond Portfolios Need New Look Mergers & Acquisitions Surge; M&A Funds Flat SEC Wants To Hear From You On Bitcoin ETF S&P 500: The Best Crowdsourcing Tool Permalink | © Copyright 2016 ETF.com. All rights reserved || Got bitcoin? Despite early setbacks, some say it is stronger than ever: Bitcoin, the digital currency that captivated the world just three years ago before being tainted by scandals, may be making a comeback. In fact, many experts say it never really went away despite wild swings in its value. "I think the future of digital currency is bright," said Marco Santori, a partner at Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman in New York, and leader of the firm's digital currency and blockchain technology team. Blockchain refers to the virtual ledger that powers bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. "This is probably the most important invention since the internet," Santori said in an interview with CNBC's " American Greed ." From the beginning, the concept has been alluring if not utopian. Imagine a currency that is not tied to the whims of politicians, the foibles of central bankers, or the fortunes of a particular country. Rather than relying on a government to mint a currency, users could "mine" their own bitcoin by running software contributing their own computing power to verify other bitcoin transactions. Or they could simply buy bitcoin on one of several online exchanges, investing in it like any other currency. To many, it seemed like a good bet. By the fall of 2013, with the U.S. government locked in yet another showdown over raising the debt ceiling and facing the specter of an unprecedented default, interest in virtual currencies like bitcoin peaked. The price of a single bitcoin reached a high of $1,108.80 according to Coinbase, the first licensed U.S. bitcoin exchange. But the frenzy would be short-lived. Around the time prices were reaching their high, U.S. authorities were exposing what they considered the dark side of bitcoin, busting what the FBI called "a black market bazaar for drugs and illegal services" an underground web site known as Silk Road. In a case explored in the latest episode of "American Greed," the FBI arrested the site's 29-year-old founder, Ross Ulbricht, who was eventually sentenced to life in prison (he is appealing his conviction). And the government seized more than $30 million worth of Silk Road's currency of choice: bitcoin. Story continues Meanwhile in Japan, the world's largest bitcoin exchange, Mt.Gox, was spiraling into bankruptcy amid allegations it was a conduit for money laundering. Within two months of Ulbricht's arrest, bitcoin lost nearly half its value. The price would continue to decline for more than a year, hitting a low of $203.77 at the beginning of 2015, according to Coinbase. But lately, bitcoin has been rebounding, hitting $757.77 in June. The price has leveled off since then but is still roughly three times its 2015 lows. Santori says an even better indicator of bitcoin's apparent rebound is volume. "After the Silk Road was taken down, we did see a hit in volume," he said. "It confirms that bitcoin was being used on the Silk Road and used in earnest. But volume went back up again, and now it's many, many times what it was back then." Indeed, according to the Luxembourg-based technology firm Blockchain, more than 200,000 bitcoin transactions are taking place daily now, compared with just 90,000 at the peak of the frenzy in 2013. "Digital currency today is so much farther along than it was even back in 2013 when it arguably started to reach its height and peak in sort of mass market popularity," Santori said. But bitcoin still faces challenges some old, some new. Bitcoin is no longer the only game in town. Other cryptocurrencies have sprung up, most notably ethereum. It expands on bitcoin's blockchain technology, allowing users not only to engage in basic transactions, but also to execute "smart contracts" that automatically enforce themselves. Meanwhile, the law surrounding virtual currencies remains a work in process, with conflicting court rulings about how to define them. "Are they commodities? Are they property? This is going to be a very long road for virtual currencies in general to kind of settle in to a particular legal class," Santori said. Then of course there is the issue of crime. The value of any currency depends in part on its reputation, and in that respect the Silk Road case was a huge setback for bitcoin. But Santori says that is unfair. "Are bitcoins used for crime? Well of course. But so are a lot of other currencies. So are a lot of other technologies," Santori said. Many experts agree that bitcoin is actually less useful to criminals than other currencies, because contrary to popular belief, it is not anonymous. In fact, one of the IRS agents who helped to finally unravel Silk Road says it was bitcoin that ultimately led law enforcement officials to their man. "Back then, criminals are operating under the impression that bitcoin was an untraceable currency and law enforcement wouldn't ever, maybe never, be able to figure this out," Tigran Gambaryan told "American Greed." "Well, when you fast forward it to 2014-2015, that was no longer the case." So will bitcoin and its fellow cryptocurrencies eventually replace all the money in our wallet? Not necessarily. Even some of the most enthusiastic boosters, like Santori, say that contrary to some of the early expectations, it is hard to beat the U.S. dollar. "You can complain all you want about the banks, but the U.S. dollar is strong," he said. "It's a good currency. It's a good store of value. it's a good medium of exchange. It does all the things we want money to do." But he says other countries with less stable currencies could find bitcoin to be a useful alternative a medium of exchange for them, and a source of investment elsewhere, including in the U.S. And as the technology develops, we may all have to expand our concept of the meaning of money. Follow the amazing global manhunt that finally put an end to the Silk Road on the ALL-NEW season finale of "American Greed," Thursday, Sept. 29 at 10 pm ET/PT only on CNBC Prime. More From CNBC Top News and Analysis Latest News Video Personal Finance
[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
1 KOBO = 0.00000000 BTC
= 0.0015 USD
= 0.4564 NGN
= 0.0216 ZAR
= 0.1518 KES
#Kobocoin 2016-10-12 02:00 pic.twitter.com/wmwWfaa1Go || 1 #BTC (#Bitcoin) quotes:
$628.98/$629.00 #Bitstamp
$631.10/$632.94 #BTCe
⇢$2.10/$3.96
$626.54/$633.09 #Coinbase
⇢$-2.46/$4.11 || One Bitcoin now worth $711.27@bitstamp. High $724.00. Low $707.00. Market Cap $11.364 Billion #bitcoin || 1 KOBO = 0.00000261 BTC
= 0.0017 USD
= 0.5168 NGN
= 0.0242 ZAR
= 0.1722 KES
#Kobocoin 2016-10-16 04:00 pic.twitter.com/U1hjZpNzfm || $608.25 at 03:00 UTC [24h Range: $605.00 - $612.97 Volume: 1465 BTC] || 現在の価格は 62066円(http://blockchain.info )です。前回比は0円(0.00%)です。http://konvert.in/currency/1-bitcoin-to-japanese-yen … #ビットコイン #bitcoin via @konvertin || One Bitcoin now worth $634.00@bitstamp. High $635.02. Low $612.71. Market Cap $10.095 Billion #bitcoin pic.twitter.com/d5OcxqrQNg || $634.20 at 07:49 UTC [24h Range: $632.76 - $638.00 Volume: 2238 BTC] || One Bitcoin now worth $624.10@bitstamp. High $635.00. Low $612.41. Market Cap $ 9.937 Billion #bitcoin pic.twitter.com/haxmi4Vx7a || $610.76 at 23:15 UTC [24h Range: $605.76 - $612.00 Volume: 2280 BTC]
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Trend: down || Prices: 751.59, 751.62, 731.03, 739.25, 751.35, 744.59, 740.29, 741.65, 735.38, 732.03
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Analyze the provided historical prices, technical indicators, news, and social media sentiment from the last 60 days. Based on this context, predict the overall trend (up, down, or no change) and the specific daily closing prices for Bitcoin for the next 10 days.
|
[Technical Analysis for 2019-10-22]
BTC Price: 8078.20, BTC RSI: 38.93
Gold Price: 1481.70, Gold RSI: 44.73
Oil Price: 54.16, Oil RSI: 48.85
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
Could a weak Mexican economy turn more citizens to Bitcoin?: Mexico’s relationship with Bitcoin could soon be about to flourish as the Mexican economy continues to stagnate after the second quarter. With new monetary policy decisions in the pipeline, more citizens could choose Bitcoin as an alternative method to preserve their savings. Mexico already has quite a history with Bitcoin. The government has gone above and beyond to implement regulations surrounding the cryptocurrency market. While these efforts might have slowed down the development of fintech start-ups , they’ve unquestionably made cryptocurrencies more trustworthy (or regulated at least). The Mexican economy is weaker than estimated The Mexican economy is facing a technical recession . This is generally defined as two consecutive quarters of economic contraction, such as the country has witnessed in 2019. The numbers don’t look very good for the economic stability of the country. For Q1 2019, the gross domestic product (GDP) figures were revised down by 0.1%, showing that the economy contracted 0.3% from Q4 2018. However, President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador isn’t worried about the effects of this stagnation. He said: “Now there is growth and better income distribution, most Mexicans have more purchasing power. That’s why I’m not very concerned about the matter.” However, low growth rates could soon turn negative, which may increase the risks for a country with one of the largest GDPs worldwide. Mexico is also fighting against low investor confidence, which is also reducing its hopes for growth. Last but not least, the country managed to implement a series of rigid regulations that slow down start-ups and companies in the fintech industry. The situation in Mexico is hard to understand for people who aren’t aware of the contradictions in this country. Here, more than 40% of the population lives in poverty, with no bank accounts, registered income, or financial education. Increased mistrust in financial institutions Mexicans get most of their money from remittances. The country is the third-largest recipient of funds from outside the country, with an income from payments that exceeded $31 billion in 2017. Story continues However, the costs of receiving money are high, often over 5% and even 7% . This alone could be a large reason Mexicans don’t like banks or other financial institutions. For them, cryptocurrency could be an excellent alternative for international transactions. Mexico and Bitcoin could make international money transfers faster, cheaper, and more transparent than ever before. Less than half of Mexico’s population has a bank account, which makes it difficult for a large number of users to receive money. Cryptocurrencies could offer Mexicans a cost-effective alternative and more control over their funds. It wouldn’t be surprising, then, if Mexicans came to trust Bitcoin more than banks. The Mexico Bitcoin story: How BTC could help First of all, Bitcoin could be the perfect way around banks and their excessive fees. Cryptocurrencies would allow impoverished people to avoid huge losses every time they receive money, both from transaction fees and exchange rates. If they could also use Bitcoin to make purchases, they wouldn’t need to rely on costly financial platforms at all. Would that benefit the Mexican economy as a whole? Most probably yes, because it would encourage consumption. People have more money, so they have some extra cash to spend, save, or invest at the end of the month. Bitcoin could also teach the locals to store value. In the long run, it could help to create a more consistent middle class – essential for any economy that aims to reach healthy growth. Bitcoin doesn’t develop independently from the global economy and you need more than a recession in one country to majorly increase adoption of the cryptocurrency. However, when economic conditions are favourable for alternative assets and payment methods, Bitcoin starts to shine. Moreover, in Mexico, people can easily buy Bitcoin with cash. The country has 11 Bitcoin ATMs where people can purchase digital coins without a bank account. The takeaway The leftist politics of President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador seem to have brought Mexico to a technical recession – two consecutive quarters of economic contraction. While this alone is far from putting the population at risk, it certainly doesn’t encourage growth or development. People willing to keep funds safe may soon look for alternative solutions. Since Mexicans are not fond of banks and other financial institutions, Bitcoin could be the next big thing in this country. The post Could a weak Mexican economy turn more citizens to Bitcoin? appeared first on Coin Rivet . || Bakkt’s Slow Start Doesn’t Mean Bitcoin Futures Have Flopped: Galen Moore is a member of the CoinDesk Research team. The opinions expressed in this article are the author’s own. The following article originally appeared in Institutional Crypto by CoinDesk, a weekly newsletter focused on institutional investment in crypto assets. Sign up for free here . It’s a lively time for bitcoin derivatives – or at least for those writing about them. For those trading them, it may be business as usual. The Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) announced Friday it is preparing to offer options trades on its bitcoin futures contract. It’s a surprising move, because options volume to date rounds to zero, as a percentage of reported volume in futures and swaps. Still, nobody in crypto has had an options counterparty as reliable as CME before. The announcement gives CME a way to offer options without having to build much anew. Why should it? CME’s bitcoin futures market represents a tiny percentage of its overall volume. Nevertheless, CME may be feeling a shade of anxiety about its leadership position in regulated crypto derivatives markets, with Bakkt rolling out a regulated bitcoin futures contract this week that, unlike the Chicago exchange’s, is settled in actual bitcoin rather than cash. After all, other people in Chicago who trade a lot of bitcoin seem to think physically settled futures are important . Maybe CME’s announcement lets it steal a little of Bakkt’s thunder. Speaking of Bakkt, its October 2019 monthly and daily contracts launched Monday. First-day volume in the monthly contract was just 71 BTC. That’s rather anemic, compared with the start of the CME product in December 2017 , which isn’t necessarily apples to apples, given CME futures launched near bitcoin’s all-time highs. The Bakkt one-day futures contract is the more intriguing product of the two. It could be anything from a CFTC-regulated fiat onramp to a duplicate of the popular BitMEX perpetual swap, if traders use its T+2 settlement to build a forward curve and continue to roll the contracts. So far, traders aren’t. Volume in Bakkt’s one-day futures was all of 2 BTC on Monday. Persistent myth The first regulated bitcoin futures came in December 2017, just before bitcoin’s price began a long slide down 83 percent from its all-time high. With volumes under $100 million, however, it would be hard to argue that futures trading brought sanity to the markets. Instead, it’s more likely that slow demand for the new product punctured the myth of institutional demand for bitcoin exposure, pent up behind compliance departments’ insistence on a regulated product. Story continues That myth is alive and well today among retail-focused crypto “analysts,” as a search for “bakkt volume fail” will show you. If you were around in 2017, you didn’t need time travel to know to short bitcoin on Monday : you had seen this movie before. Even the least-sober among us in 2019 recognize the obvious , that institutional investors’ interest in bitcoin is developing slowly, when it is developing at all. For institutional investors, derivatives offer readily understood solutions to operational obstacles related to custody, investability and risk. (Regulated bitcoin futures are structured the same as futures in, say, frozen concentrated orange juice.) Still, today the lion’s share of the volume is on unregulated exchanges that don’t operate as clearinghouses and offer leverage up to 100X. These products could not be interesting to any regulated asset manager, but they are interesting. Despite persistent doubts as to the reliability of their reported volumes ( especially with OKEx and Huobi ), bitcoin traders on the largest over-the-counter (OTC) trading desks know there is liquidity in these markets. Their hedging strategies rely on that liquidity. Other than that, volume on these leveraged trades is probably all crypto hedge funds and, as one trader put it to me, “degenerate gamblers,” trading on their own accounts. Bitcoin futures are structured much like orange juice concentrate futures, but everyone knows that orange juice concentrate, when mixed with more volatile things can become rather flammable . There are important qualities that set bitcoin apart from other asset categories and these qualities of the underlying are taken into account by institutional investors evaluating bitcoin derivatives. For example, there may not be natural hedges in a bitcoin futures market. If you don’t believe that, compare global operating expenditure for gold miners to those of bitcoin miners. This isn’t Kansas. Road ahead Derivatives may be gold bricks paving the road to institutional investment in bitcoin, but it’s a long way to the Emerald City. Right now, the CME futures volume is as good a guide as any to investors’ progress along that road. You may have seen charts showing the rise in CME volumes in May. That rise also coincided with a twofold increase in the price of bitcoin. Measured in bitcoin terms, CME futures volume surged in July and is now back trading at a modest growth rate over Q1 levels. Meanwhile, no fewer than four other startups are readying new derivatives offerings for the U.S. institutional and other regulated markets. All are focused on physical settlement. It remains to be seen whether physical delivery will be a feature that compels market participation. It’s not always very important in derivatives built on other asset categories. One thing appears certain: no new financial instrument is likely to “unlock” institutional demand, as most institutions are only beginning to answer the question of why they would invest in bitcoin in the first place. (Thanks to the team at www.sk3w.co for their data and input.) This analysis draws on a forthcoming white paper on the state of crypto-asset derivatives. Look for it later this week at coindesk.com/intro-to-crypto-investment . Bitcoin clock via Shutterstock View comments || Analysis: Bitcoin primed for a price break out: Bitcoinis sitting inside a mammoth 5-month trading pattern—with a possible breakout approaching in the next 10 days. The pattern is called a symmetrical triangle, and refers to a chart characterized by two converging trend lines connecting a series of sequential peaks and troughs.
Looking back over the last 160 days, bitcoin's price sat neatly inside this pattern–the first signs of it emerged in May this year, when bitcoin's price rallied from a low of $5,000.
From there, bitcoin gained steadily over the next two months, to hit a high of nearly $14,000 in June. That was followed by three distinctlower highsof $13000, $12000 and $11000, in July, August and September, as the chart below shows.
On the support (lower) side of the triangle—bitcoin saw two recenthigher lowsof $9350 and $9850, in late August and just 2 days ago on September 11.
More interesting than just the pattern, however, is the shape's length, and range in the price's movement—5 months and an astonishing $10,000 (from top to bottom). While it's impossible to predict what will happen next, when a break out does occur—i.e. a price drop or rise that falls outside the trend lines—it's like to be sizable. A movement as high as a $5,000 swing up, or down, over the next few weeks is not beyond expectations.
For now, all eyes seem to be on the expiry of this pattern—with many predicting that it will be on the exact day of the Bakkt bitcoin futureslaunch,coming up in just 10 days.
Which way will the pattern break from there? It's unclear. However, the last time something like this happened to bitcoin was the first futures launch by the CME group, in December 2017. That saw prices fall from an all-time high of $20,000.
However, this time the asset is not at all-time highs—with its mininghashrateand thelighting networkback into growth this year. So a price rise seems more likely. Hashrate is in a clear bull market in 2019, and a recent report byTokenInsightcorroborates that price is likely to rise as a result.
The only thing that looks certain is an explosion in price volatility over the next 10 days. Hold on to your hats. || Debate: Will Bakkt send Bitcoin's price skyrocketing?: Bakkt , a bitcoin futures exchange and digital asset platform, launched its Bitcoin futures contracts today. Bakkt users can now enter into daily and monthly futures contracts: Agreements wherein the buyer of a contract bets that the price of Bitcoin will go up or down by a certain date, and pockets–or pays–the difference. Why care? Investors are still concerned over Bitcoin’s lack of regulation. Binance.US , the American outpost of one of the largest crypto exchanges that launched today, still can’t operate in major US states like New York. But if Bakkt can convince traditional investors on Wall Street that Bitcoin is a good investment, then more of Wall Street’s experience, money, and prestige will flow straight to crypto. Think of Bakkt as the New York Stock exchange, but for Bitcoin. No, really: Bakkt is run by the owners of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE)–the Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), and its futures will run on ICE Futures U.S exchange. It’s backed by the CTFC and the NYSDFS, two of the toughest regulators in the US. Support by top regulators could be the kick the crypto industry needs if it wants to be taken seriously by mainstream financial institutions. Bitcoin’s clairvoyants, however, are split over how Bakkt will affect the Bitcoin market. Strong, bullish Bitcoin maximalists say Bakkt will catapult Bitcoin to the next level, but pessimistic no-coiners believe it'll do absolutely nothing, because nobody cares about Bitcoin anyway. Some pundits have already bought into the gambit: “I am very positive on Bakkt and its ability to improve trust with institutions to crypto,” tweeted Tom Lee, the co-founder of Fundstrat Global Advisors Thursday. Vaibhav Kadikar, Founder & CEO of CloseCross , a decentralized prediction market platform, agreed: “[Bakkt] provides a way for large, risk-averse institutions to buy and custody bitcoin through an end-to-end regulated system. Being backed by the New York Stock Exchange has granted bitcoin a level of legitimization never seen before,” he told Decrypt. Story continues With good reason: Bakkt’s futures contracts lets customers bet on the price of Bitcoin in Bitcoin , rather than betting on the price of Bitcoin with US dollars. Risky business if unregulated, but Bakkt’s futures contracts are settled on ICE Futures U.S.–ICE’s futures contracts exchange–and cleared on ICE Clear–ICE’s the derivatives clearing house–both of which are regulated by the CFTC. That’s a huge deal: On other, unregulated exchanges, there’s a chance that the price of Bitcoin could be manipulated at the last second. With CTFC regulation, there’s no chance for any funny business. Christophe de Courson, CEO of blockchain asset management fund Olymp Capital , said that Bakkt’s regulation makes the typical “traditional fund asset managers feel more comfortable,” and gives access to those whom “can’t invest in non-regulated products.” He expects that lots of institutional investors will put money behind Bakkt’s heavily insured custody service. Today’s launch follows the opening of Bakkt Warehouse on September 6, a custody service which is insured to the tune of $125 million, and the same cyber-security technology that protests the NYSE. “Even if a lot of [investors] will trade these contracts over time, it will drive Bitcoin adoption to new highs as institutional investors have now access to a great way to diversify their portfolios,” said de Courson. But Bakkt’s launch has started cautiously, just 28 Bitcoin sits on the exchange, though it only launched last night, and US investors are yet to wake up. Yet there’s reason to believe Bakkt might actually make a difference. Bakkt’s CEO, Kelly Loeffler was ranked in Worth Magazine’s top 100 most influential people in global finance, and was previously the CMO of ICE. And Bakkt has raised hundreds of millions of dollars, backed by huge companies including Microsoft and Starbucks. Preston Byrne, a partner at law firm Byrne & Storm, P.C., told Decrypt Bakkt might not be enough to seal the deal: “On its own I doubt Bakkt will move the needle. However, taken together with all of the other movement in the space, increased professionalization and supervision of the crypto coin markets will be net positive, although it may be necessary to wait for certain regulatory headwinds to die down before we can see the precise impact their arrival will have,” he said. Bitcoin trading on Bakkt breaks a quarter of a million dollars Blockchain critic David Gerard was even more skeptical: “The question is how much demand there will be for Bakkt futures. If you build it, will they come?” Regulator-backed exchanges aren’t a gold-ticket to success. VanEck’s regulator-backed Bitcoin ETF fund was a complete dud, raking in around 4 Bitcoin in total before it gave up, and the Gemini exchange, whose entire business model is trust, is just doing okay, trading some $20 million a day–Binance, by comparison, is traded $725 million n the past day. The lesson here: Regulation doesn’t necessarily mean instant success. “Bakkt has become a buzzword in the crypto space–but it depends if anyone cares enough to give them money, and especially market-significant amounts of money,” he said. Another crypto fortune-tellers took a shot at Bakkt’s principles. In a tweet , cybersecurity expert John McAfee said Bakkt “is the opposite of freedom's movement”. Though Bakkt’s launch could lead to widespread adoption of crypto, it cedes power back to the large financial institutions we love to hate. Bitcoin, supposed to be the decentralized currency of the internet, is reigned back by regulation. A couple hours after launch, the Noes have it: Bitcoin’s price hasn’t jumped at all. In fact, its market cap has dropped $2 billion, from $180 billion to $178. And Bakkt’s exchange, expected to be a waterfall of activity, is eerily quiet. But as America wakes up, Wall Street’s bull might kickstart the crypto market like never before. || Ethereum Classic's plan to seduce Ethereum’s miners: In Vancouver at the annualEthereum Classic Summiton October 3, the Ethereum Foundation’s Virgil Griffithtook to the stageto ruminate on the burgeoning friendship between two formerly bitter rivals: the communities of theEthereumandEthereum Classicblockchains.
The communities have reconciled their differences over the past year, as long-standing tensions ease and developers become more open to inter-blockchain collaboration. And that newfound friendship also brings benefits: as Ethereum inches ever closer to Ethereum 2.0, Ethereum Classic believers sense an opportunity to fill some of the void left by that upgrade.
Ethereum Classic is the original blockchain of the Ethereum network, which forked in 2016to restore funds stolen in a $60 million hack. Ethereum Classic supporters have essentially clung onto the old network, and say the 2016 fork was a betrayal of the principle of “unstoppable” code. But now the communities are settling their differences.
To some, such as Ethereum Classic Cooperate staffer Yaz Khoury, collaboration with Ethereum will could bring in new recruits: Ethereum is set to transition from the miner-based Proof of Work algorithm to the less energy consumptive Proof of Stake algorithm. That could alienate scores of Ethereum miners, who believe it will hurt their business.
Others dream bigger, and predict that Ethereum Classic will eventually dwarf the Ethereum network entirely. Ethereum Classic Cooperative director Bob Summerwill, for instance, points to a spate of departures from the Ethereum community by developers who expressed fatigue at the long hours of unpaid, often thankless work.
The Ethereum Foundation declined to comment.
The blossoming friendship between the two networks began in 2018, at the EDCON conference in Toronto, when Ethereum Foundation Special Projects Director Virgil Griffith invited Anthony Lusardi, then head of the non-profit ETC cooperative, to attend the conference, as part of a broader drive for inclusivity. Lusardigave a speech about interoperability.
“I think the Ethereum Foundation started to realize there was a benefit to working with other chains,” Lusardi said toDecrypt. The goal, he added, was about “exporting ETC politics to whoever will listen.”
The two communities are now working on a number of joint projects including a “peaceBridge,” funded partly by the Ethereum Foundation, that allows users to transact ether between chains. Likewise, some Ethereum and Ethereum Classic hardliners are coordinating resistance to a proposed upgrade, ProgPoW,which they allege was concocted by NVIDIA.
“There is a great opportunity for positive-sum collaboration between the Ethereum and Ethereum Classic communities,” said Terry Culver, the CEO of Ethereum Classic incubator ETC Labs. “They share values, and technical functionality. There is a complicated history, but there is a lot they can do together moving forward.”
Fork of his name
Ethereum Classic was born in July 2016, when some $60 million worth of ether was hacked from the world’s first “decentralized autonomous organization,” a leaderless, headless community built on the Ethereum network, in which thousands of participants had deposited millions of dollars of funds.
The hack came quick, and threw the dreamers involved into an immediate, ultimately devastating quandary: on a supposedly immutable, decentralized network, how could you help the victims of a hack? Could you simply reverse the transactions carrying the hacked funds?
To Summerwill, the answer was an absolute no. Anobviousno. “My original reaction was ‘Of course we should not do anything,’” said the former Ethereum Foundation operative. But, “as that month developed, I could see that the majority of the community were in favor of intervention, and I came to understand the merits of both sides of the argument.”
But only one side prevailed. A majority of Ethereum developers voted to reverse the theft by engineering a hard fork, splitting the network and returning investors’ funds.
To the dissenters, the restoration gave the lie to the meaning of “unstoppable code.” “Immutability is the only reason we are in crypto,” said Khoury, the ETC Cooperative staffer. “It’s the Bitcoin model. The moment we abandon that and start bailing out the protocol, we become no different than traditional financial institutions.”
Thus Ethereum Classic was born, infused with an undisclosed investment from Digital Currency Group magnate Barry Silbert, and supported by the likes of Cardano co-founder Charles Hoskinson,Bloomberg Opinioncolumnist and Bitcoin maximalist Elaine Ou, and a group of pseudonymous contributors going by the name “arvicco”. The dissenters eschewed the post-DAO hard fork and continued on the old chain, letting the hacker get away with the theft. “It was about a week past the fork and ETC had a good resistance going,” recalled Lusardi.
And now, after years of relative stagnation, Ethereum Classicos believe they can do Ethereum one better. Khoury explains that he thinks Ethereum’s miners, hamstrung by the move to proof of stake, will shift their resources to Classic. There’s “no reason for them to mine a chain that can potentially be abandoned for a fresher new chain in Ethereum 2.0,” he said. “So the natural answer is Ethereum Classic. It’s technically the same as Ethereum 1.0, following the same technical roadmap.”
Similarly, he believes many developers of decentralized apps will feel stranded when Ethereum abandons the “Virtual Machine,” home to thousands of (often little-used) decentralized applications. Ethereum Classic makes a “great hedge” for those people, he said. “Yes, we would love that hash power,” agreed Summerwill, who nevertheless said the plot was less dastardly than it might appear to be. “ETC and ETH1 are kind of competitors, but ETC and ETH 2.0 are much more complementary.”
But Kristy-Leigh Minehan, a prominent miner, thinks it’s unlikely Ethereum miners will rush to Ethereum when proof of stake rolls out. While some of the more specialized ASIC miners will be forced to go to Ethereum Classic, she said, miners running adaptable GPUs will more likely quit Ethereum entirely and migrate to more liquid cryptocurrencies on blockchains like Grin and Beam.
“These ‘surges’ of miners swamping a new coin are never good,” she added. “Miners contribute heavily to the ‘sell’ liquidity for the coin. What is going to end up happening is miners—if they did switch to ETC all at once—would drown the exchanges in sell orders and push the price down.”
Lately, several prominent semi- and full departures have rocked the Ethereum community. Spankchain’s Ameen Soleimani announced last week that he was distancing himself from the protocol, after months of unpaid voluntary work left him exhausted. “I don't have enough ETH to justify [boosting Ethereum’s prospects] nor is anyone paying me to do it, so it's essentially volunteer work,” Soleimani tweeted. “I'm burnt tf out. It's not fun anymore.”
Lane Rettig, another developer,said he was stepping backfor similar reasons earlier this month. Developer Afri Schoeden, meanwhile, formerly an Ethereum celebrity, defected to Ethereum Classic earlier this year.
Summerwill insisted in aTwitter threadthat the Ethereum Classic community pays better, works better and coordinates better. Ethereum work, he argued, relies heavily on price swings.
That’s not to say the Ethereum Classic community and network are perfect by contrast. The sheer smallness of the network makes it an easy target for so-called 51 percent attacks, as happened earlier this year when some$1.1 million worth of fraudulent payments were madein a “reorg” (reorganization) of the network.
But despite this security threat and the lingering, simmering tensions, Ethereum Classic is still up and running, and the ETH-ETC bridge remains intact. “You could see it as being similar to the relationship between the British and the Americans,” said Summerwill. “At a certain point you get past ‘The War’ and can focus on common concerns, and be better for that.” Or perhaps the burgeoning “strategic friendship” will wind up more like theMolotov-Ribbentrop pact. || How Cheapskates Can Access Mid Caps: For investors that don't like stocks but do enjoy saving money on fund fees, exchange traded funds are highly desirable destinations. And for those looking to dance with mid-cap stocks , a desirable asset class, there are plenty of compelling ETFs for cost-conscious investors to consider. What Happened The Schwab U.S. Mid-Cap ETF (NYSE: SCHM ) is very much in the cheap mid-cap ETF conversation. SCHM, which debuted more than eight years ago, charges a mere 0.04% per year, or $4 on a $10,000 investment. That easily makes it one of the cheapest mid-cap ETFs on the market and Schwab clients can realize added cost benefits by trading the fund commission-free on Schwab ETF OneSource. SCHM tracks the Dow Jones U.S. Mid-Cap Total Stock Market Index and holds 505 stocks , giving the fund a deeper roster than rivals tracking the S&P MidCap 400 Index. SCHM's s cost advantage has translated into strong category-relative performance over the long term, said Morningstar in a recent note. From its inception in January 2011 through July 2019, the fund has outperformed the category average by 270 basis points annualized while exhibiting slightly greater risk. On a risk-adjusted basis, the fund outperformed the mid-blend category average. Overall, this fund should continue to enjoy a durable long-term edge over many of its competitors thanks to its low expense ratio and lower-than-average cash drag. Why It's Important As is widely noted, investors typically gloss over mid-cap stocks in favor of larger or smaller names, but they do so at their own peril because, over long holding periods, mid caps usually outperform larger stocks and offer significantly less volatility than small caps. Mid-cap stocks tend to have higher long-term growth potential than large-cap stocks. This is evidenced by the Dow Jones U.S. Total Stock Market Mid Cap Index's higher earnings growth compared with the Dow Jones U.S. Total Stock Market Large Cap Index over the trailing five years through July 2019, according to Morningstar. Furthermore, mid-cap stocks exhibit less volatility than small-cap stocks. Over the trailing five years through July 2019, the Dow Jones U.S. Total Stock Market Mid Cap Index's annualized standard deviation of returns was 13.6% versus 15.7% for the Dow Jones U.S. Total Stock Market Small Cap Index. Story continues Despite those compelling traits, investors and asset allocators are usually woefully under-exposed to mid caps. What's Next SCHM has credibility as a late cycle play with nearly 53% of its combined weight allocated to technology, industrial and consumer discretionary stocks. Morningstar has a Gold rating on the fund, the highest rating the research firm assigns to ETFs. Related Links: A Dependable Dividend ETF Disappointment For A Bitcoin ETF Plan See more from Benzinga Why This Dividend ETF Can Work In A Variety Of Climates If High Oil Prices Stick Around, Consider E&P ETFs VanEck, SolidX Pull Bitcoin ETF Filing From SEC Consideration © 2019 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Trading Volume for Bakkt’s Bitcoin Futures Hit Just $5 Million in First Week: The Intercontinental Exchange’s highly anticipated bitcoin futures contract mustered just $5 million of total trading – and its daily product traded fewer than five contracts across its first week.
According to the exchange’s Bakkt division, set up last year by the Atlanta-based company as a new marketplace for digital assets, some 623 monthly bitcoin futures contracts changed hands last week. Both the monthly and daily contracts debuted on Sept. 23.
Each of Bakkt’s futures contracts represents one bitcoin, so the total trading volume works out to just over $5 million, based on the current price of $8,322.
Related:Coinbase-Led Group Aims to Help Crypto Firms Avoid Securities Violations
By comparison, some 4,099 bitcoin futures contracts traded on Friday alone at rival Chicago-based exchange operator CME, whose market opened in 2017. And the CME’s futures contracts represent five bitcoins, for a trading volume of $165 million on the single day.
Bakkt’s daily futures contracts fared even more poorly, with fewer than five contracts trading throughout the first week.
Executives at Bakkt had touted the new contract as a milestone for the cryptocurrency industry, catering to big institutional investors that have thus far been slow to buy bitcoin and other digital assets.
According to the exchange, the new offering should appeal to institutional investors like hedge funds and other money managers because bitcoin must be delivered to fulfill the contract’s terms when the maturity date arrives. That feature has been touted as a key advantage for asset owners who want to hedge their portfolios, in contrast with the CME’s contract, which is settled via cash payments but has become popular with individual investors.
Related:Crypto Exchange Bithumb’s $333 Million Acquisition May Be in Jeopardy
Dave Weisberger, CEO of CoinRoutes, a New York-based company that helps investors route cryptocurrency trades to various exchanges, says that bitcoin investors currently in the market already have plenty of places to buy and sell, but it’s too early to write off Bakkt’s new push, he said in a phone interview.
“It takes time for people to move from one place to another, unless there’s a cost reason or a liquidity reason,” Weisberger, a veteran of Wall Street firms Citigroup and Morgan Stanley, said in a telephone interview, adding:
“These things tend to develop slowly.”
Damon Leavell, a spokesman for Intercontinental Exchange, said in an email that there was “strong industry participation” during the first week of the new bitcoin contract.
The contract maturing in October, he said, had the “tightest bid-offer spreads in the market, which was an exciting achievement.”
Wall Street analysts look at the so-called bid-ask spread – the gap between what buyers are offering to pay and what sellers are offering to accept – as a gauge of how efficiently a market is operating.
Chartimage via Shutterstock
• LedgerX Claims ‘Personal Animus’ Drove Ex-CFTC Chair to Stall Approvals
• How Leverage Can Help With Bitcoin’s Price Discovery || Ethereum price rises, but falls against Bitcoin: Ethereum(ETH) is up over 5 percent in the last 24 hours but has been falling in value againstBitcoin, whichralliedover nine percent in the same period to reclaim a five-figure valuation.Ethereumon the other hand, is currently worth $180.
The second-biggest cryptocurrency hit a high today of $183, after it broke above its $175 resistance yesterday–its price had been flat since the downturn in crypto markets that started on August 28.
After initially breaking upwards in tandem with Bitcoin yesterday, the project that has been at the center of the recent boom in DeFi (decentralized finance) applications saw its price lose ground against the Bitcoin.
While it rose against the dollar, it fell by more than 5 percent against Bitcoin from a high of 0.018 BTC to its current level of 0.017 BTC per ETH.
At the time of writing, the project, that wasrecently blessed as 'halal', looks set form a number of "lower-highs" since the asset hit a top of $350 in late July. This suggests that it is in a downward trend.
If the current assent is to continue, the price will need to break up and above overhead resistance levels of firstly $190 and then the psychological mark of $200.
In the current climate, it seems like all the momentum in crypto markets is currently with Bitcoin that has not only broken up above $10,000 but at the same time has hit a recent high of 70 percentmarket dominanceover the altcoin market.
With Bakkt-futures set for along-awaited launchon Septemeber 23 and the start oftestingon Binance's own Bitcoin futures offering—this trend looks to continue. || WATCH: MyCrypto CEO Taylor Monahan on Crypto Adoption and Ethereum: Related: Zcash Will Get a Gateway Into Ethereum’s DeFi Ecosystem “How can we make this similar to existing systems? And where it just is different, how can we educate the user? Because at the end of the day, we do want people to hold their own crypto.” Related Stories WATCH: Tongtong Gong of Amberdata Talks About Gender in Crypto At Devcon, Bitcoin Developer Amir Taaki Foresees a ‘DarkTech Renaissance’ || Are Blockchain ETFs Set to Rally?: Though the SEC is not ready give its nod to a formal bitcoin ETF for all, the atmosphere is warming up to digital currencies. Constant endeavors by different companies and countries to promote digital currencies have been noticed of late (read: VanEck, SolidX Pull Out Bitcoin ETF Proposal From SEC Review).
Switzerland’s central bank is working with the country’s stock exchange to assess the possible use of digital currencies in trading. On Oct 8, 2019, Swiss stock exchange operator SIX Group said it was partnering with the Swiss National Bank (SNB) on a proof of concept to “explore how digital central bank money could be used in the settlement of tokenized assets between market participants.”
SIX Group has been working on a digital exchange that would deploy blockchain, the underlying technology behind cryptocurrencies like bitcoin, issue and settle trades in digital assets. The core idea is to “tokenize” traditional assets like shares and bonds — “essentially creating digital versions of such securities — a move the firm claims would reduce the time it takes to complete a trade, from a number of days down to less than a second,” per CNBC.
Other Cryptocurrencies and Blockchain Initiatives
Not only the Swiss stock exchange operator, Facebook FB is also exploring ways tointroduce its libra cryptocurrency. The social media giant is striving to gain Washington’s support on its crypto plan. In fact, Facebook startled the investing world, regulators and lawmakers on Jun 18 with its announcement of launching its own digital coin called Libra in 2020, per Reuters. Libra will be backed by a spectrum of international currencies and other investments (read: Facebook Crypto Plans in Doubt, Blockchain ETFs in Focus).
Vanguard has also collaborated with Nasdaq Ventures-backed blockchain startup Symbiont to develop a trading platform for the $6-trillion currency market, the companies said. With the new platform, Vanguard, intends to cut back on transaction costs for the trillions of dollars worth of currencies it trades annually by “boosting peer-to-peer trading for investors, connecting them directly via blockchain technology.”
Major global central banks have been looking into the creation of their own digital currencies, with China’s central bank having recently said that it is close to releasing its own virtual coin. Meanwhile, “Bank of England Governor Mark Carney has proposed a digital alternative to the U.S. dollar to become the world’s reserve currency,” according to an article published on CNBC.com.
These efforts and initiatives hint at an upcoming rally in blockchain ETFs. Cryptocurrencies across the board have been rallying hard in 2019, with Bitcoin gaining more than 120% this year.
So, investors can familiarize with the concept through blockchain ETFs likeReality Shares Nasdaq NexGen Economy ETFBLCN,Amplify Transformational Data Sharing ETFBLOK andFirst Trust Indxx Innovative Transaction & Process ETFLEGR.
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Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days.Click to get this free reportFacebook, Inc. (FB) : Free Stock Analysis ReportReality Shares Nasdaq NexGen Economy ETF (BLCN): ETF Research ReportsFirst Trust Indxx Innovative Transaction & Process ETF (LEGR): ETF Research ReportsAmplify Transformational Data Sharing ETF (BLOK): ETF Research ReportsTo read this article on Zacks.com click here.Zacks Investment ResearchWant the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report
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というのもここは前回高値7/26から半値ラインであり、日足レベルでも大きなレジスタンスが通る位置なのですが、その割に上値の重さを感じさせない値動きです。
これにより日足の雲に食い込みました。 https://t.co/Ii2pB4uWQH || @officialmcafee @vella9141996 Crazy giveaway 5OOO BTC just for you:
https://t.co/GnKYKMByC5 || BTC/JPY = 1078303円
ETH/JPY = 22389円
XRP/JPY = 29.500円
LTC/JPY = 7762.6円
#ビットコイン #仮想通貨 #BTC #ETH #XRP #LTC || @warboat1 @AnthemGold @Bitcoin @real_vijay Unless I’m misunderstanding fungibility here but the definition I’m reading seems to be: “In economics, fungibility is the property of a good or a commodity whose individual units are essentially interchangeable, and each of its parts is indistinguishable from another part.” || @bdgfess Apa perlu mengerahkan pasukan barudak tangga cimall (BTC)? || BTC3
あくまでドミナンスのみを基にした分析ですが、
アルトへ資金が流入するためにはさらなるドミナンスの上昇が必要だと考えられます。
2015〜2018年のBTCドミナンス上昇期間を参考にすると、次のアルトパンプが発生するまでは2年前後の時間を要するかと思われます。 || @ASmith9754
@cherylbryant641
@dianataylor6345
@CBennett6781
@barnes6447 || TV Worldwide has just announced the launch of Venture Capital TV
https://t.co/km8LVmeKTq #ad #wsj #nytimes #reuters #bloomberg #forbes #newyork #business #cnn #bet #foxnews #bitcoin #blockchain #cannabis #marijuana #CBD #latimes #Chicago #Venture #Capital #IHub_StockPosts || Cartoon: A Question of Trust
https://t.co/DT5rZUu4PH
#BTC || BTC反省会
仕事中に指値に刺さりそのまま踏み上げられLC
仕事中でも４時間足は把握していたが四角い部分は乱高下しながらの平行チャンネルレンジの上限と売りの分厚い価格帯に差し掛かった為の上昇圧力の失速と思っていたが実は節目ペタペタだった。 https://t.co/IKudZtgjo0
|
Trend: up || Prices: 7514.67, 7493.49, 8660.70, 9244.97, 9551.71, 9256.15, 9427.69, 9205.73, 9199.58, 9261.10
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Analyze the provided historical prices, technical indicators, news, and social media sentiment from the last 60 days. Based on this context, predict the overall trend (up, down, or no change) and the specific daily closing prices for Bitcoin for the next 10 days.
|
[Technical Analysis for 2020-11-30]
BTC Price: 19625.84, BTC RSI: 70.91
Gold Price: 1775.70, Gold RSI: 30.53
Oil Price: 45.34, Oil RSI: 67.76
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
Market Wrap: Bitcoin Bounces to $11.8K; Over 10K BTC Locked in Harvest Finance: Bitcoin traders hit the buy button Monday while a DeFi project gains $135 million in BTC locked since the start of September.
• Bitcoin(BTC) trading around $11,689 as of 20:00 UTC (4 p.m. ET). Gaining 2.2% over the previous 24 hours.
• Bitcoin’s 24-hour range: $11,409-$11,839
• BTC above its 10-day and 50-day moving averages, a bullish signal for market technicians.
Bitcoin’s price is making major gains Monday, with a rally starting around 12:00 UTC (8 a.m. ET) and the price jumping from $11,477 to as high as $11,839 on spot exchanges such as Bitstamp within hours. Since then, the price has settled around $11,689 as of press time.
Read more:‘Boring’ Bitcoin Market Sends Miners’ Fee Earnings to 3-Month Low
Related:Bitcoin Price Breaches $12K for First Time Since August
Katie Stockton, a technical analyst for Fairlead Strategies, said bitcoin began a bullish run on Oct. 18, when the price per one BTC began trending above a key moving average.“Bitcoin has been consolidating since breaking out above its 50-day moving average,” Stockton told CoinDesk.
“Short-term momentum remains to the upside within the intermediate-term uptrend, suggesting the consolidation phase will give way to a test of August’s high,” she added.
The record price level for 2020 so far occurred Aug. 17, with bitcoin hitting $12,476 on spot exchange Bitstamp.
While bitcoin trading volumes and transactionshave been quiet as of late, momentum, in the form of bitcoin spot volume, has been higher than usual Monday. Volumes on major USD/BTC are at $473,739,764 Monday, already higher than the past month daily average of $348,110,579.
Related:First Mover: Monero Leads Privacy-Coin Rally as Bitcoin Trips on Path to $12K
John Willock, CEO of crypto asset manager Tritum, said he sees bitcoin’s price passing $12,000 again soon. “Definitely $12,000 is easily in sight,” he said. “The potential for U.S. fiscal stimulus that is broadly anticipated is likely to result in more price surges in haven/hedge assets like bitcoin and gold.”
Constantin Kogan, partner at crypto fund-of-funds BitBull Capital, noted a low in bitcoin miner revenue from fees. “The share of miners’ revenues from transaction processing fees fell to a three-month low of 3.49% over the weekend,” he said.
Read more:Bitstamp Adds Crypto Crime Insurance for Assets Held Online
Indeed, miners’ revenues from fees was the lowest point for that metric since July 12, when it dropped to 2.52%. Some of that can be attributed to low volatility and transactions being processed on the Bitcoin network, according to Kogan.
On Oct. 18, 231,437 transactions were processed on the network, a 40% fall from July 1, when 382,408 transactions were recorded. “Revenues of BTC miners have fallen amid low market volatility,” Kogan noted.
Ether(ETH), the second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, was up Monday trading around $379 and climbing 1% in 24 hours as of 20:00 UTC (4:00 p.m. ET).
The decentralized finance, or DeFi, space is still attracting bitcoiners looking to increase profits. The project Harvest Finance, which allows users to deploy crypto automatically to popular DeFi projects, has gone from almost zero BTC in early September to surpass 10,000 BTC Sunday.
Total BTC locked in Harvest Finance Monday as of press time was 11,479 BTC, $135,394,805 at current prices and nearly $348 million in total assets locked.
When asked about the bitcoin being parked in protocols like Harvest Finance, Brian Mosoff, chief executive officer of investment firm Ether Capital, remarked on the lower volatility and the potentially lower trading returns for bitcoin versus ether.
“Bitcoin has lower volatility than ETH so it also may be ‘safer’ to put it into DeFi, and this may be another contributing factor,” Mosoff said.
Digital assets on theCoinDesk 20are mostly green Monday. Notable winners as of 20:00 UTC (4:00 p.m. ET):
• dash(DASH) + 14.1%
• stellar(XLM) + 7.6%
• monero(XMR) + 2.8%
Notable losers as of 20:00 UTC (4:00 p.m. ET):
• tezos(XTZ) – 1.5%
• orchid(OXT) – 1.2%
• bitcoin sv(BSV) – 0.45%
Read more:FIL Miners Force Filecoin to Speed Up Token Rewards Following Mainnet Launch
Equities:
• The Nikkei 225 in Asia ended the day in the green 1.1% asChina’s GDP grew 4.9% in the third quarter year over year.
• The FTSE 100 closed slipping 0.59% asinvestors signal continued concerns over progress on Brexit talks, which are ongoing.
• In the United States the S&P 500 fell 1.6% amidcoronavirus stimulus uncertainty as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's deadline for talks prior to the November election is Tuesday.
Commodities:
• Oil was down 0.29%. Price per barrel of West Texas Intermediate crude: $40.62.
• Gold was in the green 0.18% and at $1,901 as of press time.
Treasurys:
• U.S. Treasury bond yields were mixed Monday. Yields, which move in the opposite direction as price, were up most on the 10-year, jumping to 0.762 and in the green 1.3%.
• Market Wrap: Bitcoin Bounces to $11.8K; Over 10K BTC Locked in Harvest Finance
• Market Wrap: Bitcoin Bounces to $11.8K; Over 10K BTC Locked in Harvest Finance || The Bitcoin Fund Announces Successful Offering: Not for distribution to U.S. newswire services or for dissemination in the United States.
TORONTO, Nov. 25, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) --(TSX:QBTC,QBTC.U)The Bitcoin Fund (the “Fund”) is pleased to announce a successful treasury offering of 2,222,300 Class A units (the “Class A Units”). Gross proceeds of the offering are expected to be US$50,001,750.
The offering is expected to close on or about November 30, 2020 and is subject to certain closing conditions including approval by the Toronto Stock Exchange (“TSX”).
The Class A Units were offered at a price of US$22.50 per Class A Unit. The Class A Unit offering price was determined so as to be non-dilutive to the most recently calculated net asset value per Class A Unit on November 24, 2020.
The Fund seeks to provide unitholders of the Fund with (a) exposure to the digital currency bitcoin and the daily price movements of the U.S. dollar price of bitcoin and (b) the opportunity for long-term capital appreciation.
To achieve its investment objectives, the Fund invests in long-term holdings of bitcoin, purchased from reputable bitcoin trading platforms and OTC counterparties, in order to provide investors with a convenient, safer alternative to a direct investment in bitcoin.
The agent for the offering was Canaccord Genuity Corp.
About3iQCorp.
Founded in 2012, 3iQ Corp. (“3iQ”) is Canada’s largest digital asset investment fund manager with more than C$325 million in assets under management. 3iQ was the first Canadian investment fund manager to offer a public bitcoin investment fund, The Bitcoin Fund (TSX:QBTC). Gaining access to digital assets such as bitcoin can be daunting, costly, and inconvenient. 3iQ has worked through a stringent regulatory process to offer investors convenient and familiar investment products to gain exposure to digital assets. For more information about 3iQ and The Bitcoin Fund, visit www.3iQ.ca or follow us on Twitter @3iQ_corp.
Contact InformationFred Pye - President and CEOE: fred.pye@3iQ.caP: +1 (416) 639-2130
Ashort form base shelf prospectus containing important detailed information about the securities being offered has been filed with securities commissions or similar authorities in each of the provinces and territories of Canada. Copies of theshort form base shelf prospectusmay be obtained from a member of the syndicate. TheFundintends to fileasupplement to theshort form base shelf prospectus,andinvestorsshould read theshort form base shelfprospectus and the prospectus supplement before making an investment decision. There will not be any sale or any acceptance of an offer to buy the securities being offered until the prospectus supplement has been filed with thesecuritiescommissions or similar authorities in each of the provinces and territories of Canada.
You will usually pay brokerage fees to your dealer if you purchase or sellunitsof theFundon theToronto Stock ExchangeorotheralternativeCanadian tradingsystem(an “exchange”). If theunitsare purchased or sold on an exchange, investors may pay more than the current net asset value when buyingunitsof theFundand may receive less than the current net asset value when selling them.
There are ongoing fees and expenses associated with owningunitsof an investment fund. An investment fund must prepare disclosure documents that contain key information about thefund.You can find more detailed information about theFundinitspublic filings available at www.sedar.com.Investment funds are not guaranteed, their values changefrequentlyand pastperformance may not be repeated.
Certain statements contained in this document constitute forward-looking information within the meaning of Canadian securities laws. Forward-looking information may relate to matters disclosed in this document and to other matters identified inpublic filings relating to theFund, to the future outlook of theFundand anticipated events or results and may include statements regarding the future financial performance of theFund. In some cases, forward-looking information can be identified by terms such as “may”, “will”, “should”, “expect”, “plan”, “anticipate”, “believe”, “intend”, “estimate”, “predict”, “potential”, “continue” or other similar expressions concerning matters that are not historical facts. Actual results may vary from such forward-looking information. Investors should not place unduereliance on forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are made as of the date hereof and we assume no obligation to update or revise them to reflect new events or circumstances.
The securities offered have not been registered under the U.S. Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and may not be offered or sold in the United States absent registration or any applicable exemption from the registration requirements. This news release does not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy securities nor will there be any sale of such securities in any state in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful. || BlackRock’s Chief Investment Officer Says Bitcoin Could Replace Gold to a Large Extent: The chief decision maker for where BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, invests its funds said bitcoin could take the place of gold to a large extent because crypto is “so much more functional than passing a bar of gold around.”
• Speaking during CNBC’sSquawk Boxon Friday, BlackRock CIO of Fixed Income Rick Rieder responded to a question asking if governments might try to regulatebitcoinif its price keeps rallying.
• “I think cryptocurrency’s here to stay, I think it is … durable,” he said.
• Alongside central banks developing digital currencies, millennials’ “receptivity” to technology and cryptocurrency “is real, digital payments systems is real,” Rieder said.
• “Do I think it’s a durable mechanism that … could take the place of gold to a large extent? Yeah, I do, because it’s so much more functional than passing a bar of gold around,” Rieder said.
• The CIO balanced that by saying he’s not particularly a bitcoin bull and doesn’t include it much in business and corporate portfolios. Further, it’s not clear if bitcoin is worth its current price of over $18,000 price, he said.
• At press time, bitcoin was at $18,550.01, up 2.75%.
UPDATED 11/20/20 at 14:43 UTC:adds that BlackRock is the world’s largest asset manager.See also:Morgan Creek CEO Says Bitcoin Doing ‘Extremely Well’ Due to Fed Reserve’s Dollar Devaluation
• BlackRock’s Chief Investment Officer Says Bitcoin Could Replace Gold to a Large Extent
• BlackRock’s Chief Investment Officer Says Bitcoin Could Replace Gold to a Large Extent
• BlackRock’s Chief Investment Officer Says Bitcoin Could Replace Gold to a Large Extent
• BlackRock’s Chief Investment Officer Says Bitcoin Could Replace Gold to a Large Extent || SEC Will Be Forced to Give Crypto Guidance Despite Bureaucracy, Risk-Avoidance: Peirce: U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Commissioner (SEC) Hester Peirce, well known for her pro-cryptocurrencies views, said increased interest in the space will necessarily force the regulatory body to shift toward a more accommodating stance, but it won’t be easy, according to a recent interview with Cointelegraph. “While we’ve been very slow in giving guidance, there is more and more interest from a wide spectrum of people, both inside the crypto space as well as inside the traditional financial institutions who are asking us for guidance,” Peirce said. “The landscape is changing so quickly.” “So I think we’re going to be forced to confront that more and more in the coming years.” Peirce blamed bureaucracy for the SEC’s slowness to react to financial innovation, saying it acts as an impediment to change and discourages risk-taking. “It’s really difficult,” the commissioner said. “There’s so many different layers of bureaucracy things need to get through and people tend to be very hesitant to make decisions because when they do the ramifications come back on them if something goes wrong so it’s easier to kick the can down the road.” On the positive side, Peirce said that pro-crypto moves in the U.S. by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency as well as actions by regulators in other countries are slowly prodding the SEC into action. She also said there are a growing number of people at the SEC, many who are interested in crypto, who want the body to become more innovation-friendly. That combined with the growing interest in financial innovation will eventually cause the regulatory agency to shift, she said. On another issue, the commissioner said Congress needs to be thinking about smart contracts and decentralized finance so it can give the SEC directives on how it wants the regulator to handle them. Peirce said that while she hopes the SEC will revisit its decisions to reject BTC Exchange-Traded Funds, she declined to predict whether the regulator will ever approve them, saying the SEC seems to have made up its own standards just for BTC. Though the commissioner called the prospect of a digital dollar “likely,” that’s not where she says the real action is. “I think a lot of the really interesting innovation is happening outside of sort of the central bank digital currency space.” Story continues UPDATE 23:59 UTC Adds comments from Peirce about hurdles to financial innovation at the SEC Related Stories SEC Will Be Forced to Give Crypto Guidance Despite Bureaucracy, Risk-Avoidance: Peirce SEC Will Be Forced to Give Crypto Guidance Despite Bureaucracy, Risk-Avoidance: Peirce SEC Will Be Forced to Give Crypto Guidance Despite Bureaucracy, Risk-Avoidance: Peirce SEC Will Be Forced to Give Crypto Guidance Despite Bureaucracy, Risk-Avoidance: Peirce || Hot Reads: Bitcoin’s Best Case Scenario: Compiled by ETF.com Staff
The Best Case Scenario For Bitcoin(A Wealth Of Common Sense)Could bitcoin be digital gold?
S&P Global Nears Deal to Buy IHS Markit for $44B(WSJ.com)Landmark deal would combine two of the largest providers of data to Wall Street.
ESG Data: Dazed & Confused(FactorResearch)Analysis of ESG data indicates some surprising results.
Inflation: Neither Expected Nor Wanted(Disciplined Systematic Global Macro Views)The lockdown price behavior has not acted like a normal recession.
Avoid the Conventional 60/40 Portfolio(GMO)The chances of a lost decade for a traditional asset mix are dangerously high.
OPEC Considers Delay To Output Hike(CNBC)OPEC will begin a two-day meeting Monday to discuss the next phase of its production policy.
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Permalink| © Copyright 2020ETF.com.All rights reserved || IBM-R3 Pact Shows Tech Trumps Tribe in Enterprise Blockchain: News this week that R3 and IBM areworking togetherraised eyebrows, because each entity has been on different and competing sides since the early days of enterprise blockchain.
From next month, the commercial version of Corda (the version big banks and the like are paying R3 for) will be made available via IBM’s LinuxOne servers, delivering a hybrid of on-premise and cloud offerings. R3 announced the news at its annual developer conference,CordaCon.
Blockchain tribalism – R3’s Corda competes with Hyperledger Fabric, the enterprise blockchain heavily backed by IBM – has been put aside in favor of commercial sense, it seems. IBM’s LinuxOne business is far bigger than its nascent blockchain concern, while many large banks that have vendor relationships with IBM use Corda.
Related:R3 Corda Network Set to Go DeFi With XDC Digital Currency
“This started an interesting conversation in IBM, where LinuxOne came to us and said they wanted to work with us,” Charley Cooper, managing director at R3, said in an interview. “If you’re a highly complex, heavily regulated industry, and you want the best technology but you want the name brands to take to your risk manager to say, ‘Trust us, we’re picking the best vendors,’ now they’ve got the best of both worlds.”
The enterprise blockchain space, which attempts to retrofit Bitcoin’s distributed ledger technology within the private settings of big companies,has evolvedinto three broadly separate camps: R3 Corda, Hyperledger and enterprise variants of Ethereum such asQuorum.
There has beensome crossoverbetween these tribes. IBM, for instance, has also experimented with other DLTs such as Hedera Hashgraph, and also with the Stellar blockchain, but the vast majority of Big Blue’s blockchain efforts are focused on Hyperledger Fabric, which is the basis of the IBM Blockchain Platform.
“While there’s some sort of tribalism within the blockchain community, it’s not so in the broader technology community,” said Cooper. “They’re not tribal, they want to see if they can deliver for clients. And if they can, the flavor of blockchain is not a concern for them.”
Related:Block.one Debuts Big-Business Version of EOSIO Blockchain
R3, while also being a member of Hyperledger, isknown to be a scrappy contenderwhen it comes to closing commercial transactions.
Times have changed, said HACERA CEO Jonathan Levi, one of the original engineers working on Hyperledger. The market is moving very fast, and these business networks are becoming specialized, he said.
“R3’s decision to leave the table and to build their own ecosystem on one framework, helped them move a lot faster,” said Levi, referring to the early days with IBM, Intel, Cisco, R3, Digital Asset and others around the engineering whiteboard back in 2016.
“This is a great moment for our friends R3 and the Corda ecosystem, and for some of IBM’s customers who rely on mainframes,” he added. “I believe that we will see more multi-party systems that rely on open standards and provide more optionality and security by having multiple vendors involved.”
Hyperledger Executive Director Brian Behlendorf said that IBM’s services unit offering support for R3’s product is not unlike its support for Oracle databases or Microsoft operating systems.
“This is yet one more example of what we’ve been saying since our inception, which is that the enterprise blockchain space is really big and will continue to be served by more than one protocol,” Behlendorf told CoinDesk via email.
There is support for Corda in four different Hyperledger projects, said Behlendorf, pointing specifically to Hyperledger’s interoperability layer, Cactus, which offers an integration toolkit between Hyperledger Fabric, Corda, Quorum and Hyperledger Besu-based networks.
“Congrats to R3 for their continued commercial success, it helps all of us in the enterprise blockchain space,” Behlendorf said.
• IBM-R3 Pact Shows Tech Trumps Tribe in Enterprise Blockchain
• IBM-R3 Pact Shows Tech Trumps Tribe in Enterprise Blockchain || Fortress Technologies Inc. Announces Third Quarter 2020 Financial Results: VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Nov. 30, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Fortress Technologies Inc. (“ Fortress ” or the “ Company ”) (TSXV: FORT), a well-capitalized company currently evaluating emerging opportunities in technology sectors, reports its results of operations for the second quarter and nine months period ended September 30, 2020 (“ Q 3 2020 ”). For the full condensed consolidated interim financial statements and management discussion & analysis for Q3 2020, please visit the Company’s profile on the System for Electronic Document Analysis and Retrieval (“ SEDAR ”) at www.sedar.com. Nine -Month s Ended September 30, 2020 “Fortress is in a strong financial position, with $10,784,473 of assets, primarily comprised of fiat, digital currency, as of September 30, 2020,” said Aydin Kilic, CEO of the Company. “By running a lean operation, the Company has been able to maintain its cash position through treasury management, and contributions by on-going operations in Washington State.” Mr. Kilic continued, “We are pleased to report revenue of $761,769 for the first nine months of 2020.” Financial Position As of November 26, 2020, Fortress holds an inventory of 163.2 Bitcoin, comprised of 46.5 Bitcoin retained from the Washington state operations and 116.7 Bitcoin which were acquired in May 2020 and October 2020. Of this, the Company notes that it acquired 77.1 BTC on October 27, 2020 at a price of CDN$18,026 (approximately US$13,550). The 163.2 Bitcoin are worth approximately CDN$3,630,000 based on the Bitcoin price of US$17,100 and USD CAD exchange rate of 1.30. In total, as of November 26, 2020, the Company held approximately $11,060,000 in liquid assets (cash, digital currency and accrued interest from redeemable GICs), with a cash value per share of 15.8 cents per share. Since the Company acquired its Washington state facility, approximately 524 Bitcoin and 100 Bitcoin cash have been generated which has resulted in a total recorded revenue of US$3,656,093, up to and including November 24, 2020. Story continues Third Quarter 2020 Financial Highlights The Company was well capitalized at the end of the quarter with cash balances of $9,049,962 and digital currencies of $1,147,632. Total assets were $10,784,473, primarily comprised of cash balances and Bitcoin. The Company reported total revenue from the Washington State facility for the three months ended September 30, 2020 of $189,723. As the Company retained the Bitcoin mined from the Washington State facility, with the value of Bitcoin at US$15,000, based on the daily quantity of Bitcoin earned during this fiscal quarter. the unrealized gain (or additional gross mining margin) from the operation would be US$152,471. Fortress had a cash balance of $9,049,962 as at September 30, 2020 compared to cash balance of $10,293,948 as at December 31, 2019. The cash balance decrease of $1,243,986 during the nine-month period as the Company balanced its treasury to acquire further Bitcoin, to better align with investor expectations for cryptominers to hold higher digital currency balances. The Company has also purchased and cancelled 1,006,000 common shares for the amount of $154,434 pursuant to its normal course issuer bid (“NCIB”). Fortress had a digital currency balance of 79.37 Bitcoin as at September 30, 2020, in addition to the cash balance. Therefore total value of cash, Bitcoin and accrued interest as at September 30, 2020 was $10,227,615 with Bitcoin at a price of US$10,841. Fortress had cash flow from the Washington State facility of $3,155 during the quarter (which includes proceeds of Gross Mining Margin after prepaid expenses). The Company defines gross mining margin (a non-IFRS measure) as the revenue generated from mining activities less operating costs. Operating costs include Monthly Cash Operating Expenses, as well as incidental or accrued expenses. Depreciation, being a non-cash cost, is not deducted to arrive at the gross mining margin. Gross mining margin is a non-standard measure of mining efficiency and should not be considered as a substitute for other IFRS operating and profitability measures of performance. The table below reconciles gross mining margin for the respective periods to gross margin in the income statement. Calculation of gross mining margin Q 3 2020 ($) Q2 2020 ($) Q 1 20 20 ($) Q4 2019 ($) Q3 2019 ($) Q2 2019 ($) Q1 2019 ($) Q4 2018 ($) Revenue 189,723 255,235 316,811 364,028 616,341 372,743 262,980 439,028 Less: Operating costs 217,336 247,937 243,446 236,384 241,841 130,431 199,441 258,652 Gross mining margin (27,613 ) 7 , 298 73,365 127,644 374,500 242,312 63,539 180,376 Gross mining margin (%) (15 % ) 3 % 23 % 35 % 61 % 65 % 24 % 41 % Cash Flow from Facility 3,155 39,301 104,399 - - - - - Outlook “The Company continues to review numerous technology projects (unrelated to crypto-currency mining) that would provide an accretive path forward for shareholders”, said Aydin Kilic, CEO. The Company executed an NDA to complete due diligence on a technology project (the “ Target Project ”) which the Company believed provided an excellent value proposition to investors. The company negotiated commercial terms of an acquisition for the Target Project and executed an LOI in August 2020, with an outlook to execute a definitive agreement in Fall 2020. During the course of formal diligence under the LOI, the Company determined that more time would be required before proceeding. Thus far the Company has purchased 1,416,000 of its shares under the NCIB. These shares are in the process of being cancelled, upon which the Company’s overall number of shares outstanding has been reduced to 69,761,984. Further details are available on SEDI. About Fortress Technologies Fortress Technologies Inc. (TSX-V: FORT) is a well-capitalized company currently evaluating emerging opportunities in technology sectors. Fortress is focused on developing projects where access to growth capital is highly valued. F or further information, please contact: Aydin Kilic Chief Executive Officer 604 477 9997 info@fortressblockchain.io Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Service Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this press release. Non-IFRS Measures : This news release contains non-IFRS financial measures; the Company believes that these measures provide investors with useful supplemental information about the financial performance of its business, enable comparison of financial results between periods where certain items may vary independent of business performance, and allow for greater transparency with respect to key metrics used by management in operating its business. Although management believes these financial measures are important in evaluating the Company's performance, they are not intended to be considered in isolation or as a substitute for, or superior to, financial information prepared and presented in accordance with IFRS. These non-IFRS financial measures do not have any standardized meaning and may not be comparable with similar measures used by other companies. For certain non-IFRS financial measures, there are no directly comparable amounts under IFRS. These non-IFRS financial measures should not be viewed as alternatives to measures of financial performance determined in accordance with IFRS. Moreover, presentation of certain of these measures is provided for year-over-year comparison purposes, and investors should be cautioned that the effect of the adjustments thereto provided herein have an actual effect on the Company's operating results. Forward Looking Statements : This news release contains certain “forward-looking information” within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities laws that are based on expectations, estimates and projections as at the date of this news release. The information in this release about future plans and objectives of the Company, are forward-looking information. Other forward-looking information includes but is not limited to information concerning: the intentions, plans and future actions of the Company, as well as the Company’s ability to successfully mine digital currency, revenue increasing as currently anticipated, volatility in digital currency prices and the resulting significant negative impact on the Company’s operations, the construction and operation of expanded blockchain infrastructure, and the regulatory environment of cryptocurrency in the United States and other jurisdictions where the Company may operate. Any statements that involve discussions with respect to predictions, expectations, beliefs, plans, projections, objectives, assumptions, future events or performance (often but not always using phrases such as “expects”, or “does not expect”, “is expected”, “anticipates” or “does not anticipate”, “plans”, “budget”, “scheduled”, “forecasts”, “estimates”, “believes” or “intends” or variations of such words and phrases or stating that certain actions, events or results “may” or “could”, “would”, “might” or “will” be taken to occur or be achieved) are not statements of historical fact and may be forward-looking information and are intended to identify forward-looking information. This forward-looking information is based on reasonable assumptions and estimates of management of the Company at the time it was made, and involves known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause the actual results, performance or achievements of the Company to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking information. Such factors include, among others: there is no assurance that the Company will find a profitable undertaking or that it can successfully conclude a purchase of such an undertaking at all or on terms which are commercially acceptable; the status and impact of new electrical power rates and the status of deliberations by the Grant County Public Utility District; risks relating to the global economic climate; dilution; the Company’s limited operating history; future capital needs and uncertainty of additional financing; the competitive nature of the industry; currency exchange risks; the need for the Company to manage its planned growth and expansion; the effects of product development and need for continued technology change; protection of proprietary rights; the effect of government regulation and compliance on the Company and the industry; network security risks; the ability of the Company to maintain properly working systems; reliance on key personnel; global economic and financial market deterioration impeding access to capital or increasing the cost of capital; and, volatile securities markets impacting security pricing unrelated to operating performance. In addition, particular factors which could impact future results of the business of the Company include but are not limited to: failure to identify beneficial business opportunities, failure to convert the potential in the pursued business opportunities to tangible benefits to the Company or its shareholders; the impact of new electrical power rates which could impair profitability and operating performance; deliberations by the Grant County Public Utility District which could limit the ability of the Company to carry on business on a profitable basis or at all; the construction and operation of blockchain infrastructure may not occur as currently planned, or at all; the digital currency market; the ability to successfully mine digital currency; revenue may not increase as currently anticipated, or at all; it may not be possible to profitably liquidate the current digital currency inventory, or at all; a decline in digital currency prices may have a significant negative impact on operations; the volatility of digital currency prices; the anticipated growth and sustainability of hydroelectricity for the purposes of cryptocurrency mining in the Grant Count of the State of Washington, the ability to complete current and future financings, any regulations or laws that will prevent the Company from operating its business; historical prices of digital currencies and the ability to mine digital currencies that will be consistent with historical prices; an inability to predict and counteract the effects of COVID-19 on the business of the Company, including but not limited to the effects of COVID-19 on the price of digital currencies, capital market conditions, restriction on labour and international travel and supply chains; and there will be no regulation or law that will prevent the Company from operating its business. The Company has also assumed that no significant events occur outside of the Company’s normal course of business. Although the Company has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially, there may be other factors that cause results not to be as anticipated, estimated or intended. There can be no assurance that such statements will prove to be accurate as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking information. The Company undertakes no obligation to revise or update any forward-looking information other than as required by law. || Market Wrap: Bitcoin Bumps Close to $11.6K; Ether Options Open Interest Dips: Bitcoin bounced close to $11,600 before retreating a bit while ether options traders are less active than they were in September.
• Bitcoin(BTC) trading around $11,552 as of 20:00 UTC (4 p.m. ET). Gaining 1.7% over the previous 24 hours.
• Bitcoin’s 24-hour range: $11,186-$11,598
• BTC is above its 10-day and 50-day moving averages, a bullish signal for market technicians.
After a flat weekend that saw the world’s oldest cryptocurrency stick to a tight $11,300-$11,400 range, bitcoin’s price jumped Monday as high as $11,598 before settling to $11,552 as of press time.
Read More:Bitcoin and Ether Rally After Grayscale’s ETH Trust Becomes SEC-Reporting
Related:First Mover: Stimulus Winning as Biden Surges in Polls and Bitcoin Eyes $12K
In its weekly investor note, quant trading firm QCP Capital put bitcoin’s technical support at $10,500, with any point above positive for the overall market due topayments firm Square buying $50 million in bitcoin. It has stayed above that level comfortably since Oct. 2.
”Last week Square’s purchase put a nice floor in BTC right at the key trendline and 10,500 level, with their average purchase price being $10,617 for 4,709 BTC,” the QCP note read. “Square’s purchase and effective lobbying of other corporate treasury desksthrough their white paperwill give people confidence that a five-digit BTC price will be sustainable.”
On the macroeconomic front, global stock markets are anxiously awaiting further economic stimulus in the face of an increasing number of coronavirus cases, said Rupert Douglas, head of institutional sales for broker Koine. Equities traders want another round of stimulus as well as a weaker dollar, which supports gold, silver and bitcoin, too, he added.
Indeed, since Sept. 25, the U.S. Dollar Index, a measure of a basket of fiat currencies versus the greenback, has been flat, in the red 0.01% Monday at press time.
Related:Bitcoin Eyes $12K Price After 6-Day Streak of Gains
“Macroeconomic news and markets have been mostly positive across the globe, with equities up 2%-3% last week,” said Jason Lau, chief operating officer for cryptocurrency exchange OKCoin. He also noted that funding rates have been mostly positive the past three days, indicating traders are mostly paying for margin to go long in the bitcoin market.
“Positive funding rates in the BTC futures markets and recent large corporate purchases, for example Square, have also increased short term bullish sentiment in line with traditional markets leading into year end,” Lau added.
Ether(ETH), the second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, was up Monday trading around $387 and climbing 4% in 24 hours as of 20:00 UTC (4:00 p.m. ET).
Prices jumped nearly 4% several hours after digital currency asset manager Grayscale announced its Ethereum Trust has become a Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)-reporting company. Grayscale is owned by CoinDesk’s parent company, Digital Currency Group
Read More:DeFi Project Aave Raises $25M From Blockchain.com and Other Investors
In the options market, after a record September for open interest on derivatives venue Deribit, October’s volume is much lower. In the first 10 days of September, ether options open interest averaged $425 million. For the first 10 days of October, that average was down 18% to $346 million.
Despite a mostly bullish run for ether to start October, options traders are less interested in placing bets on Deribit, which is the largest ether options venue. Vishal Shah, an options trader and founder of derivatives exchange Alpha5, says a decline in DeFi interest this month may be the culprit for open interest dipping. “I think, without over-analyzing it, DeFi has fizzled a touch, naturally reducing the need for ETH optionality on the margin,” he said.
Digital assets on theCoinDesk 20are mostly green Monday. Notable winners as of 20:00 UTC (4:00 p.m. ET):
• chainlink(LINK) + 8.4%
• monero(XMR) + 7.2%
• tezos(XTZ) + 4.1%
One notable loser as of 20:00 UTC (4:00 p.m. ET):
• bitcoin sv(BSV) – 0.20%
Read More:UK Crypto Derivatives Ban Seen Having Limited Effect on Small Market
Equities:
• Asia’s Nikkei 225 closed in the red 0.26% asthe People’s Bank of China announced rule changes making it more cost effective to short the renminbi.
• Europe’s FTSE 100 ended the day slipping 0.25% asthe U.K. government announced fresh coronavirus-relation restrictions Monday.
• In the United States the S&P 500 climbed 1.7% asinvestors were optimistic for a stimulus deal and tech stocks pushed higher.
Commodities:
• Oil was down 2.6%. Price per barrel of West Texas Intermediate crude: $39.49.
• Gold was in the red 0.32% and at $1,923 as of press time.
Treasurys:
• U.S. Treasury bond yields were flat or slightly in the red Monday. Yields, which move in the opposite direction as price, were down most on the 10-year, dipping to 0.775 and slipping 0.63%.
• Market Wrap: Bitcoin Bumps Close to $11.6K; Ether Options Open Interest Dips
• Market Wrap: Bitcoin Bumps Close to $11.6K; Ether Options Open Interest Dips || Digital Gold: PayPal, Square, and the Fed Send Bitcoin Soaring: The big news Wednesday in the world of finance wasPayPal HoldingsPYPL entering the digital currency conversation with their launch of a new service enabling its customers to buy, hold and sell cryptocurrency directly from their PayPal account.From the company press release..."The migration toward digital payments and digital representations of value continues to accelerate, driven by the COVID-19 pandemic and the increased interest in digital currencies from central banks and consumers."Last week, I reviewed the impact thatSquareSQ was having on Bitcoin, with its renewed commitment and recent $50 million investment, in this video and article...Why Square is Jamie Dimon's Favorite MistakeThat move by Jack Dorsey & Co. put a little more kick in Bitcoin's step as it was already testing and bouncing off of the $10,000 breakout level from July.And the move by PayPal kicked in the Falcon booster rockets on the Starship Bitcoin as it soared above the August high-close of $12,300 and flirted with levels near $13,000 not seen since the summer of 2019, up over $1,000 or 8%+.Why PayPal Matters Even Without an Investment StakeAs far as I can tell, PayPal did not disclose an investment stake similar to Square's announcement. But the company saying that it "signaled its plans to significantly increase cryptocurrency's utility by making it available as a funding source for purchases at its 26 million merchants worldwide," was enough to light the bonfire.This is significant because of PayPal's broad global reach with $222 billion in payments volume processing in the second quarter among 346 million active accounts.And according to Reuters, "PayPal hopes the service will encourage global use of virtual coins and prepare its network for new digital currencies that may be developed by central banks and corporations, President and Chief Executive Dan Schulman said in an interview."“We are working with central banks and thinking of all forms of digital currencies and how PayPal can play a role,” he said.I thought this statement was pretty significant by itself. PayPal is talking to not just one central bank, but probably a dozen or more as they envision the digital payments and store-of-value future.The digital wallet pioneer even acknowledged how deeply they've been thinking about the global ramifications, with this line in the press release..."According to a survey by the Bank for International Settlements, one in 10 central banks – representing approximately one-fifth of the world's population – expect to issue their own digital currencies within the next three years."Even the Fed Wants a Digital Dollar?On August 13, Forbes crypto and blockchain contributor Jason Brett described that day's presentation by Federal Reserve Governor Lael Brainard which "provided a broad description of the Fed’s ongoing research and plans in the potential development of a U.S. central bank digital currency (CBDC), also described in the U.S. as a Digital Dollar."According to Brett, Brainard has for years led the discussion at the Fed on distributed ledger technology and digital currencies and she noted "the Fed is active in conducting research and experimentation in these areas."This is why the move by PayPal could blow the lid off of Bitcoin and send it to new highs above $20,000 in the next year.The way I see it,PayPal will force all central banks and financial institutions to move faster.Look at it this way: the most important central bank in the world, the US Federal Reserve, has been showing some of its hand with interest in digital currencies -- since at least August -- and that probably encouraged some buying interest in Bitcoin.But the move by PayPal ignited an 8% frenzy that puts Bitcoin easily on a trajectory to challenge the June 2019 highs above $13,800 and then probably move higher from there, where many chartists would see no sleep till $16,000.As Mike Novogratz, founder and CEO of Galaxy Digital Holdings, was fond of saying in 2017, "the herd is coming."Is Gold Still an Asset Class?I have long been bearish on gold as a truly barbarous and irrelevant relic in the era of digital QE. Of course, I didn't see the Fed remaining dovish for possibly another five years when I wrote Why Gold is Headed to Zero -- And What You Should Buy Instead.But I'm okay being wrong about that as long as I'm right about the equities -- Tech likeNVIDIANVDA and Biotech like CRISPR Therapeutics -- being worth more than theSPDR Gold Shares ETFGLD in the long run.And I'm fascinated by the analysis and conviction of the crypto bulls like Novogratz and Dave Bartosiak, who runs the Blockchain Innovators portfolio. I asked Dave what he thought about today's blast-off and here's what he said..."The PayPal news is yet another step forward for the legitimization of cryptocurrency as an asset class. It starts with, dare I say, gimmicky functionality like the basic ability to buy, sell and send crypto. Soon it will evolve into major financial institutions changing the mechanics of how their businesses work in order to cut costs through the adoption of blockchain tech and crypto."Dave has been working hard the past 3 years to find public companies that would benefit the most from this revolution, from the crypto mining hardware likeAdvanced Micro DevicesAMD to the payment players old and new including Square, PayPal, and Mastercard.And here's what Novogratz, whose Galaxy funds may hold over 16,000 BTC worth over $200 million, had to say on Twitter yesterday morning..."This PayPal news is the biggest news of the year in crypto. All banks will now be on a race to service crypto. We have crossed the rubicon people. Exciting day."What the Flip is the Flippening?In the video that accompanies this article, I once again take a look at the major holders of Bitcoin, including Galaxy Digital, MicroStrategy, and theGrayscale Bitcoin TrustGBTC. I also consider the idea that some day, maybe not too distantly,digital gold will exceed the value of physical gold.Some crypto authorities have coined that event as the "flippening." But with the market capitalization of the barbarous relic currently over $11 trillion, according to the World Gold Council, Bitcoin and other cryptos at less than $300 billion have a ways to go.In August, Anthony Pompliano stated on Twitter that he believes by the end of this decade, the market capitalization of Bitcoin will be higher than that of gold.According to a 8/15/20 article on CoinTelegraph.com, the Morgan Creek Digital co-founder’s tweet provoked a reply from Peter Schiff:“By 2029 you'll be lucky if the market cap of #Bitcoin still exceeds the market cap of a baseball cap.”This only led to Pompliano doubling down on his prediction. He responded to Schiff...“Think approximately a decade is rather conservative, so trying to account for many things that could possibly happen to slow growth.”I think it's inevitable too. And the great thing about this prediction is that even if it doesn't come true this decade, it's still easy to identify the larger trends in payments and the primacy of digital gold's best virtues: privacy, liberty, security, transparency, autonomy, speed and flexibility.For these values, BTC has already beaten GLD.Disclosure: I own NVDA, SQ, and AMD shares.
Breakout Biotech Stocks with Triple-Digit Profit PotentialThe biotech sector is projected to surge beyond $775 billion by 2024 as scientists develop treatments for thousands of diseases. They’re also finding ways to edit the human genome to literally erase our vulnerability to these diseases.Zacks has just released Century of Biology: 7 Biotech Stocks to Buy Right Now to help investors profit from 7 stocks poised for outperformance. Our recent biotech recommendations have produced gains of +50%, +83% and +164% in as little as 2 months. The stocks in this report could perform even better.See these 7 breakthrough stocks now>>
Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days.Click to get this free reportNVIDIA Corporation (NVDA) : Free Stock Analysis ReportAdvanced Micro Devices, Inc. (AMD) : Free Stock Analysis ReportSPDR Gold Shares (GLD): ETF Research ReportsPayPal Holdings, Inc. (PYPL) : Free Stock Analysis ReportSquare, Inc. (SQ) : Free Stock Analysis ReportGrayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC): ETF Research ReportsTo read this article on Zacks.com click here.Zacks Investment Research || MicroStrategy Is Looking to Buy More Bitcoin, President Says: MicroStrategy is looking to add to its $521 million stash of bitcoin, the company’s president said Tuesday during the business intelligence firm’s earnings conference call.
MicroStrategy bought $250 million inbitcoin(BTC) on Aug. 11. It purchased an additional $175 million in bitcoin one month after that. Bitcointreasuries.org says the business intelligence firm now holds 38,250 BTC, or 0.182% of bitcoin’s total supply.
With the recent rise in BTC’s price, its holdings are now worth $521 million, a 22% premium over the $425 million investment.
Related:'Garbage' Market Data Is Holding Bitcoin Back: MicroStrategy CEO
Now it wants more.
“You should expect that we will purchase additional bitcoin as we generate cash beyond what we need to run the business on a day to day basis,” MicroStrategy President Phong Li said.
Read more:MicroStrategy Buys $175M More in Bitcoin, Upping BTC Holdings to $425M
Li made the comments shortly after the company reported Q3 revenue rose 6.4% year-over-year and notched a net loss of $14.2 million. On a non-GAAP basis, the company posted a profit of $19.8 million, or $2.06 per share, up from $11.6 million, or $1.13 a year ago.
Related:JPMorgan Calls Square's $50M Bitcoin Investment 'Strong Vote of Confidence' for the Cryptocurrency
Besides the 22% return on its BTC investment, the company has seen another benefit from its foray into cryptocurrency – increased visibility.
“We’ve seen a notable and unexpected benefit from our investment in bitcoin in elevating the profile of the company in the broader market, Li said. “This is benefitting our reputation overall, raising our mindshare among prospective customers.”
CEO Michael Saylor, who has vocally championed BTC since early September, further explained during the earnings call that MicroStrategy’s bitcoin reserves are paying dividends across recruiting, marketing and the MicroStrategy brand. He also compared the bitcoin network to “a digital monetary network that doesn’t bleed monetary energy.”
“As more entities start to understand that idea, which is pretty compelling, the adoption of bitcoin increases,” he said.
The executive’s statement caps a wild three months at the business intelligence firm; executives first hinted at a bitcoin future in the firm’s Q2 call. MicroStrategy’s share has risen over 40% since Saylor’s first bitcoin disclosure on Aug. 11.
Share price aside, the bitcoin storyline has definitely boosted the company’s profile. The shift began on July 28, when during the Q2 earnings call executives mulled allocating $250 million into “alternative assets” over the next 12 months as a hedge against the weakening dollar.
Bitcoin, they said, was one of the possible “alternatives.” It turned out to be the only alternative.
All this from a company whose business model has nothing to do with crypto. Before bitcoin, MicroStrategy’s only interaction with the blockchain space was its $30 million sale of the Voice.com domain name to EOS in 2019.
Read more:MicroStrategy Buys $250M in Bitcoin, Calling the Crypto ‘Superior to Cash’
Saylor nevertheless framed the bitcoin holdings as an “example of MicroStrategy’s embrace of virtual technologies” in his Q3 earnings call preview.
With BTC now recognized as MicroStrategy’s “primary treasury reserve asset,” the firm said in its statement it could raise or lower its total holdings as necessary.But from Li’s comments and from what BTC has done for the company’s visibility and its finances, it looks like the firm’s preference right now is to boost its holdings, and soon.
• MicroStrategy Is Looking to Buy More Bitcoin, President Says
• MicroStrategy Is Looking to Buy More Bitcoin, President Says
[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
None available.
|
Trend: down || Prices: 18803.00, 19201.09, 19445.40, 18699.77, 19154.23, 19345.12, 19191.63, 18321.14, 18553.92, 18264.99
|
Analyze the provided historical prices, technical indicators, news, and social media sentiment from the last 60 days. Based on this context, predict the overall trend (up, down, or no change) and the specific daily closing prices for Bitcoin for the next 10 days.
|
[Technical Analysis for 2021-03-08]
BTC Price: 52246.52, BTC RSI: 60.19
Gold Price: 1677.70, Gold RSI: 25.22
Oil Price: 65.05, Oil RSI: 68.21
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
Why XRP Is Outperforming Bitcoin Today: XRP cryptocurrency is trading 2.4% higher at $0.298 at press time early Thursday, outperformingBitcoin(BTC), which has tanked 2% to $34,779.71.
The surge comes following the Wall Street Journal’sreportthat President Joe Biden is expected to nominate former Treasury Department official Michael Barr to head the office of the comptroller of the currency.
See also:How to Buy Ripple (XRP)
Barr hadjoinedthe XRP parent companyRipple Labs Inc.as an advisor in 2015.
Ripple said last week that Barr was no longer associated with the project, asnotedby CoinDesk.
The decentralized ledger technology-based payments companyis troubledby a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission lawsuit over whether XRP qualifies as a security.
Ripple earlier this monthannouncedthat formerAmazon.com Inc.(NASDAQ:AMZN) Vice President of Delivery Experience Devraj Varadhan was joining the company as the senior vice president of engineering.
Read Next:Why This Analyst Can See Ethereum Skyrocketing To ,500
Photo courtesy of Ripple
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© 2021 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || 01 Communique Provides Quarterly Update on Business Developments and Fourth Quarter Fiscal 2020 Results: TORONTO, ON / ACCESSWIRE / January 14, 2021 /01 Communique Laboratory Inc. (the "Company") (TSXV:ONE)(OTCQB:OONEF) is pleased to report that the Company made significant developments throughout 2020 to help ensure the successful commercialization of its IronCAP™ technology and build revenue from its remote access service business.
Andrew Cheung, 01 Communique CEO, stated, "We are pleased with our developmental and commercialization progress in 2020 and our new business partnership arrangements that showcase our IronCAP™ products. Our goal is to offer products with the most advanced and secure quantum safe cryptographic system available, and as such, we have developed what we believe to be the first-to-market enterprise level cybersecurity software for the quantum computing era. Our strong partnerships show there is confidence and reliability in our IronCAP™ and IronCAP X™ products. In 2021, we will continue to focus on adding more partnerships to increase our visibility, product use and revenue growth."
Business Development Highlights:In 2020, the Company focused on the key initiatives of its fiscal 2021-2025 business plan designed to achieve growth in revenues and earnings. The Company continued working to help ensure the successful commercialization of IronCAP X™ and IronCAP™ API by securing major new global enterprise partners and expects to add more new partners throughout fiscal 2021 and beyond. Discussions with other leading technology firms are currently in progress.
Highlights of fiscal 2020 are as follows:On October 19, 2020, the Company commenced trading on the OTCQB market which the Company believes will increase visibility to U.S. investors and provide improved liquidity for investors in all jurisdictions.
On April 23, 2020, the IronCAP X™ personal usage end-to-end email encryption/authenticity product was made available free to individual subscribers through a simple download from our web site. The Company believes it to be the world's first product of its kind that is safe against conventional and future quantum computer attacks addressing the growing concern about email authenticity and personal information that can be collected, shared, and maliciously hacked. Version 1.1 was released in August 2020.
On July 20, 2020, the Company signed a partnership agreement with a global technology and system integration company headquartered in Montreal, Quebec. Under the agreement, 01 Communique would provide tools to showcase the strength of IronCAP™ cryptographic system ensuring safety against cyber-attacks.
On October 29, 2020, 01 Communique entered a joint business relationship with PwC, one of the world's leading professional services firm, to bring IronCAP™'s post-quantum cryptography technology and its related services to enterprise customers.
On December 8, 2020, 01 Communique and ixFintech announced the introduction of the world's first quantum-safe Bitcoin ATM machine, DAEM (Digital Asset Exchange Machine) by ixFintech, using IronCAP™'s quantum-safe cryptographic technology. The work is the result of a previous MOU with ixFintech to adopt IronCAP™ as their quantum computing security solution in the development of future technology solutions.
On December 14, 2020, the Company signed a partnership agreement with U.K. based Mirata Ltd. to provide patent-pending IronCAP™ post-quantum cybersecurity technology to their web-based technology solutions. Mirata services and solutions include email security, website hosting and server management, e-learning, web software and application development, etc. using both a cloud-based platform and a single-server platform.
In March 2020, the Company along with business partner Hitachi Solutions Create announced a 3-month free usage offer of DoMobile remote access services in Japan. DoMobile, which is marketed by Hitachi Solutions Create, is based on our I'm InTouch remote access service. The offer was intended to support the business community with increased telecommunications usage during the coronavirus pandemic. User numbers and revenue for DoMobile increased substantially during fiscal 2020.
On June 9, 2020, the United States Patent and Trademark Office ("USPTO") issued the Company a receipt for its Patent Application No.16/893,709 for a Cryptographic System and Method that facilitates sending encrypted emails to a recipient. In August IronCAP X™ v1.1 was released utilizing the June 9th patent application, offering a personal usage email encryption with a "seamless invitation" to automatically insert an invitation to non-IronCAP X™ recipients to join IronCAP X™ and read the encrypted message. The end-to-end encryption of emails in IronCAP X™ offers complete protection and privacy for all our emails; including attachments.
On October 7, 2020, the Company entered into a non-binding agreement for a drawdown equity facility of up to $5 million with Alumina Partners (Ontario) Ltd. ("Alumina Partners"), a subsidiary of Alumina Partners LLC, a New York-based private equity firm. The agreement was structured with the goal to provide the Company quick access to capital when required. The agreement provides for equity private placement offerings, to be conducted in drawdowns of up to $250,000 per tranche over a period of 24 months with the timing of each tranche to be made by the Company at its sole discretion. The amount and terms of each tranche will be subject to the mutual agreement of the Company and Alumina Partners.
Fiscal 2020 results:The Company reported a comprehensive loss for fiscal 2020 of $657,168 (2019 - $313,757). The Company reduced its adjusted loss by $71,868 for the year to $538,938 from $610,806 in 2019. The adjusted loss excludes stock-based compensation of $112,390 (2019 - $139,384) and depreciation of $5,840 (2019 -$5,376) which are non-cash expenses and the one-time reversal of an accrued liability which had been included in 2019 of $441,809. While the Company made a larger investment in the development and commercialization of its IronCAP™ technology during fiscal 2020 with an increase in operating expenses there was also an increase in revenue from its remote access service which allowed the Company to reduce its adjusted loss for the year.
The Company strengthened its balance sheet during the year completing the year with $1,022,337 of cash, cash equivalents and guaranteed investment certificate.
Fourth quarter 2020 results:For the fourth quarter the Company reported a comprehensive loss of $173,827 compared to a profit in 2019 of $238,494. The adjusted loss for the quarter was $156,687 59 (2019 - $177,070) a reduction of $20,383. The adjusted loss excludes the one-time reversal of an accrued liability in 2019 as well as non cash operating expenses.
Revenue for the quarter was $171,964 compared to $80,832 in 2019 an increase of $91,132 a result of an increase in revenue from the Company's remote access service business.
Cash operating expenses to operate the business (excludes stock-based compensation, depreciation and amortization and withholding tax), for the fourth quarter were $285,199 (2019 - $237,254) an increase of $47,945. The Company continues to make an investment in the development of products based on its IronCAP™ technology and hence an increase in research and development costs. SG&A increased as there were additional costs incurred during the quarter pertaining to listing the Company's common shares on the OTCQB market. In addition, the Company is executing on sales and marketing activities to commercialize IronCAP X™ as well as continuing in efforts to build partnerships with companies for the integration of the IronCAP™ API with third party applications.
Conference Call Reminder and Information:01 Communique will host a live teleconference allowing for questions and answers later today at 10:00AM EST to discuss the Company's results as well as providing an update on the business prospects for IronCAP™ and IronCAP X™.
January 14, 2021 at 10:00 AMDial in Numbers:Within Canada (647) 374-4685 or (647) 558-0588Within the USA (646) 558 8656 or (669) 900 9128Webinar ID when prompted is 832 7263 0612Passcode: 724051661About 01 CommuniqueEstablished in 1992, 01 Communique (TSXV:ONE)(OTCQB:OONEF) has always been at the forefront of technology. The Company's cyber security business unit focuses on post-quantum cybersecurity with the development of its IronCAP™ technology. IronCAP™'s patent-pending cryptographic system is an advanced Goppa code-based post-quantum cryptographic technology that can be implemented on classical computer systems as we know them today while at the same time can also safeguard against attacks in the future post-quantum world of computing. The Company's remote access business unit provides its customers with a suite of secure remote access services and products under its I'm InTouch and I'm OnCall product offerings. The remote access offerings are protected in the U.S.A. by its patents #6,928,479 / #6,938,076 / #8,234,701; in Canada by its patents #2,309,398 / #2,524,039 and in Japan by its patent #4,875,094. For more information, visit the Company's web site atwww.ironcap.caandwww.01com.com.
Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements:Certain statements in this news release may constitute "forward-looking" statements which involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause the actual results, performance or achievements of the Company, or industry results, to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. When used in this news release, such statements use such words as "may", "will", "expect", "believe", "plan", "intend", "are confident" and other similar terminology. Such statements include statements regarding the commercial success of IronCAP X™, the future of quantum computers and their impact on the Company's product offering, the functionality of the Company's products and the intended product lines for the Company's technology and the potential licensing of the Company's technology. These statements reflect current expectations regarding future events and operating performance and speak only as of the date of this news release. Forward-looking statements involve significant risks and uncertainties, should not be read as guarantees of future performance or results, and will not necessarily be accurate indications of whether or not such results will be achieved. A number of factors could cause actual results to differ materially from the results discussed in the forward-looking statements, including, but not limited to, the factors discussed under "Risk and Uncertainties" in the Company's Management`s Discussion and Analysis document filed on SEDAR. Although the forward-looking statements contained in this news release are based upon what management of the Company believes are reasonable assumptions, the Company cannot assure investors that actual results will be consistent with these forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are made as of the date of this news release, and the Company assumes no obligation to update or revise them to reflect new events or circumstances.
Neither TSX Venture Exchange ("TSX-V") nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.
INVESTOR CONTACT:Brian StringerChief Financial Officer01 Communique(905) 795-2888 x204Brian.stringer@01com.com
01 Communique Laboratory Inc.SELECTED FINANCIAL INFORMATIONConsolidated Statements of Financial PositionAs of October 31, 2020 and October 31, 2019
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01 Communique Laboratory Inc.SELECTED FINANCIAL INFORMATIONConsolidated Statements of Operations and Comprehensive IncomeFor the 3 and 12 month periods ended October 31, 2020 and 2019
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01 Communique Laboratory Inc.SELECTED FINANCIAL INFORMATIONConsolidated Statements of Cash FlowsFor the 3 and 12 month periods ended October 31, 2020 and 2019
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SOURCE:01 Communique Laboratory, Inc.
View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/624249/01-Communique-Provides-Quarterly-Update-on-Business-Developments-and-Fourth-Quarter-Fiscal-2020-Results || Weak data, earnings drag stocks lower; oil falls: By Rodrigo Campos NEW YORK (Reuters) - A gauge of stocks across the world slipped from record highs on Friday and the dollar edged up against a basket of peers as weak economic data and underwhelming earnings drove investors to reverse some recent risky bets. Oil prices fell to end the week little changed and the dollar index posted its largest weekly drop in five weeks. Technology stocks weighed the most on the S&P 500, with IBM and Intel posting 10% and 9% declines, respectively, after underwhelming earnings. Energy stocks also fell on Wall Street, alongside the price of crude. With stock valuations nearing levels not seen in two decades, some market participants said new COVID-19 variants and hiccups in vaccine rollouts pose near-term risks for equities. "If we're forced to keep the economy closed and it takes longer than we want to get through immunizations and vaccinations for the coronavirus, that's going to be a little rougher on the market than people apparently anticipated," said Rob Haworth, senior investment strategist at U.S. Bank Wealth Management in Seattle. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 179.03 points, or 0.57%, to 30,996.98, the S&P 500 lost 11.6 points, or 0.30%, to 3,841.47 and the Nasdaq Composite added 12.15 points, or 0.09%, to 13,543.06. The three main U.S. indexes closed higher for the week, with the Nasdaq up over 4%. The recent gains have come in hand with expectations for a near $2 trillion stimulus package for the American economy. On Friday, President Joe Biden said the U.S. economic crisis was deepening and that the government needs to take major action now to help struggling Americans. The pan-European STOXX 600 index lost 0.57% on Friday after a survey showed economic activity in the euro zone shrank markedly in January, with the services sector weighed by lockdown restrictions to contain the coronavirus pandemic. MSCI's gauge of stocks across the globe shed 0.44%. Emerging market stocks lost 0.94%. MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan closed 0.85% lower, while Nikkei futures lost 0.23%. Story continues The dollar index rose 0.14%, with the euro up 0.03% to $1.2166, while sterling was last trading at $1.3683, down 0.36% on the day. The Japanese yen weakened 0.28% versus the greenback at 103.78 per dollar. Overnight data from Japan showed that factory activity slipped into contraction in January and the services sector was more pessimistic as emergency measures to combat a COVID-19 resurgence hit sentiment. In commodities, oil prices were weighed down by a build-up in U.S. crude inventories and by worries that new pandemic restrictions in China will curb fuel demand in the world's biggest oil importer. U.S. crude fell 1.94% to $52.10 per barrel and Brent was at $55.21, down 1.59% on the day. "The pandemic seems to continue to expand into a second wave in China, with infections rising by the day and reaching again different regions such as Shanghai," said Rystad Energy oil markets analyst Louise Dickson. Benchmark 10-year notes last rose 6/32 in price to yield 1.0872%, from 1.107% late on Thursday. Spot gold dropped 0.9% to $1,853.41 an ounce. Silver fell 1.98% to $25.43. Bitcoin last rose 9.06% to $33,610.83. (Reporting by Rodrigo Campos in New York; Additional reporting by Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss, Echo Wang, Herbert Lash and Laura Sanicola in New York; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Matthew Lewis) || Bitcoin is 'economic side show' and poor hedge against stocks - JP Morgan: By Stanley White TOKYO, Feb 19 (Reuters) - Bitcoin is an "economic side show"and a poor hedge against a decline in equity prices, analysts atJP Morgan said in a sobering assessment that could undercut thecryptocurrency's rise to record highs. Current prices are well above JP Morgan's estimates of fairvalue and the mainstream adoption of bitcoin increases itscorrelation with cyclical assets, which reduces the benefits ofdiversifying into bitcoin, the investment bank said in a memo. Bitcoin, the most popular cryptocurrency, lasttraded at $51,116 on Friday, down from a record high of $52,640reached on Wednesday. Rival cryptocurrency ethertraded near a record of $1,951 reached earlier on Friday. Bitcoin has surged by 45% so far this month, fuelled bysigns it is winning acceptance among mainstream investors andcompanies, such as Tesla, Mastercard and BNYMellon, but many observers remain sceptical of theunregulated and highly volatile digital asset. "Crypto assets continue to rank as the poorest hedge formajor drawdowns in equities, with questionable diversificationbenefits at prices so far above production costs, whilecorrelations with cyclical assets are rising as crypto ownershipis mainstreamed," analysts at JP Morgan said. Some of bitcoin's supporters argue that the cryptocurrencyis "digital" gold that can hedge against inflation and declinesin the dollar. Based on that logic, bitcoin would need to rise to $146,000in the long-term for its market capitalisation to equal totalprivate-sector investment in gold via exchange-traded funds orbars and coins, according to JP Morgan. Tesla's chief executive Elon Musk said on Thursday thatowning bitcoin was only a little better than holding cash. Healso defended Tesla's recent purchase of $1.5 billion ofbitcoin, which re-ignited mainstream interest in the digitalcurrency.(Reporting by Stanley White; Editing by Sam Holmes) View comments || Wall Street Starts a Fresh Week at Record High: We start a new week looking toward another bulk delivery of quarterly earnings reports, including some big names and market leaders such as Twitter TWTR, reporting Q4 earnings tomorrow, UBER UBER, releasing its latest Q4 figures Wednesday and The Walt Disney Co. DIS, which posts its fiscal Q1 results this Thursday. Both Twitter and Uber carry Zacks #3 Ranks (Hold) into the new week, with Disney currently at Zacks #4 Rank (Sell). The big news, such that it is, this morning is the $1.5 billion in Bitcoin purchased by Tesla TSLA. This has sent the cryptocurrency up to fresh all-time highs, +15% to right around $44K. The electric car (EV) leader also announced it will be allowing Tesla vehicles to be purchased with Bitcoin, in order to “further diversify and maximize returns on our cash,” according to a company statement in this morning’s filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC). Late last week, Congress passed a measure to bring President Biden’s $1.9 trillion relief package closer to passage into law. Friday, on a strict party-line 51-50 vote in the Senate (all 50 members of the GOP voted “no” while all 50 Democrats voted “yes,” with Democratic Vice President Harris casting the tie-breaker), the measure brought the initial $1.9 trillion almost completely intact: additional $1400 stimulus checks, increases to child tax credits, and extensions to pandemic-related unemployment benefits, among other things. Notably missing from this version of the bill is the addition of a mandatory $15 per hour minimum wage, which was successfully tabled by Sen. Joni Ernst (R - Iowa). But $130 billion in funding to assist the re-opening of public schools nationwide, a $160 billion program for national vaccinations, healthcare spending and Covid testing all make it into what appears to be the final version of this bill. This week, the White House may signal when this massive program is likely to become law. Market futures are now looking toward fresh all-time highs ahead of the opening bell to kick off a new trading week. The Dow looks to open +140 points or so, with the Nasdaq +75 and the S&P 500 up 17 points. More than anything, this stimulus package appears to be being absorbed into the market at present. This is not to discount Q4 earnings season, which has performed better than expected, but points to a profound trajectory shift in U.S. economic growth, especially by the second half of this year. Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report The Walt Disney Company (DIS) : Free Stock Analysis Report Tesla, Inc. (TSLA) : Free Stock Analysis Report Twitter, Inc. (TWTR) : Free Stock Analysis Report To read this article on Zacks.com click here. || Can Bitcoin Be The Next GameStop? The Word On The Street: The Reddit retail investor crowd that pushed up stocks ofGameStop Corp(NYSE:GME),AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc(NYSE:AMC), and others could next set their sights on the world’s largest cryptocurrency by market cap —Bitcoin(BTC).
Bit Of A Laggard:The apex cryptocurrency has remainedlargely mutedand has failed to hitch a ride on the retail rocket that has lifted other cryptocurrencies such as XRP (XRP) and Dogecoin (DOGE) lately.
The so-called digital gold has been lackluster even in comparison with silver, which peaked to new highs over Monday. The lack of movement in Bitcoin is despite the fact thatTesla Inc(NASDAQ:TSLA) CEO Elon Muskexpressed support for the coinon Monday. Previously, Musk’s utterances had sentDOGE and BTC soaring— the former skyrocketing an impressive 800%.
Bets On Bitcoin:Musk’s previous utterances have not gone unnoticed on r/WallStreetBets.
Papa Elon has spokenfromr/wallstreetbets
Elon musk pushes uncenosorable money (again)fromr/wallstreetbets
Short Change:There are parallels between the GameStop saga and Bitcoin,accordingto CNBC.Datafrom The Block Crypto indicates that hedge funds are short on the apex coin by over $1 billion.
The shorting picked up speed around October last year which coincides with the uptick in Bitcoin price. The cryptocurrency reached its all-time high of $41,941.56 on Jan. 8.
At the same time, retail interest in cryptocurrencies has remained strong, with Robinhood having to shut off somecryptocurrency trading featuresas DOGE soared. The brokerage alsorestricted buying of GameStop and other sharesamid the retail frenzy.
The Long and Short Of It:WallStreetBets has spurred conversation among Bitcoin enthusiasts of a similar short squeeze rally in the cryptocurrency.
Bitcoin Archive, which claims to track the cryptocurrency as it proves every prediction of “doom” wrong,tweetedthat while GameStop squeezed hedge funds, Bitcoin is squeezing central banks.
Price Action:Bitcoin traded 0.81% higher at $33,914.18 at press time. Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (OTC:GBTC) closed 2.13% lower at $33.95 on Monday.
Benzinga’s Take:Therecent volatilityin the price of BTC and other cryptocurrencies like DOGE and XRP should act as a caution to investors. The rallies in both the cryptocurrencies were short-lived. The ride on the pump and dump rollercoaster is perilous and investors should be wary of timing the market.
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© 2021 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Is Bitcoin in a Dangerous Bubble?: Bitcoin has seen incredible price movement these last few months. It essentially came out of the bear market (technical term for a market dominated by sellers) around September that it had been in since the explosion of the previous bubble around January 2018. Since then, Bitcoin has been on an absolute tear, registering gains that would make most fund managers’ careers. This kind of growth has raised voices both in traditional finance and amongst the cryptosphere. Some are warning we might be in a dangerous bubble. Is there any truth to these claims?
In less than a month, Bitcoin went from its previous all-time high of $20,000 to more than double. Assets do not generally double in a month, especially not those that have been around for 10 years already.
Michael Hartnett, the chief investment strategist of Bank of America, warned that the entire cryptocurrency market might be in “the mother of all bubbles”. Since the beginning of 2019, Bitcoin has surged more than 1000%. According to Hartnett, this is a bigger and faster increase than famous bubbles such as the dot-com bubble of the late ’90s or the housing prices before 2008.
There is no denying that speculators have entered the fray, and while Bitcoin’s growth has been driven by the technological value of this system, nothing can really explain that kind of price action.
Fortunealso reminded investors that such a sharp increase in price was characteristic of bubbles and that quite often, the price went back down even faster than it climbed. The bubble in this case would be caused by over-optimism about innovations that might still have a big role to play in the future, but are not worth what people are offering for it at the height of excitement.
Related:Should You Invest in Bitcoin and Cryptocurrencies? Experts Share Best Practices in a Volatile (Yet Maturing) Market.
There are two big issues with calling Bitcoin a bubble. First, there is the cyclical nature of Bitcoin’s price. A traditional bubble pops, then disappears. A bubble doesn’t just keep bubbling (2013 and 2017 have seen similar drastic price action, on arguably a more impressive scale).
For a bubble to exist, a product has to be trading for vastly more than the value of the asset underneath. This is much more difficult to determine obviously for something like Bitcoin, but we can certainly try! What is Bitcoin’s intrinsic value?
Bitcoin is a digital currency. Currencies have value if they can be used as a store of value. If you can trust your money, whether paper or digital, to hold value against real-world assets then that currency has value. This used to be insured by backing currencies with precious metals, or even more directly in the case of coins that were made of metal worth the amount the coin represented. The so-calledgold standardhas been abandoned though in the 20thcentury, and now fiat currencies are backed mostly by the faith that individuals and groups have in it to store value.
So, Bitcoin is not backed by a real-world asset such as gold, but most currencies aren’t either. In that case, we can’t blame Bitcoin for not having sufficient backing. We have to turn to the qualities that make a currency valuable to see if Bitcoin fits the bill and hold intrinsic value.
The first important determination is scarcity. Here, Bitcoin simply outclasses the competition. Ever since its inception, there has been a limit number of Bitcoin that will ever be mined: 21 million. There is no possibility whatsoever to increase that number, and there is an ongoing debate over how much Bitcoin has been lost forever but most estimates point to as much as20% of the total supply being lost forever(even though somefeel-good storiesdo happen from time to time).
Secondly, an asset must be a good medium of exchange. This is also a domain Bitcoin excels at, since the fees to transfer sums of money of any size are quite competitive compared to the traditional banking sector.
Third, Bitcoin has to have utility to be worth something. While there was a time when very few accepted Bitcoin as a mean of payment, with the arrival of big players such as PayPal and Square, you can now use your Bitcoin tosettle transactions with millions of shops around the world.
Bitcoin is also hard to steal, impossible if stored properly. Due to blockchain technology, it is also impossible to counterfeit or destroy. Bitcoins belong to their holders, and while scams are still an important issue, they are not exclusive to the cryptocurrency space.
Related:The Crypto Market Is Now Worth More Than $1 Trillion for the First Time as Bitcoin Hits Record Above $38,000
The answer to whether Bitcoin is in a bubble lies in how much one Bitcoin is worth, but not in dollars. Its intrinsic value is dependent on the characteristics that define any currency. Bitcoin might be unique, its own category of currencies, but that does not mean it cannot be judged by the same rules as every other.
According to the characteristics we’ve listed, Bitcoin ticks all the boxes. Furthermore, it does so better than all of its competitors. If we consider currency to be a means of facilitating exchanges between individuals, then Bitcoin has several advantages compared to its competitors.
Of course, the increase in price we’ve seen these last few weeks is unsustainable. In the short term, Bitcoin will certainly see some pullbacks. On a very short scale, we might even say that Bitcoin is in a bubble. But if we zoom out, Bitcoin might just be one of the most undervalued assets.
How can we then determine the true value of Bitcoin? There is no easy answer to this, but one metric that has been criminally undervalued is general public adoption. Renowned analyst Willy Wootook to Twitteron December 4th2020 to write the following: “The adoption curve of Bitcoin is faster than any other global infrastructure rollout before it. It's growing faster than the rollout of the Internet, mobile phones, and easily faster than "virtual banking" players like PayPal.”
We are still very early in the life of Bitcoin, and if Bitcoin continues to gather new users at this rate, it should easily surpass its competitors in the financial sector which will certainly lead to an increase to its price.
Related:Why Small Businesses Should Consider Bitcoin || Blockchain Bites: Bitcoin Rebounds, Addresses Above 2017 Peak, Sci-Hub Decentralizes: Bitcoin’s price is bouncing back, having found a floor of around $30,000 to stand on. Meanwhile, the number of active bitcoin addresses and transaction volumes has climbed above peaks set in 2017. Also, content moderation decisions from Amazon, Shopify and Twitter following the Capitol riots in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 6 have put efforts to “decentralize” the web into sharp relief. Few, if any, crypto-based protocols or platforms have matured to that level, though there are encouraging signs. Yesterday, Sci-Hub moved to the “uncensorable” Handshake network, preserving its rich database of pirated academic research. Top shelf Related: First Mover: Market Signs Look Healthy as Bitcoin Sell-Off Subsides Activity peaks There were over 1.3 million active bitcoin addresses in a single day last week, the most since the crypto bull run of 2017 . Similarly, trading volumes are treading new ground – largely driven by retail interest, analysts say – above peaks set three years ago. Bitcoin OGs weighed in on “how far we’ve come” between the two bitcoin rallies . Uncensorable web Sci-Hub has launched on the uncensorable Handshake network . A database of pirated academic research, SciHub has long faced domain name revocations and attempts to wipe it from the web – but now Handshake’s alternative, distributed domain name architecture will help keep it alive. The fight to decentralize the internet’s basic protocols was thrown into relief by Twitter, Amazon and Facebook’s heightened and unprecedented content moderation decisions in the week following the Capitol riots. Bitcoin APIs Digital asset manager NYDIG is joining forces with banking technology provider Moven to offer plugins for banks that want to launch bitcoin products. The move comes in the wake of several letters from the U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency giving banks the green light to custody crypto and the ability to conduct payments and other activities with stablecoins. Quick bites FIVEFOLD INCREASE? Bakkt, soon to go public, predicts the crypto industry will grow into a $3 trillion market by 2025, according to its investor deck. ( CoinDesk ) SEC COMPLIANT: Digital avatar and social networking platform IMVU launched its VCOIN digital token Tuesday. ( CoinDesk ) MUTUAL COVER: Ethereum-based Nexus Mutual expands its decentralized “insurance” to centralized exchanges. ( CoinDesk ) SMALL BUYS: Here’s one way institutions like to hide their multimillion-dollar bitcoin buys. ( CoinDesk ) LOST KEYS: Lost Passwords Lock Millionaires Out of Their Bitcoin Fortunes ( NYT ) GOVERNANCE DISPUTES: Aragon One CEO Jorge Izquierdo resigned in protest of decisions made in his absence. ( CoinDesk ) RALLY RELIEF? Here’s Why Coinbase Keeps Going Down During Bitcoin Rallies. ( Decrypt ) NOT BUYING: South Korean gaming giant Nexon denies reports that it plans to acquire Bithumb. ( The Block ) Story continues Market intel Retracing and beyond? Bitcoin options traders are placing bids for a $52,000, $64,000, and $72,000 BTC strike price, indicating that despite a 20% dip to $30,305 on Monday, the bulls are still roaming. Bitcoin is around $34,000 at press time, well shy of weekend highs above $40,000. At stake Related: Blockchain Bites: Crypto Market Cap Drops Below $1T as Dollar Gains Hashrate distribution A frequent criticism of the Bitcoin ecosystem is the centralization of hash power contributed to secure the network. For years, the mining market has coalesced in China due to an abundance of cheap electricity, the proximately of mining machine giants and low production costs. According to the Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index , China dominates the mining sector, accounting for nearly two-thirds of contributed hash power. The U.S. comes second with approximately 7% of the global hashrate, followed closely by Russia and Kazakhstan. It’s worth noting these metrics are based on a limited sample size. Further, only 10 mining pools are responsible for 70% of bitcoin’s hash power, Casa CTO Jameson Lopp noted in a blog post this summer. Detractors point to this concentration – at the national and corporate level – as a fault line for Bitcoin security. If malicious actors gained control of the network, they could perpetrate a 51% attack, which is a way to double-spend bitcoin or otherwise tamper with the blockchain’s record of transactions. “In 2020, Bitcoin has […] become a highly centralized system that places an increasing amount of trust in a small number of large entities. Any centralization of Bitcoin network hash power should be of concern as it erodes the trustless model of the network,” TokenAnalyst, a cryptocurrency research firm, claimed last year. While Lopp is seemingly in support of distributing power away from mining pools, he doesn’t see this concentration as a three-alarm fire. Hasu, a pseudonymous crypto researcher, also thinks concentration is harmless . “[B]itcoin’s design doesn’t assume mining power is widely distributed. It’s simply not a requirement. Instead, it only assumes miners are rational, which is something completely different. Rationality means agents do what is best for them, even if that means colluding with other miners to attack the system,” he wrote in a CoinDesk op-ed . Research has shown the costs of attacking a well-secured blockchain network would likely surpass the gains made. Further, in practice, a double-spend is not a death sentence. Ethereum Classic, a less-active fork of Ethereum, suffered three double-spend attacks in 2020 and is still chugging along in the new year, after a number of security updates. Even if not a pressing threat, there is still a cause to decentralize bitcoin’s computing power. Nangeng “NG” Zhang, CEO of mining giant Canaan, noted there’s a growing trend chipping into China’s dominance. “[B]itcoin miners have traditionally relied on the cheap electricity powered by hydroelectric plants in the Sichuan province as their source of renewable energy. But when you consider that hydropower is only available during the wet season in China, six months of the year, it’s no surprise that bitcoin miners have cast their eyes to more innovative and sustainable sources of energy across novel jurisdictions,” he wrote in a CoinDesk op-ed . Several firms, including Layer1 and Northern Data, have set up shop in Texas, attempting to leverage the state’s abundant supply of cheap electricity and business-friendly environment. Layer1 even announced the audacious goal of usurping some 25% of the bitcoin hashrate in the coming years, though the company has had some notable blowbacks. Now, Kentucky looks set to become the next center of U.S. crypto mining. A pair of lawmakers introduced legislation offering tax breaks to cryptocurrency miners . As Zhang concludes: “In reimagining a mining ecosystem that is both sustainable and viable, we will do well to plan strategically for the long term and not only consider short-term wins – whether it’s in tech or profitability – focusing instead on the complete integration of commercial, sustainability and environmental goals.” Who won #CryptoTwitter? Related Stories Blockchain Bites: Bitcoin Rebounds, Addresses Above 2017 Peak, Sci-Hub Decentralizes Blockchain Bites: Bitcoin Rebounds, Addresses Above 2017 Peak, Sci-Hub Decentralizes View comments || As Far as Gold and Silver Go, It’s Back to Fundamentals: Market participants and traders are awaiting more details about the outcome of President Biden’s proposed $1.9 trillion stimulus package. Concurrently we have the precious metals that are also highly used in industry posting substantial gains on the day. In other words, market participants are witnessing the precious metals moving on their fundamentals rather than the failed short squeeze by the Reddit forum Wallstreetbets. Gold basis the most active April 2021 Comex contract, gained $1.10 (+0.06%) in trading and is currently fixed at $1834.50. Although the precious yellow metal is showing stability after yesterday’s dramatic decline, currently gold futures are trading below all three major moving averages, the 50-, 100- and 200-day moving averages. There has also been a convergence as the 50-day moving average gets closer to the 200-day moving average. A break below that would form a death cross. However, that would dramatically change if President Biden can have his $1.9 trillion fiscal stimulus aid package passed. This would move gold pricing substantially higher. The president has held firm in his commitment and promise to the American public to quickly enact fiscal aid that is greatly needed by lower-income households and those unemployed. He is willing to compromise on who would get a $1400 stimulus check by narrowing the recipients to those who really need it. Today, the president told House Democrats that he would not change the amount of the proposed $1400 check, but rather narrow the payments to a smaller group based on income. Silver gained substantial ground today as it reacted to robust U.S. equities markets and the continued demand for the industrial applications that silver is used for. Silver futures basis the most active March 2021 Comex contract, saw a net gain today of $0.55 (+ 2.09%), and is currently fixed at $26.96. Not only do the fundamentals warrant higher pricing in silver but technical studies have backed up that assumption, especially when compared to gold. Story continues Silver continues to trade above all three of its major moving averages, the 50-, 100- and 200-day moving averages, and above the 23% Fibonacci retracement. After yesterday’s sharp and dramatic decline, silver recovered exceptionally well today. We can also identify a two-day Japanese candlestick pattern called a bullish Harami. This pattern is also labeled as an inside trading day to Western market technicians. This bullish market sentiment is shared by the head of commodity research division at Goldman Sachs who believes that if the fiscal aid package is passed silver could run as high as $33. The division of Goldman Sachs is forecasting silver to run back to $30 per ounce by the end of the year without the passage of more fiscal stimulus. For those who want more information please use this link. Wishing you as always, good trading and good health, Gary S. Wagner For a look at all of today’s economic events, check out our economic calendar . This article was originally posted on FX Empire More From FXEMPIRE: E-mini Dow Jones Industrial Average (YM) Futures Technical Analysis – Rally May Have Stalled at 30738 Bitcoin Yields 14.30% Gains in January as Demand Skyrockets Bitcoin Rally Continues But Lacks Confirmation Oil Price Fundamental Daily Forecast – Firms after OPEC+ Maintains Production Cuts, US Inventories Draw BTCUSD Analysis: Bitcoin Harmonics and Elliott Waves NZD/USD Forex Technical Analysis – Weakens Under .7206, Strengthens Over .7232 || FOREX-Dollar extends rebound as investors await U.S. stimulus details, bitcoin bounces: * Biden to give details of "trillions" in spending Thursday * Many analysts still expect dollar to resume declines * Graphic: World FX rates https://tmsnrt.rs/2RBWI5E By Kevin Buckland TOKYO, Jan 14 (Reuters) - The dollar extended its rebound from near three-year lows versus major peers on Thursday, supported by higher U.S. yields, as President-elect Joe Biden prepared to outline his plans for massive fiscal stimulus. The dollar index held onto gains made on Wednesday in early Asian trading as investors continued to unwind bearish bets. The dollar has risen in four of the past five trading sessions as the prospect of more stimulus has weighed on U.S. government bonds, sending the benchmark Treasury yield above 1% for the first time since March. Bitcoin also held on to 10% gains made on Wednesday as it rebounded after sliding almost $12,000 from an all-time high of $42,000 hit last week. Biden will give details on Thursday of a plan for "trillions" of dollars in pandemic relief. The 10-year Treasury yield ticked up after CNN reported the package will be around $2 trillion, adding support for the dollar. However many analysts expect the currency's bounce to be temporary, as a build up of bearish dollar positions are shaken out. Longer term, they expect more U.S. stimulus to support risk sentiment, weighing on the greenback, which is traditionally considered a safe-haven. "I think positioning in risk assets is becoming a concern, so there could be a squeeze in the dollar near-term," said Shusuke Yamada, chief Japan FX strategist at Bank of America in Tokyo. "I am focusing on gradual dollar weakness in 2021." FX speculators have been net short the dollar since mid-March, as investors' surging appetite for riskier assets hurt demand for the greenback. The dollar index added 0.1% to 90.431 after gaining 0.3% overnight. It fell as low as 89.206 on Jan. 6 for the first time since March 2018. The euro slipped 0.1% to $1.21405 after sliding 0.4% on Wednesday. The greenback advanced 0.2% to 104.075 yen, adding to a 0.1% rise previously. Bitcoin was little changed at $37,420 on Thursday, up from as low as $30,261.13 on Jan. 11. Interest in the cryptocurrency has been soaring as institutional investors began buying heavily, viewing it as both an inflation hedge and as exposed to gains if it became more widely adopted. "That precipitous sell-off we saw recently, a lot of it was driven by the futures markets," where positions became overextended and the resulting margin calls put downward pressure on the bitcoin price, said Seth Melamed, the Tokyo-based Chief Operating Officer of cryptocurrency exchange Liquid. "On the spot markets, you just see this consistent drumbeat of buying." ======================================================== Currency bid prices at 12:41PM (341 GMT) Description RIC Last U.S. Close Pct Change YTD Pct High Bid Low Bid Previous Change Session Euro/Dollar $1.2146 $1.2159 -0.10% -0.59% +1.2172 +1.2135 Dollar/Yen 104.0470 103.8850 +0.18% +0.76% +104.1850 +103.8150 Euro/Yen 126.39 126.28 +0.09% -0.42% +126.4900 +126.2300 Dollar/Swiss 0.8883 0.8875 +0.10% +0.41% +0.8892 +0.8870 Sterling/Dollar 1.3633 1.3637 -0.02% -0.20% +1.3652 +1.3620 Dollar/Canadian 1.2692 1.2701 -0.03% -0.29% +1.2705 +1.2685 Aussie/Dollar 0.7741 0.7734 +0.11% +0.65% +0.7754 +0.7729 NZ 0.7187 0.7175 +0.15% +0.07% +0.7195 +0.7173 Dollar/Dollar All spots Tokyo spots Europe spots Volatilities Tokyo Forex market info from BOJ (Reporting by Kevin Buckland; Editing by Ana Nicolaci da Costa & Simon Cameron-Moore)
[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
None available.
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Trend: up || Prices: 54824.12, 56008.55, 57805.12, 57332.09, 61243.09, 59302.32, 55907.20, 56804.90, 58870.89, 57858.92
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Analyze the provided historical prices, technical indicators, news, and social media sentiment from the last 60 days. Based on this context, predict the overall trend (up, down, or no change) and the specific daily closing prices for Bitcoin for the next 10 days.
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[Technical Analysis for 2016-04-07]
BTC Price: 422.74, BTC RSI: 55.52
Gold Price: 1236.20, Gold RSI: 52.78
Oil Price: 37.26, Oil RSI: 51.06
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
Your first trade for Tuesday: The "Fast Money" traders delivered their final trades of the day.
Tim Seymour was a seller of the iShares MSCI Brazil Capped ETF(NYSE Arca: EWZ).
Brian Kelly was a buyer of the iShares Silver Trust(NYSE Arca: SLV).
Karen Finerman was a buyer of Golar LNG(GMLP).
Guy Adami was a buyer of Marathon Oil(MRO).
Trader disclosure: On February 29, 2016, the following stocks and commodities mentioned or intended to be mentioned on CNBC's "Fast Money" were owned by the "Fast Money" traders:Tim Seymour is long AAPL, BAC, BBRY, DO, F, FCX, GM, GOOGL, INTC, JCP, NKE, SINA, T, TWTR, VZ, XOM. Tim's firm is long BABA, BIDU, CLF, KO, MCD, PEP, PF, SAVE, SBUX, VALE, WMT,YHOO, short HYG, IWM. Brian Kelly is long BBRY, Bitcoin, GLD, SLV, TLT, US Dollar, Yen; he is short Aussie Dollar, BLK, British Pound, CS, DB, Euro, EWH, FRC, Hong Kong Dollar, UBS, SPY, Yuan, 5-Year Note Futures. Karen Finerman is long BAC, C, FL, GOOG, GOOGL, JPM, LYV, KORS, M, SEDG, SPY calls, URI, she is short SPY. Her firm is long ANTM, AAPL, BAC, C, C calls, FINL, GOOG, GOOGL, JPM, JPM calls, KORS, LYV, M, MOH, NRF, PLCE, URI, her firm is short IWM, MDY, SPY. Karen Finerman is on the board of GrafTech International. Guy Adami is long CELG, EXAS, GDX, INTC, Guy Adami's wife, Linda Snow, works at Merck.
More From CNBC
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• Personal Finance || Flux Party seeks to be the bitcoin of Australian politics: By Matt Siegel SYDNEY (Reuters) - A new Australian political party is using the virtual currency bitcoin as a model to replace what they say is an outdated political system - representative democracy - with a streamlined new polity for the information age. The Flux Party says its goal is to elect six senators. They will propose no policies and will not follow their consciences, but will support or block legislation at the direction of their members, who can swap or trade their votes on every bill online. "If they didn't have to be senators, if they could just be software or robots they would be, because their only purpose is to do what the people want them to do," Flux Party co-founder Max Kaye told Reuters in an interview. Australia is set to hold an election in September or October after a period of turmoil that brought five prime ministers in as many years. At the same time the upper house, which thanks to the quirks of its electoral system has a history of returning mavericks and fringe party candidates, has been hopelessly deadlocked by a handful of senators, at least one elected on less than 1 percent of the vote. Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull last week raised the possibility of calling an early poll to break the gridlock that has held up the government's legislative agenda. That type of policy inertia is what bitcoin enthusiasts Kaye and Flux co-founder Nathan Spataro say inspired them to explore alternative systems that better represent the world of 2016. Bitcoin is a web-based "cryptocurrency" used to move money around quickly and anonymously with no need for a central authority. The technology behind it is called the blockchain - a massive electronic ledger of every transaction that is verified and shared by a global network of computers. To Spataro and Kaye, bitcoin is not just an alternative financial system: it is the missing link between representative democracy and Democracy 2.0. "This ancient system we've got of representative democracy, which at the time liberated us from monarchies and was awesome, now we're at a point where it's become this monster," Spataro said. "We're in a society now that's got the Internet and when democracy in its current form was conceived, you had to sail on a ship from England to get here. This model wasn't designed for this world." "DELIGHTFULLY NAIVE" Bitcoin's strength comes from its ability to build trust through ease of verification and by removing human frailty from the equation, said Dr. Adrian Lee, an expert on bitcoin at the University of Technology Sydney. That makes what the Flux Party is proposing both unique and also potentially fraught. "I haven't seen a party which would vote via blockchain," Lee said. "If you removed the politician and made it just a bitcoin machine, then maybe it would work but you can't do that," he said, noting the absence of a legally binding mechanism to make Flux senators vote as directed. Although the party's architecture for calculating and distributing voters' wishes to their elected officials uses highly complex computer code, the overall idea is fairly simple. Flux members and single-issue campaigners that agree to support the party at the election are allotted bitcoin-like tokens that they can use themselves, trade or give to experts or interest groups they trust to vote as their proxy. Outcomes are distributed proportionately, so if 80 percent vote in favor of a bill and 20 against, five Flux senators vote yea and one nay. Ministers are not often experts in their portfolio, and yet they are charged with making critical decisions on issues such as environmental or fiscal policy. Under their system, the Flux Party founders say, large blocs of voters could effectively grant their vote on such issues to a scientist or economist. "You get sick, you go to the doctor, right? You don't self-diagnose and you don't go and call your plumber," Kaye said. The Party filed its registration papers with the Australian Election Commission last month after obtaining the requisite support of at least 550 registered voters. Its website currently puts its membership at 1,009 people. Attempting to apply the transformative power of the Internet to democratic systems is not a new one, said Peter Chen, a senior lecturer in politics at the University of Sydney, who called the Flux Party "delightfully naive people". "They're just the modern version of something that's always been around: utopian political system designers," he said. "They're obviously guys who are really focused on the tech thing and that has always been the problem with the e-democracy people. They're often really tech-driven and they need political scientists at the brainstorming floor to say 'well, I don't know if that'd work'." (Reporting by Matt Siegel; Editing by Alex Richardson) || Excitement Builds for Flow CARIFTA Games: ST. GEORGE'S, GRENADA--(Marketwired - Mar 24, 2016) - The excitement is steadily building in the Spice Isle, as the crème de la crème of junior track and field descends on Grenada for the highly anticipated 2016 Flow CARIFTA Games this weekend. Already, teams from Anguilla, Antigua, the Cayman Islands, Guyana, St. Lucia, Suriname, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, the US Virgin Islands, and Trinidad and Tobago have arrived in St. George's to compete in the 45 th edition of the Caribbean's premier athletics meet. "We know that a lot is expected of us, and as we showcase our Caribbean youth, we want to provide them with an experience that will encourage them to continue in sport. My heart is filled with joy to see that we have reached this point," said Veda Bruno-Victor, Chairperson of the Local Organising Committee. Flow, the region's leading telecommunications provider, has signed a three-year partnership with the North American, Central American and Caribbean Athletics Association (NACAC) to be the exclusive broadcast partner and title sponsor of the CARIFTA Games. It means that for the first time in the history of the CARIFTA Games, the event will be broadcast live in High Definition (HD) across the entire Caribbean. "I am also very grateful that Flow has become our title sponsor for the 2016 CARIFTA Games and for the following two Games to come. We want our young athletes to be seen and remembered, because if they are not in Rio, they will definitely be in Japan (2020 Olympic Games). We want our people to say 'I remember that boy or girl' and it is with great expectation that we look forward to the coming of the CARIFTA Games," added Bruno-Victor. Flow, which is also the region's exclusive broadcast partner for the upcoming Rio 2016 Olympic Games, has contracted an international production team that will capture, package and present more than twenty hours of live coverage from the River Road venue on the Flow Sports Channel (Channel 190 in Barbados). Story continues "This is a triumphant moment for Caribbean athletics and we very proud to be the exclusive broadcast partner and title sponsor of the 2016 Flow CARIFTA Games," said Denise Williams, Senior Vice President of Communications, Cable & Wireless Communications. "Since its launch last year, Flow Sports has already become one of the Caribbean's leading sports networks and our partnership with the CARIFTA Games builds upon Flow's other initiatives across the region. In addition to lending financial support, we are also very excited that our partnership with NACAC will allow us the opportunity to broadcast the Games across multiple platforms including our very own Flow Sports." The 2016 Flow CARIFTA Games will inaugurate Grenada's new National Stadium which was recently redeveloped following the passing of Hurricane Ivan in 2004. More than 650 athletes and officials will attend the Games from countries including Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, Aruba, Bahamas, Barbados, Bermuda, British Virgin Islands, Bonaire, Cayman Islands, Curacao, Dominica, French Guiana, Grenada, Guadeloupe, Guyana, Haiti, Jamaica, Martinique, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Maarteen, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Suriname, Trinidad and Tobago, Turks and Caicos Islands, and the United States Virgin Islands. About Cable & Wireless Communications Plc Cable & Wireless Communications Plc (CWC) is a full service communications and entertainment provider, operating in Latin America and the Caribbean. With annual sales of over US$2.4 billion, it operates both mobile and fixed networks, supported by submarine and terrestrial optical fibre backhaul capacity. CWC delivers superior high-speed mobile data, broadband and video services. It has leading market positions in Mobile, Fixed Line, Broadband and Video consumer offers. Through its business division, CWC provides data centre hosting, domestic and international managed network services, and customised IT service solutions, utilising cloud technology to serve business and government customers. The Group also operates a state-of-the-art subsea fibre optic cable network that spans more than 48,000 km -- the most extensive in the region -- as well as 38,000 km of terrestrial fibre providing wholesale and carrier backhaul capacity. CWC has more than 7,300 employees serving 6.4 million customers (Mobile 4.1m; Fixed Line 1.1m; Video 470k and Broadband 690k) across 42 countries. The Group's leading brands include; LIME and Flow in the Caribbean; BTC in The Bahamas; Mas Movil in Panama; C&W Business and C&W Networks. CWC is the market leader in most products offered and territories served. It is a major contributor to local communities through its corporate social responsibility programmes. Cable & Wireless Communications Plc's shares are quoted on the London Stock Exchange under the ticker CWC. The Group is headquartered in London with its operational hub located in Miami, within close proximity to the Caribbean and Latin America. For more information visit: www.cwc.com . Image Available: http://www2.marketwire.com/mw/frame_mw?attachid=2983620 || For Mac Users, The Security Bubble Has Burst: Apple's Mac operating systems are known for their resistance to malware, viruses, hackers and ransomware, which is one reason many people opt for Mac computers. Still, they're not invincible, and as a security company recently reported, Mac users should be aware of potential threats. Researchers at Palo Alto Networks reported finding "the first fully functional ransomware seen on the OS X platform," according to a March 6 post on their site. What Is Ransomware? Ransomware is what it sounds like: Cyber criminals infiltrate your computer and hold it (or more specifically, its data) hostage. They demand you pay them if you ever want your files back. They often want payment in digital currency like Bitcoin, because these transactions are difficult to trace — and it's a hassle for the victim to acquire and transfer. Apple did not immediately respond to request for comment on the reported attack. However, Palo Alto said in its blog post that, after it reported the occurrence to Apple, the Mac maker shut down the infiltration and updated its anti-virus system. How to Protect Yourself Ransomware attacks can be particularly stressful for consumers if the stolen data includes personal information, work data or irreplaceable files (think photos). Not only is this a case to back up your hard drive, it's also a reminder that you may want to install anti-virus software or malware protection on your computer, no matter how secure you think it is. Guarding your personal information is no joke. Losing your sensitive information to a criminal puts you at risk for identity theft . It can take a lot of time and money to recover from identity theft, not to mention the credit damage you might suffer. On top of that, if someone gets access to your Social Security number, the risk of fraud never goes away, because the Social Security Administration rarely changes numbers. Protecting your devices goes hand-in-hand with habits like reviewing your financial accounts for unauthorized activity and monitoring your credit for signs of fraud . (You can see a free summary of your credit report, updated each month, on Credit.com.) Story continues Taking steps to prevent cyberattacks is important, but so is having a plan for how to deal with one if it happens. Ideally, such planning will make the incident less stressful and less costly. You can report cyber crime to the Federal Bureau of Investigation and go here to learn what to do if you are a victim of identity theft . More from Credit.com How to Use Credit Monitoring to Protect Your Child's Identity Does Credit Repair Work? Can Credit Repair Companies Help? What Is a FICO Score? || Iceland's Genesis launches first bitcoin mining fund: NEW YORK (Reuters) - Genesis Mining, which provides computer equipment to create bitcoins in the cloud, on Thursday launched the world's first fund that invests in hardware used to create the digital currency.
Bitcoins are created through a "mining" process involving computer algorithms on equipment owned or rented out by companies such as Iceland-based Genesis. Bitcoins, which are worth more than $400 each, can be purchased from trading exchanges such as BitStamp and Kraken.
The Logos Fund was registered with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission last week, Genesis said in a statement. The fund will issue "pooled investment fund interests" to investors in an offering expected to last more than a year.
Genesis will initially seed the fund with $1 million of its own capital, co-founder and Chief Executive Marco Streng said, adding that investors have expressed an interest in putting in $100 million.
The mininum investment for the fund is $25,000.
"The fund would be clearly focused on bitcoin mining, but we can also purchase bitcoins directly from the exchanges," said Streng said in an interview.
Streng cited strong investor interest despite challenges facing the sector, whose profits have been pressured by growing competition.
More than $1 billion has been invested in bitcoin-related startups since 2013.
Bitcoin on Thursday traded at $416.01 on the BitStamp platform, down 1.8 percent.
(Reporting by Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss; Editing by Richard Chang) || Flux Party seeks to be the bitcoin of Australian politics: By Matt Siegel SYDNEY (Reuters) - A new Australian political party is using the virtual currency bitcoin as a model to replace what they say is an outdated political system - representative democracy - with a streamlined new polity for the information age. The Flux Party says its goal is to elect six senators. They will propose no policies and will not follow their consciences, but will support or block legislation at the direction of their members, who can swap or trade their votes on every bill online. "If they didn't have to be senators, if they could just be software or robots they would be, because their only purpose is to do what the people want them to do," Flux Party co-founder Max Kaye told Reuters in an interview. Australia is set to hold an election in September or October after a period of turmoil that brought five prime ministers in as many years. At the same time the upper house, which thanks to the quirks of its electoral system has a history of returning mavericks and fringe party candidates, has been hopelessly deadlocked by a handful of senators, at least one elected on less than 1 percent of the vote. Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull last week raised the possibility of calling an early poll to break the gridlock that has held up the government's legislative agenda. That type of policy inertia is what bitcoin enthusiasts Kaye and Flux co-founder Nathan Spataro say inspired them to explore alternative systems that better represent the world of 2016. Bitcoin is a web-based "cryptocurrency" used to move money around quickly and anonymously with no need for a central authority. The technology behind it is called the blockchain - a massive electronic ledger of every transaction that is verified and shared by a global network of computers. To Spataro and Kaye, bitcoin is not just an alternative financial system: it is the missing link between representative democracy and Democracy 2.0. "This ancient system we've got of representative democracy, which at the time liberated us from monarchies and was awesome, now we're at a point where it's become this monster," Spataro said. Story continues "We're in a society now that's got the Internet and when democracy in its current form was conceived, you had to sail on a ship from England to get here. This model wasn't designed for this world." "DELIGHTFULLY NAIVE" Bitcoin's strength comes from its ability to build trust through ease of verification and by removing human frailty from the equation, said Dr. Adrian Lee, an expert on bitcoin at the University of Technology Sydney. That makes what the Flux Party is proposing both unique and also potentially fraught. "I haven't seen a party which would vote via blockchain," Lee said. "If you removed the politician and made it just a bitcoin machine, then maybe it would work but you can't do that," he said, noting the absence of a legally binding mechanism to make Flux senators vote as directed. Although the party's architecture for calculating and distributing voters' wishes to their elected officials uses highly complex computer code, the overall idea is fairly simple. Flux members and single-issue campaigners that agree to support the party at the election are allotted bitcoin-like tokens that they can use themselves, trade or give to experts or interest groups they trust to vote as their proxy. Outcomes are distributed proportionately, so if 80 percent vote in favor of a bill and 20 against, five Flux senators vote yea and one nay. Ministers are not often experts in their portfolio, and yet they are charged with making critical decisions on issues such as environmental or fiscal policy. Under their system, the Flux Party founders say, large blocs of voters could effectively grant their vote on such issues to a scientist or economist. "You get sick, you go to the doctor, right? You don't self-diagnose and you don't go and call your plumber," Kaye said. The Party filed its registration papers with the Australian Election Commission last month after obtaining the requisite support of at least 550 registered voters. Its website currently puts its membership at 1,009 people. Attempting to apply the transformative power of the Internet to democratic systems is not a new one, said Peter Chen, a senior lecturer in politics at the University of Sydney, who called the Flux Party "delightfully naive people". "They're just the modern version of something that's always been around: utopian political system designers," he said. "They're obviously guys who are really focused on the tech thing and that has always been the problem with the e-democracy people. They're often really tech-driven and they need political scientists at the brainstorming floor to say 'well, I don't know if that'd work'." (Reporting by Matt Siegel; Editing by Alex Richardson) || Your first trade for Thursday: The " Fast Money " traders gave their final trades of the day. Tim Seymour is a seller of iShares MSCI Emerging Markets (EEM) Brian Kelly is a seller of Energy Select Sector SPDR ETF(XLE) Karen Finerman is a seller of Priceline (PCLN) Guy Adami is a buyer of NetApp (NTAP) Trader disclosure: On February 17 the following stocks and commodities mentioned or intended to be mentioned on CNBC's "Fast Money" were owned by the "Fast Money" traders: TIM SEYMOUR: Tim is long AAPL, BAC, DO, F, FCX, GM, GOOGL, INTC, JCP, NKE, SINA, T, TWTR, VZ, XOM. Tim's firm is long BABA, BIDU, KO, MCD, PEP, SAVE, SBUX, VALE, WMT,YHOO, short HYG, IWM. BRIAN KELLY: Brian is long BBRY, Bitcoin, GLD, SLV, TLT, US Dollar; he is short Aussie Dollar, British Pound, CS, DB, Euro, EWH, Hong Kong Dollar, UBS, SPY, Yuan. KAREN FINERMAN: Karen is long BAC, C, FL, GOOG, GOOGL, JPM, LYV, KORS, M, SEDG, SPY calls, URI, she is short SPY. Her firm is long ANTM, AAPL, BAC, C, C calls, FINL, FL, GOOG, GOOGL, JPM, KORS, LYV, M, MOH, NRF, PLCE, URI, her firm is short IWM, MDY, SPY. Karen Finerman is on the board of GrafTech International. GUY ADAMI: Guy Adami is long CELG, EXAS, GDX, INTC, Guy Adami's wife, Linda Snow, works at Merck. More From CNBC Top News and Analysis Latest News Video Personal Finance || University of California Berkeley notifies 80,000 of cyber attack: SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Officials at the University of California Berkeley said on Friday that they were alerting 80,000 people, including current and former students, faculty and vendors of a cyber attack on a system that stores social security and bank account numbers. The news comes just more than a week after a Southern California hospital paid hackers $17,000 in the digital currency Bitcoin to regain control of their computer systems after a so-called "ransomware" attack. The San Francisco Bay Area university said there was no evidence that attackers actually took any personal information, but that it was still alerting the 80,000 individuals to be on the lookout for misuse of their information. The school said a hacker or hackers gained access to its financial management software in late December due to a security flaw present when the system is updating. Officials have notified law enforcement, including the FBI, and hired a private computer investigation company. The university said among the potentially affected are 57,000 current and former students; about 18,800 former and current employees; and 10,300 vendors who work with the school. Those figures come out to about half of the school's current students and two-thirds of its active employees. Large, high-profile organizations and businesses routinely come under cyber attack, and the school said it frequently identifies similar hacking attempts. "The security and privacy of the personal information provided to the university is of great importance to us," Paul Rivers, UC Berkeley's chief information security officer, said in a statement. "We regret that this occurred and have taken additional measures to better safeguard that information." The school said it was providing credit protection service free of charge to those potentially impacted. (Reporting by Curtis Skinner in San Francisco; Editing by Sharon Bernstein) || Forty big banks test blockchain-based bond trading system: By Jemima Kelly
LONDON, March 3 (Reuters) - Forty of the world's biggest banks, including HSBC and Citi, have tested a system for trading fixed income using the technology that underpins bitcoin, fintech company R3 CEV said on Thursday.
The banks are part of a consortium of 42 major lenders, brought together last year by New York-based R3 CEV to work on ways blockchain technology could be used in financial markets - the first time so many have collaborated on using such systems.
A blockchain is a huge, decentralised ledger of transactions that can be used to secure and validate any exchange of data, including real assets, such as commodities or currencies.
Bitcoin's blockchain was the first, but others have since been built that offer additional features and can be programmed. That means the technology can enable so-called smart contracts: agreements that are automatically executed when pre-determined conditions are met.
For this experiment, the banks tried five different blockchain-technology providers to test trading fixed income: Ethereum, often considered the most advanced and ambitious, Chain, Eris Industries, IBM and Intel.
"We have raised the bar significantly with the sheer number of global financial institutions, distributed ledger technologies and cloud providers working together ... to demonstrate how this nascent technology can be applied to ... an actively traded asset class," said the head of R3's Collaborative Lab, Tim Grant.
Banks reckon the technology could save them money by cutting out middlemen and making their operations more transparent. But analysts say it is early days - bitcoin was invented just six years ago and developers are still working on the technology.
Indeed, the G20's Financial Stability Board said on Saturday assessing the systemic implications of fintech innovations would form part of the task force's core policy work this year and global regulators could propose rules to prevent them from destabilising the broader financial system.
Chain's CEO Adam Ludwin said: "R3 is further accelerating the adoption of blockchain technology by demonstrating, instead of simply asserting, the commercial advantages of this emerging approach to financial services."
(Reporting by Jemima Kelly; Editing by Alison Williams) || Japan looks to kickstart 'fintech' revolution: By Thomas Wilson TOKYO (Reuters) - A laggard in embracing the 'fintech', or financial technology, revolution, Japan is set to ease investment restrictions that could free up the flow of capital in an economy sitting on an estimated $9 trillion in individuals' cash deposits. Strict regulation, easy access to credit due to rock-bottom interest rates, and weak demand for innovative financial services from a risk-averse population that still prefers cash to credit cards, have strangled fintech's advance in Japan. Fintech ventures - usually start-ups leveraging technology from cloud data storage to smartphones to provide loans, insurance and payment services - raised $2.7 billion in China last year, and over $1.5 billion in India, according to CB Insights data. Ventures in the United States attracted investment of around $7.4 billion. In comparison, investment in Japanese ventures reached only around $44 million in the first nine months of 2015. Now, Japan's financial industry regulator hopes relaxed rules on investing in financial ventures, and a new system for regulating virtual currency exchanges will pass through parliament by May - a first step in kickstarting the fintech revolution in the world's third-biggest economy. "The law changes aren't a goal, but a first step," Norio Sato, a senior official at the Financial Services Authority (FSA), told Reuters. "Fintech will have a big impact on financial services." The changes, which will allow banks to buy stakes of up to 100 percent in non-finance-related firms, will free up Japan's three megabanks to enter into tie-ups with fintech ventures developing services including robotic investment advisory and blockchain, the decentralised ledger technology behind the bitcoin digital currency. Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, Mizuho Financial Group and Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group have said they are eyeing such investments, having previously been restricted to holding stakes of only 5-15 percent in start-ups. Story continues Under pressure from weak loan demand, the megabanks see an opportunity to earn money through fintech, but are also aware of its potential to disrupt traditional business models. GAME CHANGER The unpromising fintech environment in Japan - which was blindsided by the high-profile collapse of the Mt. Gox bitcoin exchange in 2014 when hackers stole an estimated $650 million worth of the digital currency - has seen some entrepreneurs go overseas for funding. Junichi Horiguchi, co-founder and CEO of bitcoin service provider Zerobillbank Ltd, established his start-up in Tel Aviv last year to take advantage of Israel's advanced technology industry. Investment in fintech start-ups by global banks and tech giants including Barclays, Google and Facebook is far more common in Israel than in Japan, he said. "It's completely different over there," Horiguchi told Reuters. "Every month there are open innovation contests and (start-up) accelerator programmes." Sales at Japan's fintech start-ups could jump to over half a billion dollars by 2020 as the use of technology such as blockchain increases, Yano Research Institute said in a report. The new rules the FSA is promoting on virtual currency exchanges could make Japan one of the first countries to regulate bitcoin at a national level. "Japan hasn't previously been enthusiastic about fintech," said Sato. "But creating these rules this fast could gain the world's attention." Bitcoin entrepreneurs, often reliant on investment for growth, have called for clearer regulation and will welcome the latest changes, said Yuzo Kano, founder and CEO of bitcoin exchange bitFlyer Inc, and head of the Japan Authority for Digital Assets, a lobbying group. "The establishment of the law is extremely surprising," Kano said, referring to how quickly the FSA had drafted the law. "It's set to be very successful." ($1 = 112.95 yen) (Reporting by Thomas Wilson; Editing by Ian Geoghegan)
[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
Liquid Bitcoin || BTCTurk 1251.6 TL BTCe 415.277 $ CampBx $ BitStamp 414.59 $ Cavirtex $ CEXIO 419.00 $ Bitcoin.de 370.84 € #Bitcoin #btc || #RDD / #BTC on the exchanges:
Cryptsy: Error
Bittrex: 0.00000008
Average $3.3E-5 per #reddcoin
10:00:01 || My robot has 475 hp left! I've earned a total of 573,090 free satoshis from http://www.robotcoingame.com/?id=5660119 #robotcoingame #Bitcoin || Bitcoin price index https://www.worldcoinindex.com/coin/bitcoin #USD #EUR #CNY #GBP #RUBpic.twitter.com/QmB7E4cQ0L || #TrinityCoin #TTY $ 0.000008 (0.29 %) 0.00000002 BTC (-0.00 %) || Liquid Bitcoin || Beyond Bitcoin—Blockchain Is Coming to Disrupt Your Industry: Weekend Reading - Wall Street Journal http://dlvr.it/Kd64Ll || Bitcoin Double Site - Invest Bitcoins and get 20X After 1 day! bitcoin trader . http://ow.ly/YP2QS || Liquid Bitcoin
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Trend: up || Prices: 420.35, 419.41, 421.56, 422.48, 425.19, 423.73, 424.28, 429.71, 430.57, 427.40
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Analyze the provided historical prices, technical indicators, news, and social media sentiment from the last 60 days. Based on this context, predict the overall trend (up, down, or no change) and the specific daily closing prices for Bitcoin for the next 10 days.
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[Technical Analysis]
Not fully available.
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
Ethereum Founder Buterin Advises Against Declaring War on Ethash ASIC Miners: Ethereum creator Vitalik Buterin has voiced his opposition to a popular proposal intended to render Ethash ASIC miners incompatible with the second-largest cryptocurrency’s network.
Ethereum Improvement Proposal 958 (EIP 958), published by Ethereum developer Piper Merriam, was submitted to spark a discussion about the prudence of renderingBitmain’s newly-announced Ethereum ASIC minersobsolete through an alteration of the cryptocurrency’s instance of the Ethash mining algorithm.
EIP 958 was included on the agenda for the latest meeting of Ethereum core developers, which was held on Friday andlive streamedon YouTube.
The proposal is wildly popular in the Ethereum community. At present, it has 1,082 upvotes to just 46 downvotes on Github.
However, in the meeting, Ethereum’s core developers said that they were hesitant to adopt such a monumental and potentially chaotic change, particularly given that the cryptocurrency’s long-term roadmap already includes a transition away from mining and to a Proof-of-Stake (PoS) consensus algorithm.
Noting that the advertised specifications for Bitmain’s Antminer E3 — the first Ethash ASIC miner — represented an efficiency factor of approximately 250 percent over conventional GPU-based Ethereum mining, Vitalik Buterin said that the complexities involved with waging a war on ASICs are not currently justifiable.
“Getting everybody to upgrade is likely to be fairly chaotic and detract from more important things. So, at this point I personally lean quite significantly towards no action,” he said.
“Worst case scenario is basically like that Bitmain controls a very large portion of the Ethereum network for some period of time,” Buterin added. “This is not Bitcoin, right? Miners are not in control here. If there comes a day when they have majority hashpower and try to use it for evil, then it will basically just speed up Casper development.”
The developers noted that they could still pursue action against the development of Ethash ASIC miners if the community demanded it, but it is too soon to tell whether the prevailing sentiment will shift now that several of the core developers have made their views clear.
Featured image from Shutterstock.
The postEthereum Founder Buterin Advises Against Declaring War on Ethash ASIC Minersappeared first onCCN. || If This Report Is True, Airbus Is in Big Trouble: During 2017, Boeing (NYSE: BA) smoked its European rival Airbus (NASDAQOTH: EADSY) in terms of orders for wide-body planes. Boeing received 167 net orders for wide-bodies last year, compared to just 55 for Airbus. The U.S. aerospace giant's momentum has continued in early 2018. Boeing booked 21 net firm wide-body orders in January and February, versus eight for Airbus. Boeing has also finalized at least one major wide-body deal this month. Recent reports suggest that Boeing is set to further extend its dominance in the wide-body market. American Airlines (NASDAQ: AAL) is poised to place an order for 25-30 additional 787 Dreamliners, while canceling its existing order for 22 Airbus A350s. An American Airlines plane in flight, with mountains in the background American Airlines will probably place an order for up to 30 787-9s soon. Image source: American Airlines. American Airlines' Airbus order has been up in the air Way back in 2005, US Airways ordered 20 A350s. Two years later, in conjunction with major design changes for the Airbus A350 family, the carrier increased its order to 22 units. American Airlines inherited this order in 2013 when it merged with US Airways. The A350s were initially scheduled for delivery beginning in 2014. But due to a combination of production delays and two deferrals by American Airlines in the past two years, the first A350s are now supposed to arrive in late 2020. During the past year, American's management has openly acknowledged that the company is rethinking the A350 order. The merger is the main reason for this change of heart. US Airways was about a third the size of the current merged airline, so it would have been reasonable to operate 22 aircraft of a particular type. However, it's not efficient for an airline the size of American to operate such a small subfleet, according to the carrier's president, Robert Isom. Indeed, American Airlines aims to simplify its fleet from 52 subfleets in 2016 (including different configurations of the same aircraft) to just 30 by the end of 2022. In keeping with this goal, management decided that it needed to increase the size of the A350 order or cancel it outright. Another victory for Boeing American Airlines is set to dump its A350 order in favor of buying 25-30 additional Boeing 787-9 Dreamliners, according to Reuters . The airline had been in talks with Airbus about switching the order to the slightly smaller (and cheaper) A330-900neo, but Airbus isn't willing to match the price that Boeing offered for the 787-9. A 787-9 Dreamliner flying over a river Boeing has been offering rock-bottom pricing on the 787-9 to key customers recently. Image source: Boeing. Story continues American's preference for the 787-9 makes sense -- especially if it's the cheapest option. As of the end of 2017, American Airlines operated 34 Dreamliners, including 14 787-9s. It also has another eight 787-9s set to arrive in 2018 and 2019. By contrast, it doesn't have any A350s or A330-900neos. Thus, of the options that American considered, buying more 787-9s was most consistent with its fleet simplification goals. To be fair, American Airlines claims that it hasn't made any final decision on its fleet. However, Hawaiian Holdings said almost exactly the same thing last month, following reports that it planned to dump an order for A330neos in favor of the 787-9. Just a few weeks later, it confirmed its intention to order the Dreamliner . Does Airbus have an answer? Assuming the recent reports are accurate, it's another big blow to Airbus: especially its A330neo wide-body program. Airbus began selling this upgraded version of its A330 jet family in mid-2014, but it has accumulated just 214 firm orders. Furthermore, Airbus has captured just 10 firm orders for the A330-900neo since the beginning of 2017 -- while the smaller A330-800neo model has lost all of its 10 orders during that period. To make matters worse, 44% of the A330neo order backlog comes from two airlines: Iran Air and AirAsia X. Iran Air's order for 28 aircraft could easily be disrupted by renewed U.S. sanctions, while AirAsia X may be reconsidering its massive order for 66 A330-900neos. More than 60 additional A330neo orders come from several aircraft leasing companies, which prefer aircraft that have a large base of operators. In short, getting American Airlines to switch from the A350 to the A330neo would have gone a long way toward solidifying the latter's position in the marketplace. Instead, Boeing could soon be one step closer to dominating the market for small to medium-size wide-bodies. Airbus' current strategy is predicated on the idea that it can discount the A330neo enough to steal sales from Boeing's Dreamliner. If Boeing is willing to match or even beat Airbus' prices for the A330neo, then Airbus may need a completely new approach to compete in this market segment. More From The Motley Fool 3 Growth Stocks at Deep-Value Prices 5 Expected Social Security Changes in 2018 6 Years Later, 6 Charts That Show How Far Apple, Inc. Has Come Since Steve Jobs' Passing 10 Best Stocks to Buy Today The $16,122 Social Security Bonus You Cannot Afford to Miss Bitcoin's Biggest Competitor Isn't Ethereum -- It's This Adam Levine-Weinberg owns shares of Hawaiian Holdings. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy . View comments || Altria Surprises With Its Latest Reduced-Risk Move: Cigarette smoking has been on the decline for decades, and tobacco giant Altria Group (NYSE: MO) has had to balance its pricing power against adverse long-term volume trends to try to maximize profits even as revenue growth has been somewhat under pressure. In place of traditional cigarettes, consumers have increasingly moved toward alternatives like e-cigarettes and vaping products, and even the largest players in the tobacco space have made efforts to fill in their product lines with newer offerings designed to capitalize on that demand. To allow for consideration of such strategic moves from the tobacco industry, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration began accepting applications to have modified risk tobacco products approved by the regulatory agency. Companies in the industry have responded by submitting applications for items like e-cigarettes and heated-tobacco products, hoping that their claims of more favorable health impacts will earn them approval. Yet late last month, Altria submitted an FDA application for a product that's been around for a long time: smokeless tobacco. Collage of Altria divisional logos and products. Image source: Altria. What Altria did On March 20, Altria said that its U.S. Smokeless Tobacco Company subsidiary had submitted a modified risk tobacco product application for its Copenhagen Snuff Fine Cut moist smokeless tobacco product. The product is U.S. Smokeless Tobacco's most popular line, with nearly a third of the nation's market share of smokeless tobacco. The argument in favor of the application is simple: Altria maintains that experience with smokeless tobacco has demonstrated that the product is less risky than combustible cigarettes. As U.S. Smokeless Tobacco unit CEO Brian Quigley described in Altria's analyst day in November, analysis of studies using government data support the company's claim that smokeless tobacco use is 96% less risky from a mortality standpoint than cigarette smoking, and specific risks for respiratory disease, heart disease, lung cancer, and digestive cancers are significantly lower as well. Story continues What many will find surprising is that Altria's scientific evidence shows that even for oral cancer, risks are lower for smokeless tobacco than for traditional cigarette smoking. That runs contrary to popular opinion, especially in light of high-profile sufferers of the disease calling out the product in the past. Yet with its argument that the numbers support the claims, Altria believes that it can successfully argue that Copenhagen deserves modified risk approval. Getting past the spit Smokeless tobacco is only a tiny part of Altria's overall business, and part of the problem is that many consumers aren't comfortable with the experience of using the product. Even Quigley admits that moist smokeless tobacco "only appeals to a subset of adult smokers, and for some, there is social friction." Copenhagen therefore will represent only a portion of Altria's overall reduced-risk strategy, with other products like the MarkTen e-cigarette also carrying their weight. Even in oral tobacco products, Altria sees potential for products that get a more favorable reception from many consumers who don't like snuff. The Verve line of discs, chews, chewables, and melts offer blue and green mint flavors, and early results in lead markets in Virginia have been encouraging. U.S. Smokeless Tobacco expects to file an FDA application for Verve as well this year, and over the long run, a larger portfolio of products taken orally could make it clear how Altria expects to make a transition from traditional cigarettes. Will Altria win? The challenge that Altria faces is that the regulatory environment for tobacco products generally isn't all that good right now. The FDA has been vocal about its efforts to rein in nicotine-containing products more broadly, with recent efforts to require the production of low-nicotine alternatives to traditional tobacco products. It could be difficult for the FDA to approve an existing product without a demonstration of reduced nicotine exposure, and that doesn't seem to be the approach that Altria is making. Moreover, even Altria's own explanations admit that smokeless tobacco isn't a perfect answer. As CEO Marty Barrington said, "It is now accepted by most public health researchers that smokeless tobacco, while not safe, is a far less-risky way to use nicotine than cigarette smoking." It's unclear whether the FDA will respond well to claims of relative safety, even though the entire idea of "modified risk" assumes that some risk could remain. Altria's move to have Copenhagen approved as a reduced-risk product will surprise some investors, but it's part of the tobacco giant's long-term strategy to address falling demand for regular cigarettes. As the application plays out at the FDA, it'll be interesting to see how Altria fares with this and other products that it expects to submit for regulatory consideration. More From The Motley Fool 3 Growth Stocks at Deep-Value Prices 5 Expected Social Security Changes in 2018 6 Years Later, 6 Charts That Show How Far Apple, Inc. Has Come Since Steve Jobs' Passing 10 Best Stocks to Buy Today The $16,122 Social Security Bonus You Cannot Afford to Miss Bitcoin's Biggest Competitor Isn't Ethereum -- It's This Dan Caplinger has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy . || PBOC governor says Bitcoin not a legitimate method of payment: BEIJING (Reuters) - China does not recognise Bitcoin and other digital currencies as legitimate forms of payment, the central bank governor, Zhou Xiaochuan, said on Friday. "We do not currently recognise Bitcoin and other digital currencies as a tool like paper money, coins and credit cards for retail payments," Zhou told reporters on the sidelines of the annual parliament session. "The banking system does not accept it." China has taken a string of steps in recent months to clamp down on the cryptocurrency market, including closing exchanges and banning so-called initial coin offerings (ICOs) - digital, token-based fundraising rounds. Zhou's remarks added to pressure on Bitcoin after the United States on Thursday said "potentially unlawful" online trading platforms for cryptocurrencies, may be giving investors an unearned sense of safety and should be registered with the regulator. The price of Bitcoin had fallen more than 13 percent in the 24 hours to 1030 GMT on Friday. Zhou said China paid close attention to the blockchain and distributed ledger technologies that Bitcoin is built on, but that some applications of the technology had grown too quickly. "If they spread too rapidly, it may have a big negative impact on consumers. It could also have some unpredictable effects on financial stability and monetary policy transmission," said Zhou. (Reporting by Kevin Yao, Se Young Lee and Yawen Chen; Writing by Elias Glenn; Editing by Robert Birsel) || Cboe Exchange Wants to Lower Its Bitcoin Futures Prices: The Cboe wants to change the way it prices bitcoin futures contracts, a move that comes just months after the exchange operator first debuted its inaugural cryptocurrency product.
In a newly published letter to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) dated April 17, CBOE Future Exchange (CFE) managing director Matthew McFarlandÂannounced a proposed rule amendment that would lower the minimum increment on its futures contracts from 10 points (worth $10) to 5 points (worth $5) sometime on or after May 1.
The move will have a "positive impact on the market in XBT futures,"Â McFarland wrote.
CBOE Saw Its Highest-Ever Bitcoin Futures Volumes Yesterday
The change would apply tosingle leg transactions, meaning those involving only one contract, and notspread trades, which require an investor to buy and sell two different contracts simultaneously. Spread trades currently have a minimum increment of 0.01 points ($0.01), according to the letter.
McFarland said the decision to make this change was supported by data the company collected since its futures contracts launched inÂDecember. He went on to write that "CFE intends to continue to evaluate its experience with the trading in XBT futures and may determine to make future changes relating to XBT futures in light of that experience."
McFarland continued:
"CFE believes that the impact of the amendment will be beneficial to the public and market participants."
OKEx Denies Manipulation Claims After Bitcoin Futures Rollback
Such comments coincide with the more positive outlook taken by the company's leadership in public dialogue on its cryptocurrency products. For example, last month, a senior executive for CBOE Global Marketsarguedthat the market would support a bitcoin-based exchange traded fund (ETF) in a letter to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
And while the company did not explicitly push for approval of an ETF, it did use data to bolster the argument that the market at-large could support such a move.
Bitcoinimage via Shutterstock
• Riot Blockchain Acquires Futures Brokerage After Crypto Pivot
• Exchange OKEx to Roll Back Trades After Futures Plunge || Is AT&T, Inc. a Buy?: AT&T(NYSE: T)has long been a preferred stock among income-seeking investors due to the company's dependable cash generation, big yield, and regular payout increases. However, in recent years, shareholders have had to mostly be content with the telecom giant's admittedly strong dividend profile. Shares have traded down roughly 5% over the last five years, and the stock's total return of 26% over the stretch comes in well below theS&P 500index's 68% gain.
The tough competitive climate in the wireless service space and cord-cutting in TV land have put the business on a low growth trajectory. That's reflected in the AT&T's valuation, with shares trading at roughly 10 times this year's expected earnings and nine times expected free cash flow, but is the stock a value play or a value trap at current prices?
Image source: AT&T.
As mentioned, AT&T's dividend is a big part of the stock's appeal. Shares yield roughly 5.7% at current prices, and the company's history of annual payout increases and strong cash flow give shareholders good reason to bank on regular dividend growth. The company has raised its payout annually for 34 years running, and the cost of distributing its current dividend comes in at a reasonable 70% of trailing free cash flow (FCF).
If you're looking for a low-risk, income-generating investment, I think AT&T fits that profile well. So, for retirement or income-focused portfolios, the company looks like a buy to me, but I'd also like to look at the business's prospects to explain why the income play is sound and explore whether the stock might also have appeal to less risk-averse investors.
AT&T is America's second-largest wireless provider, trailing onlyVerizonin subscriber count. It's also the nation's largest pay-TV provider through its DirecTV subsidiary. These are the company's core areas of operation -- and ones that are playing host to some disruptive trends at present. In the wireless space, the company has historically differentiated its network as a premium offering, but network improvements from budget-priced competitors likeT-MobileandSprintand an unlimited-data pricing war that also includes Verizon have eaten at sales and profitability.
One way AT&T is dealing with these challenges is bybundlingmobile coverage, wireline internet, and television packages together. The company has an edge in its ability to do this, and one that gives it a means of navigating the competitive wireless space and buttressing its video business against cord-cutting.
The company added another 170,000 bundle customers in the December-ended quarter -- welcome news on one level, but the bundle-heavy pursuits are also eating away at the company's margins. So, its ability to bundle better than its competitors, some compelling adoption indicators and room for expansion in markets like Latin American suggest that AT&T should be able to maintain a solid baseline business in the telecom space, but it's going to have to look to new technologies, services, and integrations to drive growth.
There are promising developments on those fronts even if the material outcomes are unclear at present. As an example, AT&T is moving aggressively to secure the future of 5G network technology. This next generation of wireless network technology will bring about a dramatic leap in download speeds, but more significantly, it's going to make a lot of other things possible.
The 5G network evolution will bring about the first truly low latency solutions. When data is requested, there's a small window of delay before it's actually sent, but that delay represents a major roadblock for demanding technologies like self-driving cars. The average latency on a 4G network is roughly 50 milliseconds, but 5G networks could reduce this delay to just one millisecond.
This low latency feature could wind up being crucial to the evolution of Internet of Things (IoT) technologies like connected cars, virtual reality, and smart city applications. AT&T is also positioning itself as an IoT platform provider, so it's got opportunities in the space that extend beyond providing network connectivity.
Image source: Getty Images.
Bundling has paved the way to sales growth in the short term, but it's also been weighing on margins, so AT&T's investment in 5G could be crucial to buttressing pricing strength. The 5G push will require substantial capital spending, but I think there's a lot of opportunity for the company here and expect it to capture some significant wins.
AT&T stock is also looking more attractive following the passage of the recenttax reform bill. In addition to lowering the basic corporate tax rate, the new tax code includes beneficial provisions for companies with high annual capital expenditures. All told, AT&T's effective tax rate looks like it will drop from roughly 33% to roughly 23%.
The change brings substantially beneficial implications for the company's cash flow picture, granting added ability to deliver dividend growth while also investing in the future of the business. AT&T generated $17.6 billion in free cash flow (FCF) across 2017 and is guiding for roughly $21 billion in FCF for the current year. That's on track to happen even as the company is increasing capital spending from $21.6 billion last year to $25 billion in the current period. Management anticipates that the tax bill will result in a positive earnings impact of $0.45 per share, and that's an upward adjustment range that should be sustained going forward.
AT&T's $85.4 billion bid to acquire multimedia giantTime Warner(NYSE: TWX)is a move that stands to bridge the network company into new areas and be a boon to its video and bundling initiatives. It's a massive deal, one of the biggest acquisitions of the last decade. It's also currently facing a legal challenge from the U.S. Department of Justice on the grounds that the merger would be anti-competitive.
The argument from AT&T is that the Time Warner acquisition doesn't violate antitrust regulations because the entertainment content space isn't one it currently operates in and that expanding into these new areas is necessary to compete in an environment where companies likeAlphabet,Amazon, andFacebookare building encompassing content-and-service ecosystems. That seems reasonable enough.
If the merger makes it out of the court process alive, the integration of Time Warner will instantly make AT&T into one of the world's leading content producers. That's a characteristic that would play to the company's advantage as it looks to bundle wireless subscriptions with video content.
The pairing of the businesses would also open avenues to generating greater value from Warner's entertainment assets. By taking advantage of user-targeted advertising distribution through AT&T's mobile network, management estimates that it could get between two and three times the ad value compared to distribution through cable. I expect that the deal will ultimately go through and think that the integration of Time Warner assets would be a significantly positive event over time.
AT&T looks to be a reasonably low-risk investment and a good stock to own for income-focused investors. It's probably not the best fit if you're trying to optimize a portfolio for growth, but it has some initiatives in the works that could reenergize the business, and I think their impact is probably being discounted at current prices. So, with limited downside thanks to its non-prohibitive valuation, great dividend profile, and underappreciated upside, AT&T is a buy in my book.
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John Mackey, CEO of Whole Foods Market, an Amazon subsidiary, is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors. Suzanne Frey, an executive at Alphabet, is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors.Keith Noonanhas no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Alphabet (A shares), Amazon, Facebook, and Verizon Communications. The Motley Fool recommends Time Warner and T-Mobile US. The Motley Fool has adisclosure policy. || The Creator Of GBTC Launches New Products For Bitcoin Cash, Ethereum, Litecoin And XRP: Grayscale Investments, the firm that runs the popularBitcoin Investment Trust(OTC:GBTC), has announced it's launching four new funds focused on other popularcryptocurrencies.
What Happened
Grayscale said it's launching a Bitcoin Cash Investment Trust, an Ethereum Investment Trust, a Litecoin Investment Trust and an XRP Investment Trust, presumably all structured in a similar way as the Bitcoin Investment Trust.
“Our team is committed to bridging the gap between the global investment community and the digital currency asset class,” Grayscale managing director Michael Sonnensheinsaid in a statement.
Why It's Important
Bitcoin, Ethereum, Ripple, Bitcoin Cash and Litecoin are the five largest global cryptocurrencies by market cap and represent the only five digital currencies valued at more than $1 billion each.
The U.S. Securities and Exchange has yet to approve a cryptocurrency fund for listing on a major U.S. exchange, leaving the GBTC fund as one of the only games in town for traders. As the popularity of bitcoin has skyrocketed in the past year, so too has the GBTC fund. The GBTC fund is now up 1,150 percent in the past year.
Bitcoin prices have cooled since peaking at around $19,000 in December. Bitcoin was priced at just under $10,900 in Tuesday afternoon trading.
What's Next
Unfortunately for retail investors, only qualified investors can participate in the new funds’ private placements, and all of the private placement shares are subject to a one-year holding period. In other words, it may be a year before shares of the new funds begin trading on the OTC market along with shares of the Bitcoin Investment Trust.
Qualified investors who wish to receive more information on the new cryptocurrency funds should contact Grayscale to receive a copy of the private placement memorandum for each fund.
Related Links:
How The Bitcoin Investment Trust Actually Works
Does Bitcoin Actually Hold Any Value At All?
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© 2018 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || USD/JPY Fundamental Daily Forecast – Appetite for Risk Controlling Price Action, Direction: The Dollar/Yen tumbled on Tuesday, driven by strong demand for the safe haven Japanese Yen. The catalyst was another late session break in U.S. equity markets.
Stock market weakness was mostly led by a steep sell-off in the technology sector.
TheUSD/JPYsettled at 105.319, down 0.070 or -0.07%.
The Dollar/Yen traded sharply higher early in the session in reaction to strong gains in U.S. equity markets. The move was fueled by follow-through buying tied to Monday’s strong stock market performance.
Equities rallied on Monday after The Wall Street Journal reported that U.S. and Chinese officials were working to ease trade tensions between the two countries. The major averages rose more than 2.5 percent, notching their best one-day gains since August 2015.
Stocks tumbled on Tuesday, fueling a flight into the safe haven Japanese Yen after Bloomberg reported that the Trump administration was considering using a law reserved for national emergencies in a crackdown on some Chinese investments.
A slight recovery in U.S. equity indexes early Wednesday is helping the USD/JPY to recover from yesterday’s sell-off.
Traders may be reacting to a report that China said it won a pledge from North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to denuclearize the Korean peninsula during a meeting with President Xi Jinping, who pledged in return that China would uphold its friendship with its isolated neighbor.
Appetite for risk on Wednesday will determine the direction of the USD/JPY. If stocks can recover from Tuesday’s sell-off then the Dollar/Yen should claw back its losses. Another steep sell-off should send investors into the safety of the Japanese Yen.
It’s not only trade wars that investors are worried about. Facebook’s problems have led many portfolio managers to reconsider the size of their investments in overpriced technology stocks.
On Wednesday investors will get the opportunity to react to the latest report on 4Q 2017 Final GDP. It is expected to come in at 2.7%, higher than the previously reported 2.5%. A stronger-than-expected number could underpin the dollar, at least temporarily.
Other reports include the Goods Trade Balance, Preliminary Wholesale Inventories and Pending Home Sales.
Despite the reports, the major market moving event is likely to be any news on trade wars.
Thisarticlewas originally posted on FX Empire
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• Bitcoin Cash, Litecoin and Ripple Daily Analysis – 28/03/18 || Cboe urges U.S. regulators to move forward with bitcoin ETFs: By John McCrank NEW YORK, March 26 (Reuters) - U.S. securities regulators should not stand in the way of exchange-traded funds that hold cryptocurrencies like bitcoin from coming to the market as they are essentially the same as other ETFs that hold commodities, said exchange operator Cboe Global Markets . The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission said in January that "significant investor protection issues" needed to be examined before bitcoin-based ETFs could be offered and it also had concerns around how the products would be priced, stored and safeguarded. Cboe's letter said the exchange believes "that the vast majority of these concerns can be addressed within the existing framework for commodity-related funds related to valuation, liquidity, custody, arbitrage, and manipulation." The March 23 letter was signed by Cboe President Chris Concannon. Bitcoin can be moved around the world quickly and with relative anonymity, without a central authority such as a bank or government. The a virtual currency's 1,500 percent surge last year stoked investor demand. Cboe believes ETFs would give investors a more transparent and accessible way to get exposure to cryptocurrencies than the spot market. Yet bitcoin has been volatile, swinging from a 2018 high of $17,234.99 on Jan. 6 to a low of $5,920.72 on Feb. 6, and trading on Monday at about $8,092. Many investors remain leery, and the SEC has been cautious due to several massive cybersecurity breaches that have hit bitcoin owners and exchanges and a lack of consistent treatment of the assets by governments. The regulator has denied or tabled more than a dozen proposals for funds that would own bitcoin or futures based on them, including four separate proposals submitted by Cboe, such as the Winklevoss Bitcoin Trust. Cboe and rival CME Group Inc have successfully launched cash-settled bitcoin futures contracts, however, which the exchange operators self-certified in December and are regulated by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. Story continues Cboe asked the SEC to evaluate each cryptocurrency fund and underlying cryptocurrency-related holdings on a case-by-case basis. More than $70 billion in notional value of bitcoin transactions traded hands in the spot market in December, when the price reached more than $19,000, Cboe said. Such liquidity would easily support bitcoin ETFs or other exchange-traded products (ETPs), the exchange said. "As the volumes continue to grow, especially on regulated U.S. markets, the overall spot bitcoin market looks more and more like a traditional commodity market and Cboe continues to believe that the spot market is sufficiently liquid to support a bitcoin ETP." (Reporting by John McCrank; Editing by David Gregorio) || Do Trump's Tariffs Have You Thinking About Steel Stocks? Read This First: Admit it: The moment you caught word that President Trump mentioned that his administration would enact tariffs on steel, your first thought went to steel stocks. Even if you didn't have an immediate urge to invest in steel, you at least thought that steel stocks would have a great day. (They did.) For some, there is a certain temptation to jump into steel stocks and ride the wave of higher domestic prices to higher profits. If you are a buy-and-hold investor, though, then there are a couple of things you should probably consider. President Donald Trump Image source: Official White House Photo by Shealah Craighead. We've done this before, and it hasn't changed the equation yet Today, the global steel market is dominated by China and the amount of steel it can produce. The country's total exports of 100 million tons in 2015 was more than the second largest steel producer's -- Japan -- total output. For years, China used much of that steel to fuel its incredible growth rates, but it has since backed off the throttle with infrastructure spending. As a result, there has been a flood of excess supply on the market that has left many steelmakers reeling. Even before China's emergence as the dominant global supplier, the U.S. has sought to enact tariffs to counter oversupply. In 2002, then-President George W. Bush implemented a tariff structure that would impose up to a 30% duty on imported steel for three years. However, those efforts were short-lived as the World Trade Organization deemed them illegal and allowed other countries to take retaliatory measures. Then, in 2016, then-President Obama set duties as high as 235% on Chinese imported steel and some other countries in an attempt to curb dumping. The one noticeable change between Trump's tariff proposal and the ones enacted by his predecessors is there don't appear to be any exempted countries. Both Bush and Obama exempted countries with which we have free trade agreements and a few others. The consequences of that move, though, aren't totally clear at this point. Story continues From an investors standpoint, there are two things that should stand out. One is that tariffs don't necessarily change the global oversupply issue, and that tariffs have historically been a temporary thing. It seems as though every time this industry goes through booms and busts, producers cry foul. If you are looking to invest in a company over a multiple-year time horizon based on these tariffs being in place, then chances are, you are going to be sadly disappointed. Hot Steel bar in a manufacturing facility Image source: Getty Images. All the lipstick in the world doesn't change the fact that it's a pig Let's say for argument's sake that these tariffs get enacted and remain in place for a long time. Even if that were the case, it doesn't change the fact that the steel industry hasn't historically been a great investment. Steel is, at its heart, an incredibly capital-intense business selling a commodity product where demand for that product waxes and wanes with the global economy. That leaves you with companies with little to no pricing power trying to predict which way the wind will blow. Considering how poor people are at making predictions , you can probably guess how that turns out over time. If you need a reminder, though, let's look back at a chart from Credit Suisse's Global Investment Returns Yearbook from 2015 . In it, the analysts tracked the performance of $1 invested in various industries dating back to 1900. If that $1 was invested in steel, it would be worth a little under $10,000 in 2015. That sounds great...until you find out that same $1 in the broader market in 1900 would be $38,255 in 2015. Steel has, and will likely continue to be, an underperforming industry. If the cumulative returns of steel weren't already less than ideal, the lure of higher prices and a more protected steel industry will almost inevitably lead investors to pursue stocks with "higher upside": Companies selling at extremely low valuations for one reason or another. In reality, though, higher upside is just a euphemism for a poorly run business that may get a temporary boost from something completely out of their control. If a management team is bad at allocating capital, it won't matter where steel prices go because their management teams will likely find a way to muck things up. Perhaps the quintessential example of this was United States Steel 's (NYSE: X) $1.1 billion purchase of Canadian steelmaker Stelco back in 2007. At the time, Stelco was a company that had just recently reemerged from bankruptcy and had 1.7 billion Canadian dollars in underfunded pension obligations and another CA$750 million in debt. Despite these red flags screaming "STAY AWAY," U.S. Steel's management saw steel prices at an all-time high and decided that this "very dynamic industry" was worth paying a 43% premium for a distressed asset. To the surprise of no one, U.S. Steel Canada -- the name of its Canadian operations post-acquisition -- filed for bankruptcy protection in 2014, and the unit was ultimately sold for $124 million in 2016. It's moves like these that have made U.S. Steel an incredibly poor capital allocator over the past decade and caused it to sustain heavy losses. U.S. Steel isn't alone, either. AK Steel Holding has also historically struggled to generate sustained returns on capital since the early 2000s because of high debt loads and a reliance on older steelmaking technology that makes it less responsive to changes in supply and demand . X Return on Invested Capital (3y Median) Chart X Return on Invested Capital (3y Median) data by YCharts . A bump in steel prices might give these companies a bump to their top lines, but it won't prevent management teams from making bad decisions. They'll likely continue to make stupid acquisitions when times are good and desperate divestment decisions when the next crash comes. What a Fool believes I don't want to dissuade investors from looking at the steel industry completely. In every industry, no matter how challenging, there are some quality, well-run businesses that deserve our attention . What is more important is that investors don't just jump into steel stocks in general because we may all of the sudden get tariffs that could potentially boost domestic prices. These moves have been tried before, and they have either fallen flat on their face legally, or haven't done much to change global market dynamics. Add in the capital-killing decisions that management teams have made over the years in this business, and that hardly makes for a sound investment thesis. Do your homework. More From The Motley Fool 3 Growth Stocks at Deep-Value Prices 5 Expected Social Security Changes in 2018 6 Years Later, 6 Charts That Show How Far Apple, Inc. Has Come Since Steve Jobs' Passing 10 Best Stocks to Buy Today The $16,122 Social Security Bonus You Cannot Afford to Miss Bitcoin's Biggest Competitor Isn't Ethereum -- It's This Tyler Crowe owns shares of Nucor. The Motley Fool recommends Nucor. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy .
[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
Big picture $BTC pic.twitter.com/g9ZiYuIkyT || #XYO #Crypto #Blockchain #bitcoin #ICO #tokensale https://xyo.network/index.html https://twitter.com/XYOracleNetwork/status/980892405585952768 … || Korea price
Time: 03/02 00:14:16
BTC: 11,981,833 KRW
ETH: 967,150 KRW
XRP: 1028 KRW
#Bitcoin #Ethereum #Ripple || Bitcoin Cash BCH Current Price:
$668,777
1 Hour: -2.28 % | 24 Hours: -3.20 % | 7 Days: -24.45 %
#bch #bitcoin cash || shorts are loadin' $BTC pic.twitter.com/LLza1pS66Q || I haven’t gotten any client, family or friends asking me about crypto currency and bitcoin in a while...strange... pic.twitter.com/jJatlSzsr0 || Japón es el primer país en reconocer el bitcoin como un medio de pago legal #Criptomonedas https://goo.gl/2AUH5H || Chilean Cryptocurrency Exchanges See Banking Blockade with Shuttered Accounts https://ift.tt/2q9CDbl *** *** Tinking about bitcoins? Hashflare: https://ift.tt/2iQfCGB or Genesis mining: http://ift.tt/2BmC6Xl Come with me. #blockchain #bitcoin #profitpic.twitter.com/H3fTQDTCcO || The INCREDIBLE uses of BLOCKCHAIN!!!
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$CPC $ARDR $TOMO $MAN $OK $TKS $XVG $KMD $BTS $WAVES $ETH $QTUM $BTC $XEL $ION $SNT $STRAT $MCO $NEO $VIA $DGB $CVC $XWC $TKY $VEN $ICX $SC $PPC $APPC $ELF $TRX $ELEC $XEM $ARDR $SYS $ADA $GCR $HMQ $ETC $POWR $CRT
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Trend: down || Prices: 9419.08, 9240.55, 9119.01, 9235.92, 9743.86, 9700.76, 9858.15, 9654.80, 9373.01, 9234.82
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Analyze the provided historical prices, technical indicators, news, and social media sentiment from the last 60 days. Based on this context, predict the overall trend (up, down, or no change) and the specific daily closing prices for Bitcoin for the next 10 days.
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[Technical Analysis for 2021-05-03]
BTC Price: 57200.29, BTC RSI: 53.07
Gold Price: 1791.40, Gold RSI: 60.77
Oil Price: 64.49, Oil RSI: 58.88
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
Crypto Long & Short: The Pattern in Bitcoin’s Volatility: Bitcoin’s volatility has been moving in a downward direction, and the price of the currency seems fixed in a band between $50,000 and $60,000. Is the current market for bitcoin a temporary lull between lurches? Or is it a long-term trend toward lower volatility that could change the way bitcoin is perceived? The answer is, it’s too early to tell. The chart above shows bitcoin’s volatility has been on a steady decline. ( Ether and the S&P 500 are included as references.) However, it’s still in an approximate mid-range, historically. You’re reading Crypto Long & Short , a newsletter that looks closely at the forces driving cryptocurrency markets. Authored by CoinDesk’s head of research, Noelle Acheson, it goes out every Sunday and offers a recap of the week – with insights and analysis – from a professional investor’s point of view. You can subscribe here . Related: Plutocracy Is Still Bad, Proposed EOS Overhaul Confirms As of Sunday morning, this past week’s correction hadn’t changed that. Bitcoin’s price remains roughly in a band between $50,000 and $60,000, and with this week’s dip marking the second time it’s rocked between the minimum and maximum of that range, its volatility is still roughly in the middle. Using the table below as a guide, bitcoin’s stretch of middling volatility is likely to continue. At 43 days, it is still rather young, as these things go. The data in the table is based on dividing bitcoin volatility into three ranges: high, mid and low. High is volatility at or above 100%. Mid is volatility at or above 50%, and below 100%. Low is volatility below 50%. Volatility is the 30-day standard deviation of daily log returns, annualized at 365 days of trading. These ranges aren’t entirely arbitrary. Since October 2014, bitcoin volatility’s top tercile has been above 79% and its middle third has started at 51%. Story continues Related: Bitcoin News Roundup for April 26, 2021 Looking at bitcoin volatility in this way shows a pattern in the duration of volatility cycles. In the first two years on the table, bitcoin volatility cycles tended to be shorter, less than 50 days in duration. They lengthened in 2016 to 2018, then returned to shorter cycles in 2019. As of Saturday, bitcoin’s volatility was just over 50%, putting it at the low end of our mid-range for volatility. It’s been in the mid-range for 43 days, following a period (32 days) of high volatility that ended March 13. In the current environment, it hasn’t yet reached the average duration of a volatility cycle – at least not as we’re defining them here. If recent norms persist, bitcoin’s volatility may be disappointing both to traders antsy for a break and technologists hoping for long-term, lower volatility that could make bitcoin more “useful” as a currency. It may feel like bitcoin has been in stasis for a long time, but historically speaking this could be a long haul. – Galen Moore Chain Links This week saw two notable appointments that underline the “institutionalization” of crypto markets: Former Acting Comptroller of the Currency Brian Brooks was appointed CEO of crypto exchange Binance.US. Former CFTC Chairman Chris Giancarlo was appointed to the board of crypto lender BlockFi. We continue to see investment pour into crypto market infrastructure from traditional investment firms. This past week: Baillie Gifford , one of the U.K.’s most prominent asset managers, invested $100 million in crypto exchange and wallet provider Blockchain.com. RIT Capital Partners , a U.K.-based investment trust founded by Lord Jacob Rothschild of the prominent Rothschild banking family, made an investment of undisclosed size in U.S.-based cryptocurrency exchange Kraken. Coinbase will list the stablecoin tether ( USDT ) on its professional trading platform, allowing investors to deposit immediately and to begin trading next week. TAKEAWAY: This move is a big deal, as it effectively legitimizes tether, which had been struggling with reputation issues related to the stablecoin’s backing and the internal handling of funds. Earlier this year, the NYAG settled its enquiry into the stablecoin’s issuing company and sister exchange, mandating periodic attestations starting in May 2021. Tether acts as a significant support to market liquidity, and concerns that regulatory or confidence problems could deal a blow to overall market sentiment have been weighing on the market for some time. That Coinbase’s first new token listing after going public should be a stablecoin previously mired in controversy sends a strong signal of support to the market’s preference for a competitor to the USDC stablecoin, which is managed by a Circle-Coinbase partnership. New York-based Signature Bank added $3.77 billion in non-interest bearing deposits in Q1, which shows an acceleration of deposit growth – in Q4 the growth was $2.5 billion. TAKEAWAY: Figures like these will signal to other banks that the crypto industry is currently a source of strong balance sheet growth and could encourage more of them to offer service to crypto companies. Over the years, crypto companies have struggled to get basic banking services, a more robust banking service offering for crypto companies, perhaps even competition for their business, will bring new operating efficiencies. That, in turn, will make these companies even more attractive to investors, which will further support innovation. Cryptocurrency-focused financial services firm Galaxy Digital is in advanced discussions to buy crypto custodian BitGo , according to sources. TAKEAWAY: Yet another gripping scoop from my colleague Ian Allison. Whether it goes ahead or not, this represents powerful positioning in the crypto prime broker race. San Francisco-based trading tech firm X-Margin and cryptocurrency custody provider Fireblocks are developing a credit management system that gives lenders insight into borrower positions across platforms while preserving privacy. TAKEAWAY: This is intriguing in that it brings a technology angle to the prime brokerage business, with the potential effect of reducing lending risk and collateral requirements, which in turn should free up liquidity. A bitcoin ETF managed by 3iQ and CoinShares is now trading on the Toronto Stock Exchange under the symbols BTCQ (CAD) and BTCQ.U (USD). TAKEAWAY: For those keeping score, Canada now has four bitcoin exchange-traded funds and four ether ETFs . The U.S. still has none. Speaking of 3iQ , the company’s CEO told Bloomberg that it is aiming to raise over $200 million from the dual listing of its 3iQ Coinshares bitcoin exchange-traded fund in Dubai. TAKEAWAY: The potential is indeed high, since it will be the first cryptocurrency fund to go public in the Middle East. Switzerland-based investment product provider 21Shares is launching exchange-traded products (ETPs) for the native cryptocurrencies of Stellar (ticker: AXLM) and Cardano (ticker: AADA) on the Swiss SIX Exchange. TAKEAWAY: It’s curious that Europe has such a wide range of crypto-based assets listed on exchanges that investors of all types can access through their brokers, while the U.S. has none. (Unless you count MicroStrategy , but that’s a different story.) Bitcoin services firm NYDIG has bought commercial lender Arctos Capital, which provides financing solutions to bitcoin miners and other crypto firms. TAKEAWAY: It is fascinating to see the growing institutional interest in the bitcoin mining industry, which points not only to greater sophistication in mining financing and operations, but also to considerable growth ahead in North American mining operations. – Noelle Acheson Related Stories Crypto Long & Short: The Pattern in Bitcoin’s Volatility Crypto Long & Short: The Pattern in Bitcoin’s Volatility || Coinbase Registers 114.9M Shares for Public Listing: Cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase has filed an amended prospectus for its much-anticipated public offering with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
• TheS-1a form, published Wednesday, states Coinbase plans the resale of 114,850,769 shares of Class A common stock for a proposed maximum offering price of $943,218,155.
• That value is only a guide because it will depend on the pricing of the shares at the time of the offering.
• The offering would take place on the Nasdaq Global Select Market with the ticker symbol “COIN.”
• No date has been provided for the offering in the filing, though it is expectedwithin weeks.
• The company will be treated as an “emerging growth company.”
• Bloomberg has put the firm’s valuation atnear $100 billion.
• Infinancial detailsprovided in the prospectus, the exchange says it took $1.14 billion in net revenue for 2020 and held assets worth $90.3 billion. It now has 43 million verified users.
• Asreportedby CoinDesk previously, the firm’s prospectus provides a long list of risk factors, including decentralized exchanges and the identify of Bitcoin inventor Satoshi Nakamoto being revealed.
• Rumors first emerged Coinbase was exploring a direct listing on a U.S. stock exchangelast summer, though the company didn’t confirm the news until December.
See also:Coinbase Is Going Public: Everything You Need to Know
• Coinbase Registers 114.9M Shares for Public Listing
• Coinbase Registers 114.9M Shares for Public Listing
• Coinbase Registers 114.9M Shares for Public Listing
• Coinbase Registers 114.9M Shares for Public Listing || London court allows Australia's Wright to serve bitcoin copyright claim: By Kirstin Ridley
LONDON (Reuters) - London's High Court has paved the way for a case that could force its judges to take a view on who invented bitcoin, the world's biggest cryptocurrency which last week soared to all-time highs.
The court has allowed Craig Wright, an Australian computer scientist who alleges he created bitcoin, to serve a copyright infringement lawsuit against the operator and publisher of the bitcoin.org website, which calls itself Cobra, over Twitter or a generic email address.
Wright can now try and pursue his case -- titled Wright v Person(s) unknown, "Cobra" -- although the defendant might be resident abroad and has not disclosed a name, identity or address, according to court filings issued on Wednesday and seen by Reuters on Thursday.
The case hinges on who wrote bitcoin's white paper, which first outlined the technology behind the digital currency, under the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto in 2008.
The identity of Nakamoto has long been a hot topic and Wright's claim is fiercely disputed, not least by Cobra.
"Bitcoin.org isn't based in the UK and Craig's copyright claims over the whitepaper can be easily verified to be false ... ," Cobra messaged Wright's lawyers Ontier over Twitter on Jan. 20, according to court filings.
Wright, who is resident in Britain and alleges he has the evidence to support his claims, accuses Cobra of wrongfully controlling the bitcoin.org website and demanded that it remove the white paper.
"The case will turn on whether the court is satisfied that Dr Wright did indeed author – and owns the copyright in – the White Paper and, therefore, that he is Satoshi Nakamoto," said Simon Cohen, a lawyer at Ontier, representing Wright.
A statement published on bitcoin.org on Jan. 21 dismissed the claims as "without merit".
Reached by email, Cobra said: "We've been threatened to take down the Bitcoin white paper by someone who obviously isn't the inventor of Bitcoin (if he was, that would make him the 25th richest person in the world, which he obviously isn't).
"Seems like he's trying to abuse the UK courts to make them try to censor the white paper and harass small websites like us providing education content with his behaviour."
It remains unclear whether Cobra will reveal its identity to defend the claim and avoid risking any default judgment in Wright's favour.
Bitcoin has gained nearly 90% this year and hit a record of almost $65,000 last week.
(Reporting by Kirstin Ridley, Editing by William Maclean) || The Graph Launches Microtransaction System for Blockchain Data Providers: The Graph has introduced Scalar, a microtransaction system meant to enable new ways for the platforms node operators and data providers to make money. The Graph, which describes itself as the indexing and query layer of the decentralized web, functions as a link between decentralized applications (dapps) and different blockchains, providing a data querying platform that other blockchains and projects can use for their data requirements. The platform enables participants to package queries into subgraphs , custom feeds that provide application programming interface (API) data for use by blockchains and dapps. The platform supports decentralized finance (DeFi) projects, including Uniswap, Synthetix and Aave, as well as major blockchains Polkadot, Solana, NEAR and CELO. The project also has its own native token , GRT . Related: Bitcoin Broker NYDIG Acquires Firm That Finances Mining Farms Using Scalar, node operators have a new way to monetize their infrastructure through query fees paid in GRT, and data providers can be paid directly for making useful data available for apps without paywalls and ads, The Graph Foundation said in a statement, noting that the volume of transactions on the network created the need for a microtransactions infrastructure beyond existing options. The major jump in Web3 use cases including DeFi and non-fungible tokens (NFTs) has created unprecedented demand for a truly decentralized and scalable query processing system, the foundation said. Scaling transactions with state channels Scalar was co-developed by The Graph Foundation and software developer Edge & Node with Connext , a peer-to-peer, cross-chain liquidity network specializing in microtransactions. Using state channels , where users can interact directly with one another more efficiently outside of the blockchain, Scalar aggregates and compresses transactions before they are finalized on-chain. Story continues Within The Graph ecosystem, we started looking at state channels a little over two years ago. And everyone said we were crazy, Tegan Kline, co-founder and business lead at Edge & Node, told CoinDesk in an interview. We kind of went against that, and we did a lot of research within the state channels space. Related: Does Bitcoin Have an Energy Problem? This is the first time state channels will be used in broad-scale production, Kline added. Scalar is this major new building block for infrastructure in the decentralized applications space. Well be using this within The Graph ecosystem to be able to handle the billions of queries that weve seen on The Graphs hosted service, in The Graphs decentralized network. In March, The Graphs hosted service processed more than 600 million queries a day alone, totaling more than 19 billion queries, according to the platform. Kline noted that the platform has seen over 100x growth in the hosted service. In June of last year, we did 1 billion queries, which was a really big milestone. The March queries figure speaks to the explosive growth within Ethereum and the other blockchains that are supported on the hosted service, she said. Related Stories The Graph Launches Microtransaction System for Blockchain Data Providers The Graph Launches Microtransaction System for Blockchain Data Providers || FOREX-Dollar pinned near one-month low, Bitcoin steadies near $57k after weekend drop: * Dollar hovers above 1-month low
* Analyst says carry trade may thrive in low vol environment
* Bitcoin trades near $57,000 after weekend plunge
* Graphic: World FX rates https://tmsnrt.rs/2RBWI5E
By Ritvik Carvalho
LONDON, April 19 (Reuters) - The dollar traded just above a one-month low against major peers on Monday, with Treasury yields near their lowest in five weeks, after the U.S. Federal Reserve reiterated its view that any spike in inflation was likely to be temporary.
The dollar was also held down by improved risk sentiment amid a rally in global stocks to record highs.
Bitcoin stabilized after losses from Sunday, when it plunged as much as 14% to $51,541, which a report attributed to news of a power outage in China.
The dollar index, which tracks it against six other currencies, was at 91.552, not far from last week's low of 91.484, a level not seen since March 18.
The dollar bought 108.40 yen, its lowest against the Japanese currency since March 24.
"Following the decline since end-March, the dollar index has stabilized since mid-last week," said Jussi Hiljanen, chief strategist, USD and EUR rates at SEB.
"The dollar is likely to remain counter cyclical until the dollar rates in the 2-5y sector take another leg higher. As we expect the dollar rates to move more or less sideways during Q2, EUR/USD has room to gain in the coming months, especially if vaccination speeds up in the euro area and the earnings season pushes the stock market even higher."
The euro changed hands at $1.1985, flat on the day and near its highest against the dollar since March 4. The European Central Bank meets on Thursday with internal divisions over the pace of bond buying, extended COVID-19 lockdowns and potential delays to the EU recovery fund form the backdrop.
The 10-year Treasury yield sank as low as 1.5280% last week from 1.7760% at the end of last month, its highest in more than a year.
The S&P 500 closed at a record high on Friday, extending a rally in global stocks.
Fed Governor Christopher Waller said on CNBC on Friday that the U.S. economy "is ready to rip" as vaccinations continue and activity picks up, but a rise in inflation is likely to be transitory, echoing comments from other Fed officials, including Chair Jerome Powell, over the past week.
"With liquidity still abundant, we are going to hear more about the FX carry trade – which thrives in a low volatility environment," said Chris Turner, global head of markets and regional head of research for UK and CEE at ING.
"This especially being the case if the Fed manages to make the April 28th meeting a non-event. With the SOFR overnight USD interest rate now at 0.01%, the dollar clearly doesn't score highly on the carry front. And indeed a little more confidence in the European and global recovery stories may well see flows start to resume to EM – having been derailed by the Treasury sell-off in February and March."
MSCI's emerging market currency index traded 0.1% higher on the day, and is up 0.8% from the start of last week.
Bitcoin stabilized around $57,471 after a weekend plunge.
Data website CoinMarketCap cited a blackout in China’s Xinjiang region, which reportedly powers a lot of bitcoin mining, for the selloff.
Analysts at National Australia Bank cited "speculation in several online reports" that the U.S. Treasury may crack down on money laundering within digital currencies for the sharp move lower.
The bitcoin rout also followed a decision on Friday by Turkey's central bank to ban the use of cryptocurrencies for purchases.
Despite recent weakness, the world's most popular cryptocurrency remains up 97% in 2021, after more than quadrupling last year.
"We suspect the 15% weekend correction in Bitcoin will not have broader market ramifications," ING's Turner said.
(Reporting by Ritvik Carvalho; additional reporting by Kevin Buckland in Tokyo; editing by Larry King) || Crane (CR) to Gain From End-Market Strength, Inorganic Moves: Investors seeking exposure in the conglomerate space may find Crane Co. CR an attractive investment pick. The producer of diversified engineered industrial products seems well-positioned to benefit from end-market growth opportunities. Also, its earnings estimates have been revised upward. The company is based in Stamford, CT, and has a $5.5-billion market capitalization. Crane presently carries a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). It belongs to the Zacks Diversified Operations industry, which is currently at the top 40% (with the rank of 102) of more than 250 Zacks industries. You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here . In the past three months, the company’s shares have gained 24.4% as compared with the industry’s growth of 5.6% and the S&P 500’s rise of 6%. Below we discussed why Crane is a worthy investment option. End-Market Strength: The company anticipates strengthening businesses in end markets to drive its segmental performances in the quarters ahead. For the Payment and Merchandising Technologies segment, it expects growth in productivity, security and automation businesses to be advantageous. Then again, rising businesses in thermal management, power conversion, sensing, electrification and space end markets will aid the company’s Aerospace and Electronics segment. For the Fluid Handling segment, Crane will benefit from growth in businesses in the chemical, pharmaceutical and general industrial markets. Solid Projections: Growth opportunities in end markets (as discussed above) along with solid product offerings, repositioning actions and an efficient management team will likely be beneficial for Crane in the quarters ahead. Also, investments for innovation, localization, product development, technology and commercial excellence will likely aid the company. For 2021, Crane anticipates net sales of $3,080 million, suggesting an increase of 5% from the previous year’s reported figure. Organic sales are expected to grow 2-4% year over year. Notably, the company previously expected net sales of $3,055 million. As for segments, organic sales are anticipated to increase 0.5% for Fluid Handling, 6% for Payment and Merchandising Technologies, and 20% for Engineered Materials. Also, it expects earnings per share of $5.00-$5.20 for 2021, higher than $4.90-$5.10 mentioned previously. The new projection suggests growth of 33% from the previous year’s reported figure. Benefits From Inorganic Actions: Crane has been benefiting from acquisitions over time. In 2020, the company used $169.5 million on making acquisitions. Notably, buyouts boosted its sales by 6.8% in 2020. It is worth mentioning here that Crane added CIRCOR International’s Instrumentation & Sampling business to its portfolio in January 2020. For 2021, the company anticipates acquisitions to boost its sales by $5 million. Shareholders’ Rewards: Crane has been rewarding its shareholders with dividend payments and share buybacks over time. In 2020, it distributed dividends of $100.4 million to its shareholders, reflecting an increase of 7.7% from the previous year. Also, it invested $70 million for buying back shares. Notably, the company announced a hike of 10% in its quarterly dividend rate this January. A healthy cash flow position will likely help Crane reward shareholders. For 2021, the company anticipates free cash flow of $260-$290 million. Earnings Estimate Revisions: Crane’s earnings estimates have increased in the past 60 days. Currently, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for earnings is pegged at $1.27 for the first quarter and $1.25 for the second quarter, suggesting increases of 13.4% and 13.6% from the 60-day-ago respective figures. Story continues Crane Co. Price and Consensus Crane Co. Price and Consensus Crane Co. price-consensus-chart | Crane Co. Quote In addition, the consensus estimate for 2021 has moved 5.3% north to $5.13 in the past 60 days. Price Performance Versus Other Industry Players Crane’s shares have outperformed other companies in the industry, including 3M Company MMM, Carlisle Companies Incorporated CSL and Danaher Corporation DHR. In the past three months, shares of 3M have gained 8.7% and that of Carlisle Companies increased 0.3%, while Danaher’s shares lost 4.5%. Bitcoin, Like the Internet Itself, Could Change Everything Blockchain and cryptocurrency has sparked one of the most exciting discussion topics of a generation. Some call it the “Internet of Money” and predict it could change the way money works forever. If true, it could do to banks what Netflix did to Blockbuster and Amazon did to Sears. Experts agree we’re still in the early stages of this technology, and as it grows, it will create several investing opportunities. Zacks’ has just revealed 3 companies that can help investors capitalize on the explosive profit potential of Bitcoin and the other cryptocurrencies with significantly less volatility than buying them directly. See 3 crypto-related stocks now >> Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report Danaher Corporation (DHR) : Free Stock Analysis Report Carlisle Companies Incorporated (CSL) : Free Stock Analysis Report Crane Co. (CR) : Free Stock Analysis Report To read this article on Zacks.com click here. Zacks Investment Research || Bitcoin spikes as Elon Musk says you can use it to buy Teslas: Watch: You can now buy a Tesla with bitcoin
The price of bitcoin spiked on Wednesday morning after Elon Musk said the cryptocurrency could now be used to buy Tesla (TSLA) electric vehicles.
"You can now buy a Tesla with Bitcoin,"Musk wrote on Twittershortly after 7am UK time on Wednesday.
Billionaire Musk said bitcoin would be accepted in the United States and "will be retained as Bitcoin, not converted to fiat currency."
Bitcoin was up 3% against the dollar to $55,444.21 (BTC-USD) shortly after the tweet. Neil Wilson, chief market analyst at Markets.com, said there was a "discernible sustained rally after Musk tweeted".
Tesla announced last month it hadinvested $1.5bn (£1bn) into bitcoin, the world's biggest cryptocurrency. The company said at the time it was hoping to accept payment in bitcoins in the near future. The announcement sent the price of bitcoin surging. The investment has sincedrawn scrutiny over its environmental impact.
Bitcoin has rallied more than 400% over the last six months thanks to growing support from institutional investors and major tech players like Tesla. Square (SQ), Jack Dorsey's payments company,has invested over $200m in the cryptocurrency.
READ MORE:Tesla's bitcoin investment has carbon footprint of 1.8 million cars
The price surge has helped bitcoin repeatedly reach new all-time highs in recent months.
Not everyone is convinced, however. Billionaire investor Ray Dalio, the founder of the $150 billion hedge fund Bridgewater Associates — the world’s largest — hassaid there’s a “good probability” bitcoin could be outlawed.
Musk — who recently changed his official title at Tesla to "technoking" — has long been an advocate of digital currencies. As well as bitcoin, he hasprovided price support to meme crypto doge coin this year by tweeting about it.
Watch: What is bitcoin? || 10 Best Cryptocurrencies To Invest in for 2021: ©Shutterstock.com / Shutterstock.com Cryptocurrency is digital money that isn’t managed by a central system like a government. Instead, it’s based on blockchain technology, with Bitcoin being the most popular one. As digital money continues to gain traction on Wall Street, more and more options become available. There are currently more than 5,000 cryptocurrencies on the market. While you can use cryptocurrency to make purchases, most people treat it as a long-term investment. However, investing in cryptocurrency can be risky if you don’t know where to begin. These are the top 10 cryptocurrencies that are most worthy of investment in 2021. Rating the Top Cryptocurrency Choices Run a quick online search and you’ll find dozens of recommendations for how to invest in cryptocurrency. In choosing the top 10 picks, the following factors were considered. Longevity How long has the cryptocurrency been around? New cryptocurrencies aren’t immediately ruled out, but having historical data for comparison helps you see how a company has performed up until now. Track Record How has the company performed during its years in business? If you see stability in prices, that’s a good sign. If you notice that the cryptocurrency is gaining traction and becoming more valuable with time, that’s even better. Past performance is not indicative of future performance. At any time things can change, and an investment may perform better or worse than it has in the past. Technology How does the platform compare to others in terms of usability and security? The first thing you want to look for is the speed at which transactions occur. The network should be able to handle transaction traffic with ease. You also want to make sure your investment is secure. Most cryptocurrencies use blockchain technology , making all transactions transparent and easy to track. Blockchain technology doesn’t necessarily make it harder for hackers to steal your cryptocurrency. It does make it easier to track your investment so it can be recovered instead of being lost following fraud. Story continues Adoption Rate How many people are investing in the cryptocurrency you’re considering? When you see a high level of adoption, that means the cryptocurrency has better liquidity. Trading, selling or spending will be easier in the future. Top 10 Cryptocurrency Investments in 2021 Cryptocurrency Price as of March 29, 2021 Market Cap Bitcoin $57,566.38 $1.075 trillion Ethereum $1,811.82 $209.464 billion Binance Coin $273.38 $42.304 billion Tether $0.99 $40.632 billion Cardano $1.19 $38.188 billion Polkadot $33.74 $31.349 billion Ripple $0.56 $24.598 billion Litecoin $192.88 $13.038 billion Chainlink $28.06 $11.689 billion Stellar $0.41 $9.23 billion 1. Bitcoin (BTC) Bitcoin has been around for the longest of any cryptocurrency. It’s easy to see why it’s the leader, with a price, market cap and volume that’s much higher than any other investment options. Even with thousands of other cryptocurrencies on the market, Bitcoin still represents 40% of the cryptocurrency market cap. Many businesses already accept Bitcoin as payment, which makes this cryptocurrency a smart investment. Visa transacts with Bitcoin, and Tesla CEO Elon Musk recently invested $1.5 billion in it. Plus, the larger banks are beginning to incorporate Bitcoin transactions into their offerings, too. Risks of Investing in Bitcoin The value of Bitcoin tends to fluctuate a lot. You may see the price go up or down thousands of dollars during any month. If wild fluctuations like these make you nervous, you may want to avoid Bitcoin. Otherwise, as long as you keep in mind that cryptocurrency is a smart long-term investment, these fluctuations shouldn’t be too concerning. Another reason to reconsider investing in Bitcoin is its price. With a single share costing more than $50,000, most people can’t afford to buy whole shares of the stock. For investors who want to avoid buying partial shares, this is a negative. 2. Ethereum (ETH) Ethereum is different from Bitcoin because it isn’t only a cryptocurrency. It’s also a network that allows developers to create their own cryptocurrency utilizing the Ethereum network. While Ethereum is far behind Bitcoin in value, it’s also far ahead of the other competitors. Even though it came out years after some other cryptocurrencies, it has far exceeded its place in the market because of its unique technology. Risks of Investing in Ethereum While Ethereum utilizes blockchain technology, it only has one “lane” for conducting transactions. This can lead to transactions taking longer to process when the network is overloaded. A hack in 2016 led to more than $60 million Ether dollars lost because of a flaw in the Ethereum wallet. While the company has made strides in increasing its security, loopholes are always a risk with any cryptocurrency investment. 3. Binance Coin Binance is one of the few cryptocurrencies to reach its peak after 2017. During that year, there was a bull market and the price of all cryptocurrencies rose on it, reaching a peak before plateauing and decreasing in value. Unlike other cryptocurrencies, Binance Coin continued a slow but consistent trend upward after 2017. Because of its performance, Binance Coin has proven to be one of the more stable investment options, posing fewer risks. Risks of Investing in Binance Coin What sets Binance Coin apart from its competitors is that it was created by a company instead of a group of tech developers. Although Binance Coin’s commitment to maintaining a strong blockchain has won over many skeptics, some investors remain leery of this cryptocurrency and its potential security issues. 4. Tether (USDT) Tether is the most stable of all cryptocurrencies because it is tied to the U.S. dollar. For each unit of Tether , there is one dollar in the Federal Reserve Bank. This makes Tether great for investors who want to transact with their cryptocurrency . Risks of Investing in Tether Investors have raised questions over the actual reserve stock. There are doubts that there is truly a U.S. dollar in the reserve bank for each Tether unit. If this were ever disproven, the value of Tether’s stock could drop quickly. 5. Cardano The Cardano network has a smaller footprint, which is appealing to investors for several reasons. It takes less energy to complete a transaction with Cardano than with a larger network like Bitcoin. This means transactions are faster and cheaper. It claims to be more adaptable and more secure. Cardano consistently improves its development to stay ahead of hackers. Risks of Investing in Cardano Even with a better network, Cardano may not be able to compete with larger cryptocurrencies. Fewer adopters mean fewer developers. This isn’t appealing to most investors who want to see a high adoption rate. The platform has big plans, but there are doubts about whether it can live up to that potential. Don’t be discouraged by fluctuations in the market. Your investment may lose money one day and make a profit the next. Instead of getting caught up in the day-to-day changes, look at the big picture. 6. Polkadot (DOT) Polkadot was created by Ethereum leaders who broke away to form their own cryptocurrency with a better network. Instead of having a single “lane” to complete transactions in, Polkadot has several. This cryptocurrency was designed to reward genuine investors and weed out people who are just trading on the stock market to make money fast. Investors who are engaged in the company also help to make decisions on things like: Network fees Network upgrades Establishing or removing parachains Risks of Investing in Polkadot Polkadot’s founder, Gavin Wood, first introduced the cryptocurrency via a whitepaper in 2016. At the end of 2020, Polkadot began trading on the stock market. With such a short history, Polkadot doesn’t have a track record for comparison, making it a riskier investment for potential buyers. 7. Ripple (XRP) Ripple is the company that unveiled the XRP token and is enticing to investors because it sets itself apart from other cryptocurrencies by offering international transactions. With a bank, international money transfers can take up to 10 business days. With Ripple, the same transactions take mere seconds. Plus, Ripple has contracts with big banks around the world. The more contracts it has, the more accessible the Ripple cryptocurrency is to adopters. Risks of Investing in Ripple Ripple showed promise in 2017 when its value jumped 36,000%. However, when you look at the fact that the percentage represented growing to a $2.40 stock value, it’s less impressive. As you’re researching cryptocurrencies, don’t be distracted by high percentages. Get down to the real numbers and see what the growth really means. 8. Litecoin Originally established in 2011, Litecoin hit the market at the same time as Bitcoin. However, it didn’t take off in the same way. Litecoin boasts completing transactions four times faster than Bitcoin. In 2017, it was the first cryptocurrency to complete a Lightning Network transaction. The transfer was completed in less than one second. If the company expands its use of Lightning Network for faster transactions, Litecoin’s value could increase dramatically. Risks of Investing in Litecoin Since Litecoin and other cryptocurrencies are tied closely to Bitcoin, their value will generally fluctuate along with Bitcoin. This means the value will go up and down just as Bitcoin does, although at a lesser rate. If you consider Bitcoin’s volatility a negative, Litecoin may not be a good choice for you. 9. Chainlink Chainlink is unique as a cryptocurrency because it has an appealing price. While the shares are affordable to buy, they’re also priced high enough to not be considered penny stocks. This is appealing to investors because it has proven it can increase in value, and there is still a lot of room for growth. It’s also available for trading on Coinbase, one of the world’s largest cryptocurrency apps. Being more accessible also makes Chainlink appealing to investors. Risks of Investing in Chainlink While it’s still above thousands of other cryptocurrencies, it has a lower volume and market cap than more appealing cryptocurrencies. That’s why Chainlink ranks so low on the top 10 list. 10. Stellar (XLM) Stellar’s Lumens, also known as XLM, was established to serve a niche need within the world of cryptocurrency. It’s essentially the PayPal of cryptocurrency networks, serving as a bridge between banks and blockchain networks. As a decentralized network, Stellar can convert any currency and trade it across channels. It makes these transactions cheaper and faster than they would be with a traditional bank. Risks of Investing in Stellar (XLM) Because Stellar (XLM) caters to a niche market, it will likely see other companies try to compete against it. If another cryptocurrency network creates a better platform and takes traffic from Stellar, it could affect the company’s stock value. Don’t settle on any number of cryptocurrency investments without continuing to learn about the market. A new cryptocurrency network could easily climb the ranks and emerge as a leader above other platforms. As an investor, the smartest thing you can do is to stay abreast of market happenings. Final Take There’s no question about it: Cryptocurrencies are here to stay. The question becomes, where is the best place to invest your money in the market? As you decide which cryptocurrency is the best investment for you, here are some other things to keep in mind: The speed at which transactions are completed The fees associated with transacting The ability to use your cryptocurrency for regular purchases and bank transfers If you’re strictly looking to invest without transacting within the network, remember that cryptocurrency isn’t a get-rich-quick scheme. Instead, you should consider it a long-term investment. GBR_Logo This article originally appeared on GOBankingRates.com : 10 Best Cryptocurrencies To Invest in for 2021 || Ethereum Price Surge — All You Need To Know To Decide If It’s Worth the Investment: Cryptocurrencies have skyrocketed in popularity recently and this trend shows no signs of slowing. Given all the talk around these digital assets, you might be wondering whether now is the time to invest. But before pulling the trigger, it’s always a good idea to have anunderstanding of the underlying asset. Cryptocurrency is no exception and it is quite different than investing in stocks or bonds.
Read:Dogecoin’s Major Price Increase: Is It a Worthwhile Investment?
Therefore, we will cover a popular blockchain technology called Ethereum (ETH). Like many blockchains, Ethereum has a native coin called ether. Let’s take a closer look at what Ethereum is and whether you should consider investing.
Ethereum is an open-source, decentralizedblockchain technology. Ethereum’s native coin is called ether. This coin is one of the largest cryptocurrencies by market capitalization, second only to Bitcoin (BTC). Although ether has a smaller market cap than Bitcoin, Ethereum is the most widely-used blockchain.
See:What Is Chainlink and Why Is It Important in the World of Cryptocurrency?
One thing that is important to understand about Ethereum is that it is not the same as Bitcoin. Whereas Bitcoin’s purpose is primarily to be a digital currency, Ethereum is much broader. In fact, Ethereum is an open-source operating system and computing platform. It also supports distributed applications (dApps) and smart contracts.
Another key aspect of Ethereum is that it enables decentralized finance, which is an important part of how the system works. Because the system is inherently decentralized, there is not a single entity controlling it or the value of ether.
More:How the IRS Taxes Cryptocurrency – and the Loophole That Can Lower Your Tax Bill
Like many cryptocurrencies, the price of ether has fluctuated greatly since it launched in 2015. Back then, its price was around $1 and stayed there for several months. The price reached $1,358 in January 2018, its highest price ever at the time. The price began to fall, as did the price of many cryptocurrencies; ether bottomed out at $83 in December 2018.
The price has ebbed and flowed since then but has risen overall. At the beginning of April 2020, the price was around $140; and as of April 29, it is at around $2,746, according to Coindesk. In other words, the price increased by almost 2,000% in just over one year.
Read:Breaking Down the Basics of Cryptocurrency
If you decide to invest in ether (and therefore, in Ethereum), you should first ask yourself why you are investing. Although the price of the coin has risen substantially over the past year, it can be extremely volatile. Thus, if you buy ether simply hoping the price will rise, you may end up frustrated.
On the other hand, the Etherum blockchain can be used for many different applications, said Tally Greenberg, head of business development at Allnodes. “Ether is the cryptocurrency required for any transaction made on Ethereum, a blockchain network of applications.A blockchain, on the other hand, is a technology with limitless potential. It doesn’t rest on Ethereum alone and can be used to make a difference in our future with or without cryptocurrencies.”
See:10 Best Cryptocurrencies To Invest in for 2021
Sam Bretzmann, the owner ofBlocklink, agrees with this sentiment. “The difference here is that instead of investing in individual projects which may or may not make it, you can invest in the infrastructure. You can think about it like this, go back to 1999, and instead of having to try and pick which up and coming businesses will survive, you get to just pick ‘the internet’ and invest in that.”
This article is part of GOBankingRates’ ‘Economy Explained’ series to help readers navigate the complexities of our financial system.
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Last updated: April 29, 2021
This article originally appeared onGOBankingRates.com:Ethereum Price Surge — All You Need To Know To Decide If It’s Worth the Investment || Bitcoin falls 7% as cryptos stumble over Biden tax plans: LONDON (Reuters) - Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies suffered hefty losses on Friday amid fears that U.S. President Joe Biden's plan to raise capital gains taxes will curb investment in digital assets.
Bitcoin slumped 7% to $48,176 in a third straight session of losses while Ether and XPR suffered double digit tumbles.
"The crypto currency came under fresh pressure on the Biden tax headlines," Deutsche Bank's Jim Reid wrote in a note to clients.
Bitcoin, the world's biggest cryptocurrency, is on track for a 15% loss on the week. However, the latest tumbles come in the wake of a sharp rally with Bitcoin still up 65% since the start of the year.
(Reporting by Karin Strohecker and Thyagaraju Adinarayan in London; Editing by Tommy Wilkes)
[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
None available.
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Trend: down || Prices: 53333.54, 57424.01, 56396.52, 57356.40, 58803.78, 58232.32, 55859.80, 56704.57, 49150.54, 49716.19
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Analyze the provided historical prices, technical indicators, news, and social media sentiment from the last 60 days. Based on this context, predict the overall trend (up, down, or no change) and the specific daily closing prices for Bitcoin for the next 10 days.
|
[Technical Analysis for 2019-10-08]
BTC Price: 8228.78, BTC RSI: 33.20
Gold Price: 1497.20, Gold RSI: 48.78
Oil Price: 52.63, Oil RSI: 38.67
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
Ohio Treasurer Suspends Predecessor’s Bitcoin Tax Payment Service: A website launched last year by the U.S. state of Ohio allowing businesses to pay a range of taxes with bitcoin has been taken offline.
Ohio Treasurer Robert Sprague announced the decision to immediately suspend OhioCrypto.com on Wednesday at a meeting of the State Board of Deposit, according to an officialannouncement.
The reason for pulling the service – perhaps temporarily – comes down to how Ohio’s third party crypto payments provider, BitPay, is defined under state law, Sprague said.
Related:Japan’s Financial Regulator Issues Draft Guidelines for Funds Investing in Crypto
Sprague took on the mantle of state treasurer in January, since then his office has been “reviewing the creation and operation” of OhioCrypto.com. He now believes the payment method provided by BitPay constitutes a “financial transaction device” under Ohio law and has asked the state’s Attorney General for a formal opinion on the matter.
The definition, if confirmed to apply to BitPay, means that the firm’s services should have been chosen via a “competitive selection process” and approved by the State Board of Deposit.
Sprague said:
“It is vital that Ohio explores innovative, new technologies and processes that continue to drive Ohio into the future. However, we must make sure any new processes that are implemented, such as OhioCrypto.com, are established in accordance with Ohio law.”
Related:Missouri Watchdog Hits Unregistered Crypto Brokerage With Cease and Desist
The bitcoin tax service waslaunched last Novemberby the state treasurer at the time, Josh Mandel, who’d previously expressed an interest in cryptocurrency. It enabled companies in the state to pay a variety of taxes, including tobacco sales tax, employee withholding tax and public utilities tax, with the cryptocurrency.
“Until a formal opinion is issued by the Attorney General, I feel it is prudent to suspend the website,” said Sprague, adding that fewer than 10 companies were paying taxes via the site.
Atlanta-based BitPay offers a service allowing merchants and other organizations to accept payments in cryptocurrencies and automatically converts these to fiat currency.
Ohio sealimage via Shutterstock
• Ripple’s Xpring Launches Crypto, Fiat Payments That Integrate Into Any App
• This Crypto-Savvy Bank Is Building Bandwidth for Bitcoin Retail Payments || Gold, Not Bitcoin, Is Drawing Haven Demand on US Recession Fears: Fears of a U.S. recession have resurfaced over the last two days and the resulting risk aversion is bringing a boost to gold. For bitcoin, though, it’s a different story.
The U.S. Institute of Supply Management said Tuesday its manufacturing index fell to a 10-year low of 47.8 percent last month from 49.1 percent in August. A below-50 reading indicates contraction in manufacturing activity.
The gloomy data suggests a boosted risk of a recession in 2020, as seen in the chart belowtweetedby popular analyst Holger Zschaepitz.
Related:Bitcoin Price Risks Further Decline After Recovery Rally Stalls
• The probability of the U.S. economy falling into a recession next year is now greater than 40 percent.
• The Treasury yield curve (U.S. bonds) is pricing in a 60 percent chance of recession, according to the JPMorgan data.
The threat of a recession hassentglobal equities lower. Notably, the Dow Jones Industrial Average plummeted more than 450 points in day two of a sell-off.
Meanwhile, gold has risen from $1,460 to $1,500 per ounce in the last 48 hours and is now looking to extend gains. The yellow metal, a classic safe haven asset, is clearly benefiting from the recession concerns and the resulting risk aversion.
Bitcoin, however, has been largely trapped in a $8,200–$8,500 range since Tuesday. In fact, the top cryptocurrency’s bounce from recent lows near $7,700 has run out of steam near the 200-day moving average (MA) resistance at $8,483 over the last 48 hours.
Related:Bitcoin’s $800 Price Recovery Runs Into Key Resistance
The lack of demand for bitcoin as a safe haven asset amid the economic worries appears to contradict the argument often put forward by many observers that the cryptocurrency is digital gold.
Many investors also consider BTC as a store of value and a hedge against the aggressive expansionary monetary policies adopted by the major central banks. The odds of Federal Reserve delivering 2019’s third interest rate cut in October have gone up from 40 to 64 percent over the last two days, according to CME’sFedWatch tool.
Even so, BTC is struggling to find bids. In fact, the cryptocurrency fell from $10,000 to $8,000 in September despite the European Central Bank’s decision to cut rates by 10 basis points to -0.50 percent.
These factors suggest BTC is yet to take over the role of a classic safe haven and remains a largely uncorrelated asset.
The situation may change in the future, though, if traditional investor participation in the cryptocurrency market increases. After all, BTC seems to have all the properties of haven assets. For instance, it is not linked to government currencies and is deflationary in nature, which gives it an innate value, like rare metals, as noted byReuters.
As for the next 24 hours, the probability of BTC falling below $8,000 is high, as per the technical charts.
On Tuesday, bitcoin created a doji candle – a sign of indecision – at the 200-day moving average, aborting the corrective bounce from recent lows near $7,700.
A convincing move above the 200-day MA, currently at $8,483, would invite stronger buying pressure,as discussedearlier this week.
A break above the key average looks unlikely, however, as the 4-hour chart (above right) is reporting a failed double bottom breakout – Tuesday’s move above the trendline was short-lived. The failed breakout indicates the sentiment is still quite bearish and validates the price-negative readings on the longer duration indicators.
The 4-hour chart relative strength index has fallen back below 50, indicating bearish conditions. As a result, a fall back to levels below $8,000 looks likely.
If the 200-day MA is breached, a quick move to$8,900 could be seen, as the daily chart MACD histogram is producing higher lows – a sign of weakening bearish momentum.
Overall, the outlook will remain bearish as long as prices are trading below $9,097.
Disclosure: The author holds no cryptocurrency assets at the time of writing.
Bitcoinimage via CoinDesk Archives; charts byTrading View
• This Crypto-Savvy Bank Is Building Bandwidth for Bitcoin Retail Payments
• Ether Outshines Bitcoin in a Gloomy Month for Crypto Prices || It’s Too Soon to Write Off Bakkt, Wall Street Analyst Tells ICE Investors: It’s too soon to write off Bakkt, despite the bitcoin futures market’s disappointingly slowstart, analysts at Oppenheimer & Co. said.
In an Oct. 1 research note, the equity research firm encourages investors to “not get upset” about the lackluster trading volume of Bakkt. For one thing, its parent company, Intercontinental Exchange, has plenty of other electronification initiatives in fixed income analytics and trading, mortgages and exchange-traded funds (ETFs), wrote Oppenheimer senior analyst Own Lau and managing director Chris Kotowski.
Bakkt’s average daily futures volume was 125 contracts, each for one bitcoin, for the first five days of trading, the analysts noted. This pales in comparison to the 2017debutof bitcoin futures on CBOE, where the volume was 4,000 contracts in the first month, and at CME, where it was 500 contracts for 5 bitcoin each, totaling 2,500 bitcoin.
Chart via Oppenheimer research note
Related:Trading Volume for Bakkt’s Bitcoin Futures Hit Just $5 Million in First Week
Unlike those two Chicago exchanges’ bitcoin futures, which are essentially side-bets on the direction of the underlying asset’s price paid out in cash, Bakkt’s are settled in actual bitcoin.
“At this point, we are not going to judge whether Bakkt’s bitcoin futures will be successful or not, or whether the trading volume of Bakkt’s bitcoin futures will increase in the future,” the note says. “We acknowledge that a massive adoption of bitcoin, or any other digital asset, outside of crypto enthusiasts has a long way to go, but also don’t discount that the initial bitcoin futures trading volume introduced by Bakkt didn’t seem to meet the original expectation.”
The note also points out that since the first month CBOE’s average daily volume has been declining, leading it to stop listing bitcoin futures in June of this year, while CME’s average daily volume has been increasing, to 7,000 in July.
Bitcoin might not be the digital coin that gains mass adoption, the analysts went on, and CME and ICE are prepared for the emergence of digital assets with the right infrastructure in place. The research firm pointed to CME’s plans to release bitcoin options in Q1 as proof that there is still interest from institutions in these alternative financial instruments.
Related:LedgerX Claims ‘Personal Animus’ Drove Ex-CFTC Chair to Stall Approvals
Oppenheimer Research Note o…byCoinDeskon Scribd
ICE chairman and CEO Jeffrey Sprecher image via CoinDesk archives.
• How Leverage Can Help With Bitcoin’s Price Discovery
• Bakkt’s Bitcoin Futures Already Open to Retail Investors, COO Says || Walmart mulls centralized stablecoin: Retail giant Walmart is mulling a digital dollar-pegged currency similar to Facebook’s own would-be currency, Libra . According to a patent filing submitted to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office Thursday, Walmart’s currency would serve low-income households by offering a “ fee-free, or fee-minimal place to store wealth that can be spent, for example, at retailers and, if needed, easily converted to cash.” Walmart also notes that “ credit can be a problem and carrying cash can be problematic” for the communities it’s targeting, the so-called “unbanked,” for whom the cost of holding funds in a bank account often runs as a net loss. As with many blockchain projects, the latest filing is highly speculative, and every potential use case is sprinkled with cautious conditionals— coulds , shoulds , and mights litter the page in lieu of concrete information. For instance: The company says the currency “could” be used at “select partners,” “may” replace debit and credit cards, and that users “could” also be able to “earn interest” on tokens purchased, somehow. The project is considerably more stripped back than that of Facebook’s Libra. The Libra white paper, released last month, described a system of stablecoins backed by a “basket of currencies” held in a Swiss bank account that would be governed by a consortium of large companies. By contrast, Walmart’s system more closely resembles a traditional “stablecoin,” akin to tethers, which are sold and redeemable for dollars partially held in an offshore bank account. Like tethers, Walmart’s stablecoin might be centralized on a core database—the words “decentralized” and “node,” are conspicuous in their absence in yesterday’s filing. The word “blockchain,” meanwhile, is used only to vaguely refer to a “block” of transactions, but doesn’t bear any obvious relation to the most common blockchains used by Ethereum and Bitcoin. A blockchain on a centralized database, which Walmart appears to be describing, is a technology that dates back to 1979, and is known as a Merkle Tree structure. || Switzerland’s first crypto bank reports “overwhelming” demand: Sygnum , one of two crypto asset banks to be granted an operational license by the Swiss financial regulator FINMA, opened its doors last week. And customers have come pouring through them, the company’s cofounder Mathias Imbach told Decrypt today. “Since the licence was awarded, we have been experiencing an overwhelming number of preboarding submissions,” said Imbach. Zurich-based Sygnum became a fully regulated digital-asset bank at the end of August . It cleared remaining paperwork just a week after receiving its provisional license to integrate cryptocurrency into a wide range of services—custody, brokerage, tokenization, asset management, credit and business-to-business banking. It’s the first full approval of its kind granted anywhere in the world, and is widely seen as a major step towards the mainstream adoption of digital assets into regulated finance. The new Swiss banks of crypto And, on Monday, the new crypto bank announced that it had also begun onboarding customers, on September 18, and has registered its first transactions on the Bitcoin and Ethereum blockchains. Imbach told Decrypt that Sygnum had already taken major strides in forming partnerships with financial entities, both inside and outside the crypto ecosystem, who are interested in its institutional-grade digital custody and a regulated fiat-to-crypto gateway. “We are in discussions with banks to support them in offering digital assets to their clients, leveraging our white-label solution,” he said. “We are also in close contact with SIX Digital Exchange and hope to be one of the first banks connected to the digital assets exchange once live. Swiss stock exchange SIX launched a pilot version of its exchange for digital assets on Monday . Sygnum first announced plans to provide a regulated digital asset ecosystem in March , when it partnered with major Swiss telecoms provider Swisscom and trading marketplace Deutsche Börse for the initiative. The initiative targets two types of customer, said Imbach. The new crypto bank’s customer base can broadly be separated into digital investors who are looking to either invest in new assets or to commit their existing assets into custody, and professionals involved in the asset management field. The latter includes brokers and family offices, “looking for a safe gateway to access the market, or a bank who knows how to deal with this asset class,” he added. Customer assets are held in individual secured wallets, with Sygnum managing the private keys—an experience which mimics e-banking. Whether that’s a good or bad thing for a crypto bank that’s been dubbed “revolutionary” depends on your point of view. But according to Sygnum, there’s certainly an appetite for it. View comments || Ethereum expands blockchain capacity by 25%: Ethereum’s network capacity has been expanded by the mining community to allow more transactions to be processed on the network per second. This is in light of increased traffic on the network, largely due to controversial stablecoin Tether and a gambling game called Fair Win.
Ethereumco-founder Vitalik Buterinrelayedlast week that block producers were starting to raise gas limits, in light of the network’s congestion. On Ethereum,gasis a separate cryptocurrency used to pay transaction fees and the gas limit essentially controls how many transactions can be included in a block. It’s similar to Bitcoin’s block size limit.
But on Ethereum, gas limits are more organic. Each miner can raise the gas limit by 1/1024 of its current value, slowing edging it up or downwards, as the network gradually adapts to its environment.
Today, miners continued to drive up the gas limit, causing it to break above 10 million per block, an increase of 25 percent over the last week. This means each Ethereum block can now include roughly 25 percent more transactions than they could the week before.
This allows the Ethereum network to process more transactions per second, helping to keep fees lower. But, it does mean theblockchainwill get bigger more quickly, making it more expensive and difficult for nodes to keep running the network.
Tether appears to be the main culprit behind Ethereum’s increasing transaction count. Over the past few months, the stablecoin has been removing tethers issued on the Bitcoin network, and replacing them with tokens issued on Ethereum. Since so many Tether transactions are made each day, this has put a lot of load on the Ethereum network.
Addressing the situation in an interview with Canadian outlet,The Star, Buterin remarked, “Scalability is a big bottleneck because the Ethereum blockchain is almost full.”
Earlier this month it wasrevealedthat 25 percent of all Ethereum activity was due to Tether transactions.
But Tether isn’t the only coin taking up such a large amount of the Ethereum network. Fair Win, a blockchain-based betting game, hasaccrued$1.17 million in transaction fees over the past 30 days, showing that it is responsible for a high number of transactions.
According to intelligence providerGlassnode, Decentralized Finance (DeFi) apps are also putting strain on the network as they arebecome more popular.It notes that around 45 percent of transactions were made by smart contracts—largely used by DeFi applications.
The issue reached fever pitch on September 20, when Ethereum's daily transaction feessurpassedBitcoin’s for the first time since March 2019. At the time, Ethereum users paid $207,000 in transaction fees versus just $180,000 for Bitcoin. Ethereum diehards saw this as agood thingbecause it showed that the network was seeing high demand.
But Ethereum rival, Tron CEO Justin Sun took advantage of the situation,encouragingpeople to use his network for lower fees. In the past he has tried totempt Ethereum developersaway from the platform, offering grants, but with little success.
While not causing as much controversy as theBitcoin Cash proposalto raise the blocksize—which resulted in an almost catastrophic hard forkand Bitcoin SV—the gas limit increase was still regarded by some as a controversial move.
One Bitcoiner, a student at Stanford Law School,arguedthat the gas limit raise showed the network was centralized, notdecentralizedas many Ethereum proponents argued. He said that it showed the high level of control that Ethereum miners have over the network.
In response, John Adler, a scalability researcher at ConsenSys (which fundsDecrypt),asked, “Did you miss the weeks-long campaignby the communityto get miners to raise the gas limit? It was pretty extensive.”
The other issue raised by the gas limit increase, is that it allows for more transactions per block on the Ethereum blockchain. This means the total size of the blockchain will increase at a faster rate—causing more strain on all Ethereum nodes. Miners will have to shell out more money buying equipment with more extensive storage. Something that could help to make the network more centralized if miner numbers declined.
But while the network is slowly growing its capacity, new Ethereum blocks are already starting to hit the new limit, suggesting the gas limit is going to need another raise sooner rather than later. || German Factory Orders, Brexit and Trade to Influence the Majors: It was a particularly quiet day on theeconomic calendarthrough the Asian session this morning.
There were no material stats to provide direction at the start of the week, with the China markets closed for one final day.
A lack of stats left the majors in the hands of Friday’s nonfarm payroll numbers and the outlook towards trade talks, which tested risk sentiment at the start of the week.
It was risk-off in the early part of the day, with Chinese Yuan, Aussie Dollar, and Kiwi Dollar seeing early losses.
At the time of writing, theAussie Dollarwas down by 0.21% to $0.6757, with theKiwi Dollardown by 0.02% to $0.6319. TheJapanese Yenwas up by 0.14% to ¥106.79 against the U.S Dollar, supported by jittery markets this morning.
It’s a particularly quiet day ahead on theeconomic calendar. Germany’s August factory order numbers are due out in the early part of the day.
Off the back of some disappointing private sector PMIs, we can expect the EUR to be responsive to the figures with little else on the economic calendar to provide a distraction.
With no material stats due out of the U.S later in the day, geopolitics and FOMC member chatter will provide direction later in the session.
On the geopolitical front, there’s Brexit and trade war chatter to consider. Will the U.S President elaborate on EU tariffs?
At the time of writing, theEURwas up by 0.07% to $1.0987.
It’s a quiet day ahead on thedatafront. Economic data is limited to September house prices figures that will unlikely influence the Pound.
The lack of stats leaves Brexit chatter front and center. With the British Prime Minister running out of time, any hint of an agreeable alternative to the Irish Backstop would be a boon for the Pound.
At the time of writing, thePoundwas down by 0.01% to $1.2330.
It’s a particularly quiet day ahead on theeconomic calendar, with no material stats due out of the U.S later today.
A lack of stats will leave the Oval Office and Beijing in focus. The markets will be looking for positive chatter ahead of a resumption of negotiations.
While any positive sentiment towards progress on trade talks would be positive for the Dollar, negative sentiment towards the U.S economy would limit any upside.
TheDollar Spot Indexwas down by 0.04% to 98.771 at the time of writing.
It’s also a quiet day on theeconomic calendar. There are no material stats due out of Canada to provide the Loonie with direction.
A lack of stats will leave the Loonie in the hands of crude oil prices on the day.
Against the greenback, there could be some further upside, with monetary policy divergence continuing to favor the Loonie near-term.
TheLooniewas down by 0.01% at C$1.3315, against the U.S Dollar, at the time of writing. A fall in crude oil prices weighed early on.
Thisarticlewas originally posted on FX Empire
• Bitcoin Cash – ABC, Litecoin and Ripple Daily Analysis – 06/10/19
• Bitcoin Cash – ABC, Litecoin and Ripple Daily Analysis – 07/10/19
• The Crypto Daily – Movers and Shakers -06/10/19
• AUD/USD, NZD/USD, USD/CNY – Asian Session Daily Forecast
• NZD/USD Forex Technical Analysis – Taking Out .6349 Changes Main Trend to Up
• Oil Price Fundamental Weekly Forecast – Could See Further Short-Covering Ahead of US-China Trade Talks || Bitcoin Teeters on $10K, But Can It Fend Off Another Bear?: Related: They Biked, Ran and Swam Over 200 Miles Across Europe All for Bitcoin Most macro hedge funds are contemplating using BTC as a better way to offset the systemic risks that are building globally. There seems to be too much interest and too much money on the sidelines for the market to really go lower in any meaningful way. Related Stories Bitcoin Price Above $10.1K As Momentum Stalls Near Key Indicator Judge Confirms Ruling: Craig Wright to Forfeit 50% of Bitcoin Holdings || Van Eck, SolidX Attempt to Bring a Partial Bitcoin ETF: The bitcoin market has been facing its share of disruption of late. There were repeated attempts by issuers for a bitcoin ETF but the SEC disagreed on the same. In a new attempt, Van Eck Securities Corp. and SolidX Management LLC plan to start selling shares on Sep 5 in a limited version of a crypto exchange-traded fund.
The shares will be sold in compliance with SEC’s Rule 144A, which allows sale of privately placed securities to “qualified institutional buyers.” The rule will excuse the shares from securities registration. With this, “VanEck and Solid will be able to offer shares of their VanEck SolidX Bitcoin Trust to institutions such as banks and hedge funds, but not retail investors, the report notes,” per cointelegraph.com.
This is not the first time that VanEck has attempted to launch a bitcoin ETF. On its third attempt in mid-2018, the company had collaborated with blockchain company SolidX. The plan was to make the product physical and not futures based i.e. comprising actual bitcoin, which will be “insured against any loss or theft.” The VanEck SolidX Bitcoin Trust was supposed to have the ticker symbol “XBTC”. However, it failed to amass SEC’s trust as the regulatory body postponed its ruling on the fund (read: Yet Another SEC Disapproval for Bitcoin ETF: What Next?).”
Before this, SolidX’s proposal of a physically-backed bitcoin ETF was dismissed by the Securities and Exchange Commission in March 2017 and VanEck withdrew its application for a futures-based bitcoin ETF in January 2018, per etf.com.
On Aug 12, the SEC postponed decisions on bitcoin ETF proposals by Bitwise Asset Management and Wilshire Phoenix, all of which hoped to become the first to offer a crypto ETF in the United States. “Those decisions are now scheduled for later this month and in October.”
What’s Keeping SEC From Giving Its Nod?
SEC is worried about extreme price volatility in cryptocurrencies and liquidity in bitcoin-related funds. Per Reuters, the virtual currency can be deployed to quickly move money anywhere in the world without any central authority intervention, such as a bank or government. The market is pretty unregulated at the current level.
How is the Coin Performing?
So far this year, bitcoin has been extremely volatile. The bitcoin market faced its share of troubles from August 2018 to March 2019. It started performing better from late June. Bulls are wagering on the probability of a continued run as more institutions start to build out their own cryptocurrencies or launch projects using the underlying blockchain technology, per Bloomberg.
Any ETF Alternatives to Play Bitcoin?
Though bitcoin ETFs are not available to investors, they have blockchain ETFs at their disposal. Per a source, “the blockchain in Bitcoin literally acts a ledger; it keeps track of the balances for all users and updates them as money changes hands.”
So, if investors cannot lay their hands on a bitcoin ETF now, they can definitely familiarize themselves with the concept through blockchain ETFs likeReality Shares Nasdaq NexGen Economy ETFBLCN,Amplify Transformational Data Sharing ETFBLOK andFirst Trust Indxx Innovative Transaction & Process ETFLEGR .
Want key ETF info delivered straight to your inbox?
Zacks’ free Fund Newsletter will brief you on top news and analysis, as well as top-performing ETFs, each week.Get it free >>
Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days.Click to get this free reportReality Shares Nasdaq NexGen Economy ETF (BLCN): ETF Research ReportsFirst Trust Indxx Innovative Transaction & Process ETF (LEGR): ETF Research ReportsAmplify Transformational Data Sharing ETF (BLOK): ETF Research ReportsTo read this article on Zacks.com click here.Zacks Investment ResearchWant the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report || Bitcoin Eyes $8.5K Hurdle After Biggest Single-Day Price Gain in Five Weeks: View Bitcoin could test key resistance above $8,500 in the next day or two, having eked out the biggest single-day rise in five weeks on Monday. The daily chart indicators have turned bullish with Mondays price rise. Acceptance below the 100-week moving average (MA) at $7,756 would revive the case for a drop to $7,200. Bitcoin (BTC) logged the biggest single-day price gain in five weeks on Monday, opening doors for a stronger recovery rally to key resistance above $8,500. The top cryptocurrency by market value bounced up from a historically strong 100-week MA support near $7,750 and closed (UTC) at $8,205 on Bitstamp, representing a 4.47 percent gain on the daily opening price of $7,863. That is the biggest single-day price rise since Sept. 2. Back then, BTC had rallied by 6.3 percent, confirming a short-term bullish reversal. The breakout, however, ended up creating a bearish lower high near $10,950 on Sept. 6. Related: Bitcoins Dropping Lightning Capacity Might Not Be a Bad Thing Mondays price rise could be termed as a relief rally, as the cryptocurrency was looking oversold, having dropped by more than $2,000 in the last week of September. Further, there were signs of seller exhaustion below $7,800, as discussed yesterday . Many observers believe the recovery rally could be extended further to resistances lined up above $8,500 and near $8,600. For instance, market analyst Josh Rager tweeted earlier today that bitcoin price could now run up to $8,500. Rager warned in another tweet that prices need to rise above $8,500 to invalidate bearish lower highs set up and confirm a bullish reversal. Related: Bitcoin Bounces Back to $8K From Historically Strong Price Support Popular analyst @TheCryptoDog believes the probability of a sell-off to $7,200 has dropped with Mondays 4.47 percent price rise and a bigger rally to $9,400 could be seen if resistance at $8,500 is convincingly breached. As of writing, the leading cryptocurrency is changing hands near $8,200 on Bitstamp, having hit a high of $8,344. Daily candlestick and line charts Bitcoin created a bullish outside bar candlestick pattern on Monday (above left), which occurs when the day begins on a pessimistic note, but ends with optimism, engulfing preceding days high and low. The outside bar candle is widely considered an early sign of bullish reversal, especially when it appears at the bottom of an established downtrend or a notable price drop. In BTCs case, the candle has appeared following a drop from $10,000 to $7,715. Further, the MACD histogram, an indicator used to identify trend strength and trend changes, has crossed above zero, confirming a bullish reversal. Story continues Meanwhile, the daily line chart (above right) is reporting a bullish divergence of the 14-day relative strength index (RSI). A bullish divergence occurs when the RSI produces higher lows, contradicting lower lows on the price chart. It is considered an advance warning of an impending bullish move. All-in-all, BTC looks set to challenge Oct. 1s high of $8,531 in the short-term. A UTC close above that level would invalidate the bearish lower highs pattern, as tweeted by Josh Rager, and confirm a breakout on the intraday chart, as seen below. 6-hour chart BTC is charting a double bottom pattern with the neckline resistance at $8,531. A break higher would confirm a breakout and create room for a rise to $9,348 (target as per the measured move method). That said, more credible evidence of a bullish reversal would be a break above the 200-day MA, currently lined up at $8,586. This is due to the fact that the 200-day MA is widely considered as a barometer of a long-term trend and served as strong resistance on Oct. 1. The case for a drop to $7,200 would strengthen if prices find acceptance under the 100-week MA at $7,756, as discussed yesterday, although as of now that looks unlikely. Disclosure: The author holds no cryptocurrency assets at the time of writing. Bitcoin image via CoinDeskArchives; charts by Trading View Related Stories Bitcoin Is 2019s Best-Performing Asset, Even After Recent Price Downturn Bitcoin May Be Headed for a Stronger Price Bounce View comments
[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
The price of Bitcoin is currently $8,553.90!
BitMiner - Earn up to 1 BTC per day!
Version 1.2 (0.015 BTC/day) is recommended for instant withdrawals.
Click here now: https://t.co/PCB2wJEI6Z
#bitcoinmining || Grit Bxng brings a bar (and bitcoin) to the boutique fitness space https://t.co/gVDRGsM1Yx via @FastCompany || Jack Dorsey Looking for a Designer to Give Bitcoin a New Face https://t.co/uKO5ibflrp || ¿Tu nómina en Bitcoin? Nueva Zelanda ye permite el pago de salarios en criptodivisas https://t.co/JFyWujJJHt https://t.co/mnMZR33MmY || Will you sell your #BTC at 21K? || Machismo e censura contra empreendedoras que aplicam a tecno..
@1jl4com - elpais_brasil - Twitter - News - Noticias -
Bitcoin - CryptoCurrency - Forex https://t.co/RyYT1bHSxb || #CRYPTO is shooting up! Use https://t.co/tywhOroEMh to find where COINS are moving. Track crypto with HIGH buyers and moving in PRICE!
#BTC #ETH #MAID #ENJ #SNX #RIF #NEXO #MANA #RVN #HOT #QNT #MCO #XZC #PAI #USDC #THETA #ICX #ALGO #TUSD #LSK https://t.co/hy9yNAPr4S || https://t.co/PBJc6PeWPm #Tokoin #MSME #Blockchain #Crypto #cryptotrading #BTC #EmergingMarkets #Ecommerce #retail || lmao || @Bakkt You should have listed xrp before btc. Now you just look like scamming fuckers.
|
Trend: down || Prices: 8595.74, 8586.47, 8321.76, 8336.56, 8321.01, 8374.69, 8205.37, 8047.53, 8103.91, 7973.21
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Analyze the provided historical prices, technical indicators, news, and social media sentiment from the last 60 days. Based on this context, predict the overall trend (up, down, or no change) and the specific daily closing prices for Bitcoin for the next 10 days.
|
[Technical Analysis for 2020-10-16]
BTC Price: 11322.12, BTC RSI: 58.35
Gold Price: 1900.80, Gold RSI: 48.30
Oil Price: 40.88, Oil RSI: 53.24
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
Singapore Man Caned for Stealing $267K From Bitcoin Investor: A Singapore man has received a sobering sentence for his involvement in the theft of S$365,000 (US$267,097) in cash meant for a bitcoin purchase. As reported by The Strait Times on Friday, Jaromel Gee Ming Li, 29, was sentenced to three years in prison and 12 strokes of the cane on Thursday. Gee pleaded guilty to one count of engaging in a conspiracy to commit robbery with the aid of two other men, Mohd Abdul Rahman and Syed Mokhtar, both 39 years of age. According to the report, Gee was engaged in bitcoin brokerage and organized transactions between parties seeking to buy and sell bitcoin . Gee solicited Abdul Rahman to assist him with transactions that generally involved potential buyers of bitcoin for larger sums of cash, but in April 2018 they reportedly switched tactics to rob prospective buyers. Hearing that Pang Joon Hau, a Malaysian man, had arrived in Singapore for a bitcoin purchase with the S$365,000 in cash, Gee directed Abdul Rahman and Mokhtar to locate the investor in his hotel and rob him on April 8. Abdul Rahman and Mokhtar proceeded to physically assault Pang and another bitcoin investor, Teo Chern Wei, in their hotel room before running off with a backpack containing Pangs cash. Gee was arrested on April 18, 2018. It is unclear how authorities discovered Gees involvement in the robbery. Abdul Rahman was arrested days after the attack and his case is still pending; Mokhtar pleaded guilty to a robbery charge on Wednesday, The Straights Times reported. Rahmans ex-wife, Yogeshwry Raman, was also in court Thursday facing charges shed received stolen goods such as a S$45,800 (US$33,000) Rolex watch bought with proceeds from the robbery. In Singapore, those convicted of committing robbery between 19:00 and 07:00 local time can be jailed for up to 14 years and receive at least 12 strokes of the cane. See also: Singapore Man Fined $72K for Promoting Crypto Ponzi OneCoin Related Stories Singapore Man Caned for Stealing $267K From Bitcoin Investor Singapore Man Caned for Stealing $267K From Bitcoin Investor Singapore Man Caned for Stealing $267K From Bitcoin Investor Singapore Man Caned for Stealing $267K From Bitcoin Investor || Red River Capital Corp and Bitcoin Solutions Announce Proposed Qualifying Transaction: Calgary, Alberta--(Newsfile Corp. - September 14, 2020) - Further to the news release issued June 2, 2020 by Red River Capital Corp. (TSXV: XBT.P) ("Red River" or the "Corporation"), Red River and 1739001 Alberta Ltd. o/a Bitcoin Solutions ("Bitcoin Solutions") are pleased to announce that they have entered into a share purchase agreement (the "Agreement") dated September 11, 2020 among the Corporation, Bitcoin Solutions and shareholders of Bitcoin Solutions (the "Bitcoin Solutions Shareholders") to complete a reverse takeover whereby Red River will acquire all of the issued and outstanding shares of Bitcoin Solutions in consideration for the issuance of common shares of the Corporation (the "Acquisition").
Red River intends that the Acquisition will constitute its Qualifying Transaction, as such term is defined in the Policy 2.4 -Capital Pool Companies(the "CPC Policy") of the TSX Venture Exchange (the "Exchange"). The Corporation, upon completion of the Acquisition, expects to change its name to "Bitcoin Well Inc." or such other name as may be approved by Red River and Bitcoin Solutions and is acceptable to the Exchange (the "Name Change"). Such entity is to be referred to herein as the "Resulting Issuer".
Trading of the common shares of the Corporation has been halted and will remain halted in accordance with Exchange policies until all required documentation with respect to the Acquisition has been received and the Exchange is otherwise satisfied that the halt should be lifted.
Summary of the Acquisition
Pursuant to provisions of the Agreement, Red River will acquire 100% of the issued and outstanding securities of Bitcoin Solutions in exchange for the issuance of an aggregate of approximately 120,250,000 common shares of Red River (the "Red River Shares") to the Bitcoin Solutions Shareholders at a deemed price of $0.12 per share, representing an aggregate acquisition price of approximately $14.4 million. Each holder of Bitcoin Solutions Class A Shares or Bitcoin Solutions Class B Shares will receive 8.917 Red River Shares for every Bitcoin Solutions Class A Share or Bitcoin Solutions Class B Share held, and each holder of Bitcoin Solutions Class I Shares or Bitcoin Solutions Class F Preferred Shares will receive 10 Red River Shares for every Bitcoin Solutions Class I Share or Bitcoin Solutions Class F Preferred Share held. The number of Red River Shares to be issued in connection with the Acquisition was determined pursuant to arm's length negotiations between the management and the board of directors of each of Red River and Bitcoin Solutions. As a result of the Acquisition, Bitcoin Solutions will become a wholly-owned subsidiary of Red River and the Resulting Issuer will carry on the business that was conducted by Bitcoin Solutions prior to the Qualifying Transaction within the cryptocurrency industry. The Agreement also provides that the Name Change will become effective upon the closing of the Acquisition. Completion of the Acquisition and the issuance of the Red River Shares are subject to approval by the Exchange. It is anticipated that the Resulting Issuer will be listed as a Tier 1 Industrial Issuer.
In addition, each issued and outstanding stock option to purchase Bitcoin Solutions Class I Shares ("Bitcoin Solutions Option") will be exchanged for 10 options of the Resulting Issuer ("Resulting Issuer Options"), having substantially the same terms and condition as the Bitcoin Solutions Option, and will entitle the holder thereof to acquire, upon exercise thereof, and for the consideration payable therefor, one common share of the Resulting Issuer. As of the date of this press release, there are 330,376 Bitcoin Solutions Options outstanding. The number of Resulting Issuer Options that will be issued as a result of the conversion of Bitcoin Solutions Options shall be 3,303,760. Upon closing of the Acquisition, 1,333,332 Resulting Issuer Options to certain directors and officers of the Resulting Issuer shall be issued. It is also anticipated that following closing of the Acquisition, 833,333 Resulting Issuer Shares (as defined herein) will be issued to Adam O'Brien, Chief Executive Officer and a Director of Bitcoin Solutions and the proposed Chief Executive Officer and a proposed director of the Resulting Issuer.
On closing of the Acquisition, the Resulting Issuer is expected to have approximately 125,750,000 common shares outstanding on a non-diluted basis.
In connection with the Acquisition, the Resulting Issuer will apply to list its common shares (the "Resulting Issuer Shares") on the Exchange.
Arm's Length Transaction
The Acquisition is arm's length and is therefore not a Non-Arm's Length Qualifying Transaction under the CPC Policy. Accordingly, the CPC Policy does not require Red River to obtain shareholder approval for the Acquisition.
Bitcoin Solutions Overview
Bitcoin Solutions, a private company incorporated under theBusiness Corporations Act(Alberta), is currently profitable and offers convenient, secure and reliable ways to buy and sell Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies through its network of trusted Bitcoin automated teller machines ("ATM") and web-based transaction services. Specifically, Bitcoin Solutions carries on the business of:
• facilitating the purchase and sale of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies in Canada;
• owning and operating Bitcoin ATMs, related ATM equipment, and all associated services including, without limitation, selling, distributing, leasing, financing, installing and servicing ATMs and associated ATM equipment;
• providing electronic processing services relating to transactions requested or carried out using ATMs (for equipment owned by Bitcoin Solutions or third parties);
• offering bill payment solutions;
• providing merchant solutions; and,
• sale of gift cards for Bitcoin.
Bitcoin Solutions currently owns and operates over 60 cryptocurrency ATMs across Canada, and facilitates/performs transactions across the country with multiple payment methods on its website.
History and Background
Since inception, Bitcoin Solutions has been focused on placing and acquiring profitable cryptocurrency ATMs throughout Canada and became the first company to deploy cryptocurrency ATMs in Alberta and Saskatchewan in 2014. Since that time, strong relationships have been developed with payment processors, armoured car vehicle companies, Bitcoin professionals, and other vendors that are integral to the success of Bitcoin Solutions, while its current team has been built to succeed with low turnover. Future expansion plans are facilitated by partnerships with strategic software groups, which provides Bitcoin Solutions with a competitive advantage, along with the ability to acquire up to 100 additional ATMs without significant capital outlay.
In addition to physical ATMs, Bitcoin Solutions offers expanded services through its website, enabling support for paying bills with Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies online, accepting in-person payments at Canada Post, buying gift cards with Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, and allowing merchants to accept Bitcoin.
The following table sets out a summary of selected audited financial information for Bitcoin Solutions for the years ended December 31, 2019 and December 31, 2018 and the unaudited financial information for the six-month period ended June 30, 2020. The selected information was prepared in accordance with International Financial Reporting Standards. All figures are in Canadian dollars.
[{"": "Summary Operating Results", "Fiscal year endedDecember 31, 2019": "", "Fiscal year endedDecember 31, 2018": "", "Six months endedJune 30, 2020": ""}, {"": "Net sales or total revenues", "Fiscal year endedDecember 31, 2019": "$14,539,490", "Fiscal year endedDecember 31, 2018": "$11,964,363", "Six months endedJune 30, 2020": "$14,489,332"}, {"": "Income (loss) from continuing operations", "Fiscal year endedDecember 31, 2019": "$117,415", "Fiscal year endedDecember 31, 2018": "($492,795)", "Six months endedJune 30, 2020": "($145,511)"}, {"": "Net income (loss)", "Fiscal year endedDecember 31, 2019": "$117,415", "Fiscal year endedDecember 31, 2018": "($492,795)", "Six months endedJune 30, 2020": "($145,511)"}, {"": "", "Fiscal year endedDecember 31, 2019": "", "Fiscal year endedDecember 31, 2018": "", "Six months endedJune 30, 2020": ""}, {"": "Balance Sheet Data", "Fiscal year endedDecember 31, 2019": "", "Fiscal year endedDecember 31, 2018": "", "Six months endedJune 30, 2020": ""}, {"": "Total assets", "Fiscal year endedDecember 31, 2019": "$2,267,460", "Fiscal year endedDecember 31, 2018": "$1,866,994", "Six months endedJune 30, 2020": "$5,491,656"}, {"": "Total long term financial liabilities", "Fiscal year endedDecember 31, 2019": "$1,410,203", "Fiscal year endedDecember 31, 2018": "$1,315,425", "Six months endedJune 30, 2020": "$1,026,694"}, {"": "Shareholders' equity (deficit)", "Fiscal year endedDecember 31, 2019": "$(181,469)", "Fiscal year endedDecember 31, 2018": "($149,086)", "Six months endedJune 30, 2020": "($335,538)"}]
Completion of the Acquisition
Completion of the Acquisition will be subject to certain conditions, including but not limited to: (a) receipt of all necessary approvals of the boards of directors of Red River and Bitcoin Solutions; (b) receipt of all necessary third party consents; (c) approval of the Acquisition by the Exchange as the Corporation's Qualifying Transaction; and (d) the Exchange approving the listing of the common shares of the Resulting Issuer.
Sponsorship
Under the policies of the Exchange, the parties to the Acquisition will be required to engage a sponsor for the Acquisition unless an exemption or waiver from this requirement can be obtained. Red River intends to apply to the Exchange for a waiver of the Exchange's sponsorship requirements on the basis that it is not a foreign issuer, the management of Red River upon completion of the Qualifying Transaction will possess appropriate experience and qualifications and the granting of a sponsorship waiver by the Exchange would not be contrary to the public interest and that it would be appropriate in these circumstances that the Exchange exercise its discretion to waive the sponsorship requirement. However, there is no assurance that this waiver will be granted.
Filing Statement
In connection with the Acquisition and pursuant to Exchange requirements, Red River will file a filing statement on SEDAR (www.sedar.com), which will contain details regarding the Acquisition, Bitcoin Solutions, Red River and the Resulting Issuer.
The Resulting Issuer's Management, Board of Directors and Insiders
In connection with the Acquisition, it is expected that there will be changes to the Corporation's management and board of directors. Brief biographies for the anticipated members of management and the board of directors of the Resulting Issuer are set out below:
Adam O'Brien, President, Chief Executive Officer, Director, Control Person and Promoter
As Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Bitcoin Solutions, Adam O'Brien is a leading advocate for education, consumer protection and the decentralization of financial services. Adam was first exposed to Bitcoin in 2013. After witnessing success buying and selling person to person he founded Bitcoin Solutions with the objective to make Bitcoin accessible and understood. Adam serves as Co-chair of the Fintech Committee for the Canadian Blockchain Consortium, Canada's largest non-profit network of blockchain companies and influencers. He is recognized as a first mover in the Bitcoin ATM field strives to bring Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies to the mainstream making them easy, approachable and accessible for all.
Mandy Johnston, Chief Financial Officer
Mandy Johnston has successfully built and led finance and business operations teams for the past twenty years in multiple industries across North America, including automotive, building materials, oil and gas, and professional sports. She was previously the VP of Finance and Business Administration for the EE Football Club of the CFL, based in Edmonton. Mandy holds a CPA (US-CO), CMA (US) and earned an MBA in Strategic Management and a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration, Accounting from The University of Alabama. She also volunteers as a Global Director on the Institute of Management Accountants (IMA) Board and is a member of the IMA's Performance Oversight & Audit Committee.
Heather Barnhouse, Corporate Secretary
Heather Barnhouse is a partner in the Corporate/Commercial practice group of Dentons' Edmonton office. Her practice is focused on a combination of merger and acquisition activity, as well as on helping entrepreneurs scale their companies, often through a technology play. She also regularly advises companies on the best practices of governance, and assists companies with establishing policies and practices to effect good governance. She has her Director designation from the Institute of Corporate Directors, and has experience chairing boards, and serving in the role of Corporate Secretary, with private companies, not for profits and Crown corporations.
Julian Klymochko, Director
Julian is the Chief Executive Officer and Chief Investment Officer of Accelerate Financial Technologies Inc., an alternative investment management firm. Prior to founding Accelerate in February 2018, Julian was the Chief Investment Officer of Ross Smith Asset Management where he managed a number of alternative investment strategies for nearly a decade. He founded and managed Canada's first cryptocurrency investment fund. Julian also managed a 6-time award winning market neutral hedge fund and founded an award-winning event-driven arbitrage fund. Prior to Ross Smith Asset Management, he was an Analyst at BMO Capital Markets. He attended the University of Manitoba where he graduated with a Bachelors of Science (Engineering) and a Bachelors of Commerce (Finance). Julian is a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) charterholder.
David Bradley, Director of Strategy and Director
Dave Bradley is a prominent figure in the Bitcoin industry and is widely considered one of the leading experts in Canada on bitcoin, cryptocurrency and blockchain technology. Prior to his current role as the Director of Strategy at Bitcoin Well, Dave founded the world's first bricks-and-mortar Bitcoin store and co-founded the successful company, Bull Bitcoin, which is Canada's longest-serving bitcoin brokerage. He also serves as a Vice President for the Canadian Blockchain Consortium, Canada's largest non-profit network of blockchain companies and influencers.
Carman McNary, Director
Carman commenced his law practice in Edmonton in 1981, and since 1999 has been with Dentons Canada LLP (formerly FMC), most recently as Counsel. He practices tax and corporate law and provides strategic advice to organizations and boards. He was previously Managing Partner (Edmonton office) and National Tax Lead (Canada). Beyond law, Carman is a director of a number of private companies, and has chaired and served on a wide variety of community and non-profit entities and organizations. Carman completed the Director Education Program in 2013. He also served as an officer in the Royal Canadian Navy, Canadian Armed Forces, from 1975 - 2008, retiring with the rank of Captain (Navy) after appointments in command at sea and ashore as well as international appointments. Carman was appointed a Queen's Counsel in 2010, and awarded an honorary Doctor of Laws by the University of Alberta in June, 2019. His community service and leadership have also been recognized with the award of both the Queen's Golden and Diamond Jubilee Medals.
Eric Sauze, Director
Mr. Sauze is the Chief Financial Officer of JAG Flocomponents Ltd., a manufacturer and distributor of valves to the North American oil & gas industry. Eric has also held the roles of Chief Financial Officer and Chief Operating Officer with the industrial distribution companies Commercial Solutions Inc. (a TSX listed company) and CFE Industries Ltd. (a TSX Venture Exchange listed company). While working with the international accounting firm KPMG, he received his CPA designation (Chartered Accountant) in 1992. In addition, he earned his Chartered Financial Analyst designation in 2001. Mr. Sauze is currently a director and the Audit Committee Chair for Bri-Chem Corp., a distributor of drilling fluids listed on the TSX.
Richard Gauthier, Insider, Control Person
Mr. Gauthier was an original shareholder and seed capital investor of Bitcoin Solutions. Mr. Gauthier has no active role with Bitcoin Solutions and will have no active role with the Resulting Issuer. Mr. Gauthier is an insider and control person (as such term is defined by the policies of the Exchange), due to his shareholdings. Following the Acquisition, it is anticipated that Mr. Gauthier will hold approximately 21% of the issued and outstanding shares of the Resulting Issuer.
About Red River Capital Corp.
Red River is a CPC that completed its initial public offering and obtained a listing on the Exchange in July 2018 (trading symbol: "XBT.P"). It does not own any assets, other than cash or cash equivalents and its rights under the Agreement. The principal business of Red River is to identify and evaluate opportunities for the acquisition of an interest in assets or businesses and, once identified and evaluated, to negotiate an acquisition or participation subject to acceptance by the Exchange so as to complete a qualifying transaction in accordance with the policies of the Exchange.
For further information please contact:
Red River Capital Corp.Julian Klymochko, Director and Chief Executive OfficerPhone: 403-801-2445
1739001 Alberta Ltd. o/a Bitcoin SolutionsAdam O'Brien, Director and PresidentPhone: 1-888-711-3866
Cautionary Statement
Statements in this press release regarding Red River and Bitcoin Solutions which are not historical facts are "forward-looking statements" that involve risks and uncertainties, such as the completion of the proposed Qualifying Transaction. Such information can generally be identified by the use of forwarding-looking wording such as "may", "expect", "estimate", "anticipate", "intend", "believe" and "continue" or the negative thereof or similar variations. Since forward-looking statements address future events and conditions, by their very nature, they involve inherent risks and uncertainties such as the risk that the closing may not occur for any reason. In this news release, forward-looking statements relate, among other things, to: the terms and conditions of the Acquisition, the completion of the Acquisition, as presently proposed or at all, the Name Change and the completion thereof, the Red River shareholder meeting, the business and operations of Bitcoin Solutions and the Resulting Issuer, go-forward management of the Resulting Issuer, the trading of the Resulting Issuer Shares, the listing of the Resulting Issuer as a Tier 1 Industrial Issuer and the number of Resulting Issuer Shares issued and outstanding at the time of closing. Actual results in each case could differ materially from those currently anticipated in such statements due to factors including but note limited to: the decision to not close the Qualifying Transaction for any reason, including adverse due diligence results and Exchange refusal of the Qualifying Transaction, adverse market conditions, the need for additional financing,general business, economic, competitive, political and socialuncertainties, the delay or failure to receive board, shareholder, court or regulatory approvals.Except as required by law, Red River and Bitcoin Solutions do not intend to update any changes to such statements,
Completion of the Acquisition is subject to a number of conditions, including but not limited to, Exchange acceptance and if applicable pursuant to Exchange Requirements, majority of the minority shareholder approval. Where applicable, the Acquisition cannot close until the require shareholder approval is obtained. There can be no assurance that the Acquisition will be completed as proposed or at all.
Investors are cautioned that, except as disclosed in the filing statement to be prepared in connection with the Acquisition, any information released or received with respect to the Acquisition may not be accurate or complete and should not be relied upon. Trading in the securities of a capital pool company should be considered highly speculative.
The TSX Venture Exchange Inc. has in no way passed upon the merits of the Acquisition and has neither approved nor disapproved the contents of this press release.
Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this press release.
Not for distribution in the U.S. or to U.S. newswire services
To view the source version of this press release, please visithttps://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/63790 || BitFlyer Opens Japanese Bitcoin Market to European Traders: BitFlyer Europe is giving its European bitcoin traders direct access to the Tokyo-based parent exchanges Japanese liquidity. Announced Wednesday, the cross-border initiative opens Japans high-volume bitcoin markets to European traders courting the bitcoin/Japanese yen trading pair. BitFlyer said in a press statement the new approach eases those traders access to liquidity by doing away with multiple account requirements. In the long term, bitFlyer said it plans to unlock cross-border trading pairs across its three active regions: Europe, Japan and the U.S. Related Stories BitFlyer Opens Japanese Bitcoin Market to European Traders BitFlyer Opens Japanese Bitcoin Market to European Traders BitFlyer Opens Japanese Bitcoin Market to European Traders BitFlyer Opens Japanese Bitcoin Market to European Traders || Top Analyst Reports for Facebook, Tesla & Lockheed Martin: Tuesday, October 6, 2020 The Zacks Research Daily presents the best research output of our analyst team. Today's Research Daily features new research reports on 16 major stocks, including Facebook ( FB ), Tesla ( TSLA ) and Lockheed Martin ( LMT ). These research reports have been hand-picked from the roughly 70 reports published by our analyst team today. You can see all of today’s research reports here >>> Facebook shares have lost some ground over the past month or so, but the stock has nevertheless been a strong performer this year (up +28.1% in the year-to-date period vs. +5.8% gain for the S&P 500 index). The Zacks analyst expects the stock's outperformance to continue on the back of steady user growth across all regions, particularly Asia Pacific. The coronavirus-led lockdowns and shelter-at-place guidelines have increased engagement of its products like Instagram, WhatsApp, Messenger and Facebook Watch. However, Facebook expects user-base growth to be flat or slightly down in most of its regions in the third quarter of 2020, sequentially. The company expects ad-revenue growth on a year-over-year basis to be roughly 10%. Facebook assumes some of the recent surge in community engagement to normalize as regions reopens. Further, a number of companies have announced plans to freeze ad spending on Facebook due to its failure to eradicate hate speech and misinformation. This is expected to hurt top-line growth, at least in the near term. (You can read the full research report on Facebook here >>> ) Shares of Tesla have gained +783.9% over the past year against the Zacks Domestic Automotive industry’s rise of +197%. The Zacks analyst believes that Tesla has a first-mover advantage in the EV space with high range vehicles, superior technology, and software edge. Robust Model 3 demand, ramp up of Model Y production, significant Shanghai Gigafactory progress, amazing line-up of upcoming products and aggressive expansion efforts bode well for the firm. The red hot EV maker smashed forecasts and posted the fourth consecutive quarterly profit in the last quarter. Story continues However, high R&D, SG&A costs and massive capex may clip the margins. Tesla is investing heavily to increase production capacity, boost sales and construct Gigafactories, which are likely to strain its near-term prospects. Waning margins for Model S/X is another concern. Thus, investors are recommended to wait for a better entry point. (You can read the full research report on Tesla here >>> ) Lockheed Martin shares have gained +8.3% over the past six months against the Zacks Aerospace Defense industry’s rise of +6.5%. The Zacks analyst believes that expansionary budgetary provisions made by the U.S. administration will immensely boost this defense primes business. It continues to be a strong cash generator. Lockheed Martin enjoys strong demand for its high-end military equipment in domestic and international markets, being the world's largest defense contractor. Lockheed Martin is further witnessing increased demand for its THAAD missiles from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA). In a three months time, Lockheed Martin outperformed the industry. However, forced cost reduction initiatives for F-35 program might hamper its operating results. America and Turkey's tiff about the latter accepting Russian products may hurt Lockheed's component supply from Turkey. It is facing performance issues in relation to some of its products, which in turn may hurt it results. (You can read the full research report on Lockheed Martin here >>> ) Other noteworthy reports we are featuring today include Alphabet ( GOOGL ), Starbucks ( SBUX ) and American Express ( AXP ). Breakout Biotech Stocks with Triple-Digit Profit Potential The biotech sector is projected to surge beyond $775 billion by 2024 as scientists develop treatments for thousands of diseases. They’re also finding ways to edit the human genome to literally erase our vulnerability to these diseases. Zacks has just released Century of Biology: 7 Biotech Stocks to Buy Right Now to help investors profit from 7 stocks poised for outperformance. Our recent biotech recommendations have produced gains of +50%, +83% and +164% in as little as 2 months. The stocks in this report could perform even better. See these 7 breakthrough stocks now>> Sheraz Mian Director of Research Note: Sheraz Mian heads the Zacks Equity Research department and is a well-regarded expert of aggregate earnings. He is frequently quoted in the print and electronic media and publishes the weekly Earnings Trends and Earnings Preview reports. If you want an email notification each time Sheraz publishes a new article, please click here>>> Today's Must Read Instagram Strength Aids Facebook (FB) Amid Advertiser Exodus Rising Demand for Model 3 Drives Tesla (TSLA) Amid Cost Woes Robust Demand Aids Lockheed (LMT), F-35 program's Cost Hurts Featured Reports Alphabet (GOOGL) Rides on Diversification; Risks Remain The Zacks analyst believes that Alphabet's improving search & YouTube revenue, focus on cloud, hardware, and AI will continue to deliver growth. Digitalization Aids Starbucks (SBUX), Traffic Woes Linger Per the Zacks analyst, enhanced customer experience and digitalization bode well for Starbucks. However, dismal store traffic owing to the coronavirus pandemic remains a concern. Decline in Expenses to Aid American Express' (AXP) Margins Per the Zacks analyst, the decline in marketing, cost of card member services and card member rewards are likely to aid margins. Colgate's (CL) Innovative Product-Lines to Boost Top Line Per the Zacks analyst, Colgate's innovation efforts including the re-launch of Colgate Total and Hill's Science Diet are likely to aid sales. Express Scripts Acquisition, Revenue Growth Aid Cigna (CI) Per the Zacks analyst, the buyout of Express Scripts has diversified Cigna's operations, opening up new revenue streams. Growth Investments Supports ABB Despite Soft Market Demand Per the Zacks analyst, ABB's organic growth investments along with diligent cost-cutting actions will boost its competency. Revenue Growth Supports U.S. Bancorp (USB), High Costs A Woe Per the Zacks analyst, organic growth backed by rising in average loans and deposits remain a key strength at U.S. Bancorp. New Upgrades Square (SQ) Banks on Solid Cash App Adoption, Bitcoin Growth Per the Zacks analyst, Square is benefiting from strong Cash App engagement and its growing active customer base. Further, growing bitcoin revenues owing to the robust Cash App are contributing well. BorgWarner (BWA) to Be Buoyed By Delphi Buyout The Delphi buyout, which will further strengthen BorgWarner's propulsion leadership and result in significant cost synergies, has made the Zacks analyst turn bullish on the company. Gulfport (GPOR) to Gain from Increase in Natural Gas Prices The Zacks analyst believes that an increase in natural gas prices resulting from higher demand in the winter will enable Gulfport to deliver strong revenues and cash flows. New Downgrades Cat Loss, Rising Expenses Hurt Cincinnati Financial (CINF) Per the Zacks analysts, Cincinnati Financial's exposure to catastrophe induces volatility in its underwriting profitability while increasing expenses weighing on margin expansion are concerns. High Operating Risks, Stiff Competition Hurt Cogent (CCOI) Per the Zacks analyst, intense competition from major service providers and higher operating risks owing to its dependency on a single network vendor is likely to hurt Cogent's near-term performance. Apellis (APLS) Faces Strong Competition for Pegcetacoplan Per the Zacks analyst, with no approved drug in its portfolio, any delay in the approval of lead pipeline candidate - pegcetacoplan will be a setback for Apellis. Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report Tesla, Inc. (TSLA) : Free Stock Analysis Report Starbucks Corporation (SBUX) : Free Stock Analysis Report Lockheed Martin Corporation (LMT) : Free Stock Analysis Report Alphabet Inc. (GOOGL) : Free Stock Analysis Report Facebook, Inc. (FB) : Free Stock Analysis Report American Express Company (AXP) : Free Stock Analysis Report To read this article on Zacks.com click here. Zacks Investment Research || Bitcoin and Binance Coin – Weekly Technical Analysis – October 5th, 2020: Bitcoin fell by 1.08% in the week ending 4thOctober. Following on from a 1.21% decline from the week prior, Bitcoin ended the week at $10,687.0.
It was a mixed but bearish start to the week. Bitcoin rose to a Monday intraweek high $10,986.0 before hitting reverse.
Coming up short of the first major resistance level at $11,151, Bitcoin slid to a Friday intraweek low $10,391.0.
Steering clear of the first major support level at $10,303 Bitcoin revisited $10,700 levels before easing back.
5 days in the red that included a 1.49% loss on Thursday delivered the downside for the week. A 1.33% gain on Tuesday and 1.22% rise on Sunday offset some of the losses from earlier in the week, however.
Bitcoin would need to avoid a fall back through $10,688 pivot to support a run the first major resistance level at $10,985.
Support from the broader market would be needed for Bitcoin to break back through to $10,900 levels.
Barring an extended crypto rally, the first major resistance level and resistance at $11,000 would likely pin Bitcoin back.
In the event of a breakout, Bitcoin could test the second major resistance level at $11,283 before any pullback.
Failure to avoid a fall back through the $10,688 pivot would bring the first major support level at $10,390 into play.
Barring an extended sell-off, Bitcoin should steer clear of sub-$10,300 support levels. The second major support level sits at $10,093.
At the time of writing, Bitcoin was up by 0.36% to $10,726.0. A bullish start to the week saw Bitcoin rise from an early Monday morning low $10,680.0 to a high $10,758.0.
Bitcoin left the major support and resistance levels untested at the start of the week.
Binance Coin rallied by 10.44% in the week ending 4thOctober. Reversing a 0.30% loss from the previous week, Binance Coin ended the week at $28.99.
It was a mixed start to the week. Binance Coin fell to a Monday intraweek low $25.27 before finding support.
Steering clear of the first major support level at $23.15 and the 38.2% FIB of $23.5, Binance Coin rallied to a Wednesday intraweek high $29.83.
Binance Coin broke through the first major resistance level at $28.17 and the 23.6% FIB of $27.5 before hitting reverse.
The reversal saw Binance Coin fall back to sub-$26 levels before a bullish end to the week.
The bullish end saw Binance Coin break back through the 23.6% FIB of $27.5 and the first major resistance level at $28.17.
5-days in the green that included a 7.07% rally on Tuesday delivered the upside. A 6.15% slide on Thursday limited the upside for the week, however.
Binance Coin would need to avoid a fall through the $28.03 to support a run at the first major resistance level at $30.79.
Support from the broader market would be needed, however, for Binance Coin to break out from last week’s high $29.83.
Barring an extended crypto rally, the first major resistance level would likely cap any upside.
In the event of another breakout, Binance Coin could test the second major resistance level at $32.59 and $33 levels before any pullback.
Failure to avoid a fall through the $28.03 would bring the 23.6% FIB of $27.50 and the first major support level at $26.23 into play.
Barring an extended crypto market sell-off, however, Binance Coin should steer clear of sub-$25 support levels. The second major support level sits at $23.47, with the 38.2% FIB of $23.50 also unlikely to be tested.
At the time of writing, Binance Coin was up by 0.80% to $29.22. A Bullish start to the week saw Binance Coin rise from a Monday morning low $28.84 to a high $29.38
Binance Coin left the major support and resistance levels untested at the start of the week.
Thisarticlewas originally posted on FX Empire
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• Risk Appetite Firms as Signs of Trump’s Improving Health Soothes Markets || Inovio Plunges after COVID-19 Vaccine Setback: Inovio Pharmaceuticals, Inc. ( INO ) shares plummeted 28.34% Monday after the biotech company announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) had put its COVID-19 vaccine on hold until it answers further questions about its vaccine technology. The company previously told investors that it had intended to move to Phase 3 trials this month, in line with other developers searching for the elusive vaccine, but now must wait until the fourth quarter for the FDA’s findings before it can move forward. “The company is actively working to address the FDA’s questions and plans to respond in October,” Inovio said in a statement cited by the Wall Street Journal . Inovio’s vaccine, which aims to provide immunity to the virus by inserting genetic instructions into cells to get them to release a protein found on the coronavirus, insisted that the early-stage trial of its Covid vaccine showed promising signs without any significant complications. It said the FDA’s concerns were more in relation to the details about administering the shot in its upcoming trial. As of Sept. 29, 2020, Inovio stock has a market capitalization of $2.03 billion, and still trades 268% higher on the year, despite Monday’s selling rout. Additional Funding Required Unlike many of its rivals that have secured millions – and in some cases – billions of dollars from government grants and industry investment, Inovio has flagged it’ll require additional funding to complete its Phase 3 trial. The company, which had just $372 million at the end of the June quarter, recently reported that it had received less than $20 million in grants. Wall Street View Despite Inovio’s vaccine setback, Maxim Group’s Jason McCarthy upgraded the shares to ‘Buy’ from ‘Hold,’ arguing the FDA trial holdup will be short-lived. Consensus elsewhere on the Street remains mixed. The stock receives 2 ‘Buy’ ratings, 5 ‘Hold’ ratings, and 1 ‘Sell’ rating. Twelve-month price targets range from as high as $36 to as low as $8, with an average target of $15.29. This represents a 26% premium from yesterday’s close of $12.14. Story continues Technical Outlook and Trading Tactics News of the delayed late-stage vaccine trial pushed Inovio shares down toward the $9.50 level, where they find a confluence of support from the 200-day simple moving average (SMA) and a multi-month horizontal trendline stretching back to late March. Active traders who buy the retracement to this high probability entry area should consider placing a stop-loss order beneath the September swing low at $8.78 and targeting a move back up to overhead resistance around $32. Manage risk by moving the stop to break even if the price climbs above this month’s high at $18.69. This article was originally posted on FX Empire More From FXEMPIRE: Weekly Recap: Bitcoin and Ethereum Go Into the Red EUR/USD Daily Forecast – Attempt To Get Above Resistance At 1.1695 Natural Gas Price Fundamental Daily Forecast – Dec Futures Contract Could Attract Buyers at $3.197 to $3.187 E-mini Dow Jones Industrial Average (YM) Futures Technical Analysis – 27729 – 28040 is Next Upside Target Oil Traders’ Fears Outweigh Hopes on Global Economic Recovery E-mini NASDAQ-100 Index (NQ) Futures Technical Analysis – Momentum Traders Targeting 11550.75 – 11761.75 || Twitter hackers who posted from Obama, Kardashian accounts posed as IT workers: NY report: ALBANY, N.Y. – Hackers were able to gain access to the Twitter accounts of Barack Obama, Kim Kardashian West, Elon Musk and dozens of other high-profile people by posing as IT workers for the social-media giant and tricking four employees into giving up their passwords, according to New York regulators. The state Department of Financial Services on Wednesday released the findings of its investigation into the July 15 hack that resulted in accounts belonging to at least 45 celebrities, world figures and companies simultaneously posting a link to a cryptocurrency scam. The report concluded the hack was relatively unsophisticated, caused by scammers who posed as members of Twitter's IT help desk and directed employees to a phishing website designed to look like a company site. State regulators also faulted Twitter for what it called "inadequate" cybersecurity measures, noting the company was without a chief information security officer at the time of the hack. The report calls for the federal government to designate an agency to regulate cybersecurity at top social-media companies like Twitter, questioning whether the companies are being appropriately overseen. “Social media platforms have quickly become the leading source of news and information, yet no regulator has adequate oversight of their cybersecurity," DFS Superintendent Linda Lacewell said in a statement. "The fact that Twitter was vulnerable to an unsophisticated attack shows that self-regulation is not the answer." More: Kids attending school remotely? How to keep them safe on the internet Celebrities, world leaders had accounts hacked British Police are investigating after a stream of anti-Semitic comments were posted on music artist Wiley’s Instagram and Twitter accounts. The major Twitter hack came to light on July 15 when the hacked celebrities and world figures tweeted a link to a cryptocurrency account . The tweets urged followers to send Bitcoin to the account and promised to send double back. Among those whose accounts were hacked were Jeff Bezos, Michael Bloomberg, Bill Gates and rapper Wiz Khalifa, along with Obama, Kardashian West and Musk. Story continues The scam allowed the hackers to steal about $118,000 worth of Bitcoin, according to the state report. The hackers accessed Twitter’s systems through a relatively simple technique: by calling Twitter employees and claiming to be from Twitter’s IT department. Claiming to be responding to problems with Twitter's Virtual Private Network — which many employees had been using as they worked from home during the COVID-19 pandemic — the hackers were able to convince four employees to visit a phishing website that was designed to look like Twitter's VPN site. From there, the employees entered their password. At the same time, the hackers took that information and entered it into Twitter's actual website. That triggered an authentication request on the employee's device that the employee unwittingly completed, granting the hackers access to Twitter's internal site, according to the state report. Through the employees' credentials, the hackers were able to gain access to 130 accounts belonging to celebrities, cryptocurrency companies and world leaders. They sent out scam tweets from 45 accounts, according to the report. The day after the attack, the Department of Financial Services — which regulates cryptocurrency in New York — launched an investigation into the hack at the direction of Gov. Andrew Cuomo. In late July, the U.S. Department of Justice announced charges against three individuals for their alleged role in the hack . They included a 17-year-old Florida teen who is alleged to have masterminded the attack. The teen, who is facing more than two dozen charges, has pleaded not guilty . Mason Sheppard, 19, of Bognor Regis, United Kingdom, faces multiple charges including conspiracy to commit wire fraud. Nima Fazeli, 22, of Orlando, was charged with aiding and abetting the intentional access of a protected computer. More: Twitter hack: Three charged for alleged roles, including 17-year-old 'mastermind' More: Tampa teenager accused in Twitter hack pleads not guilty Report cites Twitter for cybersecurity weakness The state report suggested Twitter's shift to a work-from-home structure during the pandemic exploited the weaknesses in its cybersecurity measures. The hackers knew Twitter employees were having issues with the company's VPN, which allows employees to tap into internal systems remotely. By exploiting that issue, employees were vulnerable to the hack, according to the report. On Wednesday, Twitter pointed to a September announcement where the company laid out some of the areas where it had recently bolstered security measures, including improving its authentication process when employees log in. Protecting people's privacy is a "top priority" for the company and "not one we take lightly," according to the company statement Wednesday. "We have been continuously investing in improvements to our teams and our technology that enable people to use Twitter securely," the statement read. "This work is constant and always evolving." The company's top information security post was vacant at the time of the attack. The state report suggests the company would have been better off with strong leadership at a time of potential vulnerability. "The Twitter Hack is a cautionary tale about the extraordinary damage that can be caused even by unsophisticated cybercriminals," the report reads. "The Hackers’ success was due in large part to weaknesses in Twitter’s internal cybersecurity protocols." More: Bezos, Musk, Gates, Obama and others target of cryptocurrency hack on Twitter Jon Campbell is a New York state government reporter for the USA TODAY Network. He can be reached at JCAMPBELL1@Gannett.com or on Twitter at @JonCampbellGAN. This article originally appeared on New York State Team: Twitter hackers who posted from celebs' accounts posed as IT workers || Prospective Node Operators Stake $125M in ETH to Participate in NuCypher Encryption Network: Encryption startup NuCypher has finished distributing its network’s native token, NU, to over 2,000 prospective node operators who staked more than $125 million worth of ether (ETH) during the month of September. NuCypher’s system will hit Ethereum’s mainnet on Oct. 15.
Primarily marketed as a solution for developers building decentralized applications (dapps),NuCypher helps firms encryptdata before they upload it to decentralized storage networks, while also retaining control over who can read the data once its uploaded (using an advanced form of flexible cryptography calledproxy re-encryption).
On the other side, participants who run the network’s nodes earn fees in return for performing cryptographic functions and maintaining the network. To participate, nodes need to stake NuCypher’s token, NU. The company needed a way to distribute NU to entities it might reasonably expect to participate once it goes live, and the solution it came up with was called “WorkLock.”
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Under NuCypher’s WorkLock token distribution program, participants looking to run nodes were required to lock in a minimum of 5ether(worth roughly $2,000 depending on when the ETH was committed). It also requires the staked ETH stay locked for a minimum of six months, starting the day the mainnet launches. The onerous collateral requirement levied on aspirant node operators was meant to dissuade users from claiming NU tokens and not participating in the network.
While participants can choose to stay or leave with their escrowed ETH after the six months pass, if they attempt to withdraw earlier or act maliciously, they would have to forfeit the staked ETH.
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“What it allows you to do is stake or escrow ETH into thisWorkLock smart contract. You lock it up for six months from mainnet launch and that grants you this new stake that you can use to operate a new NuCypher node,” co-founder MacLane Wilkison said in an interview.
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Last October, NuCypherannouncedthe completion of a $10.7 million token sale from investors such as Polychain Capital, Bitmain, CoinFund, Arrington XRP Capital, Notation Capital and others.
Wilkinson founded the company alongside Michael Egorov, who also founded the popular automated market maker for stablecoinsCurve.
• Prospective Node Operators Stake $125M in ETH to Participate in NuCypher Encryption Network
• Prospective Node Operators Stake $125M in ETH to Participate in NuCypher Encryption Network || Blockchain Bites: Tether’s Dispute, Buterin’s Fix and 3 Reasons for Bitcoin’s Sell-Off: Tether disputes allegations of market manipulation brought in court, Vitalik Buterin issues a proposal for Ethereum’s high gas fees and Voatz weighed in on whether a longstanding federal law over computer access is overly broad.
Tether disputesTether and affiliate exchange group iFinex havecalled for a market manipulation lawsuit to be dismissedbecause plaintiffs, they say, cannot prove $3 billion worth of unbacked stablecoins actually entered the market. Five crypto traders are suing the companies for incurred monetary losses after buying cryptocurrencies at prices they claim were inflated by Tether’s manipulation of the market. Plaintiffs claim Tether issued billions of dollars worth of dollar-backed cryptos, which Bitfinex then used to purchase cryptocurrencies on the open market to prop prices up during market downturns. Defendants’ lawyers argue the claimUSDTis not properly backed is based on “unfounded allegations, and that it hasn’t been proven cryptocurrency prices were indeed artificial at the time in question.
New pairsBitMEXannounced plans to introduce futures markets for two cryptocurrencies,chainlink(LINK) andtezos(XTZ), the first new coins to appear on the exchange in over two years. These two cryptos have seen triple-digit year-to-date returns. BitMEX last listed a new token in June 2018, when it announced a TRON/BTC futures market. Shortly before that announcement, the exchange removed six altcoin futures markets, includingethereum classic(ETC),zcash(ZEC), andmonero(XMR). Notably, the new altcoin futures will trade against tether (USDT) instead ofbitcoin(BTC). In Friday’s announcement, BitMEX said the reason for this is because “USDT pairs account for over 60% of overall altcoin volume.”
Related:
Fee fixes?Ethereum co-founderVitalik Buterin released an improvement proposal(EIP 2929) Tuesday in a bid to ameliorate soaring network fees. Average network fees reached $15.21 on Wednesday, up 660% from $2 a month ago. The surge in fees is likely being driven by the growing use and number of decentralized finance (DeFi) applications. Buterin’s proposal would make “heavy” contracts, which update the Ethereum state, more expensive by a factor of three. This repricing proposal could break some smart contracts already operating on Ethereum, Buterin wrote, adding developers “have had years of warning” about potential changes. Necessary consensus to vote the proposal in could take weeks or months.
International regulationBank of England (BoE) Governor Andrew Bailey saidregulators have to come together for a “global response” to stablecoinissuance. Speaking Thursday, he said the international nature of stablecoins, which can be based in one country and operate in another, meant failure to coordinate could result in confusion and regulatory fragmentation. While admitting stablecoins could reduce frictional costs, even becoming the primary means for purchasing goods and services, regulators must ensure they maintain their 1:1 backing with fiat currencies. Further, Bailey called bitcoin unsuitable for payments and multi-asset backed crypto-dollars like libra premature. The BoE is actively researching a “digital pound.”
Quickening researchBrazil’s chief central banker Roberto Campos Neto said Wednesday that his countrycould be ready for a digital currency(CBDC) by 2022. By that time, the Banco Central president said, Brazil will have an interoperable instant payments system and a “credible” and “convertible” international currency – “all the ingredients to have a digital currency,” he said at a Bloomberg event covered by local outlet Correio Braziliense. Campos Neto also was reported to have said that CBDCs are the consequence of fast-digitizing financial systems such as Brazil’s.
• Craig Wright Trial Over a Fortune in Bitcoin Moved to 2021(Dan Palmer/CoinDesk)
• BitClub Promoter Pleads Guilty for Role in $722M Fraudulent Mining Scheme(Zack Voell/CoinDesk)
• US Air Force and Raytheon Are Studying How Distributed Ledgers Could Help Command the Skies(Danny Nelson/CoinDesk)
• SEC Faces Stiff Test in Regulating DeFi, Says Hester Peirce(Robert Stevens/Decrypt)
• DeFi Protocols Don’t Do “Lending”(Jake Chervinsky/Bankless)
Is the CFAA overly broad?Blockchain voting startup Voatzweighed in on a longstanding ruling about improper access to a “protected computer.”
Related:Money Reimagined: Defanging FAANG
Appearing in a “friend of the court” brief before the U.S. Supreme Court, the startup argued that bug bounty programs concerning cybersecurity should be operated under strict supervision.
The case, Van Buren v. United States, is centered around whether it is a federal crime for someone to access a computer “for an improper purpose,” if they already have permission to access other files on that computer.
Nathan Van Buren, the petitioner in the case, is a former Georgia police officer who was charged under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA), which is often used to prosecute computer hackers. Enacted before the establishment of the internet, the CFAA prohibits accessing a “computer” without permission as well as the unauthorized deletion, alteration or blocking of privately stored data.
Some, likeprominent lawyer Tor Eklend,believe the law is overly broad and outdated.
For his part, Van Buren claims a lower court ruling upholding his conviction could be taken to mean that “any ‘trivial breach’” of a computer system could be a federal crime. He was given permission to look up a license plate for an acquaintance.
In its brief, Voatz says the CFAA does not need to be narrowed, and some breaches of computer systems are necessary.
However, the firm argues researchers looking into potential vulnerabilities should specifically check with the companies they are evaluating prior to doing so, and should only proceed with authorization from the companies.
Late last year, a University of Michigan student or students participating in a security course likely accessed Voatz’ systems. In its brief, Voatz said the “students’ ill-advised activity” was reported to West Virginia officials, prompting an FBI investigation, because the company could not distinguish between their research and an actual hostile attack.
“Regardless of the particulars, however, the West Virginia incident illustrates the harm caused by attacking, or ‘researching,’ critical infrastructure without proper access or authorization especially in the middle of an election,” Voatz wrote.
Non-malicious researchers trying to break into digital tools “imposes significant additional costs” to organizations, Voatz said, and could harm public confidence.
Reasons whyBitcoin prices fell below $11,000 yesterday for the first time in a month.
First Mover Editor Bradley Keounspoke to market analysts for their take on why the market tanked.Here are the three most common responses.
1. Bitcoin is tracking traditional markets
• “There could be an overlap between equity sellers and digital currency sellers. The largest equity market decliners this morning are tech stocks, including retail trading darlings, Tesla and the FAANG names [Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix and Alphabet, once Google]. It is unclear if this will push into a continued broader crash in equity markets, which could put more pressure on digital currencies, or if it is just a short-term correction,” John Todaro, director of institutional research at the cryptocurrency analysis firm TradeBlock, said.
2. DeFi sell-offs cascaded into bitcoin
• The total value locked (TVL) in all DeFi applications dropped to $9.1 billion from $9.5 billion, over the past few days, according to the website DeFi Pulse. This may be related to drops in both ether and bitcoin’s price.
• “Also, an aggressive unwind of the very crowded trade across Uniswap token related positions in the wake of a number of tokens, namely PIZZA and HOTDOG, dramatically collapsed from $6,000 to $1 in a mere few hours. This is likely because the same assets (bitcoin, ether and others) are used aggressively to structure collateralized positions,” Denis Vinokourov, head of research at the crypto prime broker BeQuant, said.
3. Miners sold some of their bitcoin
• Blockchain-data analysis firm CryptoQuant found major bitcoin-mining pools have increased the amount of bitcoin they’re transferred out, potentially as a de-risking maneuver.
• “Miners are good traders. I think they are just looking for selling opportunities, not capitulation. I think it’s going to be the war of miners between those who want a bitcoin price rally and those who don’t. Some Chinese miners already realize their mining profitability (ROI), and they might not want new mining competitors joining the industry because of the bull market,” Ki Young Yu, founder of CryptoQuant, said.
Risk off?Bitcoin isn’t likely to seea quick rebound from the double-digit price dropover the last two days, CoinDesk’s Omkar Godbole reports. Bitcoin fell by over 10% on Thursday to $10,006, according to CoinDesk’s Bitcoin Price Index, the biggest single-day percentage decline since March 12 when prices crashed around 40% amid a major sell-off across the equities markets. Though up slightly, Matthew Dibb, Stack COO, thinks bitcoin will track traditional assets during “this ‘risk-off’ period.” “Macro factors are currently at play,” Dibbs said.
Wallet forksWasabi Wallet hashard-forked the wallet Thursday to address a vulnerabilityfor a hypothetical attack the team assumes has never been carried out. Discovered by a team member at Trezor, a leading maker of hardware wallets, the vulnerability would have interfered with the wallet’s implementation of CoinJoin, a privacy protocol. Users need to upgrade to the latest version of the wallet if they want to continue using the CoinJoin feature. “The flaw’s discovery is another example of the open-source community’s camaraderie and cooperation,” CoinDesk’s Colin Harper reports.
Stablecoin opportunityNic Carter, a CoinDesk columnist and partner at Castle Island Ventures, believes the billion-dollar stablecoin marketpresents an opportunity for the United States, not a threat.“If the U.S. chooses to marginalize crypto-dollars and punish their issuers, not only will they suppress a burgeoning American industry, they will also push users into even less accountable alternatives,” he writes.
DeFi degensThe latest edition of The Breakdown looks at theburgeoning DeFi market and its “degenerate” players.
• Blockchain Bites: Tether’s Dispute, Buterin’s Fix and 3 Reasons for Bitcoin’s Sell-Off
• Blockchain Bites: Tether’s Dispute, Buterin’s Fix and 3 Reasons for Bitcoin’s Sell-Off || Bitcoin Core developer Pieter Wuille departs Blockstream to join Chaincode Labs: Pieter Wuille, a long-time developer for Bitcoin Core and a co-founder of Blockstream, announced Monday that he has joined Chaincode Labs, a cryptocurrency-focused research and development firm.
"Very excited to announce I'm joining Chaincode Labs today, where I plan to keep working on protocol improvements to Bitcoin!" Wuille wrote in aposton Twitter. "I'm very thankful for the time I got to spend with the people at [Blockstream], and will keep collaborating with the research team there." Wuille was among a group of Bitcoin Core developers to launch Blockstream in 2014.
Wuille is one of the authors of the Bitcoin Improvement Proposal (BIP) forSegregated Witness, which implemented a change to how information within transaction blocks is stored in order to make them more data-efficient.
More recently, Wuille has been involved in an effort to introduceTaproot— a privacy-focused technology change — and Schnorr signatures to bitcoin. A soft fork proposal to integrate the two technology upgrades was introduced in May 2019.
© 2020 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.
[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
None available.
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Trend: up || Prices: 11358.10, 11483.36, 11742.04, 11916.33, 12823.69, 12965.89, 12931.54, 13108.06, 13031.17, 13075.25
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Analyze the provided historical prices, technical indicators, news, and social media sentiment from the last 60 days. Based on this context, predict the overall trend (up, down, or no change) and the specific daily closing prices for Bitcoin for the next 10 days.
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[Technical Analysis for 2022-07-28]
BTC Price: 23843.89, BTC RSI: 60.88
Gold Price: 1750.30, Gold RSI: 49.50
Oil Price: 96.42, Oil RSI: 41.87
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
In Conversation With the Federal Reserve Chief Innovation Officer: Don't miss CoinDesk'sConsensus 2022, the must-attend crypto & blockchain festival experience of the year in Austin, TX this June 9-12.
I had the pleasure of speaking with the Federal Reserve System’s Sunayna Tuteja at Consensus 2022 in Austin, Texas, last week about the U.S. central bank’s philosophical approach to innovation at large. You can watch and read the conversation below.
Some housekeeping: The next few issues of this newsletter will be selected interviews and snippets of interviews from various panel discussions at Consensus and conversations I’ve had, including a second edition of this newsletter sometime this week that’s just recapping all the stuff I missed while traveling. Normal issues will resume in July.
You’re reading State of Crypto, a CoinDesk newsletter looking at the intersection of cryptocurrency and government.Click hereto sign up for future editions.
Sunayna Tuteja is the Federal Reserve System’s chief innovation officer, where she works on issues tied to central bank digital currencies [CBDCs], digital assets and other technology concerns. Prior to that, she was the head of digital assets at TD Ameritrade. She moderated a panel with her colleagues at Consensus 2022, before speaking to me on the sidelines of the event.
The Federal Reserve is perhaps best known for its work on economic issues, but it has also done quite a bit of research on central bank digital currencies and similar issues over the past few months. (This interview has been edited for clarity.)
Nikhilesh De: Hello and welcome to CoinDesk’s Consensus 2022. My name is Nik De, I'm a reporter with the team. I'm joined today by the Federal Reserve System’s Sunayna Tuteja, who's going to talk about being at the Fed and the Fed’s innovation team.
Sunayna Tuteja: Hey, Nik, thank you. I'm delighted to be here. And yes, an ex-bitcoiner and DeFi [decentralized finance] degen [degenerate] is now the chief innovation officer at the Federal Reserve System. And this is, in fact, our first time at Consensus. We've been here all week and did a session, “Demystifying the Federal Reserve,” which was really designed to explain there's FUD about crypto, there's also a lot of FUD about the Fed and, hopefully, we demystified some of that.
But I'll say one of my favorite parts of spending the week here is we did tons of bilaterals with builders in the industry, and hosted, I think, upwards of five meetups with builders, engineers and investors in the space and really taking the time to listen and learn from the ecosystem of what's exciting them, what they're working on and where and how the Fed can be a collaborator in advancing that innovation.
Can you just tell me about, you know, kind of what you do … how the Fed got to a point where it hired someone, a bitcoiner, to be an innovation officer.
So before I joined the Fed, I spent my entire career in the private sector and really the last decade as a builder, operator and investor in fintech [financial technology], and really in crypto. So I personally got into crypto in 2010, 2011 and professionally since 2015. And the reality is, when I first got the call about this role as the chief innovation officer at the Fed, I was convinced for the first 10 minutes [that] it was one of my bitcoin friends pulling some sort of prank on me.
And then when I realized, “Oh, this is a real job,” my question was, wait, central banking, innovation, isn't that an oxymoron? But the reality is, innovation really has been part and parcel of the Fed’s DNA, and in this role it's really about amplifying that innovation, scaling that innovation. And as I like to say, it’s really kick-starting the metabolism and speeding up that innovation within the Fed. So you know, I often like to joke that my job at the Fed is to try andred-pillmy colleagues while they try to fed-pill me. And you know, we see where we land in the middle, and we have a portfolio of initiatives, which I'm happy to double-click into in terms of how we're scaling and speeding up that innovation.
Maybe let's expand on that. Can you talk about specifics, any projects or initiatives that you're looking at that really relate that you know, that you think the crypto industry, in particular, might be fascinated by?
Yeah, absolutely. The one thing maybe I'll share is, you know, when we, when I think about the anchoring heuristic for innovation, oftentimes innovation does get tethered to technology. But it doesn't have to be, right? So I take a very tech-agnostic view to innovation. And for me, the metrics of “are we advancing the right type of innovation that's generating meaningful outcomes” is really anchored on a threefold heuristic. So number one is, are we solving gnarly problems? And believe me, there's a lot of gnarly problems that need to be solved.
Number two is, are we solving those problems with an obsession on the end customer. I know, colleagues in the crypto and fintech industry are like, wait, the Fed has customers? I'm like, yes! You know, everything we do touches everyday Americans, but also institutions, both domestic and globally. So we have to be thinking about that end user experience. And then the third thing is through innovation, are we leveling up and future-proofing our value proposition? Like with any organization of any size, just because you've been relevant for the last 100 years, does not guarantee that you will be relevant in the next 100 years, so how do we keep leveling up and making sure that the value we're rendering is meaningful?
So with that heuristic in mind, the way we really are bringing innovation to life, I'll share one concrete example, which is the first time I'm talking about it publicly. [This] is something that we've built out within the Fed over the last nine months called the Innovation Launchpad. So if you're in the private industry, Big Tech or even startups and in the crypto space, oftentimes when you think about innovation, there's a level of speed to go from exploration, to experimentation to execution.
Now, when you're a 100-year-old institution, with a massive responsibility and scale, those cycle times can be very elongated. And a lot of times that innovation can get stopped in its tracks. Because you have to get all these approvals, you have to run around trying to justify your use case or you can’t get access to the right technology.
So one of the things we did is, learning actually from the crypto and fintech industry, creating this incubator model. So within the Federal Reserve, we now have the Innovation Launchpad that gives all 20,000 employees of the Fed – and by the way, the Fed is a solar system, because it's not – I often like to tell our bitcoin friends that there's nothing central about the central bank of the United States. It's actually these 13 planets that operate as a solar system, but making sure everybody has access to emerging technologies. They can learn and get a tactile experience. … But even if you're a policymaker, if you have touched and worked and understood [artificial intelligence] and machine learning now, as you're writing policies on that subject matter, you actually have a learned experience, a lived experience, which makes a difference, and then to execution.
So how do we go from finding those problem statements, applying emerging technologies and executing it at scale, within days and weeks versus months and years? So our next iteration of the launchpad, we want to create a forked version of the launchpad, where we want to bring in collaboration and co-creation with academia and with industry, so we can work together with them in this experimentation zone to solve the problems, the bold problems and do it with a bias for action.
I don't want to get into the philosophical question of whether or not the Fed should issue a central bank digital currency. We've heard, you know, various discussions that Congress will eventually make a decision. But I'm really curious more on the philosophical questions about just what are the questions that need to be answered on the technical side? … You know, what do you need to look at? What do your colleagues need to look at? And how are you thinking about this?
I appreciate you framing it that way. Because there's a lot about this topic that is not in our zone of control. And I am always like, okay, let's focus on the things we can control and because you can drive yourself crazy trying to control things you can't control.
So with the CBDC, whether I was in the private sector, and now within the context of the Fed, I tried to again apply that product owner mindset. So let's create this through line, right? In a way money is the ultimate consumer facing product, all several – 7 billion people around the world have some sort of relationship with money, be it analog, digital, DeFi or who knows, right? I would submit that the U.S. dollar today has a pretty enviable product market fit, you know, the TAM [total addressable market], the enviable TAM. But if I'm the product owner of something that has a pretty awesome TAM, I do not get to rest on my laurels, I actually need to be operating with a healthy sense of paranoia, and take on the responsibility of disrupting my own product and leveling it up and making it better and better before somebody else tries to disrupt it.
So if you apply that product owner mindset, of course, it behooves us to be leaning in, to be experimenting, and researching, and thinking about the design principles, and how to throttle those design principles agnostic of whether it manifests or not, or whether there's a need for it or not, we always need to be flexing that muscle and developing those muscles, right. And, you know, at the end of January, as you know, the Fed for the first time dropped its public perspectives on digital asset ecosystems, and this specifically around CBDC. And I know the word “humility” doesn't often get associated with the Fed. But I hope that you will see the tone in that paper was genuinely humble, because we recognize that this is a nascent technology that is shape shifting, and we're really coming at it from a learner's mindset.
And along with our perspective, there were over 25 questions that we're still interrogating. And a lot of those questions are exactly as you reference, you know, what do the features and functionalities of a CBDC look like? You know, we talk a lot about interoperability and programmability and privacy. Great, but those are very broad themes. How do we double, triple, quadruple, you know, click into these aspects, and really frame out through research and technical experimentation? What are those right throttle points so whatever manifests is adding that ultimate meaning and value for the consumers and the personas.
We take a very first principles approach, which is, what is the problem we're trying to solve? Why does this problem need to be solved? Who are the end users and personas for whom we are solving this problem? And, most importantly, why is the Fed uniquely qualified to solve these problems? Right? And how do we engage and complement and collaborate with the innovation that's happening in the private sector, and we would love to continue to hear from this industry as we have been over the last week, and really continue that learning journey.
Also, to that last point, say someone who's watching this video wants to get in touch with a member of your team or someone at your local Fed office. What’s the best way for them to do it?
Yeah, I'm so glad you asked that. One of the things that we've been doing over the last few months is intentionally reaching out to the crypto community, the DeFi, the Web 3 community, the builders in this community, because when the Fed says, “Hey, we want to hear from the industry,” the incumbents know how to talk to the Fed, how to reach the Fed and how to have conversations with the Fed.
The reality is, this industry doesn't even know that the Fed wants to hear from them, let alone how to talk to the Fed. The simplest way I would implore your audience [to do] is, number one, our virtual door’s open. If you have a contact or you know how to engage with your local Federal Reserve Bank, great. If not, honestly, hit me up. I'm on Telegram. I'm onTwitter, I'm onLinkedIn, and I'll be more than happy to understand what you're trying to accomplish. And then, whether it's my team and I or whether it's connecting you to my colleagues at the Fed, the virtual door’s open. As I joke, I'm happy to be the Bumble app of innovation and connect the communities of the Fed, and my communities from crypto and DeFi and Web 3 to have this dialogue. And the other thing, if I might put a plug in, Nik, is something we're starting called Fed Corps. Think of it like the Peace Corps, but for the Federal Reserve.
People don't realize that there's 5,000 technologists that work at the Fed, everything from cybersecurity professionals, to engineers, to UX designers, to agile coaches. And as we take on more of these gnarly and bold problems, and we strive to solve them with this bias for action, we need talent. This ecosystem has some of the most talented builders, and if you are energized by solving big problems and making a dent, and in a way serving your country, we'd be also interested in having conversations. I think right now we have over 500 technology jobs open at the Fed. So, we'd love to have a conversation about that as well.
Awesome. So just one last question. And this is gonna be a curveball. What are you personally looking at any projects, any types of technologies, anything out there that is really, you know, catching your eye.
So two things. One, I have gone from doomscrolling on Twitter to doomscrolling on Discord, because I cannot get enough DAOs [decentralized autonomous organizations]. And I think I'm just obsessed about, I'm really intrigued about, the self-governing mechanisms that sound really possible and aspirational and abstract. But as you try to apply them, like with any new technology, there's all these different gradations of how they manifest and what works, what doesn't.
And as you know, there's a lot of DAO projects happening, and we're learning a lot through each one of them. So I'm spending a lot of time on Discord, like just learning through these DAO communities.
I think the other thing is, we're paying a lot of attention to quantum computing. In addition to the [Biden presidential] executive order through the White House or on digital assets, there was one around quantum computing. When I was a bitcoiner and people would be like, ‘Oh, quantum is gonna break bitcoin,” I did the eyeroll thing, but I tried to learn about it.
I think we just hosted a half-day [meeting to] level up our quantum computing understanding session at the Fed, and all of our senior leaders and all of our staff got to attend. And we brought in some of the leading experts from academia, but also builders who are experimenting with this technology. And we had a very pragmatic conversation about what is this technology: Where is it really going, where is it in the S curve cycle at the moment? But then also, how should the Fed be thinking about it?
And it's in the context of the research work that we do, but also supervision and regulation? So if the banks that we supervise and regulate are adopting this technology, what does that mean in terms of how we should be thinking about it? Also, we have a huge cyber functio/ How should we be interrogating quantum computing, both in playing defense but also playing offense?
So that's something I've been going down the rabbit hole on and just trying to learn about it and think about how that applies in the context of the Fed. I like to think about it in the approach of the what: the so what and the now what. I don't have any clear answers yet. But as I tell people who are crypto skeptics, it's okay to be skeptical but you have to keep learning and understanding because apathy is not kosher. And I'm trying to apply that same advice to quantum for myself, which is I don't know where all this is going. But it'd behoove me to be learning and understanding and see if there's something we should be doing.
We actually have not seen much in the way of movement with the heads of any agencies. However, Fed Vice Chair for Supervision nominee Michael Barr and SEC commissioner nominees Jaime Lizárraga and Mark Uyeda have all advanced out of the Senate Banking Committee.
The Senate also confirmed National Credit Union Administration Chairman Todd Harper to a full term, which will end in April 2027.
• Consensus 2022 Was the Crypto Bull Market's Goodbye Party:A few hours after Consensus 2022 ended, crypto lender Celsius announced it was suspending withdrawals. Cheyenne Ligon has a great write-up about the almost odd dissonance between what all happened at the conference and what happened after.
• How Much ETH Does Joe Lubin Hold?:Former CoinDesker-turned-industry research analyst Christine Kim asked ConsenSys’ Joe Lubin some great questions about the role of early ETH holders in the current and future ecosystem, with a write-up from Daniel Kuhn.
• US Stablecoin Law Could Actually Pass This Year, Lawmakers Say:This is a bold prediction from U.S. Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.), who said stablecoin legislation may be passed before the end of 2022 during a lawmaker town hall moderated by Jesse Hamilton. Toomey previously introduced a discussion draft of legislation aimed at defining asset-backed stablecoins and how they could be issued in the U.S.
• Unhosted Crypto Wallet Rules Will Allow Innovation, US Treasury Official Vows:Deputy Treasury Secretary Adewale Adeyemo said his department is looking at unhosted wallets and how people may store crypto outside of unregulated venues. "I understand and respect the need for and the desire for privacy, but we need to make sure that we're also in a place where we're not creating avenues where those who want to move funds illicitly are able to use digital assets more than traditional assets,” he said.
• Grayscale, Bitwise Confident a Spot Bitcoin ETF Will Be Approved Soon:Hey, ya’ll know my suspicion. Iremain unconvincedthat a spot bitcoin exchange-traded fund will be approved in the near future. But I’ve been wrong before, and we’ll find out soon enough.
• (The New York Times)The Times reports that Kraken CEO Jesse Powell “challenged the use of preferred pronouns, debated who can use racial slurs and called American women ‘brainwashed.’”
If you’ve got thoughts or questions on what I should discuss next week or any other feedback you’d like to share, feel free to email me atnik@coindesk.comor find me on Twitter@nikhileshde.
You can also join the group conversation onTelegram.
See ya’ll next week! || Musk's dogecoin tickets, Voyager collapse and bitcoin: The Crypto Mile weekly round up: Watch: The Crypto Mile weekly round-up Blue chip cryptos rallied on Thursday with bitcoin ( BTC-USD ) up around 7% and ethereum ( ETH-USD ) almost 15% in the last seven days. Today's weekly crypto news round-up by Yahoo Finance's The Crypto Mile looks at the hoarding of bitcoin by large mining operations, Shiba Inu's new stablecoin announcement and dogecoin ( DOGE-USD ) as a payment on Elon Musk's Hyper-loop transport system. Lastly, we look at crisis-laden crypto lending firm Voyager Digital's ( VOYG.TO ) recent bankruptcy filing and its association with collapsed crypto hedge fund Three Arrows Capital. Elon Musk at it again: Tesla boss has said dogecoin can be used to buy tickers on his hyperloop service. Photo: Dado Ruvic/Reuters (Dado Ruvic / reuters) Dogecoin will be accepted as a payment method for Hyper-Loop travel Elon Musks Boring Company has chosen to accept dogecoin ( DOGE-USD ) as payment for its Hyperloop service. The Tesla ( TSLA ) boss has been a vocal proponent of dogecoin for many years, almost singlehanded driving the popularity of the memecoin with his continuous tweets on its use case. A report from CNBC on Wednesday said a new payment option will be available via BitPay for using The Boring Company's (TBC) new Loop station at the Las Vegas Convention Center. The Boring Company has completed two tunnels in Las Vegas for loop travel and one test tunnel in Los Angeles, with other tunnels planned for major US urban areas. The Las Vegas loop travel circuits were unveiled in mid-April 2021 with regular Tesla Model 3 and Model X cars used for shuttling passengers between different locations in the city in Nevada. When asked on Twitter ( TWTR ) if dogecoin will be used to pay for Hyperloop travel, Musk responded by saying, supporting Doge wherever possible". Watch: Crypto collapses shining a very harsh light on industry practices Voyager Digital files for bankruptcy Crypto lending firm Voyager Digital ( VOYG.TO ) announced Wednesday it had filed for bankruptcy, becoming the latest to fall as the crypto crash contagion spreads. The US company blamed "volatility and contagion" in crypto markets for its collapse. Story continues They have filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in the US, which protects businesses from creditors while it explores strategic alternatives. Voyager was heavily exposed to recently liquidated Singapore-based crypto hedge fund Three Arrows Capital. A data centre for cryptocurrency mining with endless racks of CPU and motherboards (luza studios via Getty Images) Bitcoin miners hoarding mined digital assets North American crypto miner Hut 8 has added 5,800 bitcoin mining rigs to its operations and announced it is currently hoarding all the crypto it mines. According to Coindesk, the firm mined 328 bitcoins in June, increasing its hoard of the digital asset to 7,406 BTC, or $148m (£124m). Read more: The Crypto Mile: Has bitcoin reached the dip or will it fall even further? Miners are one of the largest holders of bitcoin out there, and more hoarding means more price stability. However, in other parts of the world miners are still dumping bitcoin to fund margin calls on debt, as the collateral on their loans has diminished with the crash in crypto prices. UK miner, Argo Blockchain, is the latest firm to dump bitcoin. According to Decrypt the firm sold $15.6m in bitcoin this week, which is more than it mined throughout June. Shiba Inu is to launch it's own stable coin. Photo: Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto via Getty Images (NurPhoto via Getty Images) Shiba Inu to launch its own stablecoin The developers behind Shiba Inu announced plans to launch a stablecoin, called SHI, that according to lead developer Shytoshi Kusama will not be affected by market fluctuations in the same way as doomed projects like Terra/Luna. In a statement released Tuesday Kusama said, "there is concern after watching other stable tokens collapse and billions in dollars get wiped off the market completely. For Shi, weve seen independent development from a group of developers in our decentralised network and theyve submitted a version of Shi that seems to avoid the issues found in other moonshots." Kusama added that if the plans proceed without obstacles, the stablecoin will be available later this year. The entire cryptocurrency market capitalisation has fallen from its $3tn peak in November 2021. Currently the crypto market cap is under $1tn, falling rapidly since May when the algorithmic stablecoin Terra/Luna collapsed. Watch: The Crypto Mile episode 2 A journey through the Metaverse || 7 Retirement Stocks to Buy in Unexpected Sectors: When you think “retirement stocks,” certain types of stocks may come to mind. For instance, shares in consumer staples companies. Or, shares in healthcare companies, utilities companies, or any other industry/sector that’s typically inflation and recession-resistant.
These sorts of stocks are well-regarded for their dependable earnings and history of dividend payments. Not to mention, dividend growth, as seen with the dividend aristocrats. That term refers to stocks that have raised their dividend payouts at least 25 years in a row.
But when it comes to investing in high-quality stocks fit for a retirement portfolio, your options aren’t limited to these names alone. There are scores of other stocks in this category, all of which are in sectors typically not associated with top dividend stocks.
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For example, these seven retirement stocks, all of which earn an “A” rating in myDividend Grader. Despite being in more cyclical sectors, company-specific strengths outweigh the uncertainties inherent with their respective industries.
[{"CSVI": "DRI", "Computer Services": "Darden Restaurants", "$36.85": "$115.27"}, {"CSVI": "FAST", "Computer Services": "Fastenal Company", "$36.85": "$50.19"}, {"CSVI": "GLP", "Computer Services": "Global Partners LP", "$36.85": "$22.93"}, {"CSVI": "GPC", "Computer Services": "Genuine Parts Company", "$36.85": "$131.54"}, {"CSVI": "HPQ", "Computer Services": "HP", "$36.85": "$33.89"}, {"CSVI": "LCII", "Computer Services": "LCI Industries", "$36.85": "$107.4"}]
Source: Peshkova / Shutterstock
Based in Paducah, Kentucky,Computer Services(OTCMKTS:CSVI) has been in business since 1965. It has also grown its regular dividend a stunning 49 years in a row. Given that it trades on over-the-counter (OTC), it may not be a familiar name. But this company, which provides IT services to financial institutions, is a high-quality retirement stock hiding in plain sight.
Knocked lower year-to-date by the broad market sell-off, now’s a great time to initiate a position. Why? With a track record of steady revenue and earnings growth, it’ll likely continue to perform well operationally. This will likely enable CSVI stock, once the market volatility clears up, to make a recovery.
Couple that with its dividend (forward yield of 2.84%). On top of this, it’s reasonably priced (trailing earnings multiple of 18x). Looking for portfolio holdings that provide the opportunity for income and capital growth? Consider CSVI a buy.
This stock earns an “A” rating in myDividend Grader.
Source: Shutterstock
A restaurant operator best known for its Olive Garden and Longhorn Steakhouse chains, inflation and recession worries have knockedDarden Restaurants(NYSE:DRI) down around 23.2% year to date. Yet while the restaurant business is cyclical, you may want to make it a holding. Even this late in the business cycle.
The market may be overestimating the impact of a recession. While it owns upscale brands likeCapital Grille and Eddie V’s, affordable chains like Olive Garden are its core business. Also, due to the pandemic,Darden streamlined its business model.
This too could also signal solid results, if a recession ends up happening. With a $1.10 quarterly dividend, DRI stock has a forward yield of 3.87%. It could grow this dividend further, as it stands to see continued long-term earnings growth. After uncertainties have knocked it down, now’s the time to buy DRI stock.
• 7 Retirement Stocks to Buy for a Bear Market
This stock earns an “A” rating in myDividend Grader.
Source: IgorGolovniov / Shutterstock.com
Fastenal Company(NASDAQ:FAST) is a wholesale distributor of industrial supplies. For example, fasteners, as its corporate name suggests. A prosaic business for sure, but one that performed strongly for many years.
That’s clear from its long track record of dividend growth. It has grown its dividend (2.49% forward yield) 24 years in a row. It’s raised its dividend by an average of 13.74% annually for the past five years. Trading for 26.25x forward earnings, FAST stock may seem pricey compared to many of the stocks listed above and below.
Why? Slowing earnings growth. It’s expected to grow earnings byaround 19%this year, but in the coming years, growth will fall to the high single-digits. Still, its valuation is sustainable, when you consider its operational track record. Not to mention, the high potential for it to continue raising its rate of payout.
This stock earns an “A” rating in myDividend Grader.
Source: Shutterstock
Looking for a retirement stock with a very high yield? You may want to considerGlobal Partners LP(NYSE:GLP). A master limited partnership (MLP), Global Partners is a wholesaler/retailer of gasoline.
Granted, soaring energy prices haven’t had the impact on GLP stock as they’ve had on other energy plays. The big run-up in fuel prices may result in a big jump in its earnings, but that’s not expected to be the case in 2023. Analysts forecast an earnings drop next year, from $3.45 to $2.70 per share.
Still, Global Partners’ current valuation (6x) more than accounts for this. Furthermore, even if earnings drop next year, it’ll continue to have coverage for its $2.38 per share annual payout. At current prices, this gives the stock an 10.29% forward yield. GLP may make a great choice for investors focused on portfolio income.
• 7 Long-Term Stocks That Never Go Out of Style
This stock earns an “A” rating in myDividend Grader.
Source: Sopotnicki / Shutterstock.com
Like one of the other unexpected retirement stocks listed above, Computer Services,Genuine Parts Company(NYSE:GPC) is another with dividend aristocrat status. The auto parts wholesaler has raised its dividend 65 years in a row.
The current annual payout for GPC stock is $3.58 per share. That gives it a forward yield of 2.74%. As has been the case withauto parts retailers, auto market trends have been on its side in the past year. The chip shortage, which has sent new and used vehicle prices skyrocketing, has resulted in American motorists holding onto their vehicles longer than ever.
As this trend continues, the company should continue to see elevated revenue and earnings growth. In turn, enabling it to maintain its long streak of dividend growth. Trading at a more-than-fair valuation (16.2x forward earnings), it’s another great retirement stock to consider.
This stock earns an “A” rating in myDividend Grader.
Source: Shutterstock
Personal computer (PC) makerHP Inc.(NYSE:HPQ) may not sound like a promising opportunity. After all, it’s in a very mature segment of the tech industry. Yet in recent years, strong demand for PCs by consumers and businesses have shown thatit’s premature to declare it a “dinosaur.”
After a pandemic era boost in PC demand, growth is set to slow down. Even so, don’t assume it’s middling returns ahead for HPQ stock. A lot of pessimism is. priced in. That’s clear from its low 7.75x earnings multiple. Just achieving modest earnings growth could be enough to send it higher.
HP is also a great dividend stock, with a 5.83% forward yield. With a payout ratio of just 16.26%, the company has room to carry on with double-digit annual dividend growth. Over the past five years, it’s raised its dividend annually by 12.57%.
• 7 Tempting Tech Stocks to Pull the Trigger on Now
This stock earns an “A” rating in myDividend Grader.
Source: Sundry Photography / Shutterstock.com
LCI Industries(NYSE:LCII) makes recreational vehicle (RV) components. The RV boom has of course been a boom for it, but it’s easy to see why investors have bid it lower, in anticipation of more challenging times ahead.
High inflation, soaring interest rates, and high gas prices could bring the RV boom to a halt. With this, why buy LCII stock, much less, make it a long-term holding for a retirement portfolio? The market’s de-rating of it in recent months likely accounts for a possible decline in revenue/earnings over the next two years.
While you wait for the industry to recover, LCII pays a 3.96% dividend. It has raised its dividend six years in a row, with average annual dividend growth over the past five years coming in at 12.3%. Dropping 34% since January, now may be the time to go contrarian.
This stock earns an “A” rating in myDividend Grader.
On the date of publication, Louis Navellier a had long position in DRI. Louis Navellier did not have (either directly or indirectly) any other positions in the securities mentioned in this article.
The InvestorPlace Research Staff member primarily responsible for this article did not hold (either directly or indirectly) any positions in the securities mentioned in this article.
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The post7 Retirement Stocks to Buy in Unexpected Sectorsappeared first onInvestorPlace. || Bitcoin Briefly Dips Below $19K; Ether Drops Sharply After US Inflation Report: Bitcoin briefly slipped below $19,000 on major crypto exchanges following the release of the U.S. consumer price index (CPI), which came in higher than economists' estimates.
Bitcoin fell to as low as $18,912 before recovering.
The U.S. economyrecorded 9.1% inflationin June from the year-earlier month, a 40-year high, sparking speculation the Federal Reserve will have to keep tightening monetary conditions to keep prices in check. The gauge increased 1.3% from a month earlier, the steepest month-on-month increase since 2005, reflecting higher gasoline, shelter and food costs.
A sell-off in risky assets followed the release. In the past hour, ether (ETH) lost 4.4%, with Cardano’s ADA, Solana’s SOL and dogecoin mirroring the losses. Most of the 100 largest cryptocurrencies by market capitalization fell at least 4%, CoinGecko data shows.
Overall, crypto market capitalization fell 2.5% in the past 24 hours to dip below the $900 billion level, with the bulk of losses coming over the past few hours.
Futures tracking major cryptocurrencies racked up $80 million in liquidations after the sudden moves in the past hour alone, data from Coinglass shows. Ether futures saw over $26 million in losses, the most among majors. || Dow sinks more than 600 points as US stocks tumble ahead of key May inflation report: Spencer Platt/Getty Images Losses in US stocks accelerated on Thursday as investors await results from a key May inflation report. Economists expect Friday's CPI reading to show the rate held steady at 8.3% in May, with core inflation cooling to 5.9% from 6.2% in April. Any signs of peak inflation could cause a relief rally in the stock market, while high inflation is likely to put pressure on stocks. US stocks fell on Thursday, with losses accelerating near the end of the day as investors await a highly anticipated May inflation report. Friday's consumer price index report will reveal if prices continued to rise last month. Economists surveyed by Bloomberg expect the CPI to have been unchanged at 8.3% in May, and expect core inflation to have fallen to 5.9% from 6.2% in April. Any slowdown would be a relief for investors, as it would be a relief for the all-important consumer and potentially give the Federal Reserve some breathing room in its current tightening cycle. But continued high inflation readings would likely add continued pressure to stocks as the Fed could get even more aggressive with its interest rate hike trajectory. Here's where US indexes stood at the 4:00 p.m. ET close on Thursday: S&P 500 : 4,017.74, down 2.38% Dow Jones Industrial Average : 32,272.13, down 1.94% (638.77 points) Nasdaq Composite : 11,754.23, down 2.75% The Fed won't be alone in raising interest rates next month, according to comments from the European Central Bank today. The ECB said it plans to hike interest rates in July for the first time in a decade. The decision comes as Europe grapples with an imminent recession, caused by surging commodity and food prices, which have been exacerbated by Russia's ongoing war against Ukraine. Natural gas prices surged 33% across Europe on Thursday after a fire broke out at a US export hub, putting further pressure on already tight global supplies. The Freeport liquefied natural gas export facility in Quintana, Texas, will remain closed for at least three weeks after an explosion. Story continues Bill Ackman's SPAC, which raised $4 billion from investors, may have to return the money as it has just six weeks to find a target company and make a deal. The SPAC and IPO market have floundered so far this year amid a broader decline in equity markets. Lumber prices fell to a nine-month low on Thursday after mortgage demand hit its lowest level in more than two decades. The essential building commodity is down 50% year-to-date, and is down nearly 70% from its record high reached last year. West Texas Intermediate crude oil fell as much as much as 0.66% to $121.30 per barrel. Brent crude , oil's international benchmark, fell as much as 0.50% to $122.96. Bitcoin fell 0.63% to $30,084. Ether prices fell 0.60% to $1,787. Gold fell as much as 0.36% to $1,849.80 per ounce. The yield on the 10-year Treasury rose 2 basis points to 3.04%. Read the original article on Business Insider || The clever way to beat British inflation? Buy American: US flag - SAMEER AL-DOUMY/AFP via Getty Images “Buy land, they’re not making it any more,” quipped Mark Twain. That scarcity is the basis of value is an argument used by many, including this column, in support of assets such as gold and Bitcoin. But there’s another asset that they are not making any more: the American dollar. America’s central bankers are putting their money-printing spree decisively into reverse. In the aftermath of the financial crisis and during the pandemic they created tens of billions of electronic dollars each month and used those new dollars to buy bonds as a means to inject money into the financial system. They now plan to do the opposite: to sell the bonds and sit on the proceeds. This has the same effect as destroying the money they had previously created – it will no longer be in circulation and will do the digital equivalent of sitting in a locked vault. Money will therefore be taken out of the economy and, just as conventional economic thinking has it that creating money creates inflation, it also holds that destroying money reduces inflation . Now the world’s central banks have been printing money for more than a decade so why are we seeing its inflationary effects only now? This is something we touched on in the Wealth Preserver column last year, when we pointed out that the newly created money had gone into the financial system, where it had indeed created inflation in asset prices, as opposed to into the real economy. The money created to deal with the pandemic was different: in Britain, for example, the new pounds were lent to the Government and used to pay for the furlough scheme, so they ended up in the pockets of people who, in most cases, promptly spent them. They started to circulate in the economy and, once the lockdowns ended and life started to return to normal, they ended up chasing the very goods whose supply had been disrupted by the pandemic and then by the war in Ukraine. Result: inflation. Let’s go back to all those dollars that America is to destroy. Goods may be scarce but dollars are becoming scarcer too. It seems logical to expect its policy – which is called “quantitative tightening” – to at least reduce inflation from what it would otherwise have been. Story continues This is relevant to us in Britain, and to investors keen to preserve the real value of their wealth, in a number of ways. First, the Bank of England has not confirmed a date for any reversal of its money-creating programme, so we cannot hope for any immediate defence against inflation from that direction. If inflation falls faster in America than in Britain, we would expect sterling to fall against the dollar, all else being equal. This in itself is inflationary as the price of dollar-denominated imports such as oil rises in sterling terms when the pound weakens. Second, the scarcity of dollars that the American central bank is engineering will itself tend to boost the currency’s value. We therefore see it as essential to have a proportion of the Wealth Preserver portfolio in dollar-denominated assets. Even if their price does not change in dollar terms, we expect these assets to appreciate for British savers thanks to the dollar’s likely strength. Fortunately, we already have plenty of dollar-based investments. Gold and Bitcoin are the obvious ones (even if the latter has fallen in value so severely as to more than offset dollar strength) but two of our commodity holdings, Sociedad Química y Minera de Chile and the WisdomTree Aluminium ETC, are quoted in dollars and the others, Antofagasta and Yellow Cake, still benefit as the commodities they deal in are also denominated in the American currency. Other holdings have overseas income streams or operations; they include RWS, the patent company, Diageo, the global drinks maker, the engineering group Spirax‑Sarco and the BioPharma Credit, Hipgnosis Songs and Worldwide Healthcare investment trusts. Very roughly we probably have about 30pc of the portfolio exposed to the dollar. This feels about right. Read the latest Questor column on telegraph.co.uk every Sunday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday from 5am. Read Questor’s rules of investment before you follow our tips. Reader Service: How to find the best exchange rates if you need to transfer dollars to pounds . || Stocks sink as Wall Street eyes downside of solid jobs data: NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. stocks fell broadly Friday and pulled major indexes into the red for the week as Wall Street focused on the downside of the still-strong U.S. jobs market. A report showed employers hired more workers last month than economists expected. While that’s a good sign for the economy amid worries about a possible recession, many investors saw it keeping the Federal Reserve on its path to hiking interest rates aggressively . Such moves would slow the economy in hopes of ultimately knocking down high inflation, and the Fed risks causing a recession if it moves too quickly or too far. In the meantime, higher interest rates put downward pressure on stocks and other investments. The S&P 500 index fell 68.28 points, or 1.6%, to 4,108.54. It’s a reversal from Thursday’s market movements, when a narrower report on the U.S. jobs market came in weaker than expected. That bolstered speculation the Fed may consider a pause in raising rates later this year, and the hopes for a less-aggressive Fed sent stocks jumping. The slide on Friday also dragged the benchmark S&P 500 into its eighth weekly loss in the last nine. The outlier in that stretch was last week, when stocks roared in part on speculation that the Fed would consider a pause in rate hikes in September. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 348.58 points, or 1%, to 32,899.70. The Nasdaq fell 304.16 points, or 2.5%, to 12,012.73. Bitcoin also fell, while a measure of worry in the stock market rose, even though some glass-half-full signals for inflationary pressures were buried within the jobs data. Friday’s comprehensive report from the U.S. government showed employers added 390,000 jobs last month, better than expectations for 322,500. That sent Treasury yields climbing, though they initially wobbled as investors moved from one knee-jerk reaction to another following the report’s release. The yield on the two-year Treasury, which tends to move with expectations for Fed action, rose to 2.68% from 2.62% just before the report’s release. The 10-year yield, which tracks expectations for longer-term growth and inflation, rose to 2.95% from 2.91% after earlier climbing as high as 2.99%. Story continues The report did contain some signals analysts said could ultimately get the Fed to be less aggressive, and the mixed data could lead markets to swing through Friday. Big daily reversals have become the norm recently as Wall Street struggles to handicap how aggressive the Fed will be. Average wages for workers were a touch weaker in May than economists expected. While that’s discouraging for people watching prices at the grocery store and gasoline pump jump more than their paychecks, it could mean less future pressure on inflation across the economy. Plus, the nation’s job growth decelerated last month, even if it was better than expectations. “The employment situation remains solid for the economy, but there are some signs of slowing,” said Brian Jacobsen, senior investment strategist at Allspring Global Investments. “The signs aren’t clear and convincing enough to suggest the Fed needs to pause yet, but a lot can change over the next few months.” More than four out of five stocks in the S&P 500 fell amid the worries about rising rates, with the heaviest losses hitting technology stocks and other big winners of the prior low-rate world. Tesla tumbled 9.2% after U.S. safety regulators said more than 750 owners have complained about cars suddenly stopping on roadways for no apparent reason while operating on thier partially automated driving systems. A report also said Tesla is considering layoffs amid concerns by its CEO, Elon Musk, about the economy. Because Tesla is the fifth-biggest company in the S&P 500, its movements carry a heavier weight on the index. Companies from Walmart to Delta Air Lines have recently warned how inflation is eating into their profits, which has upped the pressure on markets because stock prices tend to track profits over the long term. The warnings are layering on top of the market’s worries about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and about business-slowing, anti-COVID measures in China . “There are just so many uncertainties,” said John Lynch, chief investment officer for Comerica Wealth Management. “You can’t put Ukraine on a spreadsheet and you can’t put lockdowns in China on a spreadsheet.” JPMorgan Chase’s CEO, Jamie Dimon, said earlier this week that he’s preparing his company for a possible economic “hurricane,” highlighting less economic support from the U.S. government and Federal Reserve, as well as the war in Ukraine. ___ AP Business Writer Yuri Kageyama contributed. || 10 Cryptocurrencies That Are Growing and 6 That Are Falling: Just like the stock market,cryptocurrencyhas had a wild run in 2022. While much of the news has focused on the devastation in crypto pricing, some cryptos have been trying to reverse the trend -- at least at the end of June 2022.
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To determine which cryptos are trending in which direction, GOBankingRates surveyed seven-day price trends as of the end of June 28 for the 20 largest cryptocurrencies that were not stablecoins. While all but one of these cryptocurrencies were severely in the red on a YTD basis in 2022, a significant number were up in price over that period.On this basis alone, here's how the biggest non-stablecoin cryptos performed recently, ranked in order of percentage gain, starting with the biggest gain.
• 7-Day Change (%):19.74%
• 7-Day Change ($):$0.086
Polygon's impressive gain of nearly 20% over the past seven days has done little to erase its massive year-to-date drop of almost 80%. However, it's also one of the smallest cryptos by market cap on the list, so it could be subject to even more volatile swings going forward.
• 7-Day Change (%):10.60%
• 7-Day Change ($):$1.83
Avalanche is essentially in the same boat as Polygon. Although its seven-day gain of over 10% is impressive, the crypto is still down over 80% on a year-to-date basis.
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• 7-Day Change (%):6.46%
• 7-Day Change ($):$0.35
UNUS SED LEO is the only crypto on this list that has risen in value on a year-to-date basis. Not only that, but it's up an impressive 52.40%. Even over the past month, the crypto has jumped by over 14%, so it's definitely in favor with current investors.
• 7-Day Change (%):5.09%
• 7-Day Change ($):$0.2497
Uniswap is down over 70% year-to-date, but recent trends are encouraging. The crypto's 5%-plus gain over the past week has pushed up its month-to-date returns to 4.25%.
• 7-Day Change (%):5.02%
• 7-Day Change ($):$11.21
BNB has had a rough month overall, dropping nearly 24%. But it has been one of crypto's best performers over the past seven days.
• 7-Day Change (%):3.66%
• 7-Day Change ($):$0.00242
Dogecoin is frequently in the news, as the coin originally created as a joke has been touted in an on-again, off-again fashion by one of the wealthiest men in the world, Tesla CEO Elon Musk. It has fallen over 60% year-to-date, but over the past seven days, it has managed to eke out a gain.
• 7-Day Change (%):2.98%
• 7-Day Change ($):$0.0099
XRP's stats for 2022 are about the same as Dogecoin's. The coin has posted a roughly 60% year-to-date loss to go with its 11% monthly loss, but investors have enjoyed a small gain over the past seven days.
• 7-Day Change (%):2.94%
• 7-Day Change ($):$33.66
The second-largest cryptocurrency by market cap after industry giant Bitcoin, Ethereum has lost more than two-thirds of its value this year. It endured a particularly horrific June, dropping more than 33%, even after a 3% gain over the past seven days.
• 7-Day Change (%):1.88%
• 7-Day Change ($):$1.01
Litecoin is touted as an alternative to Ethereum, but it hasn't escaped its competitor's woes in the marketplace. A small gain over the past seven days has done little to ease the pain caused by its 64% year-to-date drop.
• 7-Day Change (%):0.59%
• 7-Day Change ($):$0.00039
On a comparative basis, Tron has had a reasonably successful 2022, dropping "only" 13.35%. All of that damage and then some was caused over the past month, when Tron fell by nearly 20%.
• 7-Day Change (%):-2.14%
• 7-Day Change ($):-$452.18
Wrapped Bitcoin trades nearly in lockstep with its big brother Bitcoin, and both have posted abysmal returns in 2022. The coin's 2%-plus drop over the past seven days must seem like a relief to long-term holders who have endured a year-to-date drop of over 56%.
• 7-Day Change (%):-2.29%
• 7-Day Change ($):-$483.99
Bitcoin is the oldest and largest cryptocurrency, but that has done little to protect it in the cryptocurrency bloodbath of 2022. The industry leader has fallen more than 56% year-to-date, including a painful 29% drop on a month-over-month basis.
• 7-Day Change (%):-2.39%
• 7-Day Change ($):-$0.90
Solana was a market darling in 2021, gaining 400% over that summer alone. But investors have paid the price in 2022, with Solana dropping a massive 79.31% year-to-date. Recent trends aren't encouraging either, as the coin has fallen over 15% on a month-over-month basis as well.
• 7-Day Change (%):-2.47%
• 7-Day Change ($):-$0.0121
Cardano is one of the few cryptos to post a gain over the past month, rising a respectable 3.21% over that time period. This is even after a nearly 2.5% loss over the past week. However, the coin has still lost about two-thirds of its value in 2022 alone.
• 7-Day Change (%):-3.55%
• 7-Day Change ($):-$0.00000039
Shiba Inu gained global attention with its stratospheric gain of 49 million percent in 2021. Those gains were short-lived, however, and the coin has fallen back to Earth in 2022, losing more than two-thirds of its value.
• 7-Day Change (%):-4.06%
• 7-Day Change ($):-$0.3217
Polkadot has been savaged in 2022, dropping more than 20% over the past month and 72.86% year-to-date. The coin has been unable to get off the mat and bounce like some of its competitors, as it has continued to fall over the past week as well.
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Methodology:For this piece GOBankingRates used CoinMarketCap.com's data on the twenty largest cryptocurrencies (excluding stable coins) in terms of total market cap as of 11 am PST on June 28, 2022. With these cryptos isolated GOBankingRates then found (1) January 1, 2022 price as of 12pm EST on that date; (2) May 28, 2022 price as of 12pm EST on that date; (3) June 21, 2022 price as of 12pm EST on that date; and (4) June 28, 2022 price as of 11am PST on that date. With those figures found GOBankingRates then found for each crypto: (5) year to date percent change; (6) month-over-month percent change; and (7) 7 day percen change. Factors (5) - (7) were then scored and combined with the lowest score being best. Factor (7) was weighted 1.75x in final calculations. All data was collected on and up to date as of June 28, 2022.
This article originally appeared onGOBankingRates.com:10 Cryptocurrencies That Are Growing and 6 That Are Falling || Celsius Looks Sloppy in New Lawsuit, but So Does the DeFi Legend Suing It: Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we angle to offer 18% APR on crypto deposits. A lawsuit filed Thursday in New York State’s Supreme Court claims an asset manager that deployed customer funds for troubled crypto-lending platform Celsius Network has not been paid for its services. The suit contains extremely troubling (if unsurprising) allegations about trading and risk management practices at Celsius as the firm worked to generate the huge returns it promised depositors. The lawsuit, alongside a recent research report, also cast new light on a pseudonymous Twitter account, @0x_b1, that became highly influential with the 2020 rise of decentralized finance, or DeFi , tools. The account was regarded as a “whale,” or large crypto holder, but was not widely known to, in fact, be managing assets for Celsius. As the suit was filed, the account “doxed” itself as a group including a DeFi trader and staking strategist named Jason Stone. This article is excerpted from The Node, CoinDesk's daily roundup of the top stories in crypto news. You can subscribe to get the full newsletter here . Stone was one of the founders of KeyFi, a firm that agreed in August 2020 to deploy customer funds to DeFi and staking protocols on behalf of Celsius. This in and of itself was one of the overlooked red flags at Celsius, which premised its initial yield strategy on institutional lending but soon began to chase riskier returns through DeFi. That led in at least one instance to multimillion-dollar hacking losses – and it’s increasingly unclear that it generated any real revenue. In the filing, KeyFi claims it has not been paid money owed from profits generated from its trading activities on Celsius’s behalf. According to the lawsuit, KeyFi was promised “7.5% of ‘Net Profits’ for all staking activity and 20% of Net Profits for DeFi activity.” Crucially, the agreement purportedly specified “profits” as denominated in U.S. dollars. The suit reinforces some things we already strongly suspected about Celsius’s operation. Most notably, it presents examples of sloppy internal controls and serious disregard for risk to Celsius customer funds. The suit claims, for instance, that in one case “Celsius improperly [accounted] for certain payments owed to customers, resulting in a $200 million liability the company did not even understand how or why it owed.” Story continues Even more dramatically, KeyFi alleges Celsius misled it about hedging activities that shaped trading strategies. KeyFi claims Celsius said it had hedges in place against the risk that the U.S. dollar price of crypto assets owed to customers would rise, but did not in fact have such hedges in place. As described by KeyFi, this meant trading activities that generated profits in dollar terms but involved trading away or locking up crypto assets could still wind up underwater when depositors decided they wanted their ETH or BTC back. Stranger still, KeyFi claims Celsius denominated profits in dollars under the trading agreement, while Celsius’s obligations to customers were denominated in tokens. That kind of asset/liability mismatch can present extreme and unpredictable risk in finance, and it appears to be the root of the current dispute. According to the KeyFi suit, Celsius cited token-denominated rather than U.S. dollar metrics to claim KeyFi didn’t actually generate any returns that would merit promised royalty payments. Celsius has not yet publicly responded to the suit. What the suit leaves out It’s vital to keep in mind that allegations made in a lawsuit like this are just that – allegations, unvetted by anyone other than the plaintiff’s legal team and framed to look good for the plaintiff. The KeyFi suit, as it happens, arrived on the heels of a report from analytics firm Arkham Intelligence that seems to challenge several elements of KeyFi’s account. Most notably, the Arkham report undermines the suit’s claim that “KeyFi’s investment strategies were extremely profitable.” Instead, according to Arkham’s analysis, dollar returns on KeyFi’s strategies relied entirely on rising values of the underlying assets. In fact, Arkham concludes Celsius would have generated better returns simply by holding customer deposits. “Had Celsius held these assets instead of sending them to 0x_b1,” Arkham concludes, “their value would have been $1.52 billion – close to $400 million more than what 0x_b1 appears to have returned.” If true, that’s a bombshell in itself. 0x_b1 has for years now been something of a standard bearer for DeFi as a whole. If the group’s returns were illusory, it could cast doubt on at least some aspects of the entire DeFi project. And as even KeyFi describes in its own suit, the circumstances are extremely strange. In a traditional finance setting it would be inconceivable for a trading desk to operate merely on assurances that someone, somewhere, was tracking and appropriately hedging its activities. Hedging is so granularly intertwined with trading that such separation makes little sense on its face, and agreeing to such an arrangement does not paint KeyFi in a particularly professional or sophisticated light. Even leaving that aside, though, Arkham found that KeyFi/0x_b1’s returns began to falter when markets turned against the team. 0x_b1 was repeatedly liquidated on margin longs as the price of ether (ETH) and other assets dropped in early 2021. Arkham claims $61 million of “what appears to be Celsius money” was lost in liquidations against 0xB1. That strongly suggests an alternate narrative about Celsius and the 0xb1/KeyFi's breakup. Via the lawsuit, KeyFi claims it terminated its relationship with Celsius in March 2021 after discovering and contesting perceived mismanagement. But given that the KeyFi traders’ strategies appeared to fail in the then-slumping market, it wouldn’t be surprising if the team’s real motivations were a bit less altruistic, and a bit more about protecting their own reputation as DeFi deities. || Crypto Market Daily Highlights – June 15 – BTC and ETH Find Support: • It was a bullish Wednesday session for the crypto market. Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH) ended their extended losing streaks.
• The bullish session came despite the Fed delivering the largest rate hike since 1994 to curb inflation.
• Another choppy session saw the total crypto market cap fall by $84 billion to a new current-year low of $834bn before bouncing back.
It was a bullish session for thecryptomarket on Wednesday. The broader market responded favorably to the highly anticipated Fed monetary policy decision, with bitcoin (BTC) ending an eight-day losing streak.
Bitcoin was heading for a ninth day in the red with a fall to a new current year low of $20,084 before finding late support.
Investor reaction to the Fed monetary policy decision tested bitcoin support late in the day before bitcoin tracked the NASDAQ into positive territory.
After eight consecutive days in the red, the total crypto market cap recovered from another slide to end the day up $27 billion.
Tracking gains across the US equity markets, the broader crypto market responded favorably to the Fed rate hike and FOMC projections.
The total market cap fell to a new 2022 low of $834 billion before a move through to $950 billion levels. $84 billion came off the table before a broad-based crypto market rebound.
While the broader crypto market responded favorably to the Fed, downside risks linger.
Near-term, these include an anticipated shift in the regulatory landscape and the threat of a global economic slowdown.
From the top ten cryptos,SOLrallied by 17.47% to lead the way, withADA(+10.79%) andDOGE(+12.96%) close behind.
BNB(+4.76%),BTC(+2.03),ETH(+2.39%), andXRP(+6.55%) also found support.
From theCoinMarketCaptop 100, UNUS SED LEO (LEO) and Bitcoin SV (BSV) bucked the broader market trend, falling by 7.51% and 6.26%, respectively.
Tron (TRX) found much-needed support, with a 13.31% rally reversing a 12.99% slide from Tuesday.
A steadying in the USDD andnewsof the TRON DAO Reserve making moves to reestablish the dollar peg, easing market nerves.
While the USDD continued to sit below $0.98, thecollateral ratiostood at 317.88%.
Following Tuesday’s spike, total liquidations eased back further going into the Thursday session.
According toCoinglass, 24-hour liquidations stood at $538 million, down from $578 million levels on the day prior. While down from the Tuesday jump to $1,070, however, 24-hour liquidation levels remained elevated.
One-hour liquidations pointed to a steadying in market cap conditions, with one-hour liquidations at $11.78 million.
• SECsentletters to crypto exchanges to establish whether the appropriate safeguards are in place to tackle insider trading.
• Feddeliveredthe largest rate hike since 1994. The crypto market followed US equities into positive territory.
• The BTC price reversalweighedon bitcoin mining profitability, which fell to its lowest level since Oct-2020.
• TRON DAO Reservecalmedmarket fears of another stablecoin collapse, delivering TRX price support.
• Binanceannounced2,000 open positions while other crypto platforms cut payrolls.
Thisarticlewas originally posted on FX Empire
• S.Korea cuts 2022 growth outlook, vows to cut corporate tax rate
• France’s Macron, Germany’s Scholz and Italy’s Draghi on their way to Ukraine
• Fed rolls out biggest rate hike since 1994, flags slowing economy
• Credit Suisse, UBS well-placed to handle challenging environment – SNB
• ECB bond-buying scheme likely to have loose conditions -sources
• Ukraine pleads for more weapons as European leaders expected in Kyiv
[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
None available.
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Trend: down || Prices: 23804.63, 23656.21, 23336.90, 23314.20, 22978.12, 22846.51, 22630.96, 23289.31, 22961.28, 23175.89
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Analyze the provided historical prices, technical indicators, news, and social media sentiment from the last 60 days. Based on this context, predict the overall trend (up, down, or no change) and the specific daily closing prices for Bitcoin for the next 10 days.
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[Technical Analysis for 2016-05-26]
BTC Price: 453.38, BTC RSI: 55.27
Gold Price: 1220.10, Gold RSI: 34.98
Oil Price: 49.48, Oil RSI: 70.71
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
A Q&A With The New CIO Of OptionsHouse: The 2016 Benzinga Fintech Awards is the only event in fintech dedicated to recognizing innovation in financial services and capital markets. Ahead of the May 24th awards show and gala, meet the industry leaders who will be in attendance. Who he is: Lance Braunstein, recently named CIO of Aperture Group, owner of OptionsHouse . What attracted you to OptionsHouse? Braunstein: The combination of a great investor, General Atlantic, a world-class management team, and the opportunity to innovate solutions on the base of a leading platform. What ideas can you offer for how you'll shape OptionsHouse’s technology strategy going forward? Braunstein: Our technology strategy will unfold in a number of phases. First, we will continue to evolve our core execution platform to be best-in-class. This will include a new mobile app for iOS and Android as well as a new responsive website by the end of the year. We are also developing a rich services framework for more nimble software development and to allow our clients to interface with us programmatically. The second phase of our strategy involves the evolving needs of the active trader. We are exploring a number of new products and services to ensure we can deliver the most timely data in the best channel to meet our client's needs. Braunstein : I continue to see data management, analytics and visualization as a key driver for our markets. Being able to consume and make sense of the massive amounts of data and derive a signal from the noise is more pressing than ever. I also think that startups and established firms alike are starting to take up the idea of blockchain, with an understanding of its differences from Bitcoin, and leveraging it in a number of new and creative ways. I'm excited about automated advisory services. There's still a long way to go in developing intelligence in this space and I suspect we'll see continued innovation here. One trend that I suspect will fade is the idea that fintech firms can fly under the regulatory radar--this just seems short-sighted. Tackling regulatory requirements like retention, supervision and information barriers is key when providing solutions in regulated industries. One piece of advice he’d offer to people trying to break into fintech: Braunstein : A VC friend of mine once said ‘You should always be able to articulate your value proposition on the back of a business card.’ My piece of advice is make sure that your messaging is crisp so if you find yourself on an elevator and you have 30 seconds, you’re able to very succinctly articulate the space, problem, and commercial value. That’s something typically an engineering minded person might overlook. If you want to meet Lance, get a ticket to the Benzinga Fintech Awards next Tuesday, so get your tickets now! See more from Benzinga Russell Simmons' Prepaid Debit Card Just Cost Him Million Who's The Most Outstanding Military Veteran In Fintech? Angel Investing Is Now Available To Pretty Much Everyone. Yes, Even You. © 2016 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || CME, ICE prepare pricing data that could boost bitcoin: By Tom Polansek CHICAGO (Reuters) - CME Group Inc (CME.O) and rival Intercontinental Exchange Inc (ICE.N) plan to publish new pricing data on bitcoin that they say will increase credibility and transparency for the controversial digital currency. Starting in the fourth quarter, the CME aims to begin publishing bitcoin prices about once a second during trading days and a daily settlement price based on transactions from several bitcoin spot exchanges, the company said on Monday. The owner of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange and other futures markets said the data will add "significant credibility to the nascent digital asset market." Bitcoin is a Web-based "cryptocurrency" used to move money around quickly and anonymously with no need for a central authority. Despite being championed by some as the digital money of the future, it is often dismissed as a currency that is too volatile to invest in. The CME's pricing data "will lower uncertainty among market participants and would very likely reduce bitcoins traditionally high volatility" by aggregating information on transactions from multiple bitcoin markets, said Paul Chao, founder and chief executive officer of Ledger X, an institutional trading and clearing platform for bitcoin options. The New York Stock Exchange, owned by the ICE, is evaluating whether to include data from a number of exchanges for a daily settlement price it has published since May 2015, said Dwijen Gandhi, head of indexes for the NYSE. Currently the settlement price is based only on transaction data from U.S. market Coinbase. The NYSE also will soon launch a real-time pricing index to "provide additional transparency and insight into the bitcoin price," Gandhi said in a statement. The CME is planning to publish its settlement price at 4 p.m. London time (1500 GMT), the same time the NYSE publishes its settlement. The availability of more data from major exchange operators could promote the development of bitcoin derivatives contracts, said Gil Luria, a managing director for Wedbush Securities. Story continues "The more active exchanges like CME or ICE become, the easier, the more liquid it will become for traditional investors" to trade bitcoin, he said. The CME declined to say whether it wants to launch bitcoin futures. The ICE did not respond to a question on the matter. Earlier on Monday, Australian tech entrepreneur Craig Wright identified himself as the creator of bitcoin. Experts were divided over whether he really was the elusive person who has gone by the name of Satoshi Nakamoto until now. (Additional reporting by Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss in New York, Editing by Lisa Von Ahn, Matthew Lewis and Bernard Orr) || Australian says he created bitcoin, but some skeptical: By Byron Kaye and Jemima Kelly SYDNEY/LONDON (Reuters) - Australian tech entrepreneur Craig Wright identified himself as the creator of controversial digital currency bitcoin on Monday but experts were divided over whether he really was the elusive person who has gone by the name of Satoshi Nakamoto until now. Uncovering Nakamoto's real identity would solve a riddle dating back to the publication of the open source software behind the cryptocurrency in 2008, before its launch a year later. Bitcoin has since become the world's most commonly used virtual currency, attracting the interest of banks, speculators, criminals and regulators. Worth a total of $7 billion at current levels, it fell more than 3 percent on Monday -- a normal intraday move for the volatile currency -- after the news, to below $440 from around $455, before recovering slightly. Some online commentators suggested bitcoin's creator could help resolve a bitter row among the currency's software developers that threatens its future. But Wright made no reference to the row in a BBC interview identifying himself as Nakamoto, and as the protocol bitcoin runs on is open-source and cannot be controlled by any one person, it is unclear whether he would be able to influence the way it develops. "I was the main part of it, other people helped me," Wright, who is now living in London, told the BBC. "Some people will believe, Some people won't, and to tell you the truth, I don't really care," he said. Many bitcoiners said Wright had not done enough to definitively prove that he was Nakamoto, who maintained his anonymity throughout his involvement with bitcoin, which he stepped away from in 2011. But Gavin Andresen, who Nakamoto chose to succeed him, published a blog post in which he described meeting Wright last month and said he is convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that the Australian is Nakamoto. Jon Matonis, a founding director of the Bitcoin Foundation now works as a bitcoin consultant, wrote a blog post on Monday which, like Andresens, supported Wrights claims. Story continues According to me, the proof is conclusive and I have no doubt that Craig Steven Wright is the person behind the Bitcoin technology, Nakamoto consensus, and the Satoshi Nakamoto name, Matonis wrote. He and Andresen also confirmed they had been responsible for their respective blog posts to Reuters directly. LEGACY Nakamoto's biggest likely legacy lies well beyond his control. The blockchain technology that underpins the currency could transform the way banks settle transactions, the way that property rights and other vital data are recorded, and provide a way for central banks to issue their own digital currencies. The BBC reported on Monday that Wright gave some technical proof demonstrating that he had access to blocks of bitcoins known to have been created by bitcoin's creator. Researchers believe Nakamoto may be holding up to one million of the more than 15 million bitcoins currently in circulation, which would make the creator worth around $440 million. In a blog post also dated Monday, Wright posted an example of a signature used by Nakamoto and an explanation of how bitcoin transactions are verified and thanked all those who had supported the project from its inception. "This incredible communitys passion and intellect and perseverance have taken my small contribution and nurtured it, enhanced it, breathed life into it," he wrote. However he did not state directly that he was Nakamoto. "Satoshi is dead," he said. "But this is only the beginning." Bitcoin expert Peter Van Valkenburgh, director of research at Washington, D.C.-based advocacy group Coin Center, said a new message cryptographically signed using the private key associated with the so-called Genesis block, the first ever "mined" would have been more convincing. The currency's "miners" are incentivized to process transactions every 10 minutes by a possible reward of bitcoins (25 currently), which is how new bitcoins are created. Wright also spoke with The Economist, but declined requests from the magazine to provide further proof that he was Nakamoto. His representatives told Reuters he would not be taking part in more media interviews for the time being. "Our conclusion is that Mr Wright could well be Mr Nakamoto, but that important questions remain," The Economist said. "Indeed, it may never be possible to establish beyond reasonable doubt who really created bitcoin. Hopes that bitcoin would become broadly used helped buoy its price to more than $1,000 in December 2013, when its market capitalization was $13 billion compared with today's $7 billion. Wright told The Economist he would exchange bitcoin he owns slowly to avoid pushing down its price. HOME RAIDED In December, police raided Wright's Sydney home and office after Wired magazine named him as the probable creator of bitcoin and holder of hundreds of millions of dollars worth of the cryptocurrency. At the time he made no comment. The treatment of bitcoins for tax purposes in Australia has been the subject of considerable debate. The Australian Tax Office (ATO) ruled in December 2014 that cryptocurrency should be considered an asset, rather than a currency, for capital gains tax purposes. On Monday, the ATO said it had no comment while police were not immediately available for comment. If Wright is Nakamoto he "is now the leader of a movement", said Roberto Capodieci, a Singapore-based entrepreneur working on the blockchain, the technology underlying the currency. That movement ranges from libertarian enthusiasts to central banks experimenting with digital currencies, all of which pay homage in some way to Nakamoto's writings. (Additional reporting by Jeremy Wagstaff in Singapore, Matt Siegel in Sydney and Paul Sandle in London; Editing by Nick Macfie, Raju Gopalakrishnan and Philippa Fletcher) || Bitcoin has a governance problem, no matter who created it: * Bitcoin founder claims provoke fresh bitcoin bickering
* System needs to evolve to handle rise in transactions
* But lead developers squabble, freeze out one of their peers
* System needs "adults" to make decisions - U.S. professor
By Jemima Kelly
LONDON, May 6 (Reuters) - As one would-be father of bitcoin falls by the wayside, squabbling among the web-based currency's lead developers is exposing a fundamental flaw: it must evolve to meet growing demand, but may lack a governance structure to achieve this.
The latest bickering erupted after Australian entrepreneur Craig Wright promised to prove he was the mysterious creator of bitcoin - which allows users to move money across the world quickly and anonymously - but then said on Thursday he could not provide further evidence to back this up.
Wright stopped short of reneging on his claim to be Satoshi Nakamoto, assumed to be a pseudonym for the person or people who launched the digital cryptocurrency in 2009. However, he apologised for damaging the reputations of bitcoin experts who had believed him.
Many members of the bitcoin community reckon this is all a distraction and agree with Wright when he said that the identity of Nakamoto "doesn't, and shouldn't, matter".
"Satoshi's biggest achievement was to create a system that doesn't require his participation to run," said Peter Todd, one of bitcoin's core software developers. "That's what makes all this stuff kind of funny. It's like searching for the creator of a system that's designed not to require a creator."
While grey-suited central bankers print conventional currencies and commercial banks control transactions in them, no one person or entity is in charge of bitcoin. Instead it runs on a decentralised system of shared trust without any third-party verification of transactions - one reason why many people are attracted to it.
Critics, however, say it needs a "benevolent dictator" or at least some "adults" to manage the expansion that it needs to cope with the increasing number of transactions. Someone, or some group, must decide how to meet users' requirements, they say.
Trades are handled by thousands of "mining" computers around the world which validate blocks of transactions by competing to solve mathematical puzzles every 10 minutes.
The first computer to solve the puzzle clears the transaction and is currently rewarded with 25 new bitcoins, now worth around $11,250.. This is how the computers' owners cover their costs - largely power bills - and make a profit. The system also ensures there is no single point in the system that might fail.
CIVIL WAR
In practice, there do appear to be people who can make decisions, but it is also possible to be excluded from this magic circle.
One of the bitcoin experts who initially believed Wright's claim is Gavin Andresen. Nakamoto handed control of bitcoin's software to Andresen when he stepped aside in 2011, a transfer that kept the creator's identity a mystery as it was conducted in cyberspace without human contact.
Andresen later shared that control with others. But when he stated publicly he believed Wright, sceptical developers responded by revoking his "commit access" to a shared repository of bitcoin rules.
Initially, these developers justified their move on security grounds, saying his computer must have been hacked - something Andresen denied. When Reuters asked Todd whether Andresen's access would be reinstated, he responded: "Heck no", saying a belief in Wright amounted to "inexcusable incompetence".
Andresen admitted to bewilderment over whether he still believed Wright's claims. "Ask me in six months; I don't trust my own judgement right now after all the drama," he said on Twitter.
The squabbling is not new. One of the lead developers, Mike Hearn, stood down from bitcoin in January because of a power struggle nicknamed the "bitcoin civil war".
Hearn and Andresen had proposed increasing the size of the blocks in which transactions are processed but the other developers opposed this. In quitting, Hearn said that "what was meant to be a new, decentralised form of money that lacked systemically important institutions" had now become "a system completely controlled by just a handful of people".
Many investors and start-up firms remain optimistic about bitcoin and are making money from it. But Emin Gun Sirer, a computer science professor at Cornell University, said the appearance of internal conflict was undermining it.
"For bitcoin to retain its value, it's important to have hope that there's good management in charge, that there are adults in charge," Sirer said. "When we see opportunistic moves, that's a problem."
BENEVOLENT DICTATORS
But Sirer also said that any open-source project such as bitcoin, which runs using software that anyone can access, change, and distribute, faces the challenge of governance.
"Is it a pipe dream to expect to be able to build a currency system that is completely decentralized and free of any control whatsoever? The short answer to that is yes, but that's not what anyone should have expected anyway," he said.
Sirer added that he was concerned that his brightest young students at Cornell were being deterred from getting involved with bitcoin because of the in-fighting and the appearance that developers were unable to agree on change.
One other digital currency system which is attracting bright young minds is Ethereum, created in 2013 by Russian-Canadian Vitalik Buterin when he was just 19. It works with the "benevolent dictator model", as Sirer calls it, with Buterin holding the decision-making power.
"Over the last couple of years it's become apparent that having a static protocol is just not a viable approach," Buterin told the Consensus bitcoin conference in New York earlier in the week. "Software has to evolve ... and there has to be some mechanism for agreeing on how software is going to upgrade."
Most, however, reckon that even if Nakamoto were to be found, the other developers - many of whom have written more code than he ever did in the seven years since bitcoin was launched - would not accept his having ultimate power.
"(Nakamoto) would be thanked for creating this amazing thing, but if there comes a time when there's a technical debate over whether we should go one way or the other, his opinions would only be persuasive, not controlling," said Jerry Brito, executive director of bitcoin advocacy group Coin Center.
(Additional reporting by Toby Sterling in Amsterdam; editing by David Stamp) || Bitcoin experts are baffled that one of their star scientists thinks he’s solved the Bitcoin mystery: Warning: getimagesize(): php_network_getaddresses: getaddrinfo failed: Temporary failure in name resolution in /home/sites/www.businessinsider.com/releases/20160428201955/models/Post.php on line 1606 Warning: getimagesize(http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/57270233910584716f8bfe88/craig%20wright.png): failed to open stream: php_network_getaddresses: getaddrinfo failed: Temporary failure in name resolution in /home/sites/www.businessinsider.com/releases/20160428201955/models/Post.php on line 1606 Warning: Division by zero in /home/sites/www.businessinsider.com/releases/20160428201955/models/Post.php on line 1610
(REUTERS/David McNew)This is what we once thought Bitcoin "Satoshi Nakamoto" looked like.
The world, particularly the geek world, can't stand a mystery. That's why there's been so much attention paid to trying to find out who invented Bitcoin, a form of money that lives only on the internet and is created through a complicated set of cryptography security rules.
Bitcoin's creator is known as "Satoshi Nakamoto" only no one knows for sure who Satoshi Nakamoto is.
On Monday morning, the controversy erupted again when Australian businessman Craig Wrightwrote a blog post claimingto be Satoshi Nakamoto.
Wright has been labeled the Bitcoin creator before, in a widely readexpose by Wired in 2015. Wired later admitted it might have fallen for"an elaborate, long-planned hoax."
The problem is, that the proofWright offered in his blog post on Monday, as well as the proof in earlier investigative reports on Wright, has been largely discredited.
On some levels, the proof isn't that complicated to show. Satoshi Nakamoto owns a unique key. Coded, encrypted messages sent to Satoshi Nakamoto's known public address can only be opened with this key.
Although Wright's blog post talked a lot about cryptography and keys, experts who looked at the post said it was at best inconclusive. At worst, they believed it was a charlatan's trick to fool someone without the technical sophistication to understand it.
(Screenshot Via BBC)This is Craig Wright, the guy claiming to be Satoshi Nakamoto, but almost no one believes him.
Or, ascryptography expert Drew Blas wrote: "Wright's post is flimflam and hokum which stands up to a few minutes of cursory scrutiny, and demonstrates a competent sysadmin's level of familiarity with cryptographic tools, but ultimately demonstrates no non-public information about Satoshi."
Another crypto expert, Dan Kaminsky, examined the proof, andlabeled it "intentional scammery."
And based on this stuff, anybody who's anyone would likely dismiss Wright's claims but for one thing:
One of the most respected public figures in the Bitcoin world, Bitcoin Foundation chief scientist, Gavin Andresen, believes Wright.
Andresen published hisown blog post on Mondaywhere he said Craig Wright is indeed Satoshi Nakamoto and that Wright proved it to him. Andresen didn't share the technical proof.
Peopledon't understand why Andresen believes Wrightwhen there's evidence that directly contradicts Wright's claims.
People then started wondering if Andresen'sblog and accounts were hacked.
(Gavin Andresen)Respected Bitcoin developer Gavin Andresen believes Craig Wright is "Satoshi Nakamoto."
And then the Bitcoin community took the shocking move ofbanning Andresen from directly contributing code to the Bitcoin project,at least for now.
They blocked his Github account from being able to add new code to the Bitcoin project.
ThenAndresen said in a public talk on Monday that, no,his accounts were not hacked.
He really believes Wright is the father of Bitcoin.
And the stalemate continues. One of the smartest guys involved in Bitcoin thinks Wright is Satoshi Nakamoto while most of the other smart people involved do not.
As Dan Kaminsky wrote in hispostabout it all: "UPDATE: *facepalm*"
Andresen has not yet responded to a request for comment.
NOW WATCH:ASSAULT RIFLES AND BATH SALTS — John McAfee tells the inside story behind his outrageous viral video
More From Business Insider
• 'Bitcoin is dead'
• Airbnb just brought on a team of bitcoin experts from a tiny startup
• The mysterious creator of bitcoin has been nominated for the Nobel Prize in Economics || The 5 biggest bitcoin and blockchain announcements at Consensus: The big bitcoin conference Consensus descended on Manhattan this week, and a number of significant companies chose it as a venue to announce news. (The ability to own and oversee Consensus was one of the driving factors in the Digital Currency Group's acquisition this year of bitcoin news site CoinDesk, which created the conference .) Most of the excitement about this industry at the moment, from the financial world, is around the use of blockchain, the decentralized ledger technology that underlies the digital currency bitcoin , and less so on the currency itself. Banks and other payment giants are eager to explore how blockchainbut a closed, permissioned form without bitcoin, as opposed to the open, permissionless bitcoin blockchaincould speed up their transaction settlement processes. Much of the buzz and commentary at the conference matched this. But not all people in the industry are so eager to abandon bitcoin. Among lots of interesting news, here are 5 of the biggest stories to come out of the Consensus conference this week. 1. Creator claim It wasnt an announcement made at the conference, but news that broke on the first morning, and it cast a shadow over the entire event. Dr. Craig Wright, an Australian security expert, publicly outed himself as Satoshi Nakamoto , the mysterious creator of bitcoin, in a blog post and in statements to a few select news outlets. The mainstream media grabbed the story and ran with it, but among the crowds at Consensus, people doubted the claim. It only took a few hours for some experts to poke holes in the way that Wright supposedly proved he is Satoshi (he presented evidence that he owns the same private keys used by Satoshi for the first ever transaction), and now the story is looking like yet another entry on the long list of false positives. Dont expect the media to lose interest in identifying Satoshi any time soon, even though it really doesnt matter to the bitcoin technology anymore who created it , because it is open-source and has changed significantly since its inception. (There is one reason people in bitcoin want to know: Satoshi is believed to still hold nearly 1 million bitcoin, or about $450 million at the current price, which means he or she would have the power to crash the market by way of a selloff.) Story continues 2. Delaware's sights on blockchain The state of Delaware announced it wants to use blockchain technology to speed the process of registering new businesses in the state. Its significant not only because government support of this space is so rare, but because Delaware incorporates more public companies than any other state. Bitcoin believers, of course, may scoff at this as another example of blockchain being used for something rather unexciting: improving an old institutions dated IT processes. But Delaware going digital has major implications, since other states could follow. Delaware Gov. Jack Markell even said at Consensus that the state would consider creating a new form of distributed ledger shares in companies registered via blockchain. 3. Banks on board Chain, an enterprise blockchain startup, announced Open Standard 1, a form of blockchain it has built specifically for financial institutions, and a murderers row of launch clients along with it, including Capital One, Citi, Fidelity, Nasdaq, and Visa. To be sure, Chain is one of many competitors vying to build a blockchain for banks and other enterprise clients. The buzziest, in the mainstream business press, has been R3, a blockchain coalition of more than 45 banks , but this week Amazon Web Services ( AMZN ) also announced it would partner with the Digital Currency Group to offer a form of blockchain tech to enterprise clients. Still, with a completed product and big-name backers, Chain could come out to an early lead in this race. 4. The bitcoin computer 21 Inc, which only one year ago was still a mysterious bitcoin startup that had raised more money than any other bitcoin startup ($121 million, fittingly) without revealing what it would even do, came out swinging with the announcement of its next step. In February, 21 began shipping its first product, a small, sleek, personal bitcoin computer for mining bitcoin and building applications to accept bitcoin payments. This week, at Consensus, 21 CEO Balaji Srinavasan said the companys next move is to make every computer a bitcoin computer by making its software compatible with any connected device. That means regular laptops and, eventually, mobile phones. This is a bitcoin innovation that should excite more than just bitcoin developers. Every time you click a link, Srinavasan told Yahoo Finance, you could be earning money. And you could do it without having to know how to mine bitcoin. It could lead to crucial solutions in an area like, say, news website paywalls. 5. Big-name support This ones a double: Two big names in the finance world came out in a surprising show of support for the blockchain industry. Larry Summers, who last week joined the Digital Currency Group as a senior advisor , gave an interview at Consensus in which he went all in on the potential of blockchain technology for Wall Street solutions. Is the blockchain technology going to be fundamental? I think the answer is overwhelmingly likely to be yes, he said. As for bitcoin? Unsurprisingly, he's not as bullish. However, he acknowledged that there are many who believe blockchain without bitcoin defeats the whole purpose, and lacks the excitement, of bitcoin, which is open and decentralized. While there are arguments you cant get all the benefits without bitcoin, my suspicion is that ways will be found to get those benefits without the uncertainty in the value of bitcoin, he said. Glenn Hutchins, meanwhile, the founder of influential venture capital firm Silver Lake and a boardmember at AT&T, Nasdaq, and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, appeared to do a 180 on bitcoin. Hutchins, in the past, had been dismissive of the cryptocurrency. But at Consensus, he delivered a speech on why bitcoin matters, even when the concept of bank blockchains is in vogue. He made the same comparison that has become so popular among bitcoin folks, likening private, closed blockchains to corporate Intranets, a concept that was once more widespread and is now less common and less useful to most companies. Hutchins said he now has plans to invest in bitcoin startups. Hutchins also joined the board of Digital Currency Group, so if youre keeping count, its really DCGwhich owns the conference, added big players to its team, and scored a new funding round this monththat came out the real winner of Consensus. -- Daniel Roberts is a writer at Yahoo Finance, covering sports business and technology. Read more: How big banks are paying lip service to the blockchain Heres how you can invest in the blockchain Bitcoin's biggest investor just bought its biggest news site Here's a sign that PayPal is embracing Bitcoin || Australian says he created bitcoin, but some sceptical: By Byron Kaye and Jemima Kelly SYDNEY/LONDON (Reuters) - Australian tech entrepreneur Craig Wright identified himself as the creator of controversial digital currency bitcoin on Monday but experts were divided over whether he really was the elusive person who has gone by the name of Satoshi Nakamoto until now. Uncovering Nakamoto's real identity would solve a riddle dating back to the publication of the open source software behind the cryptocurrency in 2008, before its launch a year later. Bitcoin has since become the world's most commonly used virtual currency, attracting the interest of banks, speculators, criminals and regulators. Worth a total of $7 billion at current levels, it fell more than 3 percent on Monday -- a normal intraday move for the volatile currency -- after the news, to below $440 from around $455, before recovering slightly. Some online commentators suggested bitcoin's creator could help resolve a bitter row among the currency's software developers that threatens its future. But Wright made no reference to the row in a BBC interview identifying himself as Nakamoto, and as the protocol bitcoin runs on is open-source and cannot be controlled by any one person, it is unclear whether he would be able to influence the way it develops. "I was the main part of it, other people helped me," Wright, who is now living in London, told the BBC. "Some people will believe, Some people won't, and to tell you the truth, I don't really care," he said. Many bitcoiners said Wright had not done enough to definitively prove that he was Nakamoto, who maintained his anonymity throughout his involvement with bitcoin, which he stepped away from in 2011. But Gavin Andresen, who Nakamoto chose to succeed him, published a blog post in which he described meeting Wright last month and said he is convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that the Australian is Nakamoto. Jon Matonis, a founding director of the Bitcoin Foundation now works as a bitcoin consultant, wrote a blog post on Monday which, like Andresens, supported Wrights claims. Story continues According to me, the proof is conclusive and I have no doubt that Craig Steven Wright is the person behind the Bitcoin technology, Nakamoto consensus, and the Satoshi Nakamoto name, Matonis wrote. He and Andresen also confirmed they had been responsible for their respective blog posts to Reuters directly. LEGACY Nakamoto's biggest likely legacy lies well beyond his control. The blockchain technology that underpins the currency could transform the way banks settle transactions, the way that property rights and other vital data are recorded, and provide a way for central banks to issue their own digital currencies. The BBC reported on Monday that Wright gave some technical proof demonstrating that he had access to blocks of bitcoins known to have been created by bitcoin's creator. Researchers believe Nakamoto may be holding up to one million of the more than 15 million bitcoins currently in circulation, which would make the creator worth around $440 million. In a blog post also dated Monday, Wright posted an example of a signature used by Nakamoto and an explanation of how bitcoin transactions are verified and thanked all those who had supported the project from its inception. "This incredible communitys passion and intellect and perseverance have taken my small contribution and nurtured it, enhanced it, breathed life into it," he wrote. However he did not state directly that he was Nakamoto. "Satoshi is dead," he said. "But this is only the beginning." Bitcoin expert Peter Van Valkenburgh, director of research at Washington, D.C.-based advocacy group Coin Center, said a new message cryptographically signed using the private key associated with the so-called Genesis block, the first ever "mined" would have been more convincing. The currency's "miners" are incentivised to process transactions every 10 minutes by a possible reward of bitcoins (25 currently), which is how new bitcoins are created. Wright also spoke with The Economist, but declined requests from the magazine to provide further proof that he was Nakamoto. His representatives told Reuters he would not be taking part in more media interviews for the time being. "Our conclusion is that Mr Wright could well be Mr Nakamoto, but that important questions remain," The Economist said. "Indeed, it may never be possible to establish beyond reasonable doubt who really created bitcoin. Hopes that bitcoin would become broadly used helped buoy its price to more than $1,000 in December 2013, when its market capitalisation was $13 billion compared with today's $7 billion. Wright told The Economist he would exchange bitcoin he owns slowly to avoid pushing down its price. HOME RAIDED In December, police raided Wright's Sydney home and office after Wired magazine named him as the probable creator of bitcoin and holder of hundreds of millions of dollars worth of the cryptocurrency. At the time he made no comment. The treatment of bitcoins for tax purposes in Australia has been the subject of considerable debate. The Australian Tax Office (ATO) ruled in December 2014 that cryptocurrency should be considered an asset, rather than a currency, for capital gains tax purposes. On Monday, the ATO said it had no comment while police were not immediately available for comment. If Wright is Nakamoto he "is now the leader of a movement", said Roberto Capodieci, a Singapore-based entrepreneur working on the blockchain, the technology underlying the currency. That movement ranges from libertarian enthusiasts to central banks experimenting with digital currencies, all of which pay homage in some way to Nakamoto's writings. (Additional reporting by Jeremy Wagstaff in Singapore, Matt Siegel in Sydney and Paul Sandle in London; Editing by Nick Macfie, Raju Gopalakrishnan and Philippa Fletcher) || Coin Citadel to Acquire over $700,000 in Bitcoins: LOS ANGELES, CA / ACCESSWIRE / May 16, 2016 / Coin Citadel ( CCTL ), a holding company, is closing in on acquiring over $750,000 in Bitcoins. We are diligently working on finalizing a transaction for 1,675 Bitcoins which will bring our Bitcoin assets up to 2,251 Bitcoins and closer to a value of one million dollars USD. This will be a Non-dilutive preferred stock transaction. We are extremely excited to be in the Bitcoin Industry. We feel we are in the right place at the right time. We plan to announce more details of this transaction, as well as two additional asset acquisitions, later this week. New CEO James Pulver stated, "As I said in our last press release, my job is to add value to the company, and to take advantage of opportunities like this. The more prudent acquisitions we make, and assets we have, the more valuable our company will be. With this Bitcoin asset, we will have over $1 million dollars in Bitcoins to complement our new upcoming acquisitions. With everything falling into place we feel we are moving forward in the right direction." We would also like to update shareholders, as well as working on getting the company back to a current status on OTCmarkets.com. We want to open other lines of communication with shareholders, through social media such as Twitter, and Facebook. Please be on the lookout for news, filings, and other updates coming shortly. Forward-Looking Statement: Any statements made in this press release which are not historical facts contain certain forward-looking statements; as such term is defined in the Private Security Litigation Reform Act of 1995, concerning potential developments affecting the business, prospects, financial condition and other aspects of the company to which this release pertains. The actual results of the specific items described in this release, and the company's operations generally, may differ materially from what is projected in such forward-looking statements. The company disclaims any obligation to update information contained in any forward-looking statement. This press release shall not be deemed a general solicitation. Story continues Contact: James Pulver, CEO SOURCE: Coin Citadel || Banks, tech companies move on from bitcoin to blockchain: By Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss NEW YORK (Reuters) - As a debate raged across the internet Monday over whether the mysterious founder of the bitcoin digital currency had finally been identified, executives at a major bitcoin conference in New York had a simple message: we've moved on. That's because bitcoin, the digital currency, has largely been supplanted by blockchain, the technology that underlies it, as the main interest of investors, technology companies and financial institutions. "If there is a 100 percent opportunity in the blockchain, bitcoin, or the currency, is only 1 percent of it," said Jerry Cuomo, vice president, Blockchain Technologies at International Business Machines Corp. "So there is a whole 99 percent that has broad applications across the broad industries." Over the past year numerous Wall Street firms, led by Goldman Sachs, have declared their commitment to pursuing blockchain as a potential revolutionary technology for tracking and clearing financial transactions. The blockchain technology works by creating permanent, public "ledgers" of all transactions that could potentially replace complicated clearing and settlement systems with one simple ledger. Still, bitcoin is by far the largest implementation of blockchain technology and there is considerable debate as to whether one can truly develop without the other. "Bitcoin is still the only blockchain-enabled, cross-border large scale, provable application that's actually in production," said Joseph Guastella, a principal at Deloitte Consulting in New York. "Bitcoin as a currency may not be as relevant as it was in many ways, but it actually is relevant as a proof case for the blockchain technology." Bitcoins are created through a "mining" process, in which specialized computers solve complex math problems in exchange for bitcoins. One bitcoin is equivalent to $444.75 late on Monday and trade on various exchanges around the world. But bitcoin transaction volume has been in decline over the past six months amid a bitter split over technical changes in the protocol that are needed to increase the capacity of the system that produces them. Because the cryptocurrency has no formal governance, it relies on a core group of developers for direction - and they are sharply divided over the changes. But that debate was of relatively little concern to the Blockchain enthusiasts gathered in New York. Australian tech entrepreneur Craig Wright identified himself on Monday as the creator of controversial digital currency bitcoin. "It's irrelevant because his announcement doesn't solve a problem or resolve a conflict," said Bharat Solanki, managing director at Cambrian Consulting in New York. Story continues "It probably helps to determine the origins of bitcoin but only for recognition," Solanki said. For Naoki Taniguchi, a global innovation expert at The Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ Ltd in San Francisco, he does not really care about who created bitcoin. "It's all about the blockchain," he said. View comments || Halliburton and Baker Hughes deal called off: Wall Street braces from the latest out of Puerto Rico's endless debt crisis. Here are some of the other top stories the Yahoo Finance team is following this morning. Merger deal called off between Halliburton & Baker Hughes Baker Hughes ( BHI) will buy back $1.5 billion in stock after a merger was called off with Halliburton ( HAL ). The $28 billion merger deal is off after opposition from U.S. and European antitrust regulators. Hulu wants to create streaming tv service: WSJ Hulu wants to move beyond web streaming and challenge cable companies with its own Internet TV service. Customers will be able to live stream channels including FOX ( NWS ), ABC, and ESPN ( DIS ), according to reports. Its estimated the new Hulu service will be around $40 a month. Craig Wright reportedly steps forward as Bitcoin creator The creator of Bitcoin has reportedly stepped forward. Australian tech entrepreneur Craig Wright says he is the person responsible for the digital currency. Bitcoin fell more than 3% in value after the news of Wright went public.
[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
$459.66 #coinbase;
$456.00 #bitfinex;
$455.66 #bitstamp;
$453.80 #btce;
Prices & News: http://bit.ly/1VI6Yse
#bitcoin #btc || $456.87 at 21:00 UTC [24h Range: $453.51 - $457.25 Volume: 1435 BTC] || #TrinityCoin #TTY $ 0.000013 (-1.77 %) 0.00000003 BTC (-0.00 %) || A unregistered user has won a round in a playground (Faucet) and won 0.00005000 BTC, join @ChopCoin and earn BTC (00:50UTC) || NigeriaInvestme : The easiest way to get Bitcoin - http://moonbit.co.in/?ref=a53569c5668d … || Current price: 421.39$ $BTCUSD $btc #bitcoin 2016-04-06 21:00:06 EDT || 1 #bitcoin 1364.71 TL, 442.997 $, 398.79 €, GBP, 28360.00 RUR, 48780 ¥, CNH, CAD #btc || 1 #bitcoin 1321.12 TL, 451.23 $, 393.235 €, GBP, 28517.00 RUR, 49381 ¥, CNH, CAD #btc || #UFOCoin #UFO $ 0.000022 (26.37 %) 0.00000005 BTC (25.00 %) || 1 MUE Price: Bittrex 0.00000065 BTC YoBit 0.00000062 BTC Bleutrade 0.00000070 BTC #MUE #MUEprice 2016-04-10 21:00 pic.twitter.com/EF26EAugct
|
Trend: up || Prices: 473.46, 530.04, 526.23, 533.86, 531.39, 536.92, 537.97, 569.19, 572.73, 574.98
|
Analyze the provided historical prices, technical indicators, news, and social media sentiment from the last 60 days. Based on this context, predict the overall trend (up, down, or no change) and the specific daily closing prices for Bitcoin for the next 10 days.
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[Technical Analysis for 2021-06-18]
BTC Price: 35787.25, BTC RSI: 42.61
Gold Price: 1767.90, Gold RSI: 27.47
Oil Price: 71.64, Oil RSI: 66.97
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
‘Entities I Control Possess 111,000 Bitcoin,’ Says MicroStrategy CEO: CEO of MicroStrategy Michael Saylor has doubled down during the recent crypto crash, stating he is not selling as bitcoin (BTC) falls to around $30,000.
As the prices of cryptocurrencies continue to tumble, Saylor appears unfazed by the crash, after spending$15 million last weekto buy even more bitcoin. The CEO of MicroStrategystated on his Twitterthat entities he controls hold more than 111,000 bitcoins.
That total includes MicroStrategy’s 92,079 BTC, a total reached afterspending $10 millionyesterday to acquire229 additional coins. The total may or may not include Saylor’s secret stash of personal coins.
The last time Saylor did speak about his personal wallet, he claimed to own 17,732 bitcoins in October of 2020. Combine the two, 92,079 and 17,732, and you get a shade under 110,000, which suggests the total does include Saylor’s personal account and that he bought some more himself recently.
The announcement by Saylor comes during a tumultuous period in the crypto market, with prices falling left and right.The price of bitcoinalone saw the bottom fall out and dropped to around $30,000 at one point. Ethrerum (ETH) saw its price fall to around $2,500, while the meme coin DOGE dipped under $0.35.
During the crash, Saylor tweeted to his nearly one million followers three simple words,“I’m not selling.”This confidence should come as no surprise to anyone that follows Saylor. He has long been a supporter of cryptocurrencies and even hosts a Bitcoin for Corporations digital conference.
The company he heads up, MicroStrategy, is an enterprise analytic software firm and has become one of the biggest institutional holders of bitcoin in 2021. MicroStrategy’s stock fell along with their investments in crypto to the tune of 15% this morning as the digital market crashed.
Saylor and MicroStrategy do have their detractors, including bitcoin critic Peter Schiff. In atweetof his own, Schiff compared Saylor to Captain Ahab and MicroStrategy to the Pequod. “His obsession with bitcoin will not only be his death but it will kill everyone onboard MSTR. Shareholders must choose between mutiny or jumping ship.”
The chief economist and global strategist at Euro Pacific Capital also said that Saylor offered “asinine advice” to hold BTC as an inflammatory hedge. Saylor responded witha screenshotthat showed gold provided 77% fewer returns than bitcoin over the last calendar year. || Pipeline operator says "normal operations" have resumed: ATLANTA (AP) The operator of the nation's largest gasoline pipeline hit on May 7th by a ransomware attack announced Saturday that it has resumed normal operations," delivering fuel to its markets, including a large swath of the East Coast. Georgia-based Colonial Pipeline had begun the process of restarting the pipeline's operations on Wednesday evening, warning it could take several days for the supply chain to return to normal. Since that time, we have returned the system to normal operations, delivering millions of gallons per hour to the markets we serve, Colonial Pipeline said in a tweet Saturday. Those markets include Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee, Georgia, South and North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, Washington D.C., Delaware, Pennsylvania and New Jersey. All of these markets are now receiving product from our pipeline, the company said, noting how its employees across the pipeline worked safely and tirelessly around the clock to get our lines up and running. Gas shortages, which spread from the South, all but emptying stations in Washington, D.C., have been improving since a peak on Thursday night. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm told The Associated Press on Friday that the nation is over the hump on gas shortages, with about 200 stations returning to service every hour. Its still going to work its way through the system over the next few days, but we should be back to normal fairly soon," she said. Some stations were still out of gas in Raleigh, North Carolina, on Saturday. Driver Jermaine Barnes told CBS17 the shortage has made him more conservative with his trips. Im not going places I dont need to go, he said. Im not visiting people. Im watching where Im driving. Im doing everything different right now. Some drivers responded angrily on Facebook Saturday to a post by ABC-13 in Asheville, North Carolina, about the pipeline resuming normal operations. Several said the majority of gas stations still did not have fuel and those that did receive deliveries were quickly selling out. Story continues Martha Meade, manager for public and government relations at AAA Mid-Atlantic, said many gas stations in the Virginia area still did not have gas on Saturday. But she said lines have diminished from the height of the crisis and panic buying has subsided. Multiple sources confirmed to The Associated Press that Colonial Pipeline had paid the criminals who committed the cyberattack a ransom of nearly $5 million in cryptocurrency for the software decryption key required to unscramble their data network. The ransom 75 Bitcoin was paid last Saturday, a day after the criminals locked up Colonials corporate network, according to Tom Robinson, co-founder of the cryptocurrency-tracking firm Elliptic. Prior to Robinsons blog post, two people briefed on the case had confirmed the payment amount to AP. The pipeline system delivers about 45% of the gasoline consumed on the East Coast. __ This story corrects that the ransomware attack occurred on May 7 and not last week. || Bitcoin Price Decline Deepens, Heads for Worst Week Since February: Bitcoin’s price extended its recent decline late Thursday, falling for the seventh day in nine, to as low as $50,450.
The largest cryptocurrency was changing hands around $51,800 as of 21:23 coordinated universal time (5:23 p.m. ET).
Bitcoin (BTC) is down 9.8% since Sunday, the biggest drop on the weekly price charts since late February.
Related:Dogecoin and the New Meaning of Money
A recent rally in prices for ether (ETH) and otheralternative cryptocurrencieshas coincided with astalling outin bitcoin’s rally this year.
Earlier Thursday, bitcoin’s so-called dominance ratio – its market capitalization as a share of that for all cryptocurrencies –slipped below 50% for the first time since 2018.
Bitcoin also has broken below its 50-day moving price average on the daily chart, seen as a sign ofslowing momentum.
Pankaj Balani, CEO of crypto derivatives venue Delta Exchange,told CoinDeskearlier Thursday the outlook was starting to look bearish for bitcoin.
Related:Sudan and the Human Rights Case for Bitcoin
“BTC has slipped below the 50-day moving average support that it held sacrosanct through this rally, and looks like there is more downside here,” Balani said.
• Bitcoin Price Decline Deepens, Heads for Worst Week Since February
• Bitcoin Price Decline Deepens, Heads for Worst Week Since February || The First US-Based Non-Custodial Instant Cryptocurrency Exchange Launches Today: CryptiSwap© Allows Users to Remain in Control of Their Digital Funds & Swap All Kinds of Crypto SAN FRANCISCO, CA / ACCESSWIRE / April 29, 2021 / As cryptocurrency has increasingly become accepted as a means of payment for goods and services by major financial corporations around the world, CryptiSwap© , San Francisco's first non-custodial instant cryptocurrency exchange, announced today the launch of its new app that allows its users to remain in control of their digital funds. Now available for download on IOS and Android devices, CryptiSwap© enables its users to choose, send and receive all forms of cryptocurrencies including Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, Dogecoin, Zcash, Dash and Monero without registration or giving up their private key. Arguably the easiest cryptocurrency exchange to navigate, users will be able to place trades straight from the homepage or app as all swaps are done internally, resulting in cheaper and quicker transactions. According to recent figures collected by Statista.com, the global number of identity-verified cryptocurrency users from 2016 to the 3rd quarter of 2020 was 101 million. As we approach the halfway mark of 2021, this number is believed to be much higher. "After eight months of research and development, Cryptiswap was born out of necessity in order to keep up with the demand for the blockchain market. As restrictions around Cryptocurrency gradually continue to be lifted in the US, Cryptiswap makes it even easier for the general public to adopt this new way of life," said Andrew, Founder of Cryptiswap. "Imagine having to ask a bank for permission every time you would like to withdraw money. This is what it's like for many online crypto exchanges currently. While this is fine, some people prefer to always be in control by keeping their funds stored offline, preventing them from being stolen. So as a non-custodial exchange, this is what Cryptiswap offers." Story continues To download the app, visit the Google Play or Apple Store on your mobile device. For more information and to use the online currency exchange, visit https://cryptiswap.org/ . Disclosure: Cryptiswap Inc. or any of it's members are not an SRO or licensed with the SEC' Media Contacts: Andrew Elkhoury 415-800-4677 admin@cryptiswap.org SOURCE: Cryptiswap Inc. View source version on accesswire.com: https://www.accesswire.com/643402/The-First-US-Based-Non-Custodial-Instant-Cryptocurrency-Exchange-Launches-Today || Bitcoin Latinum Now Pre-Listed on CoinMarketCap: PALO ALTO, Calif., June 16, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) --Bitcoin Latinum, the next-generation insured Bitcoin fork capable of massive transaction volume, digital asset management, cyber security, and capacity is announcing CoinMarketCap has pre-listed the new cryptocurrency ahead of its official public launch on exchanges across the globe in Q3 2021. Bitcoin Latinum's profile on CoinMarketCap (currently identified as "untracked" until the public listing) can be viewed at:https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/bitcoin-latinum/
Founded in 2013, CoinMarketCap has become the world's premier price-tracking and market capitalization authority website for cryptocurrencies. It is the most referenced and trusted source for comparing thousands of digital assets in the rapidly growing cryptocurrency space by users, institutions, and media. CoinMarketCap has between 2.5 and 5 million unique daily visitors on its platform.
Bitcoin Latinum is an enhanced Bitcoin fork. The Bitcoin Latinum algorithm and infrastructure break barriers and speed limits that have prevented some virtual currencies from achieving practical, real-time use. Bitcoin Latinum – to trade under LTNM – will be mining-free, with a supply of 888,888,888 pre-mined tokens.
Bitcoin Latinum sold out its initial pre-sale with over nine figures committed from buyers across the globe in November 2020. In Q2 2021 Bitcoin Latinum announced a groundbreaking green initiative in support of the Crypto Climate Accord. This will be achieved through an energy efficient consensus protocol system for settling transactions.
The Bitcoin Latinum tokens are a part of a blockchain ecosystem being adopted by companies in media, gaming, storage, cloud, and telecommunications. Bitcoin Latinum tokens will be interchangeably used on each of these partner/supplier networks by consumers. In addition, Bitcoin Latinum adds security around inflight transactions and enhanced consensus node protection based on memory scanning technology.
The industry remains bullish on Bitcoin pricing and market adoption. Gartner stated that blockchain technology will create more than $176 billion dollars worth of business value by 2025 and $3.1 trillion by 2030. Early Bitcoin adopters, Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, have vowed to keep their coin holdings until the price of Bitcoin hits $500,000. In a recent interview, they stated, "With a market capitalization of $10 trillion, we believe that one Bitcoin will be worth $500,000. And we think that could happen within this decade. Definitely in the next five years. We are holders up to at least $500,000."
Monsoon Blockchain Corporation, Asia's premier blockchain company, was selected by Bitcoin Latinum as its foundation partner. Monsoon is focused on innovative cloud solutions in the blockchain ecosystem, leveraging the latest blockchain technology to develop powerful business solutions that allow the successful digitization of and listing of assets across a variety of industries, including financial services, telecommunications, and media and entertainment. Dr. Donald Basile, Monsoon's CEO and founder, is the former CEO of Fusion IO, a company known for playing a major role in implementing the cloud systems at Apple and Facebook as well as partnerships with HP, IBM, and Dell.
Recently, Monsoon Blockchain Corporation added advisory board members Ken Goldman, President of Hillspire (Eric Schmidt's family office), and former CFO of Yahoo and Fortinet, and Winston Ma to their team. Mr. Ma was the former Managing Director and Head of the North America Office for China Investment Corporation (CIC), China's $1 trillion sovereign wealth fund.
FOR EDUCATIONAL AND INFORMATION PURPOSES ONLY; NOT INVESTMENT ADVICE. Any Bitcoin Latinum offered is for educational and informational purposes only and should NOT be construed as a securities-related offer or solicitation or be relied upon as personalized investment advice. Bitcoin Latinum strongly recommends you consult a licensed or registered professional before making any investment decision.
Media contact
Company: Bitcoin Latinum
Contact: Kai Okada
E-mail: kai.okada@bitcoinlatinum.com
Website:https://bitcoinlatinum.com/
Address: 2100 Geng Road, Palo Alto, California 94303, USA
Telephone: +1 800-528-0985
SOURCE:Bitcoin Latinum || Texas promotes 'master plan' to lure the world's crypto billionaires forced out of China: Two technicians inspect bitcon mining at Bitfarms in Saint Hyacinthe, Quebec - LARS HAGBERG/AFP/Getty Images Texas has unveiled a master plan to lure the worlds crypto billionaires to the state, offering cheap energy, secure transactions and respite from the Chinese government crackdown on bitcoin mining. Blockchain is a booming industry that Texas needs to be involved in, said Governor Greg Abbot as he signed into law a plan which allows state-chartered banks to provide custody, or safekeeping, services for virtual currencies. The lone star state is fast-becoming a favourable destination for bitcoin miners, who use thousands of computers and enormous amounts of electricity to create the digital currencies. The conditions contrast with China, where miners are leaving in their droves after top economic officials in Beijing pledged to crack down on bitcoin mining and trading last month. Since then, the pressure has intensified, with allegations of crypto chat being censored on social media, hotlines being set up to report illegal operations and four major provinces - Xinjiang, Qinghai, Yunnan and Sichuan - banning bitcoin production. China is seeking to act swiftly in order to meet its climate goals and because it cannot regulate a decentralised currency. Researchers at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences predicted earlier this year that Chinas bitcoin mining industry could consume more energy than Italy by 2024. Jiang Zhuoer told the Washington Post how he installed 300,000 computers in 20 specially ventilated warehouses across northern China, so that he could mine bitcoin and become a multimillionaire. The electricity was cheap, but it was coming from fossil fuels and now he is winding down his operations and considering shipping the equipment to Texas. You are going to see a dramatic shift over the next few months, said Brandon Arvanaghi, a former security engineer at crypto exchange Gemini. Illustrative representation of a bitcoin - REUTERS/Edgar Su We have governors like Greg Abbott in Texas who are promoting mining, he told CNBC. It is going to become a real industry in the United States, which is going to be incredible. Story continues Texas not only has the cheapest electricity in the US but some of the cheapest in the globe, he said. Its also very easy to start up a mining company. Argo Blockchain CEO Peter Wall recently told Bitcoin Magazine: "We chose West Texas because it offers us some of the lowest electricity rates in the world and the majority is from renewable sources, namely wind and solar. But there has been a backlash. Critics have pointed out that Texass power grid failed during a winter storm earlier this year and that the significant drain on resources could lead to future blackouts. More than four million people were left without power, some for days, and 111 people died. || Spectrum Brands (SPB) Up More Than 16% on Business Momentum: Spectrum Brands Holdings, Inc . SPB has been benefiting from solid demand for its products along with contributions from the Global Productivity Improvement Plan (GPIP). This led to better-than-expected results in second-quarter fiscal 2021, wherein both top and bottom lines improved year over year. Also, new product launches, strong cash flow and improved profitability aided results. Encouragingly, management lifted the fiscal 2021 view. The company now anticipates sales growth in mid-teens, up from the earlier view of high-single-digit growth. This includes a favorable impact of foreign currency. Further, adjusted EBITDA is likely to rise in mid-teens, up from the prior view of high-single-digit growth. As a result, shares of this Zacks Rank #3 (Hold) company have rallied 16.1% in the past three months against the industry and the Consumer Discretionary sector’s declines of 7.5% and 4.9%, respectively. That said, let’s delve into other factors aiding the stock. Factors Driving the Stock Spectrum Brands is progressing well with the GPIP, which aims at improving its operating efficiency and effectiveness while focusing on consumer insights and growth-enabling functions including technology, marketing, and research and development. The company’s second-quarter fiscal 2021 results reflected gains from the plan. Despite elevated freight and raw-material costs, favorable volumes and better productivity related to the GPIP aided the bottom line. Encouragingly, it raised its savings target for the GPIP to $200 million, expected to be achieved by the end of fiscal 2022. Notably, majority of these savings are expected to be reinvested in growth initiatives and consumer insights, R&D, and marketing across its businesses. Moreover, the company’s pet business is on track with exiting non-core assets and activities, in sync with the aforementioned plan. This move will also enable it to focus on core brands. It is also on track with its plans to tap into the aquatics and reptile space. In this context, Spectrum Brands remains focused on the integration process of its newly acquired Omega Sea, which is now part of its Global Pet Care portfolio of aquatic brands. Also, the company is making efforts to strengthen its leadership in the dog chews category via the acquisition of Armitage Pet Care. During the fiscal second quarter, the Global Pet Care business improved 23.9%, driven by growth in aquatic and companion animal categories along with solid online sales. Also, strong e-commerce sales along with a spike in demand for aquatics and reptile kits and equipment contributed to segment growth. Going ahead, the pet segment remains poised for growth in 2021, backed by its pipeline of robust innovation and growth strategy. Story continues Headwinds to Overcome Although such upsides raise optimism, things are not all rosy for Spectrum Brands. The company witnessed elevated expenses including advertising and marketing costs as well as higher incentive and distribution expenses in second-quarter fiscal 2021. Also, demand and supply-related disruptions stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic along with gross tariff headwinds remain concerns. Apart from these, it is reeling under elevated freight and raw-material costs. Wrapping Up All said, we believe that Spectrum Brands is likely to sustain its momentum, driven by robust demand in the pet segment and contributions from the GPIP, as reflected by the positive fiscal 2021 view. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for fiscal 2021 is pegged at $6.08 per share, which has moved up 12.2% in the past 30 days. Moreover, a VGM Score of A reflects its inherent strength. Stocks to Consider Crocs CROX, a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy) stock, has an impressive long-term earnings growth rate of 15%. You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here . Lifetime Brands LCUT has an expected long-term earnings growth rate of 13%. Also, the company currently flaunts a Zacks Rank #1. Funko FNKO has a long-term earnings growth rate of 27.2% and a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy), at present. Bitcoin, Like the Internet Itself, Could Change Everything Blockchain and cryptocurrency have sparked one of the most exciting discussion topics of a generation. Some call it the “Internet of Money” and predict it could change the way money works forever. If true, it could do to banks what Netflix did to Blockbuster and Amazon did to Sears. Experts agree we’re still in the early stages of this technology, and as it grows, it will create several investing opportunities. Zacks has just revealed 3 companies that can help investors capitalize on the explosive profit potential of Bitcoin and the other cryptocurrencies with significantly less volatility than buying them directly. See 3 crypto-related stocks now >> Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report Crocs, Inc. (CROX) : Free Stock Analysis Report Funko, Inc. (FNKO) : Free Stock Analysis Report Lifetime Brands, Inc. (LCUT) : Free Stock Analysis Report To read this article on Zacks.com click here. Zacks Investment Research || Bitcoin Leads Price Sell-Off Across Crypto Markets as Biden Tax Plan Bites: Bitcoin slipped on Friday as reports of U.S. President Joe Biden mulling a tax hike on wealthy Americans drew stronger selling pressure in the spot market.
The biggest cryptocurrency traded well below the 100-day simple moving average support of $49,470 during the European hours, marking the first breakdown of the widely tracked technical line in six months and extending the recent sell-off from record highs above $64,000.
Other alternative cryptocurrencies such asether, binance token,XRP,dogecoin, suffered bigger pullbacks, having outperformed bitcoin in recent days. Dogecoin slipped nearly 25%, while others witnessed 14% to 18% drawdowns against bitcoin’s 11% drop.
Related:NYSE Files to List Shares of Valkyrie's Bitcoin ETF
“The market has been trading extremely risk on due to Federal Reserve’s [liquidity-boosting] policy that supported risk trades. Now the reality of the Biden administration hits, and the market is going to start worrying about taxes & regulations,” Phillip Gillespie, CEO of the over-the-counter liquidity provider B2C2 Japan, told CoinDesk.
As perThe New York Times, President Biden is planning to roughly double the tax on capital gains or proceeds earned from selling assets to 39.6% from 20%. The new rate will be applicable for people earning more than $1 million a year.
The news hit the wires late Thursday and tanked the U.S. equity markets, aggravating the weakness inbitcoin.
“The cryptocurrency was already on the defensive, having breached the long-held 50-day SMA support earlier this week,” Pankaj Balani, co-founder and CEO of the Singapore-based Delta Exchange. “The tax news invited more profit-taking.”
Related:Money Reimagined - May 1, 2021
Bitcoin dropped sharply from $60,000 to $52,148 early Sunday, taking the cryptocurrency below the 50-day SMA for the first time since October. While that move was largely derivatives-driven, the latest drop below $50,000 is likely a result of selling in the spot market.
“I think ultimately at the core, it’s a spot-driven sell-off, with the market having been quite vulnerable to pullback after a parabolic price surge in Q1 2021,” Joel Kruger, currency strategist at LMAX Digital, said.
The U.S.-based Coinbase exchange has seen big offers (blue) in the past 24 hours. Bitfinex sellers (green) appear to have played a role as well, according to data provided by Coin Metrics.
Further, exchanges witnessed a net inflow of 20,370 BTC on Wednesday, the highest since March 20, according to data source Glassnode. Investors typically move coins to exchanges when they want to liquidate their holdings.
Bitcoin might regain some poise over the next few days, having seen a 25% drop since Coinbase’s debut on Nasdaq on April 14. However, a solid v-shaped recovery may remain elusive, as per trader and analyst Alex Kruger.
“Crashes characterized by heavy spot selling don’t bounce as hard, making BTFD (buy the f***ing dip) much more challenging,” trader and analystAlex Kruger tweetedearly today.
According to Delta Exchange’s Pankaj Balani, the market is likely to remain choppy till the end of June, and rallies could be short-lived. “It’s a sell on the rise market for now,” Balani said, a convincing move above $60,000 would revive the bullish bias.
Renewed whale buying may be needed to revive the animal spirits in the bitcoin market.
Bitcoin’s bullish momentum has steadily weakened over the past two months alongside the near 10% drop in the whale entities – clusters of crypto wallet addresses held by a single network participant holding at least 1,000 bitcoin
For now, short-term technical studies appear to have rolled over in favor of the bears, and the negative bias would strengthen if prices find acceptance under the 100-day SMA.
“A deeper pullback is certainly possible. One needs to look no further than a still well extended monthly chart that warns of the risk for additional weakness and consolidation before that next major leg higher,” LMAX Digital’s Joel Kruger said, adding that their focus is on a longer-term upside.
According to Curtis Ting, Kraken’s managing director of Europe, the latest 25% pullback is typical of a bull market correction and the broader bias remains constructive. Indeed, bitcoin saw several 20%-30% drawdowns during the 2017 bull run.”We won’t attempt to make short-term predictions on the price, but bitcoin’s core fundamentals and value proposition remain unchanged.” Ting said.
Bitcoin is changing hands near $48,000 at press time, and the SMA is located at $49,470, according to CoinDesk 20 data.
Also read:Bitcoin Traders Are Buying More Downside Protection, Options Data Shows
• Bitcoin Leads Price Sell-Off Across Crypto Markets as Biden Tax Plan Bites
• Bitcoin Leads Price Sell-Off Across Crypto Markets as Biden Tax Plan Bites || Ethereum to reduce emissions as cryptos face climate scrutiny: Ethereum (ETH-USD), the world's second biggest cryptocurrency, is set to get a software upgrade that will drastically reduce its carbon footprint.
Developers who work on ethereum's underlying infrastructure saidin a blog post this weekthat the cryptocurrency would be transitioning to a new method of recording and validating transactions that will reduce carbon emissions by an estimated 99.95%.
The planned overhaul comes amid growing scrutiny of the environmental impact of cryptocurrencies. Last week Tesla (TSLA) boss Elon Musk said his business wasabandoning plans to accept bitcoin as payment, citing environmental concerns.
Read more:How bad is bitcoin for the environment?
In a blog post this week, the Ethereum Foundation — a non-profit that works to maintain the network underpinning the digital asset — said it would soon shift ethereum to a new infrastructure that would "end the process of expending a country’s worth of energy on consensus."
Developers plan to shift ethereum from a "proof of work" system to a "proof of stake" system.
Watch: What are the risks of investing in cryptocurrency?
Under a proof of work system, computers around the world complete cryptographic maths equations to validate and secure transactions on the network. Solving these equations uses up huge amounts of electricity in the form of computing power. The vast power required stops one individual or group from being able to target the network and overpower it, theoretically allowing an entity to write in transactions sending themselves cryptocurrency.
Under a proof of stake system, participants in the network simply have to prove they hold ethereum to contribute to its underlying operations. Computers "stake" their ethereum and in return can validate and secure transactions on the network. A majority of participants in the network must validate transactions for them to go through, which acts as a check against fraud.
Carl Beekhuizen, a developer at the Ethereum Foundation, said in a blog that while there was no "concrete statistics on energy consumption" for ethereum, his "ballpark" estimates suggested the change in the infrastructure would reduce its energy usage by around 99.95%.
Read more:Bitcoin, ethereum and the blockchain technology behind decentralised finance
"A Proof-of-Stake Ethereum therefore consumes something on the order of 2.62 megawatt," Beekhuizen wrote. "This is not on the scale of countries, provinces, or even cities, but that of a small town (around 2,100 American homes).
"For reference, Proof-of-Work (PoW) consensus on Ethereum currently consumes the energy equivalent of a medium-sized country."
Analysts at Bank of America said in March that ethereum was estimated to be using the same amount of energy each year as Cuba.
Beekhuizen said a proof of stake system would mean energy usage is uncorrelated with price. Under the current system, ethereum's energy usage rises and falls in line with its price.
The planned transition comes as cryptocurrencies face heightened scrutiny of their environmental impact. Elon Musk was forced to abandon plans for Tesla to accept bitcoin (BTC-USD) as payment, following a backlash linked to the cryptocurrency's environmental impact.
Bitcoin also uses a proof of work model. Its underlying network uses more energy per year than Ukraine. Analysts at Bank of America said earlier this year thatinvestors had to "pay attention to the enormous environmental costs of Bitcoin".
Read more:Tesla's bitcoin investment has carbon footprint of 1.8 million cars
Beekhuizen said ethereum's new infrastructure means each transaction should use the same amount of electricity as "about 20 minutes of TV."
"By contrast, Ethereum PoW uses the equivalent energy of a house for 2.8 days per transaction and Bitcoin consumes 38 house-days worth," he wrote.
The changes will have major implications for the environmental impact of the broader cryptocurrency space. Ethereum is used as the infrastructure for many other cryptocurrency projects andso-called "decentralized finance" applications.
Shifting ethereum from proof of work to proof of stake has been planned for years but the plan has been beset by political and technical problems. Beekhuizen said the infrastructure was now up and running and being tested. The foundation hopes to complete the shift in the "upcoming months".
Bank of America analysts said earlier this year that the shift to proof of stake "could reduce Ether's carbon footprint" but warned it would "increase both the social and governance risks of this crypto-currency."
News of the looming shift came as ethereum and other cryptocurrencies crashed to the lowest point in months. A broad sell-off hit the market on Wednesday, wiping out billions. Ethereum dropped as much as 40% on the day before recovering on Thursday.
Watch: How to prevent getting into debt || Crypto Directory Shows Continued Interest in Monero Adoption: The adoption of monero by merchants and retailers continues to rise . That’s according to updated metrics from Cryptwerk, an online directory of companies, websites, shops and services where people can pay with bitcoin and other popular cryptocurrencies, such as monero . Monero is one of the more prominent and popularly transacted privacy coins in the cryptocurrency field, with almost $7 billion in market cap, according to CoinMarketCap. Currently, monero (XMR) is accepted at over 950 merchants on the site. In July of 2018, for comparison, only 41 merchants on Cryptwerk accepted monero. Related: Elliptic Is Mapping Bitcoin Stolen From 2016 Bitfinex Hack In the month of May alone the number of merchants accepting monero on the platform rose by 31. The majority of merchants are also located in the U.S., which captured nearly 25% of merchants listed. The next closest was Russia, with just over 10%. There are 208 discounts and special offers if users pay with XRM. Cryptwerk also lists 28 payment gateways that allow merchants to accept XMR. Monero was the eighth-ranked coin out of 25 on the platform, in terms of its popularity with merchants. The continued interest tracks as well with Monero’s own figures , looking at figures from April 2020 to April 2021. In that period monero transactions grew from around 10,000 transactions per day to 23,000 transactions per day. During that same period, Monero’s blockchain size grew 180% faster year over year, while the average transaction size dropped 13.76%. Related: Colonial Pipeline Paid Almost $5M Crypto Ransom Soon After Attack: Report Responding to Cryptwerk’s Reddit post, some users sought to add their companies to the directory . The concentration of merchants in the U.S. was interesting given that privacy coins have been under scrutiny . Last year, law firm Perkins Coie released a white paper contending that privacy-enabling cryptocurrencies were not in need of specific and ratcheted-up anti-money laundering (AML) regulations. Parts of the paper pointed to the fact that these cryptocurrencies were no more risky than things like cash, for example. Story continues “Ultimately, absent evidence that existing AML regulations cannot adequately address the risks posed by privacy coins, there is no reason to impose new and overbroad AML requirements that specifically target privacy coins,” wrote the authors. Related Stories Sienna Network Raises $11.2M to Build Out DeFi Functionality on Secret Platform Over 20 Organizations Form Alliance to Focus on Data Privacy and Monetization
[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
None available.
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Trend: down || Prices: 35615.87, 35698.30, 31676.69, 32505.66, 33723.03, 34662.44, 31637.78, 32186.28, 34649.64, 34434.34
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Analyze the provided historical prices, technical indicators, news, and social media sentiment from the last 60 days. Based on this context, predict the overall trend (up, down, or no change) and the specific daily closing prices for Bitcoin for the next 10 days.
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[Technical Analysis for 2018-10-18]
BTC Price: 6476.71, BTC RSI: 47.62
Gold Price: 1226.50, Gold RSI: 61.63
Oil Price: 68.65, Oil RSI: 37.67
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
3 Reasons FANG Stocks Will Bounce Back: It was a rough week for the four titans of tech that have emerged as market darlings in recent years. Shares of Facebook (NASDAQ: FB) , Amazon.com (NASDAQ: AMZN) , Netflix (NASDAQ: NFLX) , and Google parent Alphabet (NASDAQ: GOOG) (NASDAQ: GOOGL) -- collectively called FANG stocks -- took a step back during the holiday-abridged week. Facebook: down 7.2% Amazon: down 3% Netflix: down 6.3% Alphabet: down 4.4% The four stocks lost an average of 5.2%, a far cry from the S&P 500's comparable 1% slide during the same four trading days. A common observation among financial journos is that sector rotation is the culprit. Investors are moving away from the four stocks, which have delivered scintillating returns over the past few years. FANG has fallen out of fashion, but let's go over some of the reasons why the sell-off last week was overdone. Fuller House on Netflix. Image source: Netflix. 1. FANG companies remain as relevant as ever There were plenty of things weighing on the four companies that make up the FANG universe. Facebook was testifying on Capitol Hill, explaining what it will do to make sure that nefarious forces don't try to influence users leading up to November's midterm elections. Alphabet was also invited, but chose not to attend. Netflix took a hit after an analyst offered up some rosy growth prospects for a Netflix rival that hasn't even been launched yet. Amazon held up the best among the four entities -- even briefly topping $1 trillion in market cap for the first time earlier in the week -- but it seems as if CEO Jeff Bezos can't escape political heat coming from the left and the right. The four names might not seem to be at their best right now, but they continue to pad their leads in their respective markets. Is there anyone really gaining ground on Facebook in social networking, Amazon in e-commerce, Netflix in premium streaming video, or Google in search? The four companies are at the top for a reason. 2. These darlings bounce back The collection of FANG stocks has been called a bubble and corrected in the past , only to bounce back in stellar fashion. It's hard to be optimistic in the middle of a slide, and in the case of Facebook and Netflix we're talking about stocks that are down 25% and 18%, respectively, off their summertime highs. They've bounced back before. They should bounce back again. Story continues All four stocks hit fresh all-time highs this summer, including Amazon, which hit a new high-water mark earlier in the week. The markdowns may be warranted, particularly when it comes to Facebook and Netflix. Facebook's ability to share data and to target users for marketing missives with pinpoint precision will be challenged in the future. Netflix fell short of its own guidance in its latest quarter. It's not a good look in either camp, but they've overcome more-troublesome setbacks before. 3. The power of scalability goes to the victors The market was disappointed to see Netflix add just 5.15 million net new subscribers in its latest quarter, but is there another premium service landing as many paying users in that time? Facebook tacked on roughly 20 million daily active users in the second quarter -- a historically sluggish showing -- but is there another platform actually gaining on Facebook that it doesn't already own? There is a reason Google has the most advertisers on its platform. And how long can you go before leaning on Amazon for your shopping needs? The bigger these companies get, the smarter and more efficient they become. The stocks fell out of favor last week, but it's not a life sentence. FANG will bounce back. More From The Motley Fool 3 Growth Stocks at Deep-Value Prices 5 Expected Social Security Changes in 2018 6 Years Later, 6 Charts That Show How Far Apple, Inc. Has Come Since Steve Jobs' Passing 10 Best Stocks to Buy Today The $16,122 Social Security Bonus You Cannot Afford to Miss Bitcoin's Biggest Competitor Isn't Ethereum -- It's This John Mackey, CEO of Whole Foods Market, an Amazon subsidiary, is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors. Suzanne Frey, an executive at Alphabet, is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors. Rick Munarriz owns shares of Netflix. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Alphabet (A shares), Alphabet (C shares), Amazon, Facebook, and Netflix. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy . || Bitcoin tanks as cryptocurrencies join in global market bloodbath: Screen Shot 2018 10 11 at 09.49.16 Markets Insider Cryptocurrencies across the board are nursing big losses on Thursday as the global market sell-off hitting traditional assets spreads. All major crypto assets are down on Thursday, with the likes of ethereum and bitcoin cash losing more than 10% of their value. Bitcoin plunged more than 7% overnight, but has now recovered a little, and is trading down roughly 5%. You can follow all the latest cryptocurrency prices at Markets Insider. Cryptocurrencies across the board are nursing big losses on Thursday as the global market sell-off hitting traditional assets spreads. Bitcoin, the benchmark cryptocurrency, dropped suddenly and sharply in Asian trading overnight, losing as much as 7%, before rebounding a little. It is now holding at a loss of around 5% on the day, trading at $6,266 per coin. While bitcoin has led the way lower on Thursday, other major cryptocurrencies including Ether, Ripple, and bitcoin cash have witnessed even larger falls. Here's the scoreboard: Ether -11.2% at $200.28 Ripple's XRP -11.5% at $0.4097 Bitcoin cash -12.6% at $450.80 Litecoin -10.8% at $51.79 Previously, bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies tended to rally during periods of poor performance for traditional assets like stocks, reflecting their status as something of a haven. However, in recent months that has flipped, with cryptocurrencies tending to follow traditional stock markets in their moves. NOW WATCH: Why horseshoe crab blood is so expensive See Also: MICHAEL JORDAN: How the richest NBA player ever spends his $1.65 billion 12 signs your boss is impressed with you, even if it doesn't seem like it These haunting photos of the retail apocalypse reveal a new normal in America as Sears reportedly prepares for bankruptcy SEE ALSO: Global markets are getting pounded as fear grips investors || Morning Brief: Starbucks debuts in Milan; Howard Schultz addresses speculation of presidential run: Thursday, September 6, 2018
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On Thursday, the market’s attention will shift to the U.S. labor market with ADP’s report on private payroll growth and the weekly report on initial jobless claims both set for release in the morning. Economists expect that private payroll growth totaled 200,000 during August, with this report coming just one day before Friday’s official jobs report. Elsewhere on the economic calendar on Thursday, the August read on service sector activity from Markit Economics as well as the Institute for Supply Management’s gauge on non-manufacturing economic activity will also be released. Factory orders for July are also set to be published.
And on the earnings side, the week’s lone report from the S&P 500 will come after the market close when Broadcom (AVGO) reports results. Other companies reporting results Thursday should include Barnes & Noble (BKS), GameStop (GME), Five Below (FIVE), and Lands’ End (LE).
Read More
Starbucks makes its debut in Milan, the place that inspired Howard Schultz: Starbucks (SBUX) will open its first store in Milan, Italy, this week, in the coffee mecca that inspired the company as we know it today. [Yahoo Finance]
Is Howard Schultz eyeing a White House run?: When Howard Schultz stepped down from the board and his role as executive chairman of Starbucks in June, there was speculation that he might be eyeing a presidential run in 2020. In an interview ahead of the opening of Starbucks’s Milan Reserve Roastery, Yahoo Finance asked Schultz what his plans are now that the summer is almost over. During that same interview, Schultz also saidthat theU.S. and China should work to find common ground amid ongoing trade tensions.[Yahoo Finance]
FBI probing Amex foreign-exchange pricing: The Federal Bureau of Investigation has launched a probe into pricing practices within American Express Co.’s (AXP) foreign-exchange unit, according to people familiar with the matter. The investigation is in its early stages and is focused on whether the foreign-exchange international payments department misrepresented pricing to clients in order to win their business, the people said. [The Wall Street Journal]
CBS and National Amusements in talks to settle litigation: CBS Corp. (CBS) is in settlement talks with Shari Redstone and her family’s holding company National Amusements Inc over a litigation for the control of the broadcaster, a source familiar with the matter said. [Reuters]
Major health-industry deals move closer to approval: The U.S. Department of Justice is on track to soon approve the acquisition of pharmacy-benefit manager Express Scripts Holding Co. (ESRX) by health insurer Cigna Corp. (CI), as well as CVS Health Corp.’s (CVS) takeover of insurer Aetna Inc. (AET), said a person familiar with the matter. The two deals stand to reshape the insurance and pharmacy industries. [Bloomberg]
Bitcoin falls off a cliff again: Cryptocurrencies dropped sharply for the second time in less than 24 hours, sinking toward a nine-month low amid concern that broader adoption of digital assets will take longer than some anticipated. Bitcoin (BTC-USD), the largest cryptocurrency, tumbled as much as 9.8%, according to Bloomberg composite pricing.[Bloomberg]
For more of the latest news,go to Yahoo Finance
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—
The Morning Brief provides a quick rundown on what to watch in the markets, top news stories, and the best of Yahoo Finance Originals. || 1 Reason the Marijuana Boom May Not Be a Bubble: It's high times for the marijuana industry. Cannabis stocks have surged recently, flying higher starting Aug. 15, when Constellation Brands (NYSE: STZ) said it would invest $4 billion in Canadian marijuana grower Canopy Growth Corporation (NYSE: CGC) . The move signaled that more such tie-ups could come, and as the chart below shows, cannabis stocks have been off to the races since then. MJ Chart Data by YCharts . Four of the five biggest marijuana stocks, including Canopy, Aurora Cannabis (NASDAQOTH: ACBFF) , and Aphria (NASDAQOTH: APHQF) , have all more than doubled, while shares of Tilray (NASDAQ: TLRY) have absolutely skyrocketed. Tilray's gains have come in part because of its unusually low float and heavy short interest -- and because the pot stock was the first to list directly on an American exchange when it had its IPO in July. The sudden gains in Tilray and other cannabis stocks have caused some commentators to deem the marijuana sector a bubble. In fact, two of my colleagues have argued just that here and here . There's no doubt that the sudden rise and euphoria over marijuana stocks is reminiscent of past bubbles, like the one in cryptocurrencies last year. After all, marijuana valuations have become divorced from any trailing fundamentals as the sector is essentially being valued like an early-stage biotech, though that's likely to change once the recreational market in Canada opens on Oct. 17. Whether or not marijuana stocks turn out to be a bubble depends on a number of factors, including if and when it becomes legal in the U.S., how it is embraced by the medical community, and if the industry consolidates. However, there's one big signal that's just emerged that indicates the marijuana boom may be sustainable. That is the attention and investment of consumer products giants. Jars of marijuana flower with one tipped over. Image source: Getty Images. A little history Constellation Brands, which manufactures and markets beer, wine, and spirits, and is best known in the U.S. as the distributor of Corona, became the first major consumer-goods company to make a deal with a marijuana producer when it took a minority stake for about $200 million in Canopy Growth a year ago. At the time, Constellation said the two companies would exchange knowledge and expertise, and the company expressed interest in eventually making cannabis-based beverages. In a clear signal that Constellation liked what it saw, the Corona-maker took a 38% stake in Canopy in August, investing $4 billion into the pot grower. Constellation CEO Rob Sands explained the move, saying: Story continues Over the past year, we've come to better understand the cannabis market, the tremendous growth opportunity it presents, and Canopy's market-leading capabilities in this space. We look forward to supporting Canopy as they extend their recognized global leadership position in the medical and recreational cannabis space. In Constellation's recent earnings call, Sands further outlined the company's strategy with Canopy, saying he saw a market of hundreds of billions of dollars evolving over the next decade and that Canopy gave the company a single platform to tackle all global markets and formats. Constellation isn't the only brewer to target marijuana. On Aug. 1, Molson Coors (NYSE: TAP) announced a joint venture between Molson Coors Canada and Canadian cannabis grower HEXO Corp. (NASDAQOTH: HYYDF) to "pursue opportunities to develop non-alcoholic, cannabis-infused beverages for the Canadian market following legalization." Molson Coors Canada will have a 57.5% share of the joint venture, and CEO Frederic Landtmeters said of the deal: While we remain a beer business at our core, we are excited to create a separate new venture with a trusted partner that will be a market leader in offering Canadian consumers new experiences with quality, reliable and consistent non-alcoholic, cannabis-infused beverages. While there have yet to be any other tie-ups between global consumer product makers and marijuana growers, a number of big-brand companies have discussed teaming up with pot suppliers. In September, Coca-Cola (NYSE: KO) held talks with Aurora Cannabis, according to Bloomberg , and although the company didn't acknowledge any discussion, it did express interest in cannabis-based beverages. In a statement, the soda giant said, "We are closely watching the growth of non-psychoactive CBD as an ingredient in functional wellness beverages around the world." Diageo (NYSE: DEO) , the global alcohol giant that owns Guinness beer and Smirnoff vodka, has held discussions with at least three marijuana growers, though it has yet to make a deal, and Heineken 's (NASDAQOTH: HEINY) Lagunitas brand launched a THC-infused beverage back in June, which is currently available in California dispensaries. It's not just beverage companies that are getting into the mix. Tobacco giant Altria (NYSE: MO) was said to be in talks to acquire a stake in Aphria, according to Canada's Globe and Mail , and there are good reasons to believe that other tobacco companies could follow suit. Even Walmart 's Canadian division said it was exploring selling cannabis products. Why it matters Bubbles tend to be caused, above all, by speculators. The asset in consideration gains momentum as investors are attracted to an opportunity, but eventually, the valuation escapes underlying fundamentals due to speculators pushing up the price under the assumption that a buyer will always come along. For instance, day traders helped fuel the dot-com bubble; home flippers contributed to the housing bubble a decade ago; and the rise of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies just last year attracted plenty of speculators who spotted the sudden rise of the new asset. While there are certainly some speculators and short-term-minded investors trading marijuana stocks, global companies like Constellation Brands, Molson Coors, and Coca-Cola are clearly not among them. They're investing in marijuana companies, or at least considering it, because they see a long-term opportunity in that market, and as more pot growers find a dance partner from big beer, soda, or tobacco, the likelihood of a "bubble" bursting is significantly diminished. Billion-dollar investments from Constellation and others give the industry credibility, access to cash for expansion, marketing and distribution acumen, and other advantages that make their long-term success more likely. And clearly there's a real opportunity, here. Canadian legalization is expected to generate $5 billion to $7 billion in revenue over the coming year, and the opportunity should only grow from there. Valuations are certainly steep, but the companies who know best are willing to pay up for them. That should offer some assurance to marijuana investors who may be worried that their shares will eventually go up in smoke. More From The Motley Fool The Best Marijuana Stocks to Buy in 2018 Marijuana Stocks Are Overhyped: 10 Better Buys for You Now Your 2018 Guide to Investing in Marijuana Stocks Jeremy Bowman has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of Molson Coors Brewing. The Motley Fool recommends Diageo. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy . View comments || California Watchdog Bans Bitcoin Donations in Political Campaigns: The California state government’s political watchdog has ruled that candidates will not be allowed to receive donations for political campaigns with cryptocurrencies like bitcoin.
The Fair Political Practices Commission, a five-member non-partisan commission that functions as the state’s campaign watchdog, has voted to ban cryptocurrency donations for candidates running for public offices in the state. The vote on Thursday was 3-1 in favor of a ban, theAssociated Pressreports, with authorities citing concerns in tracking the origin of crypto donations and their transparency in the political sphere.
The vote followsa staff reportsubmitted to the Commission earlier this month wherein the latter sought to ascertain the approaches taken by other states toward campaign contributions in cryptocurrency.
Beyond the gathered research, the staff also outlined four draft regulations with varying outcomes.
Option one expressly forbade all contributions in cryptocurrency. Two – permit crypto contributions as cash donations up to $100 wherein the cryptocurrency had to be converted to cash upon receipt before its deposit into the campaign bank account. Option three allowed for ‘in-kind’ contributions with crypto-to-cash conversion while the last option allowed for in-kind cryptocurrency contributions without any fiat conversion wherein campaigns see the funds transferred to their own cryptocurrency wallet.
The option to prohibit all crypto contributions, the staff report explained, is “consistent” with campaign activity FAQs from 2014 which determined that the ““staff has done extensive research on the topic and recommends that committees not accept bitcoins or other digital currency as campaign contributions at this time.…”.
This, despite a 2014 ruling wherein the Federal Elections Commissioncontinues to allowpolitical campaigns and political action committees (PACs) to accept cryptocurrencies as in-kind donations.
A guideline from the FEC reads:
A committee can receive bitcoins as contributions…Bitcoins may be received into and held in a bitcoin wallet until the committee liquidates them.
Earlier in May, Brian Forde, a former Obama aide and Californian democrat running for Congress sawa political attackfrom a rival for accepting bitcoin contributions for his political campaign.
In August, North Carolina moved toforbidcampaign donations in cryptocurrencies while the likes of Colorado have permitted crypto donations with a limit.
Featured image from Shutterstock.
The postCalifornia Watchdog Bans Bitcoin Donations in Political Campaignsappeared first onCCN. || Why Bitcoin ETFs were Rejected by the SEC?: Once again, the SEC has disapproved more proposals for Bitcoin ETF.
The latest rejection has seen eight bids turned down by the authorities; two from Proshares that would have tracked Bitcoin futures, another from GraniteShares and five more from Direxion.
The result has proved to fall in line with their original decision against the Winklevoss ETF, explaining that there was too much of a concern around the legality of Bitcoin markets.
Toquotethem, the SEC said that Bitcoin ETF markets do not meet the requirement that a “national securities exchange’s rules be designed to prevent fraudulent and manipulative acts and practices. Among other things, the Exchange has offered no record evidence to demonstrate that Bitcoin futures markets are ‘markets of significant size.’”
What we can take from this is that the SEC isn’t keeping up with the current times.
In fact, it was refreshing to readCommissioner Hester M. Peirce’s dissentof this ruling, with her saying that “the Commission’s interpretation and application of the statutory standard sends a strong signal that innovation is unwelcome in our markets, a signal that may have effects far beyond the fate of Bitcoin ETFs.”
It is hard not to agree with her.
Considering how the 21stCentury has seen a rapid development in technology and other investment schemes, it is a wonder why the SEC continues to act as dinosaurs and not take cryptocurrency markets as seriously as they should be.
For starters, Bitcoin is traded electronically which facilitates both competition and price transparency and it is an interchangeable commodity.
Those who are new investing and looking attrading strategies for beginnersmay only be interested in starting because of the rapid rise and success of Bitcoin. It has made trading popular with the younger generation and, even though at the time of writing 1 Bitcoin = 7,241.98 USD, is getting more and more people to invest their money as opposed to just saving it for a rainy day. (Meanwhile, Bitcoin reached its highest level this year and has gained 10% since the SEC decision to reject Bitcoin’s ETF’s).
Perhaps their reluctance to allow an ETF markets falls in line with the recent tension that has developed between the US and China. Recent developments have seen the US adding a further 25% tariff increase on goods imported from China.
There are also plans for further tariffs to be placed on 200 billion USD worth of Chinese goods.
In terms of cryptocurrency, it is well known that there is very large Bitcoin mining activity in China and so perhaps the powers-that-be are wary of potential medalling that foreign entities can have at the domestic level.
However, the regulation around the trading of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies is surely on its way, meaning that the Commission would see it as a far less risky investment strategy.
Whether or not that regulation is coming in the near future remains to be seen but it’s well worth noting that even if the government decides not to publicly regulate the market, we have already seen thatprivate regulationhas proved an effective method.
Furthermore, the mining of Bitcoin is not geopolitically limited, unless you consider that the mining processes occur more prominently in locations where electricity tends to be cheaper. This aside, Bitcoin is far less susceptible to being influenced by geopolitical matters compared to other trading and investment markets.
The SEC go on to say that their disapproval does not rest on an evaluation of whether Bitcoin or blockchain technology has value as an innovation or investment.
It seems that the SEC has not completely turned its back on Bitcoin and a possible ETF in the future; there is likely to be further twists ahead with a new ruling to be made at the end of the month on VanEck’s application for a cryptocurrency ETF.
Thisarticlewas originally posted on FX Empire
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• USD/CAD Daily Price Forecast – Fading NAFTA Optimism Pressures Canadian Loonie. || Will Bitcoin Fall Further?: Everybody who has been following and trading Bitcoin recently, are likely to be disappointed. For eight months now, since February 2018, the price of Bitcoin hasn’t budged. The cryptocurrency’s last move in February saw it drop to a low point of 6,000 USD and, since then, there has been decreasing volatility and lower highs, while the lows remain at the same point. These factors are typical of a bearish trend. It is also interesting to add that the Bitcoin daily chart resembles a very big descending triangle pattern, which is a bearish formation.
Also, the king of cryptos has already lost around 70% of its value since its December peak, while other, smaller coins – known as Altcoins – have lost more than 70% of their value. Therefore, this huge decline is on a larger scale than what occurred in 2000, when the dotcom bubble burst.
Meanwhile, the market cap ofBitcoinhas decreased from 330 billion USD to the current market cap of 115 billion USD, while the entire market capitalization of the crypto world, has dropped from 813 billion USD to around 225 billion USD recently. We may see a further drop.
The volatility of Bitcoin has been minimal over the past couple of days and weeks which suggests we may be in either an accumulation or distribution phase – which means a huge move might be around the corner.
Should Bitcoin drop further below the support of 6,000 USD, a quick drop toward 5,000 USD, or even lower, could be in the cards. Another major support, where stronger bids could be located, is at 3,000 USD, which coincides with the triangle pattern potential.
However, if bulls manage to turn the triangle around, we could see a relief rally, targeting 7,400 USD and potentially 8,400 USD.
Therefore, it is crucial that we keep an eye on how the price will behave over the next few days or weeks and, observe on which side of this triangle Bitcoin will break. This could be the major moment for the upcoming future.
Analysis and opinions provided herein are intended solely for informational and educational purposes and don’t represent a recommendation or an investment advice by TeleTrade. Indiscriminate reliance on illustrative or informational materials may lead to losses.
This article was written by Peter Bukov, one ofTeleTrade’s leading analysts.
Thisarticlewas originally posted on FX Empire
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• E-mini S&P 500 Index (ES) Futures Technical Analysis – October 2, 2018 Forecast || $10,000 Target: Novogratz Sees Bitcoin Jumping 30% in 2018: Billionaire investor Michael Novogratz, a legendary ex-hedge fund manager, formerly of the investment firm Fortress Investment Group, has said that the Bitcoin price will likely see a 30 percent increase by the end of 2018. Once Bitcoin surpasses major resistance levels at $6,800, $8,800, and $10,000, Novogratz stated that institutions will enter the market via trusted custodian solutions. “It’s also a bull market in institutions building the infrastructure needed for real money investors to start investing in this space… I think that in three to six months from now, there will be an ‘all clear’ sign for people — big institutions and pension [funds] — to start investing,” he said. Impossible Not to Reach $10,000 During an interview with CNBC Fast Money, Novogratz explained that it is impossible for Bitcoin not to rebound to the $8,800 to $10,000 range. Over the last three days, the crypto market has added $25 billion to its valuation, triggered by the 100 percent increase in value of Ripple and strong momentum demonstrated by Ethereum. As CCN previously reported , Novogratz emphasized that the next long-term rally, which may lead the valuation of the crypto market to reach $20 trillion, will be triggered by FOMO (fear of missing out) amongst institutions like pension funds and hedge funds. In the past month, Morgan Stanley and Citigroup have released their plans of adding crypto custodian solutions to their existing infrastructure in the months to come. With BitGo and Coinbase already operating as trusted and regulated custodian solution providers, there are sufficient products institutions can rely on to enter the crypto market. As such, Novogratz stated that once Bitcoin demonstrates another strong short-term rally supported by individual investors and retail traders by the end of this year, more institutions will invest in the market. “It won’t go there ($20 trillion) right away. What is going to happen is, one of these intrepid pension funds, somebody who is a market leader, is going to say, you know what? We’ve got custody, Goldman Sachs is involved, Bloomberg has an index I can track my performance against, and they’re going to buy. And all of the sudden, the second guy buys. The same FOMO that you saw in retail [will be demonstrated by institutional investors],” explained Novogratz. Story continues It’s Not All Talk In 2017, there were discussions on the movement of capital from the traditional finance sector into the crypto market. However, at the time, there was no infrastructure in place to lure in institutions, which meant that even if some institutions were attracted to the market, there were no services they could use to invested in the asset class. With significant progress being made in recent months, companies like Coinbase and BitGo expect billions of dollars to come into the market and by 2019, as long as Bitcoin maintains momentum in the $8,800 to $10,000 range, the crypto market is expected to experience a substantial increase in valuation. Although Bitcoin has not recorded a large upward movement in the past two days like Ripple and Ethereum, the dominant cryptocurrency has demonstrated stability throughout August and September, which is positive for the mid-term performance of the asset. The post $10,000 Target: Novogratz Sees Bitcoin Jumping 30% in 2018 appeared first on CCN . || Pablo Soria de Lachica Analyzes the Potential Impact of Ethereum on Financial Sector: MEXICO CITY, MEXICO / ACCESSWIRE / August 29, 2018 /The past decade has been marked by an avid interest in cryptocurrencies, whose number currently exceeds 1,800 in a market valued at more than $200 billion. Most of the media attention and trading activity seem to be reserved for the original cryptocurrency, Bitcoin (BTC), but corporate interest lies predominantly with Ethereum (ETH) - the second largest digital coin by market capitalization. Coming out almost five years after Bitcoin, ETH has captured the attention of businesses as its network supports faster and cheaper transactions and a functionality believed to have a hugely disruptive potential for almost all industries: smart contracts. The Ethereum blockchain and the capabilities it offers have come to be regarded as particularly promising drivers of innovation in the financial service sector, with some of the biggest Wall Street names rallying behind the project, notes acclaimed forex broker and dedicated philanthropistPablo Soria de Lachica.
Although cryptocurrencies are in the spotlight, it is the technology underpinning them that is of interest to business organizations, financial institutions in particular. Blockchain, also known as distributed ledger technology (DLT), is widely expected to disrupt multiple segments of the industry, and Ethereum has established itself as the leading blockchain platform for enterprise use. The importance of the project and its technology was highlighted early in 2017, when some of the world's largest corporations joined forces to create theEnterprise Ethereum Alliance(EEA). Among the banks signing up for the initiative were JPMorgan, BNY Mellon, USB, Credit Suisse, Santander, and BBVA. The alliance also includes technology giants such as Microsoft and Intel, business information provider Thomson Reuters, and professional services major Accenture. Two years before it became a founding member of the EEA, Microsoft teamed up with ConsenSys to offer Ethereum Blockchain as a Service (EBaaS) to its enterprise clients. As the US software providernoted at the time, "In financial services particularly, blockchain is a major disruptor to some of their core businesses and fintech companies are driving innovation in this space. Ethereum is open, flexible, can be customized to meet our customer's needs, allowing them to innovate and provide new services and distributed applications (DApps). Ethereum enables smart contracts and DApps to be built, potentially cutting out the middleman in many industry scenarios, streamlining processes like settlement."
While Ethereum's blockchain has numerous advantages over rival platforms, the greatest potential for financial services lies in itssmart contractsfunctionality,Pablo Soria de Lachicaexplains. These are computerized transaction protocols that self-execute when the terms of an agreement are met. Since no intermediaries are needed, smart contracts ensure transparency and traceability. According to aDeloitte report, their benefits include speed, accuracy, real-time updates, lower execution risk, and the potential to introduce new business or operational models. In financial services, Ethereum's technology can be used in trade clearing and settlement, insurance claims processing, and supply chain and trade finance documentation, among others. Vincent Launay, a finance specialist at the World Bank in Washington, DC, sees Ethereum's smart contracts asa game-changer in the field of fund-raising. The blockchain-based protocols have already allowed thousands of startups to secure capital via initial coin offerings (ICOs) instead of relying on traditional venture capital financing. Launay also believes Ethereum could disrupt the corporate bonds market and in doing so, open it to the legions of smaller investors who are currently left out.
Pablo Soria de Lachicagraduated from Universidad Tecnologico de Mexico (UNITEC) with an MBA, going on to specialize in international trading and ultimately become one of the most prominent forex experts globally. His extensive experience allows him to maximize profits for his clients by combining professional guidance and educational projects. He is currently collaborating with Kartoshka - a company bringing the latest technologies in sales, telemarketing, and customer support.
Pablo Soria de Lachica - Foreign Exchange Specialist:http://PabloSoriaDeLachicaNews.com
Pablo Soria de Lachica Discusses Projections for Ether Price Movement against USD:http://www.digitaljournal.com/pr/3906148
Pablo Soria de Lachica Explains the Advantages of Ethereum-Based Smart Contracts:https://finance.yahoo.com/news/pablo-soria-lachica-explains-advantages-205500267.html
Contact Information:
PabloSoriaDeLachicaNews.comhttp://PabloSoriaDeLachicaNews.comcontact@pablosoriadelachicanews.com
SOURCE:Pablo Soria de Lachica || Bitcoin Futures Helped Cryptocurrency Market Achieve ‘More Sustainable Level’: CFTC Chairman: When derivatives exchanges CBOE and CME launched the first regulated U.S. bitcoin futures contracts, many cryptocurrency bulls thought that this event would lead to a wave of institutional investment and propel the market toward even greater highs.
Just days later, the yearlongbitcoin pricerally stalled, and the flagship cryptocurrency — followed soon after by the wider market — entered a decline that has continued throughout 2018.
According to researchers at the San Francisco branch of the Federal Reserve, thebitcoin futureslaunchtriggeredthe decline, as it provided institutional investors with their first real opportunity to short the bitcoin price.
Alluding to this research in aninterviewwith Fox Business’s Maria Bartiromo, CFTC Chairman J. Christopher Giancarlo credited the futures launch — and the CFTC’s “do no harm” strategy in allowing those products to begin trading in the face of criticism — with helping pop the bitcoin price bubble and bring the market back to what some would characterize as a more sustainable level.
He said on Friday:
“According to the San Francisco Fed, it was the bitcoin futures emergence that actually sapped the bitcoin bubble that emerged at the end of 2017, and we have seen bitcoin, perhaps in some people’s view, achieve a more sustainable level than it was during the bubble period last year.”
Giancarlo added that, concurrently, the cryptocurrency market has been steadily growing more mature, in large part due to an increase in institutional investors engaging with this asset class. In addition to firms like Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) and TD Ameritradebacking cryptocurrency exchanges, a number of major university endowments including Yale, Harvard, and MIT havereportedlyinvested in cryptocurrency funds.
“We’re seeing more institutional movement into this area, and I think with more institutional movement, we should see more maturization of it,” Giancarlo said, adding that there was still “a long way to go” to improve the still-nascent spot market.
Nevertheless, he concluded that, on the whole, cryptocurrency was on the path to becoming a mature financial instrument.
“Like all things, it takes time to mature, and with the movement of more institutional investors into that space, I think we’ll see that maturization.”
Featured Image from SIFMA/YouTube. Charts fromTradingView.
The postBitcoin Futures Helped Cryptocurrency Market Achieve ‘More Sustainable Level’: CFTC Chairmanappeared first onCCN.
[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
Cotización del Bitcoin Cash: 385 00.€ | -1.96% | Kraken | 15/09/18 02:00 #BitcoinCash #Kraken #BCHEUR || Top performers (as per coinmarketcap) over last 24 hours where:
a) Mktcap $10m-100m
b) Price $0.01-1.00
c) Vol $1m+
1. @KyberNetwork +15.17%
2. @_poetproject +3.99%
3. @Revain_org +3.56%
4. bitCNY (no link) +1.49%
5. @tenxwallet +1.10%
#Cryptotrading #altcoin #BTC #ETH #movers || @NHaker https://t.co/0IYYUmiM5c || Current price: $0.023316
Node count: 919
Total accounts: 488607
Coins burned: 2,441,986.00 TRX
#tron #trx $trx $btc #btc || 09/19 00:00 現在のビットコインの価格 BTC/JPY ask: 724,725 / bid: 707,732 || Precio actual del #Bitcoin, #Ethereum y #Ripple
1 $USD = $18.92 MXN
1 $BTC = $126,779.53 MXN
1 $ETH = $5,198.00 MXN
1 $XRP = $6.14 MXN
1 $LTC = $1,079.28 MXN
1 $BCH = $10,175.00 MXN
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https://t.me/BitcoinEasyBot?start=500727732 … || right on cue with the $BTC $XBT volume and volatility per my #bitMEX hourly heatmaps!
This tends to be the most active time of the entire week around 16:00 UTC on Wednesdays.
#TACrypto #btc #bitcoin #crypto #cryptocurrency #data #DataAnalytics #DataScience #binance #fintechpic.twitter.com/KBjxuLoN8m || USD: 112.990
EUR: 132.620
GBP: 148.751
AUD: 81.827
NZD: 75.059
CNY: 16.429
CHF: 116.533
BTC: 734,210
ETH: 24,220
Wed Sep 26 22:00 JST
|
Trend: no change || Prices: 6465.41, 6489.19, 6482.35, 6487.16, 6475.74, 6495.84, 6476.29, 6474.75, 6480.38, 6486.39
|
Analyze the provided historical prices, technical indicators, news, and social media sentiment from the last 60 days. Based on this context, predict the overall trend (up, down, or no change) and the specific daily closing prices for Bitcoin for the next 10 days.
|
[Technical Analysis for 2020-10-09]
BTC Price: 11064.46, BTC RSI: 57.91
Gold Price: 1919.50, Gold RSI: 52.50
Oil Price: 40.60, Oil RSI: 52.33
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
How to Negotiate With Cyber Terrorists During a Pandemic: (Bloomberg Opinion) -- As the pandemic trashes the world economy, one business is booming. The number of ransomware attacks, where hackers encrypt a user’s data files and then demand payment to restore access, climbed by 20% in the first half of the year to reach 121.4 million assaults, according to data security firm SonicWall. Many of the victims chose to pay up. In June, the University of California said it paid $1.14 million to extortionists who’d besieged servers at its medical school. CWT, a travel-management company, handed over $4.5 million worth of Bitcoin last month to resolve a hack, Reuters reported. Garmin Ltd., which sells portable devices linked to global positioning systems, suffered outages in the final week of July it said were due to a cyber attack. While the company hasn’t commented on how it solved the interruptions, various media reports put the ransom demand at $10 million. In the past four years, Kivu Consulting has been involved in more than 700 ransomware incidents. Last year, the cyber security firm was the agent for 143 payments worth more than $17 million. So what should you do when the email arrives saying you’ve been hacked, your data has been compromised and if you don’t pay a ransom, your servers will remain frozen? I caught up with Winston Krone, Kivu’s global managing director, to find out. The following is a lightly edited transcript of our telephone conversation this week. MARK GILBERT: The number of ransomware attacks has climbed substantially this year. Is lockdown having an impact? WINSTON KRONE: We’re in the middle of a huge wave of attacks right now. Companies are coming back to work, employees are bringing infected computers back into the organization. Attackers have waited. The value of a ransomware attack is much bigger now that companies have gotten through the worst part of Covid and have the money to pay. It’s all about business interruption, that’s why people pay a ransom. If the company’s not working, if it’s hobbling along, a ransomware attack is not going to have the impact it would if the company was going full blast. We had attacks a couple of months ago where the victim of the attacks said, “We’re not sure we’re gonna be in business, we’re not paying a ransom because we’re not sure we’re gonna make payroll next month.” Story continues MG: Given that companies are reluctant to admit to being hacked or paying ransom, how big is the iceberg that we only see the tip of? WK: I would suspect the ratio is about 10/1, based on our metrics in the past four years where we know the number of ransomware attacks we were involved in that went public. There are very few unreported cases for publicly traded companies these days. Four years ago there was a huge embarrassment factor, now there’s no incentive to keep it secret. If anything, there’s quite a bit of sympathy for public companies that are hit with ransomware attacks. Of course, it’s different for private companies. MG: Of the industry-identifiable ransoms your company handled last year, more than half came from manufacturing companies even though they were the targets of less than a fifth of attacks. Why the disparity? WK: Because of just-in-time manufacturing, they aren’t able to go offline even for just a few days. Increasingly we deal with clients who are under penalty clauses if they can’t get stuff out. It becomes a purely mathematical equation as to whether or not to pay a ransom. And the attackers know this. The hackers know that manufacturers will pay more. MG: Are cyber terrorists increasing the amounts they demand? WK: You’ve got different types of cyber extortion, like with other criminal activity. There’s the young thug who will grab your mobile phone late at night outside the tube station, and then you’ve got sophisticated gangs who will break in to steal gold bullion. Some of the attack groups we’ve seen, they’ll stick to their numbers, a quarter of a million dollars where these companies will just pay it, bury it and move on, and they’ll be hitting four or five companies a day. Then you get the guys who are going for the big ones, going for $10 million. It’s grown into an enormous ecosystem. You’ve got groups who will facilitate attacks, you’ve got hackers for hire, you have groups who all they do is dispose of bitcoin. MG: How willing are they to negotiate? WK: It completely depends on the group, and that’s something we stress with clients. In the decision about whether to pay, there’s a bunch of different steps you need to think about. Is the decryption going to actually work? Even if it works, a lot of the ransomware can corrupt things like databases. You’ve got to know the ransomware variant. In at least half of the cases, you’re gonna have to go back to the attacker and get their help to get the decryption going, because it’s not one decryption key for the entire attack, every single computer will have its own decryption key, every single infected computer. Sometimes these attackers are dealing with a dozen victims, so we’ve had the decryption keys for the wrong client sent to us. If you want to bring down the price, that can work so long as it’s a bona fide move and you will pay the lower price. If it’s a question of just stalling for time and you play it badly, the attackers will just double the price. The reason you’re paying is to get back online quickly, but you’re losing time haggling. If you’re losing $250,000 a day in revenue then messing around for several days to try to bring the price down by $50,000 doesn’t make sense. MG: So it sounds like if you do get hacked, you hope it’s by a more sophisticated player? WK: You want to be attacked by somebody who’s not a complete clown, who can supply you with the right decryption tool to decrypt your data, and who understands that this is a difficult process for you. There are attackers out there who are completely inept and don’t know what they’re doing. We’ve had situations where, halfway through the attack, the client wanted to pay a ransom, the attacker disappears and never comes back. That’s because other attackers, the head of the Mafia, decides that this group is so bad that they just yank them halfway through the attack. So you want to be hit by someone who’s very technical. MG: Are the ransom payments always made in Bitcoin? WK: Traditionally they were. There’s been a move away from Bitcoin. Attackers know that their ransom payments are being traced across wallets and law enforcement is beginning to be able to track people down. Non-Bitcoin currencies are not as traceable. That said, it’s harder for victims to get hold of other cyber currencies, and the attackers know this. This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners. Mark Gilbert is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering asset management. He previously was the London bureau chief for Bloomberg News. He is also the author of "Complicit: How Greed and Collusion Made the Credit Crisis Unstoppable." For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com/opinion Subscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source. ©2020 Bloomberg L.P. || The Market Reacts to Square’s $50M Bitcoin Buy: Reactions from Bitcoin Twitter and beyond as Square puts 1% of its treasury assets into bitcoin.
Formore episodesand free early access before our regular 3 p.m. Eastern time releases, subscribe withApple Podcasts,Spotify,Pocketcasts,Google Podcasts,Castbox,Stitcher,RadioPublica,iHeartRadioorRSS.
This episode is sponsored byCrypto.com,Nexo.ioandElliptic.
Related:Market Wrap: Bitcoin Surges on Square News to $10.9K; December Ether Options Pile Up
A special breaking edition of The Breakdown follows the market’s reaction to Square’s surprise $50 millionbitcoininvestment.
NLW breaks down the foundations for the investment, including:
• 2020’s alignment between the bitcoin narrative and structural economic realities
• An increase in bitcoin’s perceived resilience
• The precedent set by MicroStrategy
He also discusses the market’s reaction, from the (potential) connection to Coinbase’s “apolitical” stance from last week to the notion of Square intentionally setting a framework others can follow.
See also:Square Puts 1% of Total Assets in Bitcoin in Surprise $50M Investment
Related:Bitcoin News Roundup for Oct. 8, 2020
Formore episodesand free early access before our regular 3 p.m. Eastern time releases, subscribe withApple Podcasts,Spotify,Pocketcasts,Google Podcasts,Castbox,Stitcher,RadioPublica,iHeartRadioorRSS.
• The Market Reacts to Square’s $50M Bitcoin Buy
• The Market Reacts to Square’s $50M Bitcoin Buy || Why bitcoin and altcoins are hot again this summer: In cryptocurrency markets, it feels like 2017 again. Bitcoin ( BTC ) is up 35% since Memorial Day, and 133% since March 15, the date when widespread U.S. closures of schools and businesses began. That has helped bitcoin rebound to 64% up for the year so far, after crashing in March along with stocks . Thats better than double the gains of the Nasdaq, which is up 26% for the year. The S&P 500 is up only 5% for the year, and the Dow is still negative (down 1.2%) in 2020. Bitcoin was around $6,500 on March 24. Five months later, its near $12,000. The gains by so-called altcoins have been even more impressiveor alarming. Ether ( ETH ), the token of the Ethereum network and the No. 2 cryptocurrency by market cap, is up 210% in 2020. Stellar Lumens ( XLM ), token of the Stellar network , is up 130%. Cardano ( ADA ) is up 274%. Algorand ( ALGO ) is up 200%. Dogecoin ( DOGE ), a meme-based cryptocurrency with no business purpose, is up 68%. Youd be excused for not having heard of many of those tokens, even if you follow bitcoin prices. Some crypto onlookers fear that the huge gains for no-name coins signal another risky bubble akin to 2017. Coin Telegraph is calling this summer a new altseason. CoinDesk on Monday called it an anything-goes token market. Andy Bromberg, president of Coinlist, which vets and lists new token sales, sees glimmers of 2017, but thinks this period might be different. Near, a new token that offered its initial sale through Coinlist, had so much demand it crashed the site. Theres some great stuff happening, and things that are compelling and have legitimate long term promise, but also there are a lot of people who just see an opportunity to grab cash, says Bromberg. Just like in 2017, its really hard to vet these things. Some are obviously idiotic. The noise comes along with the signal. So as an investor in the space, you should be cautious, because the more good things that come out, the more scammy things come out too. But you should also be excited. Story continues An Uber Eats courier wearing a protective mask passes in front of a Bitcoin exchange shop in Krakow's city center on April 18, 2020, in Krakow, Poland. (Artur Widak/NurPhoto via Getty Images) Now to the obvious question: Is the rise in crypto prices thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic? Cryptocurrency investors are saying yesin part. Most of them point to the actions of the Federal Reserve, and of other central banks globally, as fuel for the appeal of bitcoin as a hedge. (Gold, a more mainstream hedge, is up 29% in 2020.) Theres so many uncertainties in this pandemic, but one thing that seems almost assured is when you print trillions of dollars more paper money, its going to drive up bitcoin and other cyptocurrencies, says Dan Morehead, CEO of crypto investment firm Pantera Capital. Golds going to go up, bitcoins going to go up. It is a hedge to paper currency being debased. Panteras digital asset fund is up 130% in 2020, and Morehead believes that in the next year, The non-bitcoin cryptocurrencies will outperform bitcoin. In the same spirit, Pantera still believes in ICOs (initial coin offerings), the token sales that exploded in 2017 , then shrunk after the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in 2018 made clear it saw most ICOs as unregistered securities offerings . We have a fund that invests in pre-auction ICOs, and instead of seeing 50 white papers a week like we were doing at the peak in 2017, we invest in one or two every quarter. So the market is still there, its just much more selective. It also helps bitcoin when mainstream Wall Street names voice public support. In May, Paul Tudor Jones surprised skeptics when he said that he sees bitcoin as a great speculation and has moved 2% of his hedge funds money into bitcoin. That stands in direct contrast to Warren Buffetts staunch view of bitcoin speculation: That is not investing . Daniel Roberts is an editor-at-large at Yahoo Finance and closely covers bitcoin and blockchain. Follow him on Twitter at @ readDanwrite . Read more: Bitcoin scams on Twitter are nothing newand they work Former CFTC chair says Ripple's XRP token is not a securitybut Ripple is his client What the third bitcoin halving means for crypto investors Fed Chair Jay Powell grilled on Chinas cryptocurrency plans and U.S. response Reddit cofounder Alexis Ohanian: We are entering a 'crypto spring' || ALT 5 Sigma Digital Instrument Market Summary for BTC, ETH, LTC, BCH: NEW YORK, NY / ACCESSWIRE / September 12, 2020 / ALT 5 Sigma Inc. an emerging leader in blockchain powered financial platforms provides its daily digital instruments market summary for Bitcoin (BTC/USD), Ether (ETH/USD), Litecoin (LTC/USD). Real-Time Market Data is available at www.alt5pro.com and Real-Time Market Data feed is also available at www.alt5sigma.com . ALT 5 Sigma Digital Instrument Market Summary for BTC, ETH, LTC, BCH About ALT 5 Sigma Inc. ALT 5 is a fintech company specializing in the development and deployment of digital assets trading and exchange platforms. Alt 5 was founded by financial industry specialists out of the necessity to provide the digital asset economy with security, accessibility, transparency and compliance. ALT 5 provides its clients the ability to buy, sell and hold digital assets in a safe and secure environment deployed with the best practices of the financial industry. ALT 5's products and services are available to Banks, Broker Dealers, Funds, Family Offices, Professional Traders, Retail Traders, Digital Asset Exchanges, Digital Asset Brokers, Blockchain Developers, and Financial Information Providers. ALT 5's digital asset custodian services are secured by GardaWorld. GardaWorld is the world's largest privately-owned business solutions and security services company, offering cash management services. For more information, visit www.alt5sigma.com . Contact: Andre Beauchesne Tel. 1-800-204-6203 info@alt5sigma.com For more information on ALT 5 Pay, visit www.alt5pay.com For more information on ALT 5 Pro, visit www.alt5pro.com SOURCE: ALT 5 Sigma Inc. View source version on accesswire.com: https://www.accesswire.com/605871/ALT-5-Sigma-Digital-Instrument-Market-Summary-for-BTC-ETH-LTC-BCH || Robinhood’s former head of crypto joins FTX.US as COO: Sina Nader, the former head of crypto at brokerage firm Robinhood, has joined FTX.US exchange as COO, The Block has learned. FTX.US founder and CEO Sam Bankman-Fried confirmed the news, telling The Block: "We're really excited for Sina to join — he brings a ton of experience, energy, and vision for the exchange, and in general for the U.S. crypto market." "We're looking forward to him massively scaling up FTX.US," said Bankman-Fried, adding that specific expansion plans will be announced "soon." FTX.US was launched in May of this year and offers spot trading in six coins, including bitcoin (BTC) and ether (ETH). The exchange operates in almost all states, excluding New York and Washington. In comparison, Binance.US has over ten restricted states. Nader said he is "delighted" to join FTX.US and is "super excited about all we will do." At Robinhood, Nader spent just over eight months, as The Block reported recently. Previously, he held positions at Morgan Stanley and Credit Suisse and was a former director at private crypto investment firm CryptoLux Capital. © 2020 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice. || Kava Releases a Proposal for Harvest.io the World’s First Cross-Chain Money Market: San Francisco, CA, Sept. 19, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Kava, the multi-asset DeFi platform, has todayreleaseda proposal for the first cross-chain money market to be hosted within its Cosmos SDK built blockchain. The application which is dubbed ‘Harvest’ will enable Kava blockchain users to further capitalize on DeFi opportunities through its lending and borrowing functions.
What’s been abullishpast few months, has seen innovations pivot toward decentralization and open architecture. Harvest, set to debut on Kava’s blockchain, bases its fundamentals on a similar infrastructure, with an end goal of decentralizing financial services. The platform will allow anyone to lend and borrow digital assets including BTC, XRP, BNB, BUSD, KAVA and USDX for an interest in return.
Harvest users who borrow or lend on the application will be paid out their interest plus the application's governance token ‘HARD’. Version 1 of the software will provide Supply functionality and Version 2 is will provide. Borrow functionality and expanded governance.
The Harvest DeFi Lending Cross-Chain Architecture
Harvest will be the first of many applications that will eventually leverage Kava’s blockchain security for DeFi products. With the innovation majorly deriving its fundamentals fromKava, it will automatically integrate other functions such as Kava’s price-reference data from Chainlink oracles and the underlying bridges to facilitate cross-chain asset transfers.
This cross-chain architecture will play a pivotal role in giving Harvest access to any digital assets within the Kava blockchain network. The project is set to capitalize on the Kava-4 Mainnet upgrade where an expansion of the BEP3 Bridge will feature the support of BTC, BUSD and XRP amongst other digital assets. Ideally, all these digital assets will eventually be supported within the Harvest money market alongside Kava native assets like USDX KAVA and HARD.
The Harvest application is a decentralized platform that’s accessible by anyone anywhere. This open and permissionless platform will facilitate integrations with financial market stakeholders in niches not limited to FinTech apps, Exchanges, and financial institutions. This category of financial service providers will be able to offer Harvest’s earning and borrowing opportunities, directly to their clients.
Decentralized Governance
Recent DeFi trends have shown that a governance token is necessary to facilitate the growth of projects within this industry. Likewise, the Harvest governance token ‘HARD’ will harmonize decentralized activities within its lending and borrowing ecosystem. This token will enable Harvest users who hold it to manage key metrics such as the digital assets to be featured and reward distribution within the network.
In addition, HARD tokens will incentivize user participation and active governance on the Harvest application. Suppliers and Borrows stand to benefit by having more voice in the management of this Kava-built DeFi application. Harvest will also distribute 20% of the total amount of HARD tokens to Kava stakers over the next few years for providing security and other base-layer services to the Harvest application.
Brian Kerr, CEO and Co-Founder of Kava stated, “Importantly, this foundation provides developers with the ability to quickly build applications on Kava’s open decentralized network while being able to leverage its security, cross-chain bridges, and other infrastructure that would otherwise cost millions and take years to develop independently.”About Kava
Kava is a multi-asset DeFi platform that offers stablecoins, loans, and other financial services for users of major cryptocurrency assets including BTC, XRP, BNB and ATOM to name a few. Kava’s Harvest.io application is the world’s first decentralized cross-chain money market.
More details about the project can be found at:WhitepaperTelegramMediumTwitterHavest.io
Media contact information:Name: Sarah AustinCompany: sarah@kava.ioEmail: Kava LabsWebsite:http://kava.io || Market Wrap: Bitcoin Surges on Square News to $10.9K; December Ether Options Pile Up: Bitcoin is flashing green as Square converts some of its cash to crypto while ether options traders are making lots of bets for December expiration. Bitcoin (BTC) trading around $10,890 as of 20:00 UTC (4 p.m. ET). Gaining 2.1% over the previous 24 hours. Bitcoin’s 24-hour range: $10,532-$10,962 BTC above its 10-day and 50-day moving averages, a bullish signal for market technicians. Bitcoin’s price popped Thursday, led higher almost immediately following the announcement that payments firm Square had invested $50 million to purchase 4,709 BTC. The development pushed the price per 1 BTC to as high as $10,962 before settling to $10,890 as of press time. Read More: Square Puts 1% of Total Assets in Bitcoin in Surprise $50M Investment Related: Bitcoin Must Now Beat $11.2K for Bull Revival, Say Analysts “News that Jack Dorsey’s Square has purchased about $50 million worth of bitcoin is a definite positive that appears to have driven markets higher on the back of positive sentiment,” said Guy Hirsch, USA managing director of multi-asset brokerage eToro. “Dorsey has long been an advocate of the largest cryptocurrency, and this move reaffirms his bullish stance, and Square’s.” The stock price of Square (NYSE: SQ) also rose Thursday, in the green 1.8% at the close of trading today. “Seeing traditional institutional firms such as Square invest into bitcoin to hold on their balance sheet after a publicly traded company such as MicroStrategy purchased $250 million worth of bitcoin as a ‘hedge against inflation’ brings significant credibility to bitcoin,” said Michael Gord, chief executive of trading firm Global Digital Assets. “The CEO of MicroStrategy even went so far as to call bitcoin superior to cash”. If indeed these investments are a bet against fiat, the U.S. Dollar Index (DXY), a measure of the greenback versus a mix of other currencies, is one metric to watch. Though it has picked up since a late-August low, it’s still in the relative doldrums for 2020 and was flat, in the red 0.02% as of press time Thursday. Story continues The positive market sentiment has certainly translated into higher-than-average bitcoin daily spot volume. Major exchanges already have $332 million in volume so far Thursday, higher than the $284 daily average in the past month. Related: First Mover: Bitcoin Hits $11K as Square Exposes $2.3T Corporate Money Pot While bitcoin volume is up Thursday, volatility remains low. In the options market, six-month at-the-money (ATM) volatility, the difference between option strikes to the price of bitcoin, is at 65%. The last time it was that low was back on July 31. “The buy pressure from institutional investors is increasing, so we are seeing a nice ramp up,” said Marc Fleury, CEO of Two Prime, a crypto asset management firm. “We seem to be entering an era of a low-volatility bull market.” Lots of ether options for December expiration Ether (ETH), the second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, was up Thursday trading around $351 and climbing 3.3% in 24 hours as of 20:00 UTC (4:00 p.m. ET). Read More: As DeFi Deflates, Ethereum Users Get Reprieve From Soaring Fees Ether options traders are heavily betting on the asset’s price at the end of the year. Over 473,500 ETH in open interest is set for expiration on Dec. 25, which is approximately $166,023,00 worth of options at Thursday’s spot prices. Vishal Shah, an options trader and founder of derivatives exchange Alpha 5, says traders started piling up ether options positions for December a while ago. “It really started gearing up with DeFi a few months back,” he said. There’s two main reasons for the options bets, Shah added. “It’s either a levered play on DeFi doing well, or as a tail hedge against impermanent losses,” he said. Impermanent loss is when an investor contributes to a liquidity pool and can temporarily be worse off than actually just holding the asset due to protocol imbalances. Other markets Digital assets on the CoinDesk 20 are mostly green Thursday. Notable winners as of 20:00 UTC (4:00 p.m. ET): chainlink (LINK) + 6.4% bitcoin cash (BCH) + 5.7% tezos (XTZ) + 4.2% One notable loser as of 20:00 UTC (4:00 p.m. ET): eos (EOS) – 0.46% Read More: BitMEX CEO Arthur Hayes Leaves Role After US Charges Equities: Asia’s Nikkei 225 closed in the green 0.96%, boosted by investor optimism after U.S. President Donald Trump tweeted support for further economic stimulus . Europe’s FTSE 100 ended the day climbing 0.53%, led higher by gains in telecom firm TalkTalk Group, up 17% amid talks of a shareholder takeover . In the United States the S&P 500 ended the trading day up 0.80% as policymakers continued talks on fresh economic stimulus . Commodities: Oil was up 3%. Price per barrel of West Texas Intermediate crude: $41.23. Gold was in the green 0.37% and at $1,894 as of press time. Treasurys: U.S. Treasury bond yields all fell Thursady. Yields, which move in the opposite direction as price, were down most on the two-year, dipping to 0.147 and in the red 8.5%. Related Stories Market Wrap: Bitcoin Surges on Square News to $10.9K; December Ether Options Pile Up Market Wrap: Bitcoin Surges on Square News to $10.9K; December Ether Options Pile Up || Kava Releases a Proposal for Harvest.io the Worlds First Cross-Chain Money Market: San Francisco, CA, Sept. 19, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Kava, the multi-asset DeFi platform, has today released a proposal for the first cross-chain money market to be hosted within its Cosmos SDK built blockchain. The application which is dubbed Harvest will enable Kava blockchain users to further capitalize on DeFi opportunities through its lending and borrowing functions. Whats been a bullish past few months, has seen innovations pivot toward decentralization and open architecture. Harvest, set to debut on Kavas blockchain, bases its fundamentals on a similar infrastructure, with an end goal of decentralizing financial services. The platform will allow anyone to lend and borrow digital assets including BTC, XRP, BNB, BUSD, KAVA and USDX for an interest in return. Harvest users who borrow or lend on the application will be paid out their interest plus the application's governance token HARD. Version 1 of the software will provide Supply functionality and Version 2 is will provide. Borrow functionality and expanded governance. The Harvest DeFi Lending Cross-Chain Architecture Harvest will be the first of many applications that will eventually leverage Kavas blockchain security for DeFi products. With the innovation majorly deriving its fundamentals from Kava , it will automatically integrate other functions such as Kavas price-reference data from Chainlink oracles and the underlying bridges to facilitate cross-chain asset transfers. This cross-chain architecture will play a pivotal role in giving Harvest access to any digital assets within the Kava blockchain network. The project is set to capitalize on the Kava-4 Mainnet upgrade where an expansion of the BEP3 Bridge will feature the support of BTC, BUSD and XRP amongst other digital assets. Ideally, all these digital assets will eventually be supported within the Harvest money market alongside Kava native assets like USDX KAVA and HARD. The Harvest application is a decentralized platform thats accessible by anyone anywhere. This open and permissionless platform will facilitate integrations with financial market stakeholders in niches not limited to FinTech apps, Exchanges, and financial institutions. This category of financial service providers will be able to offer Harvests earning and borrowing opportunities, directly to their clients. Story continues Decentralized Governance Recent DeFi trends have shown that a governance token is necessary to facilitate the growth of projects within this industry. Likewise, the Harvest governance token HARD will harmonize decentralized activities within its lending and borrowing ecosystem. This token will enable Harvest users who hold it to manage key metrics such as the digital assets to be featured and reward distribution within the network. In addition, HARD tokens will incentivize user participation and active governance on the Harvest application. Suppliers and Borrows stand to benefit by having more voice in the management of this Kava-built DeFi application. Harvest will also distribute 20% of the total amount of HARD tokens to Kava stakers over the next few years for providing security and other base-layer services to the Harvest application. Brian Kerr, CEO and Co-Founder of Kava stated, Importantly, this foundation provides developers with the ability to quickly build applications on Kavas open decentralized network while being able to leverage its security, cross-chain bridges, and other infrastructure that would otherwise cost millions and take years to develop independently. About Kava Kava is a multi-asset DeFi platform that offers stablecoins, loans, and other financial services for users of major cryptocurrency assets including BTC, XRP, BNB and ATOM to name a few. Kavas Harvest.io application is the worlds first decentralized cross-chain money market. More details about the project can be found at: Whitepaper Telegram Medium Twitter Havest.io Media contact information: Name: Sarah Austin Company: sarah@kava.io Email: Kava Labs Website: http://kava.io || First Mover: Bitcoin Hits $11K as Square Exposes $2.3T Corporate Money Pot: Payments company Square’s announcement that it would put some $50 million, or1% of its assets, intobitcoinhas touched off speculation that more corporations might do the same.
Jack Dorsey, the Twitter CEO who also helms Square, is a longtime bitcoin bull, so it wasn’t a huge surprise his company would put some of its corporate liquidity into the cryptocurrency. He’s following the path of MicroStrategy CEO Michael Saylor, who has investedat least $425 million of the company’s assets in bitcoin.
None other than Changpeng “CZ” Zhao, CEO of Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange,tweeteda question: “Who’s going to be the 3rd public company to hold #bitcoin in treasury?” Guesses included Twitter, Tesla, Apple, Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway, even the burger chain Wendy’s.
Related:Bitcoin Nears $11.5K on US Stimulus Prospects, Seems to Confirm Bullish Trend
“It’s a bit surreal to see gigantic corporate entities now going knee-deep in bitcoin,” Mati Greenspan, founder of the foreign-exchange and cryptocurrency analysis firm Quantum Economics, wrote to subscribers on Thursday.
One clever, enterprising soul even ginned up a spreadsheet to keep track of the corporate purchases and published it as a new website,bitcointreasuries.org:
Companies in the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index of large U.S. stocks have a combined $2.3 trillion in cash and short-term investments. So a 1% across-the-board allocation to bitcoin would amount to $23 billion of purchases. That’s just over 10% of bitcoin’s total market capitalization, currently about$200 billion.
A big bullish investment thesis for bitcoin is that large institutional investors are on the verge of diving into cryptocurrencies as an asset class, led by money managers like Fidelity Investments that have embraced the new technology and digital-asset markets.
Related:Market Wrap: Bitcoin Tops $11.1K; Ether Traders Like $400 Options
Now it seems like corporate purchases might add to that buying pressure.
Dorsey tweeted out a “whitepaper” to his4.7 million followersexplaining just how Square had come to buy its bitcoin — noting that the transparency was intended “so others can do the same.”
“To maintain transaction privacy and price slippage on execution, treasury purchased the bitcoin over-the-counter with a bitcoin liquidity provider that we currently use as part of Cash App’s bitcoin trading product,” according to the whitepaper. “We negotiated a spread on top of a public bitcoin index and executed trades using a time-weighted average price (TWAP) over a predetermined 24-hour period with low expected price volatility and high market liquidity, in order to reduce risks associated with cost and pricing.”
Got that, corporate treasurers?
Bitcoin has jumped over 3% in the past 24 hours to set a three-week high above $11,000.
• The move has confirmed a contracting triangle breakout on the daily chart.
• Even so, some analysts remain cautious and want to see the cryptocurrency take out resistance at $11,200 before calling a bullish revival.
• “We consider the breakout of the Sept. 19 high of $11,200 to be a more significant catalyst for further upside,” Lennard Neo, head of research at Stack Funds, told CoinDesk. He added that the price range of $10,000 to $11,200 may hold until more clarity surfaces going into November U.S. elections.
• The rise comes a day after payments company Square announced that it hadput 1% of its total assetsinto the largest cryptocurrency by market cap.
• Prices hit $11,023 at 11:05 UTC – the highest since Sept. 20, according to CoinDesk’sBitcoin Price Index.
• The rally to $11,000 marked an upside break from the past two week’s range of about $10,500 and $10,800.
– Omkar Godbole
Tether (USDT), Solana (SOL):Tether launches on Solana, the “web-scale” blockchain, designed to compete with Ethereum and hopes toincrease its transaction speedswhile lowering costs.
Bitcoin (BTC):Billionaire investor Chamath Palihapitiya sees bitcoin asinsurance policy against central banks and governments acting irresponsibly.
Crypto payments firm Ripple branches into corporate lending with line of credit to fund cross-border payments (CoinDesk)
Central-bank digital currencies should work alongside cash, do no harm to financial stability, BIS says (CoinDesk)
BitMEX CTO Reed released in U.S. after payment of $5M bond (CoinDesk)
Ethereum fee-reduction proposal struggles to win consensus backing as miners signal disapproval according to a new survey (CoinDesk)
Crypto trading app Uphold launches service allowing traders to buy and sell 50 U.S. stocks at any time of day (Decrypt)
Amdax digital-asset exchange says it’s first crypto service in Netherlands to register with central bank (CoinDesk)
Decentralized exchange CoFiX raises $500K from investors including Huobi, Dragonfly, Coinbase, with plan for new oracle solution (CoinDesk)
Pelosi, leader of opposition Democratic party in U.S. House, said Thursday she wouldn’t support financial assistance for airlines in standalone bill, insists on broader aid package (CNBC)
U.S. government-supported passenger railroad Amtrak could axe 2.4K jobs without new government bailout, needs $4.9B (Reuters)
Phillippines broadband provider raises $523 million through IPO, country’s largest since 2016, as pandemic spurs greater Internet usage (Bloomberg)
India’s economy will contract by 9.5% in the fiscal year through March due to COVID-19 measures, central bank says (Nikkei Asian Review)
• First Mover: Bitcoin Hits $11K as Square Exposes $2.3T Corporate Money Pot
• First Mover: Bitcoin Hits $11K as Square Exposes $2.3T Corporate Money Pot || Playboy CEO Sells $25.8 Million Brentwood Mansion to Bitcoin Investor Josh Jones: Around the time he became CEO of Playboy Enterprises, L.A.-based financier Ben Kohn began the construction of a lavish new estate in L.A.s Brentwood neighborhood, within one of the areas only guard-gated communities. Before the house was completed earlier this year, Kohn changed his mind about moving into the mansion or maybe he intended to flip it all along because the place was shopped around off-market and toured by Justin Bieber and Haley Baldwin , who allegedly took a shine to the house and initiated escrow on it, though that deal was ultimately called off. (The high-profile couple eventually paid $25.8 million for a different home, this one high in the mountains above Beverly Hills.) In June, the Kohn compound popped up on the open market with a $30 million pricetag, and the property quickly sold for $25.8 million the biggest deal recorded in Brentwood so far this year. The new owners are tech entrepreneur-turned-leading Bitcoin investor Josh Jones and his longtime wife Tweeny Kau, who already live in the general area but had been seeking a residential upgrade. Described as a young and hip Mediterranean in listing materials, the nearly 9,300 sq. ft. structure was designed by L.A. megamansion specialist William Hefner , with interiors by Estee Stanley . The red-tile-roofed house sports a mesmerizing entryway, with double glass doors that swing into a foyer that opens via another set of double glass doors directly to the backyard, where theres a sprawling lawn and Century City skyline views framed by mature olive trees. Gorgeous herringbone-patterned hardwood floors flow into the living room, which offers a beamed ceiling with a crystal chandelier and fireplace. Other public spaces have decidedly contemporary finishes, like the formal dining that easily seats 10 and opens to an outdoor terrace. The magazine-worthy kitchen offers book-matched marble walls, designer Bluestar appliances sheathed in a shiny black lacquer, and custom rustic oak cabinetry for contrast. Theres also a family room that opens to a screened loggia with a limestone fireplace. The master suite, one of five bedroom suites in the house, includes multiple banks of windows with dazzling views of the entire L.A. basin and on a clear day the Pacific Ocean, plus a marble-slathered bathroom and dual closets. Theres also an upstairs family room and a carpeted screening room thats more casual than the typical mansions movie theater but perfectly suits the effortlessly luxurious, low-key vibe of the property. Story continues Outdoors, the 1.8-acre hilltop lot boasts al fresco dining area, a substantial gated motorcourt, and a lap-lane swimming pool with inset spa. The aforementioned grassy lawn is big enough for a soccer pitch just make sure any out-of-bounds balls dont go flying down the steep hillside. Jones, a 42-year-old alumnus of Claremonts Harvey Mudd College, co-founded web hosting service Dreamhost in 1996. Since then, the company has grown to employ 200 and now services over 400,000 customers worldwide. But to the public at large, Jones may be best-known for his early involvement with Bitcoin , a lucrative investment Jones describes himself as a bitcoin billionaire that turned sour after he reportedly had $45 million worth of bitcoin currency stolen from him online account, a major theft that was widely reported online. In addition to his new $25.8 million Brentwood estate, Jones and Kau own at least four other multimillion-dollar homes on L.A.s Westside, according to property records, all of them in Santa Monica. Their main residence appears to be a $6.2 million Cape Cod-style in a leafy part of the city, while they also own side-by-side teardown houses in the same general area. Shortly after the Brentwood mansion was acquired in July, the two Santa Monica teardown were both put up for sale, asking a total of $11.6 million. And in 2018, the couple also purchased a plum oceanfront property in Santa Monica that consists of a 1930s cottage sandwiched between two massive neighboring mansions. Records show that demolition permits have since been acquired for the address in question. Gary Gold of Hilton & Hyland held the listing; David Kramer and Andrew Buss , also of Hilton & Hyland, repped Jones. More from Variety Taylor Lautner Buys Striking Agoura Hills Mansion Boxing Champ Deontay Wilder Hooks a Glendora Home On 'Ratched,' Sarah Paulson Checks into the Adamson House, One of Malibu's First Homes View comments
[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
None available.
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Trend: up || Prices: 11296.36, 11384.18, 11555.36, 11425.90, 11429.51, 11495.35, 11322.12, 11358.10, 11483.36, 11742.04
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Analyze the provided historical prices, technical indicators, news, and social media sentiment from the last 60 days. Based on this context, predict the overall trend (up, down, or no change) and the specific daily closing prices for Bitcoin for the next 10 days.
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[Technical Analysis for 2017-07-28]
BTC Price: 2809.01, BTC RSI: 58.79
Gold Price: 1268.40, Gold RSI: 66.19
Oil Price: 49.71, Oil RSI: 67.12
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
Kurzweil on bitcoin: 'I wouldn't put my money into it': Bob Pisani of CNBC (L) speaks to Ray Kurzweil, who beamed in from San Francisco. (Singularity University) On Friday, futurist Ray Kurzweil spoke at the Exponential Finance Summit, a New York City technology conference put on by Singularity University, a Silicon Valley think tank. Kurzweil, an author and inventor, is often called the “father of the singularity,” in reference to his own concept of the time when artificial intelligence will surpass human beings. He’s also written and lectured on transhumanism, nanotechnology, computer avatars, and how technology has changed and will change the global economy. So Yahoo Finance asked him for his thoughts on bitcoin, the cryptocurrency that is soaring in value right now, up 200% in 2017 to nearly $3,000 per coin. Bitcoin price in 2017 so far It sounds like Kurzweil is intrigued by the concept of non-fiat currency, and the possibilities of cryptocurrencies. But he is not bullish on bitcoin. “There’s no reason why currency should be associated with particular national economies and governments,” he said. “However, currencies like the dollar have provided reasonable stability. Bitcoin has not. And it’s not clear to me that the whole mining paradigm can provide that type of stability… We’ve seen tremendous instability with bitcoin, so I wouldn’t put my money into it. I certainly do think there could be alternatives to national currencies emerging in the future. Algorithmic ones are a possibility, I just don’t think we’ve arrived at the right algorithm yet.” Kurzweil is oversimplifying slightly when he says that bitcoin has not been stable. Its price often goes through major swings up or down on a day or in a week, but over longer periods of time it has consistently gained: up 60% in the past month, 260% in the past six months, and 1,100% in the past five years. With his current thinking, Kurzweil joins some other prominent names in the bitcoin skeptics club: Warren Buffett (who called it “a mirage “), Mark Cuban (he says bitcoin’s recent price hike is a bubble ), and Jamie Dimon (he’s called bitcoin “doomed” ), to name a few. Story continues What about blockchain, the decentralized ledger technology that underlies bitcoin , and now has Wall Street and financial institutions excited about blockchains for banking ? Kurzweil is more optimistic about blockchain. “I think the theory is sound,” he said. “People don’t yet have confidence in it; they’ve seen too many examples of supposedly secure systems being compromised in one way or another. I think once we can demonstrate confidence, then yes, a blockchain currency makes sense, and being able to document transactions securely, but there’s a lot to work out.” Along with bitcoin’s price rise, two other cryptocurrencies, litecoin and ether ( token of the Ethereum network ), are up 526% and 1,700%, respectively, in the last year. Disclosure: The author owns less than 1 bitcoin, purchased in 2015 for reporting purposes. — Daniel Roberts covers bitcoin and blockchain at Yahoo Finance. Follow him on Twitter at @ readDanwrite . Read more: Bitcoin is becoming the new gold Why Ethereum is the hottest new thing in digital currency ‘Bitcoin is dead’ says prominent fintech exec Expect more blockchain hype in 2017 || A petition on Change.org is calling on Amazon to accept bitcoin 'ASAP': Screen Shot 2017 06 23 at 10.18.22 AM (Change.org) Bitcoin has been soaring to new heights, and now folks on Change.org are calling on e-commerce juggernaut Amazon to accept the cryptocurrency as payment "ASAP." Since March 23, bitcoin has increased 159%, from a little over $1,000 to $2,700. At least 2,100 petitioners on Change.org want Amazon to join companies such as Microsoft and Overstock in accepting bitcoin as a form of payment. They also want the company to accept litecoin, another cryptocurrency. The petition cites the following reasons as to why it would be a good idea for Amazon to accept the two cryptocurrencies: "Low transaction costs" "Decentralized currency" "Low Inflation (Because of the finite supply of Bitcoins (this mostly benefits the consumer)" "Bitcoin is accessible to any person of any age, sex, demographic, etc. (it is extremely advantageous to citizens of crisis countries)" "Non-reversible payments (Extremely beneficial to reputable companies such as Amazon.com)" "Bitcoins are extremely secure (Bitcoins reside in an encrypted format on the wallet they are kept in)" But Amazon might be skeptical about bitcoin, and for good reason. For starters, cryptocurrencies are known for their constant fluctuations in price. Ethereum , another cryptocurrency, flash crashed on Wednesday. It tumbled from about $296 to a low of $13 in a matter of minutes. Many people think a price correction is on the horizon for bitcoin. Mark Cuban, the billionaire investor, took to twitter on June 6 to say he thought there is a bitcoin " bubble ." I think it's in a bubble. I just don't know when or how much it corrects. When everyone is bragging about how easy they are making $=bubble https://t.co/hTrV5DeWNd — Mark Cuban (@mcuban) June 6, 2017 Additionally, some don't view bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies as viable. Morgan Stanley, for instance, recently said that merchants don't think cryptocurrencies have a bright future. Here's Morgan Stanley: Story continues Most regulators and investors view cryptocurrencies more as assets than actual currencies. Their values are too volatile and too hard to actually use for payment for most to consider them currencies. Our conversations with some merchants indicate that, while cryptocurrencies might actually be attractive for them to operate their businesses, they find that the cryptocurrencies are far too volatile to be used. Other obstacles to bitcoin's future, according to the bank, include the Chinese crackdown on mining bitcoin and declining trading volumes . NOW WATCH: THE BOTTOM LINE: A lot of talk of a bitcoin bubble and a few good reasons to believe tech isn't one More From Business Insider UK finance watchdog warns on ICOs: Be 'prepared to lose your entire stake' 'Jamie Dimon doesn't have the strongest track record when it comes to looking over the hill': Bitcoin community reacts to JPMorgan CEO's comments The former CIO of $3 trillion financial giant UBS has joined the non-profit behind one of the largest cryptocurrencies || Your first trade for Tuesday, June 13: The "Fast Money" traders gave their final trades of the day.
Pete Najarian is a buyer of Micron (MU(NASDAQ: MU)).
Karen Finerman is a buyer of General Electric (GE(NYSE: GE)).
Dan Nathan is a seller of the Financial Select Sector SPDR ETF (XLF)(NYSE Arca: XLF).
Guy Adami is a buyer of Advanced Micro Devices (AMD(NASDAQ: AMD)).
Trader disclosure: OnJune 12, 2017the following stocks and commodities mentioned or intended to be mentioned on CNBC's "Fast Money" were owned by the "Fast Money" traders:
Pete Najarian is long calls AVGO, BAC, BUD, C, CENX, CHK, CPN, CRM, CSX, EOG, ETE, FEYE, FSLR, GS, KMI, LNG, LULU, MDLZ, MT, MU, NBL, NBR, ORCL, RF, TECK, UNP, WLL, XLF. Pete Najarian is long stock AAP, AAPL, BAC, DIS, DLTR, FSLR, GILD, GIS, GE, GM, IBM, K, KMX, KO, KORS, KSU, LEN, LUX, MRK, MSFT, PEP, PFE, RL, UNP, V, WDC, WFT.
Karen is long AAL, BAC, BAC short calls, Bitcoin and other digital currencies, C, DAL, EEM, EPI, EWW, DVYE, FB, FL, GLMP, GLNG, GM, GOGO, GOOG, GOOGL, JPM, LYV, KORS, KORS calls, KORS puts, MA, SEDG, SPY puts, TACO, WIFI, WFM. Her firm is long ANTM, BAC calls, C, C calls, FB, FL, GOOG, GOOGL, GLNG, GMLP, JPM, JPM calls, KORS puts, LYV, PLCE, SPY puts, SPY put spreads, WIFI, UAL, her firm is short IWM, MDY.
Dan Nathan is short SPY, long June XLV, XLI and XRT puts, long XLF September puts
Guy Adami is long CELG, EXAS, GDX, INTC, Guy Adami's wife, Linda Snow, works at Merck.
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• Your first trade for Friday, June 9 || Hoax Over ‘Dead’ Ethereum Founder Spurs $4 Billion Wipe Out: The creator of the digital currency Ethereum, Vitalik Buterin, died in a car crash and insiders are selling like crazy--or so said the headline. It soon became clear the news, posted to notorious troll site 4Chan, was fake but it still gave the price of the currency quite a jolt.
As Quartz reports, the hoax coincided with the overall market value of Ethereum falling by around $4 billion after the news was posted on Sunday night. Here is a chart fromCoindeskthat shows what happened to the currency after that:
Buterin himself took steps to quell the false rumors on Sunday night, posting a tongue-in-cheek picture on Twitter. The picture refers to a new use case for blockchain (the technology that underlies Ethereum) and cites a new piece of data from Ethereum to show he is still alive--it’s like a geek’s version of holding up today’s newspaper.
Buterin’s posting appears to have helped quell the sell-off that followed the fake headline about his death. But the whole episode shows how digital currencies like Ethereum and Bitcoin, which are already volatile, can be subject to market manipulation. (It’s possible of course that someone posted the fake death headline as a mere prank--but the more likely explanation is the stunt was intended to move the market).
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The death hoax came amid a rocky few days for Ethereum. Last week, a so-called “flash crash” saw the crypto-currency briefly plummet to ten cents on a major exchange, before bouncing back up to a price of over $300.
Ethereum, which has emerged this year as a serious rival to bitcoin, has been on a tear since early this year when it sold for only $10. (To get a better idea on what Ethereum is all about, check out my colleague Robert Hackett’smagazine profileof Buterin from last summer.)
See original article on Fortune.com
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• Windows 10 Source Code Leaked || Mark Zuckerberg Visits Local Ice Cream Shop in Small Iowa Town: founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg visited a small town in Iowa, stopping by a local ice cream shop and marking another stop on his tour of the United States. Zuckerberg arrived in the small town of Wilton, Iowa, on Friday. He posted about his trip on Facebook writing, “In the last generation, there has been a real divergence between opportunity available in small towns and big cities. I’ve seen many struggling small towns this year, but I’ve also seen small towns like Wilton that are growing.” Zuckerberg also visited Detroit back in April, The Hill reported . While visiting Detroit, he toured a assembly plant just outside of the city. The country-wide tour is part of a New Year’s resolution he made this year. See original article on Fortune.com More from Fortune.com The Elephant in Trump's Brainstorming Room Inside Odyssey: The Decline of a College Media Empire Why Bitcoin Needs Washington to Go Mainstream Tesla's Autopilot Tech Is a Danger to Cyclists, Robotics Expert Says Why the World's Best Consumer Drones Aren't Just "Made in China," They're Designed and Developed There Too View comments || AMD rallies as cryptocurrency miners snap up graphics chips: By Noel Randewich SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Shares of Advanced Micro Devices surged nearly 9 percent on Tuesday boosted by strong demand for its chips from cryptocurrency miners, leaving short sellers at a loss for the year. A rally in cryptocurrency Ethereum has boosted demand for graphics chips used by people to "mine" it and other digital currencies, with some of AMD's processors sold out on Amazon.com and other retail websites. Mining for cryptocurrency involves using networks of computers to validate transactions and prevent counterfeit by solving complex mathematical problems. New currency is generated as a reward to the computer operators. The emergence of Bitcoin in 2009 made cryptocurrency mining popular. Recent rallies in the price of Bitcoin and newer digital currency Ethereum have rekindled interest. Ethereum miners spending as little as $2,000 to build mining computers using graphics processing units, or GPUs, from AMD or its rival Nvidia could break even within three or four months, estimated RBC analyst Mitch Steves in a note to clients on Tuesday. "We think economics suggests that GPUs continue to be sold out," Steves wrote. "We think GPU demand will remain robust as long as the return is under (about) one year." As of Monday, AMD short sellers had been up about $15 million for 2017. But Tuesday’s share surge left them at a loss of $125 million on paper for the year, according to S3 Partners, a financial analytics firm. That follows losses of over $700 million for AMD short sellers last year, when the stock tripled. The stock last traded up 7.3 percent at $12.06. "There are going to be a lot of traders saying, 'This is the last straw. I'm out,'" said Ihor Dusaniwsky, S3's managing director of research. AMD spokesman Drew Prairie acknowledged that interest from cryptocurrency miners was contributing to demand for the company's chips, but he stressed that game enthusiasts are the core market. JPMorgan Chase, Microsoft Corp, Intel Corp and more than two dozen other companies have teamed up to develop standards to make it easier for enterprises to use technology related to Ethereum. Adding to support for AMD's stock, Apple on Monday refreshed its lineup of Mac personal computers, including upgraded graphics chips from AMD. || Nvidia is set to dominate the '4th tectonic shift' in computing: (Facebook)
Decades of work have paid off forNvidia. The next computer revolution is here, and the company is set to dominate its competition, according to Jefferies.
"IBM dominated in the 1950's with the mainframe computer, DEC in the mid 1960's with the transition to mini-computers, Microsoft and Intel as PCs ramped, and finally Apple and Google as cell phones became ubiquitous," Mark Lipacis wrote in a note to clients. "We believe the next tectonic shift is happening now and NVDA stands to benefit the way these aforementioned tech giants did in prior transitions."
Nvidia has been working on itsCUDA computing platformand its graphics processing unit (GPU) technology for years. Traditionally, a computer has worked in a linear way, processing one task at a time on the central processing unit (CPU).
Shortly after GPUs were introduced in the 1990s, programmers began using them to break tasks into lots of smaller problems and solving them all at the same time on the GPU. This is called "parallel processing."
For certain types of problems, like rendering lots of graphics elements in a video game, GPUs were far superior to the single-minded CPU. They were slower at single tasks, but could handle lots of problems at the same time. Nvidia developed a programming platform, called CUDA, to take advantage of the way their GPUs could handle these multi-faceted problems. CUDA made it easy to break traditional problems into multiple parts that ran much faster on a GPU than the traditional CPU.
Fast forward to modern times where artificial intelligence and deep learning technologies are the hot trends. Companies like Google, Tesla and Amazon are using artificial intelligence toprogram self-driving cars,conquer ancient board gamesanddevelop smart personal assistants. Luckily for Nvidia, artificial intelligence and deep learning programs are perfectly suited to run on its GPUs and CUDA platform.
Jefferies thinks these two technologies give Nvidia a huge advantage over the competition.
"We see NVDA as a major beneficiary of the 4th Tectonic Shift in Computing, where serial processing (x86) architectures give way to massively parallel processing capabilities as the next wave of connected devices approach 10b units by 2022," Jefferies said.
As tech giants build out new data centers to handle their ballooning artificial intelligence research, they often turn to Nvidia to supply the hundreds or thousands of GPUs they need. MIT recently said Nvidia has spent around $3 billion to develop its current data center chip, and it's a move that has paid off for the company.MIT named Nvidia as the smartest company in the worldin 2017, in part, because of this investment.
Nvidia has beenmaking waves in the autonomous-car business as well.The company recently announced partnerships with Baidu, Volvo and Volkswagen to improve their self-driving car technologies and its technology is already being used in vehicles made by Tesla, Audi and Toyota.
Cryptocurrency mining is another example of a process that runs better on GPUs. Nvidia has been raking in profits in that area too, andone Wall Street bank thinks it will be just another sector that Nvidia will come to dominate.
Investors have been rewarding Nvidia as it takes the computer world by storm. Shares of Nvidia are up 48.55% this year.
While it might take some time before Nvidia's $87.04 billion market cap comes close to the companies that dominated the last computing revolution (Alphabet at $598.61 billion and Apple at $751.88 billion), Jefferies has faith in the company. The investment bank raised its price target to $180, up about 19% from Nvidia's current price.
(Markets Insider)
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• Bitcoin and Ethereum are 'cannibalizing' gold || Tiger Cub Rob Citrone Is Bullish on Valeant Pharmaceuticals Intl Inc (VRX), Advanced Micro Devices, Inc (AMD), Slashes Amazon.com, Inc. (AMZN): Image result for "Rob Citrone" Rob Citrone is fund manager of the $5.37 billion Discovery Capital Management fund. In Q1 Citrone made some interesting portfolio adjustments- initiating holdings in Valeant Pharmaceuticals Intl Inc (NYSE: VRX ) and Advanced Micro Devices, Inc (NASDAQ: AMD ) while slashing the fund’s holding of one of the market’s most popular stocks, e-commerce giant Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN ). Citrone began his career in Julian Robertson’s legendary fund Tiger Management giving him the ‘Tiger Cub’ nickname along with other big-name fund manager such as Steve Mandel and Lee Ainslie. Citrone, who founded Discovery in 1999, is a fan of macro bets and emerging markets- a strategy that saw the firm lose money in both 2014 and 2015. These losses were somewhat offset in 2016 when the fund made a 9% return- apparently from trades made in the last 2 months of the year alone. However the fund’s measured performance of 19.46% remains considerably below that of the average hedge fund (53.57%). Now let’s dig down into the fund manager’s key Q1 moves: New Hopes for Valeant Pharmaceuticals Perhaps surprisingly given fellow fund manager Bill Ackman’s recent exit from the stock with a $4 billion loss, Citrone initiated a new position in Valeant Pharma worth $5.11 million. So far the investment has paid off with shares up 28% since the last filing date. Rumors have now surfaced that Valeant intends to sell eye unit Bausch & Lomb’s surgery products business to Carl Zeiss Meditec AG, a $4.6 billion medical tech company based in Germany. The deal could be worth about $2 billion, sources told Bloomberg, but added that it could take several weeks for an agreement to be signed as the two companies are just in discussions for now. At the right price, a sale could be good news for the embattled health care stock Valeant which is trying to clear its massive $28.9 billion debt burden racked up from numerous acquisitions, poor sales and legal investigations into former pricing policies. This year Valeant has already sold three skincare brands to L’Oreal for $1.3 billion and its Dendreon cancer business to China’s Sanpower for $819 million. Story continues Analysts are more cautious on the stock’s outlook. TipRanks shows that in the last three months the stock has received 2 buy, 9 hold and 3 sell ratings. The average analyst price target of $18.20 now stands at a 46% upside from the current share price of just $12.51. Small Bite in AMD In Q1 Citrone also decided to start seriously investing in semiconductor company AMD with a new position worth $164.63 million. So far shares are down, with a decrease of over 12% since the last filing date. AMD is now seeing an unexpected boost in demand from rapidly exploding cryptocurrencies. Shares in AMD were up 7% on Tuesday making the stock the best-performer in the S&P 500 for the day after AMD revealed that cryptocurrencies are leading an upsurge in demand for its graphic cards. Bitcoin is up 200% this year, Ethereum an incredible 2900% year-to-date. AMD says that gaming continues to be the company’s main focus where it sees “solid demand” for its Polaris-based graphics cards. However it’s possible that the situation will not end as well as the market currently believes. In December 2013, the same situation occurred and the demand for AMD’s graphic cards proved very temporary. At the time, Bitcoin rose and then dropping by 80%. This could happen again. Now Bitcoin is arguably also being boosted by a kind of cryptocurrency euphoria which could make the downturn even more severe. Perhaps that is why AMD is trying to downplay the news with the gaming comment. The stock has a hold consensus rating from the Street, according to TipRanks which shows a spread of 6 buy, 9 hold and 3 sell ratings in the last three months. Due in part to the recent share gains, analysts are predicting downside of -8.74% to the average price target of $11.70 from the current share price. Slashing Amazon In Q1, Citrone slashed the fund’s Amazon holding by a considerable 61%. The fund’s remaining position in the e-commerce giant now stands at $165 million- making it the fund’s fourth biggest stock. And since the last filing date it has performed well with shares up 14%. Amazon has just announced that it will discount its Prime subscriber service by 49% to just $5.99/ month for customers with verified Electronic Benefits Transfer cards (i.e. people who are involved in a government assistance program). Prime membership means customers can receive special product discounts, free same-day delivery, free monthly e-books and access to more of Amazon’s entertainment offerings. The reduced rate lasts for one year, but can be renewed up to four times according to Amazon, which says it intends to expand the offer to similar assistance programs in the future. The move by Amazon towards a lower-income market is an interesting one, especially as smaller rival Walmart is concentrating its efforts on the more affluent consumer says KeyBanc analyst Edward Yruma . This will increase the competitive pressure on other retailers trying to find their niche in between these two giants, writes Yruma. According to Yruma, 51% of US households are Amazon Prime members, and this new initiative will push that percentage even higher. While the stock has a very negative hedge fund confidence signal, the Street is much more bullish on Amazon’s outlook. Over the last three months, the stock has received 28 buy ratings and only 3 hold ratings. The average price target of $1,104 also represents further upside potential for the stock of close to 10% over the next 12 months. More recent articles about AMD: 3 Reasons Why You Should Drop Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (AMD) Shares Here’s What Ken Fisher Up To: Apple Inc (AAPL), NVIDIA Corporation (NVDA), Amazon.com, Inc (AMZN) See Hedge Fund Whiz Benjamin Smith's Trades in Tech: Tesla Inc (TSLA), Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (AMD), Snap Inc (SNAP) Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (AMD) Launches Ryzen PRO Desktop Processors || Bitcoin eyes return to $3,000 as Ether edges lower: Investing.com Bitcoin renewed its swing higher on Tuesday, as investor appetite for the digital currency returned while Ethereum struggled to hold onto gains. On the U.S.-based GDAX exchange, BTC/USD rose to $2,746.6 up 7.29%. Bitcoin continued its march higher to $3000, the level achieved last week, as investors piled back into the digital currency, after it fell to $2,409, a level that some analysts suggested could be attractive for reentry. Bitcoin is up nearly 180% year-to-date far outpacing traditional the gains achieved by traditional U.S. benchmarks such as the Nasdaq and the S&P 500, which are up about 15% and 10%, respectively. Whereas, Ether, a currency transacted through the Ethereum platform, has risen 4,500% since the beginning of the year, backed by big corporate names like JPMorgan (NYSE:JPM) and Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT). Ether failed, however, to mirror bitcoins move higher in the session, with eth/usd down 1.20% to $250.73. Ether has made up significant ground against bitcoin in short space of time, reaching a market cap of about $33 billion not far off bitcoins $44 billion. If recent trends continue, then the value of Ethereums currency could usurp Bitcoins in the coming weeks a phenomenon referred to as the flippeninig. Related Articles Forex - Yen points higher in early Asia ahead of BoJ minutes Dollar remains close to session highs as sterling slide continues Forex - Dollar gains amid Fed remarks and sterling weakness || Bitcoin storms back: Bitcoin has come all the way back from Thursday's steep slide. The cryptocurrency tumbled as much as 18.5% to $2,076 a coin after riskier assets fell following the Fed rate hike. On Friday, it's trading up 3.5% at $2,520. The selling on Thursday began when bitcoin-mining firm Bitmain outlined its " contingency plan . " Coindesk explained it best: "Most notably, the proposal would dedicate mining resources to hard forking the network to a rule set with a larger block size an upgrade that would likely result in two bitcoin networks and two tradable bitcoin assets." Riskier assets were already feeling some heat after the Federal Reserve raised its benchmark interest rate 25 basis points to a range of 1% to 1.25% on Wednesday. The writing had been on the wall. Bitcoin gained about 180% from the beginning of April through the middle of June. That run prompted tech billionaire Mark Cuban to call bitcoin a " bubble ." Additionally, Goldman Sachs head of technical strategy Sheba Jafari also sounded the alarm on bitcoin in a note to clients sent earlier this week, saying that "the balance of signals are looking broadly heavy." At least for now, it appears that Jafari nailed her call. "Consider re-establishing bullish exposure between 2,330 and no lower than 1,915," she concluded in this week's note. Bitcoin (Investing.com) NOW WATCH: An economist explains the key issues that Trump needs to address to boost the economy More From Business Insider Bitcoin is tumbling GOLDMAN SACHS: Bitcoin is looking 'heavy' Bitcoin nearly hits $3,000 before plunging
[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
2017-06-15 14:00:02 (KST)
비트코인 BTC
빗썸: null (+NaN)
코인원: 2,982,000 (-16,000)
코빗: 2,988,000 (-10,500) || Cryptocurrency Analysis: Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, Ripple, Ethereum Classic – Hacked http://news.google.com/news/url?sa=t&fd=R&ct2=us&usg=AFQjCNFWsSCl-WmOlHcKDFiT77sZHUhsUw&clid=c3a7d30bb8a4878e06b80cf16b898331&ei=MS5CWeCSGY-q8gWz8qawCg&url=https://hacked.com/cryptocurrency-analysis-bitcoin-ethereum-litecoin-ripple-ethereum-classic/ …
#btc #eth #xrp || Jul 23, 2017 01:00:00 UTC | 2,858.90$ | 2,450.80€ | 2,200.10£ | #Bitcoin #btc pic.twitter.com/LNbAFH1Jrj || #Bitcoin -0.94%
Ultima: R$ 7801.00 Alta: R$ 8174.79 Baixa: R$ 7801.00
Fonte: Foxbit || easy to sit on the fence there vinny || btc - yeeeeessss - good alternativa :) http://youtu.be/NzAdC5ooAEI?a || #blockchain #fork #segwit2x #fintech #bitcoin https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/6hdhw4/segwit2x_about_to_become_compatible_with_bip148/ … || The latest xX_otto_Xx's Daily Planet! HaHaHa!!!! http://paper.li/xX_otto_Xx/1404883083?edition_id=dcbeff30-51b3-11e7-9e6d-0cc47a0d15fd … Thanks to @RockSolidMiners #blockchain #bitcoin || One Bitcoin now worth $2430.00@bitstamp. High $2542.57. Low $2315.01. Market Cap $39.879 Billion #bitcoin || 0:00~1:00のBitcoin市場はしっかりだったのかな。
変化率は-0.7673%
2:00までは反騰になる?
直近の市場の平均Bitcoinの価格は290686.0円
#ビットコイン
#bitcoin
#AI
|
Trend: up || Prices: 2726.45, 2757.18, 2875.34, 2718.26, 2710.67, 2804.73, 2895.89, 3252.91, 3213.94, 3378.94
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Analyze the provided historical prices, technical indicators, news, and social media sentiment from the last 60 days. Based on this context, predict the overall trend (up, down, or no change) and the specific daily closing prices for Bitcoin for the next 10 days.
|
[Technical Analysis for 2022-10-05]
BTC Price: 20160.72, BTC RSI: 53.94
Gold Price: 1711.40, Gold RSI: 55.65
Oil Price: 87.76, Oil RSI: 54.69
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
Egregious Deficiencies, Bots, and Foreign Agents: The Biggest Allegations From the Twitter Whistleblower: Peiter "Mudge" Zatko Peiter "Mudge" Zatko at home in 2016. Credit - Cole Wilson Twitters former top security official has alleged that company executives endangered national security through egregious deficiencies in privacy and security and systematically misled users, members of its board, investors, and government officials about those vulnerabilities . The former official, Peiter Mudge Zatko, is a famous hacker and one of the nations top cybersecurity experts. He served as Twitters security lead from Nov. 2020 to Jan. 2022, when he was fired by CEO Parag Agrawal after Zatko began documenting what he says were repeated security violations, and as he worked with the companys compliance officer on a formal investigation based on his claims . Zatko submitted his disclosures to U.S. regulatory agencies in July, invoking federal whistleblower protections, and they were shared with members of Congress. In 84 pages of disclosures and supporting documents, which TIME reviewed, Zatko accuses the $33 billion social-media platforms top executives of violating the Federal Trade Commission Act and Securities and Exchange Commission regulations by misleading users, investors and board members about critical data security and privacy issues. These vulnerabilities led to frequent serious security breaches, exploitation by bad actors, and infiltration by foreign governments , Zatko alleges. The documents shine a light on what Zatko alleges are years of basic security failings at Twitter, which he says make the platform vulnerable to abuse and even total collapse. Notably, the disclosures imply that the problems were allowed to fester under Agrawal, who was the most senior executive in charge of security issues before Zatko arrived. If these problems are not corrected, regulators, media, and users of the platform will be shocked when they inevitably learn about Twitters severe lack of security basics, Zatko wrote in a Feb. 2022 document cited in the disclosure . READ MORE: What the Twitter Whistleblower Bot Disclosures Mean for Elon Musk The disclosures come just weeks before the first scheduled court date in a legal dispute over the pending sale of the company to billionaire Elon Musk , who is seeking to extricate himself from an agreement to purchase the company. Musk claims Twitter misled him and investors about the percentage of spam bots and fake accounts that make up its user base. According to internal company emails submitted as part of the disclosures , Zatko began documenting Twitters alleged wrongdoings months before Musk publicly announced his desire to buy the company. The trial over whether Musk must go through with his initial agreement to buy Twitter is set to start on Oct. 17 in Delaware. Story continues Zatko accuses Twitter executives of lying about bots to Musk , shareholders and Twitter users, alleging that the platform has far more spam accounts than it lets on, and that executives are disincentivized to count them properly because doing so would negatively affect their bonuses. A Twitter spokesperson said the company had not seen Zatkos allegations in full, but rejected a description of his main allegations. Mr. Zatko was fired from his senior executive role at Twitter for poor performance and ineffective leadership over six months ago, a Twitter spokesperson told TIME. While we havent had access to the specific allegations being referenced, what weve seen so far is a narrative about our privacy and data security practices that is riddled with inconsistencies and inaccuracies, and lacks important context. Mr. Zatkos allegations and opportunistic timing appear designed to capture attention and inflict harm on Twitter, its customers and its shareholders. Security and privacy have long been company-wide priorities at Twitter and we still have a lot of work ahead of us. Zatkos disclosures allege the social media companys executives committed securities law violations by making material misrepresentations and omissions in SEC filings, and asked him to mislead the board by minimizing security vulnerabilities. Zatko also says Twitter is beset by fundamental architectural flaws that allow too many employees God mode access to its systems, making the platform vulnerable to hackers and to influence by foreign intelligence agencies. His disclosures allege that Twitter executives hired two people whom he believes were Indian government agents and put them in positions with direct unsupervised access to internal Twitter data and information. This was just one example of Twitters negligence and even complicity with respect to efforts by foreign governments to infiltrate, control, exploit, surveil and/or censor the platform, its staff and its operations, Zatko alleges. A source close to the company says that Zatkos claims around the time of his exit were investigated and found to be sensationalistic and lacking merit. Mudge stands by everything in his disclosure, and his career of effective and ethical leadership speaks for itself. The focus should be on the facts laid out in the disclosure, not ad hominem attacks against the whistleblower, says John Tye, of Whistleblower Aid which is representing Zatko. Zatkos disclosures, which were first reported by the Washington Post and CNN and which TIME obtained from a congressional source, were sent to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the Bureau of Consumer Protection at the Federal Trade Commission, and the civil and antitrust divisions of the Justice Department, and a redacted version was shared with Congress. The House Energy and Commerce Committee is reviewing the documents, which are coming to light weeks after lawmakers advanced a landmark data privacy bill and the FTC launched an effort to review data privacy protections. The Senate Judiciary Committee has also indicated it intends to investigate Zatkos allegations, and the Senate Intelligence Committee is looking to set up a meeting with him, according to CNN. The disclosures suggest that Twitter is disorganized and careless and highlight the total lack of institutional and practical controls they have, a senior Democratic staffer tells TIME. They show how the potential for abuse is there
and it will inform the work were doing on this legislation. Who is Peiter Mudge Zatko? Zatkos whistleblower disclosures allege Twitter executives committed securities law violations by making material misrepresentations and omissions in SEC filings, and asked him to mislead the board by minimizing security vulnerabilities Cole Wilson Known by the hacker pseudonym Mudge, Zatko, 51, has for three decades been one of the best-known figures in the world of network security. He has been tapped by major tech companies and the federal government to uncover weaknesses in their digital security systems. He exposed vulnerabilities in the early days of the Internet, played leading roles in the hacker collectives L0pht and the Cult of the Dead Cow, and served stints at Google and the Department of Defense. Zatko has also testified in front of Congress and been brought in to advise U.S. Presidents, lawmakers, and federal intelligence agencies. He remains one of the best security minds on the planet today, Kevin OBrien, co-founder and CEO of cybersecurity firm GreatHorn, said of Zatko after Twitter hired him. After a Twitter hack in 2020 that led to the accounts of users including Elon Musk and Joe Biden being compromised, Twitter co-founder and then-CEO Jack Dorsey gave Zatko a broad mandate as the social-media companys head of security. Zatko ultimately supervised hundreds of staffers and had a mission to evaluate Twitters security problems, present them to company leaders, and come up with a strategy to fix them, according to his disclosures . But his time at Twitter quickly grew fraught. Here are some of Zatkos most serious allegations against his former employer: Claim: Twitter knowingly undercounts spam bots Since July, Musk and Twitter have been locked in a legal dispute that revolves around the number of spam bots on the platform. Musk has argued that the percentage of automated spam accounts on Twitter is far higher than the maximum of 5% the company has claimed for years, and that this inaccuracy gives Musk grounds to back out of a $44 billion deal to buy the company. In allegations that will bolster Musks argument, Zatkos disclosures allege that Twitter has been lying to Musk about bots, and that the total percentage of spam bots on Twitter is substantially higher than the maximum of 5% that Twitter claims. Zatko says that Twitter arrives at its official percentage of bots on the platform by sampling only from a subset of accounts known as monetizable daily active users, or mDAUs. But that subset, created by Twitter to give advertisers an idea of how many real humans are looking at their ads, already attempts to exclude bots. Zatko says that his own internal attempts to find out what percentage of total Twitter accounts were bots were met with a lack of enthusiasm. In early 2021, as a new executive, Mudge asked the head of Site Integrity (responsible for addressing platform manipulation including spam and botnets) what the underlying spam bot numbers were, Zatkos disclosure states. Their response was we dont really know. Zatko further argues that Twitter executives are not incentivized to accurately detect or report total spam bots on the platform, because he says that their potentially lucrative bonuses are tied to growing the number of mDAUs. He suggests that if the real percentage of spam bots were to become known, it would hurt the image and valuation of the company. And he alleges in the complaint that he once witnessed a Twitter executive telling members of the companys board of directors that Twitter had intentionally and knowingly deprioritized platform health in favor of growing mDAU. A Twitter representative did not respond to requests for comment related to mDAU. Claim: Twitter has a severe lack of security basics Zatko alleges that Twitter is decades behind competitors like Google and Facebook in its internal security protocols and that during his tenure, a serious security breach was occurring at Twitter virtually every week. He argues that this was partly because far too many employees have access to internal systems that they shouldnt, which makes the platform vulnerable to basic phishing schemes. In July 2020 , the accounts of Joe Biden, Barack Obama, and other prominent figures were hacked as part of a scam that drained more than $100,000 in Bitcoin from users. The hack was masterminded by a teenager who posed as a member of the IT department in order to gain employees credentials, which then allowed him access to those accounts. He was arrested and pleaded guilty to all 30 charges against him . On Jan. 6, Zatko says, he was watching the Capitol insurrection unfold online and asked a Twitter higher-up to curtail employees access to internal systems. He learned that it was impossible: too many employees had irrevocable access. One rogue engineer with the right system privileges could have sabotaged the platform, sowing misinformation and discord, Zatko alleges. A few false tweets purporting to be from the account of President Trump, for example, could have escalated the violence. A source close to the company said that employees must have a business justification to access internal systems and data platforms. Zatko also says that Twitters data centers were a mess, running on outdated operating systems and improperly backed up. In the spring of 2021, Zatko says, the company narrowly avoided a catastrophic failure that could have knocked out all of the companys data centers and permanently shut down the entire platform. Twitter engineers worked around the clock to fix the issues, Zatko says, and the incident never became public. A Twitter representative did not respond to a request for comment on this alleged incident. (The platform did experience widespread outages on April 16, 2021.) Claim: Twitter misled investors and the government Zatko alleges that an awareness of these security shortcomings is fundamental to any proper valuation of Twitters businessand that hiding these problems from investors and the board is significantly misleading. He further alleges that Twitter knowingly misled the government in other ways, including in its SEC filings in response to Musks bid to buy the company. In those filings, for instance, Twitter declares that it does not knowingly violate IP rightsbut Zatko claims that Twitter never obtained the proper legal rights to the training material used to build Twitters core algorithmic models, and that executives misled regulators in multiple countries about owning those rights. Zatko also asserts that internal security measures Twitter promised to develop in the wake of the 2011 FTC mandate had yet to be rolled out, and that executives misled Twitters board about their progress in creating them. (Zatko says that when he informed the board about this situation, he received an angry call from an executive chastising him for doing so.) A source close to the company says that Zatko did not understand the companys agreements with the FTC and made inaccurate claims about Twitters compliance with regulatory obligations. Claim: Twitter allowed foreign government agents access to data Zatko says the companys security lapses didnt only harm individual users. He alleges they were matters of national security and geopolitical importance. Twitter was complicit in threats to democratic governance, he writes. One of Zatkos allegations is that the company hired two people that he believes were Indian government agents. Because of Twitters flawed internal security systems, Zatko says, the purported agents had direct unsupervised access to internal information. Zatko says he has filed a separate disclosure detailing this and other episodes with the Counterintelligence and Export Controls Section within the National Security Division of the Department of Justice and the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. A source close to the company says that the company has no knowledge of government agents working at Twitter. Zatko alleges that Agrawala few months before his promotion to CEOadvocated for Twitters expansion into Russia, even if it meant abiding by the countrys censorship and surveillance demands. Zatko also writes that in 2022, the U.S. government told Twitter that at least one of their employees was working for a foreign intelligence agency. He does not say how Twitter responded. Earlier this month, a former Twitter employee was found guilty of acting as an agent of a foreign government, spying on Saudi dissidents and passing personal information on to the Saudi government. Claim: Jack Dorsey was silent for days or weeks at a time While Zatko tweeted in support of Dorsey in 2021, he now claims that Twitters co-founder and former CEO suffered from a drastic loss of focus in 2021. He says Dorsey attended meetings sporadically, and that rumors spread within Twitter about him remaining silent for days or weeks. (Dorsey is a proponent of silent vipassana meditation .) While Dorsey, who stepped down as Twitter CEO in November and is also CEO of payment platform Block, had initially given Zatko a wide mandate, Zatko says in the whistleblower disclosure that he felt unmoored: He was receiving little to no actual support for his task of fundamentally changing the risky behaviors of over 8,000 employees, and the entire corporate culture, the disclosure says. On several occasions, Zatko alleges, he was instructed to suppress the extent of Twitters problems in front of the board. And he says that after he solicited an independent study that highlighted Twitters extensive security lapses and failure to combat disinformation, senior executives became concerned about the impact on Twitters reputation were the findings to become publicly known and had the parts most damaging to the company removed. Claim: Parag Agrawal encouraged Zatko to mislead investors Zatko says that his relationship with Agrawal was strained from the beginning, especially given that Agrawal had been the most senior executive in charge of security issues before Zatko arrived. When Agrawal replaced Dorsey, tensions quickly escalated, according to Zatko, who says he became concerned that Agrawal was going to use the first board meeting of his tenure to diminish the severity of security issues. He wrote to Agrawal on Dec. 15, arguing that there were numerous, and some significant, misrepresentations in his materials for an upcoming presentation. But Agrawal, he says, brushed him off, and the next day, the documents were presented at a high-level Risk Committee meeting. In a Jan. 4, 2022 email to Agrawal, Zatko called the documents at worst fraudulent, and wrote: I was hired to achieve certain goals and to fix problems here at Twitter. In order to do that, we need to recognize the actual state of affairs at the company. Zatko had every opportunity to either prevent that information from being shared or correct any inaccuracies during the meeting, a source close to the company says. On many occasions, Zatko was the source of inaccurate information. A few days after Zatkos email, Agrawal wrote back to Zatko, saying that the company had launched an internal investigation into his allegations. Zatko was asked for a detailed report to back up his claims, which he began to pull together. But less than two weeks later, before he was able to file the report, he was fired. Publicly, Agrawal wrote that the decision stemmed from an assessment of how the organization was being led and the impact on top priority work. View comments || Top US Green Energy Firms to Visit UAE as China Makes Inroads: (Bloomberg) -- A delegation of leading US green energy firms will visit the United Arab Emirates in March seeking to boost cooperation at a time of rising competition from Chinese businesses in the Gulf, according to an American official. Most Read from Bloomberg Gazprom Halts Gas Supplies to Italy in Latest Energy Battle Indonesia Soccer Stampede Kills 131 as Use of Tear Gas Queried Get Ready for Another Bear-Market Rally, Strategist Emanuel Says Fed Begins to Split on the Need for Speed to Peak Rates Ukraine Latest: US Sees Russia Pullout From Lyman as Encouraging “We’re going to have top companies visiting, who can be great solution providers in the clean tech space,” Dilawar Syed, Special Representative for Commercial & Business Affairs at the State Department, said in an interview in Dubai. Syed expects deals but didn’t name any of the roughly 15 companies likely to participate. The UAE became the first of the Gulf’s oil-exporting states to commit to a net-zero strategy, and is set to host next year’s COP28 climate summit. The country’s ties with the US, meanwhile, are being tested by the inroads made by Chinese companies and technologies. In December, the UAE said it was suspending talks with the US on a $23 billion deal to purchase 50 F-35 jets and other weaponry. Negotiations had slowed amid American pressure on the Gulf country to remove Huawei Technologies Co. from its telecommunications network and take other steps to distance itself from Beijing. Syed’s attending the US-UAE Economic Policy Dialogue, where agencies are focused on boosting cooperation in energy diversification, supply chains, food security, IP data, healthcare and life-science research. He dismissed concerns the US is losing out to China in the Gulf. “There’s so much willingness to do business with US companies and US entrepreneurs,” he said, pointing to links forged by Emiratis educated in the US. “They are way more familiar with us than with anyone else in the world and those are very important levers, because relationships matter.” Story continues Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek The Unstoppable Dollar Is Wreaking Havoc Everywhere But America Jay Powell Needs Investors to Lose Money The World Sees Brazil’s Election as a Climate Flashpoint. Brazilians Have Other Concerns Twitter Is in This Mess Because Jack Dorsey Was Too Busy Being a Bitcoin Influencer Cash Retakes Its Crown as the Fed Wrestles With Inflation ©2022 Bloomberg L.P. || World's First Auto-Rebasing Layer 1 Blockchain Is Set for 2023 Release: SafuuX plans to revolutionize the entire rebase concept.
BRISBANE, AUSTRALIA / ACCESSWIRE / August 19, 2022 /Leveraging the ongoing success of the Safuu protocol, the Safuu team has announced the upcoming launch of the SafuuX. The world's first auto-rebasing layer 1 blockchain, scheduled for Mainnet in January 2023. The SafuuX blockchain will use a Proof of Staked Authority (PoSA) consensus mechanism and feature SFX as the native coin, and SafuuX DEX as the native decentralized exchange on SafuuX chain.
SFX will feature a huge never before seen introductory APY of 191,888% achieved through rebases, and employ a FixedFlex Model thereafter, offering up to 3.24% APY per day. SFX will have the same auto-rebasing, auto-compounding, and auto-staking mechanisms as the original Safuu, ensuring holders earn reward payouts every 15 minutes.
"After seeing how successful the initial Safuu project was, it was obvious that expanding the concept into a full-fledged layer 1 blockchain was the natural progression of the protocol," said Bryan Legend, the CEO of Safuu. "This is an entirely new concept, something never seen in DeFi, and we have a lot of additional features and benefits that we will announce in the near future,"he added.
Starting October 20th, 2022, there will be an initial ‘Sacrifice Event' where existing Safuu token holders and holders of BTC, ETH, BNB, FTM, XRP, SOL, DOT, AVAX, MATIC, DOGE, SHIB and USDT/USDC/BUSD stable coins will be able to sacrifice their current coins for SFX prior to the test net going live.
The earliest sacrificers on day one will be eligible for up to a 50% multiplier of their sacrifice rewards. The multiplier reward will decrease over time in the subsequent days, ensuring that early sacrificers are rewarded the most while still making sure even late sacrificers will be rewarded plentifully.
SFX tokenomics include an initial supply of 375 million coins, and an initial main net launch price of $9.00 USD.
For more information on SFX and the SafuuX Chain, visithttps://www.safuux.com/
About SafuuX:
SafuuX Chain is the world's first independent rebasing blockchain which uses Proof of Staked Authority (PoSA) consensus on a system of validators. SafuuX boasts smart contract functionality and is also EVM compatible. The native coin of SafuuX Chain is SFX which is used for paying gas fees, validator staking and block rewards. SafuuX Chain is a standalone blockchain which unlike other Layer-2 solutions, does not interact directly with Ethereum base chain.
About Safuu:
Safuu provides a decentralized financial asset which rewards users with a sustainable fixed compound interest model through use of its unique SAP protocol. Safuu delivers the industry's highest fixed APY, paid every 15 minutes, and a simple buy-hold-earn system that grows your portfolio in real time.
Media Contact:
Damian MacRaeSafuuinfo@safuu.com
SOURCE:Safuu
View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/712816/Worlds-First-Auto-Rebasing-Layer-1-Blockchain-Is-Set-for-2023-Release || DeFi Options Vaults Protocol Polysynth Crosses $27Mn in Trading Volume Within 2 Months of Launch: SINGAPORE / ACCESSWIRE / August 26, 2022 / The DeFi sector was one of the biggest casualties of the unfortunate demise of Terra Luna and cascading blowups elsewhere, such as Celsius, Voyager and 3 Arrows Capital. But despite all the gloominess, one area of DeFi has had a great year so far in 2022, and that is DeFi Options Vaults (DOVs) which now has over $350 million in TVL , despite the recent drawdowns. A protocol which has been taking rapid strides forward in this space is Polysynth , a decentralised options protocol enabling investors to earn sustainable yields across market cycles. Polysynth is backed by Jump Capital, Alliance DAO, Brevan Howard, Ledger Prime, QCP Capital, and angels such as Polygon founders Sandeep Nailwal & Jaynti Kanani. The team consists of 14 members, some of whose experience in crypto date back to 2014. 7 of them are ex-founders and have worked at top firms like J.P. Morgan, McKinsey, Twitter, Uber and Moody's Analytics. Options can seem complex and intimidating, as strategies can involve multiple strikes, expiries, and several other factors that an investor needs to consider, and this is what DOVs solve. Investors simply need to stake their assets in the DOVs, and the smart contracts take care of the rest via automated options selling. Polysynth , Friday, August 26, 2022, Press release picture Polysynth's DOVs are available on Ethereum and Polygon and supports depositing assets through 10+ other EVM chains via popular bridging solutions such as Hyphen, Wormhole, O3 Swap and Polygon Bridge. Polysynth has delivered consistent double-digit returns for all its DOVs, while some DOVs are earning as high as 37%+ APY despite the tumultuous crypto markets. Polysynth has crossed $2.2 million in TVL and over $27 million in trading volume within two months of its launch in June. Polygon Network's native token MATIC has gained over 178% in the last two months. Polysynth is among the few DOV platforms with Covered Call and Cash Covered Put DOVs for MATIC, enabling investors to earn up to 18% APY on MATIC without selling. That explains why Polysynth has garnered over $0.5 million in MATIC DOVs within a week of its launch. Story continues Roadmap Polysynth is set to launch Leveraged Options Vaults , which allows investors to leverage their options positions by up to 5X. According to a backtest on last year's data published by Polysynth, an investor would have earned 376.84% APY on ETH Covered Call . Leveraged Options Vaults will be an industry first and will be powered by a lending pool, which will also serve as another venue to earn passive income on Polysynth. Investors can contribute assets such as BTC, ETH, MATIC and USDC to the lending pool and earn anywhere between 10% to 75%+ APY based on the utilisation level. Another area where Polysynth works is enabling DAOs to better manage their treasuries. The top 50 DAOs today have over $10 billion worth of assets in their treasury but mostly are denominated in their native tokens. Though it's well-known that DAOs need to diversify their treasury , the options available are far from optimal. For example, if Uniswap tries to sell 1% of its UNI treasury for DAI on 1inch, it would incur more than 64% slippage. Polysynth , Friday, August 26, 2022, Press release picture Another stifling thing about native tokens is that most don't have much utility beyond safety staking, the yields for which can be minuscule. Another avenue can be lending the native token on AAVE, but the yields on AAVE can also be meagre. For example, if you were to lend UNI on AAVE, the yield would be 0.19%, clearly not what you want. Polysynth , Friday, August 26, 2022, Press release picture Polysynth has a three-prong Treasury Management Solution which solves all these: Treasury Diversification without selling native tokens - Selling covered calls is one of the most popular yield-generating strategies. Polysynth enables DAOs to sell covered calls on their native tokens to earn 30%+ APY in chosen tokens such as USDC, ETH or BTC. This serves the dual purpose of diversifying the treasury and generating sustainable yields. Dollar value protection of the treasury - This strategy combines selling a covered call and using the premium to buy a put on the DAOs native token to safeguard the treasury's dollar value. The difference in the premiums between the call and the put options is minuscule and can be considered an insurance premium to protect the treasury's dollar value. Creating on-chain options liquidity for native tokens - Since most native tokens don't have a burning mechanism or other ways to earn meaningful yields, having on-chain options liquidity for the native token will enable the community members to earn sustainable yields. Polysynth has already inked partnerships with some major DAOs. Soon will see custom DOVs for those DAOs' native tokens on Polysynth. They are also working on raising the literacy and adoption of DeFi with initiatives such as Polysynth Academy and a video series Earn Like a PRO . Truly exciting times ahead in DeFi. The innovation continues unabated despite the choppy markets. Follow Polysynth on Twitter and Discord to stay up to date with major partnerships and other announcements and visit polysynth.com/trade to check out the ongoing yields on their DOVs. Media Contact: Shailesh Gupta https://polysynth.com/ sg@polysynth.com SOURCE: Polysynth View source version on accesswire.com: https://www.accesswire.com/713618/DeFi-Options-Vaults-Protocol-Polysynth-Crosses-27Mn-in-Trading-Volume-Within-2-Months-of-Launch || Deglobalization Is Happening. Crypto Is Part of the Answer: We woke up this morning to two very different yet deeply related pieces of news. In the Baltics, President Vladimir Putin announced that Russia wouldannex four regions of Ukraine, signaling the continued intensity of the war there. And in Florida, hurricane Ian has inflicted catastrophic damage,unprecedentedeven for that perennially hurricane-prone state.
In different ways both events highlight the need to reshape the fundamental infrastructure of human society into something more robust, transnational, individualized and fluid. That includes the need for financial networks that can’t be cut off by autocratic leaders or destroyed by natural disasters.
This article is excerpted from The Node, CoinDesk's daily roundup of the most pivotal stories in blockchain and crypto news. You can subscribe to get the fullnewsletter here.
These points were perhaps less obvious when the Bitcoin project was launched in 2009. Russia was still plausibly on a path to Western-style liberalization, and more generally there was a sense that democratic politics and market economies would become the universal standard. And while events like 2005’s Hurricane Katrina had already provided plenty of warning about the impacts of climate change, many were still in denial. Americans in particular still thought they were living in the capitalist utopia of Francis Fukuyama’s“End of History,” or its far more simpleminded cousin, Thomas Friedman’s“Flat” world.
Of course, Friedman wasn’t entirely wrong. The world has “flattened” in the sense that we can now communicate across long distances far more effectively than was possible even two decades ago. But in many cases that only offers a better view of unfolding tragedies.
Globalized communication, for instance, has allowed us to see far more clearly the disconnect betweenRussia’s kleptocratic leadershipand its people, who are as divided and diverse as any other population on Earth. Vast numbers of Russiansloathe Putinand everything he stands for, but nonetheless find themselves at risk of beingdisappeared from the international communityby forces effectively beyond their control.
See also:Apolitical Crypto Networks in Times of Sanction and War| The Node
Regardless of the outcome of Putin’s aggression, individuals running businesses in Russia are likely to have far less access, above all, to international logistics systems including payments, shipping and transportation. These systems have become vastly more open in the past half-century, but there are still choke points at the nation-state level. SWIFT, the network that connects banks across borders, has kicked out at leastseven Russian banks, for instance.
The rising rate of massive natural disasters, fueled by climate change, has similar disruptive effects. Things are bad in Florida, but they’re even worse in Pakistan, where flooding this month has caused1,500 deaths. In any area vulnerable to these changes, even the most basic infrastructure could simply be wiped away in one fell swoop. Climate change is also expected to exacerbate political divisions aswaves of refugeesleave those vulnerable places.
Political and ecological instability are two aspects of an increasingly recognized process of“deglobalization.”If the 20th century was marked by economic integration and a greater awareness of our common humanity, the 21stt seems poised to reinscribe differences and borders, even as we all stare across those gaps at each other’s TikTok posts. Basic economics tells us that this fragmentation will make us all poorer, even if we’re not directly impacted.
It would be Thomas Friedman-caliber hubris to argue that blockchain and cryptocurrency networks are the answer to these rising systemic crises. They can certainly provide a way for individuals to transact despite things like the SWIFT cutoff, and a form of financial record keeping that can’t be upended by a tornado hitting the building where your bank balance is saved. But they also face an array of basic limits, such as the vulnerability of internet access itself in destabilized areas.
See also:Why Russia Isn't Relying on Crypto to Evade Sanctions| Opinion
But blockchain and crypto do at least provide an innovative and even inspiring model for how systems can transcend and resist the forces of deglobalization, a technical means to provide services across borders without reliance on fragile political trust. Truly censorship resistant and decentralized systems can’t be politically attacked through single choke points. Despite their serious limitations in the present day, we already see the appeal of those tools in places as diverse asIran,KenyaandArgentina.
The rise of a common global financial infrastructure will continue as the international landscape becomes even more fragmented, simply because it will become more necessary. The successive waves of speculative crypto hype over the past decade have provided plenty of cover forbad actorsandincompetent rubesto misdirect that narrative towards mere self-enrichment. But days like today are a reminder of just how vital it is to get it right. || Applied Blockchain, Inc. Chairman and CEO, Wes Cummins, Is Featured on The Stock Day Podcast: Phoenix, Arizona--(Newsfile Corp. - September 21, 2022) - The Stock Day Podcast welcomed Applied Blockchain , Inc. (NASDAQ: APLD) ("the Company"), a company that designs, builds, and operates next-generation datacenters across North America to provide low-cost digital infrastructure solutions to the rapidly growing high performance computing (HPC) industry. Chairman CEO of the Company, Wes Cummins, joined Stock Day host Everett Jolly. Jolly began the interview by asking about the Company's background and current projects. "Our company launched about two years ago with the goal to be one of the largest Ethereum miners in the world," said Cummins. "Our partners came to us and asked us if we could build capacity for hosting facilities in the United States," he explained. "Bitmain, one of the largest semiconductor manufacturers in the world, ended up being the lead investor for us to build that site, which really kicked us off as a meaningful player." "We executed on what we said we were going to do, and we brought that datacenter online in January," continued Cummins. "We ended up getting a joint venture with Bitmain to do that fifteen more times," he shared. "That partnership and joint venture really legitimized us, and we uplisted to the Nasdaq in April and raised $36 million." "We are building two more sites that will bring our capacity to almost 5x what we are today," said Cummins. "Those sites should come online from late this year to the middle of the Spring," he said. "Once we have all of that online, we expect for our company to be around $100 million of EBITDA generation." "The difference between us and other publicly traded miners is that we do not mine Bitcoin ourselves. We build the facility and offer co-location hosting," shared Cummins. "We provide a white glove service, and we have long-term, fixed contracts with our customers that keeps us out of the day-to-day volatility of Bitcoin." "Could you explain the initiative behind the Company's upcoming name change?", asked Jolly. Cummins shared that the Company recently announced their intention to change their name from 'Applied Blockchain, Inc.' to 'Applied Digital Corporation'. "We are adding adjacent markets to crypto mining," he explained. "Our assets not only work for crypto, but they also work for other high-performance computing applications." Story continues "Could you tell us about the contract with Marathon Digital Holdings?", asked Jolly. "Their business model is to use third-party hosting companies," said Cummins. "We worked out a deal that is very beneficial for both of us; it is a five-year deal, 200 megawatts, which we actually just expanded by another 70 megawatts," he explained. "They will become our largest customer, and they are the premiere company in the United States as far as miners go." "What are the sustainability initiatives of Applied Blockchain, Inc. as energy costs continue to rise?", asked Jolly. "We have meticulously vetted the power sources for the contracts and counter parties that we are signing," said Cummins. "We focus on stranded power opportunities, which have mostly been wind farms," he added, noting that the Company is also looking towards solar energy sources. "We are co-locating as much as we can with renewables." To close the interview, Cummins encouraged listeners and shareholders to keep up-to-date on the Company's current and upcoming projects as they continue to expand within the growing Bitcoin mining sector, while also broadening the use of their assets across the high-performance computing industry. To hear the entire interview with Wes Cummins, follow the link to the podcast here: https://audioboom.com/posts/8161253-applied-blockchain-inc-chairman-and-ceo-wes-cummins-is-featured-on-the-stock-day-podcast Investors Hangout is a proud sponsor of "Stock Day," and Stock Day Media encourages listeners to visit the company's message board at https://investorshangout.com/ About Applied Blockchain Applied Blockchain, Inc. (NASDAQ: APLD) designs, develops, and operates next-generation datacenters across North America to provide low-cost digital infrastructure solutions to the rapidly growing high performance computing (HPC) industry. The company has partnered with the most recognized names in the industry to develop, deploy, and scale its business. Find more information at www.appliedblockchaininc.com . Follow us on Twitter @APLDdigital. Investor Relations Contacts Matt Glover or Jeff Grampp, CFA Gateway Group, Inc. (949) 574-3860 APLD@gatewayir.com Media Contact Brenlyn Motlagh Gateway Group, Inc. (949) 899-3135 APLD@gatewayir.com About The "Stock Day" Podcast Founded in 2013, Stock Day is the fastest growing media outlet for Nano-Cap and Micro-Cap companies. It educates investors while simultaneously working with penny stock and OTC companies, providing transparency and clarification of under-valued, under-sold Micro-Cap stocks of the market. Stock Day provides companies with customized solutions to their news distribution in both national and international media outlets. The Stock Day Podcast is the number one radio show of its kind in America. SOURCE: Stock Day Media (602) 821-1102 To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/137927 || Are These Cryptos the Next Bitcoin or Ethereum?: While there are literally thousands of cryptocurrencies, when it comes to the big dogs, there are really only two: Bitcoin and Ethereum. Bitcoin is the originalcrypto, created in 2009, and Ethereum was created as a “Bitcoin killer” in 2015. Together, the two comprise nearly two-thirds of crypto’s $1.3 trillion global market cap, with Bitcoin alone comprising nearly one-half.
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Although their prices have been volatile, both cryptos have provided exceptional long-term returns since their respective inception dates. That is part of the reason why investors have been piling into alternative cryptocurrencies, in the hopes of picking out “the next Bitcoin or Ethereum.” But how likely is it that another crypto can rise in prominence like the two market leaders?
Here are three cryptocurrencies that various experts and market analysts thinkhave a shot at being contenders.
Solana quickly became a favorite among traders to become “the next” Ethereum in late 2021, when its price shot up to over $260. Since then, it has fallen dramatically to less than $40 as of June 2022. However, the crypto market in general has been hammered in 2022, and Solana still maintains a market cap of about $13.5 billion, good enough to rank it as the ninth-largest cryptocurrency.
One of the reasons that Solana has often been hyped as a crypto of the future is that it is the only major cryptocurrency blockchain that uses proof-of-history. Proof-of-history is meant to be extremely fast when compared with the proof-of-work protocol used by cryptos like Ethereum, and it also has lower fees.
Solana claims it can process about 50,000 transactions per second, compared with the 15 to 45 transactions per second handled by Ethereum. This can allow Solana to scale up rapidly, one of the major requirements for a coin to catch or even surpass industry leaders Bitcoin and/or Ethereum.
Check It Out:Crypto on the GO
These characteristics have helped Solana win over the confidence of large institutions like JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America, which once said that Solana could become the “Visa of the digital asset ecosystem.”
Currently, Solana runs over 400 projects on its ecosystem, including decentralized exchanges, wallets and other defi projects. Stablecoins like Circle’s USD Coin also run on the platform. Given its low cost and scalability, the future may still be bright for Solana.
Whereas Solana has gained popularity for being faster and cheaper than Ethereum, Cardano aims to beat the top cryptos by being a more environmentally sustainable alternative. Cardano was actually developed by one of Ethereum’s creators, Charles Hoskinson, suggesting that Ethereum may be based on older technology and principles than Cardano.
Indeed, Cardano was designed as the first proof-of-stake cryptocurrency, designed to provide a faster, cheaper, more secure blockchain.
Cardano’s approach is more research-intensive than Ethereum’s, with each stage of its development peer-reviewed and thoroughly tested before implementation. The third-generation crypto is also launching smart contract capabilities, which will help make Cardano more sustainable and scalable. As some analysts describe it, Bitcoin is Crypto 1.0, Ethereum is Crypto 2.0, and Cardano is Crypto 3.0.
Cardano actually sits as the sixth-largest cryptocurrency, with a current market cap of about $30.5 billion. Like most other cryptos, Cardano’s price has been hammered. After peaking at about $3.10 in September 2021, Cardano now sits at just $0.58, demonstrating the immense risk of investing even in market-leading cryptocurrencies.
Polkadot is the 11th-largest cryptocurrency, with a current market cap of about $9.3 billion. Polkadot’s “special talent” is its interoperability, or its ability to connect multiple blockchains together into one network. As part of a single network, these numerous blockchains can exchange information without compromising security by leaving the network. This type of secure protocol is viewed by some as essential to the future of Web3, or the decentralized digital ecosystem.
As with Cardano and Solana, Polkadot aims to perform better than Ethereum when it comes to cost and scalability. But what may differentiate Polkadot from either of these other cryptos is its interoperability.
Unlike many other cryptocurrencies, many investors buy Polkadot not just to speculate on the currency itself but to bet on the success of its underlying technology. If this trend gains momentum, it could help Polkadot’s price remain less volatile than other cryptos, which in turn might attract additional long-term investors.
However, Polkadot still remains quite volatile, falling from a 2021 high of $55 to its current level below $10.
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This article originally appeared onGOBankingRates.com:Are These Cryptos the Next Bitcoin or Ethereum? || UK’s Truss to Attend First European Political ‘Club of Nations’: (Bloomberg) -- UK Prime Minister Liz Truss will attend a new European political “club of nations,” the brainchild of French President Emmanuel Macron, early next month, according to a person familiar with her plans. Most Read from Bloomberg MacKenzie Scott Files for Divorce From Science Teacher Husband Meta to Cut Headcount for First Time, Slash Budgets Across Teams Top Apple Executive Is Leaving After Making Crude Remarks in TikTok Video Stocks Plummet to 22-Month Low as Fed Hawks Circle: Markets Wrap Marjorie Taylor Greene’s Husband Files for Divorce After 27 Years The gathering is due to be held Oct. 6 in Prague because the Czech Republic currently holds the rotating European Council presidency. Truss will attend because the nation is an important ally in support of Ukraine, the person said. The issues of migration and security of energy supply also persuaded Truss to go, the person added. Truss opposed the idea of the club when she was foreign secretary. Macron designed the new club as a forum for co-operation over issues such as security, energy and transport as well as migration. The grouping is intended to be wider than the European Union’s 27 member states, with Ukraine, Norway, Switzerland and Turkey also likely to be included. For Britain, a question mark hangs over how it engages with its European neighbors since Brexit. The timing of the meeting is, however, awkward for Truss, coming just days after her appearance at her Conservative Party’s annual conference, where she will be keen to show off her euroskeptic credentials to Tory grassroots members. Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek The Unstoppable Dollar Is Wreaking Havoc Everywhere But America Jay Powell Needs Investors to Lose Money Twitter Is in This Mess Because Jack Dorsey Was Too Busy Being a Bitcoin Influencer Google’s Low-Tech Plan to Solve the Opioid Crisis As Home Prices Surge, Americans Are Moving to Cheaper Places ©2022 Bloomberg L.P. || First Mover Americas: Bitcoin Languishes Below $20K as Energy Crisis in Europe Worsens: • Price Point:Bitcoin remains below the $20,000 threshold and ether ticks up slightly on the day. Gas prices surged and the euro and pound slumped after Russia shut down gas flows through the mainNord Stream 1pipeline to Germany. Traditional markets in the U.S. were mostly closed in observance of the Labor Day holiday.
• Market Moves:Could ether be set for a renewed price rally ahead of the Merge?
• Chart of the Day:Bitcoin's recent consolidation around $20,000 has taken the shape of a symmetrical triangle.
This article originally appeared inFirst Mover, CoinDesk’s daily newsletter putting the latest moves in crypto markets in context.Subscribe to get it in your inbox every day.
Bitcoin (BTC) was trading flaton the day at around $19,700. The world’s largest cryptocurrency by market value hit lows of $19,400 over the weekend after witnessing a shortuptickon Friday following theU.S. jobs report.
As BTC is tradingbelow the crucial support level of $20,000,a significant break at this point could be really damaging, according to analyst Craig Erlam at Oanda.
“The followingkey level below here would be the June lows of around $17,500,” said Erlam in a morning markets note. “Considering the outlook for risk appetite in the near term, it's not looking good.”
Ether (ETH), which has performed slightly better than bitcoin over the last few weeks, was up 1% over the last 24 hours. The network’s much anticipatedMergeis just over a week away. For altcoins, Polkadot's DOT was up 4% and Chainlink's LINK was up 3.7%.
In traditional markets, gas prices surged and the euro and pound slumped after Russia shut down gas flows through the mainNord Stream 1pipeline to Germany. The decision hascreated more uncertainty in Europe going into the winter months. The Stoxx Europe 600 Index fell 1.1%. Traditional markets in the U.S. were mostly closed in observance of the Labor Day holiday.
In the news, the Nigerian Export Processing Zones Authority (NEPZA) is indiscussionswith crypto exchange Binance over plans to create a virtual free zone focusing on blockchain and the digital economy.
Unusualblockchain datashowed 10,000 BTC, worth more than $200 million, were moved in two transactions in the last week.
And,Poolin, one of the world's largest bitcoin mining pools, sought to assure users their funds are safe while acknowledging it is facing liquidity problems. Users have been complaining about issues with withdrawals from their wallets since at least August.
[{"Asset": "Terra", "Ticker": "LUNA", "Returns": "+4.6%", "DACS Sector": "Smart Contract Platform"}, {"Asset": "Polkadot", "Ticker": "DOT", "Returns": "+3.3%", "DACS Sector": "Smart Contract Platform"}, {"Asset": "Ethereum", "Ticker": "ETH", "Returns": "+1.8%", "DACS Sector": "Smart Contract Platform"}]
[{"Asset": "Loopring", "Ticker": "LRC", "Returns": "\u22123.4%", "DACS Sector": "Smart Contract Platform"}, {"Asset": "Cardano", "Ticker": "ADA", "Returns": "\u22122.0%", "DACS Sector": "Smart Contract Platform"}, {"Asset": "Decentraland", "Ticker": "MANA", "Returns": "\u22122.0%", "DACS Sector": "Entertainment"}]
Ether Derivatives Markets Continue to Heat Up Ahead of the Merge
By Omkar Godbole
Ether (ETH), the second-largest cryptocurrency by market value, looked set for renewed price rally ahead of the Ethereum Merge, according to observers tracking chart patterns.
Last week, the native token of Ethereum's blockchain broke out of a falling wedge pattern identified by two converging and descending trendlines connecting Aug. 14 and Aug. 25 highs and lows hit on Aug. 10, Aug. 20 and Aug. 28.
"The formation is solid confirmation that ETH could go up in September more than anybody thinks," Bill Noble, chief technical analyst at cryptocurrency research company Token Metrics, told CoinDesk, when asked what the wedge breakout indicates.
Ether's wedge breakout indicates the correction from the Aug. 14 high of $2,000 has ended and the uptrend from the June 13 low of $1,000 is likely to resume.
Prices doubled in the four weeks to Aug. 14 as equity markets regained poise and Ethereum developer Tim Beiko hinted at Sept. 19 as the deadline for the long-awaitedEthereum Merge– the technological upgrade that will transform the smart contract platform to a proof-of-stake network. The overhaul is likely to cause a drastic reduction in ETH supply and bring a store of value appeal to the cryptocurrency.
The Merge is slated to happen sometime around Sept. 15.
Traders often use technical analysis – a study of price patterns – to help make investment decisions.
The "falling wedge" pattern begins wide at the top and contracts as prices move lower, causing the two descending trend lines to converge as the pattern matures. The converging nature of trend lines represents shallower lows, a sign of decreasing selling pressure. Therefore, a breakout is taken to mean a bullish revival.
Ether exited the falling wedge on Thursday, setting the stage for a pre-Merge rally.
"Ether has broken out of a falling wedge," Lewis Harland, a researcher at Decentral Park Capital, said. "A move above $1,700 would add conviction in the bullish momentum heading into the Merge."
Read the full storyhere.
Bitcoin Forms a Symmetrical Triangle
By Omkar Godbole
• Bitcoin's recent consolidation around $20,000 has taken the shape of a symmetrical triangle.
• The next move depends on the direction in which the ongoing bull-bear tug of war is resolved.
• A breakdown would open the doors to lows under $18,000 reached in June.
• Bitcoin in Accumulation Phase Despite Macro Headwinds, On-Chain Data Indicate: The data suggests the long-term growth outlook for the oldest cryptocurrency remains bullish, analysts said.
• Citi: Ether Extends Rally Ahead of the Merge Despite Bitcoin Weakness: There are key differences between previous upgrades to the Ethereum blockchain and now because, for the first time, digital assets are facing tightening financial conditions, the bank said.
• Poolin, One of the World's Biggest Bitcoin Mining Pools, Acknowledges Liquidity Issues: Poolin CEO and founder Kevin Pan assured users that funds are safe and said the company might look to debt to solve its liquidity troubles.
• LG Picks Lesser-Known Hedera Blockchain for Television NFTs: The consumer electronics company, which has served on the Hedera Governing Council since 2020, is bringing NFTs to television screens through a platform built on the Hedera network. || Coinbase has 'plenty of cash' to survive this Crypto Winter: Analyst: Coinbase's (COIN)second quarter results earlier this weekmissed Wall Street estimates, but some analysts see signs the company's balance sheet leaves it well positioned to survive a prolonged "Crypto Winter."
In addition to posting $1.1 billion net loss — with $453 million coming from a decline in crypto assets held on Coinbase's balance sheet — the company missed Wall Street’s expectations on revenue, trading volume, and assets held on the platform.
Between the crypto sector’s liquidity crisis in June, and with 8 mentions of “Crypto Winter” during its Tuesday second quarter earnings call, the fate of the first large cap crypto stock hinges on whether the exchange holds enough cash reserves, according to Lisa Ellis, partner with MoffettNathanson.
In a note following Q2 earnings, Ellis pointed out that though Coinbase reported $5.68 billion in cash and cash equivalents at the end of the quarter, it also holds an additional $500 million in Circle’s stablecoin, USDC, pushing cash resources above its first quarter level to $6.2 billion.
Coinbase has “no real urgency or concern around liquidity,” Ellis explained to Yahoo Finance.
Looking at the exchange’s cash burn-rate in a research note follow the company’s Q2 earnings call, Ellis sees the company's burn falling to around $200 million per quarter after burning through $1 billion in the first half of 2022.
“The implication of that is even if this crypto winter persists for another six quarters, which would be typical, that they last for a couple of years, they’ll still be sitting at around $5 billion in cash,” Ellis added.
Chris Brendler, a senior analyst with investment banking firm D.A. Davidson, is also showing more confidence in COIN following second quarter results.
Eyeing the exchange's profitability from retail trading fees — the company's cut of trades rose to 1.34% against expectations for 1.24% — Brendler said in a Wednesday note the biggest positive in Coinbase’s results is that “casual retail activity is holding up better than we would have thought.”
Admitting any “near-term outlook remains murky” for COIN, Brendler raised his price target on shares from $90 to $100. The firm expects Coinbase’s lifeblood profit line — average monthly revenue per active user — to bottom during the third quarter.
“The recent rally increases our confidence in an eventual recovery once the Fed truly pivots. Until then, COIN is well positioned to withstand the winter and emerge stronger (and leaner) on the other side,” Brendler added.
Coinbase shares were down over 5% early Thursday, trading below $89.
—
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[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
None available.
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Trend: down || Prices: 19955.44, 19546.85, 19416.57, 19446.43, 19141.48, 19051.42, 19157.45, 19382.90, 19185.66, 19067.63
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Analyze the provided historical prices, technical indicators, news, and social media sentiment from the last 60 days. Based on this context, predict the overall trend (up, down, or no change) and the specific daily closing prices for Bitcoin for the next 10 days.
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[Technical Analysis]
Not fully available.
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
Indian bitcoin company raises $1.5 million from U.S., Indian investors: NEW YORK (Reuters) - Unocoin, a Bangalore-based bitcoin startup, has raised $1.5 million in funding from a mix of Indian and U.S. investors, the company announced on Thursday. The company, which runs a trading platform to buy, sell, and store bitcoins for Indian customers, said the money raised was the largest for an Indian bitcoin startup. Unocoin, which has 100,000 users and more than 30 employees, has been in operation since December 2013. Unocoin describes itself as the Coinbase of India. San Francisco-based Coinbase is the largest U.S. bitcoin company and runs an exchange and a wallet service, among other businesses. Funding came from Indian entities such as Blume Ventures, Mumbai Angels and ah! Ventures along with U.S. investors such as Digital Currency Group, Boost VC, Bank to the Future, and FundersClub. Digital Currency Group was founded by one of the top U.S. bitcoin investors Barry Silbert, while Boost VC is run by U.S.-based Adam Draper, the son of billionaire entrepreneur Tim Draper. "We needed a separate exchange for India. A few years ago when we wanted to buy bitcoin, there was nothing available in India," Sunny Ray, Unocoin's co-founder and president told Reuters in an interview. "So if you want to buy bitcoin from an international exchange, you will have to do a wire transfer from India to these international exchanges and get your bitcoin and oftentimes it takes three to five days." Unocoin raised about $200,000 in its first financing round. It started from a small hometown called Tumkur, near Bengaluru. Bitcoin, a digital currency, was trading at $604.50 on the Bitstamp platform. (Reporting by Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss; Editing by Lisa Shumaker) || At your service: cyber criminals for hire to militants, EU says: THE HAGUE (Reuters) - Cybercriminals offering contract services for hire offer militant groups the means to attack Europe but such groups have yet to employ such techniques in major attacks, EU police agency Europol said on Wednesday.
"There is currently little evidence to suggest that their cyber-attack capability extends beyond common website defacement," it said in its annual cybercrime threat assessment in a year marked by Islamic State violence in Europe.
But the internet's criminal shadow the Darknet had potential to be exploited by militants taking advantage of computer experts offering "crime as a service", Europol added: "The availability of cybercrime tools and services, and illicit commodities (including firearms) on the Darknet, provide ample opportunities for this situation to change."
Overall, the report found, existing trends in cybercrime continued to grow, with some of the European Union's member states reporting more cyber crimes than the traditional variety.
"Europol is concerned about how an expanding cybercriminal community has been able to further exploit our increasing dependence on technology and the internet," its director, Rob Wainwright, said in a statement. "We have also seen a marked shift in cyber-facilitated activities relating to trafficking in human beings, terrorism and other threats."
"Ransomware" - programs which break into databases and demand payment for unlocking codes via virtual currencies such as Bitcoin - continued to expand as a problem, as did highly targeted "phishing" attacks to extract security data from senior figures - "CEO fraud" - and video streaming of child abuse.
Attacks on bank cash-machine networks were also increasing, the report found, as were frauds exploiting new contactless payment card transactions, while traditional scams involving the physical presence of a card had been successfully reduced.
(Reporting by Alastair Macdonald in Brussels; Editing by Jonathan Oatis) || Traders weigh chasing Microsoft rally after stock passes all-time high in late trading: The "Fast Money" traders debated whether it's worth chasing the rally in Microsoft(NASDAQ: MSFT)after the company posted anearnings beat driven by continued growth in its cloud business.
The stock climbed above its 1999 all-time high of $59.97 in extended trade.
Trader Brian Kelly said he would not chase the rally in Microsoft, but would be interested in it on a pullback.
"Everything that these guys said is exactly what everybody in this market now wants. There's very few stocks out there that have this type of growth, that have a dividend, that have a strong management team ... so Microsoft is going to attract a lot of investment money," Kelly said.
Trader Karen Finerman agreed, but added that Microsoft's current valuation — about a 27 price-to-earnings ratio on a trailing basis — is much more appetizing than it was 17 years ago.
Trader Dan Nathan said that a large portion of Microsoft's revenue still comes from its legacy businesses and that the current valuation is still too rich. He said there's a risk that the growth of the cloud business could slow down.
Trader Tim Seymour disagreed, saying that Microsoft could still increase margins and market share.
Disclosures:
KAREN FINERMAN
Karen Finerman is long AAL, BAC, C, DAL, long DB calls, FB, FL, GOGO, GOOG, GOOGL, JPM, LYV, KORS, KORS calls, KORS puts, M, MA, SEDG, SPY puts, UAL, URI, WIFI long call spreads. Her firm is long ANTM, AAPL, BAC, C, C calls, FB, GOOG, GOOGL, JPM, JPM calls, KORS, LYV, M, MOH, PLCE, SPY puts, URI, WIFI. Her firm is short IWM, MDY. Finerman is on the board of GrafTech International.
DAN NATHAN
Dan Nathan is TWTR long, PYPL long Oct calls, XHB long Jan put spread, XLU long Dec call Spread, XLK long Jan put spread, XRT long Jan put spread, PG long Dec put spread, EEM long Nov put spread.
BRIAN KELLY
Brian Kelly is long Bitcoin, SLV and Silver Futures, US Dollar UUP. He is short the euro and Japanese yen.
TIM SEYMOUR
Tim Seymour is long ABX, APC, AVP, BAC, BBRY, CLF, DO, DVYE, EDC, EWZ, F, FB, FCX, FXI, GM, GOOGL, GE, INTC, LQD,MCD, MUR, OIH, PG, RACE, RAI, RH, RL, SINA, T, TWTR, VALE, VZ, XOM. short: SPY, XRT. His firm is long ABX, BABA, BIDU, CBD, CLF, EWZ, F, KO, MCD, MPEL, NKE, PEP, PF, SAVE, SBUX, SINA, VALE, VIAB, WMT, WEN, X, YHOO, short EWG, HYG, IWM
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• Personal Finance || At your service: cyber criminals for hire to militants, EU says: THE HAGUE (Reuters) - Cybercriminals offering contract services for hire offer militant groups the means to attack Europe but such groups have yet to employ such techniques in major attacks, EU police agency Europol said on Wednesday. "There is currently little evidence to suggest that their cyber-attack capability extends beyond common website defacement," it said in its annual cybercrime threat assessment in a year marked by Islamic State violence in Europe. But the internet's criminal shadow the Darknet had potential to be exploited by militants taking advantage of computer experts offering "crime as a service", Europol added: "The availability of cybercrime tools and services, and illicit commodities (including firearms) on the Darknet, provide ample opportunities for this situation to change." Overall, the report found, existing trends in cybercrime continued to grow, with some of the European Union's member states reporting more cyber crimes than the traditional variety. "Europol is concerned about how an expanding cybercriminal community has been able to further exploit our increasing dependence on technology and the internet," its director, Rob Wainwright, said in a statement. "We have also seen a marked shift in cyber-facilitated activities relating to trafficking in human beings, terrorism and other threats." "Ransomware" - programs which break into databases and demand payment for unlocking codes via virtual currencies such as Bitcoin - continued to expand as a problem, as did highly targeted "phishing" attacks to extract security data from senior figures - "CEO fraud" - and video streaming of child abuse. Attacks on bank cash-machine networks were also increasing, the report found, as were frauds exploiting new contactless payment card transactions, while traditional scams involving the physical presence of a card had been successfully reduced. (Reporting by Alastair Macdonald in Brussels; Editing by Jonathan Oatis) || Bitcoin price soars, but it isn't about Trump and Clinton: The price of bitcoin has soared 23% in the last month and is now approaching its 2016 peak of around $765 in June. The coin is up 66% since January. At its current price of $728 at the time of writing, bitcoin’s market cap is nearly $12 billion.
So, what’s stoking the ride?
You might think the US presidential election, just five days away now, has something to do with it. And indeed, aJuniper Research studyfrom back in May (“Will Bitcoins Bite Back?“) predicted the bitcoin price would spike right before the election, due to market uncertainty. Specifically, the study determined that a win by Donald Trump would boost the bitcoin price: “If Donald Trump becomes President of the US, there is the very real prospect of turmoil on world markets,” said Dr. Winslow Holden in a Juniper press release about the report. “Bitcoin would thrive in such an environment, at least until the impact on major fiat currencies becomes clear.”
Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton’s campaign considered accepting donations in the form of bitcoin, aleaked email thread revealed. But John Podesta was more intrigued by the digital currency Ven, writing: “I don’t send all the crazy ideas I hear about at fundraisers your way, but this seems interesting and legit. Essentially digital currency with a green angle as opposed to bitcoin’s libertarian Ayn Rand schtick… see if it’s worth a real conversation?” UltimatelyClinton’s campaign decided not to accept bitcoin.Trump’s campaign did accept bitcoin.
Despite the timing so close to the election, the bitcoin community consensus is that the October price spike isn’t from Clinton or Trump: it’s China driving the surge.
The Chinese yuanhas fallen 4.3% against the US dollarin the last six months, and thePeople’s Bank of China has cracked downwith stricter capital controls.
China and a falling yuan is almost always cited as the biggest factor when the price of bitcoin rises. The thinking is that Chinese investors seek a safe haven in bitcoin, which is an asset largely untied to mainstream markets. (This alsohappened to an extent in Greece during its bank shutdownlast year and ishappening right now in Venezuela.) Often,it’s actually something else. This time around, the data supports the idea that the interest is coming from China.
Nearly 99% of all global bitcoin trading activity happening right now is happening in Chinese yuan. (It’s worth noting that some bitcoin people doubt Chinese exchange data because it could be inflated or meaningless due to very low fees that prompt empty trading activity.)
Bitcoin trading volume in the Chinese yuan is up more than 20% in the past 30 days, based on charts frombitcoincharts.com,bitcoinity.organdcoinmarketcap.com. If you check out the sitefiatleak.com, which maps bitcoin purchases in real-time, the overwhelming majority of activity right now is in yuan (CNY).
“It does seem like a cop-out sometimes when everyone says it’s China, but in this case, the data supports it,” says Alex Sunnarborg, CFO ofLawnmower, a digital currency trading and data app. Bitcoin trading volume on Lawnmower is up 40% in the past two weeks from the typical two-week average.
Sunnarborg adds that whenever the bitcoin price spikes significantly, regardless of the reason, it feeds on itself and drives it higher. “People see that demand and feel that FOMO [fear of missing out], which drives a lot of new people in. The market is so thin and new, people are hunting for news, so anything you hear has an immediate effect. It goes the opposite way as well—if you read bad news about bitcoin prices, the market has a tendency to panic. That’s what Ethereum is doing right now.”
Indeed, the price of ether (ETH), arival coin that trades on the separate Ethereum blockchain, isdown 17% in the past month. In July, Ethereum completed a “hard fork” that essentially reset its network after a major hack in June. Keep in mind that ether only launched just over one year ago, and is up nearly 300% since then, to $11 per coin. But its recent fall has been a boon to bitcoin, Sunnarborg reasons.
“If you look at ethereum communities right now, people are a little scared, and the bitcoin vs ethereum chasm does go back and forth,” says Sunnarborg. “Whenever you see strength in the bitcoin network, volume goes back into bitcoin.”
Ripple, another popular digital currency (XRP) that came along after bitcoin (in 2012), is also down 4% in the last week.
There’s one other bitcoin factor driving the price up: this month, a sort of voting period will begin for whether to implement “segregated witness,” a proposed solution to bitcoin’s ongoing block-size debate.
Huh? Let’s step back: bitcoin is traded on the bitcoin blockchain, a decentralized, permissionless, peer-to-peer ledger that records every single bitcoin transaction. On the bitcoin blockchain, bundles of transactions are added to the chain by “miners” who receive a small reward in bitcoin for doing the mining; think of them as librarians recording the date and borrower of a book, or as court stenographers recording the history of bitcoin trades. (For more, watch the below video.)
The speed of the blockchain has slowed in the last year under the weight of activity, and the bitcoin community has argued amongst itself over whether to raise the size limit of each block. The speed at which the bitcoin blockchain operates is of crucial importance, since it is often compared to the payment rails of big mainstream processors like Visa.
“Segregated witness” was one popular proposal: an update to the bitcoin software that would allow miners to raise the size capacity on individual blocks without raising the capacity of the entire blockchain for good, and without doing a “hard fork” (which would split the blockchain into two) like Ethereum just did. Think of it like a Brinks armored car, which hauls bags of cash. Rather than having all the cars start using bigger bags, Segregated Witness (bitcoin people are calling it SegWit for short) is like allowing each driver to start using a few bigger bags just in cases where a bigger bag is needed.
Beginning on Nov. 15, bitcoin miners can signal, with each block they mine, whether or not they support Segregated Witness. It should help more transactions go through faster. After one year, if 95% of the blocks have signaled that they like it, Segregated Witness will go into full effect for the Bitcoin Core software.
Why does all this matter for the price of bitcoin? It might not matter for the casual outside speculator, but for wonky bitcoin insiders, the implementation of SegWit is an exciting milestone, and may contribute a little bit to the price hike. “I think SegWit was a big market move,” says Sunnarborg. “SegWit has been talked about for so long that if there had been a huge delay or problem announced, we would have seen the market swing the other way. But now it’s bringing demand from the community to go back into bitcoin.”
While the Chinese yuan has been the biggest factor in boosting the bitcoin price, the beginning of SegWit and general US market uncertainty are not unrelated. And the election almost certainly will play a larger role right after it ends. If Trump somehow wins, expect bitcoin to soar.
—
Daniel Roberts is a writer at Yahoo Finance, covering technology and sports business. Follow him on Twitter at@readDanwrite.
Read more:
The latest bitcoin price surge isn’t just about Brexit
Here’s where big banks stand on blockchain
Why 21.co is the most exciting bitcoin company right now
Coinbase is more bullish on bitcoin than ever || Liberty Global partners with Ericsson to expand DVR services in Latin America: • LibertyGlobal Group (LiLACGroup) simplifies DVR expansion through Ericsson`s Video Storage and Processing Platform (VSPP) in Latin America
• LiLAC Group`s customers will have access to DVR services, including future updates to support the trend towards time-shifted TV
• Contract strengthens Ericsson`s position as a leading provider of TV and media solutions in Latin America
Ericsson (ERIC) and Liberty Global today confirms a new two-year deal between VTR in Chile and Liberty Cablevision of Puerto Rico, both part of LiLAC Group (Liberty Latin-America and Caribbean, part of Liberty Global Group).
With Ericsson`s Video Storage and Processing Platform (VSPP), the TV operators will be able to expand the reach of their Digital Video Recording (DVR) services (known as Catch-up TV and Restart TV) across their countries.
Latin American TV consumers are rapidly changing their habits and expectations, where they now want to decide what they want to watch and pick-and-mix their own services. The new deal addresses this issue, allowing LiLAC Group to build innovative and compelling consumer experiences.
Ericsson`s VSPP simplifies the recording capabilities and provides enriched functionalities for LiLAC`s linear TV services. It also offers a unique, proven infrastructure that allows for seamless augmentation and replacement of legacy television services with new cloud-based services.
Furthermore, Ericsson`s VSPP provides outstanding performance gains and greatly simplifies Cloud DVR and video on demand (VoD) architectures, allowing operators to avoid many of the complexities and costs associated with these new services.
Adrian Gioia, Head of TV & Media, Ericsson Latin America and Caribbean, says: "We are looking forward to supporting LiLAC Group in delivering ever-improving content, quality and features that delight TV consumers and meet their unique and ever-changing needs. With our solution we are addressing all customer segments with unique configurations, while providing LiLAC Group with the ability to future-proof and grow as they see necessary."
Derek Yeaomans, Logistic Manager at VTR, says: "We consider DVR a very attractive entertainment service for our customers and we are pleased to now provide them with an enriched user experience that lets them enjoy the service even more. Working with Ericsson makes us confident we will continue to succeed in meeting consumer expectations into the future."
With a recent history of more than 50 transformation programs delivered globally, Ericsson`s consulting and systems integration services represent the perfect combination of competence, scale and presence that help TV and media organizations meet their goals. With a global team of media experts ready to take on complex media transformation projects, Ericsson is the market leader in Cloud DVR deployment and services, having performed multiple deployments and with ongoing trials with major Tier 1 operators around the world.
NOTES TO EDITORS
For media kits, backgrounders and high-resolution photos, please visitwww.ericsson.com/press
Ericsson is the driving force behind the Networked Society - a world leader in communications technology and services. Our long-term relationships with every major telecom operator in the world allow people, business and society to fulfill their potential and create a more sustainable future.
Our services, software and infrastructure - especially in mobility, broadband and the cloud- are enabling the telecom industry and other sectors to do better business, increase efficiency, improve the user experience and capture new opportunities.
With approximately 115,000 professionals and customers in 180 countries,we combine global scale with technology and services leadership. We support networks that connect more than 2.5 billion subscribers. Forty percent of the world`s mobile traffic is carried over Ericsson networks. And our investments in research and development ensure that our solutions - and our customers - stay in front.
Founded in 1876, Ericsson has its headquarters in Stockholm, Sweden. Net sales in2015 were SEK 246.9 billion (USD 29.4 billion). Ericsson is listed on NASDAQ OMX stock exchange in Stockholm and the NASDAQ in New York.
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Ericsson Corporate CommunicationsPhone: +46 10 719 69 92E-mail:media.relations@ericsson.com
Ericsson Investor RelationsPhone: +46 10 719 00 00E-mail:investor.relations@ericsson.com
About Liberty GlobalLiberty Global is the world`s largest international TV and broadband company, with operations in more than 30 countries across Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean. Liberty Global invests in the infrastructure that empowers its customers to make the most of the digital revolution. Liberty Global`s scale and commitment to innovation enables it to develop market-leading products delivered through next-generation networks that connect its customers who subscribe to over 59 million television, broadband internet and telephony services. Liberty Global also serves over ten million mobile subscribers and offers WiFi service across six million access points.
Liberty Global`s businesses are comprised of two stocks: the Liberty Global Group (NASDAQ: LBTYA, LBTYB and LBTYK) for its European operations, and the LiLAC Group (NASDAQ: LILA and LILAK, OTC Link: LILAB), which consists of its operations in Latin America and the Caribbean.
The Liberty Global Group operates in 12 European countries under the consumer brands Virgin Media, Ziggo, Unitymedia, Telenet and UPC. The LiLAC Group operates in over 20 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean under the consumer brands VTR, Flow, Liberty, Mas Movil and BTC. In addition, the LiLAC Group operates a submarine fiber network throughout the region in over 30 markets.
For more information, visitwww.libertyglobal.comand follow Liberty Global ontwitter,LinkedIn,FacebookandInstagram.
[["Oskar Nooij", "+1 303 220 4218", "", "Matt Beake", "+44 20 8483 6428"], ["Christian Fangmann", "+49 221 8462 5151", "", "Andrew Mitchell", "+44 79 4628 6586"], ["John Rea", "+1 303 220 4238", "", "", ""]]
Liberty Global partners with Ericsson to expand DVR services
This announcement is distributed by NASDAQ OMX Corporate Solutions on behalf of NASDAQ OMX Corporate Solutions clients.The issuer of this announcement warrants that they are solely responsible for the content, accuracy and originality of the information contained therein.Source: Ericsson via GlobeNewswireHUG#2044536 || Bitcoin is money, U.S. judge says in case tied to JPMorgan hack: By Jonathan Stempel NEW YORK (Reuters) - Bitcoin qualifies as money, a federal judge ruled on Monday, in a decision linked to a criminal case over hacking attacks against JPMorgan Chase & Co and other companies. U.S. District Judge Alison Nathan in Manhattan rejected a bid by Anthony Murgio to dismiss two charges related to his alleged operation of Coin.mx, which prosecutors have called an unlicensed bitcoin exchange. Murgio had argued that bitcoin did not qualify as "funds" under the federal law prohibiting the operation of unlicensed money transmitting businesses. But the judge, like her colleague Jed Rakoff in an unrelated 2014 case, said the virtual currency met that definition. "Bitcoins are funds within the plain meaning of that term," Nathan wrote. "Bitcoins can be accepted as a payment for goods and services or bought directly from an exchange with a bank account. They therefore function as pecuniary resources and are used as a medium of exchange and a means of payment." The decision did not address six other criminal counts that Murgio faces, Nathan wrote. Brian Klein, a lawyer for Murgio, said he disagreed with the decision. "Anthony Murgio maintains his innocence and looks forward to clearing his name at his upcoming trial," he added. Prosecutors last year charged Murgio over the operation of Coin.mx, and in April charged his father Michael with participating in bribery aimed at supporting it. Authorities have said Coin.mx was owned by Gery Shalon, an Israeli man who, along with two others, was charged with running a sprawling computer hacking and fraud scheme targeting a dozen companies, including JPMorgan, and exposing personal data of more than 100 million people. That alleged scheme generated hundreds of millions of dollars of profit through pumping up stock prices, online casinos, money laundering and other illegal activity, prosecutors have said. Shalon has pleaded not guilty, and is being held at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Manhattan. He hired new lawyers last month and is seeking permission to replace lawyers who joined the case in June, a Monday court filing showed. The case is U.S. v Murgio et al, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, No. 15-cr-00769. (Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by David Gregorio and Diane Craft) || 200 Million Yahoo Accounts Hacked? What to Do Now: UPDATE: Sept. 22, 3:45 P.M., EASTERN: Yahoo confirmed the report, but the breach turned out to be greater than previously expected. More details here. Yahoo, the web portal popular among fantasy football players and free webmail users, may have been the victim of a data breach affecting about 200 million users. Rumors of such a breach surfaced last month, and a Recode report posted early today (Sept. 22) indicated that the company would soon confirm the rumors. Two Tom's Guide staffers saw a tacit admission that something may be wrong when they tried to log into their Yahoo Mail accounts this morning. Both received suggestions to change their passwords, even on accounts that had two-factor authentication enabled. Have I Been Pwned? administrator Troy Hunt , who collects credentials exposed in data breaches, reported the same thing. It's still possible that Yahoo was not itself breached, and that the reported 200 million Yahoo accounts were aggregated and sifted from data breaches at other online services, such as those affecting LinkedIn (177 million accounts) and MySpace (360 million accounts). The alleged malicious hacker who first came forward with the details of the Yahoo accounts — said to include usernames, hashed passwords, birth dates and backup email addresses — told VICE Motherboard last month that the Yahoo data is from "2012 most likely." MORE: 10 Worst Data Breaches of All Time Motherboard broke the news Aug. 1 when that hacker, who uses the pseudonym Peace, put the Yahoo data up for sale for 3 Bitcoin (approx. $1,801 US) on The Real Deal online-crime marketplace. Peace earlier this year disclosed the MySpace and LinkedIn data breaches, but it's unlikely that he himself stole that data. The low price he wanted for the Yahoo data indicates that it's probably old, well picked over and no longer worth much to cybercriminals. In August, Yahoo told Motherboard that it was "aware of a claim," but didn't deny a data breach. Peace replied that "they dont [sic] want to confirm well better for me they dont [sic] do password reset." Story continues Peace also claimed to have "been trading the data privately for some time" before deciding to sell it. Users who want to protect their accounts should log in to Yahoo.com immediately and take the option to reset their passwords. Motherboard checked two dozen account credentials supplied by Peace, and discovered that the usernames did correspond to Yahoo accounts. Yahoo apparently protected its user passwords with the MD5 hashing algorithm, for which the first weakness was found in 2005. No company should have been using the algorithm in 2012. Yahoo is currently trying to sell itself to Verizon, and Recode speculated that news of a massive data breach could sent Yahoo stock tumbling, lowering the cost for Verizon. Yahoo users who want to protect their accounts should log in to Yahoo.com immediately and reset their passwords. If Yahoo doesn't prompt you to do so, then visit Yahoo's Set a new password page and change the password manually. Users can also use Yahoo Account Key , which eschews passwords in favor of using the Yahoo mobile app to turn smartphones into authentication devices. As we say every time we report on a massive server breach, never, ever, recycle passwords. If your email address and password have been available on the black market for months, along with a secondary email address, you better not have used those same credentials for online banking or other highly valuable accounts. 12 Computer Security Mistakes You’re Probably Making The Best (and Worst) Identity Theft Protection What to Do If Your Social Security Number Is Stolen Copyright 2016 Toms Guides , a Purch company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. || Cryptocurrencies like bitcoin may become a target in the fight against ransomware: David A. Kris CSIS ransomware bitcoin nationa security (David S. Kris speaking at a CSIS panel event in September 2016.CSIS) Many crimes can be solved by following the money, and that may hold true for the growth of ransomware attacks — though the money itself may be different. Countering the increasing use of ransomware — malware that attacks computers and networks and encrypts files, which criminals then demand payment in order to decrypt — may require action against hard-to-trace cryptocurrencies like bitcoin that are often used to pay the criminals behind the attacks, according to David S. Kris, former assistant attorney general at the US Department of Justice's national-security division. "I think the way to attack this — and I think the way you’re probably going to see some legal change over the next few years — is on the other end, with respect to the payments," Kris said during the question-and-answer session of a Center for Strategic and International Studies panel event . "And as I understand it — again, without having studied it too extensively — is that, you know, fintech is what is enabling this, cryptocurrency," Kris added. Reports of ransomware use have increased considerably in recent months. "In the last six to 12 months, this has just gone so aggressively to the business environment," Marcin Kleczynski, CEO of cybersecurity company Malwarebytes, told Business Insider in August . "We see companies from 25 people all the way to 250,000 people getting hit with ransomware." Malwarebytes ransomware survey (An Osterman research survey sponsored by Malwarebytes found that 54% of businesses surveyed had come under attack from ransomware in the 12 months through August 2016.Malwarebytes) Tech firm Kaspersky Lab said this summer that the number of victims attacked was growing at an alarming rate — up from 131,000 in 2014-2015 to 718,000 in 2015-2016, according to AFP. Some researchers have seen a 3,500% increase in the web infrastructure needed to run ransomware campaigns. According to Kleczynski, some banks have begun stockpiling bitcoin — which currently trades about about $600 to one — in case of a ransomware attack. "I talked to a couple of banks, and they say they have 50-100 bitcoin ready at all times in a wallet to deploy if a ransomware attack hits," he told Business Insider's James Cook . Story continues A report this summer found that hackers employing ransomware could pull in as much as $7,500 a month . And while individual victims are usually only hit with demands for a few hundred dollars , the likelihood that they will pay has made ransomware an appealing venture for hackers. And financial-services firms and individual people aren't the only potential targets. A NASCAR team admitted to paying hackers after its computers where hit with a ransomware attack. In August, security researchers demonstrated a ransomware attack on a smart thermostat , raising the possibility that Internet of Things devices will come into the crosshairs. Hackers have reportedly stolen $65 million worth of Bitcoins from a major Hong Kong exchange Bitfinex, which has now suspended all transactions (Hackers have reportedly stolen $65 million worth of Bitcoins from a major Hong Kong exchange Bitfinex, which has now suspended all transactions© AFP/File Philippe Lopez) The appeal of ransomware has no doubt been burnished by cryptocurrencies like bitcoin coming into the mainstream. " I personally would not be surprised to see over the next few years increasing regulation that maybe makes it more challenging for these kinds of anonymous, substantially untraceable — I don’t want to say it’s completely untraceable — payments to be made," Kris said during the CSIS event. "I think probably where you’re going to see legal change is in the area of the payment scheme. That may be wrong, but that’s sort of what I expect." However authorities choose to counter the use of ransomware, it's unlikely the threat will go away any time soon. "The extortion model is here to stay," a Kaspersky Lab expert said in a statement about rising ransomware attacks on Android users. NOW WATCH: Mac users are being attacked by malware that locks their computer and demands a $400 ransom — here’s how to protect yourself More From Business Insider Spanish police busted 30 people suspected of using a 'crypto-currency' to launder money One of 'El Chapo' Guzmán's chief money launderers is involved in a strange Hollywood kidnapping plot The ECB is getting rid of drug cartels' favorite currency || Bank of England aims to revamp interbank payment system by 2020: (Adds detail of proposals) LONDON, Sept 16 (Reuters) - The Bank of England said on Friday it aimed to revamp the system that underpins British banking and trading in the City of London by 2020 to boost its defences against cyber-attacks and widen the number of businesses that can use it. The BoE's Real-Time Gross Settlement (RTGS) handles transactions worth around 500 billion pounds ($659 billion) a day - equivalent to almost a third of Britain's annual economic output. It suffered a major outage in October 2014, and in June BoE Governor Mark Carney said he wanted to make it easier for smaller firms to use the system directly rather than via large incumbent banks. On Friday the BoE set out more detailed proposals and said it planned to fund the changes by temporarily increasing the charges banks pay to use the system. "The world of payments is changing rapidly, and central banks need to keep pace if we are to deliver our mission of monetary and financial stability ... whilst also enabling innovation and competition where we can," BoE executive director Andrew Hauser said. Proposed enhancements include running the system continuously, rather than just during normal working hours, and making it easier for smaller banks, brokers and payment processing firms to access the system directly. "A key enabler for delivering these changes will be a comprehensive rebuild of the RTGS technology platform. The Bank will make decisions on its resilience, including in particular its cyber defences, in consultation with intelligence partners," the BoE said. Other goals included allowing forward-dated payments and creating an interface with the 'distributed-ledger' technology that underpins digital currencies such as Bitcoin "if/when they achieve critical mass", it said. ($1 = 0.7592 pounds) (Reporting by David Milliken; Editing by Costas Pitas and Hugh Lawson)
[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
One Bitcoin now worth $632.00@bitstamp. High $636.00. Low $630.00. Market Cap $10.065 Billion #bitcoin || Invest one time only 0.02 BTC & Earn 2,00,000 BTC in one month. https://www.bitcoin4u.biz/BitLazuritCoin https://www.bitcoin4u.biz/BitLazuritCoin ;ouig || $604.16 at 09:45 UTC [24h Range: $602.00 - $605.99 Volume: 2495 BTC] || One Bitcoin now worth $663.95@bitstamp. High $664.05. Low $643.00. Market Cap $10.589 Billion #bitcoin || #EuroCoin #EUC $0.000262 (-0.06%) 0.00000043 BTC (0.00%) || Buy Bitcoin With PayPal! Also with CC, paysafecard, Skrill, OKPAY https://www.virwox.com?r=4db29virwox.com/?r=4db29 #btc #bitcoin 00 pic.twitter.com/YdIa4VOAEe || Two Hour Lull Update: Current Winkdex Bitcoin price: $604.00 #bitcoin || #EuroCoin #EUC $0.000389 (13.00%) 0.00000064 BTC (11.87%) || $631.92 #bitfinex;
$626.89 #bitstamp;
$628.70 #GDAX;
$627.00 #btce;
$628.98 #itBit;
$626.27 #OKCoin;
#bitcoin news: http://bit.ly/1VI6Yse || Investopedia: "Could Bitcoin Triumph in a Mr. Robot-like World?" http://dlvr.it/MVgNGj pic.twitter.com/bQ0lXEuKSU
|
Trend: up || Prices: 705.02, 711.62, 744.20, 740.98, 751.59, 751.62, 731.03, 739.25, 751.35, 744.59
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Analyze the provided historical prices, technical indicators, news, and social media sentiment from the last 60 days. Based on this context, predict the overall trend (up, down, or no change) and the specific daily closing prices for Bitcoin for the next 10 days.
|
[Technical Analysis]
Not fully available.
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
Gold Price Futures (GC) Technical Analysis – Reaction to $1757.70 to $1776.50 Determines Next Short-Term Move: Gold futures are trading lower on Monday but well off its intraday low following a more than 4% plunge earlier in the session that took the market to its lowest level since April 2020. The move was fueled by aggressive short-sellers and the triggering of massive sell-stops in reaction to strong U.S. labor market data released on Friday that bolstered expectations for early tapering of economic support.
At 11:18 GMT,December Comex goldis trading $1746.50, down $16.60 or -0.94%. This is up from an intraday low of $1677.90.
The “technical bounce” suggests the sell-off was overdone, making prices extremely cheap given the current fundamentals. Furthermore, it may have helped identify a value zone. So it’s not all about “doom and gloom” like some gold analysts want you to believe.
Gold still has value. It didn’t just suddenly turn bearish. It topped nearly a year ago and it had been in a downtrend before the Non-Farm Payrolls report was released on Friday. So where’s the surprise? One only has to look at the daily chart to see that under the month-long support base there was not “real support” until $1754.50. And under that level there was no “real support” until $1683.00 to $1678.00.
Finding real support and real value is the key. Not trading made up numbers like moving averages.
The main trend is down according to the daily swing chart. A trade through $1677.90 will signal a resumption of the downtrend. A move through $1837.50 will change the main trend to up.
The market is currently trading inside the future contract’s retracement zone at $1795.00 to $1716.00. It’ a wide range so prices could remain inside this area for weeks as traders await the Federal Reserve’s next decision on tapering.
The new short-term range is $1837.50 to $1677.90. Its retracement zone at $1757.70 to $1776.50 is potential resistance. After the steep break, the market snapped back to $1754.00.
After hitting an intraday low of $1677.90 the market rallied back to $1754.00. If this range holds then look for a possible pullback into its 50% level at $1716.00. This is also the long-term Fibonacci level so we could see support form at this support cluster of the short-term.
On the upside, since the main trend is down, we’re anticipating new short-sellers to come in at $1757.70 to $1776.50. If the buying is strong enough to overtake $1776.50 then look for the rally to possibly extend into the next resistance cluster at $1795.00 to $1800.60.
Gold is one of the best markets to trade when the newsletter writers, who are nearly always bullish, throw in the towel after a steep break. Watching these guys turn bearish is often a great contrarian buy signal. Even if it’s only a day-trade or short-term counter-trend move.
Also, if you’re going to trade gold then don’t look at it in terms of bullish or bearish, but where you can find value.
For a look at all of today’s economic events, check out oureconomic calendar.
Thisarticlewas originally posted on FX Empire
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• Crude Oil Price Forecast – Crude Oil Markets Gap Lower to Open Week || How NFTs Could Change Real Estate: The world of property is changing fast, and it is important to stay up to date on all the innovations in the space. The blockchain and cryptocurrency realm is slowly changing the way many markets work, and the property industry is no exception. With these innovations, there will be many new opportunities that you should be aware of as an investor.
One such opportunity relates to the use of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) as a way to sell fractional ownership or debt on a property. This use case has been examined by theLand Registryin the United Kingdom, with a pilot conducted in 2019.
Related:3 Lies They Tell You in School That Hurt You in Business
Non-fungible tokens or NFTs are tokens issued on a blockchain, similar to a cryptocurrency such as Bitcoin. However, unlike a cryptocurrency, they are not “fungible,” meaning that each token is unique, rather than being identical and interchangeable with each other. This means that they can be used to identify a unique item, either real-world or digital.
Currently, NFTs are mainly used to sell digital art. Because digital art is so easily copied, it is difficult to tell which copy is the authentic "original." Therefore, up until recently, digital art hasn’t had a collectable value. However, with NFTs, digital art can be attached to a unique number stored on the blockchain. The token can be sold to pass on ownership of the digital collectable, and provenance can be assured.
But just because NFTs are mainly used in the digital world, doesn’t mean they can only be used for digital assets. NFTs can be used to represent ownership of physical items or real estate too. An example of this could be fractional ownership. Homeowners could sell part of their property to a large number of small investors by issuing tokens on the blockchain. Investors could hold these tokens and receive a rental income for doing so, profit split on capital appreciation upon sale or both.
This could also allow people to buy and sell fractional ownership in rental properties, potentially in a liquid market without a middle-man. This would open up the world of property investing to many more people and create better options for those that need to unlock equity without borrowing or moving.
Related:5 Steps to Buying Your First U.K. Investment Property
But it isn’t just ownership that could be affected. So could borrowing. In the future, it may be possible to borrow by issuing NFTs backed by ownership of your property. Individual investors could then buy an NFT representing a small part of the debt. Holders of the NFTs would then receive repayments via the blockchain in proportion to how much they lent out.
When dealing with new technology, there is always a level of potential risk. It is important to look at the downsides as much as it is important to examine the potential advantages. While NFTs could offer a solution to unlocking capital in a property, where would the legal right to control the property actually reside? Could an NFT token holder force someone to sell his or her home if the holder owned enough of the tokens? This would put those living in the property at an unacceptable level of risk. On the other hand, if the property isn’t actually controlled by the token holders, could the residents remain in the property forever? This would prevent the investors from ever benefiting from the capital appreciation.
In terms of investment real estate, would NFTs be much different than the crowdfunding sites that allow you to invest in property? These sites have had mixed success, and many have closed down, causing issues for investors. It remains to be seen if NFTs would actually avoid such middlemen, as there would need to be someone managing the property. For this to be overcome, there would need to be a decentralized mechanism for appointing such representatives.
Finally, NFT mortgages might come with their own set of issues. If a borrower falls into default, who can collect on the debt? It would be a problem if each creditor could collect individually, both for the lender and the debtor. On the other hand, if only one party can collect, this would make these type of mortgages not much different to peer-to-peer lending platforms and, therefore, susceptible to the same problems of centralization.
As with anything new, NFTs in the property space will have to work through a number of issues. That said, there is a great deal of potential as well. While widespread adoption of these technologies may be sometime away, we all need to be aware of them so we are ready to take advantage of them.
Related:3 Leadership Lessons to Learn From Elon Musk || CME Group Q2 Profits Up 1.4%, Bitcoin Micro Futures Popular: BeInCrypto –
The Chicago Mercantile Exchange Group (CME) has published its quarterly report for Q2 2021, and it shows a small jump in profit, led by innovative products like bitcoin micro futures.
The Chicago Mercantile Exchange Group (CME) grouppublished its financial reportfor the second quarter of 2021, and the numbers show small profit growth. It reported a revenue of $1.2 billion and an average daily volume growth of 5% during the quarter. The net income during this period was $589 million.
This storywas seen first onBeInCryptoJoin our Telegram Groupand get trading signals, a free trading course and more stories likethisonBeInCrypto || Get China Bond Exposure With This Emerging Markets ETF: This article was originally published onETFTrends.com.
China's equities have been wobbly lately, prompting market analysts to consider the country's bonds as a better option. One ETF to get this exposure is theVanguard Emerging Markets Government Bond Index Fund ETF Shares (VWOB).
Chinese stocks were a prime alternative as a pandemic rebound play in 2020, but their performance has been waning as of late. Take into account the performance of the MSCI China index, which has fallen 12% so far in 2021.
^MSCNdata byYCharts
“We really recommended [investors] to stay sidelined for the time being,”saidJ.P. Morgan’s Joyce Chang, the firm’s chair of global research.
Chang noted that the country's latest regulatory pushes have been a prime suspect in the recent performance of Chinese equities. The Chinese government's push for consumer and social welfare targets certain companies, which could continue for quite some time.
“Those are the buzz words, and a lot of these targets are targets until 2035,” she said. “There’s reason to be cautious here.”
As such, a better alternative to play China may be its bonds. While Chang still believes that China is underrepresented in terms of global investor interest, the country's bonds are worth looking at until the regulatory smoke clears.
“The best way to play China right now is actually plain vanilla in the bond market,” Chang said. “Chinese government bonds still have a very attractive yield relative to the rest of the world.”
With a 4.1% allocation to China's debt market, investors can get exposure to the country while minimizing concentration risk. The rest is spread globally in other emerging market countries, such as Mexico, Saudi Arabia, and Indonesia.
VWOB seeks to track the performance of a benchmark index that measures the investment return of U.S. dollar-denominated bonds issued by governments and government-related issuers in emerging market countries. The fund employs an indexing investment approach designed to track the performance of the Bloomberg Barclays USD Emerging Markets Government RIC Capped Index.
All of the fund’s investments will be selected through the sampling process, and under normal circumstances, at least 80% of the fund’s assets will be invested in bonds included in the index. The fund comes with a 0.28% expense ratio.
Product summary per theVanguard website:
• Attempts to track the performance of Bloomberg USD Emerging Markets Government RIC Capped Index.
• Provides a convenient way to get additional exposure to emerging market government bonds.
• Maintains a dollar-weighted average maturity consistent with that of the index.
• Passively managed, using index sampling.
For more news, information, and strategy, visit theFixed Income Channel.
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READ MORE AT ETFTRENDS.COM > || Worries over economic recovery shake world stocks, dollar pares gains: By Chris Prentice and Carolyn Cohn WASHINGTON/LONDON (Reuters) -Wall Street sank and European stocks suffered their worst one-day rout in three weeks on Wednesday on uncertainty over the pace of economic recovery, as the dollar pared gains following dovish remarks from a Federal Reserve official. Accommodative central bank policies and optimism about reopening economies have pushed equities to record levels but concerns are growing about the impact of rising coronavirus infections due to the Delta variant. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.2% to end at 35,029.19 points. The S&P 500 lost 0.13% to 4,514, with materials, energy and technology sectors leading the declines. The Nasdaq Composite dropped 0.57% to 15,286.68. Markets are also still assessing data from last week which showed the U.S. economy created the fewest jobs in seven months in August, and wondering how the U.S. central bank will respond. The New York Fed Bank President on Wednesday said the central bank's decision on tapering is not indicative of timing for lifting rates. Those dovish remarks followed comments from St. Louis Fed Bank President that the tapering plan should move forward despite the slowdown in job growth. "Everything is tapering, tapering, tapering. We are looking at every single central bank - when is the next one?" said Eddie Cheng, head of international multi-asset portfolio management at Wells Fargo Asset Management, though he added: "The Delta variant impact is still running like a wild card". The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 76.74 points, or 0.22 percent, to 35,023.26, the S&P 500 lost 7.8 points, or 0.17 percent, to 4,512.23 and the Nasdaq Composite dropped 87.96 points, or 0.57 percent, to 15,286.37 by 2:17 p.m. EST (1817 GMT). MSCI's world equity index fell 0.42% after seven consecutive days of gains and European stocks dropped to their lowest in nearly three weeks. Britain's FTSE 100 struck two-week lows. Story continues "September is the month investors confront reality," said Peter Tuz, president of Chase Investment Counsel in Charlottesville, Virginia, pointing to uncertainty over the Fed's tapering plans and inflation fears as a reason investors are taking profits or reallocating funds. The coronavirus Delta variant and concerns over the economic recovery were also weighing. A Fed report on Wednesday showed the U.S. economy "downshifted slightly" in August as concerns grew over how the renewed surge of coronavirus cases would affect the economic recovery. "What is likely ahead of us is a continued but temporary deceleration of economic activity of one to three months which likely started in August," Sebastien Galy, senior macro strategist at Nordea Asset Management, said earlier in the session. Federal official Robert Kaplan was due to speak later on Wednesday. In Europe, markets were focused on whether the European Central Bank will this week begin to scale back its bond purchase programme. The dollar paired some gains after jumping to a one-week high against a basket of other major currencies. It also hit a one-week peak against the the single currency and was trading at $1.1826. The dollar's strength offset investors' risk aversion to pressure bullion to a two-week low. Spot prices fell 0.1% and gold futures settled down 0.3% at $1,793.50. [GOL/] Longer-dated U.S. government bond yields fell on Wednesday and touched a session low after a strong auction by the Treasury of 10-year notes and the Fed's Beige Book of economic activity.[US/] Germany's 10-year Bund yield also hit eight-week highs before edging lower to -0.32%. "Fears that central banks might start to taper their asset purchases seems to have knocked away a little confidence, particularly given tomorrow’s ECB decision where many expect we’ll begin to see the start of that process, not least with inflation there running at its highest levels in almost a decade," Deutsche Bank analysts said in a note. MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan fell 0.71%, stemming an eight-session string of gains. Bitcoin extended the previous day's rout, down 1.6%. Shares of Coinbase Global Inc dropped over 3% after the firm revealed it has received a legal notice from the top U.S. markets regulator. Brent settled up 1.3% at $72.60 a barrel and U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude settled up 1.4% at$69.30 a barrel, with prices supported by a slow restart to production in the Gulf of Mexico after Hurricane Ida hit the region. [O/R] (Additional reporting by Alun John in Hong Kong; Editing by Kenneth Maxwell & Shri Navaratnam, Editing by Nick Tattersall and Alistair Bell) || HBAR Consolidates After Breakout: BeInCrypto – Hedera Hashgraph (HBAR) managed to break out from a long-term descending parallel channel on Aug. 14. However, it has failed to initiate a significant upward movement since the breakout. Despite the long-term trend being bullish, there is weakness developing in the lower time-frame, a sign that the token could initially drop before moving upwards. HBAR breaks out HBAR had been decreasing alongside a descending parallel channel since March 25. The decrease continued until a low of $0.138 was reached on June 22. The token has been moving upwards since. On Aug. 14, it purportedly broke out from the channel. However, it failed to sustain the upward movement and was rejected by the $0.27 resistance area instead. It made another breakout attempt on Aug. 24, which was also unsuccessful and created a long upper wick. Furthermore, both the MACD and RSI have generated bearish divergences. Therefore, it is likely that the token will decrease initially before potentially making another breakout attempt. Chart By TradingView Future movement The shorter-term six-hour chart shows that HBAR has been trading inside an ascending parallel channel since July 20. Such structures usually contain corrective movements. Furthermore, there is bearish divergence in place in both the RSI and MACD, similar to the daily time-frame. If a breakdown occurs, the main resistance area would be at $0.205. Chart By TradingView Wave count Cryptocurrency trader @24KCrypto outlined an HBAR chart, stating that the price is in a long-term bullish structure that could eventually take it to a new all-time high near $3. Source: Twitter It does look likely that HBAR is in wave four of a bullish impulse, that began on Jan. 2020. There is sufficient alternation in both time and length between waves two and four. If the count proves to be correct, the initial targets for the top of the movement would be between $0.604-$0.644. This is the 1.61 external Fib retracement (black) and the length of waves 1-3 (orange), projected to the bottom of wave four. Chart By TradingView For BeInCrypto’s latest Bitcoin (BTC) analysis, click here . This story was seen first on BeInCrypto Join our Telegram Group and get trading signals, a free trading course and more stories like this on BeInCrypto View comments || Global stocks slide for a 3rd day as investor jitters grow over the withdrawal of central bank stimulus: • Global stocks fell for a third straight day on Thursday ahead of the ECB's monetary policy decision.
• The Fed once again said it will taper its asset purchases this year, backed up a monster jobs report.
• Hong Kong's Hang Seng slid after Tencent and NetEase shares dropped more than 6% each.
• Sign up here for our daily newsletter, 10 Things Before the Opening Bell.
Global stocks fell for a third day Thursday, as investors cast further doubt on the sustainability of current valuations ahead of upcoming central bank meetings, with investors in Europe expecting the main highlight to be the European Central Bank's policy decision.
Futures on theDow Jones,S&P 500, andNasdaqwere down by about 0.2% as of 4:10 a.m. ET, suggesting a modestly lower start to trading later in the day. TheMSCI World Indexdropped 0.3%, marking its third straight decline. The index hit a record high on Tuesday.
A number of Federal Reserve officials signaled on Wednesday that the central bank could start tapering its asset purchases laterthis year, despite adisappointing August jobs reportlast week. "The big picture is that the taper will get going this year and will end sometime by the first half of next year," St. Louis Fed Bank President James Bullard said in an interview with theFinancial Times.
The Fed's comments were backed up by a monster10.9 million US job openingsthat suggest employment isn't the issue - it's getting Americans to take those jobs, Jeffrey Halley, senior market analyst at OANDA said.
Fed policymakers will meet once again in two weeks on September 21 and 22.
Even though the S&P 500 pulled back just 0.5% by Wednesday's close, it was the third straight daily loss for the benchmark index, its longest losing streak since mid-July. Consumer durables and energy were among the largest laggards in the US, while in Europe autos and industrial goods underperformed by the close, Deutsche Bank strategists said.
"We have a lot of uncertainty pulling markets in both directions, with no clear theme developing and plenty of risks circling," Halley added.
In Europe, all eyes are on the ECB's upcoming interest-rate decision, expected at 7.45 a.m. ET. With inflation picking up in the eurozone, investors will tune carefully into any hints bank president Christine Lagarde may give about the likely outlook for its huge asset-purchase program.
Deutsche Bank's European economists expect the ECB to announce a reduction in the purchase pace under the Pandemic Emergency Purchase Programme. They think it's slightly more likely to happen now than in December, but there's still a risk the ECB could delay any decision until then.
London's FTSE 100fell 0.9%, theEuro Stoxx 50fell 0.5%, andFrankfurt's DAXlost 0.3%.
In Asia, Chinese inflation hit a13-year high in Augustdue to surging prices of raw materials.
Hong Kong equities took a hit asTencentandNetEaseshares dropped more than 6% each after they were among video-game firms to besummoned to a regulatory meetingmeant to serve as a reminder about restrictions on game-time for children.
TheShanghai Compositerose 0.4%, Tokyo'sNikkeifell 0.5%, and Hong Kong'sHang Sengslid 2.4%.
Oil prices were broadly flat, withBrent crudeup 0.1% at $72.51 a barrel andWest Texas Intermediaterising 0.3% to $69.08 a barrel.
The cryptocurrency market looked somewhat stableafter the sell-offthat ensued alongside El Salvador's adoption of bitcoin as a legal currency.Bitcoinrose 2% to $46,308,etherrose 6% to $3,497, while other coins were all in the green.
Read More:Why crypto crashed: 4 experts break down what Tuesday's sudden drop might mean for the altcoin season and NFT frenzy - and share 12 high-quality tokens that are likely to continue rallying towards the year end
Read the original article onBusiness Insider || How changes at crypto exchanges Binance and FTX could impact the price of bitcoin: Bitcoin ATM machine in Rzeszow's Millenium Shopping Mall, Poland. Photo: Artur Widak/NurPhoto via Getty Images (NurPhoto via Getty Images) On 25 July a rumour that Amazon would begin accepting bitcoin as a form of payment by the end of the year led to a sharp spike in cryptocurrency prices. It triggered a short squeeze when $900m (£647m) worth of short positions were liquidated due to margin calls within 48 hours of the Amazon ( AMZN ) announcement about a job position (digital currency and blockchain product lead). The sudden upturn in the market would have wiped out most of these trade positions because of the use of leverage, with some traders borrowing up to 125 times their initial invested collateral. Soon after this Sam Bankman Fried, CEO of FTX, announced that his derivatives exchange was reducing leverage limits from 125 times the original deposit to 20 times. He tweeted that leveraged trade "in some cases is not a healthy part of the crypto ecosystem". One person that would agree is US Senator Elizabeth Warren, who has been leading the call for a regulatory storm to sweep through the cryptocurrency sector. Speaking on 27 July at a hearing of the US Senate Banking Committee, Warren warned that regulators needed to intervene in the cryptocurrency sector before its too late" to protect "the safety and stability of consumers and our financial system". Watch: What is bitcoin? In the same week Changpeng Zhao, the CEO of the Binance exchange, tweeted that "Binance Futures had also begun "limiting new users to a maximum of 20 times leverage". On Friday Binance began to wind down their derivatives products in Germany, Italy and the Netherlands to harmonise with Europes looming crypto-regulations. Read more: Binance to end futures and derivatives product offerings in Europe The leveraged trading, or margin trading, allowed on FTX and Binance enable users to supercharge their trades using borrowed funds that greatly exceed the balance on their accounts. These high leveraged positions can be extremely profitable, but also risky because losses are amplified. If a trader attempts a high leverage position, up to 125 times on some exchanges, they could lose all of their original investment 125 times faster with only the slightest nudge of the market in the wrong direction. Story continues Leveraged trade has made the value of digital assets such as bitcoin extremely volatile because they exaggerate the price movement. The volatility caused by this high risk, high reward derivatives trading is one reason why excessively high leverage is banned by regulators in traditional currency markets. A long squeeze, where leverage was skewed to a bullish sentiment, was the prime factor behind bitcoin's crash in March 2020, where the world's preeminent cryptocurrency fell to a low of $5,678 (£4,084). These massive market swings have affected the public's confidence in the use of bitcoin for daily transactions. Read more: Could ethereum overtake bitcoin? This has been felt in El Salvador, where bitcoin is now legal tender . Small businesses in El Salvador increase prices in bitcoin to compensate for possible value fluctuations. Referring to this Josh Greenwald, Uphold chief risk officer, said: "To see wider adoption of cryptocurrencies we want prices to go up but volatility to go down." He said that implied volatility for bitcoin was "100 percent for most of the year" casting in doubt the use of this digital asset as a safe haven or transaction medium, with many pointing to high leverage as the main culprit. Watch: What are the risks of investing in cryptocurrency? However, the recent changes to leverage limits could ease the volatility of digital assets such as bitcoin, leading to its wider adoption as a medium of exchange, and it might also be interpreted as an encouraging sign by regulatory authorities. By self-policing themselves now, FTX and Binance are hoping to avoid becoming the target of increased regulatory scrutiny. Greenwald agreed that the move by both FTX and Binance to limit their leverage ratios was "a nod towards regulators". He added that "they want to get in front and be seen to be proactive with this move to self regulate" which is preferential to the harsh authoritarian alternative from state regulators. However, Richard Heart, the founder of Hex.com , warned that regulation is "the biggest threat to centralised cryptocurrency exchanges, especially those with margin trading". He said that it gives a false sense of security because "lowering the leverage makes leverage trading seem safer, but in the end, the vast majority of traders will still lose their money trading in this way". Read more: How to spot and avoid cryptocurrency scams Since 2018, the cryptocurrency sector has developed from simple spot markets, where fiat currencies are exchanged for cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin and ethereum, to complex derivatives exchanges where buy or sell price agreements are set for a particular date in the future. These exchanges allow traders to enact short or long positions that can be leveraged up to 200 times, which is an option that is still available on the Prime Bit exchange. The Crypto Winter of early 2018 encouraged a move from spot trading to trading perpetual swaps, a futures contract without a settlement date and the most popular derivative in the sector. To get an idea of how widespread this type of leveraged derivative trading has become, data from CryptoRank shows that perpetual swaps make up over 80% of bitcoins 24-hour trading volume. However, the impact of limiting leverage by the providers of derivative products may have insignificant consequences in the long term. "Those who want that type of leverage will go elsewhere because if the market decides there is a demand, someone will provide it," said Liam Bussell of Banxa, a fiat-to-crypto platform. Watch: What China's bitcoin mining crackdown means for crypto || Bitcoin heading for monthly gain, Ethereum outperforms: By Samuel Indyk Investing.com The price of Bitcoin was steady above $47,000 on Tuesday and heading for its second consecutive monthly gain after the previous two months of losses. For the month, Bitcoin is trading higher by around 15% having risen over 18% in July. Ethereum is outperforming on Tuesday, having risen around 7.5% in the last 24 hours. The jump in price may be a relief rally after a bug in the blockchain appears to have been weathered. The bug had affected older versions of the Ethereum network client Geth which had resulted in nodes splitting from the main network. The bug had increased the risk of counterfeit Ethereum tokens. Ethereum co-founder Joseph Lubin said there had been an attempt to exploit the bug but that it was being solved. The price had dropped as low as $3,060 when the bug was first identified but has rallied to over $3,400 today. For the month, Ethereum is also outperforming Bitcoin, having risen over 35% throughout August. However, the rally pales into insignificance compared to some of its upcoming rivals in Decentralised Finance (DeFi) applications. Solana and Cardano have been the two best performing major cryptocurrencies during August, having risen 174% and 114%, respectively. Both are benefitting from expectations that their own DeFi projects will provide greater competition to Ethereum. The recent boom in non-fungible tokens (NFTs) is also providing a boon for the two cryptocurrencies. During August, the developers of Cardano announced that the Alonzo Purple upgrade would take place on 12th September. The upgrade is set to integrate smart contracts on the network which paves the way for decentralised applications. Bitcoin Future Price Action Bitcoin has been trading in a relatively narrow range between $46,500 and $50,500 over the last two weeks and has failed to make a clean break either side of the range since 19th August. The worlds largest cryptocurrency remains above its 200-day moving average which currently resides around $46,070. Story continues Some analysts have pointed to the fact that Bitcoin failed to firmly break $50,000 over the weekend as a sign that momentum is slowing and that a correction could be coming. There have been many signs recently that the cryptocurrency is preparing for a correction, with the technicals all seem to be pointing the same way, said OANDA Senior Market Analyst Craig Erlam. Rallies fading quicker, momentum indicators displaying divergences, a failed new high being a few. None of this means its best days are behind it and that we've seen the top, but perhaps that a decent correction could follow. A move below $46,000 could see that accelerate with the key area then becoming $40,000-41,000. Related Articles Bitcoin heading for monthly gain, Ethereum outperforms FLURRY Finance and Kyber Network Set To Optimize Yield Farming Genesis Digital Assets buys 20K Bitcoin miners after $125M raise || Why China is cracking down on certain publicly-traded companies, according to Carson Block: Short seller Carson Block gained notoriety for exposing the fraudulent accounting practices of U.S.-listed Chinese companies. But the founder of Muddy Waters Capital now believes the days of Chinese companies tapping American capital markets are over. In an interview with Yahoo Finance Live, Block attributed the recent regulatory crackdown on China’s largest firms to an acceptance by Beijing’s leadership that the delisting of its U.S.-listed firms is "inevitable." “I think Xi Jinping is saying look, U.S.-listed companies need to understand that they have to find an alternate way of accessing capital markets. Come back to the mainland, come to Hong Kong, but their days in the U.S. are numbered,” Block said. “If Chinese companies largely get out of the U.S. before the mandate to delist kicks in, then it kind of looks to Xi's domestic audience, like Chinese companies left the U.S. out of strength, as opposed to being thrown out.” Congress passed a law last year, banning foreign companies from listing their securities on U.S. exchanges for failing to comply with American rules for three consecutive years. The Holding Foreign Companies Accountable Act was signed into law in response to concerns that Chinese firms were skirting financial auditing by the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB), a nonprofit corporation Congress created in 2002, because of Chinese resistance to overseas inspections of its companies’ audits. The law’s three-year grace period has forced Chinese firms to reconsider their options: comply with disclosure requirements that could put them at odds with regulators back home, or move their securities outside of U.S. exchanges. “I always thought China would give in at the 11th hour on auditor inspections. And the reason I thought that was because so many [Chinese Communist Party] officials have undisclosed stakes in these U.S.-listed China companies,” Block said. “But I think Xi Jinping has decided not to give on auditor inspections. And I think that's because, right now, he has to play to this domestic audience of not being bullied around by the U.S.” Story continues Block said recent crackdowns on some of the biggest Chinese firms are proof of that. Following ride-hailing giant Didi Chuxing’s ( DIDI ) $4.4 billion IPO in June, China’s Cybersecurity regulators opened an investigation into the firm and banned the app from accepting new users, causing its U.S.-listed shares to plummet. The Wall Street Journal reported Beijing officials urged Didi to delay its listing over concerns IPO documents required by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) could contain sensitive information and data. Last month, China-based tutoring firms New Oriental Education & Technology Group ( EDU ), TAL Education Group ( TAL ), and Gaotu Techedu Inc. ( GOTU ). saw their shares fall more than 40% as regulators attempted to exert control over the industry, by calling on the firms to go nonprofit. Earlier this week, Tencent ( TCEHY ) was briefly toppled as Asia’s most valuable company, after state-run media ran an article, calling online gaming "a spiritual opium.” Combined, the regulatory shake-ups have erased more than $1 trillion from the market value of U.S.-listed Chinese stocks. Regulatory squeeze “I think that from the Wall Street perspective, the perspective of the banks and asset managers, they're not liking this because they want to continue to sell the dream to U.S. investors and make the fees associated with that,” Block said. “I do personally think it's healthy if less U.S. retail money and pension money gets put into these things.” The scrutiny in China has come, as the SEC looks to tighten the screws to protect American investors. Last week, SEC Commissioner Gary Gensler halted all IPOs of Chinese firms , pending further risk disclosures. Block said the regulatory squeeze is likely to push more Chinese firms to seek listings in Hong Kong and the mainland markets, over the next three years. Many firms, including Alibaba ( BABA ), JD.com ( JD ), and NetEase ( NTES ) have already sought secondary listings on the Hong Kong Exchange. But Block said he doesn’t believe the Hong Kong market has the liquidity to support a wholesale relisting of Chinese securities in the U.S., leading to consolidation. “I think your tier one U.S.-listed China companies will be able to find reasonable markets over in Hong Kong, meaning some liquidity, etc. It won't be anything like the liquidity in the U.S. But your tier two and tier three companies are going to have problems,” he said. "I think that maybe you can start to see some acquisitions over time of these tier two companies by the tier ones because they just — there's not enough liquidity in HK." Akiko Fujita is an anchor and reporter for Yahoo Finance. Follow her on Twitter @AkikoFujita Bitcoin mining crackdown in China is a boon for Texas Two-time Olympian celebrates NCAA rule change: ‘This is the tide that lifts all boats’ GM launches $25 million climate equity fund aimed at making EV future accessible
[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
None available.
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Trend: down || Prices: 47260.22, 42843.80, 40693.68, 43574.51, 44895.10, 42839.75, 42716.59, 43208.54, 42235.73, 41034.54
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Analyze the provided historical prices, technical indicators, news, and social media sentiment from the last 60 days. Based on this context, predict the overall trend (up, down, or no change) and the specific daily closing prices for Bitcoin for the next 10 days.
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[Technical Analysis for 2022-05-19]
BTC Price: 30314.33, BTC RSI: 38.03
Gold Price: 1841.20, Gold RSI: 42.23
Oil Price: 112.21, Oil RSI: 57.59
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
FOREX-Dollar nears pandemic peaks as investors seek safety: * Euro touches five-year trough
* Aussie gets small boost as CPI stokes hike bets
* U.S. GDP data eyed on Thursday ahead of May Fed meeting
By Tom Westbrook
SINGAPORE, April 27 (Reuters) - The dollar stood at its highest level since the early days of the pandemic on Wednesday and was heading for its best month since 2015, supported by the prospect of U.S. rate hikes and on safe-haven flows fanned by slowing growth in China and Europe.
Fears for Europe's energy security pushed the euro to a five-year low of $1.0635 after Russia's Gazprom said it would cut gas supply to Poland and Bulgaria.
The U.S. dollar index, which measures the greenback against a basket of six major currencies, edged up to 102.39 in the Asia session, the strongest it has been since March 2020.
"The dollar is the hedge in markets presently, while commodities including gold are no longer working as effectively," said analysts at Citi.
"The dollar is 'quality carry,'" they added. "The dollar also offers more yield than any of the other safe haven FX alternatives."
The dollar index is up 4% this month and the euro, yuan and yen have slid as traders wager that rates are going up faster in the United States than any other major economy.
"Even if the Fed stops tightening in June 2022, the U.S. is expected to have higher rates than (Europe) through the whole of 2023," said Deutsche Bank strategist Alan Ruskin.
The heft of that as a driver of currency movements has only increased as uncertainty swirls around the war in Ukraine - now in its third month - as well as the global consequences of China's persistence with disruptive COVID-zero policies.
The Chinese yuan took a breather following a steep decline that appears to have had the blessing of authorities, steadying at 6.5575 per dollar.
Data also showed Chinese industrial profit growth quickened in March.
AUSSIE BOUNCE
U.S. earnings are likely to set the tone across financial markets later in the day, ahead of U.S. growth data due on Thursday where a solid showing could reinforce bets on rates moving sharply higher at the Federal Reserve's May meeting.
Commodity currencies have also sold lately in favour of the safety of the greenback, driving the New Zealand dollar close to its lowest levels of this year at $0.6562.
The Australian dollar caught a modest boost after Australian consumer prices surged at their fastest annual pace in two decades, spurring speculation that interest rates could be lifted from record lows as soon as next week.
The Aussie rose as much as 0.6% to $0.7171.
"With trimmed mean inflation already higher than at the start of previous tightening cycles, the Reserve Bank of Australia may opt for a 50 bp hike at its June meeting," said Marcel Thieliant at Capital Economics.
Elsewhere the stronger dollar dented an attempted bounce for the yen, which had seen some support from safety flows and positioning for the risk of a policy shift. The yen last traded about 0.3% lower at 127.60 per dollar.
The Bank of Japan meets on Wednesday and Thursday and markets see some risk of adjustment to forecasts or even policy changes to try and arrest the currency's recent weakness.
The South Korean won was slammed to a two-year trough after North Korea pledged to boost its nuclear arsenal.
Sterling, which has dropped more than 2% on the dollar this week as soft retail sales data has prompted a re-think of Britain's rates outlook, hit a fresh 21-month low of $1.2560 on Wednesday.
Bitcoin, sold on Tuesday as investors dumped risky assets, hovered near a six-week low at $38,430.
(Reporting by Tom Westbrook; Editing by Shri Navaratnam) || Get Out of Crypto Now!: This article is excerpted from Tom Yeung’s Moonshot Investor newsletter. To make sure you don’t miss anyof Tom’s potential 100x picks,subscribe to his mailing list here.
On Tuesday,Bitcoin(BTC-USD) prices found themselves under the $30,000 mark, a one-fifth decline from the week before.
If this were a deep-value stock, I would recommend buying the dip. Profit-generating firms have strong “intrinsic values” that provide downside protection.
InvestorPlace - Stock Market News, Stock Advice & Trading Tips
But Bitcoin and its ilk have no such buffer. Much like fiat currencies (which can also go to zero), cryptocurrencies only have worth because other people believe it has value. Once that trust disappears, cryptocurrencies head for zero.
As crypto prices continue to fall, myMomentum Masterstrategy continues to flag “sell” on the asset class.
The strategy, unfortunately, forces us to lock in losses. But if history is any indicator, Bitcoin and other cryptos have a lot further to fall before we hit the bottom.
Source: Catalyst Labs / Shutterstock.com
Bitcoin isn’t the only cryptocurrency getting crushed this week.
On Monday evening,Terra Luna(LUNA-USD) dropped 60% as its stablecoinTerraUSD(UST-USD) lost its dollar peg. By Wednesday, confidence in the entire ecosystem had collapsed. LUNA now trades under $1.
It’s a devastating loss. Terra was one of my top crypto choices last December; at the time, I called the token“game-changing.”And though I cautioned investors about its $66 “hot-money Solana” price, even I didn’t foresee such a rapid decline.
“Terra is rewriting the rules for how stablecoins operate,” I wrote in that letter. With its collapse this week, Terra Luna’s legacy looks far more infamous than I anticipated.
The Terra ecosystem relies on a system of arbitrage to create its stablecoins. Rather than use hard assets like gold or dollars to back its currency, TerraUSD depends on traders to exchange between UST and LUNA to maintain a dollar peg.
The “algorithmic stablecoin” has clear benefits over rivals likeTether(USDT-USD). Rather than back each coin with hard assets — a system that hasbeen provenly gamed— Terra uses a set of free-market incentives to hold the UST/dollar link.
If UST drops below $1, the Terra system automatically rewards traders who swap units of the stablecoin for Luna. That decreases UST supply and increases its price. And if it rises above $1, the opposite happens.
In a sense, the system mirror ETFs, an asset class that relies on arbitrageurs and market makers to maintain prices.
But there’s a catch:if people lose confidence in an arbitrage system, everything grinds to a halt.
And that’s exactly what happened Monday evening at LUNA HQ, as UST slipped to $0.80…
… then $0.70…
… before hitting $0.60.
The most likely explanation is that an initial LUNA drop reduced demand for converting UST into LUNA. With fewer arbitrageurs willing to reduce the UST supply, the network’s burn mechanism couldn’t keep up with investor-based sales.
Whatever the initial cause, the eventual outcome was clear:in a self-fulfilling prophecy, investor distrust in Terra’s ecosystem caused its peg to become untrustworthy.
Even now, no amount of cajoling by Terra CEO Do Kwon can seem to stem the tide.
“Close to announcing a recovery plan for $UST,” Mr. Kwon tweeted on Tuesday morning. “Hang tight.”
Terra’s flagship cryptocurrency would lose 97% of its value anyway.
Bad news would keep piling up. On Wednesday, allegations surfaced that Mr. Kwon was previously involved in a failed algorithmic stablecoin, Basis Cash. And by Thursday, Terra had lost virtually all its remaining value.
Terra’s misfortunes highlight a broader confidence issue with crypto markets:
In the current market environment, few investors are willing to “buy the dip.”
On the retail investor side, social media has stuck to habitual favorites. This week, trending tickers on Stocktwits, a popular investment forum, included such investments as theS&P 500 ETF(NYSEARCA:SPY) andAMC Entertainment(NYSE:AMC). Cryptocurrencies rank far lower.
Meanwhile, institutional investors seem hesitant to double down on their crypto losses.
“Bitcoin is a great barometer for risk now,” said Neil Wilson, an analyst at brokerage Markets.com. “And we see its decline as evidence of significant deleveraging.”
TheMomentum Masterstrategy echoes the sentiment. Sudden price drops are generally clear warning signs to cash out of the market.
After all, a “momentum bet” without the “momentum” is… Well…
Just a bet. And the odds on crypto keep getting longer.
In other words, tactical investors should consider reducing their crypto stakes in the near term,even if it means locking in some losses. The only thing worse than losing a $20 in your wallet is losing a $100.
As for LUNA?
Buying the token today is a naked bet on whether the Terra team can reestablish trust in its system.
On the one hand, other financial firms have done it before (i.e., American Express in 1973 and Citi in 2008). If LUNA can regain investor confidence, it’s a 10x potential return.
On the other hand, many others never come back from the brink. Barings Bank disappeared in 1995 after a rogue trader lost millions. And Lehman Brothers remains the punchline for many Wall Street jokes.
Today’s closed-door negotiations may end up saving Terra. But much like the 2008 talks that saved Citi and sacrificed Lehman, outsiders are flying blind. Mr. Kwon has hidden the truth from investors before. He may do so again.
Long-term crypto investors might still feel confident about high-quality plays likeEthereum(ETH-USD). When you’re the dominant cryptocurrency in NFTs and token finance, it’ll take more than a market downturn to obliterate your long term prospects.
Still, buying Ethereum today is a bit like investing inAmazon(NASDAQ:AMZN) in the mid-2000’s. Prices are down from their peak, but there’s still clearly more room to fall.
During the dot-com crash, many startups suffered from their reliance on customers and funding. Venture capitalists losing money on one company tightened their purse strings more broadly. That triggered unintended bankruptcies at more promising startups, and so on. Amazon primarily survived the dot-com bust thanks to a well-timed issuance of $672 million convertible bonds that year.
Cryptocurrencies will face a similar crunch over the next several months. Less funding from VCs and investors will starve promising crypto teams of development capital. And since many coins share common ties, losses in one crypto will surely snowball into upsets elsewhere. For instance, less trading in NFT will impact exchanges, Ethereum and Layer-2 protocols such asImmutable X(IMX-USD) that power the trades.
Rising rates will also worsen the situation. As the Federal Reserve hits the brakes on an overheating economy, investors will find themselves with less spare cash to speculate.
As I wrote on Tuesday, many investors are still ignoring these risks. Meme coins likeApeCoin(APE-USD) are still hot, despite losing billions of investor cash. And zero-revenue firms likeNikola(NASDAQ:NKLA) still manage to hold onto billion-dollar valuations.
That means even higher-quality assets like Ethereum still have room to fall (I predict a 6 to 12-month recovery is in order).
But don’t wait forever; no one is belaying down the mountain to tell us to invest once we hit the bottom of the market.
P.S. Do you want to hear more about cryptocurrencies? Penny stocks? Options? Leave me a note atmoonshots@investorplace.comor connect with me onLinkedInand let me know what you’d like to see.
Thomas Yeung is an expert when it comes to finding fast-paced growth opportunities on Reddit. He recommended Dogecoin before it skyrocketed over 8,000%, Ripple before it flew up more than 480% and Cardano before it soared 460%. Now, in a new report, he’s naming 17 of his favorite Reddit penny stocks.Claim your FREE COPY here!
On the date of publication, Tom Yeung did not have (either directly or indirectly) any positions in the securities mentioned in this article.
Tom Yeung, CFA, is a registered investment advisor on a mission to bring simplicity to the world of investing.
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The postGet Out of Crypto Now!appeared first onInvestorPlace. || 6 Cheap Dividend Stocks Worth Buying Before They Raise Their Dividends: Raytheon Technologies ( RTX ) is due to raise its dividend at the end of April trades at 20x and 2% yield; Apple ( AAPL ) is due to raise its dividend in June trades for 28 times earnings and a 0.5% yield; Chubb Limited ( CB ) has paid the same dividend for 4 quarters likely to hike in May 14.6x P/E and 1.48% yield; Marathon Oil and Gas ( MRO ) will likely raise its dividend at the end of April 7x forward and 0.85% yield; Devon Energy ( DVN ) has a quarterly base and variable dividend likely to rise in April 8.8x and 6-7% yield; Chesapeake Energy ( CHK ) quarterly fixed and variable dividend likely to rise this quarter 9x and 6% yield. Source: Shutterstock These seven dividend stocks are worth buying now. They are highly likely to raise their dividends shortly or in their next dividend declaration. Moreover, their stock prices are very cheap. In addition, at the end of the article, I list three additional dividend stocks that are likely to raise their dividends after their next payment or soon thereafter. These dividend stocks tend to rise when the company announces a dividend increase. Their consistency, their value metrics and their ability to fund the dividend raise are reasons why the stocks tend to rise. InvestorPlace - Stock Market News, Stock Advice & Trading Tips Lets dive in and look at these stocks. RTX Raytheon Technologies $98.86 AAPL Apple $171.51 CB Chubb $214.05 MRO Marathon Oil and Gas $24.43 DVN Devon Energy $58.13 CHK Chesapeake Energy $91.31 Raytheon Technologies (RTX) A booth showcasing various technologies offered by Raytheon. Source: Jordan Tan / Shutterstock.com Market Capitalization: $147 billion Raytheon, the defense and aerospace company, usually raises its dividend every four quarters. Its last dividend announcement was on Feb. 11 for 51 cents , the fourth in a row. The companys next dividend announcement is likely to be at the end of April, around the week of April 25. Therefore, the company is likely to announce a dividend increase later this month. Raytheon has paid cash dividends on its common stock every year since 1936. Lately, the company has been raising the dividend by around 3 to 4 cents, or about 7% or so. So the next quarterly dividend could take it to 54.5 cents or higher. That works out to $2.18 annually, giving RTX stock a dividend yield of 2.2% at todays price of $98.86. Story continues Presently RTX stock trades at a forward price-to-earnings multiple of 20.24 times this years earnings and 17 times next year. Given the companys expected earnings growth, its potentially higher dividend and a recent buyback announcement , RTX is likely to rise. For example, in its Jan. 25 earnings release Raytheon said it intends to buy back a least $2.5 billion of shares this year. That works out to 1.7% of its present market capitalization. This gives RTX stock a total yield of 3.9% from its combined dividend and buyback yields. That makes it a good investment prospect for value investors. Apple (AAPL) Apple (AAPL) logo on an Apple store in Santa Monica, California. Source: View Apart / Shutterstock.com Market Cap: $2.8 trillion Apple has made four quarterly dividend payments at 22 cents. The last one was declared on Jan. 27, and its due to make another quarterly announcement by the end of April. Apple can clearly afford to increase the dividend given its huge free cash flow (FCF) generation. FCF is the cash flow left over after all spending and expenses that can pay for dividends, dividend increases and continuing share buybacks. For example, Apple produced $44.16 billion in FCF during Q4. Its dividend expenses were just $3.73 billion, as can be seen in its Cash Flow statements on page three of its latest quarterly financials. So it has plenty of room to make another annual increase. Assuming Apple increases its dividend to 24 cents quarterly, up from 22 cents, the annual dividend rate is 96 cents annually. That would give AAPL stock an annualized yield of 0.56% going forward. Most of the FCF it produces is spent on buybacks. In a previous article , I pointed out that Apple is also likely to raise its buyback authority at the end of the month or even earlier. If these two announcements are made at the end of the month, expect to see AAPL stock move even higher. Chubb Limited (CB) overhead shot of hands on a white keyboard Source: Shutterstock Market Cap: $91.2 billion Chubb, the large insurance company, has paid 80 cents per quarter for the last four quarters . Its due to hike the dividend around May 20 or so. The dividend is likely to rise by 3 cents, bringing it to 83 cents or $3.32 annually. That will give CB stock an annual yield of 1.55% or higher at todays price of $214.05. Chubb is fairly cheap at a forward price-to-earnings (P/E) multiple of 14.2x for this year and 13.1 times next years forecast earnings. The company can certainly afford to pay a higher rate. In the last quarter ending Dec. 31, it made $2.6 billion in cash flow from operations, but its dividend payments cost just $345 million. On top of that Chubb bought back $920 million of its shares. So the stock is cheap, the company is shareholder-oriented and the dividend is likely to rise. That is a winning formula for most value investors. Marathon Oil and Gas (MRO) marathon oil (MRO stock) logo on a screen Source: Casimiro PT / Shutterstock.com Market Cap: $17.9 billion Marathon has been raising its quarterly dividends by 1 cent per quarter and will likely keep on doing so. Its next dividend announcement will be at the of April and shareholders can likely expect a hike. As you might suspect, this is basically because the price of oil is rising. It is likely producing well over the level of cash flow that the company made even last quarter. Right now the company is paying 7 cents per quarter, up from 6 cents in the prior quarter and 5 cents before that, and 3 cents a year ago. This progression leads one to believe it could rise to 8 cents at the end of April, putting it at an annual rate of 32 cents. That will give MRO stock an annualized yield of 1.3% at $24.43 per share. Up until Q4 of 2015, it had been paying a rate of 21 cents per quarter. Its possible that management is trying to build back up close to that level. As it stands, MRO stock trades on a forward P/E multiple of just 9 times this year and (assuming a lower oil price next year) 9.4 times for 2023. Its FCF in Q4 was $898 million . That works out to $3.6 billion annually. That is more than its buybacks of $3.1 billion and also the cost of its dividends of about $205 million. This is a value stock with growing dividends and a robust buyback program. When the next dividend is announced, MRO stock will look attractive to value investors. Devon Energy (DVN) The logo for Devon Energy (DVN) is displayed on a sign outside an office. Source: Jeff Whyte / Shutterstock.com Market Cap: $40 billion Devon Energy paid a $1 per share fixed and variable quarterly dividend last quarter. This puts it on a $4.00 annual run rate. At todays price of $58.13, that gives DVN stock a 6.88% dividend yield. The fixed portion of the $1.00 dividend was 16 cents and the variable portion was 84 cents. This includes an increase of the fixed component by 45% to 16 cents quarterly or 64 cents annually. The variable portion is calculated as 50% of quarterly free cash flow, after deducting the fixed dividend slice. My estimate is that the total dividend could rise to $4.68 annually starting with the Q1 announcement. This declaration will likely be made on or before May 2 when Devon announces its Q1 earnings. If my estimate is correct, that works out to a quarterly dividend of $1.17. At the annual $4.68 rate, the stock would have a yield of 8.05%, which is likely too high. This could push DVN stock higher by at least 17% or more. All eyes will be on the company when it announces its quarterly earnings and fixed and variable dividends. Value investors will find this stock attractive if the company keeps raising its dividends as expected. Dividend Stocks: Chesapeake Energy (CHK) Chesapeake Energy (CHK) logo displayed on phone with American flag in background Source: IgorGolovniov / Shutterstock.com Market Cap: $11.7 billion As the last of our main dividend stocks, Chesapeake Energys dividend also has a base and variable component. The latter is 50% of free cash flow, after base dividends. Last quarter CHK paid 43.75 cents in a base dividend and $1.33 in variable dividends. That works out to an annual rate of $1.75 in base and $5.32 in variable dividends, or $7.07 annually. That gives CHK stock an annual yield of 7.85%. However, Chesapeake recently said its base dividend will rise to 50 cents quarterly or $2.00 annually. This gives CHK stock a base yield of 2.22% ($2.00/$90.00). I recently estimated that the variable dividend could rise to $8.43 annually, up from $5.32 annually. That is based on $2 billion in FCF and after the 50% reduction, $1 billion for the variable dividend. With less than 120 million shares outstanding, that works out to about $8.43 per share annually. So the total fixed and variable dividend will be $10.43 per share. That brings the annual yield to 11.4%. Thats too high. As a result, CHK stock will rise significantly. Once the dividend is announced in early May, CHK stock could move higher if the variable portion is significantly higher due to higher oil prices. Likely to Soon Hike Their Dividends: Oracle Corp (ORCL) A photo of an Oracle (ORCL stock) sign outside a building. Source: Jer123 / Shutterstock.com Market Cap: $218.8 billion Oracle Corp (NYSE: ORCL ) has now paid dividends of 32 cents per quarter for the last five quarters. The latest announcement was made on March 10. Now its possible that the company could raise the dividend this next quarter, or after the eighth quarterly payment at the same rate. So its possible the company could raise its dividend again after the next three dividend payments or earlier. Certainly, the company can afford to do so earlier than after eight quarters. For example, in its last quarter ending in February 2022, Oracle produced $2.744 billion in free cash flow. However, its dividend payment was just $855 million. So there is plenty of room for a dividend increase. Microsoft Corp (MSFT) Image of corporate building with Microsoft (MSFT) logo above the entrance. Source: NYCStock / Shutterstock.com Market Cap: $2.25 trillion Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT ) has now made three dividend announcements at 62 cents, as of March 14. Microsoft almost always hikes its dividend per share after the fourth dividend payment. So after this upcoming dividend in June, analysts will start to price in another per share raise. The last dividend raise was 10.7%. This implies the next dividend, probably in mid-September, will rise to 69 or 70 cents. That brings it an annual rate of $2.80 or 0.9% at its price today of $300.21. Expect to see MSFT stock rise as a result. This makes it one of the worthwhile dividend stocks. Caterpillar Corp (CAT) stocks to buy Source: Shutterstock Market Cap: $115.7 billion Caterpillar (NYSE: CAT ) is due to announce its fourth dividend at $1.11 in mid-April. After that, analysts will begin pricing in a dividend increase. Assuming it rises to $1.20 in early June, that gives the stock an annual dividend rate of $4.80. Assuming there is no recession on the horizon, Cat stock could get a nice boost as one of the dividend stocks that raises its dividend rate. On the date of publication, Mark Hake did not hold (either directly or indirectly) any positions in the securities mentioned in this article. The opinions expressed in this article are those of the writer, subject to the InvestorPlace.com Publishing Guidelines . Mark Hake writes about personal finance on mrhake.medium.com and Newsbreak.com . More From InvestorPlace Stock Prodigy Who Found NIO at $2
Says Buy THIS It doesnt matter if you have $500 in savings or $5 million. Do this now. 10 Stocks Are Issuing Sell Signals Early Bitcoin Millionaire Reveals His Next Big Crypto Trade On Air The post 6 Cheap Dividend Stocks Worth Buying Before They Raise Their Dividends appeared first on InvestorPlace . || First Stream Latin: New Music From Mora, ChocQuibTown, Lyanno & More: First Stream Latin is a compilation of the best new Latin songs, albums and videos recommended by the Billboard Latin editors. Check out this week’s picks below. Mora, Microdosis (Rimas Entertainment) More from Billboard Who Will Win in Latin Categories at 2022 Grammys? Our Predictions Camila Cabello Posts 'Familia' Tracklist, Including Ed Sheeran, Willow, Yotuel, Maria Becerra Collabs What's Your Favorite Latin Collaboration of March 2022? Vote! The Puerto Rican artist-producer, who got on the radar thanks to his work with Bad Bunny, surprised fans with the release of his sophomore album Microdosis on April 1. Far from an April Fools joke, Mora dropped 15 new tracks with a completely different vibe from his debut set Primer Dia de Clases. He has some hard-hitting trap selections such as “Quieren Ser Yo” and “Robert de Niro”; He has electronic fusions such as the opening track “Bad Trip :(” and the Jhay Cortez-assisted “Memorias”; He has alternative picks such as “Lejos de Ti,” as well as many infectious reggaetón bops, and even samples Alejandro Sanz’s “Corazon Partio” in “Escalofrios.” Other collaborators on Microdosis include Sech, Elena Rose, Feid, and Zion. — JESSICA ROIZ ChocQuibTown, “Bitcoin” (Sony Music Latin) Goyo might have embarked on her solo career but she was also very clear that ChocQuibTown was not separating. Keeping her promise, the Colombian group, also composed of Tostao and Slow, has released their new single “Bitcoin.” Co-written by the group, Gerald Jiménez, Edgar Barrera, Jael Andrés Correa, and Juan Diego Medina, the lyrics hold a very mature reflection after a breakup. “I’m only rising, I look like a bitcoin and you’re calling me like a loser,” chants Goyo. “You never gave me importance, now respect the distance.” Produced by Slow himself, “Bitcoin” is a catchy urban pop with the group’s rhythmic melodies at the root. — J.R. EIX & Rafa Pabon, “Dios Quiera” (The Show Music) Puerto Rican singer Eix recruits Rafa Pabon & Jay Music for his new single “Dios Quiera.” The track is accompanied by thumping beats and R&B-influenced arrangements, and lyrics that talk about the complexity of saying goodbye to a failed relationship, adding a dimension of hopelessness. — INGRID FAJARDO Story continues DUKI, De La Ghetto, Quevedo, “Si Quieren Frontear” (Dale Play Records/SSJ Records) DUKI has become a staple in his native Argentina, especially for being one of the pioneers of the country’s urban trap movement. As he continues to pave the way for the new artists to follow, the Argentine rapper dips his toes in a catchy reggaetón and Hip-Hop fusion that counts with the collaboration of De La Ghetto and Quevedo. A song about basically being the baddest and talented artist in the game, “Si Quieren Frontear” unites Puerto Rico’s renowned artist, Argentina’s current rock star and Spain’s new promise. The music video is also very clever, showing all three artists in a Western movie setting. — J.R. KEVVO, Farruko, Wisin, “SMP (Sol, Mar y Playa)” (Interscope Records) “SMP” is where old-school reggaetón meets with underground rap. Kevvo, Farruko, and Wisin join forces for their new single “Sol, Mar y Playa,” where each artist highlights their musical style to create this infectious pop-reggaetón track. A collaboration that celebrates the culture and Latin rhythms with catchy beats that reflect the summer vibes. — I.F. Keityn, “Anoche” (Warner Music Latina/White Mascara) Known for penning reggaetón’s biggest hits (Karol G’s “Tusa,” Maluma’s “Hawaii”), the Latin Grammy-nominated composer continues to mark his territory as a promising urban artist. In “Anoche,” produced and written by himself and Lenin Yorney Palacios, Keityn (real name: Kevyn Mauricio Cruz) demonstrates his artistic versatility by bringing to life a sensual afrobeat track. The song’s lyrics and melodies were born on an island near Cartagena, Colombia. “It inspired me, I was in front of the sea, with the tropical atmosphere and all of that lent itself to this song coming out with these sounds and influences,” he said in a press statement. — J.R. Lyanno, “Guay” (Rimas Entertainment) This new single, penned by Lyanno and produced by Súbelo Neo, not only combines house music beats with reggaetón rhythms but also Lyanno’s R&B-infused vocals. “Guay” is fresh, different, and it will be part of his upcoming album El Cambio , providing a close look at his next chapter as an artist. — I.F. Alejandro Santamaria, Despierto (Universal Music Latino) Like many artists, Santamaria did not let the COVID-19 crisis affect his career, and in fact, he worked even harder. Now, the 22-year-old Colombian singer-songwriter presents his debut studio album Despierto , born completely during the pandemic. Home to 14 tracks, Santamaria blesses fans with his dulcet vocals and guitar riffs that best represent his rhythmic pop sounds. He also invited collaborators such as Andres Calamaro, Ovy on the Drums, Pitizion, and more on this journey, bringing to life catchy urban-pop tunes as well as heartfelt ballads. The edgy “100” alongside Argentine newcomer Sael marks the album’s focus track. “It’s far from monotonous because you will be able to find different sounds. It is an album full of variety,” Santamaria says in a statement. “For me it is very important to surprise my audience, it was what I was looking for with this production.” — J.R. Click here to read the full article. || Serena Williams teases Wimbledon return as coach Patrick Mouratoglou departs to work with Simona Halep: Serena Williams' future thrown into doubt as coach Patrick Mouratoglou links up with Simona Halep - AP Serena Williams has confirmed she is targeting Wimbledon for her return to tennis, despite news of her longtime coach Patrick Mouratoglou's departure to work with two-time major champion Simona Halep. Williams, 40, has not played since she exited Wimbledon last year due to a torn hamstring, but responded to news of Mouratoglou's "short-term" partnership with Halep on Thursday by finally sharing her immediate plans for a comeback. Posting to her Instagram stories while backstage at the Bitcoin 2022 conference, Williams sent fans into a frenzy when she posted an exchange with NFL quarterback Aaron Rodgers. "We’ve been talking about my comeback," she said. "He’s been hyping me up, and getting me ready for Wimbledon.” Rodgers, looking confused, asked, "What about the US Open?", to which Williams replied: “Wimbledon’s before the US Open. I have to play Wimbledon. Exciting.” It appears to mark a new stage of Williams's career where she could forge on without Mouratoglou, who has coached her for nearly a decade to huge success. Since June 2012 he has helped her to 10 major titles and an Olympic gold medal. Since 2017 though, after a string of health problems which followed her complicated childbirth, she has failed to add to her 23 major singles titles and remains one short of Margaret Court's record 24-major haul. Though it is unclear how long Mouratoglou's partnership with former world No 1 Halep is set to last, he confirmed earlier on Thursday that it was agreed after a conversation with Williams. "Today, I am starting a new chapter in my coaching career: I am now the full-time coach of Simona Halep," Mouratoglou said in a statement on social media. "In the last eight months, I realised how much I missed coaching. It is the passion of my life, and I still feel like I have so much to give. "Simona came to the Mouratoglou Academy before Indian Wells for a training block. I swung by at a few of her practices, watched her train. At the end of the week, she asked me if I was available to coach her. I have the highest respect for her but it was out of the question at the time. A few weeks later I had a conversation with Serena, and the door opened for me, at least short term, to work with someone else." Story continues View this post on Instagram A post shared by THE COACH (@patrickmouratoglou) Analysis: Good news for Halep, new territory for Williams After 10 years of stability in coaching terms, the prospect of Williams returning without Mouratoglou in her box will be new territory. Mouratoglou has established himself as the leading and most high-profile coach in tennis since linking up with Williams. His academy in the French Riviera is the sport's premier base for up and coming stars, and he has overseen the development of world no 5 Stefanos Tsitsipas as well as US teenage talent Coco Gauff. Never shying from the limelight, Mouratoglou is known for his colourful character, which has landed him in trouble during his tenure with Williams - most famously at the US Open final in 2018. The timing of his decision to link up with Halep suggests that Williams could make her comeback at SW19 this summer without him, unless his agreement with Halep is only for the clay-court season. The news of her return was welcomed regardless. Though she has remained in the public eye, mainly to promote " King Richard" the Hollywood biopic of her family's life story, until Thursday, Williams had provided limited tennis updates in recent months. The only hint she had shared was in an interview with CNN last month, when she said she had "not given up" on her goal of reaching that 24th major title - the only record that eludes her. But there was speculation last season, after her tearful exit at the Australian Open, that she was on the brink of retiring and the injury troubles that followed that summer have not abated those rumours. She has struggled to consistently re-establish her place at the top of tennis since returning from maternity leave in 2018 and her 10-month absence since Wimbledon last year has caused her ranking to plummet to 246. Considering Williams usually reserves her court-time for only a handful of the most important events, any potential route to a future title will be all the more difficult unseeded. And, like Roger Federer, Williams turned 40 last summer so time is not on her side. Her Wimbledon return could mark one of her final opportunities to secure No. 24, and will provide an exciting narrative for the women's game, which lost its world No 1 Ash Barty last month after her shock decision to retire at 25. On the other side of this story, Halep securing Mouratoglou's tutelage full-time is a major coup. At 30, Halep is the same age Williams was when she first started working with Mouratoglou, and she has been on the hunt for a replacement since splitting from long-time coach Darren Cahill last September. Injuries over the past year have pushed her down to 20th in the rankings, and Mouratoglou may be able to provide the consistent messaging to help her rekindle the form that saw her win the 2018 French Open and beat Williams to the Wimbledon title the following year. || 7 Safe Small-Cap Stocks to Buy Now: These seven safe small-cap stocks to buy have catalysts in play that should keep them moving higher. Amphastar Pharmaceuticals ( AMPH ): Reasonably priced play in the healthcare sector. Arcos Dorados Holdings ( ARCO ): Fast food franchisee in Latin America, could beat revenue and earnings expectations. City Office REIT ( CIO ): Office real estate investment trust (REIT) that could see a big increase in funds from operations (FFO). Clarus ( CLAR ): Outdoor equipment maker with a winning roll-up acquisition strategy. Encore Capital Group ( ECPG ): Debt collection giant, controversial business but profitable and resilient during tough economic times. Stride ( LRN ): Despite fading pandemic tailwinds, its move into adult education could more than make up for the difference. CVR Partners ( UAN ): High fertilizer prices could result in a raised payout for this master limited partnership (MLP). a tiny man with boxing gloves having defeated a much larger man who is knocked out on the ground Source: Shutterstock If you think the latest round of market volatility is the last of it, think again. As the Federal Reserve keeps on with its aggressive approach to bring down inflation, volatility is likely to continue. That said, don’t take this to mean you need to get out of stocks, and head for the hills. Far from it. It’s simply time to change up one’s strategy. One way to do it is to pivot toward the best safe small-cap stocks to buy. With these types of plays, you are getting the best of both worlds. On one hand, unlike, say, tech stocks, these names aren’t facing a plethora of unfavorable factors. On the other hand, you aren’t missing out on big upside potential, either. Some of these names have performed well in recent months, despite the market’s overall performance. Others have pulled back, but could rebound thanks to company-specific catalysts. InvestorPlace - Stock Market News, Stock Advice & Trading Tips 7 Bull Market Stocks to Buy if You Are Still Feeling Confident These safe small-cap safe stocks are reasonably priced, with catalysts that could send them higher. Ticker Company Current Price AMPH Amphastar Pharmaceuticals $33.96 ARCO Arcos Dorados Holdings $6.68 CIO City Office REIT $13.08 CLAR Clarus $20.06 ECPG Encore Capital Group $60.04 LRN Stride $35.68 UAN CVR Partners $129.97 Amphastar Pharmaceuticals (AMPH) The healthcare sector is a great place to find defensive stocks. Many great defensive healthcare stocks are large, well-known enterprises. Others, however, like Amphastar Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: AMPH ), are small, and lesser-known. At first glance, it may sound like it’s a risky biotech play, but that’s far from the case. As I discussed back in February, instead of taking a gamble to come up with the next big blockbuster drug, this pharma firm instead has a diverse portfolio of drugs/treatments . Key products include Primatene Mist, an over-the-counter asthma inhaler, as well as Naloxone, for the emergency treatment of opioid overdoses. Story continues Already profitable, it’s also reasonably priced. At today’s prices, it trades for a price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio that’s under 20x. To top things off, it’s expected to see top and bottom-line growth continue in the coming year. A safe play, consider buying AMPH stock after its recent pullback. This stock earns an “A” rating in my Portfolio Grader . Arcos Dorados Holdings (ARCO) Headquartered in Uruguay, Arcos Dorados Holdings (NYSE: ARCO ) holds the McDonalds (NYSE: MCD ) master franchise rights in Latin America and the Caribbean. Although lately it has been impacted by the market’s downturn, ARCO stock remains up by double-digits year-to-date. Some of this may be due to investors shifting to high-moat, defensive plays like this one. It may also have something to do with the expected further strengthening of the company’s operating performance. Back in March, analysts at BofA upgraded shares from a “hold” to a “buy,” with a $10 per share price target. In its upgrade, the sell-side analysts cited stronger-than-expected sales, plus margin improvements, as the reasons behind their bullish call. Right now, it trades at a valuation (17.9x) that’s arguably lower given its prospects. Arcos Dorados, which is Spanish for “golden arches,” in case you were wondering, is one to pick up after its recent weakness. 7 Dividend Stocks to Leave out of Your Retirement Portfolio This stock earns an “A” rating in my Portfolio Grader . City Office REIT (CIO) Rising interest rates have put pressure on real estate investment trusts (REITs). City Office REIT (NYSE: CIO ), for example, has slid nearly 30% since January. In turn, giving back almost all of its 2021 spike resulting from the windfall sale of its Sorrento Mesa portfolio of life science properties . As seen in a recent investor presentation, City Office REIT has plowed the proceeds into the purchase of more office properties in high-growth markets in the U.S. sunbelt. In turn, it’s expected to see a nice jump in Funds from Operations (FFO), the REIT equivalent of earnings. Last year, it generated $1.31 per share in FFO. This year, guidance calls for between $1.56 and $1.60 per share in FFO. Add in its high forward dividend yield (5.7%), and there’s a lot that could make up for interest rate headwinds when it comes to CIO stock. This stock earns an “A” rating in my Portfolio Grader . Clarus (CLAR) A maker of equipment for outdoor hobbies like hunting, mountain climbing and skiing, Clarus (NASDAQ: CLAR ) has scaled up in recent years using a roll-up acquisition strategy. As seen in its 243% jump over the past five years, this strategy has clearly paid off for it. Yet don’t view these solid returns as a sign that you’ve “missed out” on this under-the-radar opportunity. CLAR stock has plenty of room to head higher in the years ahead. It trades at a low valuation (12.9x) for a branded consumer products company. A re-rating over time could give it a further boost. Not only that, assuming it keeps running the mergers and acquisitions (M&A) playbook ( something an online stock commentator says is likely ), it’ll continue to see a steady rise in sales and earnings, creating more value for Clarus shareholders. Treading water after dropping in January, consider it a buy. 7 of the Most Undervalued Mid-Cap Stocks to Buy Now This stock earns an “A” rating in my Portfolio Grader . Encore Capital Group (ECPG) Admittedly, owning shares in a debt collection company isn’t everyone’s cup of tea. But if you have no issue having exposure to this industry, Encore Capital Group (NASDAQ: ECPG ) is a great opportunity. Encore is a global player in the debt collection industry. It purchases receivables at high discount to face value, then profits by collecting more than what it paid. A feat that’s easier said than done. Even so, Encore has been able to do it successfully for many years. This, along with a low valuation (4.8x earnings) help to make up for the risky nature of its business. Not to mention, the fact this industry has long been in the crosshairs of regulators. The type of business that could perform even better during tough economic times, ECPG stock is a great example of the sort of safe small-cap stocks to buy at this stage of the economic cycle. This stock earns an “A” rating in my Portfolio Grader . Stride (LRN) Formerly known as K12, Stride (NYSE: LRN ), is an education services provider. The pandemic-driven move to remote learning provided it with strong growth during 2020 and 2021. For the fiscal year ending June 2021, revenue was up over 47.6%. With the virus recovery, this growth of course has slowed down. Like everything else, general education has experienced its own “return to normal,” more or less. However, while not in high-growth mode, its legacy business is holding steady. More importantly, Stride has a new area of growth: adult education. The company’s move into this segment has driven growth in recent quarters . The end result? Possibly, steady revenue and earnings growth between now and its 2025 fiscal year. Even with these positives, LRN stock is cheap, coming in at less than 15x earnings. Holding up, despite recent market volatility, with strong upside potential, consider it another name to add to your portfolio. 7 Dividend Stocks to Leave out of Your Retirement Portfolio This stock earns an “A” rating in my Portfolio Grader . CVR Partners (UAN) The big spike in fertilizer prices has been a boon for CVR Partners (NYSE: UAN ). A producer of nitrogen fertilizer products, shares in this master limited partnership (MLP) shot up in price during March and April. Yet while it’s falling back in price now, you may want to snap it up. The driver of the fertilizer price spike (Russia’s invasion of Ukraine) continues. Supplies remain low , which will keep prices high. This in turn means it will see a big increase in profitability this year versus last year. As an MLP, a pass-through entity, it stands to pay out a lot of the earnings in the form of distributions. Already yielding 6.66%, an even higher distribution means a solid return, whether or not UAN stock rises in the immediate future. With its latest move lower, the opportunity is opening up to “buy the dip” with this commodities play. This stock earns an “A” rating in my Portfolio Grader . On the date of publication, Louis Navellier has positions in AMPH and CLAR. Louis Navellier did not have (either directly or indirectly) any other positions in the securities mentioned in this article. The InvestorPlace Research Staff member primarily responsible for this article did not hold (either directly or indirectly) any positions in the securities mentioned in this article. More From InvestorPlace Stock Prodigy Who Found NIO at $2… Says Buy THIS It doesn’t matter if you have $500 in savings or $5 million. Do this now. Get in Now on Tiny $3 ‘Forever Battery’ Stock Early Bitcoin Millionaire Reveals His Next Big Crypto Trade “On Air” The post 7 Safe Small-Cap Stocks to Buy Now appeared first on InvestorPlace . View comments || British Pound Trying to Form a Basing Pattern: TheBritish poundhas rallied a bit during the trading session on Tuesday to show signs of stabilization, as we continue to consolidate overall. The 1.30 level underneath continues to be an area that of course is a large, round, psychologically significant figure, and an area that has been important multiple times on the longer-term charts. As long as we stay above the 1.30 level, it is likely that we are going to continue finding a reason one way or another to go long. Keep in mind that the Federal Reserve is a major contributor to what happens next, as traders are trying to figure out whether or not they are going to tighten in an aggressive manner, or if they will capitulate to Wall Street.
On the upside, the 50 Day EMA is currently sitting at the 1.3250 area and could cause a little bit of concern. Ultimately, this is a market that I think is trying to figure out whether or not we are going higher or lower for a bigger move, and if we were to break above the 50 Day EMA, or the 1.3250 area, then it opens up the possibility of a move to the 1.34 handle.
If we break it down below the 1.30 handle, then it enters a zone of support that extends down to the 1.28 handle. Because of this, market participants will have a difficult grind lower, but it certainly would make a statement if the market was to close on a daily candlestick below the 1.30 handle.
For a look at all of today’s economic events, check out oureconomic calendar.
Thisarticlewas originally posted on FX Empire
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• The $150 billion hedge fund will not be buying cryptocurrencies directly.
• Billionaire Ray Dalio had previously advised investors to allocate a small portion of their portfolios to BTC.
The world’s largest hedge fund is readying investments in an “external vehicle” and won’t be dabbling directly in the crypto-asset markets.
Billionaire Ray Dalio’s fund currently has $150 billion in assets under management (AUM), and it wants a slice of the digital asset pie. The man admitted to owning some Bitcoin (BTC) last year, so the move has not been unexpected.
However, according toreports, the size of Bridgewater’s crypto-related investments is tiny compared to its AUM figure.
In January, the company released areporton the “Evolution of Institutional Investors’ Exposure to Cryptocurrencies and Blockchain Technologies,” signaling that it was actively researching the space.
A Bridgewater spokesperson confirmed this in February, telling CoinDesk,
“While we won’t comment on our positions, we can say Bridgewater continues to actively research crypto but is not currently planning on investing in crypto.”
Sources did not elaborate on the details this time around, however. Last month they said Bridgewater is in a first-half plan this year before adding that they planned to have a “small slug of their fund” deployed directly into digital assets.
Another person familiar with the firm’s crypto investment strategy said,
“Bridgewater is looking to get involved. They are doing serious diligence: liquidity, service providers, and whatnot.”
The report added that the firm is following a similar path to hedge funds Marshall Wace, Point72, and Brevan Howard, reportedly making forays into the crypto sector last year.
Ray Dalio cautioned that cryptocurrencies weregetting too much attentionfrom regulators in January. However, the billionaire also suggested that investorsallocate 1% of their portfoliosto Bitcoin in the same month.
Institutional interest incryptoassets has increased over the past year, and markets have generally remained range-bound for most of 2022.
Over the past 24 hours, total market capitalization has gained 1.8% to $1.97 trillion. However, it is still down around 36% from its November peak.
Bitcoin has added 1.9% on the day to trade at $41,766 at the time of writing, adding to the 5.3% it has made over the past week.
Thisarticlewas originally posted on FX Empire
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• World’s Largest Hedge Fund To Invest in Crypto || FOREX-Euro hovers near two-year low vs dollar as ECB disappoints markets: * Euro falls to one-month low against sterling * Dollar index hits two-year high on retail sales data * ECB confirms plans to cut bond purchases in third quarter (Updates prices) By Hannah Lang April 14 (Reuters) - The euro plunged to a two-year low against the U.S. dollar on Thursday as comments from European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde were viewed as a sign that the ECB was in no rush to raise interest rates, in contrast with an aggressive monetary policy tightening effort by the U.S. Federal Reserve. The European single currency fell to $1.0758, the lowest level since April 2020. It was last down 0.53% at $1.0827. Lagarde said there was no clear timeframe for when rates would start to rise, adding that it could be weeks or even several months after the end of the ECB's stimulus scheme. "We'll deal with interest rates when we get there," she added. The ECB on Thursday concluded its latest meeting with cautious steps to unwind support and avoided a hard schedule. It confirmed plans to cut bond purchases, commonly known as quantitative easing, this quarter, then end them at some point in the third quarter. Against sterling, the euro slid to a one-month low and was last down 0.28% at 82.79 pence. Lagarde's comments were in stark contrast to those of Fed Chair Jerome Powell, said Joseph Trevisani, senior analyst at FXStreet.com. “They could have taken a book from what Jerome Powell has done, and that is to be aggressive rhetorically. Ms. Lagarde did not seem disposed to do that. She was more concerned apparently, and maybe understandably, about the Ukraine war and its impact on Europe," he said. In addition to pushing up gasoline prices, the Russia-Ukraine war, now in its second month, has led to a global surge in food prices as Russia and Ukraine are major exporters of commodities including wheat and sunflower oil. "Frankly, given how uncertain conditions are at the moment, Lagarde's caution can be justified, but it is fair to say that markets were expecting a bit more sprinkle after the eventful March meeting," said Ima Sammani, FX market analyst at Monex Europe. In late afternoon trading, the dollar index, which measures the greenback against six peers, rose 0.544% to 100.33 after earlier hitting 100.76, the highest level since April 2020. The dollar extended gains after data showed U.S. retail sales increased in March, mostly boosted by higher gasoline and food prices. The battered yen saw some respite, making a small recovery from a 20-year low hit against the dollar. In afternoon trading, it weakened 0.25% versus the greenback at 125.94 per dollar. More than three-quarters of Japanese firms say the yen has declined to the point of being detrimental to their business, a Reuters poll found. Other central banks tightened monetary policy, reinforcing expectations of higher interest rates globally. The Bank of Korea surprised markets with a rate hike, while the Monetary Authority of Singapore also tightened policy, sending the Singapore dollar to its highest level since February. On Wednesday, the Bank of Canada and the Reserve Bank of New Zealand both raised rates by 50 basis points, the largest hike for each in around 20 years. Bitcoin last fell 3.53% to $39,784.82. ======================================================== Currency bid prices at 3:44PM (1944 GMT) Description RIC Last U.S. Close Pct Change YTD Pct High Bid Low Bid Previous Change Session Dollar index 100.3200 99.7870 +0.54% 4.868% +100.7600 +99.5670 Euro/Dollar $1.0827 $1.0893 -0.62% -4.78% +$1.0924 +$1.0758 Dollar/Yen 125.9500 125.6600 +0.25% +9.43% +126.0100 +125.0950 Euro/Yen 136.35 136.83 -0.35% +4.63% +136.9300 +135.5300 Dollar/Swiss 0.9426 0.9347 +0.86% +3.34% +0.9433 +0.9324 Sterling/Dollar $1.3076 $1.3117 -0.29% -3.29% +$1.3147 +$1.3034 Dollar/Canadian 1.2616 1.2564 +0.42% -0.21% +1.2641 +1.2522 Aussie/Dollar $0.7417 $0.7453 -0.47% +2.05% +$0.7468 +$0.7397 Euro/Swiss 1.0205 1.0180 +0.25% -1.58% +1.0213 +1.0140 Euro/Sterling 0.8278 0.8302 -0.29% -1.45% +0.8314 +0.8251 NZ $0.6789 $0.6798 -0.09% -0.77% +$0.6834 +$0.6768 Dollar/Dollar Dollar/Norway 8.7750 8.7565 +0.74% +0.14% +8.8330 +8.7380 Euro/Norway 9.5032 9.5206 -0.18% -5.09% +9.5624 +9.4912 Dollar/Sweden 9.5185 9.4714 -0.12% +5.55% +9.5755 +9.4191 Euro/Sweden 10.3045 10.3173 -0.12% +0.69% +10.3266 +10.2789 (Reporting by Hannah Lang; additional reporting by Joice Alves; Editing by Nick Macfie, Chizu Nomiyama, Jan Harvey and Leslie Adler) || Breakeven Is Near for Stronghold Digital Mining, Inc. (NASDAQ:SDIG): We feel now is a pretty good time to analyseStronghold Digital Mining, Inc.'s (NASDAQ:SDIG)business as it appears the company may be on the cusp of a considerable accomplishment. Stronghold Digital Mining, Inc., a crypto asset mining company, focuses on mining Bitcoin in the United States. On 31 December 2021, the US$109m market-cap company posted a loss of US$11m for its most recent financial year. Many investors are wondering about the rate at which Stronghold Digital Mining will turn a profit, with the big question being “when will the company breakeven?” Below we will provide a high-level summary of the industry analysts’ expectations for the company.
Check out our latest analysis for Stronghold Digital Mining
Consensus from 5 of the American Software analysts is that Stronghold Digital Mining is on the verge of breakeven. They anticipate the company to incur a final loss in 2021, before generating positive profits of US$640k in 2022. The company is therefore projected to breakeven around a year from now or less! How fast will the company have to grow to reach the consensus forecasts that anticipate breakeven by 2022? Working backwards from analyst estimates, it turns out that they expect the company to grow 93% year-on-year, on average, which signals high confidence from analysts. If this rate turns out to be too aggressive, the company may become profitable much later than analysts predict.
We're not going to go through company-specific developments for Stronghold Digital Mining given that this is a high-level summary, though, keep in mind that by and large a high growth rate is not out of the ordinary, particularly when a company is in a period of investment.
Before we wrap up, there’s one aspect worth mentioning. The company has managed its capital prudently, with debt making up 29% of equity. This means that it has predominantly funded its operations from equity capital, and its low debt obligation reduces the risk around investing in the loss-making company.
There are too many aspects of Stronghold Digital Mining to cover in one brief article, but the key fundamentals for the company can all be found in one place –Stronghold Digital Mining's company page on Simply Wall St. We've also put together a list of important factors you should further research:
1. Historical Track Record: What has Stronghold Digital Mining's performance been like over the past? Go into more detail in the past track record analysis and take a look atthe free visual representations of our analysisfor more clarity.
2. Management Team: An experienced management team on the helm increases our confidence in the business – take a look atwho sits on Stronghold Digital Mining's board and the CEO’s background.
3. Other High-Performing Stocks: Are there other stocks that provide better prospects with proven track records? Explore ourfree list of these great stocks here.
Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content?Get in touchwith us directly.Alternatively, email editorial-team (at) simplywallst.com.This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature.We provide commentary based on historical data and analyst forecasts only using an unbiased methodology and our articles are not intended to be financial advice.It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned.
[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
None available.
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Trend: no change || Prices: 29200.74, 29432.23, 30323.72, 29098.91, 29655.59, 29562.36, 29267.22, 28627.57, 28814.90, 29445.96
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Analyze the provided historical prices, technical indicators, news, and social media sentiment from the last 60 days. Based on this context, predict the overall trend (up, down, or no change) and the specific daily closing prices for Bitcoin for the next 10 days.
|
[Technical Analysis for 2020-01-21]
BTC Price: 8745.89, BTC RSI: 64.53
Gold Price: 1556.40, Gold RSI: 65.21
Oil Price: 58.34, Oil RSI: 42.35
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
Bitcoin Cash – ABC, Litecoin and Ripple Daily Analysis – 07/12/19: Bitcoin Cash ABC fell by 0.12% on Friday. Partially reversing a 2.49% rally from Thursday, Bitcoin Cash ABC ended the day at $210.78.
A relatively choppy day saw Bitcoin Cash ABC fall to a late morning intraday low $209.58 before finding support.
Steering clear of the first major support level at $207.25, Bitcoin Cash ABC bounced back to a late morning intraday high $214.0.
Coming up short of the first major resistance level at $215.48, Bitcoin Cash ABC fell back to $210 levels.
In the 2ndhalf of the day, Bitcoin Cash ABC came up against resistance at $214 for a 2ndtime, with an afternoon high $214.0 before falling back into the red.
While bucking the trend on the day, support from the broader market limited the downside on the day.
At the time of writing, Bitcoin Cash ABC was up by 2.48% to $216.0.
Bitcoin Cash broke through the first major resistance level at $213.33 and second major resistance level at $215.87.
For the day ahead, a hold above the second major resistance level would bring the current week high $217.11 into play.
Support from the broader market would be needed, however, for Bitcoin Cash ABC to out from $216 levels.
Barring a broad-based crypto rally the second major resistance level and morning high would likely cap any upside.
Failure to move to hold above the second major resistance level could see Bitcoin Cash ABC spend another day in the red.
A fall back through to sub-$211.5 levels would bring the first major support level at $208.91 into play.
Barring an extended sell-off on the day, however, Bitcoin Cash ABC should avoid the second major support level at $207.03.
Litecoin rose by 1.14% on Friday. Following on from 0.31% gain on Thursday, Litecoin ended the day at $45.36.
A mixed start to the day saw Litecoin rise to an early morning high $45.09 before sliding to an intraday low $44.09.
Whilst falling short of the first major resistance level at $45.47, Litecoin also steered clear of the first major support level at $43.97.
Finding support through to the late afternoon, Litecoin rallied to an intraday high $45.66 before easing back.
Resistance at the first major resistance level at $45.47 limited the upside on the day.
At the time of writing, Litecoin was up by 0.44% to $45.56. A mixed start to the morning saw Litecoin fall to an early morning low $45.11 before striking a high $45.76.
Litecoin left the major support and resistance levels untested early on.
For the day ahead, a move back through the morning high would bring the first major resistance level at $45.98 into play.
Support from the broader market would be needed, however, for Litecoin to break through to $46 levels.
Barring a broad-based crypto rally, the morning high and first major resistance level would likely limit any upside.
Failure to move back through the morning high could see Litecoin hit reverse.
A fall through to sub-$45.10 levels would bring the first major support level at $44.41 into play before any recovery.
Barring a crypto meltdown, however, Litecoin should steer clear of the second major support level at $43.47.
Ripple’s XRP rose by 2.04% on Friday. Following on from a 3.53% rally on Thursday, Ripple’s XRP ended the day at $0.22742.
A mixed start to the day saw Ripple’s XRP rise to an early morning high $0.22564 before hitting reverse.
Falling short of the major resistance levels, Ripple’s XRP fell to a late morning intraday low $0.22034.
Steering clear of the first major support level at $0.2147, Ripple’s XRP rallied to a late afternoon intraday high $0.22856.
Ripple’s XRP came within range of the first major resistance level at $0.2291 before sliding back to $0.2240 levels.
Steering clear of the red, Ripple’s XRP found late support to wrap up the day at $0.2270 levels.
At the time of writing, Ripple’s XRP was up by 0.26% to $0.22800. A bullish start to the day saw Ripple’s XRP rise from an early morning low $0.22654 to a high $0.22950.
Ripple’s XRP left the major support and resistance levels untested before easing back.
For the day ahead, Ripple’s XRP would need to steer clear of $0.2255 levels to support another run at the first major resistance level at $0.2305.
Support from the broader market would be needed, however, for Ripple’s XRP to break out from the morning high $0.22950.
Barring a broad-based crypto rally, resistance at $0.23 would likely limit any upside on the day.
Failure to steer clear of 0.2245 levels would bring the first major support level at $0.22230 into play.
Barring a broad-based crypto sell-off, however, Ripple’s XRP should steer clear of sub-$0.22 levels for a 2ndconsecutive day.
Please let us know what you think in the comments below
Thanks, Bob
Thisarticlewas originally posted on FX Empire
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• S&P 500 Price Forecast – Stock Markets Rocket Higher After The Jobs Figure || Litecoin remains bearish amid fifth consecutive lower high: Litecoin has been faced with a daunting rejection of the 200 exponential moving average (EMA) after making a fifth consecutive lower high since June. The world’s seventh-largest cryptocurrency is now in danger of dropping back towards the $47 level of support. Litecoin’s four-hour chart also shows the early stages of a head and shoulders pattern, with the left shoulder and neckline both seeing surges of volume. Head and shoulders patterns are typically indicative of a reversal in price action, which would be in keeping with the recent rally. Despite trading at just $37 before the new year, Litecoin spiked all the way up to $64 on January 17 before beginning a corrective move to the downside. If LTC is to pick itself back up and rally to the upside, it needs to close daily candles above the 200 exponential moving average, which has historically been a bitter point of resistance. The 200 EMA is also in confluence with the $59 level of resistance that suppressed price on numerous occasions throughout October and November. A breakout above $59, coupled with Bitcoin’s upcoming halving, could indicate a transition into a bull market, with upside price targets of $77, $90, and $100. For more news, guides, and cryptocurrency analysis, click here . The post Litecoin remains bearish amid fifth consecutive lower high appeared first on Coin Rivet . View comments || Bitcoin breaks out above 200 EMA as bulls target $8,800: Bitcoin has continued its tremendous start to the year with a 9% rally over the past 24 hours to test the $8,400 level of resistance. The worlds leading digital asset is now more than 21% up since January 2, with several analysts attributing the rally to mounting tensions between Iran and the United States following the death of top Iranian military general Qasem Soleimani. Turbulence in the geopolitical landscape has the potential to destablise the US dollar, which in turn will drive the price of Bitcoin and gold to the upside. From a technical standpoint, Bitcoin is well on its way to forming a bullish reversal. It closed yesterdays daily candle above the 200 exponential moving average (EMA), which was a bitter point of resistance throughout September. The next test for Bitcoin is the $8,400 level of resistance, while a break above that level would drive a continuation towards $8,830. The daily relative strength index (RSI) is now at its highest point since June 27 when Bitcoin surged to $14,000, indicating that there may be more fuel in the tank to power an extended rally over the coming weeks. The 22 and 50 EMAs have both started to tick to the upside following a two-month downswing, suggesting short-term momentum is on the rise. For more news, guides, and cryptocurrency analysis, click here . The post Bitcoin breaks out above 200 EMA as bulls target $8,800 appeared first on Coin Rivet . View comments || Bitcoin bulls fighting to defend $7,300: Bitcoins price has now fallen for 30 consecutive days (BTC/USD) since a 40% spike on October 25 2019. The fear and greed index is showing extreme fear and sentiment across social platforms has quickly turned from bullish to bearish, with some predicting a drop to $2,000 coming soon. However, since touching $6,500, the Bitcoin bulls have started to defend the price, and buying volume has returned to monthly highs across many cryptocurrency exchanges. For now, to avoid any further downside price action, Bitcoin would need to reclaim previous support and close the weekly candle above $7,300. This price acted as a strong level of support back in October, but also acted as strong resistance in 2018 as Bitcoin battled to go higher. If $7,300 cant be reclaimed over the next week, we may see more bearish price action. Miners to the rescue? Many retail investors speculate that Bitcoin miners will defend the $6,500 region before the next halving (around May 2020) due to the fact Bitcoin mining in this region becomes less profitable. This theory has been proven correct today with the candlewick briefly touching $6,515 before price bounced higher. Third Bitcoin halving Bitcoins halving has always been a bullish event for cryptocurrency traders, sending price soaring in the months running up to it. Miners receive 50% less Bitcoin as a reward during every halving, limiting the supply to the market and therefore increasing the price if demand is high. Previously, during the second Bitcoin halving (July 9 2016), Bitcoin experienced a 115% increase in price during the six months running up to the event (see chart below), which was then followed by the bull run of 2017. During the month before this increase in price, Bitcoin suffered a 40% dip. Currently, were six months away from the next halving. However, weve now had a 51% dip in price since Octobers spike. Bitmains CEO Jihan Wu has publically said he doesnt believe we will see an increase in price like previous years, but is still long-term bullish for cryptocurrencies. Story continues There are many uncertainties, but now is a good time to invest in crypto mining. If I were a miner, I would not stop mining but continue to invest in mining equipment. We are currently in a short-term correction of price. Having a long-term perspective is significant. If Bitcoins price remains unchanged after the halving, the efficiency of existing equipment must be improved to balance efficiency and computing power. Other investors such as Willy Woo have pointed out that Bitcoin has historically entered the first months of a halving in far more bullish circumstances, usually only seeing huge sell-offs like the one were witnessing now after the event has taken place. Bullish macro-trend still intact? Currently, the previous macro-trend line sits right around $7,300 exactly where we would expect to see a reversal to start reclaiming bullish momentum. If I was to confidently say the bottoms in, Id like to see some consolidation around this price following this trend line for the next week before our next move up. If we want to look for further bullish indicators which may suggest a reversal in price, we can look at the daily BTC/USD chart and the MACD indicator. This is showing as oversold at similar levels to the December 15 2018 low. We can also see a possible trend reversal starting to appear on the RSI. Bitcoin has its work cut out over the next few weeks to bring confidence back to many buyers and entice the bulls back into play. However, could the upcoming halving be enough to regain interest in the market? Disclaimer: The views in this article are the views of the author and are not to be taken as financial advice. Always do your own research before investing in cryptocurrencies. The post Bitcoin bulls fighting to defend $7,300 appeared first on Coin Rivet . || USD/JPY Price Forecast – US Dollar Continues Building Case Against Japanese Yen: The US dollar has rallied a bit against the Japanese yen initially during the trading session on Wednesday, but as you can see has given back a bit of strength. At this point, I think we are trying to build up a little bit of support in this area, especially as the 50 day EMA is sitting just at the 200 day EMA and likely to cross. If it does in fact cross, it becomes the “golden cross” which is a longer-term “buy-and-hold” scenario. The 100 day ¥0.50 level looks to be supportive, and therefore it’s likely that we do get a bit of a bounce. USD/JPY Video 12.12.19 Ultimately, if we can break above the top of the range for the trading session on Wednesday, then it also shows that we could go much higher and reach towards the crucial ¥110 level. The ¥110 level is the gateway to much higher pricing and opens up the possibility of the market moving towards the ¥111 level given enough time. Beyond that, we then have the ¥112.50 level, but we need some type of “risk on scenario” that we can continue to go forward. That being said, this is a market that I think continues to see a lot of volatility. I favor the upside, but I also recognize that the market will continue to go back and forth on the latest risk appetite based headline. Obviously, this is a very jittery market as it gives back and forth as to whether or not the Americans and Chinese can come together. Please let us know what you think in the comments below This article was originally posted on FX Empire More From FXEMPIRE: AUD/USD Price Forecast – Australian Dollar Rallies Again U.S. Dollar Index Futures (DX) Technical Analysis – Weakens Under 97.450, Strengthens Over 97.495 EUR/USD Mid-Session Technical Analysis for December 11, 2019 When Might Bitcoin Be Ready To Resume Its Bull Trend? USD/JPY Price Forecast – US Dollar Continues Building Case Against Japanese Yen EUR/USD Price Forecast – Euro Continues To Dance Around Major Figure || Bitcoin, gold and oil surge as US air strike kills Irans top general: The geopolitical world is in turmoil this morning after the United States launched an airstrike at a military base near to Baghdad International Airport, reportedly killing the head of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards elite Quds Force, General Qasem Soleimani. The markets responded as expected to the news, with gold, oil and Bitcoin all hedges to the traditional financial system surging significantly. Bitcoin responded dramatically, rallying by 7.5% from the $6,850 level of support to test the $7,400 level of resistance. Gold, meanwhile, had precious metal traders scrambling to put on long positions as it attempted to surpass its seven-year high $1,556 per ounce. Global oil prices also witnessed price action to the upside, with the global average surging by more than 3% as tensions between the US and Iran continue to escalate. The US Department of Defence claimed that it killed Soleimani because he was actively developing plans to attack American diplomats and service members in Iraq and throughout the region. It also pointed the finger of blame towards Soleimani for the approving the attacks on the US Embassy in Baghdad earlier this week. An adviser to Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has claimed that the US should now be ready to face the consequences. According to @Reuters citing Iraqi police, four rockets struck a military base near Baghdad International Airport early Friday morning. https://t.co/V6KxDRCr25 Twitter Moments (@TwitterMoments) January 2, 2020 Trump through his gamble has dragged the US into the most dangerous situation in the region, said Hessameddin Ashena. Whoever put his foot beyond the red line should be ready to face its consequences. Story continues It remains to be seen how the conflict may escalate over the coming days and weeks, but the prospect of war, whether moral or not, is undoubtedly bullish for markets like cryptocurrency as the Dollar begins to show signs of weakness. Bitcoin was spawned out of a financial crisis 11 years ago, and while its certainly endured its fair share of trials and tribulations, it has not existed during a period of major political instability. If global economies start to weaken at the prospect of warfare, Bitcoin could well provide a suitable hedge for millions across the world, thus driving mass adoption. For more news, guides and cryptocurrency analysis, click here . The post Bitcoin, gold and oil surge as US air strike kills Irans top general appeared first on Coin Rivet . || Two new Bitcoin trusts revealed for Asian markets: Asset management group IDEG Investments has launched Asia’s first-ever Bitcoin trust for professional investors. In a press release published on Sunday, IDEG states that the funds are designed as an easy way for Asian “old money” to invest in the digital asset markets. The IDEG Investments group has launched two funds – the Asia Bitcoin Trust I and the Atlas Mining Trust I – which are both managed in different ways. Unlike Grayscale, which is a passively managed fund, the Asia Bitcoin Trust I is actively managed by a professional investment team, whereas the Asia Mining Trust I offers investors the opportunity to share profits from Bitcoin mining operators. Kevin Yang, CEO of IDEG, said: “As the investment manager of the Trust, IDEG will apply a range of hedging and arbitrage strategies in order to gain more Bitcoin for the investors and meanwhile effectively control the risk of drawdowns.” Raymond Yuan, the founder of IDEG, encouraged more professional investors to invest in digital assets, saying: “Bitcoin is a unique asset class that has no correlation with any traditional asset. Investing in Bitcoin can optimise the risk-to-reward ratio of portfolios. It’s time for the institutional investors to include digital assets in their asset allocation strategies.” Yuan also sees a huge potential return from Bitcoin mining operations, which he claimed institutional miners could “improve in almost every aspect” compared to the average Bitcoin miner. Coinbase custody The trusts will use Coinbase’s custody solutions to hold their Bitcoin. US-based crypto exchange Coinbase is the world’s largest custodian of digital assets. Yuan says of Coinbase’s digital asset custody: “Our positioning is to be a bridge to connect traditional investors and digital assets with the highest transparency and the highest security in the industry.” American Bitcoin trust Grayscale, which has previously claimed to be the world’s largest Bitcoin and digital asset fund, also uses Coinbase’s custody solutions to store its cryptocurrencies. Story continues Coinbase, which originally began as an easy fiat-to-crypto on-ramp for retail investors, has recently been focusing heavily on providing professional custody solutions for crypto funds. The custodian holds over 900,000 Bitcoins and a range of other cryptocurrencies. In August, Grayscale transferred over $2.7 billion in crypto assets to Coinbase in fewer than 12 hours. IDEG has yet to announce how many assets under management it has to date. The post Two new Bitcoin trusts revealed for Asian markets appeared first on Coin Rivet . || Bitcoin No Longer Looks Like ‘Digital Gold’ by One Measure: If “digital gold” means “a safe-haven asset where investors park their money during financial market turmoil,” then bitcoin doesn’t fit the bill as well as it used to.
For most of the year, bitcoin’s price showed a modestly negative correlation with the S&P 500. In other words, the world’s largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization tended to rise on days when the bellwether stock-market index fell, and vice versa.
But since early October, that relationship has weakened, according to information provided by Digital Assets Data.
Related:Bitcoin to See Return of Bull Cross That Marked Onset of 2016-17 Price Rally
The correlation, once well into the negative 20-30 range, is now beginning to flatten towards a reading of around negative 10 percent, as shown in the chart below.
The closer to zero or a positive correlation with the stock market that bitcoin gets, the harder it is to paint the digital asset as a port in the storm.
“The negative correlation has supported the store of value/digital gold thesis for BTC as investors may have been moving into the asset as a hedge against global economic turmoil,” said Kevin Kaltenbacher, Data Scientist of Digital Assets Data. “These recent developments potentially present some challenges to that narrative.”
A major critic of the co-variance argument,Alex Kruger, a macro cryptocurrency analyst, took to Twitter to offer his sarcastic take, referring to both the stock and foreign exchange markets and their relationship with bitcoin.
Related:Bullish Bitcoin Chart Pattern Still Intact Despite 7% Price Drop
“Now that the ‘Stocks drive bitcoin higher’ meme has been proven wrong once again, this is a good time for the ‘CNH [Chinese Yuan Offshore] hedging drives bitcoin higher’ meme to make it back to the stage,” Kruger said.
Safe haven or not, bitcoin’s price remains significantly up since the year began.
Early Wednesday UTC time, it was up 94 percent up from the price of $3,689 witnessed Jan. 1, CoinDesk’sBitcoin Price Indexshows.
At press time, the cryptocurrency is changing hands for $7,140 and is down 48.5 percent from its 2019 high at $13,880, witnessed June 26.
So even if bitcoin may not qualify as digital gold, long-term holders have nothing to fear from the price volatility bitcoin is currently experiencing, said Eddie Alfred, co-founder of Digitial Assets Data.
This period is an anomaly, he said.
“Observing 29-day periods since the genesis of bitcoin, we have seen 195 days where BTC has been down 25 percent or more from its recent high. That means the market has faced similar conditions on about 5 percent of days in BTC’s history,” Alfred said.
Disclosure:The author holds no cryptocurrency at the time of writing.
• WATCH: Thiel Capital’s Eric Weinstein Talks About the Nature of Money
• Bitcoin Faces Biggest Monthly Price Drop of 2019 Despite Late Upturn || Highest in 2 Years: 65% of Bitcoin Hash Power Is in China, Report Finds: For all of bitcoin’s promise of being the world’s first decentralized, peer-to-peer cryptocurrency, 65 percent of the total hash power resides in China. That’s the highest in at least two years according to a recent report byCoinShares Research.
Skeptics like economist Nouriel Roubin often claim there is a massive centralization of power among miners and the blockchain is not even close to decentralization and democracy. That the majority of bitcoin’s hashrate is being supplied by China adds weight to their charges.
The hashrate refers to the computing power dedicated to mine blocks and secure the network. At press time, bitcoin’s hashrate stands at 91.34 exa hashes per second (EH/s), according tobitfinfocharts.com.
Related:Ride ‘Em, Cowboy: Bitmain’s Marketing Gambit Ups Its Texas-Sized Position on Bitcoin
It is likely the world’s second-largest economy has the biggest influence on the top cryptocurrency. If a couple of big Chinese miners were to switch off, the hashrate will likely drop sharply, making the network less secure.
The majority of bitcoin mining power resides in China mainly due to natural factors. A mining market analyst at bitcoin asset manager and trading platform RRMine, who asked not to be named, told CoinDesk:
“China is a large country and there are many poorly developed areas with low-price, abundant electricity, such as Xinjiang, Yunnan, Inner Mongolia and Sichuan. As we all know, electricity costs and mining machines are two important factors for mining costs, so mining companies and individual miners prefer setting up mines in China.”
Half of the global mining poweris locatedin Sichuan, which has an ample supply of cheap hydroelectricity.
Related:Bitmain Shifts Miner Sales Tactics, Betting Big on Bitcoin Halving Pump
Further, major improvements have been made in the mining hardware over the last year or so and most of that has been predominantly installed in China, according to CoinShare’s Chris Bendiksen.
The upgraded hardware includes the likes of Bitmain’s Antminer 15 and 17 series and MicroBT’s Whatsminer 10 and 20 series, which work significantly faster to produce as much as five times the hashrate per unit as their predecessors.
China’s hashrate dominance will likely fall in the long run, as the latest generation hardware is expected to make an entry into the non-Chinese market. Meanwhile, politically stable and well-connected countries like Norway, with abundant hydropower potential, are likely to become mining powerhouses.
Bitmain is alreadybuildingthe world’s largest bitcoin mining farm in Texas, which has abundant power resources.
The hashrate has risen sharply from 50 EH/s in June to 91 EH/s at press time, having peaked at 100 EH/s in October.
The surge in bitcoin’s required computing power was fueled by its price rally from $4,000 to $13,000 in the four months preceding July. Miners’ willingness to use high-power mining machines and expectations of further price rally ahead of the May 2020 reward halving also upped the hashrate, according to RRMine analysts.
The halving will reduce the reward per block mined from current 12.5 BTC to 6.25 BTC. Miners, therefore, would want to mine as many bitcoins as possible before the reward is reduced substantially in May.
Further, RRMine analysts are expecting the price to peak and boost mining profitability ahead of halving. It’s worth noting that historically, bitcoin has put on a good show in the six months leading up to the supply-cutting event.
Thus, while pricing may remain volatile and unpredictable, the hashrate is less likely to see a significant drop ahead of May 2020.
• 1 Gigawatt Bitcoin Mine Under Construction in Texas Would Dwarf Bitmain’s
• PODCAST: Meltem Demirors on the 3 Things Bitcoin Represents || Bitcoins intrinsic value remains below market price, suggesting some downside risk JPMorgan: Bitcoins intrinsic value (an estimate of the actual true value) is still below market price, according to JPMorgan. The gap has not yet fully closed, suggesting some downside risk remains, said JPMorgan strategists led by Nikolaos Panigirtzoglou (MD for Global Market Strategy) in a note published Friday, as reported by Bloomberg. The market price of bitcoin has declined by almost 40% from its peak, while the intrinsic value has increased by around 10%, strategists said. The investment banking giant calculates the intrinsic value of bitcoin by treating it as a commodity and looking at the marginal cost of production including computational power employed and electricity cost, per the report. Bloomberg Intelligence, on the other hand, recently said that bitcoin price is set to increase this year. Mike McGlone, a senior commodity strategist for the firm, said that bitcoins fixed supply of 21 million coins and increasing adoption are likely to support bitcoins appreciation in 2020. JPMorgan also sees "high anticipation" of the launch of CME bitcoin options among market participants. The options are scheduled to go live today. "It was only a matter of time before options started to account for a big part of crypto," Rich Rosenblum, co-founder of crypto trading firm GSR, told The Block last week.
[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
Por aquí os dejo la nueva página de CSGO/BTC/VGO que estaré stremeando los próximos días! Vertigo!
https://t.co/DcEaQx8vJI (con este link os regalan 5$ que solo sirven para testear la página, y un 5% con un depósito! Luego tendréis que utilizar el code "sajucsgo" para 5%) || #DACX #IEO #cryptocurrency #blockchain #bitcoin https://t.co/9q4QtLAbwV || What your fav bitcoin wallet? || https://t.co/ikm2uqukT0 || Who wants to start earning from bitcoin investment
.
Just shoot me a DM let's start earning from it ASAP
Making around $15k weekly 100% legit
#autolike #takiples #takipcikazan #sigodevolta #gaintrick #chuvadeceguidores #chuva #sdv #gt #chuvadelikes #public #chuvadelikes30k #aktiv https://t.co/JCR73YqgYG || Sales Consultant - J2 Consultancy Ltd ( The City, United Kingdom ) - [ 📋 More Info https://t.co/kd7avMdugW ] #sales #jobs #Hiring #Careers #TheCity #United Kingdom #Cryptocurrency #Blockchain #BTC https://t.co/jZf3pzvcFW || [Willy Woo: BTC Market Is In A Nutshell]
Crypto analyst Willy Woo tweeeted, "BTC market in a nutshe...
https://t.co/CfAE69iica https://t.co/FJ8wgyAlS6 || On #bitmex for #bitcoin best https://t.co/Fy4tz1GbVM #bot is bot101086037 with return of 119.18% https://t.co/RyMiFk2map #algorithmic #trading #cryptocurrency #strategy #automated || #仮想通貨 #BTT
Bittrex高騰/暴落 速報(5分前価格と比較)
[BTC-BTT]-20.00%0.000000040
[BTC-GEO]-15.10%0.000023510
[BTC-PAL]-10.00%0.000000090
[BTC-RADS]-8.73%0.000051120
[BTC-BFT]5.17%0.000001830
【10%以上】の変動!アービトラージチャンス!
#拡散希望 || ポイントサイトでポイント貯めてビットコインに交換できるんだよ。リスクなしで始めたい人は是非チェックしましょう！
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|
Trend: up || Prices: 8680.88, 8406.52, 8445.43, 8367.85, 8596.83, 8909.82, 9358.59, 9316.63, 9508.99, 9350.53
|
Analyze the provided historical prices, technical indicators, news, and social media sentiment from the last 60 days. Based on this context, predict the overall trend (up, down, or no change) and the specific daily closing prices for Bitcoin for the next 10 days.
|
[Technical Analysis for 2015-11-18]
BTC Price: 334.59, BTC RSI: 51.94
Gold Price: 1068.80, Gold RSI: 24.11
Oil Price: 40.75, Oil RSI: 35.73
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
Amazon Turns To The Sharing Economy With Part-Time 'Flex' Service: This holiday season there has been much concern over how firms will cope with the lack of seasonal employees. As unemployment rates have fallen dramatically across the United States, there is a much smaller pool of part-time employees, leaving many firms to decide whether to pay more and sacrifice margins or brave the shopping season without extra hands. Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN ) is one such firm which will likely feel the effects of fewer employees as the company's one-day shipping promises often attract droves of last-minute shoppers. However, the e-commerce giant is hoping to fill the gap using the sharing economy . Related Link: What Could Amazon And Lear Mean For Detroit? Sharing Economy In Seattle, Amazon has been piloting a new program which allows everyday people to become Amazon delivery representatives in their free time. Much like Uber, Amazon is tapping into the sharing economy in order to fill a need without taking on new employees. The service, called Amazon Flex, allows people to pick up packages from Amazon warehouses and deliver them to customers' homes for a reasonable $20 per hour. On Demand Workers The program is expected to catch on quickly as the rise of on-demand workers has been huge over the past year. College students, part-time workers and low paid employees are often looking for ways to earn extra cash in their free time and programs like Amazon Flex allow them to do so without locking them in to set hours. Not only does it give the delivery people a bit of extra income, but it significantly reduces Amazon's shipping costs and allows the company to offer its customers faster delivery times even when the hiring pool is shrinking. See more from Benzinga Boeing's Muilenburg Sees Space, Drones And China In Company's Future Bank Of America Prepares For Bitcoin Revolution Logistics Firms Prepare For 3D Printing's Future © 2015 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || No one seems to want to be New Yorks top banking regulator: New York Governor Andrew Cuomo addresses the media before participating as an honorary grand marshall in the West Indian Day Parade in Brooklyn, New York September 7, 2015. REUTERS/Andrew Kelly (Thomson Reuters) New York Governor Andrew Cuomo addresses the media before participating as an honorary grand marshall in the West Indian Day Parade in Brooklyn, New York The regime change at the New York Department of Financial Services is far from over. Acting DFS superintendent Anthony Albanese is quitting , according to a report from The Wall Street Journal. His departure comes as New York Governor Andrew Cuomo's search to replace Benjamin Lawsky drags on. Lawsky quit earlier this year , relinquishing his role to Albanese temporarily. The Journal report says Cuomos staff has sought to exert more control over DFS in the months since Lawsky departed. Albanese downplayed that speaking with the Journal, saying his role and tenure was always intended to be a temporary position to help smooth the transition process. With his exit, and no new superintendent known, its not clear how the transition process is working. Throughout Lawsky's tenure as head of DFS, he aggressively pursued cases on Wall Street and earned a reputation for cracking down on illegal behavior. By the time Lawsky left, the DFS had issued a staggering $6 billion in fines to financial services firms over a four-year span. Business Insider reached out to the governor's office and to the DFS; neither provided comment by publication time. NOW WATCH: The CEO who raised the price of a life-saving pill by 5000% has totally caved More From Business Insider New York Just Released Its Bitcoin License, And They're Going To Change The Face Of Digital Currencies In The US Wall Street will be surprised to hear what New York's ex-banking regulator just said about regulators Former NY financial watchdog counters criticism on bitcoin work || Bitcoin spikes 70% in a month; nobody knows why: Bitcoin(:BTC=), the world's most popular digital currency, has been on a roll — but no one is really sure why.
After dipping well below $200 in January, bitcoin traded at more than $410 Tuesday afternoon before cutting some of those gains, according to the CoinDesk Bitcoin Price Index. That's about 25 percent higher than the same time last year but well below the historical high of about $1,150.
This upswing, which began about a month ago when bitcoin traded below $240, comes on the heels of a steady stream of good news for the digital asset and its associated ecosystem. But even with recent favorable regulatory rulings, press coverage and business investments, experts in the space are struggling to explain the one-month jump of more than 70 percent.
For comparison, gold(CEC:Commodities Exchange Centre: @GC.1)is down about 5 percent on the year, and slightly negative on the month.
Some have attributed the size of the recent jump toinvestors' fear of missing out (FOMO), while others such as "Fast Money" trader Brian Kelly point to ecosystem headlines like theWinklevoss twins launching their exchangeand the Digital Currency Groupannouncing fundingfrom Bain and MasterCard(MA).
But bitcoin has boasted a steady parade of media highlights and major investments from important financial firms all year, so it's not immediately obvious why this past month would mark a turning point.
Read MoreWhy financial firms are investigating bitcoin tech
Brendan O'Connor, the CEO of bitcoin trading firm Genesis Global Trading, told CNBC he has no easy answers about the price jump. Although he said rumors were flying around the community about international rings of traders teaming up to drive up the exchange rate, O'Connor was unable to confirm anything he'd heard.
For its part, Genesis Global is experiencing a "dramatic increase in activity" from renewed interest in bitcoin as a tradable asset, O'Connor said.
"When the price starts going up, people start coming out of the woodwork," he said. "We're setting new records almost on a daily basis for amount traded and number of transactions."
Read MoreBitcoin to be 6th largest reserve currency by 2030: Research
It should be noted that bitcoin is a relatively illiquid market, so its exchange rate against major world currencies has been historically volatile. Still, O'Connor said volume from the Chinese bitcoin market has been "off the charts," so there may be a genuine upswing in interest from that region.
In fact, Kelly suggested in a Tuesday note that Beijing's tightening of capital controls may have spurred some of the recent price gains.
Additionally, many in the bitcoin community insist that the daily price of the cryptocurrency is not a relevant metric, as it distracts from the world-changing potential of the technology.
Others worry that the cycle of mainstream media coverage on bitcoin's price will recreate a story they've seen before:
More From CNBC
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• Personal Finance || Your Old Credit Cards Now Obsolete. Now What?: (Rob Pegoraro/Yahoo Tech) Something weird has been happening to our wallets: Computers have invaded them, one credit card at a time. This overdue migration from cards with magnetic stripes on the back to EMV cards that add a tiny computer chip on the front reached a semi-important point Thursday: the liability shift, a rebalancing of powers between card issuers and merchants in the U.S. that may change who eats the cost of a bogus transaction. For most of us, Liability Shift Day should be the most boring holiday ever. Only a minority of debit and credit cards have EMV chips (EMV stands for Europay, MasterCard and Visa, the three parents of the system ), and the share of retailers taking chip payments is even smaller. But over time, things will change. Heres how: How exactly do I pay with a chip? Instead of swiping a card with that satisfying flick of the wrist, you pop the card into a slot in a card terminal. Then you leave it there as the chip generates a one-time code (like the three- or four-digit number on your card for online purchases), the terminal processes the transaction, and you sign to complete it. In my experience, that takes a few seconds longer than a mag-stripe cardassuming the stripe was able to read on the first try, which we all know doesnt always happen. Where can I pay with the chip? Your chip transactions may be confined to major merchants like Walmart, Home Depot, and Target. Its not enough to see a point of sale terminal with an EMV slot; that part may be inactive. For example, my neighborhoods Whole Foods accepts Apple Pay and other phone payments but not EMV. Spokesman Michael Silverman said the chain plans to fix that across its stores
by the end of 2016. A complete upgrade across U.S. retail will take longer. On a conference call Wednesday, Visa vice president Stephanie Ericksen said 314,000 establishments take chip payments, up from 55,000 last Septemberbut thats out of a total of maybe 6 million to 8 million. Story continues How do I get EMV versions of my cards? If you havent already been issued chipped versions of your cardsthose in my wallet reached that blessed state in July youll have to ask your issuer what the holdup is. While you wait, you might as well use that time to shop around and see if you can switch to a card with better cash-back or travel rewards . Will chip cards stop data breaches? Sorry, no. With EMV, your card number and expiration date still get sent in the clear to the store and beyond. If somebody hacks the terminal or the software upstream, they can still go to town with your card. It does not take care of making sure that the data is protected as it travels through the various layers of payment systems, explained Erik Vlugt, a vice president at the payment-processing firm VeriFone . EMV cards also remain usable if lost or stolen unless theyre further secured with a PIN. Thats common with European but not U.S. cards. (More on that later.) So what security problem does EMV actually solve? Chip cards cant be cloned the way stripe cards can. Counterfeiting is a huge problem, accounting for 37 percent of all U.S. credit-card fraud in 2014 second only after card not present theft staged online or over the phone, according to the research firm Aite Group . Crooks have had a clear economic incentive to clone cards, security researcher Brian Krebs noted in a 2014 explainer : A counterfeiter walks into a big box store and walks out with high-priced electronics or gift cards that he can easily turn into cash. Who pays with the liability shift? Definitely not you just like today, fraud isnt your problem as long as you report it. But merchants can pay more, subject to various rules. As National Retail Federation general counsel Mallory Duncan summed up in an e-mail: Whomever has the more evolved equipment (in a counterfeit situation) wins. That is, if the bank issued a chip card, the crook shows up with a counterfeit version of it, and the merchant doesnt process chip transactions, the merchant is liable to eat the cost. But it can get complicated: There are scenarios where both parties accept a certain percentage of the responsibility, MasterCard product-delivery head Carolyn Balfany said over e-mail. Note, too, that retailers already pay for some fraudulent transactions, as you can see in Visas chargeback rules . In turn, all of us pay in the form of slightly higher prices, same as we collectively pay for the shrinkage of shoplifting and employee theft. What if a store doesnt take EMV? Good luck judging a stores security, although some modern payment gadgets like Squares card readers do encrypt card numbers automatically. If you can use your phone to pay for things, do it. Apple Pay and Android Pay do tokenization, meaning they generate a new card number for each transaction. Or you could pay with cash, Bitcoin , bartered chickens , or any other mutually agreeable medium of value. What about chip-and-PIN? You may have read that chip-and-PIN cards are more secure because you have to type a number matching the one stored on the chip. But thats not why they exist: When EMV cards arrived in Europe, many establishments didnt have online access to verify transactions with issuers and so needed authentication that worked offline. U.S. banks have avoided PIN because, hey, who wants to remember another number? (A few months ago, Underwriters Laboratories innovations director Maarten Bron said hed seen too many chip-and-PIN holders write down their PIN on the back of their cards .) International travelers have complained that signature EMV cards dont work at kiosks in Europe. Visas rules now require those unattended terminals to waive the PIN; it says that in a recent test across five EU states, 90 percent of signature-card transactions worked . So how do we stop online fraud? Payment-processing systems can ensure they have nothing worth stealing by not keeping card numbers intactwhat Visa calls devaluing that data. In that respect, the slow adoption of EMV security could give lagging merchants a chance to jump to an Apple Pay level of security. Said PCI Security Standards Council chief technology office Troy Leach: Were hoping that they buy the next generation of security, which is encryption and tokenization. I hope hes right. But I wont be too surprised if five years from now, a shop with connectivity issues still has to dust off a knuckle buster card imprinter to take my payment on a slip of carbon paper. Email Rob at rob@robpegoraro.com ; follow him on Twitter at @robpegoraro . || Hired-gun hacking played key role in JPMorgan, Fidelity breaches: By Jim Finkle and Joseph Menn
NEW YORK/SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - When U.S. prosecutors this week charged two Israelis and an American fugitive with raking in hundreds of millions of dollars in one of the largest and most complex cases of cyber fraud ever exposed, they also provided an unusual look into the burgeoning industry of criminal hackers for hire.
The trio, who are accused of orchestrating massive computer breaches at JPMorgan Chase & Co (JPM.N) and other financial firms, as well as a series of other major offences, did little if any hacking themselves, the federal indictments and a previous civil case brought by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission indicate.
Rather, they constructed a criminal conglomerate with activities ranging from pump-and-dump stock fraud to Internet casino break-ins and unlicensed Bitcoin trading. And just like many legitimate corporations, they outsourced much of their technology needs.
"They clearly had to recruit co-conspirators and have that type of hacker-for-hire," said Austin Berglas, former assistant special agent in charge of the FBI's New York cyber division, who worked the JPMorgan case before he left the agency in May. "This is the first case where it's that clear of a connection." Berglas, who now heads cyber investigations for private firm K2 Intelligence, said additional major cases of freelance hacking will come to light, especially as more people become familiar with online tools such as Tor that seek to conceal a user’s identity and location.
RENTED TIME
This week's indictments accused a hacker referred to as "co-conspirator 1" of installing malicious software on the servers of multiple victims at the direction of Gery Shalon, the alleged mastermind of the scheme now under arrest in Israel. A second indictment charges a man referred to as John Doe, believed to be in Russia, for an attack on online trading firm E*Trade (ETFC.O).
Officials have not said if the co-conspirator and John Doe were the same person, or even if the FBI knows their true identities.
Law enforcement and computer security officials say that outsourced cyber-crime services - including rented time on networks of previously compromised personal computers and custom break-ins - are most readily found on underground Russian-language computer forums, where skilled attackers advertise their services.
The forums are tight-knit communities where newbies must be vouched for by multiple known members and pay membership fees that cost thousands of dollars, said Daniel Cohen, who oversees an undercover team at EMC Corp's (EMC.N) RSA Security that monitors the forums.
“You can find anything you want for an operation. Hackers, servers, software, code writing. They are all available," said Cohen. Individuals hide their identities even from each other, making infiltration and arrests rare.
In this case, the ringleaders are accused of hiring hackers to steal contact information and other data that they then used to help convince ordinary investors to buy little-regulated stocks. Prosecutors have not disclosed how the hackers were compensated.
Fees vary greatly in the cyber underground, depending on the complexity of the assignment and supply of talent available to do a particular job. Elite hackers who pull off the most technically challenging attacks might get a percentage of profits, while others might earn an hourly rate or get paid a few thousand dollars for winning access to a target’s network, researchers said.PUMP-AND-DUMP
All three of those accused this week - Shalon, Joshua Samuel Aaron, who is at large, and Ziv Orenstein, who is also in jail in Israel – began promoting penny stocks before the hacks took place, according to U.S. government claims.
They used websites including Pennystockdiscoveries.com and Stockcastle.com to send emails as part of a scheme in which they invested in penny stocks, spread false information to boost their prices, and then sold them to make windfall profits, according to an SEC suit filed in July.
Orenstein’s lawyer declined to comment, and Shalon’s lawyer did not return messages seeking comment.
In one case in early 2012, the SEC claims that they used the website Stockcastle.com to promote shares in Mustang Alliances Inc, reaping $2.2 million, the largest pump-and-dump cited in the regulator's lawsuit. In March of that year, the British Virgin Islands Financial Services Commission issued an alert warning that two entities tied to Stockcastle were falsely claiming to be registered in the territory. That same year, the enterprise began a massive hacking spree to get contact information for investors who might be good targets, according to prosecutors. By the end of 2013 they had ordered up six hacks that provided data on tens of millions of customers, prosecutors said.
They hit the mother lode in 2014 when they attacked three other firms, and stole data on 83 million customers from JP Morgan alone, prosecutors said.
In addition to JP Morgan and E*Trade, the firms attacked included the mutual fund giant Fidelity Investments, Scottrade, TD Ameritrade Holding Corp (AMTD.N) and News Corp's (NWSA.O) Dow Jones unit, the publisher of the Wall Street Journal, according to court documents and people familiar with the cases.
"To do a 'pump-and-dump' operation, you no longer need 30 people behind phones in a strip mall," said Shane Shook, a security consultant specializing in investigating financial breaches. All you need is to find a hacker on a “Dark Web” forum to provide addresses from customers of financial services firms like Fidelity or JPMorgan, then hire a spam service to push out promotional emails, he said.
Shalon bragged about the stock manipulation scheme, telling the hacker known as co-conspirator 1 in a web chat message that it was "a small step towards a large empire," according to the indictment.
His plan, Shalon told the hacker, was to distribute "mailers" on stocks to those customers. The hacker asked if buying stocks was popular in America, the indictment said, prompting Shalon to reply: "It's like drinking freaking vodka in Russia."
Shalon ultimately made good on his promise to build an empire, according to the indictments. Profits from the pump-and-dump fed into a sprawling conglomerate including offshore Internet casinos and payment-processing services for other criminal operators, such as counterfeit pharmaceutical makers. Shalon also allegedly directed hackers to attack rival casinos, stealing customer data and temporarily bringing down their websites with denial-of-service attacks, which are easily commissioned online.BUTTERFLY AND HIDDEN LYNX
While this week's indictments opened the first major criminal case involving outsourced hacking, there have been other substantial break-ins that researchers believe were contract jobs.
Researchers at Symantec in July attributed a series of precision breaches at Apple, Facebook, Microsoft and Twitter in 2012 and 2013 to a sophisticated gang called Butterfly, which also attacked law firms and pharmaceutical companies.
Computer security firm Symantec concluded that the group likely works for hire, either for a client looking for financial gain in the stock market or for competitors. How Butterfly gets hired remains unclear.
Tech criminologist Marc Goodman, author of the book “Future Crimes”, says another group, dubbed Hidden Lynx by Symantec, may consist of contractors moonlighting from jobs with the Chinese military.http://www.symantec.com/content/en/us/enterprise/media/security_response/whitepapers/hidden_lynx.pdf"It's crime as a service," "Goodman said. "They take all the pain out of it."
(Reporting by Joseph Menn in San Francisco and Jim Finkle and Nate Raymond in New York; Additional reporting from Maayan Lubell in Jerusalem; Editing by Jonathan Weber and Martin Howell.) || Bitcoin Takes A Hit In Australia: Bitcoin has gained popularity across the globe in recent years, but concerns about safety have kept the cryptocurrency from becoming a mainstream means of payment. For that reason, banks in Australia have begun to move away from cryptocurrency, deciding last month to close the accounts of 13 of the continent's 17 bitcoin exchanges. The decision has had a ripple effect on the bitcoin industry in Australia as more and more businesses similarly turn their backs on digital currencies. Bye-Bye Bitcoin In Australia, many businesses began accepting bitcoin payments when the coin gained popularity. As the digital payments trend expanded, some firms hoped to use bitcoin in order to tap into a greater pool of potential clients and make it easier for international customers to pay. However, the nation's banks' decision to shut bitcoin exchanges out has led many Australian firms to rethink their decisions. Many worry that the banks are only the beginning of a backlash against cryptocurrencies, and that by participating in the trend they could tarnish their reputations. Related Link: Bitcoin Gains Deeper Foothold In Latin America Through MercadoLibre Big Blow To Cryptocurrencies Although cryptocurrencies are still receiving a lot of positive attention in places like Europe and the US, the changing attitude in Australia could put a dent in the industry's momentum. Australia makes up around 7 percent of bitcoin's $3.5 billion global value, a significant portion. Not only will a negative attitude toward bitcoin affect the Australian market, but it could spread further afield. Some worry that the negative reputation could eventually influence the opinions of consumers and lawmakers in other countries as well. See more from Benzinga Small Businesses Turn To Online Lenders As California's Drought Drags On, Winners And Losers Emerge Is Europe Recovering Or Not? © 2015 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. View comments || October Treat: Junk Bonds and Gold ETFs Pop: The stock market rebound continued this week as the S&P 500 touched its highest level in nearly two months. The SPDR S&P 500 (SPY | A-99) is now up 5.8 percent in October, a strong performance in a month that has historically been the second-worst of the year (after September). Gold & Silver Miners Dominate Jump On Monday, we highlighted the best-performing exchange-traded funds of October . Those funds, comprising mostly copper and energy producers, are still doing well in the month. However, a new group of ETFs have bullied their way into the top 10: gold and silver miners. In fact, precious-metals-related funds now make up six of the top 10 positions for October, as can be seen from the table below. Top 10 ETF Of October Ticker Fund Return (%) SILJ PureFunds ISE Junior Silver (Small Cap Miners/Explorers) 27.86 COPX Global X Copper Miners 25.61 PLTM First Trust ISE Global Platinum 25.30 CU First Trust ISE Global Copper 25.23 SLVP iShares MSCI Global Silver Miners 25.07 SGDM Sprott Gold Miners 24.04 KWT Market Vectors Solar Energy 23.29 RING iShares MSCI Global Gold Miners 23.28 GDX Market Vectors Gold Miners 22.60 SIL Global X Silver Miners 22.41 Considering the big jump in gold prices this month, the performance of these ETFs hasn't been surprising. The yellow metal hit the highest point since mid-June this week, leading the SPDR Gold Trust (GLD | A-100) to a gain of 5.7 percent in October. Miners tend to be much more volatile than the underlying metal, which explains their significant outperformance. Yet even as these ETFs rally, investors haven't been too keen on buying into them. None of the top 10 price performers saw significant inflows, and in fact, investors pulled out $429 million from the Market Vectors Gold Miners ETF (GDX | C-79) during the first half of the month. Investors Buying Bonds While ETF investors haven't been too enthusiastic about miners, they did show interest in gold itself. So far this month, GLD has attracted $483 million in inflows, putting it just outside the top 10 inflows list for the month. Story continues One salient theme that has emerged during October is the idea that the Federal Reserve will hold off on hiking interest rates this year due to global slowdown concerns and the recent string of weak U.S. economic data. That's propelled gold higher, as well as bonds. In fact, bonds are the asset class that's attracted the most capital this month. As can be seen from the table below, generated using the ETF.com fund flows tool , a number of bond ETFs made the top 10 inflows list: Source: ETF.com Fund Flows Tool The iShares 7-10 Year Treasury Bond ETF (IEF | A-51) was a big winner, with nearly $1 billion in inflows. To the extent that the Fed's overnight interest rate stays lower for longer, that puts pressure on the longer end of the yield curve as well (supporting bond prices). Even more popular than IEF were corporate bond ETFs like the SPDR Barclays High Yield Bond ETF (JNK | B-68) and the iShares iBoxx $ Investment Grade Corporate Bond ETF (LQD | A-77) . In addition to support from low interest rates, corporate bonds benefited from speculation that defaults may not be as high as feared. That's particularly true for the junk bond space, which was hammered in August and September, sending yields to their loftiest level since 2011. Investors may be seeing those yields as attractive now that the stock market has stabilized and the Fed looks to be on hold. In addition to the bond ETFs, other funds that saw notable inflows were the tech-heavy PowerShares QQQ (QQQ | A-66) and the large-cap iShares Russell 1000 Value (IWD | A-90) . In terms of sectors, investors liked the Industrial Select SPDR (XLI | A-92) and the Consumer Discretionary Select SPDR (XLY | A-91) . Contact Sumit Roy at sroy@etf.com . Recommended Stories Gundlach: Sell Junk Bonds, Buy India Bitcoin Rally Benefiting ETFs NatGas Investing Not For Faint Of Heart October Treat: Junk Bonds & Gold ETFs Pop Twitter Chatter Packed In New Index Permalink | © Copyright 2015 ETF.com. All rights reserved || Caribbean Students to Benefit From Flow, One-on-One Education Partnership: MIAMI, FL--(Marketwired - Oct 21, 2015) - Cable & Wireless, operator of the Flow and LIME brands, has signed a landmark five-year exclusive partnership with One on One Education Services aimed at offering Caribbean students greater access to a wide variety of study materials for GSAT, CSEC and CAPE examinations. One on One Education Services will provide a variety of educational materials including video tutorials for full online courses, video lectures, and past paper solutions, as well as other examination preparation materials such as notes, question and solutions banks. This education programme will also include a Digital Encyclopaedia, Virtual Labs -- a unique visual and interactive way of learning. As part of this partnership, Flow customers will receive the basic education package at no additional cost with their Broadband service and will be able to upgrade at exclusively discounted prices. The education content will be available seamlessly across a Flow Study website, exclusive Flow Study apps, as well on the Flow Video On Demand TV platform. "This is yet another demonstration of our commitment to technology investment for the development of the region," said John Reid, President of C&W Consumer Group. "Through initiatives such as One on One we have a tremendous opportunity to provide our customers with access to high quality education tools across multiple platforms that would have otherwise been costly and unattainable," he added. Reid also said, "We went through a vigorous process to determine which provider had the best overall education solution in the region. Our quest led us to One on One, and we are truly delighted to be able to deliver the best to our customers." Ricardo D. Allen, President & CEO of One on One Educational Services, also noted, "We are very excited about this partnership with Cable & Wireless/Flow. This will propel our education programme to new heights, new markets and provide access that was considered unattainable." Allen further explained that in just a few years, his Company has enabled over 2,000 students in Jamaica alone, to enhance their performance at the CSEC/CAPE examination. He stated that several students have gained scholarships and grants toward their tertiary education. Story continues Allen added, "Our vision has always been to expand our business model through enabling greater access to our products as well as to continue in our effort to create even more online learning content which we will be doing through this deal. Cable & Wireless Communications is the market leader in the Caribbean for the provision of mobile, broadband and TV and therefore this deal fits nicely into our strategic objective to educate students anywhere, at any time. Through this deal, in addition to Internet access, students will be able to prepare for their exam from the comfort of their living room, on their TV, or on-the-go via Flow's mobile platform. The partnership is expected to continue the efforts of past initiatives of One on One to reduce the cost of education and increase the participation rate of children, and adults in learning. "Our objective is to have everyone learning something; now it's GSAT, CSEC & CAPE and tomorrow it may well be CPA, ACCA & CFA. Wherever there is learning, Flow & One on One will be your partner," Allen stated. About C&W Communications Cable & Wireless Communications Plc (CWC) is a full service communications and entertainment provider, operating in the Caribbean and Latin America. With annual sales of over US$2.4 billion, it operates both mobile and fixed networks, supported by submarine and terrestrial optical fibre backhaul capacity. Through the acquisition of Columbus International Inc on 31 March 2015, C&W now delivers superior high-speed mobile data, broadband and TV/video services. It has leading market positions in Mobile, Fixed Line, Broadband and TV consumer offers. Through its business division, C&W provides data centre hosting, domestic and international managed network services, and customised IT service solutions, utilising cloud technology to serve business and government customers. The company also operates a state-of-the-art subsea fibre optic cable network that spans more than 48,000 km -- the most extensive in the region -- as well as 38,000 km of terrestrial fibre providing wholesale and carrier backhaul capacity and a growing suite of wholesale managed services. C&W has more than 7,500 employees serving over 6 million customers (Mobile 3.8m; Fixed Line 1.1m; Video 460k and Broadband 665k) as well as over 125k corporate clients and 225 wholesale customers across 42 countries. The Company's leading brands include: LIME and Flow in the Caribbean; BTC in The Bahamas; Mas Movil in Panama; C&W Business and C&W Networks. C&W is the market leader in most products offered and territories served. It is a major contributor to local communities through its corporate social responsibility programmes. Cable & Wireless Communications' shares are quoted on the London Stock Exchange under the ticker CWC. The company is headquartered in London with its operational hub located in Miami, within close proximity to the Caribbean and Latin America. For more information visit: www.cwc.com . || Is The Video Subscription Space Saturated?: The way consumers watch TV has changed drastically over the past few years as the popularity of Internet video sites like YouTube have skyrocketed. Dedicated streaming services like Netflix, Inc. (NASDAQ: NFLX ) and Hulu emerged and their warm reception from American viewers caused traditional broadcasters to rethink their own operations. Now, several big name networks have created their own online, subscription-based services in an effort to give customers more choices for web-based viewing. However, with so many fragmented viewing options out there, many are wondering if the space is starting to become crowded. The All Important Millennial The younger generation is increasingly switching to online viewing, a troublesome sign for traditional cable. Services like Netflix and Amazon offer a wide range of content geared toward that demographic and have become popular choices for Millennials who are cutting the cord. Related Link: Why Netflix's Initial Selloff Was "Correct" However, in an effort to maintain a youthful audience, firms like NBC Universal and CBS Corporation (NYSE: CBS ) have launched their own subscription services with content aimed at younger viewers. Stiff Competition NBC Universal recently unveiled a new streaming offering called Seeso, which will focus on comedy programming. The firm has been working together with non-traditional media companies like BuzzFeed and Vox to attract younger viewers, but the firm will have to compete with a host of other networks that are all doing the same thing. Dish Network's Sling TV, CBS' All Access service and Time Warner's HBO Now are just some of the many online subscription services that Seeso will have to compete with. Cutting The Cord While online viewing is gaining popularity, most agree that at the present moment there is no good way to cut the cord completely. Subscribing to the many online services that have saturated the streaming space would typically cost more than paying a traditional cable bill, so most consumers are choosing one or two online services to enhance their programming. That makes it difficult for new entrants like Seeso as more established names like Netflix are often a top choice. Story continues Image Credit: By Taro the Shiba Inu [ CC BY 2.0 ], via Wikimedia Commons See more from Benzinga Virtual Reality Becomes An Actual Reality With New Oculus Headset Netflix Viewing Stats Reveal That All Shows Aren't Created Equally 21 Inc's Bitcoin Computer Seeks To Redefine The Internet © 2015 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || New York regulator issues license to Winkelvoss bitcoin venture: By Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Gemini Trust Company, founded by investors Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, has been granted a license to operate as a chartered limited liability trust company by the New York State Department of Financial Services, the state regulator announced on Monday.
Under the charter, Gemini will operate a bitcoin exchange and will officially open for trading on Thursday at 9:30 a.m. (1330 GMT)) serving both individual and institutional customers, Gemimi said in a separate statement on Monday.
Bitcoin is a virtual currency bought and sold on a peer-to-peer network independent of central control.
"In New York, we are continuing to move forward on licensing and chartering virtual currency firms," said Anthony J. Albanese, acting superintendent of Financial Services. "Smart, targeted regulation that helps protect consumers and prevent illicit activity is vital to the long-term future of this industry."
Gemini is the first licensed crypto currency business for the Winklevoss brothers, best known for accusing Facebook Inc founder Mark Zuckerberg of stealing their idea.
"Our focus right now is operating a spot bitcoin exchange. In many ways, we're not really re-inventing the wheel," said Gemini chief executive Tyler Winklevoss told Reuters in August.
The Winklevoss brothers filed an application to operate as a trust company with the New York's banking regulator in July.
A trust company is a type of financial institution technically different from a bank, analysts said. Under New York banking law, a trust company has all the powers of a bank to take deposits and make loans, alongside certain fiduciary powers such as acting as an agent for government bodies.
As a limited liability trust company, Gemini will maintain significant capital reserves consistent with that of a premier fiduciary business, the company said.
Gemini added that it will hold in custody all bitcoin deposits, the majority of which will be held in its offline, multi-signature, geographically distributed cold storage system.
Gemini said all fiat currency such as U.S. dollars transferred to Gemini will be deposited in a New York state chartered bank, headquartered in midtown Manhattan, and eligible for Federal Deposit Insurance Corp insurance, subject to applicable limitations. It did not name the bank.
Bitcoin's value has been highly volatile, having peaked at over $1,200 in late 2013 before crashing after the collapse of the Mt. Gox bitcoin exchange. One bitcoin is currently worth around $238.17 on the BitStamp platform.
(Reporting by Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss Editing by W Simon)
[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
Current price: 209.17€ $BTCEUR $btc #bitcoin 2015-09-30 12:00:03 CEST || Current price: 288.15€ $BTCEUR $btc #bitcoin 2015-11-01 21:00:04 CET || Current price: 482.26$ $BTCUSD $btc #bitcoin 2015-11-04 11:00:10 EST || 1 #BTC (#Bitcoin) quotes:
$316.04/$318.16 #Bitstamp
$308.99/$309.00 #BTCe
⇢$-9.17/$-7.04
$322.73/$322.75 #Coinbase
⇢$4.57/$6.71 || In the last 10 mins, there were arb opps spanning 15 exchange pair(s), yielding profits ranging between $0.00 and $172.52 #bitcoin #btc || BTCTurk 724.98 TL BTCe 242 $ CampBx $ BitStamp 244.00 $ Cavirtex 315.75 $ CEXIO 246.26 $ Bitcoin.de 216.52 € #Bitcoin #btc || One Bitcoin now worth $262.19@bitstamp. High $267.00. Low $253.76. Market Cap $3.863 Billion #bitcoin || 1 #bitcoin 910.2 TL, 305.727 $, 281.052 €, GBP, 19712.51 RUR, 39500 ¥, CNH, 378.00 CAD #btc || #RDD / #BTC on the exchanges:
Cryptsy: 0.00000004
Bittrex: 0.00000005
Average $1.0E-5 per #reddcoin
00:30:01 || Current price: 269.16$ $BTCUSD $btc #bitcoin 2015-10-21 16:00:07 EDT
|
Trend: up || Prices: 326.15, 322.02, 326.93, 324.54, 323.05, 320.05, 328.21, 352.68, 358.04, 357.38
|
Analyze the provided historical prices, technical indicators, news, and social media sentiment from the last 60 days. Based on this context, predict the overall trend (up, down, or no change) and the specific daily closing prices for Bitcoin for the next 10 days.
|
[Technical Analysis for 2019-08-21]
BTC Price: 10138.05, BTC RSI: 43.59
Gold Price: 1504.60, Gold RSI: 68.06
Oil Price: 55.68, Oil RSI: 49.90
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
Newsflash: Bitcoin Price Crashes Below $11,000 to Cap 20% Plunge: Thebitcoin pricecrashed below the $11,000 mark on Thursday, extending the vicious sell-off that began the previous day.
A suddenly-heavy BTC had struggled to defend the $12,000 mark for much of the morning, and around 12:00 pm ET traders capitulated to the stifling downward pressure.
In just 25 minutes, the bitcoin price careened from $11,751 all the way down to $10,800 on Bitstamp, setting a new intraday low and putting the flagship cryptocurrency dangerously close to thepsychologically-significant$10,000 level.
The 8% slide added to yesterday’s mid-day bloodbath, which served as a painful reminder that parabolic price rallies are often followed by sell-offs that are equally as swift.
Read the full story on CCN.com. || Lightning Labs Designs Monitoring Tool for ‘Layer 2’ Bitcoin Network: The lightning network, seen as the future of bitcoin payments, is now a bit easier to monitor. This Wednesday, Lightning Labs released a new network analysis tool dubbed “Lndmon” that bitcoin lightning network users can use to pull up data about the state of their node and the rest of the network. The offering features colorful graphs illustrating different aspects of the network, such as network fees or the “channels” a user has opened to send lightning payments. This is useful for users running “lightning nodes,” which users need to set up in order to use the network in the most secure way. Lndmon gives users a more tangible look into what’s going on with their nodes, whether the user is a running a routing node and looking to make a little money or a bitcoin enthusiast who just want to know more about their node and the rest of the network. Related: Bull Case for Bitcoin Weakest Since February, Price Indicator Says The announcement blog post written by Lightning Labs software engineer Valentine Wallace, who led the project, explains: “As the network has grown over the past year, we’ve noticed gaps in its observability and the need for an easy-to-use tool for routing node operators to manage their nodes.” There have even been instances when the tool might have even prevented problems with the network, Wallace argues in the blog post: “This year, lack of such a suitable tool caused certain problems in the peer-to-peer network to remain undiscovered until they became harmful.” Related: Venezuela Turned Airport Taxes Into Bitcoin to Avoid Sanctions: Report As such, Wallace thinks Lndmon can “help prevent problems by enabling users to monitor trends and take preventative action.” But it isn’t just for detecting problems. By looking at the graphs, users can take a better look at the history of their payments, or potentially use it to figure out how to pay the lowest fees when sending payments. The tool is supposed to be easy to use, at least for developers. Once a user has their node up and running, it just takes a couple of extra steps to get their own Lndmon dashboard up and running. Story continues Lightning Labs has plans to extend the tool further, such as supporting more lightning network data and allowing users to set up notifications when something happens they would like to know about. Lightning Labs CEO Elizabeth Stark via CoinDesk archives Related Stories Crypto Loans Firm Left Thousands of Users’ Financial Data Exposed Bitcoin Price Retakes $10K But Remains Short of Bull Revival || INSIGHT-Making sense of chaos? Algos scour social media for clues to crypto moves: (Repeats story for additional subscribers) * Source of bitcoin's wild price swings remains a mystery * Investors think sentiment analysis algorithms can help * Many see social media comments as key drivers of price * Technique unproven, faces hurdles of cost and complexity * GRAPHIC-Bitcoin's wild ride: https://tmsnrt.rs/32kDEi2 By Tom Wilson and Simon Jessop LONDON, July 17 (Reuters) - After months of relative calm in cryptocurrency markets, bitcoin exploded back into life in April with its sharpest price jump in over a year - but few people could convincingly explain why. The 20% leap focused investors' attention on one of the enduring mysteries of cryptocurrencies: what moves the price of an emerging asset in an opaque, largely unregulated market? For some, the answer lies on social media. Hedge funds and asset managers seeking an edge are training computers to scrape social media sites for triggers that could move the price of digital currencies. Their goal: crafting algorithms capable of picking out price "signals" from the background noise of sites ranging from Reddit and WeChat to Twitter and Telegram. Many investors already use computer models to identify, and trade, price differences across hundreds of cryptocurrency trading exchanges. But with opportunities for arbitrage narrowing as the nascent sector develops, big players are increasingly looking to build or buy more sophisticated robots to find market-moving signals online, according to interviews with six hedge funds and asset managers and three software developers. Yet while the use of algorithms, or algos, for parsing social media may be growing, some of those interviewed said major challenges and risks remain to their wider deployment, from cost to complexity. "It's an arms race for money managers," said Bin Ren, CEO of Elwood Asset Management, which specialises in digital assets and is owned by Brevan Howard founder Alan Howard. Story continues "Very few players are able to implement and deliver it, but I believe it is highly profitable." Such "sentiment analysis," as computer-driven reading of the social media mood is known, is used as a tool in traditional markets like equities and foreign exchange to trade on consumer feelings towards a company or asset. But it could be of greater significance in cryptocurrency markets, where there are few authoritative sources of information, such as central banks, scarcely any reliable data to gauge asset value like economic indicators and financial statements, and a high proportion of individual investors. It is also early days for the technique in the crypto sector, with scant industry-wide data on performance and many questions over its effectiveness. None of the institutions Reuters spoke to would give details of the performance of their algorithms, citing commercial confidentiality. ONLINE CACOPHONY To be sure, digital currencies do share some drivers with traditional markets such as comments by policymakers. Bitcoin can be sensitive to remarks by regulators in particular: It fell sharply last week after the U.S. Federal Reserve chief called for a halt to Facebook's planned Libra cryptocurrency project. But given cryptocurrencies have been entwined with the internet from their dawn a decade ago, when the word was spread in forums and chatrooms, it would seem to make sense to search for price triggers online. Still, it's far from cheap or simple to design an algorithm that can find market-moving signals in the cacophonous world of social media, analysing huge numbers of posts in dozens of languages while sifting out unreliable information. Andrea Leccese, president of Bluesky Capital, an investment firm in New York, said upfront costs for a robot capable of only reading Twitter in English were between $500,000 to $1 million, with most of the money spent on skilled developers. That has deterred Bluesky from using the technique, he said. One daunting challenge is the sheer number of social media channels. Beyond Twitter, sites often used by cryptocurrency aficionados include Telegram, a messaging app with public channels and Reddit, a messaging board. In Asia, home to many retail traders, apps like Line in Japan and Kakao in South Korea are popular. Tens of thousands of comments on cryptocurrencies are pumped out around the clock across both national and international channels. Reddit's main forum, or subreddit, for bitcoin alone has 1.1 million members. Twitter also sees tens of thousands of posts mentioning bitcoin every day, with between 14,000 and 32,000 daily for the last three months, according to the BitInfoCharts website. In an attempt to extract meaning from this mayhem, algorithms use so-called natural language processing - identifying key words and emotions that indicate changes in how social media users view certain digital currencies. Investors using algorithms say they can also identify patterns for information that gains traction online. "The information propagates not randomly, but through a very well-defined structure - it's like a tree," said Elwood's Ren, which has used sentiment analysis for nearly two years after developing its own software. "It's very similar to modelling the spreading of a virus." FAKE NEWS FEARS Other investors emphasised the challenges in teaching machines to spot biased or inaccurate information. A Reuters report https://www.reuters.com/article/us-crypto-currencies-promoters-specialre/special-report-little-known-to-many-investors-cryptocurrency-reviews-are-for-sale-idUSKCN1NW17S last November found that many social media users take money for positive reviews of digital coins. BitSpread, a cryptocurrency asset manager based in London and Singapore, uses its own capital to trade using an algorithm it started developing about a year ago, its CEO Cedric Jeanson told Reuters. It is a relatively narrowly targeted software. Aggregating Twitter feeds, it looks out for posts on the liquidation, or closing, of positions at exchanges. "It's a matter of gathering all the info, trying to understand who is trading where, what kind of liquidation can appear," he said. "It's a strategy that makes sense." However, he acknowledged the drawbacks. "The sentiment itself, what we see on Twitter, can be really geared towards fake news. We are always very cautious about what we're reading in the news because, most of the time, we've seen that there's a bias." Many algorithms use machine learning, where they are supposed to improve through experience and better understand how social media posts translate into market movements. Developers often identify key people with outsized voices and large numbers of followers to weight more heavily in their algorithm, said Bijan Farsijani of Augmento, a Berlin-based startup that launched an algo for sentiment analysis last month. He said a number of hedge funds had bought the software from his company since the launch. Bitcoin's wild ride - interactive graphic https://tmsnrt.rs/32kDEi2 CODERS IN DEMAND Bitcoin, the biggest cryptocurrency and a bellwether for the sector, has surged over 180% this year, driving up the interest of bigger investors from trading firms to hedge funds. Bitcoin's most recent rally, last month, was seen by analysts as driven by expectations for a wider adoption of cryptocurrencies driven by Facebook's Libra. That move was mirrored by a surge in interest online. Google searches for cryptocurrencies hit their highest level in three months on June 18, when Facebook made the announcement. It is, however, difficult to pinpoint the chicken and the egg: online chatter or price moves. "There may be some value in sentiment analysis in crypto, but most of the time what people tweet may be a lagging indicator of the price move," said Leccese of Bluesky Capital. "But there is potential," he added. "People will start looking at this more in the next five to 10 years because there will be diminishing returns because of increased competition in traditional strategies." While there is a lack of data specifically for this technique, "quantitative" cryptocurrency funds - which use methods from arbitrage to sentiment analysis - significantly outperformed funds that make longer-term bets in the first quarter of this year, a PwC report shows. Coders say they are in increasing demand. Taiwan-based Marc Howard teamed up with over 500 machine learning experts to crowdsource sentiment analysis algorithms, bringing in data from sources including Google Trends, Reddit and development platform GitHub. Howard said his bitcoin investments using an algorithm beat funds simply tracking the price of the cryptocurrency by 54% in the year to June 24, adding that funds in New York and Taipei had tapped him for help in developing their own analysis. "It's pretty hot right now," he said. "Any fund that's worth their salt, they are devoting some of their resources and allocation for sentiment analysis." (Reporting by Tom Wilson and Simon Jessop; Editing by Pravin Char) || AUD/USD Forex Technical Analysis – Strengthens Over .6819, Weakens Under .6763: The Australian Dollar closed slightly lower on Friday as the currency rebounded from an earlier test of the low of the year as news of slower U.S. payrolls growth in July fueled expectations that the Federal Reserve would cut interest rates again in September. Gains were likely capped by heightened U.S.-China trade tensions that drove down demand for commodity-linked currencies.
On Friday, theAUD/USDsettled at .6801, down 0.0001 or 0.02%. This was up from an intraday low of .6763. The previous low of the year was .6764, hit on July 3, 2019.
The main trend is down according to the daily swing chart. A trade through .6763 will signal a resumption of the downtrend. The daily chart is wide open under this level with the next major bottom the March 3, 2009 main bottom at .6285. This is followed by the February 2, 2009 main bottom at .6247. The November 20, 2008 main bottom at .6074 and the October 27, 2008 main bottom at .6008.
Friday’s price action suggests that aggressive counter-trend buyers were trying to form a closing price reversal bottom, but fell short at the close. This doesn’t mean the trend is getting ready to turn to up, but there is the possibility of a short-term shift in momentum to the upside.
The current short-term range is .7082 to .6763. If the market is able to generate enough upside momentum over the near-term, we could see an eventual rally into its retracement zone at .6923 to .6960.
The offsetting fundamentals are making a forecast difficult. Furthermore, the hedge funds are net short and looking for more downside especially since there is no real support under .6764 until .6285 to .6008.
On the bearish side, the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) is expected to cut rates in October, however, before that, the Federal Reserve is widely expected to cut rates again in September. Additionally, the new tariffs on China are expected to kick in on September and traders are still waiting for countermeasures by China.
The first sign that the selling is getting weaker will be a move through .6819. This will make .6763 a new minor bottom. This move will not necessarily mean that new buyers are driving the price action. In fact, we anticipate that there are a lot of shorts that have to be cleared out before real buyers will emerge.
We’re looking to play momentum on Monday with an upside bias expected to form on a sustained move over .6819 and the downside bias to continue on a sustained move under .6763.
Thisarticlewas originally posted on FX Empire
• AUD/USD Forex Technical Analysis – Strengthens Over .6819, Weakens Under .6763
• Silver Weekly Price Forecast – Silver find plenty of buyers after initially dipping this week
• Crude Oil Weekly Price Forecast – Crude oil markets continue to look confused
• Gold Price Prediction – Prices Remain Near 6-Year Highs Following US Jobs Report
• Forex Daily Recap – DXY Slipped over Weak US June Trade Balance
• Bitcoin Cash – ABC, Litecoin and Ripple Daily Analysis – 03/08/19 || Crypto Briefing Announces Partnership with CoinGecko in Transparency Bid: NEW YORK, NY / ACCESSWIRE / July 24, 2019 / Crypto Briefing -- the independent crypto analysis and media firm -- and CoinGecko have announced a partnership that will integrate Crypto Briefing’s digital asset reports and investment grades into CoinGecko’s token pages. The move is in line with a broader push by both Crypto Briefing and CoinGecko to improve exchange transparency and trust in the cryptocurrency markets. Concerns over cryptocurrency market transparency were amplified in May this year, when Bitwise released an in-depth analysis of the exchange markets. The report suggested that roughly 95 percent of Bitcoin trading volumes may be fabricated through wash trading. “The Bitwise report was a wake-up call to the industry,” said Han Kao, CEO of Crypto Briefing. “If cryptocurrency is to go mainstream, it’s clear that we need standardized frameworks, and more accountability in an industry plagued by misinformation and dubious practices.” “We launched almost two years ago with a mission to advocate for independence and objectivity,” continued Kao. “Partnering with analytics companies like CoinGecko, that are committed to transparency and accuracy, is exactly in line with our own values.” Crypto Briefing recently rolled out their institutional-grade analysis product, SIMETRI - a suite of comprehensive token reports and investment grades - designed to provide investors with deep and actionable insights into cryptocurrency businesses. “SIMETRI is a direct extension of our commitment to the cryptocurrency community,” said Kao. “Since we are not paid by the crypto projects, we can be completely objective in our analysis of the tokens we research -- and that brings unique value to our readers. They know that our work is untainted by advertising dollars.” With CoinGecko, Crypto Briefing’s SIMETRI Research will complement CoinGecko’s “ Trust Score ” metric, which uses various metrics to filter out exchange volumes inflated with wash trading or trans-fee mining. Story continues “In short, ‘Trust Score’ is a blended formula that takes into account exchanges’ reported trading volume, web traffic, and order book depth,” said Bobby Ong, co-founder of CoinGecko. “The idea here is to not rely on a single source of data, but rather multiple sources of data which will serve as a deterrent against cheating.” Further details of CoinGecko’s Trust Score can be obtained in this blog announcement . CoinGecko will continue to further supplement their Trust Score with more metrics covering other areas of the cryptocurrency markets such as Proof-of-Reserves, API analysis, and cybersecurity analysis. Their incorporation of Crypto Briefing’s SIMETRI token reports and investment grades will further improve their transparency initiative for their millions of users worldwide. About Crypto Briefing Crypto Briefing is an independent cryptocurrency analysis firm and media provider focusing on bringing trust and transparency to the industry. The company is unique in the space, in that it has never accepted advertising or sponsored stories. Following recent successful seed funding rounds, Crypto Briefing has furnished a series of token reports to its readers in the lead-up to the launch of its institutional SIMETRI product. Crypto Briefing is currently pursuing the expansion of their transparency and trust initiative as it partners with high-profile analytics and reporting firms, like CoinGecko and CoinMarketCap. About CoinGecko CoinGecko aims to provide a 360-degree overview of the cryptoasset market. In addition to tracking cryptoasset price, volume and network value, CoinGecko also tracks fundamental data such as community growth, open-source code development, major events and on-chain metrics. CoinGecko’s objective is to elevate participants’ understanding of the fundamental factors that drive the market. CoinGecko is one of the largest and earliest cryptoasset data aggregators, operating since early 2014. It currently tracks over 5,100 tokens from over 350 exchanges. For more information, visit https://www.coingecko.com . Contact: Jennifer Spencer Jennifer@energentmedia.net SOURCE: Crypto Briefing View source version on accesswire.com: https://www.accesswire.com/553070/Crypto-Briefing-Announces-Partnership-with-CoinGecko-in-Transparency-Bid || Bitcoin: The route to $10 million: A Reddit user has posted his version of the maths required for a future $10 million Bitcoin valuation. His assumptions are based on a number of factors including the global amount of millionaires, a $260 trillion stock and derivative market, and Bitcoins intrinsically scarce supply schedule. BuyBitcoinWhileItsLo started his post by reminding people about the fundamental fact that only 21 million Bitcoins will ever exist, and that unlike the dollar (which can be printed continuously forever), a Bitcoin is infinitely divisible So no matter how expensive one coin gets, infinite fractions of it can be purchased and used. They all cant grab a full Bitcoin BuyBitcoinWhileItsLo estimated that there are 36 million millionaires in the world today, and by the time every one of them tries to grab a full Bitcoin when it becomes a must-have investment, there wont be enough for all of them. In the Reddit post which was titled My best attempt to simplify the math of a 10 million dollar Bitcoin the user predicted that this would easily push one coin past 1 million dollars in value when they [the millionaires] try to grab a whole coin. Regarding traditional markets, he said there is $260 trillion in the global stock markets through stocks and derivatives, or what others call institutional money. Once Bitcoin is allowed to be traded for stocks, that $260 trillion is open to be put behind Bitcoin. The Reddit user said that when this happens: $260 trillion divided by 21 million Bitcoins puts one Bitcoin over $10 million a coin, or $12 million a coin to be exact. This will likely happen in our lifetime. That makes every dollar invested even at an $11,000 price could be worth $1,000 in possibly 10 years at this rate. Scarcity by design Moving on to the topic of Bitcoins supply schedule, BuyBitcoinWhileItsLo said: Every four years the distribution of Bitcoin going out gets cut in half. So in the first four years 10.5 million Bitcoins went out, and the demand was small so the price was cheap it went from less than a penny in 2009 to $1,000 in 2013 when it first halved. Story continues Thats where we are now. So currently only 5.25 million Bitcoins are going out, which is why the price is running up since investors know this, and they always start to buy before a halving to grab coins before there is less to go out. Never buy during all-time highs The Reddit user said: The next halving is next year summer 2020. After that, only 2.125 million Bitcoins will be going out with $10 trillion in institutional markets being opened up. The potential is anywhere from $100,000 to $500,000 in the short term by late 2020 or early 2021, then another 80+% drop as usual. The Bitcoin bull concluded: At the current prices, youre in a good position to be fine after the next correction/drop thatll come after the upcoming halving skyrockets the price. I for one wont stop accumulating till we break $20,000. My golden rule is to never buy during all-time highs. The post Bitcoin: The route to $10 million appeared first on Coin Rivet . || Mike Novogratz: Bitcoin Will Stabilize Between $10,000 and $14,000: Galaxy Digital founder and crypto enthusiastMike Novogratzhas predicted that Bitcoin’s (BTC) price will stabilize between $10,000 and $14,000, in aninterviewwith CNBC on June 27.
Delivering his comments on CNBC’s Squawk Box show, Novogratz forecast that the leading digital currency will consolidate in the corridor between $10,000 and $14,000. Referring to Facebook’s entry into crypto with Libra, Novogratz said:
“One of the largest companies in the world said we believe incryptocurrencies. [...] If you’re an institutional investor who’s getting close and still worried about investing, it makes you that much more confident.”
Novogratz’s comments follow Bitcoin’s pricefallby $1,400 yesterday, June 26. Bitcoin lost the figure within minutes after a crash ofUnited States-based cryptocurrency trading platformCoinbase.
The crash came on the heels of yesterday’s rally in which Bitcoin surpassed both the$12,000and$13,000price marks in a matter of hours.
Novogratz also commented onFacebook’sforthcoming stablecoinLibra, saying that “The Libra association will have a hundred votes, so it will be distributed. Maybe not decentralized. They plan on decentralizing over time.” Novogratz further added:
“What is tricky is the Facebook wallet which is where they will make their money. It will probably be a large part of commerce that is done on that blockchain.”
On May 31, Novogratzstatedthat “on a go-forward basis, Bitcoin probably consolidates somewhere between $7,000 and $10,000,” and added:
“If I’m wrong on that, I think I’m wrong to the upside, that there’s enough excitement and momentum that it could carry through.”
This week, many commentatorsarguedthat Bitcoin’s price surge was due to Facebook’s announcement of Libra; however Bitcoin was already trading above $9,000 when Facebook formally unveiled its Libra cryptocurrency protocol. Craig Erlam, a senior market analyst at the financial trading firm Oanda stated:
“Bitcoin has slowly – by its own standards – been rising in recent months but the launch of Facebook’s Libra has clearly been a catalyst for the recent surge.”
Other sources meanwhile agreed about Facebook’s limited role, but lacked faith in Bitcoin itself, Bloomberg calling current enthusiasm “the return of a speculative dream.”
• Bitcoin Breaks $13,000 As Rally Continues
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• Mike Novogratz’s Galaxy Digital to Launch Crypto Options Contracts Trading: Report
• Ripple CEO: Bitcoin and XRP Aren’t Competitors — I’m Long BTC || Here’s Why Bitcoin Is Plunging Today: What happened Bitcoin (BTC-USD) and most other cryptocurrencies are under pressure on Tuesday, continuing a multiday downward trend. The leading cryptocurrency lost 14% of its value over the 24-hour period that ended at 3 p.m. EDT, and is trading 23% lower than it was a week ago. Bitcoin is now trading below the key $10,000 level. As would be expected, bitcoin-linked investments such as the Greyscale Bitcoin Trust (NASDAQOTH: GBTC) were trading lower by similar percentages. Bitcoin in palm of businessman's hand. So what Regulatory uncertainty has been a driving force behind some of bitcoin's sharpest downward moves, and this time, the murkiness comes from right here in the United States. In response to Facebook's (NASDAQ: FB) plans to spearhead the release of the Libra cryptocurrency , several high-profile government officials have spoken out about the dangers of cryptocurrencies. President Trump recently denigrated them, describing them in a tweet as assets "which are not money, and whose value is highly volatile and based on thin air." Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, and a number of lawmkaers have also spoken out about their concerns regarding cryptocurrencies. Now what The proximate cause for Tuesday's drop was likely a Senate hearing about the safety and legitimacy of cryptocurrencies. A particularly troubling point from the standpoint of cryptocurrency investors is that the criticism is bipartisan -- it's not just the Trump administration and congressional Republicans who are concerned about digital currencies. For example, Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) said with regard to Facebook's Libra plans, "we would be crazy to give them a chance to experiment with people's bank accounts, to use powerful tools they don't understand like monetary policy to jeopardize hardworking Americans' ability to provide for their family." It is unclear what if anything will come out of all of the recent hearings and commentary, but one thing is for sure -- cryptocurrency investors dislike regulatory uncertainty, and that was reflected in the price declines Tuesday. Story continues More From The Motley Fool 10 Best Stocks to Buy Today The $16,728 Social Security Bonus You Cannot Afford to Miss 20 of the Top Stocks to Buy (Including the Two Every Investor Should Own) What Is an ETF? 5 Recession-Proof Stocks How to Beat the Market Randi Zuckerberg, a former director of market development and spokeswoman for Facebook and sister to its CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors. Matthew Frankel, CFP has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Facebook. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy . || Craig Wright's Bitcoin SV is a 'Total Ghost Town': Analyst: Citing data that demonstrates that over 86% of allBitcoin SVvolume originated from just 100 transactions, analyst Kevin Rooke told Twitter that Craig Wright's petcryptoproject is a “total ghost town.”
Indeed, the stated purpose of the Bitcoin SV fork is tohave the capacity for millions of transactions, making the base layer of the cryptocurrency to be competitive with the likes of Visa or Mastercard. This the reason Bitcoin SV developers want blocks that arepotentially gigabytes in sizeand argue that big data centers should be able to handle the traffic.
While it may be true that big data centers can handle the transaction volume, people immediately become concerned about the centralization that comes with such a barrier to entry.
Inevitably, it requires a lot of money to run a mining outfit that has to handle potentially thousands of gigabytes per week. You then have to serve them out, which requires even more bandwidth. Nevermind getting synced up with the network in the first place.
Read the full story on CCN.com. || Turkey’s New Economic Roadmap Calls for Central Bank Cryptocurrency: An economic road map unveiled by the government of Turkey this week includes several items related to blockchain, including a bid to create a central bank digital currency based on the technology. The Eleventh Development Plan, published on the government’s official website, was submitted to the Turkish Parliament on July 8, according to regional reports. It covers the period between 2019 and 2023, and is broadly intended to serve as a guiding point for improving Turkey’s economy. The wide-ranging plan covers an array of subjects, but notably states that a “blockchain-based digital central bank money will be implemented,” according to a translation. Related: Where Crypto Exchanges Are Beating the Bear Market The document also indicates that legal and technology infrastructure will be fostered by the government in an effort to utilize blockchain for “transport and customs” purposes. Additionally, blockchain is mentioned as one of a number of new approaches, including artificial intelligence and connected devices — also known as the Internet of Things — that will be used to enhance public services. In this latter case, it’s not clear at this time how blockchain will be utilized. Few details of the proposed cryptocurrency are known, but the country has been entertaining the idea of a national digital asset, Turkcoin , since at least early 2018. According to reports at the time, the idea was pitched by lawmaker Ahmet Kenan Tanrikulu, the deputy chair of Turkey’s Nationalist Movement Party and the country’s former Industry Minister. The news that the central bank of Turkey will develop a blockchain-based currency comes days after Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, fired its governor, Murat Cetinkaya. According to the Financial Times , Erdogan said this week that the central bank will provide a greater degree of support to the economy. Other elements of the Eleventh Development Plan, while not directly related to cryptocurrency and blockchain, could ultimately impact businesses working in those areas. Story continues Related: Swiss Startup to Produce ‘Banknotes’ for Marshall Islands’ Official Cryptocurrency For example, the government plans to introduce a Regulatory Experiment Area, an Association of Payment Services and Electronic Money Institutions, and the Istanbul Finance and Technology Base. Turkish banks have long partnered with crypto exchanges, though these institutions often impose strict listing and on-boarding policies. Image Credit: sefayildirim / Shutterstock.com Related Stories Bitcoin Price Hits 7-Month High Against Turkish Lira Volumes Surge on Turkey’s Crypto Exchanges as Lira Tanks
[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
Crypto Panic: Coinbase Faces Negligence Charges Over Botched Bitcoin Cash Launch https://t.co/LPULESvwA5 🙋Crypto Cashflow via → https://t.co/2p1Vt5799c https://t.co/J8aT3ZP7hg || BTC
逆三尊のネックライン付近で保ち合いがかなり長期間に渡って続いています。
この三尊が決まるか落とすかの違いは今後の動きを大きく左右するので当然の結果ではあります。
値動きが収束してきているため方向性が決まるときは近いです。 || Did you say "Lamboooo" ? 🏎️
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🕐11/08/2019 07:07 PM
💵Dolar en BsS : 14581.01⬇
🔶BTC Compra en BsS : 156,935,474⬆
--NUEVOS INDICADORES --
🇪🇺Euro : 16878.51⬇
🇨🇴Peso Col : 0.25⬇
🇵🇪Soles : 3716.68⬇
🇨🇱Peso Chile : 17.0469⬇ || La ‘revolución’ del || @fangeluci @TradingTemple satoshi price. not dollar price. the dollar price will always track bitcoin
|
Trend: down || Prices: 10131.06, 10407.96, 10159.96, 10138.52, 10370.82, 10185.50, 9754.42, 9510.20, 9598.17, 9630.66
|
Analyze the provided historical prices, technical indicators, news, and social media sentiment from the last 60 days. Based on this context, predict the overall trend (up, down, or no change) and the specific daily closing prices for Bitcoin for the next 10 days.
|
[Technical Analysis for 2019-02-06]
BTC Price: 3413.77, BTC RSI: 36.89
Gold Price: 1309.50, Gold RSI: 64.00
Oil Price: 54.01, Oil RSI: 56.09
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
Denmark’s Tax Agency Targets 2,700 Nationals for Hiding Bitcoin Trades: Skattestyrelsen (SKAT), the Danish tax agency, has accelerated crackdown against a large number of nationals who secretly traded bitcoin on a Finnish crypto exchange.
According to information shared by the Swedish Tax Agency, a total of 2,700 Danes purchased circa $5.80 million worth of bitcoins from the exchange but sold them back for $6.1 million in local currency. That marks approximately $12 million worth of bitcoin trading that went unreported between the financial years of 2015 and 2017.
Karin Bergen, the directorate at SKAT, confirmed that they are reviewing the figures as of now and will go after every individual that ignored to mention their offshore bitcoin trades.
“If you have traded with bitcoins on the specific Finnish bitcoin exchange and have not specified any winnings, then you can hear from us so we can get your taxes in place,” she warned.
Local media reportsindicatethat Danish tax inspectors and IT specialists are carefully studying the gains and losses made by bitcoin traders. It finds that while some traders invested inadequately in the crypto space with amount lesser than 10,000 Kroner, a notable number among all also purchased and sold cryptocurrencies for amounts exceeding 1 million Kroner.
“There are two types of trades,” explained Ole B. Sørensen, chairman of the personal data department of SKAT. “One is what I want to call a curious trade, which is about a few thousand dollars. And then there are those who have been trading for some enormous amounts.”
Reports also indicate that SKAT has already contacted the big whales involved in institutional-level bitcoin trading activity. The tax agency also plans to go after more such individuals in the coming months.
“It’s probably just the tip of the iceberg,” said Bergen. “Although the Finnish company is a relatively small bitcoin exchange, the information they have revealed is a precious source, which clearly shows trends and patterns in the area.”
Danish nationals who have traded bitcoin over the years are now caught in a legal gray zone which, in the utmost consequence, may inadvertently put them in line with the law.
Payam Samarghandi, a lawyer and bitcoin expert from Denmark, confirmed that bitcoin is a taxable asset in the country. According to the 1903 Tax Act, the Danish tax agency imposes charges when a property is purchased and sold again for profits. An expensive painting or vase, for instance, resembles how bitcoin taxation functions under the jurisdiction of SKAT.
“It’s a little bit like Kählervasen, a vase whose value increased five years after the first purchase,” Samarghandi explained. “At the time of purchase, the owner didn’t need to pay any tax on it. But when he sold it for at a significantly increased rate, then the profits he made became taxable.”
But again, a painting or a vase cannot be transferred online as a payment. SKAT realizes that it would be a difficult task for them to categorize bitcoin holders into those who speculate on the digital currency and those who utilize it.
Louise Schack Elholm, who is also a member of the Tax Council, said that there might be instances where bitcoin and other virtual currencies get purchased for purposes other than speculation.
“But,” she added, “it will be in sporadic cases.”
Featured image from Shutterstock.
The postDenmark’s Tax Agency Targets 2,700 Nationals for Hiding Bitcoin Tradesappeared first onCCN. || New US Chief of Staff: Bitcoin is Good, ‘Not Manipulable by Any Government’: mick mulvaney trump administration bitcoin crypto This week, following the scheduled leave of John F. Kelly, United States President Donald Trump has chosen the pro-Bitcoin Mick Mulvaney to serve as the acting White House Chief of Staff beginning 2019. According to the Washington Post columnist Matt O’Brien , Mulvaney has been vocal about his support of Bitcoin (BTC) and in a speech covered by Mother Jones praised the decentralized nature of Bitcoin as a consensus currency. In 2016, Mulvaney reportedly said that the Federal Reserve “effectively devalued the dollar” and emphasized that the exercise of such control is not possible with a cryptocurrency like Bitcoin that is “not manipulable by any government.” Is it Good For Bitcoin? Having a high profile official and an influential member of the Trump administration is certainly positive for the long-term growth of the asset class. While the neutral stance of Mulvaney towards the cryptocurrency sector could affect the mindset of regulators and lawmakers in the U.S. to a certain extent, it realistically cannot have a short-term impact on the roadmap implemented by commissions like the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) or the Commodities and Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). The presence of pro-Bitcoin and crypto officials in the U.S. government, however, could encourage other government officials to evaluate cryptocurrencies in a neutral way and analyze the benefits that the decentralized financial systems can bring. In Sept. 2017, the central bank of Finland , for instance, released a research discussion that explicitly described the inefficiency of regulating blockchain protocols. The research concluded that Bitcoin is not and cannot be regulated because the protocol operates under strict rules implemented by the community sustained by miners, developers, and node operators. The paper read : “Bitcoin is not regulated. It cannot be regulated. There is no need to regulate it because as a system it is committed to the protocol as is and the transaction fees it charges the users are determined by the users independently of the miners’ efforts. Bitcoin’s design as an economic system is revolutionary and therefore would merit an economist’s attention and scrutiny even if it had not been functional. Its apparent functionality and usefulness should further encourage economists to study this marvelous structure.” Story continues As seen in the paper of the central bank of Finland, it is possible for a central bank or a government to analyze the structure of Bitcoin in a neutral manner and create practical regulatory frameworks around it without restricting the growth of companies in the industry. Currently, in regards to Bitcoin and even Ethereum , the SEC has clarified that Bitcoin is not considered a security under existing laws, essentially approving the infrastructure surrounding it. Over the past several months, the SEC in the U.S. and other authorities in the global market have been primarily working on the integration of strict Know Your Customer (KYC) policies to eliminate money laundering in the cryptocurrency market. Neutral Evaluation The existence of a high ranking government official in the U.S. government that understands the purpose of digital currencies could have a long-lasting effect on the cryptocurrency industry and could encourage others to evaluate the asset class under a different light. However, as the New York Post reported on Dec. 16, Mulvaney once described President Trump as “a terrible human being,” triggering political analysts to question how long the new chief of staff can remain in office. Mick Mulvaney Image from Gage Skidmore/ Flickr The post New US Chief of Staff: Bitcoin is Good, ‘Not Manipulable by Any Government’ appeared first on CCN . || Bitcoin And Ethereum Daily Price Forecast Crypto Market Trades in Green on News Driven Momentum: Cryptocurrency market gained positive price action today as news hit the market that a request for ETF approval has been submitted to SEC once again by Van Eck, CBOE collaboration parties. While I had mentioned in an article earlier this week they may not submit a request anytime soon owing to the possibility of another partial government shutdown owing long time duration required for such progress and this update has come as a surprising move. Most investors in the market didnt expect this move and this has increased investors hopes today as VanEck/CBOE group has clearly mentioned that their request meets with minimum requirement standards expected by SEC and so the product is likely to be approved. Rangebound Action Continues Despite Bullish Bias Given CBOE was first to officially debut Bitcoin futures on huge level in U.S.A, traders hope that an approval will bring in fresh wave of fund flow boosting the price action in broad market. With news driven momentum providing some level of support to crypto bulls in broad market, Bitcoin and major legacy pairs have taken positive price action. But it remains to be seen if this will grow up to be an event providing fundamental support or is it yet another attempt of dead cat bounce. As of writing this article BTC/USD pair is trading at $3456.7 up by 0.85% on the day. Bitcoin is currently trading well within range despite price action hinting at bullish bias in broad market. Given investors skeptics towards crypto coins owing to multiple dead cat bounce attempts amid lack of fundamental support, todays news-driven momentum failed to act as a trigger to help major crypto assets stage a bullish breakout. While some of major legacy Cryptos saw sharp gains, both Bitcoin and Ethereum continue to see subdued price action. As of writing, ETH/USD pair is trading at $107.14 up by 0.88% on the day and it needs to breach strong resistance at $110 handle and sustain a rally above-mentioned price handle for investors to gain any semblance of positive price action. This article was originally posted on FX Empire More From FXEMPIRE: Crude Oil Price Forecast crude oil continues to press major resistance Gold Price Forecast Gold markets sluggish on Friday EUR/USD Price Forecast Euro rallies again towards highs Gold Weekly Price Forecast Gold markets in the week facing resistance EUR/USD Weekly Price Forecast Euro tests resistance again for the week GBP/USD Price Forecast British pound finding buyers View comments || Oops! South Korean Crypto Exchange Accidentally Sends Traders $5 Million in Bitcoin: ByCCN.com: Did you ever dream of waking up in the morning to unexpectedly find a vast amount of cash miraculously appearing in your account? That is what recently happened to users of a prominent South Korean crypto exchange.
Coindesk Koreahas reported that the Korean crypto exchange Coinnest has accidentally airdropped over $5 million in bitcoin and Korean won and is looking how to reclaim their misdirected funds.
Coinnest has announced it has accidentally sent 6 billion Korean won worth of bitcoin, which equates to $5.3 million, to the accounts of traders. The Korean crypto exchange was attempting to airdrop We Game Tokens (WGT), but somehow their wires got crossed and they wrongly airdropped bitcoin instead in a catastrophic blunder.
Amidst the madness, Coinnest also accidentally sent some Korean won to users but has been trying to roll back their servers to recover their losses. As expected, some account holders saw the crypto and withdrew it right away.The exchangeis now asking their users to return the misdirected funds. Coindesk Korea also noted that because so many Coinnest users were scrambling to withdraw their surprise winnings that it crashed the bitcoin price on the site to almost $50.
The server issues were apparently fixed on Jan 19, with approximately half of the Korean won already returned. At this point in time, Coinnest does not have any plans to compensate anyone for the losses, although we believe the issue is not yet over.
This is not the first time Coinnest havemade the crypto newsdue to blunders and buffoonery. In the first quarter of 2018, theKorean crypto exchangewas caught up in a scandal where their former chief executive Kim Ik-hwan was suspected of allegedly embezzling billions of Korean won from client’s accounts and transferring them to his own accounts.
The Coinnest board of directors swiftly acted to remove their former president and continued to apologize to their users for any negative impact they had experienced due to the alleged embezzlement.
Kim Ik-hwan was arrested and questioned by local Korean authorities, but the outcome of the case seemed to evaporate into the ether and has remained very quiet ever since.
It seems that Coinnest and controversy go hand in hand. As of yet, no-one from the exchange has answered our questions pertaining to the misguided airdrop. But we will keep you up to date on any developments.
The postOops! South Korean Crypto Exchange Accidentally Sends Traders $5 Million in Bitcoinappeared first onCCN. || Bitcoin Cash – ABC, Litecoin and Ripple Daily Analysis – 31/12/18: Bitcoin Cash ABC gained 0.62% on Sunday, following a 6.95% fall on Saturday, to end the week down 17.71% to $161.15.
A particularly range bound day, by Bitcoin Cash ABC standards, saw Bitcoin Cash ABC hover at around the 38.2% FIB Retracement Level of $163 through the day.
An early morning intraday low $156.54 saw Bitcoin Cash ABC hold above the first major support level at $155.26 to recover to a late morning intraday high $164.52.
Unable to break through to $165 levels, Bitcoin Cash ABC fell short of the first major resistance level at $169.93 to end the week below the 38.2% FIB, while managing to hold onto $160 levels.
At the time of writing, Bitcoin Cash ABC was down 2.77% to $156.69, a bearish morning seeing Bitcoin Cash ABC fall from a start of a day morning high $162.09 to an early morning low $156.69, Bitcoin Cash ABC falling through the first major support level at $156.95 early on in the day.
For the day ahead, a move back through the first major support level to $160 levels would support a move through the morning high $162.09 to bring the first major resistance level at $164.93 into play later in the day, though sentiment across the broader market would need to improve for Bitcoin Cash ABC to recover early losses.
Failure to move back through to $160 levels could see Bitcoin Cash ABC take a bigger hit later in the day, a pullback through to $153 levels likely to bring the second major resistance level at $152.76 into play before any recovery.
Litecoin gained 3.07% on Sunday, partially reversing Saturday’s 4.91% decline, to end the week down 4.59% at $31.56.
A bullish morning saw Litecoin rally from a start of a day intraday low $29.95 to strike a late morning intraday high $31.95 before easing back to a range bound 2ndhalf of the day.
Moves through the day left the day’s major support and resistance levels untested, with a late afternoon pullback to sub-$31 levels finding plenty of support to move back through to $31 levels.
At the time of writing, Litecoin was down 2.03% to $30.92, with moves through the morning seeing Litecoin fall from a start of a day morning high $31.62 to a morning low $30.6 before steadying.
Litecoin came within range of the first major support level at $30.36, whilst falling well short of the first major resistance level at $32.36.
For the day ahead, a move back through to $31 levels would support a recovery, bringing Sunday’s high $31.9 into play. For Litecoin to break through to $32 levels to test the day’s first major resistance level, sentiment across the broader market would need to materially improve however.
Failure to move back through to $31 levels could see Litecoin struggle through the rest of the day, with a fall through the morning low $30.6 to the first major support level at $30.36 likely to bring $29 levels and the second major support level at $29.15 into play before any recovery.
Ripple’s XRP gained 1.84% on Sunday, partially reversing a 3.66% slide on Saturday, to end the week up 2.57% to $0.38236.
Tracking the broader market through the day, Ripple’s XRP recovered from a start of a day intraday low $0.36847 to strike a late morning intraday high $0.38268 before easing to $0.37 levels.
The moves through the day left the major support and resistance levels untested, with a late in the day rise seeing Ripple’s XRP move back through to $0.38 levels by the day’s end.
At the time of writing, Ripple’s XRP was down 3.62% to $0.36850, a broad based crypto reversal leading Ripple’s XRP from a start of a day morning high $0.38961 to a morning low $0.36635 before finding support.
In a choppy start to the day, Ripple’s XRP broke through the first major resistance level at $0.3871 before hitting reverse to slide through the first major support level at $0.3730 to come within range of the second major support level at $0.3637.
For the day ahead, a move back through the major support levels to $0.3780 would be needed to bring $0.38 levels and the first major resistance level at $0.3871 back into play before any pullback, with sentiment across the broader market needing to materially improve to support an afternoon rebound.
Failure to move through the major support levels could see Ripple’s XRP struggle through the remainder of the day, with $0.35 levels and the third major support level at $0.3497 in play should sentiment fail to improve.
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Thisarticlewas originally posted on FX Empire
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• Bitcoin Cash – ABC, Litecoin and Ripple Daily Analysis – 31/12/18
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• USD/JPY Fundamental Weekly Forecast – Despite Dovish Tone From BOJ, Yen Supported by Safe-Haven Demand || If Apple Is a Services Business, It Needs to Start Reporting Like One: Last month, Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) CFO Luca Maestri told investors the company will no longer report hardware unit sales going forward. "The number of units sold in any 90-day period is not necessarily representative of the underlying strength of our business," Maestri said on the company's fourth-quarter earnings call . This may have been a long time coming for Apple. Management has been pushing investors to focus on its growing services business, which generated over $37 billion in revenue for the company last year. That makes it the company's second-biggest segment after iPhone. Giving investors more information about services and the metrics driving services revenue may finally shift the focus from how many iPhones Apple sold in the last 90 days to how strong its ecosystem is. A woman holding an iPhone Xs and an umbrella in the rain. Image source: Apple. One number Apple is definitely reporting next quarter While investors won't see how many of the latest iPhones and iPads Apple sold during the holiday season, they will get a glimpse at a number they've never seen before. Apple will report cost of sales for each of its reporting segments including services. This will be the first time investors get a glimpse at services gross margin, and Maestri said, "We believe it is an important metric for our investors to follow." Apple's services gross margin is likely well over 50%; analysts' consensus estimate is 56%. That number is probably trending upwards, otherwise it's unlikely the company would've chosen to report it. For reference, Apple's overall gross margin last year was 38.3%. Reporting gross profits for each segment will enable Apple to shift the focus to profit growth instead of revenue growth, of which services is a much bigger contributor. What investors might hope for Apple only promised to provide gross margin details for its reporting segments, but investors can hope for more. It's unlikely the company will provide a complete quantitative picture of its user base, but additional qualitative commentary would be useful to cement the shift in focus. Story continues Investors might get an update on the installed base. "Our installed base is growing at double digits," CEO Tim Cook said on the fourth-quarter earnings call. "That's probably a much more significant metric for us from an ecosystem point of view and the customer loyalty." The last update was 1.3 billion active devices Apple announced with its first-quarter results released earlier this year. Additional details like unique users, churn rate or switch rate, and lifetime value of a customer would be very useful for thinking of Apple as a services business. Breaking out things like App Store downloads, Apple Music subscribers , iCloud customers, or subscription services might give investors a clearer picture of what's going on in the services business, too. It's quite a wish list, but Apple has given at least some commentary around most of those metrics at some point. Management knows its decision to stop reporting unit sales didn't go over so well , so it might try to make it up to investors with additional details while not committing to regularly reporting those numbers. Shifting the focus to profits Apple's main goal with its decision to stop reporting unit sales and start reporting gross margin on its segments is to shift the focus to profits. If it can do that, it won't have to worry about the impact of a bad quarter of iPhone sales on its stock price. That's especially pertinent in a smartphone market where unit sales are practically saturated, and unit growth is hard to come by. Instead, Apple's management can move the focus to how much profit it's making off of each active user. It can show investors how much each customer is worth to the company in terms of service attachments and expected lifetime value. That's something long-term investors have been focusing on for a long time now, but the rest of the market refuses to give up its obsession with unit sales every quarter. Apple's management is making that decision for them now. More From The Motley Fool 3 Growth Stocks at Deep-Value Prices 5 Expected Social Security Changes in 2018 6 Years Later, 6 Charts That Show How Far Apple, Inc. Has Come Since Steve Jobs' Passing 10 Best Stocks to Buy Today The $16,122 Social Security Bonus You Cannot Afford to Miss Bitcoin's Biggest Competitor Isn't Ethereum -- It's This Adam Levy owns shares of Apple. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Apple. The Motley Fool has the following options: long January 2020 $150 calls on Apple and short January 2020 $155 calls on Apple. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy . || Crypto value unproven, blockchain years away from mainstream: JP Morgan: By Tom Wilson
LONDON (Reuters) - The value of cryptocurrencies is unproven and the widely-hyped blockchain technology that grew out of them will not make any real difference to banks for at least three to five years, JP Morgan analysts said on Thursday.
The comments underscored widespread scepticism about the assets by established finance firms, while offering some succor for advocates of blockchain who are still waiting to see it take root.
Last year bitcoin, the original and biggest digital coin, lost nearly three quarters in value, putting the brakes on cautious curiosity from mainstream finance and investors that emerged during its vertiginous ascent in 2017.
JP Morgan said it was skeptical of the value of cryptocurrencies - suggesting the assets would only make sense in a dystopian scenario where investors have lost all faith in gold, the dollar, other major reserve assets and the global payments system.
"Even in extreme scenarios such as a recession or financial crises, there are more liquid and less-complicated instruments for transacting, investing and hedging," it said in a report on on crypto and blockchain.
Using bitcoin futures trading volumes as a proxy, JP Morgan said participation by financial institutions in crypto markets had slipped over the last six months, with individuals taking up an increasing share of the market.
Pension funds and asset managers have largely stayed clear, despite some advances in market infrastructure that have seen safer methods to store digital money emerge, with most worried about volatility, security flaws and propensity for illicit usage.
The usage of cryptocurrencies for payments - the intended purpose of bitcoin - will remain "challenged," JP Morgan said, adding that it was unable to pinpoint any major retailers that accepted digital coins in 2018.
Marketplaces where small businesses and individuals have control over payment methods would prove most fertile ground for the spread of cryptocurrencies, it said, citing a Reuters analysis of the usage of bitcoin in commerce.
Bitcoin, which stood at around $3,565 in afternoon trade, is likely to have cost support at around $2,400, and could fall below $1,260 if a bear market persists, JPMorgan said.
The New York-based bank struck a more optimistic tone on blockchain.
The shared ledger technology, which can process and settle transactions in minutes without third-parties for checks, has the potential to cut costs for global banks and digitalize complex process, it said.
Trade finance would likely benefit from blockchain, the bank said, cautioning that the lack of integration between private platforms could present a stumbling block for wider use.
(Reporting by Tom Wilson; Editing by Andrew Heavens) || Over 90% of Monero’s Block Reward Has Been Mined: cryptojacking monero webcobra There will be a total of 18.4 million Monero’s XMR coins in circulation by May 31, 2022. And the project has already mined more than 90% of it. Per data available at MoneroBlocks.info, a Monero blockchain explorer, the privacy-enabled cryptocurrency have emitted close 16.6 million XMR. As the emission forms parity with the total supply, the Monero project will switch to a new supply program, dubbed as tail emission . The project’s earlier announcements indicate that miners will obtain a consistent mining reward of 0.6 XMR per block that would likely maintain the overall security and integrity of Monero blockchain. “Miners need an incentive to mine. Because of the dynamic blocksize, competition between miners will cause fees to decrease,” Moneropedia explained . If mining is not profitable due to a high cost and low reward, miners lose their incentive and will stop mining, reducing the security of the network. Similar to Bitcoin’s working model, Monero also reduces the supply of its XMR tokens that are thrown into circulation through mining. As of now, the project offers the reward of 3.41 XMR per block, and it is programmed to go lower with each block mined until it reaches 0.6 XMR. A Replacement Cryptocurrency? Monero’s tail emission plan somewhat attempts to challenge the token supply mechanism of bitcoin, the world’s leading digital currency by adoption and market capitalization. Bitcoin network will mine a total of 21 million coins in its lifetime. By 2040, it would have drilled 99.8% of all bitcoins, while the remaining 0.2% will spread out across the next 100 years. monero India cryptocurrency So, the only way bitcoin miners will be earning any incentives is by on-chain transaction fees or through dominant assurance contracts. Bitcoin network is already practicing an off-chain solution in Lightning Network , where users don’t pay commissions to miners for settling every bitcoin transaction. If the practice continues to exist as a long-term solution to bitcoin’s scalability, then miners would be least interested in confirming transactions on its main chain. It’s called the Tragedy of the Commons . Story continues In the absence of miners, the bitcoin blockchain would be less secure than it is today. After all, it is the miners that have kept it cheat-proof all this time. Monero, on the other hand, will keep its supply consistent to incentivize miners all its lifetime. The foresightedness hints that the privacy cryptocurrency is preparing itself for a long game, perhaps to be among the few cryptocurrencies that would replace bitcoin if it fails to innovate. That said, the demand for XMR should be higher to suit its deflationary model. Images from Shutterstock. The post Over 90% of Monero’s Block Reward Has Been Mined appeared first on CCN . || Bakkt Makes Initial Hiring Push for Bitcoin Futures Exchange: Ahead of its hotly anticipated launch, bitcoin futures exchange Bakkt has launched a hiring campaign. Eight new job posting were published Tuesday on the company’s website. Bakkt is looking for several experienced software developers, including mobile and blockchain developers; an institutional sales manager with experience in North America or Asia; and three higher-level positions including a director of finance, director of security engineering and director for blockchain engineering. An institutional-grade regulated exchange for crypto derivatives founded by the Intercontinental Exchange (the New York Stock Exchange’s parent company), Bakkt was expected to go live on December 12 last year, but the launch was postponed twice. Bitcoin Futures Market Bakkt Makes Its First Acquisition It was initially delayed to until January 24 , with the company citing a need for “additional time for customer and clearing member onboarding.” It is now delayed indefinitely while the exchange waits for the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) to grant an exemption for Bakktâs plan to custody bitcoin on behalf of its clients. The ongoing government shutdown  has contributed to the delay. The CFTC needs at least 30 days for a public comment period, plus however much time may be needed to review the comments and make a decision once this period concludes. It is unclear when this comment period may begin. However, Bakkt’s team hasn’t been sitting idly by waiting for the green light: it closed a $182.5-million funding round and acquired “certain assets” belonging to Rosenthal Collins Group (RCG), an independent futures commission merchant, earlier this month. The deal, involving RCG’s staff and technology, was supposed to help Bakkt improve its risk management, anti-money-laundering (AML), know-your-customer (KYC) and treasury operations, Bakkt CEO Kelly Loeffler said in announcing the acquisition. $182 Million: ICE’s Bitcoin Startup Bakkt Announces Massive Fundraise Her most prominent hire to date has been Adam White , one of the longest-serving employees at industry unicorn Coinbase, who joined Bakkt as chief operating officer last year. From left: CoinDesk advisory board chairman Michael Casey, Bakkt CEO Kelly Loeffler and Intercontinental Exchange CEO Jeff Sprecher at Consensus: Invest 2018. Image via CoinDesk archives Related Stories Launch of Bakkt Bitcoin Futures Market May Get Postponed Again ICE Founder: ‘We’re Kind of Agnostic’ on Bitcoin’s Price View comments || Bitcoin Price Will Crash to Zero Says Calvin Ayre: Former Bitcoin Cash advocate Calvin Ayre predicts that the flagship cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, will plunge to zero in 2019 because it’s worthless. But never fear, he said, because Bitcoin Cash Satoshi Vision (BSV) will be there to save the day.
Interestingly, Ayre insists that the Bitcoin price is being deliberately deflated right now in order to stamp it out of existence. He did not offer any proof to back up his dubious claim.
“I am predicting it to go to zero value [in 2019], as it has no utility,” Ayre toldExpress UK. “It does not do anything, and they intentionally are anti-scaling.”
Ayre — who’s known for his controversial bluster — said Bitcoiners need not worry when their preferred crypto goes down in flames, because Bitcoin SV will happily take its place.
“Bitcoin — the technology and economic model — are alive and well with Bitcoin SV, and it’s going to have an amazing year,” he vowed.
Despite the fact that Bitcoin Cash is a derivative of Bitcoin, Ayre insists that the original cryptocurrency is an impostor and that Bitcoin SV is the “real bitcoin.”
Ayre’s fellow Bitcoin SV advocate — Australian crypto entrepreneur Craig Wright — agrees. “[BTC] is a sham bitcoin,” Wright toldExpress UK. “SV is what bitcoin was, and is the only way it works.”
Reminder: Bitcoin Cash — the fourth-largest cryptocurrency — was created in August 2017 after the original Bitcoin underwent a hard fork.
As CCN reported, a crypto civil war broke out in November 2018 when Bitcoin Cash (BCH) underwent itscontentious hard fork.
The fork resulted in feuding Bitcoin Cash camps:
• Bitcoin ABC (Adjustable Blocksize Cap): This group adheres to the “official” Bitcoin Cash road map, which is supported by most node operators, and is endorsed by Bitcoin Cash proponentRoger Verand Jihan Wu, co-founder of Bitcoin mining giant Bitmain.
• Bitcoin SV (Satoshi’s Vision): This faction is backed by Australian entrepreneurCraig Wrightand Calvin Ayre, the owner of CoinGeek, the largest Bitcoin Cash mining pool.
After the BCH hard fork, the price of the original Bitcoin tanked, bringing the rest of the market down with it.
Many in the crypto community blamed Ayre for forcing the hard fork that precipitated the market crash. But Ayre denies that he staged the hard fork in order to damage Bitcoin.
“The hard fork was a distraction, but the downturn is because the SegWit coin that’s erroneously still called ‘Bitcoin’ now follows the old-fashioned financial trends,” Ayre said. “It’s also because people wrongly focus on market cap, when it should be about scalability and actual usability.”
If anything, Ayre blames the Bitcoin ABC camp for the current market woes.
“There is no question that the hash dumping that the ABC conspirators did — in violation of the Nakamoto Consensus Rules that run Bitcoin — destabilized the markets even more.”
Ayre then reiterated his claim that unlike BTC, Bitcoin SV is a currency with real utility, and is not merely an asset.
Meanwhile, Bitcoin evangelists remain ever-bullish about the original cryptocurrency and believe 2019 will be a watershed year.
Jeremy Allaire — the co-founder of Circle, a peer-to-peer payments technology company backed by Goldman Sachs — predicts thatbitcoin prices will rocketover the next three years.
No matter what its daily price is, Allaire insists that bitcoin will play a “very significant role” in the future as a non-sovereign store of value.
“The key thing with bitcoin is that it is unique in its security and its scale,” Allaire explained. “As an idea that we need a scarce, non-sovereign store of value that individuals can hold in a protected fashion — that’s attractive all around the world.”
Allaire said he has no doubt that Bitcoin will survive the current downturn and will thrive over the long haul. “It’s certainly going to be worth a great deal more than it’s worth today,” he said. “I am long in the market.”
Featured image from Shutterstock. Calvin Ayre portrait from LinkedIn.
The postBitcoin Price Will Crash to Zero Says Calvin Ayreappeared first onCCN.
[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
free to them to follow the wrong fork....free to them to choose to follow a fork that would remove one of the most important features of the btc ... || bloody oath they would :) || yea but do you know how to sell those ASK coins or can i earn BTC for example instead? || Current Bitcoin Price
All Forks = $3,370.42 0.27%
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$BTC = $3,274.00 0.23%
$BCH = $81.62 0.24%
$BTG = $11.27 -1.88%
$BCD = $0.73 -0.03%
$SBTC = $1.80 5.53% || 🎉💰💰Find More People Who Get Rewards of BTC in Wheel of Fortune!
👉https://t.co/AtUqfPF9Lx👈 || I'm Dan the Man and I'm a professional bitcoin farmer. || NO DEPOSIT! €10 FREE! + 20 FREESPINS + 200% BONUS.
#casino #bonus #freespins #nodeposit #win #slots #tat #bitcoin. Claim here: http://ow.ly/ZcT050kggCJ pic.twitter.com/kPBJZcaZg4 || @TrustWalletApp any chances to have a BTC wallet import implemented soon? || Buy bitcoin
https://twitter.com/SFGate/status/1085684400975540225 … || #Doviz
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#USD : 5.3579
#EUR : 6.1091
#GBP : 6.9323
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#BTC
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#Gobaba : 19762.25
#BtcTurk : 19576.00
#Koinim : 19699.00
#Paribu : 19577.00
#Koineks : 19779.93
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Trend: up || Prices: 3399.47, 3666.78, 3671.20, 3690.19, 3648.43, 3653.53, 3632.07, 3616.88, 3620.81, 3629.79
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Analyze the provided historical prices, technical indicators, news, and social media sentiment from the last 60 days. Based on this context, predict the overall trend (up, down, or no change) and the specific daily closing prices for Bitcoin for the next 10 days.
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[Technical Analysis]
Not fully available.
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
Why Is Bitcoin Going Up, and Will It Crash Soon? What’s Next as Price Doubles to $40K: Bitcoin’s prices reached an all-time high of above $40,000 less than a month after breaking $20,000 for the first time. Since the start of the most recent rally, ostensibly begun in October, its value has increased fourfold. So for pros and newbies alike, or if you want to be the cryptocurrency expert at your next Zoom party, it’s natural to ask: Why are prices going up, and will bitcoin crash? Bitcoin was invented just 12 years ago as a new type of electronic payment system, built atop an Internet-based computing network that no single person, company or government could control. The reality is the bitcoin cryptocurrency’s trading history is so short, with methods for valuing the asset still largely untested, that nobody really knows for sure what it should be worth now or in the future. Related: Market Wrap: Bitcoin Crosses $41.9K as Ether Futures Interest Grows 85% So Far in 2021 That hasn’t stopped digital-asset investors or even Wall Street analysts from putting out price forecasts ranging from $50,000 to $400,000 or beyond . Based on CoinDesk’s reporting, here are a few key reasons why bitcoin prices have recently rallied: Demand from institutional buyers, many of them eyeing bitcoin as a hedge against inflation . The cryptocurrency is seen as a hedge against inflation because, under the network’s original programming, only 21 million bitcoins can ever be created; so there’s a contrast with central banks like the Federal Reserve that can decide based on a committee vote to print more money. Big asset managers including Tudor Investment and Guggenheim Partners have announced bitcoin purchases or wagered on prices using futures contracts on the Chicago-based CME exchange. Even old-line Wall Street firms such as Morgan Stanley have weighed in with bullish pronouncements. Analysts at JPMorgan Chase, the biggest U.S. bank, recently predicted a price of $146,000 over the long term. The U.S. dollar’s decline in foreign exchange markets . The U.S. Dollar Index, a gauge of the dollar’s value against major world currencies like the euro and Japanese yen, slid 6.8% in 2020 and is down again in 2021. That’s key for bitcoin because the cryptocurrency’s price is mostly denominated in U.S. dollars. Possible reasons for the greenback’s decline include the Federal Reserve’s $3 trillion-plus of money printing over the past year, which is roughly three-quarters of the entire amount previously created in the U.S. central bank’s 108-year history. Images of protestors storming the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday probably didn’t burnish America’s leadership role on the global stage, and now many economists are predicting that big spending plans under a Democratic-controlled government would lead to new stimulus bills and potentially outsize government budget deficits for years to come. Much of those extra costs could be financed through additional Fed money printing. Retail purchases . Many individuals are speculating on bitcoin prices, and it’s become increasingly easy to buy bitcoin, with big services like PayPal enabling purchases last year. Analysts for the digital-asset firm ByteTree noted this week that blockchain data appear to show a high concentration of bitcoin purchases in the amount of $600 – the same amount as the American stimulus checks sent out in the latest U.S. coronavirus emergency aid package. Story continues All this may have led to a tremendous rally over the past few months. But could bitcoin prices crash? Of course they could, several analysts told CoinDesk. The cryptocurrency’s price is notoriously volatile, and substantial and unexpected price swings aren’t uncommon. Below is a sampling of comments from cryptocurrency analysts and other financial experts on how a pullback might look, and what might cause it. Bitcoin “has been and remains extremely volatile,” said Joe DiPasquale, CEO, BitBull Capital, a cryptocurrency-focused hedge fund. As recently as Monday, he noted, after prices had climbed to a new all-time high, they tumbled almost $7,000. “What causes this is that people can use lots of leverage, so they can easily get washed out.” He sees a correction as possible, though there appear to be plenty of interested buyers around $28,000, so that level might function like a price support. There hasn’t been a single year since 2013 when prices have not fallen at least 25% from a high point reached earlier in that year, said Gavin Smith, CEO of the digital-asset firm Panxora. He said he wouldn’t be surprised to see bitcoin prices rise to $70,000 or $80,000, nor a setback of 40%. Medium term, he’s bullish: “Over a three-year period, this is a great asset.” But over the long term, there’s a risk that technological developments could overtake bitcoin. “Even with quantum computing, there’s nothing on the horizon that indicates that could happen,” he says, “but it’s always dangerous to completely ignore the risk.” Bitcoin prices could rally two to three times from their current level before falling back to about where they are now, said Mike Venuto, co-portfolio manager of the Amplify Transformational Data Sharing exchange-traded fund, which invests in blockchain-related stocks. That would imply a retracement of more than two-thirds from that hypothetically new all-time high. “What’ll cause a crash more likely is overexuberance on the upside. I don’t think we’re there yet.” “There will be swings, and yes, the swings will be wild,” said Denis Vinokourov, head of research for the cryptocurrency prime broker Bequant. “You have a lot of retail flow that tends to panic.” He sees prices going up in the long term, at least partly based on the bullish expectations of big Wall Street firms. “Can it go to $4,000? Yes.” One potential trigger for a rapid sell-off could be any actions brought by authorities against the company behind tether (USDT), a privately issued, dollar-linked digital token known as a “stablecoin” that has become a key source of liquidity in digital-asset markets. New York State prosecutors are currently battling Tether in court due to its finances. “The history of financial markets is the history of bubbles,” said James Angel, Georgetown University finance professor. He notes that authorities could move to crimp the bitcoin rally if they start to get worried that it’s becoming a threat. “Almost everybody who tries to start their own money does so in competition with a national currency, and it usually gets shoved aside by regulators.” “While we’re currently seeing an unequivocal expression in the market’s bullish sentiment, a correction could well be on the horizon,” said Sui Chung, CEO of CF Benchmarks, a cryptocurrency provider. “This is a natural part of market mechanics. While it may dampen near-term enthusiasm, it will ensure future price rises remain grounded.” “There is likely to be profit taking along the way, causing temporary dips,” said Guy Hirsch, managing director for the U.S. at the trading platform eToro. “But given the extraordinary amounts of adoption by institutions, it would be a surprise if bitcoin dropped below $20,000 any time soon.” Related: BRRR: Biden Readies a New $3T Stimulus Package So for the Zoom party, you can tell them: Yes, according to the experts, a crash is probably coming but that’s typical for bitcoin, and if history is any guide, prices will probably recover. Just don’t tell them when. Related Stories Why Is Bitcoin Going Up, and Will It Crash Soon? What’s Next as Price Doubles to $40K Why Is Bitcoin Going Up, and Will It Crash Soon? What’s Next as Price Doubles to $40K || LYFT Gains on Upbeat February Ride Volumes & Improved Q1 View: Lyft, Inc. LYFT provided a bullish update on its February ride trends and improved its adjusted EBITDA loss forecast for the first quarter of 2021. This drove shares of the company 4.3% higher in after-market trading on Mar 2.In a SEC filing, dated Mar 2, the company revealed that average daily rideshare rides increased 4% month over month in February despite ride volumes in the week ending Feb 21, being impacted by severe winter storms. Excluding this weather-related impact for the week ending Feb 21, average daily rideshare ride volume increased 5.4% from that in January. On a further positive note, the week ending Feb 28 recorded the highest volume of rideshare rides since March 2020.The company stated that, “Using actual rideshare ride volume for January and February and applying February’s average daily rideshare ride volume to the 31 days in March implies first quarter rideshare ride volume would be down 1.2% quarter-on-quarter.” This is better than its previous forecast during the fourth-quarter conference call when it stated that first-quarter rideshare rides might decline 4% sequentially by applying ”January’s average daily rideshare ride volume to the 90 days in the first quarter”.
Lyft, Inc. price | Lyft, Inc. Quote
Nevertheless, Lyft continues to expect first-quarter average daily rideshare ride volumes to rise sequentially. Further, the company anticipates rideshare ride volume to reflect year-over-year growth starting from the week ending Mar 21, 2021. The company expects the growth to continue throughout the year, provided COVID-19 conditions do not worsen.However, due to the prevalent pandemic, Lyft estimates first-quarter rideshare rides to be either flat or decline slightly from the fourth quarter of 2020. The downside is because the first quarter of 2021 has two fewer days compared to the fourth quarter of 2020.Additionally, the company estimates adjusted EBITDA loss to be $135 million in the first quarter, better than its previous outlook in the range of $145 million-$150 million. The improved outlook is owing to its cost-control measures and the expectation of contribution margin at the top end of 51-51.5%.
Lyft carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). Some better-ranked stocks in the Internet - Services space areEtsy, Inc. ETSY,Shopify Inc. SHOP andFacebook, Inc. FB. While Shopify sports a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy), Etsy and Facebook carry a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). You can seethe complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.While shares of Etsy and Shopify have rallied more than 100% each in a year’s time, Facebook’s shares have gained more than 35%.
Blockchain and cryptocurrency has sparked one of the most exciting discussion topics of a generation. Some call it the “Internet of Money” and predict it could change the way money works forever. If true, it could do to banks what Netflix did to Blockbuster and Amazon did to Sears. Experts agree we’re still in the early stages of this technology, and as it grows, it will create several investing opportunities.Zacks’ has just revealed 3 companies that can help investors capitalize on the explosive profit potential of Bitcoin and the other cryptocurrencies with significantly less volatility than buying them directly.See 3 crypto-related stocks now >>
Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days.Click to get this free reportEtsy, Inc. (ETSY) : Free Stock Analysis ReportShopify Inc. (SHOP) : Free Stock Analysis ReportTo read this article on Zacks.com click here.Zacks Investment Research || Bitcoin Tops $40K for First Time, Doubling in Less Than a Month: Causing observers to run out of superlatives and Google users to query about whether a crash is coming, bitcoins price topped $40,000 for the first time Thursday, only hours after the leading cryptocurrency blew past $38,000 and $39,000. The price of bitcoin set a new-all time high of $40,123.30, up 13.45% over the last 24 hours. Yesterday, bitcoin passed $36,000 and $37,000 for the first time before rocketing today past $38,000, $39,000 and now $40,000. It continues a wild start to 2021 and follows a landmark year in which the cryptocurrency rose more than 300%, with an almost 50% gain in December alone. On Nov. 30, bitcoin breached a nearly three-year-old high of $19,793. By the close of Dec. 31, the cryptocurrency had risen about $10,000. Seven days into 2021, bitcoin is on pace to put Decembers performance to shame. Its now up 36%, or about $11,000. Bitcoins price is now more than twice that previously mentioned all-time high of $19,783 reached during 2017s bull market run. The prevailing narrative of this record-setting run is a growing view that bitcoin represents a form of digital gold, a view that has brought a flood of institutional investors into the cryptocurrency. Among them: Anthony Scaramuccis Skybridge Capital ( $182 million in December); insurance giant MassMutual ( $100 million in December); and Guggenheim Investments ( up to 10% of its $5 billion macro fund). The latest records, however, may have more to do with the storming of the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday by President Donald Trumps supporters believing the election was rigged and upset by the certification process that was underway than with any inflation hedge. Global macro uncertainty has the potential to devalue fiat currencies, which in turn could potentially increase the attractiveness of bitcoin. A disputed election followed by protestors breaking into the Capitol with at least one person being shot and killed would seem to fall under the category of uncertainty. In addition, with the Democrats now in control of both the House and the Senate in the U.S. the chance of increased government spending is viewed as going up. Increased spending is considered a possible source of inflation, against which bitcoin is viewed as a hedge. With a market value now of $746 billion, bitcoin is more valuable than all but seven publicly traded companies, sitting between Tesla at $758.8 billion and Tencent at $723.0 billion. The markets supply of dollar-pegged stablecoins is keeping pace with bitcoins meteoric rise. Since New Years Eve, the supply of tether has growth by over 10%, reaching 22.7 billion USDT at last check. Total supply of the runner-up stablecoin, Circles USDC , has also grown by double-digit percentages so far in January, currently sitting at 4.4 billion USDC, according to Glassnode . Story continues UPDATE (Jan. 7, 13:10 UTC): Adds new all-time high, fixes current price. UPDATE (Jan. 7, 16:21 UTC): Adds new all-time high. Related Stories Bitcoin Tops $40K for First Time, Doubling in Less Than a Month Bitcoin Tops $40K for First Time, Doubling in Less Than a Month Bitcoin Tops $40K for First Time, Doubling in Less Than a Month Bitcoin Tops $40K for First Time, Doubling in Less Than a Month || Stock market news live updates: Nasdaq ends at a record high while Dow, S&P 500 end six-session winning streak: Stocks ended mixed on Tuesday, with the S&P 500 and Dow ending a six-session winning streak while the Nasdaq powered to a record high.
[Click here to read what’s moving markets heading into Wednesday, February 10]
The S&P 500 ticked just below the flat line, and the Dow ended a choppy session lower. The Nasdaq eked out record intraday and closing highs, closing above 14,000 for the first time ever. The small-cap Russell 2000 extended its winning streak to seven consecutive sessions and also closed at a record level.
Bitcoin prices (BTC-USD) surged more than 10% to close in on $48,000, adding to a record-setting rally triggered after Tesla (TSLA)disclosed it had purchased $1.5 billion worth of the cryptocurrencyearlier this week.
Prospects for more stimulus out of Washington have remained a major driver of equities over the past week. Congressional committees this week are set to work out details of the legislation for another virus-relief package, which is expected to include another round of$1,400 stimulus checks,hundreds of billions of dollars in state and local aid and an extension to enhanced federal unemployment benefits beyond their current March end date. Goldman Sachs economists increased their 2021 and 2022 annual U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) growth forecasts by 0.2 percentage points each to 6.8% and 4.5%, respectively, amid their expectations for an eventual stimulus package worth $1.5 trillion, according to a note Monday.
But even in absence of additional stimulus, corporate America has already been showing signs of a stronger-than-expected rebound, with fourth-quarter earnings results blowing past estimates. More than three-quarters of S&P 500 companies have so far reported earnings results, and 66% have beaten expectations for both sales and profit, according to a Bank of America analysis.
“Corporate earnings have defied a shrinking economy: 4Q EPS [earnings per share] for the S&P 500 is now up 0.3% YoY vs. -2.5% YoY in GDP,” Bank of America strategist Savita Subramanian wrote in a note Monday. Heading into fourth-quarter earnings season, consensus analysts expected that S&P 500 companies would, in aggregate, post another earnings decline.
Companies including Twitter (TWTR) and Lyft (LYFT) are among the companies to report quarterly earnings results after market close on Tuesday.
“There’s a lot of tailwinds for the markets right now. One is the so-called stimulus package ... it is relief, and it will provide a sugar high, so it’s good for the markets in the near-term,”Greg Swenson, Brigg Macadam founding partner, told Yahoo Finance.
“But you’ve also got earnings [that] have been fantastic, and you seem to see consistent revisions upward on earnings and good results” he added. “You’ve got pent-up demand – I think that’s the most important thing to consider. You’ve had a massive increase in the savings rate since the beginning of the pandemic. So you’ve got a lot of consumer pent-up demand, a lot of savings that’s sitting on the sidelines waiting to either buy stocks ... but also just get back to work in the private economy.”
—
Here were the main moves in markets as of 4:02 p.m. ET:
• S&P 500 (^GSPC): -4.31 (-0.11%) to 3,911.28
• Dow (^DJI): -10.00 (-0.03%) to 31,375.76
• Nasdaq (^IXIC): +20.06 (+0.14%) to 14,007.70
• Crude (CL=F): +$0.35 (+0.60%) to $58.32 a barrel
• Gold (GC=F): +$1.90 (+0.10%) to $1,836.10 per ounce
• 10-year Treasury (^TNX): -0.3 bps to yield 1.1570%
—
The three major indexes were mixed in intraday trading Tuesday, with the S&P 500 still slightly lower while the Dow and Nasdaq increased.
The S&P 500 was on track to decline for the first time in seven sessions, after hitting a record high a day earlier. The energy, consumer discretionary and materials sectors lagged, while industrials, communication services, real estate and financials held higher.
A 2% jump in shares of Boeing helped lead gains in the Dow, after the company outpaced competitor Airbus on monthly deliveries for the first time in two years,according to new data on the company’s website.Boeing handed over 26 aircraft in January, versus 21 for Airbus.
—
Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden (D-Oregon) told Yahoo Finance Live on Tuesday that he is aiming to help pass another robust virus relief package by mid-March, when unemployment benefits reauthorized under Congress’s $900 billion package in December are set to expire.
“Anything else would be absolutely unacceptable. To have those workers … fall into another economic abyss would just be wrong,” Wyden said.
Wyden also said he was pushing for the $1,400 stimulus checks included in President Joe Biden’s original $1.9 trillion proposal to get advanced.
“People who got the first two checks are expecting a third. And the fact is, the pandemic has hit these families like a wrecking ball,” he said. “They’re just balancing the food bill against the fuel bill and the fuel bill against the rent bill.”
“I am for the original Biden proposal, $1,400 threshold,” he added. “We’re going to have a pretty vigorous debate all the way through the process.”
—
The number of U.S. job openings unexpectedly increased to the highest level since July in December, and openings for November were upwardly revised.
Job openings in December totaled 6.645 million,the U.S. Labor Department said Tuesday.This beat expectations for 6.4 million job openings, according to Bloomberg consensus data. Job openings had totaled 6.572 million in November.
By industry, job openings in professional and business service industries increased by the most at 296,000. Job openings notably decreased in state and local government, in the arts and in nondurable goods manufacturing.
—
The three major indexes opened lower Tuesday, giving back some gains after hitting record highs a day earlier. The S&P 500 ticked down about 0.2% but buoyed over 3,900. The Dow shed about 100 points, or 0.3%, as shares of Disney, Visa and Boeing dipped. The Nasdaq outperformed, ticking just 0.1% below the flat line.
—
Here’s where markets were trading Tuesday morning:
• S&P 500 futures (ES=F): 3,902.5, down 5.5 points or 0.14%
• Dow futures (YM=F): 31,207.00, down 61 points or 0.2%
• Nasdaq futures (NQ=F):13,667.75, down 15.25 points or 0.11%
• Crude (CL=F): -$0.06 (-0.1%) to $57.91 a barrel
• Gold (GC=F): +$10.10 (+0.55%) to $1,844.30 per ounce
• 10-year Treasury (^TNX): -0.5 bps to yield 1.155%
—
Here’s where markets were trading Monday evening as overnight trading kicked off:
• S&P 500 futures (ES=F): 3,908.75, up 0.75 points or 0.02%
• Dow futures (YM=F): 31,285.00, up 17 points or 0.05%
• Nasdaq futures (NQ=F):13,677.5, down 5.5 points or 0.04%
—
Emily McCormick is a reporter for Yahoo Finance.Follow her on Twitter: @emily_mcck
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For tutorials and information on investing and trading stocks, check out Cashay || Don’t Overlook the ‘Golden Opportunity’ in Alteryx Stock: Shares of data analytics provider Alteryx (NASDAQ: AYX ) have been hammered amid the recent tech sector meltdown, as a sharp rise in long-term yields has put significant downward pressure on growth stock valuations. From its early February highs, AYX stock has plunged nearly 40%. The Alteryx (AYX) logo is displayed on a smartphone screen. Source: rafapress / Shutterstock.com That’s a steep drop in a stock that has very strong fundamentals. Ultimately, this drop will turn into a golden buying opportunity. I’m not saying AYX stock will reverse course right now and charge higher. The tech sector selloff is a bloodbath, and bloodbaths like this tend to take some time to shake out. But, what I am saying is that Alteryx is a fundamentally strong company, and that relative to the company’s healthy long-term growth prospects, AYX stock is significantly undervalued today. InvestorPlace - Stock Market News, Stock Advice & Trading Tips That means that if time is on your side, AYX stock looks like a great buy at currently depressed prices. Silicon Valley Whiz Kid Reveals #1 Tech Stock in America Here’s a deeper look. AYX Stock: Hammered on Short-Term Fears AYX stock has been hammered over the past few weeks because of fears related to a sharp rise in long-term bond yields. The basic thinking is that, as long-term yields rise, equity valuations will correct lower, because stocks and bonds are competing investment vehicles, so as bond yields rise, the required rate of return on stocks rises, too. The Amazon of House: This Stock Is Like Buying Amazon in 1997 That thinking makes a ton of sense. And if yields were to rise forever, then I’d say growth stocks like AYX stock will keep plunging. But yields aren’t going to rise forever. Instead, it looks like the 10-year Treasury yield will max out around 2% over the next few years. Here’s the thinking. Historically, the 10-year Treasury yield has very closely tracked the sum of the 3-month Treasury yield (a proxy for inflation which the Federal Reserve controls with its target interest rate) plus real GDP growth. This relationship is unmistakably strong. Importantly, the 10-year yield has historically never surpassed the 3-month yield plus real GDP growth unless during a time of significant economic contraction (and therefore, negative GDP growth). Story continues Click to Enlarge Source: St. Louis Fed The Fed has reiterated multiple times that they will not move on interest rates anytime soon. Thus, the 3-month Treasury yield will remain near-zero for the foreseeable future. Real GDP growth is expected to jump to 4% this year in a sharp “bounce-back” year. But normalizing out for Covid-19 noise, real GDP growth in 2022 and after is expected to hover around 2%. Thus, normalized, the 10-year yield should settle around 2% and remain there for most of 2022 and 2023. We are at 1.5% today. By my math, then, yields have another 50 basis points to go over the next 24-plus months. That’s a slow and steady grind higher. To that end, I think we’re close to the end of the surge in long-term yields. Once the bond market calms down, I fully expect growth stocks like AYX stock to bounce back. Alteryx Still Supported by Strong Fundamentals Ignoring interest noise for a second, Alteryx is still supported by strong fundamentals. Data-driven decision making is the future of the business world. Alteryx provides an end-to-end platform, which enables this data-driven decision making, by giving enterprises the analytics and tools necessary to turn raw mountains of messy data into clean, actionable insights. Importantly, Alteryx does this in a friendly, low-code, easy-to-learn and easy-to-use software environment. That is, you don’t need to be a data scientist or have a computer science degree in order to make use of the Alteryx platform. Alteryx enables regular Joes to make advanced data-driven decisions. That’s big, because most companies don’t have big data skills . All the data scientists in the world are going to work for Facebook (NASDAQ: FB ) and Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT ), while only 6% of large companies and very few small businesses employ even a single data scientist. So, as we pivot into a data-driven future, most companies are going to lean into low-code, easy-to-use data science platforms to help them make data-driven decisions. Alteryx is the best-in-breed provider of these solutions — and, to that end, the company is going to sell a lot of enterprise seats to its data science platform over the next several years. The company just hit a rough spot amid the pandemic because businesses leaned up their budgets. But we have multiple highly-effective Covid-19 vaccines that are being distributed rapidly, and it increasingly appears that “normal” is coming back at some point in 2021/22. As “normal” returns, businesses will re-up their budgets, and the Alteryx growth narrative will once again fire on all cylinders. So, all in all, the fundamental growth narrative underlying Alteryx remains promising. Alteryx Stock Is Undervalued I cannot tell you exactly when the selloff in Alteryx stock will end. But, what I can tell you is that — even after factoring in higher rates — Alteryx stock is woefully undervalued relative to the company’s long-term earnings growth potential. Thanks to the company’s attractive positioning in the hypergrowth data analytics market, I see Alteryx growing revenues at 15%-plus pace over the next decade. The company’s business model is all software, so it’s highly scalable and lends itself to big profit margins in the long run. By 2030, I think it’s likely that EBITDA margins pop to 35%. On those assumptions, my modeling suggests that AYX stock is worth at least $120 today. Alteryx stock may not rebound back to those levels right away. But the fundamentals eventually and inevitably always win out. Thus, whenever this stock market bloodbath does end, I do think Alteryx stock will end up soaring back above $120. Bottom Line on AYX Stock The tech sector meltdown has created multiple great buying opportunities for long-term investors. AYX stock is one of the best stocks to buy amid this meltdown. But it’s not the best growth stock to buy on the dip. Instead, the best growth stock to buy today is a company that reminds me of a young Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN ). Indeed, I think buying this stock today could be like buying AMZN stock back in 1997 — before it soared thousands of percent. Which stock am I talking about? Click here to watch my first-ever Exponential Growth Summit to find out the name, ticker symbol, and key business details of this potential 10X stock pick. On the date of publication, Luke Lango did not have (either directly or indirectly) any positions in the securities mentioned in this article. By uncovering early investments in hypergrowth industries, Luke Lango puts you on the ground-floor of world-changing megatrends. It’s how his Daily 10X Report has averaged up to a ridiculous 100% return across all recommendations since launching last May. Click here to see how he does it. More From Hypergrowth Investing Silicon Valley Whiz Kid Reveals #1 Tech Stock in America With the Lucid Motors Merger Confirmed, CCIV Stock Is Your 10X Opportunity 7 Explosive Cryptocurrencies to Buy After the Bitcoin Halvening 15 EV Stocks to Buy as GM Goes All-Electric The post Don’t Overlook the ‘Golden Opportunity’ in Alteryx Stock appeared first on InvestorPlace . || Stock Market Today: New Stimulus Plan Fails to Stimulate Stocks: A week of drowsy trading got no lift from the latest prospect of more government spending. President-Elect Joe Biden on Thursday evening unveiled a $1.9 trillion "American Rescue Plan" that includes a number of provisions , including $1,400 stimulus checks, supplemental unemployment benefits and a $15-per-hour federal minimum wage . SEE MORE 11 Small-Cap Stocks the Analysts Love for 2021 And yet, stocks went red on Friday. Perhaps Wall Street had already baked in all of its expectations for the much-anticipated plan. Or perhaps the market remained distracted by COVID itself, which is still taking a hefty toll here in the U.S. as the vaccine rollout seems to crawl forward. Also of some concern was the start of the Q4 earnings season – mixed results from Citigroup ( C , -6.9%) and Wells Fargo ( WFC , -7.8%) weighed on those stocks and the rest of the financial sector. The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed 0.6% lower to 30,814, and the rest of the major indices followed suit. Other action in the stock market today: The S&P 500 took a 0.7% spill to 3,768. The Nasdaq Composite broke back below 13,000, dropping by 0.9% to 12,998. The Russell 2000 dropped hard off its all-time high, losing 1.5% to 2,123. Gold futures weren't exempt, dipping 1.3% to settle at $1,827.80 per ounce. U.S. crude oil futures finally cooled off, losing 2.4% to $52.31 per barrel. Bitcoin prices, at $39,633 on Thursday, plunged more than 10% to $35,579. (Bitcoin trades 24 hours a day; prices reported here are as of 4 p.m. each trading day.) Tesla ( TSLA , -2.2%) shares declined after receiving a Street-high $950 price target from Wedbush analyst Daniel Ives, but not a Buy recommendation . stock chart for 011521 SEE MORE The 11 Best Growth Stocks to Buy for 2021 Turbulence Ahead? While optimistic about 2021 overall, many analysts predicted some bumpiness, especially in Q1, and we might be at the onset of one such rough patch. "We have fairly high conviction in two things," says Canaccord Genuity equity strategist Tony Dwyer. "Conditions remain ripe for a temporary correction that should give back much of what has been gained since late last year, and when it comes, investors are likely to believe it is something more sinister than an overbought correction." Story continues One thing that stood out clearly Friday was a flight to income-producing equities. Within the Dow itself, three of the five best performers were so-called "Dogs" – the industrial average's highest-yielding stocks as of the start of the year. Business development companies (BDCs) , a high-yielding but low-traffic area of the market, also outperformed. And real estate, much maligned in 2020, earned some attention Friday. Real estate investment trusts (REITs) are well-known among income investors given their mandate to turn over at least 90% of their taxable profits via cash distributions to their shareholders. Many of them currently sport higher-than-normal yields after a difficult 2020, making them a one-two punch of income and rebound potential once the American economy settles back onto its track. Check them out. Kyle Woodley was long Bitcoin as of this writing. SEE MORE The 21 Best Stocks to Buy for 2021 || Binance Becomes Limited Partner in Multicoin Capital Crypto Fund: Binance is joining the ranks of Ribbit Capital, Union Square Ventures and Marc Andreessen as backers of Multicoin Capital, a cryptocurrency investment firm based in Austin, Texas. Its the first such investment for the global crypto exchange, which has previously backed early-stage projects through its Binance Labs venture arm. The amount of the investment was not disclosed. We have worked with Multicoin Capital on several occasions, mainly to identify, incubate and invest in several early-stage blockchain projects, Binance wrote in a blog post published Tuesday. With this new investment, we affirm our conviction in Multicoins process and expertise as fund managers. Related: Market Wrap: Bitcoin Continues Choppy in High $40Ks Amid Market Indecision A spokesman for Multicoin said Binance is joining an open-end hedge fund. The firm most recently revealed a sizable bet on THORChains RUNE token. We have invested thousands of hours researching Binance and can say unequivocally that it is one of the most strategically important infrastructure providers in the blockchain ecosystem, Multicoin Capital managing partner Tushar Jain said in a statement. This investment represents a major vote of confidence for our firm and a significant responsibility that we are prepared to take on. Related Stories Binance Becomes Limited Partner in Multicoin Capital Crypto Fund Binance Becomes Limited Partner in Multicoin Capital Crypto Fund Binance Becomes Limited Partner in Multicoin Capital Crypto Fund View comments || WallStreetBets Fever Hits Dogecoin, Price Soars 142%: The price of dogecoin (DOGE) more than doubled overnight around the time a popular Twitter account from a WallStreetBets trader mentioned the meme-loving cryptocurrency in a tweet. The Reddit-based trading community known as r/WallStreetBets discusses stock and options trading and has made headlines in recent days after causing havoc in the financial market by pumping stock and causing major headaches for short sellers. The “WSB Chairman” Twitter account, which has quickly gained almost 400,000 followers and says it is not associated with the Reddit group, tweeted Thusday: “A lot of you are talking about Dogecoin. What’s that? A meme crypto?” In another tweet they asked: “Has Doge ever been to a dollar?” Related: Retail Traders Sue Robinhood Over Meme Stock Restrictions According to a Bloomberg report , members of Reddit group SatoshiStreetBets were also excitedly egging on the DOGE action. In response, the price of the Shiba Inu meme-based cryptocurrency shot up as much as 142%, from $0.007 to $0.017 in under two hours, according to CoinDesk 20 data. At press time, Thursday, DOGE was trading lower at $0.012. The WallStreetBets Reddit community has in particular focused on GameStop (GME), driving its share price up nearly 900% in five days to around $347 on Wednesday. Amid signs of potential regulatory scrutiny over its actions, the message board has since been taken private by its moderators leaving followers searching for information on other social media sites. The U.S. Securities Exchange Commisison (SEC) released a notice on Wednesday not directly acknowledging the group’s activity, but stating it is “reviewing” the “ongoing market volatility.” Related: Blockchain Bites: DOGE Chases After GameStop, Guggenheim Doubts $30K Bitcoin DOGE’s latest price spike is reminiscent of a sharp rise last summer as videos on TikTok encouraged users to invest in the cryptocurrency. And, on Jan. 3, adult star Angela White tweeted she had been a HODler of DOGE, prompting many of her 1.3 million followers to push the price up as much as 203%. Story continues Read more: DOGE’s Gone Wild! Meme Coin Soars After Adult Star Says She’s a HODLer Related Stories WallStreetBets Fever Hits Dogecoin, Price Soars 142% WallStreetBets Fever Hits Dogecoin, Price Soars 142% || Bitcoin, crypto inflows hit record last week - CoinShares: By Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Investment flows into cryptocurrency funds and products hit a record $1.31 billion last week after a few weeks of small outflows, as investors took advantage of the decline in bitcoin and other digital asset prices, according to the latest data on Monday from asset manager CoinShares.
Total assets under management (AUM) in the industry slipped to $29.7 billion as of Jan. 22, from an all-time peak of $34.4 billion on Jan. 8. At the end of 2019, the total AUM was just $2 billion.
Grayscale, the world's largest digital currency manager, posted assets under management of $24 billion last week, down from $28.2 billion on Jan. 8. CoinShares, the second largest crypto fund, managed assets of $2.9 billion in the latest week, also down from $3.4 billion on Jan. 8.
"We believe investors have been very price conscious this year due to the speed at which prices in bitcoin achieved new highs," said James Butterfill, investment strategist, at CoinShares.
"The recent price weakness, prompted by recent comments from Secretary of the U.S. Treasury Janet Yellen and the unfounded concerns of a double spend, now look to have been a buying opportunity with inflows breaking all-time weekly inflows," he added.
Bitcoin dropped to a low of $28,800 on Friday, after scaling an all-time peak of $42,000 on Jan.8. It was last down 0.5% at $32,124.
About 97% of inflows went to bitcoin, the data showed, with Ethereum, the second largest cryptocurrency, posting inflows of $34 million last week.
So far this year, volumes in bitcoin have been considerably higher, trading an average of $12.3 billion per day, compared to $2.2 billion in 2020.
Glassnode, which provides insight on blockchain data, said in a report on Monday that bitcoin's net unrealized profit/loss (NUPL) was getting close to exceeding the "belief" range and moving into the "euphoria" range.
Previously, when NUPL entered this range, it signaled a global top in bitcoin's price.
(Reporting by Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss; Editing by Richard Chang) || ALT 5 Sigma Digital Instrument Market Summary for BTC, ETH, LTC, BCH: NEW YORK, NY / ACCESSWIRE / January 11, 2021 /ALT 5 Sigma Inc. an emerging leader in blockchain powered financial platforms provides its daily digital instruments market summary for Bitcoin (BTC/USD), Ether (ETH/USD), Litecoin (LTC/USD).
Real-Time Market Data is available atwww.alt5pro.comand Real-Time Market Data feed is also available atwww.alt5sigma.com
ALT 5 Sigma Digital Instrument Market Summary for BTC, ETH, LTC, BCH
[["Digital Asset", "Pair", "Price", "24hr Chg", "7d Chg", "24/hr Volume", "MarketCap"], ["Bitcoin", "BTC/USD", "$33,393.47", "-$0.11", "$0.05", "$114,851 M", "$621,038 M"], ["Ethereum", "ETH/USD", "$1,019.93", "-$0.19", "-$0.02", "$56,203 M", "$116,488 M"], ["XRP", "XRP/USD", "$0.28", "-$0.11", "$0.19", "$9,643 M", "$12,605 M"], ["Litecoin", "LTC/USD", "$128.14", "-$0.24", "-$0.16", "$16,805 M", "$8,488 M"], ["Bitcoin Cash", "BCH/USD", "$437.17", "-$0.26", "$0.08", "$15,060 M", "$8,132 M"], ["Stellar", "XLM/USD", "$0.24", "-$0.17", "$0.50", "$2,219 M", "$5,238 M"], ["Bitcoin SV", "BSV/USD", "$185.12", "-$0.25", "$0.11", "$3,424 M", "$3,447 M"], ["Monero", "XMR/USD", "$157.77", "-$0.04", "$0.18", "$2,610 M", "$2,810 M"], ["EOS", "EOS/USD", "$2.57", "-$0.15", "-$0.08", "$6,063 M", "$2,412 M"], ["Dash", "DASH/USD", "$118.15", "-$0.16", "$0.34", "$2,889 M", "$1,171 M"]]
About ALT 5 Sigma Inc.
ALT 5 is a fintech company specializing in the development and deployment of digital assets trading and exchange platforms. Alt 5 was founded by financial industry specialists out of the necessity to provide the digital asset economy with security, accessibility, transparency and compliance.
ALT 5 provides its clients the ability to buy, sell and hold digital assets in a safe and secure environment deployed with the best practices of the financial industry. ALT 5's products and services are available to Banks, Broker Dealers, Funds, Family Offices, Professional Traders, Retail Traders, Digital Asset Exchanges, Digital Asset Brokers, Blockchain Developers, and Financial Information Providers.
ALT 5's digital asset custodian services are secured by GardaWorld. GardaWorld is the world's largest privately-owned business solutions and security services company, offering cash management services.
For more information, visitwww.alt5sigma.com.
CONTACT:
Andre BeauchesneTel. 1-800-204-6203info@alt5sigma.com
For more information on ALT 5 Pay, visitwww.alt5pay.comFor more information on ALT 5 Pro, visitwww.alt5pro.com
SOURCE:ALT 5 Sigma Inc.
View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/623863/ALT-5-Sigma-Digital-Instrument-Market-Summary-for-BTC-ETH-LTC-BCH
[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
None available.
|
Trend: up || Prices: 52246.52, 54824.12, 56008.55, 57805.12, 57332.09, 61243.09, 59302.32, 55907.20, 56804.90, 58870.89
|
Analyze the provided historical prices, technical indicators, news, and social media sentiment from the last 60 days. Based on this context, predict the overall trend (up, down, or no change) and the specific daily closing prices for Bitcoin for the next 10 days.
|
[Technical Analysis for 2020-07-21]
BTC Price: 9374.89, BTC RSI: 56.02
Gold Price: 1842.40, Gold RSI: 69.72
Oil Price: 41.96, Oil RSI: 63.72
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
Why Facebook's WhatsApp Launched Its Payments Service In Brazil: Facebook Inc(NASDAQ:FB)-owned WhatsApp has launched its first rollout of payments on the platform in Brazil.
What Happened:Facebooksaysit has built payments with security in mind, and a special six-digit PIN or fingerprint will be required to prevent unauthorized transactions. The service is free for consumers to use.
Users will need to link their WhatsApp account with aVisa Inc(NYSE:V) orMastercard Inc(NYSE:MA) credit or debit card. The company’s partners include Banco do Brasil, Nubank and Sicredi.
Why Target BRIC Markets?Is there a reason why Facebook is targeting the emerging markets? Over the years, countries such as Brazil, Russia, India and China - the BRIC markets — have been moving toward adopting digital payments.
Adam Traidman, the CEO of BRD, a cryptocurrencies digital wallet company, says the emerging markets in today’s world are technically savvy, yet many have fewer payment options than a country like the U.S., where citizens send payments via Venmo, Zelle and many other avenues.
“The lack of options, coupled with a technically ready country, creates for major opportunities in these fast-developing countries. It makes complete sense to deploy new payments technology to these types of markets for these reasons.” says Traidman.
What Happened To Libra?Facebook has been struggling to gain regulatory approval in the U.S. for its project Libra, which is a permissioned blockchain digital currency. The currency and network do not exist yet; the Libra Association has been revamping its white paper.
“Not only is this [WhatsApp payments service launch] clearly part of Facebook’s larger initiative to push peer-to-peer-like payments, but this is also a social validator for decentralized peer-to-peer payments like Bitcoin and other digital assets,” says Traidman.
More people will become accustomed to transacting in this manner using WhatsApp payments: instead of needing to login to a banking website, users can pay merchants by ending a message in the app, he says.
“Similarly in the cryptocurrency space, you don’t need to log in to a bank website. You can send funds straight from your personal wallet.”
FB Price Action:Facebook shares were slightly positive at $235.70 at the time of publication Wednesday. The stock has a 52-week range between $241.21 and $137.10.
Related Links:
Large Facebook Option Trader Betting On Earnings Sell-Off
Facebook To Release Q1 Earnings: Focus On Ad Revenue, User Data, Jio Investment
See more from Benzinga
• Why Boeing's Stock Is Trading Higher Today
• Facebook Reports Q1 Sales Beat, Users Up 10%
© 2020 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Ethereum miners are increasing the networks gas limit by 25%: Miners on Ethereum are currently in the process of increasing the network's gas limit from 10,000,000 to 12,500,000 in response to increased network utilization. Users pay gas fees to include transactions in an Ethereum block. The network's block size is bounded by the amount of gas that can be spent per block, which was previously 10,000,000 units. Unlike Bitcoin, which has a fixed block size, Ethereum's block size varies depending on the gas limits miners signal to the network, which they do by publishing the maximum gas limit they accepted in the most recent block. The Ethereum protocol allows miners to adjust the gas limit, up or down, by roughly 0.1% in each new block. According to Etherscan, this gas limit now hovers around 12,000,000. With the gas limit increase, Ethereum would have the capability to handle approximately 44 transactions per second instead of 35, according to Bitfly , the parent company of Ethereum mining pool Ethermine. A gas limit increase, however, also increases the resources needed to run and maintain nodes for validating transactions on the network. [caption id="attachment_69054" align="alignnone" width="2742"] Source: Etherscan[/caption] The last significant gas limit increase by miners occurred in September 2019, increasing the limit it from 8 to 10 million. © 2020 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice. || Fidelity Digital Assets to Custody Bitcoin in Kingdom Trust Retirement Accounts: Crypto custodian Kingdom Trust is offering customers bitcoin cold storage from Fidelity Digital Assets.
The storage will be offered on Kingdom Trust’sChoiceretirement account, a hybrid self-service retirement platform where investors can buy, sell or hold stocks, exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and digital assets in one tax-advantaged account.
Kingdom Trust CEO Ryan Radloff hopes the partnership with Fidelity will nudge the investment giant closer to serving retail crypto investors.
Related:Nomura-Backed Crypto Custody Venture Launches After 2 Years in the Works
“I think having Fidelity grow is so important forbitcoinand the market’s maturity that I’m willing to sacrifice a few basis points of margin for that,” Radloff said of the new business arrangement. “We think this is meaningful for a lot of people that already have Fidelity retirement accounts but have really been waiting for Fidelity Digital Assets’ mandate to mature from just an institutional one to institutional and retail.”
Read more:‘Focus on Retirement’: Crypto Custodian Rolls Out Hybrid IRA Offering
While Fidelity Digital Assets continues to be solely focused on institutional customers, this is one of the first sub-custody service agreements that the fund manager has made public. In an emailed statement, Fidelity clarified that the sub-custody relationship means that customers will access the service only through Kingdom Trust.
“Since our market entry less than two years ago, we’ve seen significant progress in the infrastructure supporting investors in digital assets, and an evolution in the range of investors adopting digital assets into their portfolios,” Fidelity Digital Assets Head of Sales and Marketing Christine Sandler said in a press statement.
Related:This Liechtenstein Bank Can Now Custody Crypto
Kingdom Trust customers still have just three ways of handling custody: They can hold their own private keys with a solution powered byCasa, hold them in cold storage custodied by Fidelity or lend out or stake their digital assets via Kingdom custodial accounts.
Kingdom Trust also expects to work with Fidelity on other digital assets in the future, Radloff added.
“We custody 20,000 unique assets, and most of those are alternative assets,” Radloff said. “Bitcoin is the first asset that we are doing jointly with Fidelity Digital Assets, but I do not expect it to be the last.”
Since the launch of Choice in May, more than 10,000 people have joined the product’s waitlist, according to Radloff.
• Fidelity Digital Assets to Custody Bitcoin in Kingdom Trust Retirement Accounts
• Fidelity Digital Assets to Custody Bitcoin in Kingdom Trust Retirement Accounts || How does token burning work and what are the advantages?: Many cryptocurrency projects have adopted an approach called token burning to restrict the supply of their tokens. This may conjure up images of smoke and matches, but no tokens are actually burnt in the process. They are, however, rendered unusable in the future. So, what’s the point of token burning and who does it benefit? Token burning explained When a company decides to burn tokens, it has two options. It can either purchase existing tokens from the market (known as buy-back) or it can choose to take existing currency out of circulation. This could be tokens stored elsewhere such as in a Treasury or team wallet, or it could be unallocated tokens. For example, when OKEx launched OKChain in February of this year, the exchange decided to burn the 700 million unissued OKB tokens to make it a completely deflationary currency and the first fully circulating platform token. To ‘burn’ these tokens, their signatures are sent to a black hole (or “eater”) address. This is an irretrievable public wallet that can be viewed by anyone and the coins’ status is broadcast to the blockchain. #Binance Completes 11th Quarterly $BNB Burn https://t.co/k8WrLWgLhY pic.twitter.com/w0rC02j6ii — Binance (@binance) April 18, 2020 Some companies may burn tokens as a one-off event while others, such as Binance , and OKEx hold quarterly burns . How and why companies burn tokens ultimately depends on what they’re aiming to achieve. One-off burns often occur after a fundraise is completed and tokens are leftover. They could also happen to correct a mistake. Story continues Tether, for example, accidentally created $5 billion in USDT! They had to swiftly burn these tokens so as not to destabilise the 1:1 peg with the US dollar. Regardless of the mechanism, the result is the same: the tokens are removed from circulation and can never be used again. What are the advantages of burning tokens? If asset burning is a common practice, what, apart from correcting an error or removing tokens from circulation, are the benefits of this? To start with, token burning is a deflationary mechanism usually meant to affect the token price. Just as with the Bitcoin Halving, it comes down to the laws of supply and demand. Burning tokens ,like the halving, is restricting the supply. If the demand stays the same or increases, the price will naturally go up. If the demand dwindles, the burning won’t have had much effect. Exchanges like Binance, Huobi , KuCoin, and OKEx periodically burn tokens to incentivise their holder to keep them as they become more valuable. However, while it often affects the price, most trading platforms are actively building up use cases for their tokens and additional benefits for their holders, such as the ability to pay for goods and services online in their exchange token and early access to promising IEOs. $OKB : From Mar 1, 2020 – May 31, 2020, the amount of OKB bought back and burned is 3,509,874.52 🔥 Through buy-back & burn scheme, token economy model, platform-empowered & external use cases, we'll continuously #OKBuild 💪🏻 Learn more: https://t.co/wLVd3yj4WL pic.twitter.com/Ers4vUokGJ — OKEx (@OKEx) June 3, 2020 OKB holders, for example, can access discounted trading fees, just like HT and BNB holders, but they can also participate in offers outside the OKEx platform, such as loans and tourism packages, paid for with OKB. Binance, too, allows BNB holders to use its native token to buy goods and services online and pay travel expenses, among other options. Incentives for traders may not be the only reason for token burning. Some projects, such as Ripple, carry out token burns to add a layer of security and avoid spammed transactions. What about Proof of Burn? Proof of Burn (PoB) is another use that some projects have found for token burning. They have created a consensus mechanism to verify transactions to the blockchain, based on users burning their tokens to gain mining rights. It works by restricting the number of blocks miners that can verify to match with the number of tokens they’ve burnt. This creates virtual mining fields that continue to grow as more tokens are burnt. Existing cash, whether contaminated with the #coronavirus or not, can be converted via a Proof-of-Burn system. Visit https://t.co/rr4Nise42B to begin. Do NOT burn your cash until you have a confirmation code! (A USB-powered lighter is required.) — Luke Dashjr moving2 @lukedashjr@bitcoinhackers.org (@LukeDashjr) April 1, 2020 Just as reducing the token supply, PoB will also reduce the number of miners as there is a need for fewer resources and lower competition. This leads to the obvious problem of centralisation, as too much capacity is given to large miners who can burn vast quantities of tokens at once, greatly affecting the price and supply. To avoid this dilemma, a decay rate is often used which effectively reduces the total capacity of individual miners to verify transactions. In many ways, PoB is similar to ç (PoS) as both mechanisms require miners to lock up their assets to mine. Unlike PoB though, with PoS, stakers can retrieve their coins when they stop mining. The takeaway Token burning can be extremely beneficial for holders and projects alike to reduce inflation and incentivise users to hold. The Proof of Burn mechanism continues to be problematic though, which is probably why this consensus mechanism has gained little traction so far. For more news, guides and cryptocurrency analysis, click here . || Meet the Pro-Bitcoin, Anti-BitLicense Democrat Running for State Office: In a now-deleted tweet, Coinbase Custody International announced it was adding support for withdrawals and deposits in the stablecoin tether.
While that May 30 tweet is now gone, it’s hard to hide its effects given a recent surge in the stablecoin’s count of active addresses. The number of unique addresses active in the network, either as a sender or receiver, nearly doubled to 203,776 last week, having risen by 26% in May, according to data provided by the blockchain analytics firmGlassnode. However, as of Tuesday, the number of active addresses was back down sharply to 122,809.
Coinbase Custody’soriginal tweetwasshared onthe cryptocurrency exchange Bitfinex’s social platform and also acknowledgedby Paolo Ardoino, chief technology officer at Bitfinex and Tether Ltd (creator of tether).
It is unclear when the tweet was removed. Also, there isno mention of USDTin the list of supported assets on its official website. CoinDesk reached out to Coinbase Custody on Tuesday for information on whether it are supporting tether. As of press time, we have yet to receive any reply.
While that mystery remains, the on-chain data shows the original announcement was followed by a spike in the number of active addresses.
“Coinbase Custody International’s announcement may have contributed to the recent jump in addresses,” said Wilson Withiam, research analyst at data provider Messari.
The custodian mainly serves wealthy institutional investors, such as family offices and trading firms. As such, one may conclude that its decision to add support for tether is reflective of the increased institutional interest in the stablecoin.
Related:Coinbase Custody Deleted Tweet That Could Explain Surge in Tether Addresses
See also:As Tether Supply Hits Record Highs, It Moves Away From Original Home
Demand for tether and other dollar-backed stablecoinshas been on the risethis year in the wake of the U.S. dollar shortage in the global economy and extremely low interest rates in fiat markets as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. While commercial banks across the advanced world are offering near zero interest rates on deposits, cryptocurrencylending platformsincluding Nexo and Celsius Network are paying 8% interest rate on tether deposits.
Hence, it’s no surprise the number of active addresses has risen by over 600% so far this year. Meanwhile, Tether Ltd., the company behind the stablecoin,has issuedover $5 billion worth of tether since January and its market capitalization has increased from $4 billion to $9.3 billion, according to Glassnode.
• Stablecoins Are the Bridge From Central Banks to Consumer Payments
• Market Wrap: Bitcoin Can’t Stick to $9,000 While Stocks Rally || First Mover: Bitcoin Could Get a Boost From Central Bank Digital Currencies: Bitcoin price is caught in a downdraft after a series of rallies in recent weeks that repeatedly fizzled out at the $10,000 mark.
“There is no clear understanding wherebitcoinwill go,” Yuriy Mazur, head of data analytics at cryptocurrency exchange CEX.IO told CoinDesk’s Omkar Godbole. “It may either retrace back to $6,500 or reach $10,000.”
You’re readingFirst Mover, CoinDesk’s daily markets newsletter. Assembled by the CoinDesk Markets Team, First Mover starts your day with the most up-to-date sentiment around crypto markets, which of course never close, putting in context every wild swing in bitcoin and more. We follow the money so you don’t have to. You cansubscribe here.
Related:First Mover: EOS Has Still to Prove Itself After Spiraling Down This Past Year
With the near-term picture cloudy, some analysts are focusing on a longer-term trend that could be surprisingly bullish for bitcoin: the emergence of digital currencies issued by central banks.
It’s not an obvious investment thesis because bitcoin was invented to be used in an electronic peer-to-peer payment system that would be free of government control and operate outside of the traditional banking system.
And most central bank digital currencies, or CBDCs, would, by their very nature, be issued and controlled by governments, and in many cases distributed through banks.
But Jack Purdy and Ryan Watkins of the research firm Messariwrote last week in a reportthat the “coming digitization of money,” including the launch of CBDCs, could provide a “secular tailwind” for bitcoin.
Related:Blockchain Bites: Facebook’s Calibra Facelift and Tencent’s ‘New Infrastructure’ Investments
CBDCs have gained momentum over the past year as countries consider whether to roll out digital versions of their currencies to keep up with Facebook’s proposed Libra and China’s forthcoming digital currency electronic payment, which isalready in testing.
The journal Central Banking, which is supported by the Bank of International Settlements and the European Central Bank among others, found in a survey earlier this month that some46 countries are considering CBDCsusing a constrained form of distributed ledger technology.
Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell told Congress in February the U.S. central bank is in theearly stages of researching digital currencies, and that having a “single government currency at the heart of the financial system is something that has served us well.”
Even so, JPMorgan said last week in a report that “there isno country with more to losefrom the disruptive potential of digital currency than the United States,” as reported by Bloomberg News. “This revolves primarily around U.S. dollar hegemony.”
The largest U.S. bank’s warning merely reinforces the urgency and significance of the efforts, and that’s what the Messari analysts were homing in on.
“Catalyzed by bitcoin and the recognition of the benefits of blockchain technology, many countries and companies around the world have begun researching, testing and launching their own digital currencies,” the analysts wrote.
“When these projects launch, they will have the combined effect of exposing billions of people to cryptocurrency-related technologies,” according to the report. “This will increase people’s comfort with and understanding of cryptocurrencies, get more people creating and using cryptocurrency wallets, and provide on-ramps into decentralized cryptocurrencies like bitcoin.”
So CBDCs might be used to facilitate purchases of bitcoin? That’s the idea.
BTC: Price: $8,878 (BPI) | 24-Hr High: $9,011 | 24-Hr Low: $8,672
Trend: While bitcoin has recovered from two-week lows reached on Monday, the cryptocurrency is yet to beat key resistance above $9,300.
At press time, bitcoin is changing hands near $9,000, having put in a low of $8,630, according to CoinDesk’s Bitcoin Price Index. Prices need to cross Sunday’s high of $9,310. That would invalidate the lower highs setup on the 4-hour chart and confirm an end of the pullback from $10,000 and the revival of the bullish trend.
However, as long as prices are held under $9,310, the bearish view put forward by Sunday’s downside break of the ascending trendline connecting March 13 and April 21 lows would remain valid.
The uptick from $8,630 to $9,000 seen in the last 24 hours lacks substance, as volumes have remained low throughout the price recovery. A low-volume bounce is often short-lived. Hence, prospects of a strong move above $9,310 look bleak.
Besides, higher time frame charts are reporting a failed breakout. “The previous weekly candle below the long-term downtrend line support (drawn from June 2019 and February 2020 high), which locally invalidates the bullishness,” said Adrian Zduńczyk, chartered market technician and CEO of trading community The BIRB Nest.
So another move lower toward $8,630 cannot be ruled out. A violation there would expose 78.6% Fibonacci retracement marked at 8524. “If that level is broken, it would result in tapping into range lows support $8,000-$8,100. The 50-day average at $8,300 could also offer support,” said Zduńczyk.
However, if prices rise above $9,300 with strong volumes, a falling wedge breakout would be confirmed on the 4-hour chart. That would open the doors to a re-test of $10,000.
• India’s Central Bank Removes Lingering Confusion Over Banking for Crypto Firms
• Crypto Long & Short: Innovation Cycles, Crypto Venture Funds and Institutional Investors || Twitter Breach Reactions: Security Professionals Offer an Early Assessment: @jack’s been pwned. All of Twitter went ablaze Wednesday afternoon as major crypto accounts started tweeting they had partnered with a phony site called “Crypto For Health” on a giveaway of 5,000 BTC . It was a scam , but one that was able to reach the biggest accounts on Twitter, including that of former President Barack Obama, the most followed account in the world. Related: Twitter Hacker Is a BitMEX Trader, On-Chain Data Suggests Read more: Everything We Know About the Bitcoin Scam Rocking Twitter’s Most Prominent Accounts Security pros contacted by CoinDesk had a wide array of opinions on the breach, but they all agreed the fault did not lie with each hacked account’s owner. They said the breach was likely from either third-party apps plugged into people’s Twitter accounts or from within the social media giant itself . “Whatever the root cause will end up being, this amount of total pwnage would say to me that this is something novel and mass exploitable, not something well known and targeted,” Erik Cabetas, managing partner at Include Security , told CoinDesk in an email. Cabetas and Frans Rosén, another security professional from a firm in Europe called Detectify , pointed CoinDesk to this tweet , which detailed the following: Related: Blockchain Bites: Twitter Hack Fallout, A New Way to 'Yield Farm' and a Hurricane-Proof CBDC (OTP stands for “one-time password,” a security method commonly used as part of 2FA, or “two-factor identification.”) The account @6 is for Adrian Lamo, a journalist with 163,000 followers, who has now put his account on private. Jessy Irwin , a security professional formerly of AgileBits (maker of 1Password) and Cosmos maker Tendermint, said there are a lot of ways to hack into big accounts. “There are endless OAuth integrations, the APIs that allow third-party services to access the platform, and some of the SMS features,” she wrote. “[Twitter has] done some work to improve authorization and authentication, but if you are a super-user or you have a team posting for you, it’s still extremely difficult to secure the service.” Story continues Parham Eftekhari, of the Cybersecurity Collaborative, a forum for security pros, cautioned that all security professionals could do is speculate. The scale of the attack and Twitter’s frustrated response indicated the problem could be a deep one: Inside the birdhouse Many security-adjacent accounts are sharing rumors that the breach is actually from inside Twitter, which would suggest all kinds of data could be compromised. Richard Ma, founder of smart-contract auditing firm Quantstamp, told CoinDesk his team believed the problem was at Twitter’s San Francisco HQ. “Based on what we’ve gathered so far, this is an internal Twitter security breach. The hacker was able to breach Twitter and gain access to internal admin functionality,” he told CoinDesk. Irwin added: “It is a ‘silly’ hack, but it’s also important to look at why people are motivated to hack things. Some hackers like to watch the world burn – that’s just how it is. It could be a campaign to make Twitter look silly or ill-prepared for the role it has in public discourse.” Eftekhari agreed, noting it’s important to remember we are in a U.S. presidential election year, and that Twitter is a de facto communications institution for the United States, which could be an appealing target to rival nation-states. After all, he noted, the payout ( $106,200 so far ) was small. Read more: Obama, Biden, Netanyahu, Musk: Here’s a List of Every Hacked Twitter Account Irwin said associates in the security community have already noticed the domains being used by the cybercriminals have been active since April. “That suggests this is a known issue or an older vulnerability that was not recently introduced,” she said. Yonathan Klijnsma, a threat researcher at the cybersecurity company RiskIQ, said that while he can’t be sure, there is speculation a Twitter support member account was hijacked. “While we do not know if this is the cause, it might explain how they hijacked so many accounts,” Klijnsma told CoinDesk in an email. “Twitter support is able to help users who are locked out of their account by (normally) verifying information and then helping them get back into their account. Gaining access to a support member’s account could lead to the massive and seemingly effortless hijacking we observed today.” He said the scale of the ongoing scam through these Twitter accounts with massive followings seems to be the whole story. “But RiskIQ has been able to track much more of the bad guys’ infrastructure used in their scam operations,” said Klijnsma. “We’ve identified around 400 domains so far that are all tied to these scams.” Scam’s source Rosén emphasized to CoinDesk that he could only speculate, but noted the origin of the tweets has been “Twitter Web App” and that Twitter Support noted people might expect trouble with resets. This suggested to Rosén that the “service used to send out password resets was breached somehow,” and that “some specific flow when resetting password made it possible to gain access to the web app.” Which, he cautioned, might mean the attacker could do more than tweet, such as accessing direct messages (DMs). Dan Guido, of Trail of Bits , a security firm widely relied on in crypto, pointed CoinDesk to a thread he wrote on the incident on one of his firm’s secondary accounts. In that, he noted: “Twitter has never been great at securing their own data. After getting their backend hacked in 2009 (very similar to today!), the FTC barred Twitter from making claims about their security for 20 years.” Quantstamp’s Ma said this event could cement a key belief of the crypto faithful. “Overall, I think this reinforces many people’s preference for self-custody of data in the crypto community,” Ma said. “Many Twitter users are not aware of the full control they are providing when using a third-party platform with special privileges over their accounts.” Related Stories Twitter Breach Reactions: Security Professionals Offer an Early Assessment Twitter Breach Reactions: Security Professionals Offer an Early Assessment || Quantstamp Audit Greenlights Ethereum 2.0 Client Prysm for Launch: Ethereum 2.0 client Prysm is “basically ready” to launch, Richard Ma, CEO of Quantstamp, said in a phone call with CoinDesk. A technical thumbs up for Prysm from the smart-contract auditing firm comes after last week’s announced push by network developers to launch the proof-of-stake (PoS) version of Ethereum before 2020 closes out. Indeed, numerous perceived “delays” have frustrated community members as they await the overhaul promised in the network’s 2014 yellow paper. Related: Filecoin Pushes Back Final Testing Phase, Announces ‘Calibration Period’ for Miners Informal agreements between Ethereum developers that multiple network-ready clients needed to launch in concert have slowed efforts over the years. Nine such implementations are currently underway, including Prysm, in various programming languages. Read more: Ethereum Developers Delay Berlin Hard Fork to Stem Client Centralization Concerns In a recent Reddit AMA , ETH 2.0 researcher Justin Drake said that given the lack of client diversity and testing, the network would likely not launch until Jan. 3, 2021, the 12th anniversary of Bitcoin’s genesis block. Drake and Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin disagreed, saying the network should be able to launch before the close of 2020 “regardless of level of readiness,” Buterin said. Related: The Zcash Privacy Tech Underlying Ethereum’s Transition to Eth 2.0 “Eth2 phase 0 is in some ways simpler than Eth1 and in some ways more complex: more complex PoS, but no complicated GPU-oriented PoW; more optimization required, but no complicated VM, etc etc. I’m inclined to say Eth2 phase 0 is a little simpler on-net,” he added. ‘Low-level optimizations’ Prysm client’s code was “well-written and documented,” Quantstamp said in a blog post shared early with CoinDesk. The firm identified 65 issues relating to the granularity of timestamps, pseudo-random number generation and second pre-image attacks on Merkle trees. Story continues Ma described the concerns as “low-level optimizations,” with 75% having been addressed already. Ten engineers combed over Prysm’s ETH 2.0 codebase, programmed in the Go language, for two months, Ma said. “Over $28 billion USD worth of ether and other digital assets are potentially riding on the transition to proof-of-stake,” noted Ma in a company statement. “The migration of ether and the DeFi ecosystem to Ethereum 2.0 is a high-stakes process.” However, where money is on the line, audits alone don’t greenlight code for launch. Eth 2.0 clients have joined various testnets to run simulations of Phase 0 throughout the spring months. Altona testnet for Ethereum 2.0 Most recently, Prysm has joined three other clients (PegaSys’ Teku, Status’ Nimbus and Sigma Prime’s Lighthouse) in the ongoing Altona testnet. The testnet allows users to stake ether and practice validating transactions for Phase 0 of Eth 2.0 and was preceded by both the Schlesi and Witti testnets, among others. Read more: Schlesi Testnet Is Latest Step in Long Road Toward Eth 2.0 “Altona is finalizing with the Eth 2.0 Phase 0 core protocol logic that will be launched later this year,” Prysmatic Labs co-founder Preston Van Loon said in a private message to CoinDesk. Metrics from the Witti testnet analyzed in a June 25 paper by independent testnet hard-fork coordinator Afri Schoedon showed Lighthouse repeatedly outperformed other clients. That client is halfway through an independent audit as well, according to Sigma Prime co-founder Paul Hauner in a private message. Schoedon looked at “beacon-chain node implementation” such as for synchronization time and database space, but noted that the race to Eth 2.0 is “not a competition” among clients. “While this is not about calling out a winner, we should be encouraged to learn from the Sigma Prime team’s design decisions,” he said. Related Stories Quantstamp Audit Greenlights Ethereum 2.0 Client Prysm for Launch Quantstamp Audit Greenlights Ethereum 2.0 Client Prysm for Launch || Gemini Plots Singapore Expansion With Appointment of New Asia Director: The problem with paying gas to run transactions is that it discourages lots of transactions. The advantage of paying gas to run transactions, though, is that it discourages lots of transactions. This contradiction is captured well in a new paper examining transactions on EOS, Tezos and XRP Ledger (XRPL) over a seven-month period ending in April. Researchers from Imperial College London and University College London found the overwhelming number of transactions on these three networks either have no value attached or are passing it back and forth within one entity. Titled “Revisiting Transactional Statistics of High-scalability Blockchain,” by Daniel Perez, Jiahua Xu and Benjamin Livshits, the report explains these findings in detail. “Our analysis reveals that only a small fraction of the transactions are used for value transfer purposes,” the authors write. “In particular, 96% of the transactions on EOSIO were triggered by the airdrop of a currently valueless token; on Tezos, 76% of throughput was used for maintaining consensus; and over 94% of transactions on XRPL carried no economic value.” Read more: A Mysterious Airdrop Called EIDOS Is Clogging EOS to Make a Point The authors’ latest version came out Wednesday, following up on two prior versions, with this one including several more months of data. It immediately sparked discussion , with its findings that high-throughput blockchains don’t necessarily have a lot of payment activity. It also illuminated the fact that transparency doesn’t necessarily equal legibility. Related: Free Transactions Invite Systemic Attacks on Blockchains, Researchers Find So many records can pile up on a blockchain that needed information can become needles in a very large haystack. As Perez, a Ph.D. candidate at Imperial College London told CoinDesk in an email, “When the level of spam activity is very high, the size of the history gets disproportionately large given the amount of useful activity on the network. This makes such blockchains much more difficult to analyze and reason about.” Story continues That said, the authors’ analysis is based on a careful examination of each blockchain, looking at the kinds of transactions and characterizing what kind of work they represented. Then they looked at the biggest users of the networks, which generally corresponded to most of the usage, and dug deeper into what was going on in their transactions. As the authors note, there has been a dearth of academic investigation into blockchains besides that of Bitcoin and Ethereum. This analysis of EOS, XRP Ledger and Tezos covers the period from October 1, 2019 to April 30, 2020, using data collected by the open source tool, Blockchain Analyzer . Here’s what they found for each chain. EOS Last November, CoinDesk reported on a mysterious airdrop on EOS that gave users an incentive to make as many low-value transactions as they could, called EIDOS, which overall made the blockchain more expensive to use, making it look very much like a denial of service (DoS) attack (also evidenced by the fact that “DOS” is part of the airdrop’s name). The researchers found that most of the transactions taking place on EOS, at least through the end of April, were related to the EIDOS stunt. The authors write, “Before the arrival of the EIDOS token, approximately 50% of these are transactions to betting games. … The launch of EIDOS increased the total number of transactions more than tenfold, resulting in 96% of the transactions being used for token transfers.” To recap: The EIDOS smart contract sends a token to any EOS wallet address that sends it any amount of EOS. The smart contract instantly returns any EOS sent along with the token. The smart contract rewards transactions, not value, so it doesn’t matter how much EOS gets sent. It sends the same number of tokens back no matter what. EIDOS was worth a little less than $0.02 when we last reported it on it. It currently trades for about $0.0008, according to CoinGecko . Read more: Tron Dapps Saw $1.6 Billion in Volume in Q1 2019, Driven By Gambling Additionally, the authors also found that most of the transactions on one of EOS’s large apps, WhaleEx, look suspicious. The WhaleEx website says it is the “#1 Decentralized Exchange in the World,” yet the authors looked at its transactions and found: “Firstly, and most obviously, we notice that in more than 75% of the trades, the buyer and the seller are the same. This means that no asset is transferred at the end of the action. Furthermore, the transaction fees for both the buyer and the seller are 0, which means that such a transaction is achieving absolutely nothing else than artificially increasing the service statistics, i.e. wash-trading.” WhaleEx could not be immediately reached for comment. Block.One, the creators of the EOSIO software that runs EOS among a few other blockchains, declined to comment directly to CoinDesk. Instead, they directed CoinDesk to a new Medium post by CTO Dan Larimer, which does not directly address the questions about EIDOS and WhaleEx, but instead dwells on how the report’s authors define throughput. The paper makes a theoretical argument that the true throughput on each of these chains is very low in terms of transactions with actual value, a point which Larimer disputes. In other words, Larimer emphasizes what EOSIO software could be used for. Potential aside, the researchers’ findings are about what it is currently used for. Larimer writes: “How the media chooses to report on this paper will reveal whether or not they have integrity to differentiate technological capability and recognize EOSIO as being the most demonstrably scalable.” Again, Block.One declined to further comment. XRP XRP is periodically beset by spam. The authors write: “The ledger experienced two waves of abnormally high traffic in the form of Payment transactions in late 2019, the first between the end of October and the beginning of November, the second – at a higher level – between the end of November and the beginning of December.” Why such traffic occurs, however, is unclear. “It remains something of a mystery how such an expensive form of ‘spam’ benefited its originators.” Ripple’s CTO David Schwartz addressed this point when a prior draft of this paper was under discussion. He wrote in May: “If you have a cheap, high-capacity public blockchain that was designed for maximum censorship resistance, it’s going to get a lot of spam. There’s no real disincentive and no authority to stop you. What are you willing to give up to stop it given that it doesn’t do much harm?” That said, they also found that most XRP holders do very little. “The distribution of the number of transactions per account is highly skewed. Over one third (71 thousand) of the accounts have transacted only once during the entire observation period, whereas the 35 most active accounts are responsible for half of the total traffic,” they wrote, though such Pareto distributions are not unusual, especially when money is concerned. Ripple has not yet provided further comment to CoinDesk on this latest draft. Tezos On Tezos, the authors find that most activity on the network is related to governance and staking. They write, “Tezos has a high number of ‘endorsements,’ which are used as part of the consensus protocol, and only a small fraction of the throughput are actual transactions.” Further, a large portion of the transactions appear to be bakers (the validators) making payments to users who have delegated XTZ.” Later, the paper notes: “Tezos has not yet come close to maximizing its actual capacity.” It does not, however, find suspicious or malicious transactions in any real volume on Tezos. TQuorum, an entity that promotes Tezos, had not yet provided comment as of press time. In conclusion As most people who follow cryptocurrency know, the Bitcoin blockchain debuted what’s come to be known as the internet of value. The paper’s analysis then is based on how frequently users actually transfer value, as opposed to making other kinds of transactions. It raises questions about whether it is wise to design a blockchain so that valueless transactions are free or nearly free. The authors write: “While on XRPL the consequences of such a spam attack are limited, on EOSIO they forced the network to enter congestion mode, causing regular users to be unable to use the network because transactions which used to be free started to cost a fee.” In short, the authors write, “The massive potential of those blockchains has thus far not been fully realized for their intended purposes.” Read the full paper below: Related Stories XRP EOS || New York Man Charged With Trafficking Credit Card Info, Using Bitcoin to Launder Proceeds: A New York City man has been indicted for allegedly stealing and selling reams of payment card data, the proceeds of which he laundered inbitcoin.
Vitalii Antonenko, 28, waschargedin the U.S District Court for the District of Massachusetts on Tuesday with conspiracy to engage in computer hacking, payment card trafficking and money laundering, according to a federal indictment.
Law enforcement found hundreds of thousands of stolen payment cards on Vitalii Antonenko’s computers after arresting the Ukraine native at Kennedy International Airport in March 2019. They charged Antonenko with money laundering at the time.
Related:BlockFi Hires Credit Suisse, Prudential Execs to Drive Global Expansion
In theTuesday indictment, prosecutors outlined a multi-pronged money-laundering scheme that turned proceeds of stolen and sold credit card data – including data from an unnamed Massachusetts hospitality business – for tens of thousands of dollars.
Working with two conspirators from 2014 to 2016, Antonenko allegedly received at least 114 bitcoin from one, sent about as much bitcoin to the other, and then received nearly $40,000 in cash bank deposits 10% below market rate, the indictment said.
Law enforcement officials say an undercover agent bought a victim’s stolen card data from the first conspirator in November 2016. It further alleged the conspirator sent Antonenko 4.38 bitcoin the same day they discussed hospitality card data Antonenko still had for sale.
Antonenko also hacked a “non-profit scientific research institution” in Massachusetts, according to the indictment. The indictment does not name either victim.
• This Visa Card Gives Bitcoin Rewards on Dollars Spent
• US Says Venezuelan President Maduro Hid Massive Drug Ring Proceeds in Crypto
• Chase Bank Settles Suit Over ‘Sky-High’ Credit Card Charges for Crypto Purchases
[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
None available.
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Trend: up || Prices: 9525.36, 9581.07, 9536.89, 9677.11, 9905.17, 10990.87, 10912.82, 11100.47, 11111.21, 11323.47
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Analyze the provided historical prices, technical indicators, news, and social media sentiment from the last 60 days. Based on this context, predict the overall trend (up, down, or no change) and the specific daily closing prices for Bitcoin for the next 10 days.
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[Technical Analysis]
Not fully available.
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
Cardano Dex “Ravendex” Launches Exclusive Rave NFT Collection: DUBLIN, IRELAND / ACCESSWIRE / January 20, 2022 / The Ravendex team after their strategic collaboration with World Mobile Token in bringing Internet access to remote areas in Africa has also announced a 10000 Unique Pixelated Bird NFT collection with proof of ownership stored on the Cardano blockchain. Cardano is known for it's unique Eutxo Model and unlike Ethereum known for it's high gas fees, you can mint NFts on Cardano and paying just 1/4 of a dollar as Gas Fee. Unlike most Non Fungible tokens, RAVE NFT will have real utility within the Ravendex Ecosystem as Holders Of $RAVE NFT Can Stake Their NFTs To Earn rewards In $RAVE, Earn exclusive Rewards reserved for NFT holders. The NFT minting is currently ongoing, giving interested investors an opportunity to mint and hold the $RAVE NFT and over 7% of the total NFTs have been minted already. How Do I Mint $RAVE NFTs? 1: Purchase ADA from a supported Exchange like Binance, Coinbase & Kraken 2: Download & Set Up A Cardano Compatible Wallet Like Yoroi, Daedalus & Nami Wallet. 3: Transfer ADA To The Wallet (Remember To Select Cardano Blockchain) 4: Visit Rave NFT minting portal 5: Click on Feather Requirements and Send 50 ADA to the address that will be shown when minting starts. 6: Wait for transaction to be confirmed on the Cardano blockchain. 7: Congrats! Your pixelated $RAVE NFT will be in your wallet after your transaction has been confirmed. As a RAVE NFT holder you will have: The opportunity to stake your NFT and earn $RAVE as a reward. You can list and sell your asset on several secondary markets and earn royalties through sales. YStake the $RAVE NFT and endorse a project launching through Ravendex's IDO. About Ravendex Ravendex is the world's first non-custodial decentralized exchange operating on the Cardano Blockchain through the AMM protocol. The Cardano Ecosystem uses the protocol to facilitate trading their asset at a price set by their provided liquidity. Ravendex facilitates fast liquidity and assets transfers between ADA and native Cardano tokens. Rave Token Ravendex utility token $RAVE can be traded on BitMart which offers a wide range of commodities such as BTC, ETH, USDT, and others. To its credit, it pulls over $1million worth of trade volume daily as it gains more popularity among cryptocurrency lovers and investors. Rave is the utility token powering the Ravendex ecosystem and has multiple utilities and use cases like staking, yield farming, governance. Its daily performance has earned it a consistent place on the chart as one of the leading brands on the Cardano native tokens by daily volume. Story continues Media Links The team updates its users regularly on social media pages. Prospective users can keep up with their latest development via these handles: Github: https://github.com/Ravendexlabs Telegram: https://t.me/RaversNests Twitter: https://twitter.com/ravendexlabs Contact Channels: Contact the Ravendex team through any of these contact channels: Company Name: Ravendex Labs Contact Name: Ravenslabs Email: hello@ravendex.io Location: Dublin, Ireland Website: https://ravendex.io The information provided in this release is not investment advice, financial advice or trading advice. SurgeSocials.com (Spacity Blockchain Pvt Ltd) is not responsible, directly or indirectly, for any damage or loss caused or alleged to be caused by reliance on any information mentioned in this article. SOURCE: Ravendex Labs View source version on accesswire.com: https://www.accesswire.com/684730/Cardano-Dex-Ravendex-Launches-Exclusive-Rave-NFT-Collection View comments || YHB Investment Advisors, Inc. Buys SPDR Blackstone Senior Loan ETF, iShares Short-Term National ...: West Hartford, CT, based Investment company YHB Investment Advisors, Inc. ( Current Portfolio ) buys SPDR Blackstone Senior Loan ETF, iShares Short-Term National Muni Bond ETF, BTC BlackRock Ultra Short-Term Bond ETF, Vulcan Materials Co, Invesco Ultra Short Duration ETF, sells ISHARES TRUST, Invesco BulletShares 2023 Corporate Bond ETF, iShares Core U.S. Aggregate Bond ETF, iShares National Muni Bond ETF, Wells Fargo during the 3-months ended 2021Q4, according to the most recent filings of the investment company, YHB Investment Advisors, Inc.. As of 2021Q4, YHB Investment Advisors, Inc. owns 311 stocks with a total value of $1.3 billion. These are the details of the buys and sells. New Purchases: ICSH, VMC, UPWK, IAC, VXUS, MO, CNC, ETR, HSY, AXON, TSCO, VRSK, WMS, CAPE, LIT, VNQ, Added Positions: SRLN, SUB, V, GSY, SCHG, JPST, JMST, PYPL, SCHD, PFF, BSCM, EFA, UNH, SYK, MDT, C, VTI, SPYG, SCHA, ZTS, VOO, VEU, SCHM, DIS, IEMG, IJR, SCHB, AFL, SCHE, CARR, OTIS, BND, SCHP, BSCS, ROBT, VCSH, SMMU, HACK, IEFA, SCZ, SDY, SCHF, IJH, IJK, IVV, TJX, HON, JPM, JNJ, MDLZ, NVDA, EQIX, FTV, EW, CMI, CRM, CPRT, SWK, CHD, WMT, ABBV, ALGN, BAH, TSLA, AMGN, YUM, WWD, USB, CAT, BAC, EOG, SLYG, AMP, LHX, QCOM, ACN, VV, IDXX, QCLN, PIO, PBE, MDYG, MDY, SO, IYF, TSM, EBAY, MA, IGIB, BSCT, PSX, ARKK, BURL, Reduced Positions: IGSB, MINT, BSCN, AGG, MUB, WFC, BSCP, VMBS, SPY, AON, BSCO, AAPL, CTXS, NEAR, VTEB, PBCT, SHM, XLU, LIN, YUMC, MKC, PFE, T, BSCR, BSV, EEM, IWD, QQQ, SPDW, TIP, XSOE, BMY, CL, XOM, CME, CVX, BA, BDX, XLE, MMM, CTSH, ABT, GSLC, KO, IWF, CI, XLK, VIG, CSX, SCHV, DD, AXP, SPEM, AME, ADP, HIG, LECO, NOC, NVS, KMB, INTC, IBM, RJF, SHW, VZ, GWW, WM, CCI, WTW, CMG, PM, EPAM, GILD, DOW, FDX, FAST, DUK, MMC, Sold Out: TAP, IVOL, BABA, HUBS, SQ, BL, SCHZ, ZNGA, EVFM, Warning! GuruFocus has detected 8 Warning Signs with LIN. Click here to check it out. SRLN 15-Year Financial Data The intrinsic value of SRLN Peter Lynch Chart of SRLN For the details of YHB Investment Advisors, Inc.'s stock buys and sells, go to https://www.gurufocus.com/guru/yhb+investment+advisors%2C+inc./current-portfolio/portfolio Story continues These are the top 5 holdings of YHB Investment Advisors, Inc. Apple Inc ( AAPL ) - 433,994 shares, 6.11% of the total portfolio. Shares reduced by 1.34% Microsoft Corp ( MSFT ) - 186,246 shares, 4.96% of the total portfolio. Shares reduced by 0.67% Amazon.com Inc ( AMZN ) - 11,899 shares, 3.14% of the total portfolio. Shares added by 0.41% Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc (TMO) - 55,908 shares, 2.96% of the total portfolio. Shares reduced by 0.58% Danaher Corp (DHR) - 94,076 shares, 2.45% of the total portfolio. Shares added by 0.24% New Purchase: BTC BlackRock Ultra Short-Term Bond ETF (ICSH) YHB Investment Advisors, Inc. initiated holding in BTC BlackRock Ultra Short-Term Bond ETF. The purchase prices were between $50.36 and $50.44, with an estimated average price of $50.4. The stock is now traded at around $50.360000. The impact to a portfolio due to this purchase was 0.13%. The holding were 33,620 shares as of 2021-12-31. New Purchase: Vulcan Materials Co (VMC) YHB Investment Advisors, Inc. initiated holding in Vulcan Materials Co. The purchase prices were between $169.28 and $208.97, with an estimated average price of $194.33. The stock is now traded at around $192.230000. The impact to a portfolio due to this purchase was 0.07%. The holding were 4,093 shares as of 2021-12-31. New Purchase: Upwork Inc (UPWK) YHB Investment Advisors, Inc. initiated holding in Upwork Inc. The purchase prices were between $31.73 and $60.02, with an estimated average price of $43.89. The stock is now traded at around $28.250000. The impact to a portfolio due to this purchase was 0.06%. The holding were 21,009 shares as of 2021-12-31. New Purchase: IAC/InterActiveCorp (IAC) YHB Investment Advisors, Inc. initiated holding in IAC/InterActiveCorp. The purchase prices were between $122.47 and $156.76, with an estimated average price of $137.28. The stock is now traded at around $131.380000. The impact to a portfolio due to this purchase was 0.03%. The holding were 3,186 shares as of 2021-12-31. New Purchase: Vanguard Total International Stock (VXUS) YHB Investment Advisors, Inc. initiated holding in Vanguard Total International Stock. The purchase prices were between $61.08 and $65.1, with an estimated average price of $63.41. The stock is now traded at around $64.080000. The impact to a portfolio due to this purchase was 0.03%. The holding were 5,645 shares as of 2021-12-31. New Purchase: Advanced Drainage Systems Inc (WMS) YHB Investment Advisors, Inc. initiated holding in Advanced Drainage Systems Inc. The purchase prices were between $107.25 and $136.49, with an estimated average price of $123.4. The stock is now traded at around $119.410000. The impact to a portfolio due to this purchase was 0.02%. The holding were 1,737 shares as of 2021-12-31. Added: SPDR Blackstone Senior Loan ETF (SRLN) YHB Investment Advisors, Inc. added to a holding in SPDR Blackstone Senior Loan ETF by 119.97%. The purchase prices were between $45.02 and $45.7, with an estimated average price of $45.41. The stock is now traded at around $45.840000. The impact to a portfolio due to this purchase was 0.17%. The holding were 88,864 shares as of 2021-12-31. Added: iShares Short-Term National Muni Bond ETF (SUB) YHB Investment Advisors, Inc. added to a holding in iShares Short-Term National Muni Bond ETF by 715.18%. The purchase prices were between $107.19 and $107.42, with an estimated average price of $107.31. The stock is now traded at around $106.820000. The impact to a portfolio due to this purchase was 0.16%. The holding were 21,154 shares as of 2021-12-31. Added: Invesco Ultra Short Duration ETF (GSY) YHB Investment Advisors, Inc. added to a holding in Invesco Ultra Short Duration ETF by 61.54%. The purchase prices were between $50.26 and $50.4, with an estimated average price of $50.32. The stock is now traded at around $50.230000. The impact to a portfolio due to this purchase was 0.07%. The holding were 47,995 shares as of 2021-12-31. Added: JPMorgan Ultra-Short Municipal Income ETF (JMST) YHB Investment Advisors, Inc. added to a holding in JPMorgan Ultra-Short Municipal Income ETF by 31.63%. The purchase prices were between $50.97 and $51.07, with an estimated average price of $51.02. The stock is now traded at around $50.950000. The impact to a portfolio due to this purchase was 0.05%. The holding were 53,190 shares as of 2021-12-31. Added: Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF (VTI) YHB Investment Advisors, Inc. added to a holding in Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF by 21.79%. The purchase prices were between $220.94 and $242.96, with an estimated average price of $235.47. The stock is now traded at around $235.020000. The impact to a portfolio due to this purchase was 0.03%. The holding were 8,697 shares as of 2021-12-31. Added: Invesco BulletShares 2022 Corporate Bond ETF (BSCM) YHB Investment Advisors, Inc. added to a holding in Invesco BulletShares 2022 Corporate Bond ETF by 26.69%. The purchase prices were between $21.36 and $21.41, with an estimated average price of $21.38. The stock is now traded at around $21.370000. The impact to a portfolio due to this purchase was 0.03%. The holding were 97,076 shares as of 2021-12-31. Sold Out: Quadratic Interest Rate Volatility And Inflation H (IVOL) YHB Investment Advisors, Inc. sold out a holding in Quadratic Interest Rate Volatility And Inflation H. The sale prices were between $26.61 and $27.8, with an estimated average price of $27.25. Sold Out: Molson Coors Beverage Co (TAP) YHB Investment Advisors, Inc. sold out a holding in Molson Coors Beverage Co. The sale prices were between $43.38 and $49.21, with an estimated average price of $45.88. Sold Out: BlackLine Inc (BL) YHB Investment Advisors, Inc. sold out a holding in BlackLine Inc. The sale prices were between $99.35 and $131.39, with an estimated average price of $115.65. Sold Out: Schwab US Aggregate Bond ETF (SCHZ) YHB Investment Advisors, Inc. sold out a holding in Schwab US Aggregate Bond ETF. The sale prices were between $53.44 and $54.33, with an estimated average price of $53.89. Sold Out: Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (BABA) YHB Investment Advisors, Inc. sold out a holding in Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. The sale prices were between $111.96 and $177.7, with an estimated average price of $145.1. Sold Out: HubSpot Inc (HUBS) YHB Investment Advisors, Inc. sold out a holding in HubSpot Inc. The sale prices were between $633.79 and $852.08, with an estimated average price of $757.05. Here is the complete portfolio of YHB Investment Advisors, Inc.. Also check out: 1. YHB Investment Advisors, Inc.'s Undervalued Stocks 2. YHB Investment Advisors, Inc.'s Top Growth Companies, and 3. YHB Investment Advisors, Inc.'s High Yield stocks 4. Stocks that YHB Investment Advisors, Inc. keeps buyingThis article first appeared on GuruFocus . || Bitcoin, Ether Dip in ‘Bearish Asia Session’ as China Rate Cut Fails to Inspire Risk Buying: Bitcoin and ether were again trading lower in Asian hours, continuing the year-long trend of losing ground mainly when America is asleep. The decline comes as traditional markets turn a blind eye to China’s interest rate cut and remain risk averse.
At press time, bitcoin, the top cryptocurrency by market value, was trading near $46,600, representing a 0.5% drop on the day. Ether was changing hands near $3,850, down nearly 2% on the day.
Data provided by options trader Fredrick Collins shows that bitcoin and ether have consistently faced selling pressure during the Asian hours this year. Most of year-to-date gains made by bitcoin and ether, 60% and 420% respectively, have come during the American hours, represented by 8:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. New York time.
Both cryptocurrencies have taken a big hit in recent weeks, dragging the broader crypto market lower as the U.S. Federal Reserve and other major central banks began unwinding the liquidity-boosting stimulus to contain inflation.
Bitcoin has declined more than 30% since peaking near $69,000 on Nov. 10, with sellers dominating the market during the Asian hours – 8:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. Beijing time.
The trend continued on Monday despite the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) taking steps to cushion the economy from the negative impact of property market woes and renewed coronavirus concerns.
The Chinese central bank announced a cut in its one-year loan prime rate, a de facto benchmark rate since 2019, from 3.85% to 3.8%, confirming the first reduction in nearly two years.
Interest rate cuts tend to inject liquidity into the economy. Thus, perceived inflation hedges like bitcoin, gold, and asset prices, in general, typically react positively to rate cuts.
However, Asian equities are currently flashing red alongside a 1.10% drop in the futures tied to the S&P 500. Oil prices are down more than 3% and the anti-risk currencies like the Japanese yen are drawing safe-haven bids.
The market action suggests China’s rate cut is perhaps too small compared to the impending tightening by the Fed and other central banks. Last week, theFed signaledthree rate hikes in 2022 and theBank of England delivereda surprise interest rate hike.
Heightened fears of coronavirus lockdowns also appear to be overshadowing Beijing’s move to improve market sentiment. European nations are reimposing stricter measures to stem the Omicron wave and China’s COVID zero policy is threatening to disrupt the global supply chain.
Lockdowns and supply chain disruptions are inflationary, which are seen as a positive development for a perceived store of value assets. Lockdowns also weigh over economic growth.
However, with elevated global price pressures, central banks appear to have little room for higher liquidity injection to prioritize growth as they did after the first COVID wave in the first half of 2020. Back then, inflation in the U.S. stood well below the Fed’s 2% target. As of November, U.S inflation stood at a four-decade high of 6.8%.
Fed ChairmJerome Powell recently retired the word “transitory” from inflation discussions, signaling a shift in focus from employment (growth) to inflation control. The International Monetary Fund also urged the Fed to speed up policy tightening to contain inflation. || Identifying Bitcoin’s Trend Allows for More Manageable Trading: I usually present my Elliott Wave Principle count, but I would like to focus on something else since the Bulls fumbled the ball a few weeks ago (see my previous update here ). In this case, identifying a trend as “the trend is always your friend” in trading. Why? It helps us determine to be aggressive, conservative, or downright Bearish and make trading less complicated. I always start my daily crypto trading updates with my “the trend is your friend chart.”: see Figure 1 below. It is so simple; one does not even need to know BTC ’s actual price to tell us if the price is trending higher or lower and how one should position oneself. Figure 1. Bitcoin daily chart with moving averages and Ichimoku Cloud. The trend is down. Trade it accordingly. Here I plot BTC’s price as a dotted line because I only need to know where it is concerning the following indicators: four simple moving averages (SMAs), the Ichimoku Cloud (the Cloud), and the Bollinger Bands. These variables help determine what the trend is. Namely, the SMAs are: very short-term (VST), short-term (ST), intermediate-term (IT), and long-term (LT). It is a Bullish trend when BTC’s price is above the VST, above the ST, > IT, > LT. In addition, all SMAs should be rising. Besides, one also wants the price above “the Cloud,” The Cloud needs to be green (rising) too, to know the trend is 100% Bullish. Lastly, the uptrend is powerful if the price is at the upper Bollinger Band. Trading strategy: by the dip (BDP), stay long, sell into strength. Figure 1 shows three such periods with the blue boxes. As you can see, with such a setup, the trend is your friend for long positions. Yes, the VST-SMA can dip below the ST-SMA, but that’s your “BDP” for shorter-term traders. Conversely, the trend becomes Bearish when BTC’s price drops below “the Cloud,” subsequently below more of the SMAs, and “rides” the lower Bollinger Bands. Figure 1 shows two such periods over the past 15 months: red boxes. Trading strategy: become conservative, i.e., raise cash, sell the rips, possibly short the crypto. As you can see, following this chart could have avoided a lot of pain during the May through July sell-off. And avoiding significant drawdowns is still the most effective way to riches as it allows one to preserve capital, which is then ready to be deployed during the next uptrend. Or, as they say, “ (s)he who loses the least amount of money comes out the winner ,” and “ rinse, lather, repeat .” Unfortunately, BTC entered an initial downtrend for the Bulls in mid-November early December as the VST and ST-SMAs dropped below the IT-SMA. That does not happen in strong uptrends (see blue boxes). In early December, the initial downtrend was confirmed when BTC also moved below “the Cloud.” Story continues Adding insult to injury, the crypto is now also trading below its LT-SMA. Thus, there is now a BTC<LT>VST<ST<IT<the Cloud setup, exemplified by the five red arrows in what I call “the traffic light.” The traffic light has been almost entirely red over the past several weeks. That means “caution, stop, etc.”. Something I communicate with my premium crypto trading members daily. Thus the current trend is not the Bulls’ friend and similar to June-July when BTC lost another 25%. As such, the trend tells us to look lower, not higher. Two weeks ago, I was already looking for preferably $28-36K. See here . With BTC currently trading at around $46K it has room to drop some more, which is what the “trend is your friend” chart tells us. Bottom line: The Bitcoin Bulls fumbled the ball already two weeks ago, and since the price of BTC has declined another 10%. Here I present a simple “the trend is your friend” chart that objectively helps identify if BTC is trending higher or lower and if one, therefore, should expect lower or higher prices. That trend, in turn, enables us to determine how to trade BTC. The current setup already called for “raising cash, conservative mode” a few weeks ago, and that strategy has yet to be proven wrong. When the trend changes again, we have plenty of time to ride the uptrend and deploy the cash stashed on the sidelines. Because please remember, “ cash is also a position .” Trade safely! This article was originally posted on FX Empire More From FXEMPIRE: S&P 500 Price Forecast – Stock Markets Get Crushed to Kick Off Week More Than a Quarter of All Bitcoin in Circulation Is Controlled by Few Investors Silver Price Forecast – Silver Markets Choppy to Start Off Week NZD/USD Forex Technical Analysis – .6702 Main Bottom Potential Trigger Point for Acceleration into .6589 Instagram is Currently Exploring NFTs, CEO Reveals European Equities: German and Eurozone Consumer Sentiment in Focus View comments || Crypto bulls send Bitcoin and Ether soaring—but not up to pre-Omicron levels: Major stock indexes from New York to Hong Kong plunged Friday as investors abandoned riskier stocks in the wake of the discovery of the new Omicron variant . And despite upward moves on Monday, most are still significantly below their pre-Omicron levels. Amid all the movement, one asset stands out for its perilous plunge—and later steep rise: crypto. Cryptocurrencies took a gigantic hit Friday —crypto king Bitcoin fell by over 9% at one point, to just over $53,000—and then wallowed in the depths until early Monday when they popped. Bitcoin rose to almost $58,000 early Monday in Europe, leaving it less than 2% below its Thursday, pre-Omicron levels of around $59,000. Similarly, Ether, the second-largest digital currency, dropped from its Thursday high around $4,500 by more than 11% but is now back up to $4,350—about 3% down from Thursday. Crypto bounce back Stock markets have not endured the same ride—nor the same bounce-back . In Asia, the Nikkei 225 fell by 2.53% on Friday—its worst loss in five months—and finished Monday trading 4.17% below its Thursday close price. Over in Hong Kong, the Hang Seng Index fell by 2.67% on Friday and closed Monday 3.73% down from its Thursday close. Europe—which has been quick to shutter its doors and stop travel from the Global South—saw its markets drop harder on the first day, with the Stoxx 600 falling by 3.5% and the U.K’s FTSE 100 falling by 2.7% on Friday. While the Europe Stoxx 600 had recovered by 1.12% on Monday, and the FTSE by 1.32%, neither has fully made back its losses from Friday. The situation was similar in the U.S., where S&P 500 futures were up only 0.8% just before markets opened on Monday after the index tumbled by 2.3% on Friday. Divergence from tech The remarkable plunge and recovery of cryptocurrency prices provides more evidence that their price movement is coming uncoupled from tech stocks, with which they have historically moved in tandem. This decoupling has been going on for some time , with the 30-day correlation between cryptocurrencies and the Nasdaq 100 index recently falling to almost zero in mid-November from its 2021 peak of 0.56 at the end of September. Story continues Crypto’s huge Friday plunge in value might be attributable to investors’ increasing use of debt through margin borrowing to bet on stocks, which makes them more sensitive to volatility in the markets. The plunge could also show that trade in the digital coin is “overcrowded,” Scott Thiel, chief fixed-income strategist for BlackRock , told Bloomberg TV on Monday. Trade in a risk asset becomes overcrowded when an excessive number of investors pile in, a condition that, in the worst cases, can lead to a speculative bubble. Market observers say such trades are particularly vulnerable to sudden plunges on the arrival of a news shock—like the appearance of Omicron. Die-hard crypto traders didn’t seem to mind the plunge at all, however. On crypto discussion forums, some posters likened the price cut to a Black Friday sale . https://twitter.com/BTC_Archive/status/1464189767017545739 This story was originally featured on Fortune.com || Oh &#%!@… Seriously!? Top DeFi Debacles of 2021: In 2021, DeFi blossomed from being a niche within the crypto space to a full-fledged industry as investors recognized the potential of the open economy.
Total Value Locked, a measure that quantifies the crypto assets locked in DeFi protocols, soared over 12x to $250B from $18.7B at the beginning of the year.
DeFi investors enjoyed astronomical returns this year, but it wasn’t always smooth sailing.
The juiciest yields in DeFi can generally be found in degen territory, where hundreds of millions in assets are entrusted to unaudited smart contracts run by anonymous developers. And with that sort of money at stake, the space naturally attracts scammers and black-hats.
From rug-pulls and flashloans to frontend exploits, we’re going to look at nine DeFi protocols where things went awry in 2021.
PancakeBunny, a yield aggregator on Binance Smart Chain, once had over $10B in Total Value Locked. In May 2021, the project was hit with anexploitthat utilized flashloans to manipulate its price oracles and drain $45M worth of crypto assets.
TVL has fallen to $215M and $BUNNY is down 99.8% from its peak.
Anubis DAO combined two of the fall’s hottest trends: meme coins and Olympus forks. The project launched a token sale and investors piled in to the tune of 13.6K ETH ($60M). Sadly, they never got to see the protocol in action, as all the ETH wasruggedmidway through the presale.
EasyFi is a lending protocol on the Polygon network. In April 2021, an attacker managed to gain access to the project’s admin keys andstole $60M worth of $EASY tokens, which remain 90% off their highs.
Thorchain is a popular cross-chain DEX that allows native token swaps across different blockchains. Its multi-chain network, called ChaosNet, launched in April with much fanfare, sending the project’s $RUNE token to all-time highs.
Thorchain suffered a series ofexploits.$RUNE continues to languish at just a third of its value in May.
Badger DAO’s mission is to ‘Bring Bitcoin to DeFi’ and they’ve made great progress over the last year, with TVL peaking above $2B in February.
On Dec. 1, Badger was hit by afront-end exploitthat prompted users to grant token approvals to a malicious contract. $120M in crypto assets were stolen, including 896 BTC ($50M)reportedlybelonging to crypto lender Celsius.
$BADGER lost half its value following the exploit. Arestitution planis in the works.
DeFi money market CREAM Finance can’t seem to catch a break.
After are-entrancy attackin August that saw $23M drained from the protocol, the project was hit for the fourth time on Oct. 27. Aflashloan exploitleft all the CREAM v1 vaults nearly bare, with $130M in crypto assets lost, making it DeFi’s third-largest exploit at the time (now fifth).
$CREAM tokens are down 80% in the wake of the disaster.
On Sep. 29, abuggy updatethat made it into production caused Compound Finance to pay out millions in excess $COMP token rewards to users of the DeFi lender.
While $80M in $COMP tokens were initially thought to be at risk, the problem was ‘compounded’ when it was discovered that anyone could refill the vulnerable vault with tokens by calling a function on the relevant smart contract.
The Compound team was powerless to stop it due to the seven-day governance process the protocol uses, and another $69M worth of $COMP was eventually lost.
At $147M, this remains DeFi’sthird-largest hack.
For the largest DeFi hack ever, this was certainly a strange one.
On August 10, overhalf a billion dollars worth of crypto assets were stolenfrom Poly Network, a cross-chain protocol that facilitates token swaps across multiple blockchains including Ethereum, Binance Smart Chain and Polygon.
Post-hack, the Poly team exchanged a series of messages with the hacker over Etherscan after which the stolen assets werereturned, a rare occurrence in the anonymous world of DeFi.
There’s still a lot that doesn’t add up about the whole affair, with some speculation that it may have been a publicity stunt.
A list of DeFi debacles would not be complete without the spectacular implosion of Iron Finance, the algorithmic stablecoin on Polygon that was the darling of yield farmers over the summer.
Total Value Locked peaked above $3B. At one point, the majority of stablecoins on the Polygon network were deployed in the protocol.
After weeks of eye-watering yields and a skyrocketing token, it all came crashing down on June 16. The protocol suffered a ‘bank run’ and its $TITAN token fell from$62 to nearly zero in just 16 hours.
Billionaire investor Mark Cuban, who had earlierpraised the project, was so shaken by the experience that he went onCNBCthe next day to call for stablecoin regulation.
Read the original post onThe Defiant. || Croatia’s Largest Food Retailer Konzum Now Accepts BTC and ETH: Cryptocurrencies have been gaining adoption in various sectors of the global economy in recent years. In the past two years, numerous retailers have added cryptocurrencies to their payment options as they look to attract more customers to their stores.
Konzum, the largest food retailer in Croatia, has become the latest retailer to accept cryptocurrencies as a means of payment. Following this latest development, Konzum has become the first major retail chain in Croatia to adopt cryptocurrencies as payment options.
The retailer said it would acceptBitcoin,Ether,Bitcoin Cash, Tether (USDT), USDC,EOS,XRP, DAI andStellar Lumenas payment options on its online store. Konzum partnered with Electrocoin, a domestic fintech company, and its payment processor, PayCek, to enable it to accept cryptocurrency payments on its platform. At the moment, the crypto payment option is only available in the online store.
One of the biggest challenges with cryptocurrencies as means of payment is the price volatility of the coins. However, according to the report, PayCek will ensure customers enjoy a fixed exchange rate, as well as supply enough time for successful execution. This will ensure that volatility is not an issue when customers use cryptocurrencies to pay for products at Konzum.
Konzum is the largest food retailer in Croatia, and adopting cryptocurrencies is a big plus for the industry. More retailers and businesses in Croatia could start accepting cryptocurrencies following Konzum’s footsteps.
An increasing number of retailers are adopting cryptocurrencies as a means of payment. Tech-focused California e-retailer, Newegg,announced a few days agothat it would acceptShiba Inu(SHIB) tokens in the coming Christmas holidays. The retailer addedDogecoin(DOGE) andLitecoin(LTC) to the list of coins it will accept.
Nothing, a London-based consumer technology company, also revealed that it would allow cryptocurrency settlements for its newest product. Other major brands that currently accept cryptocurrencies include Overstock, KFC Canada, Subway, Twitch, Pizza Hut Venezuela and a wide range of others.
Thisarticlewas originally posted on FX Empire
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• Crypto Market Today: Bitcoin and Ether Plunge, ADA Approaches Key Support || The Crypto Daily – Movers and Shakers – December 3rd, 2021: Bitcoin, BTC to USD, fell by 1.26% on Thursday. Reversing a 0.44% gain from Wednesday, Bitcoin ended the day at $56,517.
A mixed morning saw Bitcoin rise to an early morning intraday high $57,390 before hitting reverse. Falling short of the first major resistance level at $58,695, Bitcoin slid to an early morning intraday low $55,842.
Bitcoin fell through the first major support level at $56,145 before briefly revising $57,300 levels. A bearish end to the day, however, saw Bitcoin fall back to sub-$57,000 and into the red.
The near-term bullish trend remained intact, in spite of the latest pullback to sub-$54,000 levels. For the bears, Bitcoin would need a sustained fall through the 62% FIB of $28,814 to form a near-term bearish trend.
Across the rest of the majors, it was a mixed day on Thursday.
Cardano’s ADAjumped by 11.18% to lead the way, withBitcoin Cash SV(+0.47%) also bucking the trend on the day.
It was a bearish day for the rest of the majors, however.
Crypto.com Coinslid by 6.52% to lead the way down.
Binance Coin(-1.21%),Chainlink(-3.16%),Ethereum(-1.58%),Litecoin(-2.56%), Polkadot (-1.57%), andRipple’s XRP(-1.73%) also saw red.
In the current week, the crypto total market fell to a Tuesday low $2,490bn before rising to a Wednesday high $2,712bn. At the time of writing, the total market cap stood at $2,572bn.
Bitcoin’s dominance rose to a Monday high 43.01% before falling to a Thursday low 41.13%. At the time of writing, Bitcoin’s dominance stood at 41.59%.
At the time of writing, Bitcoin was up by 0.18% to $56,620. A mixed start to the day saw Bitcoin fall to an early morning low $56,466 before rising to a high $56,620.
Bitcoin left the major support and resistance levels untested early on.
Elsewhere, it was a mixed start to the day.
At the time of writing, Binance Coin (-0.03%), Cardano’s ADA (-0.52%), Crypto.com Coin (-0.52%), and Ripple’s XRP (-0.18%) saw red early on.
It was a bullish start for the rest of the majors, however.
Chainlink was up by 0.41%, at the time of writing, to lead the way.
Bitcoin would need to avoid a fall back through the $56,583 pivot to bring the first major resistance level at $57,324 into play. Support from the broader market would be needed, however, for Bitcoin to break back through to $57,000 levels.
Barring an extended crypto rally, the first major resistance level and Thursday’s high $57,390 would likely cap the upside.
In the event of an extended rally, Bitcoin could test resistance at $58,500 levels before easing back. The second major resistance level sits at $58,131.
A fall back through the $56,583 pivot would bring the first major support level at $55,776 into play. Barring another extended sell-off on the day, Bitcoin should steer clear of sub-$55,000 levels. The second major support level at $55,035 should limit the downside.
Thisarticlewas originally posted on FX Empire
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Source: J. Lekavicius / Shutterstock.com
Even without news, BYDDF stock is seeing heavy trading today. This has some 573,000 shares on the move as of this writing. That’s well above the company’s daily average trading volume of roughly 136,000 shares. It’s also worth pointing out we saw the company’s stock jump when markets opened this morning only to suffer a fall shortly afterward.
Let’s take a look at what investors interested in BYDDF stockneed to knowabout the company.
InvestorPlace - Stock Market News, Stock Advice & Trading Tips
• BYD is a Chinese manufacturing company founded in 1995 and based out of Shenzhen, Guangdong.
• The company operates in the automotive business through its subsidiary, BYD Auto.
• BYD Auto was founded in 2003 following the acquisition of Qinchuan Automobile Company by BYD in 2002.
• It also operates in North America via its U.S. headquarters in Los Angeles, Calif.
• Recent news concerning BYDDF includes itpartnering withToyota Motor Company(NYSE:TM).
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• This will have them working together to create an EV similar to the Toyota Corolla.
• This new EV will be exclusive to the Chinese automotive market.
• It’s also worth pointing out that BYD’s cars have been doing well in its home country.
• For the first three quarters of 2021,four of the company’s cars were among the top 15 sellers in China.
• If we narrow that down to the month of September, then five of BYD’s cars make it into the top 15 on the list.
BYDDF stock is down 2.2% as of Thursday morning.
Investors looking for more recent stock market news will want to keep reading!
InvestorPlaceis home to all the latest stock news traders will want to know about. That includes what’s happening withPhunware(NASDAQ:PHUN),EVgo(NASDAQ:EVGO), andEnsysce Biosciences(NASDAQ:ENSC) shares today. You can get up to speed on that news by checking out the links below!
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On the date of publication, William Whitedid not have (either directly or indirectly) any positions in the securities mentioned in this article.The opinions expressed in this article are those of the writer, subject to the InvestorPlace.comPublishing Guidelines.
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The postBYDDF Stock: 10 Things to Know About BYD as Investors Hunt for the Next Hot EV Playappeared first onInvestorPlace. || Cosmos (ATOM) Rallies to All-Time Highs Despite Crypto Sell-Off: ATOM, which is a native token of Cosmos, has recently made an attempt to get above the $45 level amid strong crypto market pullback which has pushed leading coins to multi-week lows.
Cosmos is a decentralized network which provides developers with an opportunity to create interoperable blockchains. Put simply, Cosmos’ goal is to establish communication between various blockchains.
Cosmos alsoboastslow energy consumption, which may serve as an important longer-term catalysts if crypto traders begin to pay more attention to the environmental impact of cryptocurrencies.
It looks that traders are using the current crypto market pullback as an opportunity to switch some funds into promising projects which can challenge crypto leaders likeBitcoinandEthereum.
According toCoinMarketCap,Cosmos is the 21st biggest cryptocurrency in the world with a market cap of $9.6 billion. The recent rally will improve the project’s visibility for traders, and ATOM’s strength amid crypto market pullback may attract new buyers.
ATOM has recently made an attempt to settle above the resistance at all-time highs near the $45 level but failed to develop sufficient upside momentum and pulled back.
In case ATOM manages to stay above $43.30, it will get to another test of the resistance at the $44 level. A move above the $44 level will push ATOM towards recent highs near $44.70. In case ATOM settles above this level, it will gain strong upside momentum and get above the $45 level.
On the support side, a move below $43.30 will push ATOM towards the support level at $41.50. There are no important levels between $41.50 and $43.30 so this move may be fast in case traders decide to take profits after rally. If ATOM settles below the support at $41.50, it will head towards the next support at $40.70.
Taking a look at H1 chart, we can see that RSI pulled back into the moderate territory, so ATOM has a good chance to gain additional upside momentum in the near term.
Thisarticlewas originally posted on FX Empire
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[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
None available.
|
Trend: no change || Prices: 36654.33, 36954.00, 36852.12, 37138.23, 37784.33, 38138.18, 37917.60, 38483.12, 38743.27, 36952.98
|
Analyze the provided historical prices, technical indicators, news, and social media sentiment from the last 60 days. Based on this context, predict the overall trend (up, down, or no change) and the specific daily closing prices for Bitcoin for the next 10 days.
|
[Technical Analysis for 2020-02-05]
BTC Price: 9613.42, BTC RSI: 68.22
Gold Price: 1557.80, Gold RSI: 53.62
Oil Price: 50.75, Oil RSI: 26.48
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
PreMarket Prep Recap: Who Let The Bulls Out?: For the final PreMarket Prep of 2019, we invited a few of our favorite guests from the year to share a bullish pick and bearish pan for 2020. To say the sentiment was overwhelmingly bullish for the broad market would be a gross understatement.
Herer's what our guests are forecasting, with timestamps from each guest appearance in parentheses.
JC Parets,All Star Charts(14:05)
Pick-Amazon.com Inc(NASDAQ:AMZN) will go “at least 50% higher,” Parets said. That would put the issue at $2,803 by the end of 2020.
Pan-20 Year Treasury Bond ETF(NASDAQ:TLT). Parets sees a major rise in interest rates, with the 10-year Treasury rate going from its current rate of 1.9% to 3%. This would have a very negative effect on bonds and utilities.
Chirstian Fromhertz,Tribeca Trade Group(27:00)
Pick-Emerging markets or MSCI Emerging Market ETF(NYSE:EEM). Fromhertz said it’s time for emerging markets to play “catch-up” to the U.S. markets.
Pan-GameStop Corp. (NYSE:GME)
Anne-Marie Baiynd,The Trading Book(36:25)
Pick-Cyberark Software Ltd(NASDAQ:CYBR), or more broadly, thePrime Cyber Security ETF(NYSE:HACK). Baiynd is betting on companies increasing their spending on cybersecurity, and she likes the $118 level Cyberark is ending 2019 at.
Pan- Bitcoin or theGrayscale Bitcoin Trust (BTC)(OTC:GBTC). While she likes cryptocurrency as an idea, Baiynd said governments will eventually step in and squash them out in favor of fiat currency.
Dan Forman, Executive Director At Olivetree Financial (45:10)
Pick-Ambarella Inc(NASDAQ:AMBA). Forman sees Ambarella as a direct play on surveillance technology and self-driving cars.
Pan- Forman said he would shy away from legacy technology issues such asHewlett-Packard Enterprises(NYSE:HPE) that have “zero growth.”
Kenny Glick,Hitthebid.com(53:45)
Pick-Invesco QQQ Trust Series 1(NASDAQ:QQQ). Sticking with a fund he's been long since the financial crisis, Glick sees the QQQ rising to $250 next year.
Pan-United States Steel Corporation(NYSE:X). Glick says U.S. Steel is “Going to zero.” It's a classic “revenge trade” for him, emanating from a previous long trade earlier in the year.
Listen to the full segments with each guest in the podcast below, or watch the clip on Youtube here.
PreMarket Prep is a daily trading show hosted by prop trader Dennis Dick and former floor trader Joel Elconin. You can watch PreMarket Prep live every day from 8-9 a.m. ET here. The replay can be found on Benzinga's YouTube channel, and the podcast is on iTunes, Google Play, Soundcloud, Stitcher and Tunein.
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© 2019 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || 2019 Set the Stage for DeFi to Go Mainstream: This post is part of CoinDesk’s 2019 Year in Review, a collection of 100 op-eds, interviews and takes on the state of blockchain and the world. Lou Kerner is an advisory board member at Blockchain Coinvestors, co-founder of CryptoOracle, and partner at Chameleon as well as Flight Ventures.
MakerDAOstarted minting DAI in December 2017, and saw dramatic growth in 2018, as the daily supply in circulation grew to nearly 100 million:
Related:A Decade of Quantitative Easing Has Paved the Way for the Age of Digital Currency
In March, 2019,MolochDAOwent live with 22 founding members, each depositing 100 ETH (the equivalent of $330,000 at today’s price of $150) into the decentralized and autonomous grants system. At the Ethereal Summit just two months later, MolochDAO received another 1,000 ETH from both Joe Lubin and Vitalik Buterin, plus 2,000 ETH from a group of individuals from ConsenSys and the Ethereum Foundation. In its first six months, it gave more than $120,000 to 17 projects.
2019 also witnessed the scaling of decentralized exchanges as liquidity solutions improved VIA locking ETH.
In total, we are now at peak ETH locked in DeFi applications:
Related:Crypto Must Embrace the Fringe to Win Over the Mainstream
With the majority locked via MakerDAO.
The last three years has seen a lot of progress. Scaling is being addressed with various technologies includingPlasmaandRollupshowing great promise. We are seeing an increasing number of viable fiat on-ramps for both institutional investors (e.g. Bakkt) and consumers (e.g. Wyre). We’re starting to see standards set in foundational technologies like zero knowledge proofs (viaZKProof.org). So the main element we need to solve for now, is creating a product that people want. That people need. And there are two simple reasons why I believe that DeFi is poised to create that mainstream product in 2020.
A key aspect of DeFi is it’s composability, which is the ability to combine two distinct services to get a novel third service. A great example of this is InstaDapp, which created a link between Maker and Compound, increasing the efficiency of the entire lending market by enabling borrowers or savers to easily find and engage with the providers offering the best rates on lending, borrowing and margin trading. And InstaDapp was created at the ETHIndia hackathon, in two days.
With the introduction ofMulti-Collateral DAIin November, 2019, we’re starting to see a more robust set of DeFi “Legos” that we can connect together to create products that were simply not possible before. While DeFiers can lock only two assets (ETH and BAT) together to create DAI today, we’re likely to see a proliferation of assets come to DeFI in the coming years, including fiat currencies and tokens derived from real world assets, like real estate. Thus creating more assets that can be connected to create new kinds of assets.
DeFi has a major advantage over incumbent financial and technology companies because they can introduce products without asking any regulators for permission.
If Uber had asked taxi regulators for permission, there would be no Uber.
There is no Libra today because Facebook had to ask for permission because they’re centralized and have a $550B franchise to protect.
Maker didn’t ask for permission to introduce Dai. Uniswap didn’t ask for permission. Compound didn’t ask for permission.
If you don’t have to ask for permission, you can roll out a lot more products a lot faster, and are simply far better positioned to find product market fit.
New asset classes are born all the time, providing new opportunities for investors that were not previously available. Take junk bonds. When Michael Milken at Drexel invented this asset, all the other investment banks said they were garbage and would never issue or trade them. But investors wanted junk bonds, and the new class grew quickly, from $1.6 billion of issuance in 1981, to $33 billion just five years later. That dramatic growth was driven by the fact that junk bonds provided a way for investors to get higher yields that were simply not possible before. They found product market fit.
I think 2020 will start to see the introduction of DeFi products that enable investors to do things they couldn’t do before and to invest in ways that were not possible before these new technologies existed. When we find product market fit and build a product that people want, that they can’t get elsewhere, rypto will go mainstream. That’s when institutions “get off zero.” That’s the promise of 2020.
• With So Much Debt Around, Investors Need Bitcoin as a Reflation Hedge
• The Central Bank Business Model Is Under Attack || BitMEX hit with $300 million lawsuit: BitMEX one of the worlds largest and most popular cryptocurrency exchanges and its founder Arthur Hayes have been slapped with a $300 million lawsuit, according to a report by Bloomberg . Frank Amato and RGB Coin Ltd allege to have been the first seed investors in the platform back in 2015. They claim their $30,000 investment was supposed to have been converted into equity. This conversion is now valued at more than $50 million, according to reports. The suit claims neither party has been granted the equity. Amato also alleges that BitMEX provided him with false information. The parties are seeking to recoup both the current value of their equity alongside $250 million in punitive damages. Based on the estimated value of the stake, the exchange is now valued at roughly $1 billion. Coin Rivet has contacted BitMEX for a comment. A spokesperson said: We will address Mr Amatos claims through the proper legal channels and will not comment beyond that. BitMEX under fire BitMEX has found itself under fire on multiple occasions this year. Back in November, Coin Rivet reported on the exchange leaking thousands of customer emails. At the time, the exchange posted the following statement: We are aware that some of our users have received a general user update email earlier today, which contained the email addresses of other users. We are very sorry for the concern this has caused to our users. Hours after the leak, the exchanges Twitter account was then subject to a hack. Numerous financial agencies and watchdogs have also been keeping a close eye on the exchange over 2019. The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) the UKs financial watchdog has been contemplating whether the exchange should be allowed to operate in the country after proposing a ban on cryptocurrency derivatives platforms such as BitMEX. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) in the US has also been probing the platform to see whether it broke any rules by allowing Americans to trade. Story continues BitMEX strictly states in its terms of service that US citizens are not permitted to trade on the platform. This rule was enforced in November 2018 when well-known analyst Tone Vays had his trading account terminated . Interested in reading more BitMEX-related articles? Discover more about millionaire trader The Boot who turned $4,000 into $3 million while trading Bitcoin. The post BitMEX hit with $300 million lawsuit appeared first on Coin Rivet . || Kraken to list USDC stablecoin tomorrow: Crypto exchange Kraken is set to list the USDC stablecoin, which is issued by the Coinbase and Circle-backed CENTRE Consortium.
Users of Kraken will be able to trade the stablecoin starting Jan. 8, according to anannouncementpublished Tuesday. USDC is the third stablecoin offering by Kraken, after Tether (USDT) and DAI.
The supply of USDC has risen by almost 98% since Jan. 1, 2019 at over 518 million, according to The Block's research.
Kraken has also established five trading pairs for USDC: bitcoin (BTC)/ USDC; ether (ETH)/USDC; USDC/ euro (EUR); USDC/ U.S. dollar (USD) and USDC/USDT.
Notably, the USDC support is currently only available for Kraken, Kraken Pro and its over-the-counter trading platforms. The stablecoin is not being added to Kraken's Futures and Margin Trading platforms at this time. || Will the Bitcoin halving spur a bull market?: The highly anticipated Bitcoin halving will take place later this year, with several analysts predicting that it could spur another cryptocurrency bull market. Roughly every four years, or every 210,000 blocks, Bitcoin undergoes a block reward halving, which means the reward for miners who add new blocks to the Bitcoin blockchain gets cut in half. The first halving happened in 2012. One year later, Bitcoin reached a new all-time high. The second halving came in 2016, with Bitcoin famously surging to a $20,000 all-time high in December 2017. Cryptocurrency mining is a very energy-intensive and expensive process, with electricity, insurance, and equipment all demanding a hefty initial and ongoing cost. Many believe that when the block reward is slashed, Bitcoin miners are incentivised to drive the price to the upside so that the industry stays profitable. Currently, for each block a miner mines, they are rewarded with 12.5 Bitcoin. In May, this will be reduced to 6.25 Bitcoin. Halving According to data from Digitalik , Bitcoin is forecast to rally towards an $80,000 price point following this summers halving, which almost certainly means the long-awaited return of a cryptocurrency bull market. Its worth noting that Litecoin underwent its own block reward halving in 2019, but it didnt have a positive impact on price. However, leading up to the halving, Litecoin rallied by 563% over a seven-month period, which could indicate that Bitcoin will endure a similar rally before the halving this year. From a technical perspective, a series of key resistance levels remain in the way for Bitcoin, notably $9,250 and $10,000 as well as $13,000. A significant breakout above these levels will undoubtedly lure retail investors back in, which could be the initial signs of a Bitcoin bull market in 2020. For more news, guides, and cryptocurrency analysis, click here . The post Will the Bitcoin halving spur a bull market? appeared first on Coin Rivet . || Asian Markets Stabilize After Monday's Sell-Off, Coronavirus Cases Cross 20K: Chinese stocks led an Asia-wide market recovery on Tuesday, as the paranoia over the markets reopening post the extended lunar holiday seemed to calm down. What Happened The number of confirmed cases of the novel coronavirus rose to 20,438 by the end of Monday, according to state-run Xinhua News Agency, with 425 deaths reported. The special administrative region of Hong Kong also reported its first death from the coronavirus on Tuesday. The city closed most of its land and sea borders with mainland China by early Tuesday as protests by medical workers increased, according to the Associated Press. Another death outside of mainland China was reported in the Philippines on Sunday. The People's Bank of China tried to curtail fears by injecting about $174 billion in the economy through cutting reverse repo rates, but the investors didn't find solace in the measure. The benchmark Shanghai Composite index alone saw $393 billion getting wiped out from its market, plunging about 8% on Monday, as the markets traded for the first day since January 23. The Chinese authorities have taken a number of other steps to reduce panic in the financial markets, including limiting short selling and the sale of shares by mutual fund managers, Reuters noted . The Chinese central bank-backed publication Financial News in an op-ed on Monday assured investors that the effect of the virus on the financial markets is temporary. "China's economy is bolstered by its innate resilience and lasting growth momentum that cannot be easily reversed by a virus outbreak," the article said, according to Xinhua. In a tweet late Monday, International Monetary Fund managing director Kristalina Georgieva expressed confidence that the Chinese economy "remains resilient." Meanwhile, the Reserve Bank of Australia kept its benchmark interest rate steady at 0.75%, in line with market expectations, as the officials held their first such meeting this year. Asia Stocks China's Shanghai Composite traded 0.67% higher at 2,765.77; Shenzhen Component added 2.94% at 10,066.82. Hong Kong's Hang Seng index was up 0.87% at 26,585.15. Japan's Nikkei 225 traded 0.48% higher, while South Korea's KOSPI was up 1.7% at 2,154.80. Singapore's Straits Times Index gained 1.33% at 3,157.23. India's SENSEX and NIFTY 50 were both up 1.84%. Story continues US Futures The United States futures too extended gains pointing to a higher open on Tuesday. Dow Jones futures were up 0.67% at 28,551. Nasdaq 100 futures added 0.74% at 8,181.75. S&P 500 futures traded 0.68% higher at 3,267.50. 0 See more from Benzinga US Marshals To Auction M In Bitcoin This Month Elon Musk Getting Richer Faster Than Any Other Billionaire This Year Amazon Testing Online Platform To Let Merchants Shop For Loans: Report © 2020 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || SEC Asks for Telegram ICO Financials Ahead of CEO’s Deposition: Telegram has been ordered by a judge to explain why it should not have to turn over financials concerning its $1.7 billion initial coin offering (ICO).
District Judge P. Kevin Castel of the New York Southern District Court ordered Telegram to respond by the end of day Friday following a request Thursday by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
The SEC said the investment information is necessary ahead of next week’sdeposementof three Telegram employees, including founder and CEO Pavel Durov.
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“Defendants’ refusal to fully disclose and answer questions about their disposition of the $1.7 billion they raised from investors is deeply troubling,” the SEC’s letter states.
The SEC is scrutinizing how ICO investor money was spent, according to a case filing to the District Court on Thursday. Telegram has refused to hand over ICO allocation records relevant to the “efforts of others,” part of the Howey Test used by the SEC to determine if a financial product is a security.
“The SEC is asking the court for an order compelling production of this information immediately, in advance of an upcoming deposition,” Compound Finance general counsel Jake Chervinsky told CoinDesk.
“[The] judge may already plan to grant the motion and just wants to give Telegram its chance to be heard before doing so. I wouldn’t be surprised if Telegram responds in a few hours and the Judge issues an order granting the motion a few hours after that (or tomorrow morning),” he said.
Related:Blockchain of Things Pays SEC $250,000 to Settle Unregistered ICO
The SEC has asked for the relevant financial records ahead of the deposition, but Telegram has only released credits, and not debits, of its ICO investments to date citing issues with its banking partners.
“The requested bank records are highly relevant to the issues in dispute in this case, including how much money Telegram has spent, and in what manner, in developing the TON Blockchain,” the SEC letter said.
“This evidence is relevant to the efforts Telegram has made to ensure the viability and profitability of the Grams it sold,” the SEC added.
Telegram wascourt-orderedto halt the issuance of its gram token in October 2019 following an emergency action and restraining order by the SEC. The regulator said Telegram’s ICO constituted an unregistered securities offering.
The New York court ordered Durov to be deposed at a mutually agreed upon location. The deposition is scheduled for Jan. 7–8 in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.
Update (Jan. 3, 19:45 UTC):A previous version of this story said the motion to compel had been granted by the district judge while the court order only asks Telegram to respond to the SEC’s request before a motion is granted.
Read the full SEC letter below.
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• SEC Charges Shopin CEO With Fraud Over Unregistered $42M ICO || The top 10 finance search terms in 2019 on Yahoo Search: The pound has fluctuated significantly over the past year. Photo: Matthew Horwood/Getty Images 2019 has been a turbulent year for the British economy, from Brexit drama and a general election to stagnating growth and iconic firms hitting the wall. Some of that upheaval and uncertainty is reflected in the most-searched for finance terms by Yahoo Search users throughout the year. Here are the 10 most commonly searched terms: 10. Gold price Investors turn to perceived safe havens like gold when times are tough. There may be no yield, but the value of gold ( GC=F ) is less susceptible to market stress and interest rate decisions, providing a hedge against currency decline and inflation. With the trade row between the US and China gripping market attention for much of the year, gold’s fortunes have waxed and waned with the latest twists in the tariff war. 9. Universal credit Brexit may dominate the political agenda, but the UK government is also embarking on one of the biggest shakeups of Britain’s social security system in decades. Universal credit is gradually replacing six other benefits, rolling them into one payment for unemployed and low-income households alike. Some of the changes are complex and controversial and leave certain claimants worse-off, so high search traffic should come as no surprise. 8. Lloyds share price Lloyds is Britian's top retail bank. Photo: Dinendra Haria / SOPA Images/Sipa USA This reflects Lloyds’ ( LLOY.L ) status as one of Britain’s most-traded stocks. The UK’s biggest retail bank and mortgage lender, its UK-focused operations mean it is often seen as a convenient proxy for investors betting on or against the health of the wider UK economy. 7. House prices Property prices have continued to grow across much of Britain in recent years, but a slowdown has hit London and the south-east. Current and aspiring home-owners are often keen to keep track of the latest trends, not least as Brexit turmoil has spooked many would-be sellers and buyers alike. Rightmove is predicting prices will rise 2% in 2020. 6. Minimum wage The UK government increases the national minimum wage every year and rates vary for different age groups, meaning employees and employers both need to keep up to date with current entitlements. Story continues The minimum wage has also attracted significant political attention this year. Chancellor Sajid Javid pledged in October to raise it to two-thirds of median UK pay , while Labour promised an immediate hike from its current £8.21 rate to £10 an hour. 5. Bitcoin Bitcoin rallied after Facebook unveiled Libra. Photo: Chesnot/Getty Images The announcement of Facebook’s Libra project sparked renewed attention on cryptocurrencies like bitcoin this year. Rather than triggering competition fears from rivals, it boosted hopes that Facebook’s plans could lift the sector as a whole and prompted a rally in other cryptocurrencies. But a regulatory backlash and several major companies’ decisions to quit the project, including Visa and PayPal, have sown fresh doubts over its future. 4. Thomas Cook collapse The collapse of the world’s oldest travel firm earlier this year not only marked the end of an era, but also left more than a million people out of pocket. The UK government had to oversee the biggest peacetime repatriation effort in history, flying home 150,000 stranded customers. Staff told Yahoo Finance UK they feared for their homes, and many customers were still waiting for refunds for cancelled bookings from the authorities even after a 90-day deadline earlier this month. 3. London Stock Exchange The latest share price movements and announcements from Britain’s major listed companies naturally drew significant search traffic from readers in the business world. But the London Stock Exchange itself ( LSE.L ) also attracted significant attention after receiving and starkly rejecting a surprise £32bn takeover bid from Hong Kong in September. 2. Forex The pound’s fortunes against the dollar ( GBPUSD=X ) and euro ( GBPEUR=X ) have dovetailed with the latest Brexit developments. Investors have taken flight on the several occasions Britain has looked on course for a radical break with the EU , which would devastate trade ties. First Theresa May and then Boris Johnson took Britain close to the cliff-edge as prime ministers ahead of two Brexit deadlines that were eventually missed in 2019. 1. Brexit Prime Minister Boris Johnson drives a Union Jack-themed JCB in the election campaign. Photo: PA The B-word has dominated political debate in Britain for much of 2019, from the TV studios to family living rooms. While Brexit has bored some and frustrated others, it has clearly gripped the attention of large swathes of the country. With countless political, economic and other consequences that could be felt for decades to come, Brexit was the most searched-for finance term in 2019. || Jill Carlson, Meltem Demirors Back $3.3M Round for Non-Custodial Settlement Protocol Arwen: Arwen, a non-custodial settlement protocol developer, has raised $3.3 million in a funding round including Meltem Demirors at CoinShares and Jill Carlson at Slow Ventures. According to Arwen CEO and co-founder Sharon Goldberg, Slow Ventures led the round, which also included Collaborative Fund, Underscore VC and DG Lab Fund. The funding will help the Boston-based startup expand its non-custodial settlement system , a layer-2 protocol that secures “assets in motion” via atomic swaps , Goldberg said. In simpler terms, Arwen allows users to settle trades via an exchange’s hot wallet without actually handing over custody of the underlying asset. Related: Few Banks Will Touch Crypto Firms, but Silvergate Wants to Touch Bitcoin Itself The protocol currently supports bitcoin, litecoin and ethereum trades on the KuCoin exchange , though Goldberg said her company is in talks with “institutional partners” interested in using the service. Demirors said an announcement is expected in Q2 2020. Arwen’s non-custodial solution plays to high-dollar investors, according to Demirors – the type of trader that wants quick access to liquidity, but wants to avoid the risks associated with hot (online) wallets. She pointed out hackers have proven time and again through 2019 that centralized honeypots are vulnerable, valuable targets to strike. However, “this settlement technology can be used more broadly than just with centralized exchanges,” Goldberg said. In the long term, she sees Arwen providing settlement services to a wider market. Jill Carlson, who led the funding round with her firm Slow Ventures, is also bullish on the technology’s long-tail potential to impact markets beyond crypto. Related: Meltem Demirors on Government Digital Currencies and Why ‘The Halvening’ Gets Weird “This problem of efficient clearing and settlement without more risk, it’s not crypto specific,” she said, adding that traditional capital markets rely on a sluggish settlement process that could also stand to benefit. Story continues Carlson also identified another aspect of the Arwen funding round, one she said came more by circumstance than design: the deal’s major players are all women. “I think it’s really cool to see more and more female entrepreneurs in crypto,” she said. Related Stories Blockchain of Things Pays SEC $250,000 to Settle Unregistered ICO PODCAST: Meltem Demirors on the 3 Things Bitcoin Represents || REFILE-China's bitcoin miners scoop up greater production power -research: (Corrects name in third paragraph to Bendiksen, not Bendkisen)
* Chinese miners control 66% of bitcoin computer power -research
* Increase may be down to deployment of better kit
* Global hashrate has grown 80% since June
* Greater concentration may benefit Chinese mining firms
By Tom Wilson
LONDON, Dec 11 (Reuters) - China's bitcoin miners now control two-thirds of the crypto network's processing power, research showed on Wednesday, a growing share that is likely to benefit the country's miners.
Miners in China control 66% of global "hashrate", a measure of the power of computers hooked up to the bitcoin network that dictates their ability to produce new coins, according to a report by digital asset manager CoinShares.
The Chinese share of hashrate, up from 60% in June, is the highest recorded by CoinShares since it began tracking hashrate nearly two years ago. The gains may be due to their greater deployment of more advanced mining gear, said Chris Bendiksen, the firm's head of research.
Chinese companies such as Bitmain and MicroBT are among the world's biggest manufacturers of bitcoin mining gear. Another, Canaan, launched a $90 million initial public offering in November, indicating investor hunger for exposure to miners.
At bitcoin's current price of around $7,200, miners produce bitcoin worth around $4.7 billion every year.
"This is beneficial to the Chinese mining industry," said Bendiksen. "If you are the first to increase your proportion of the hashrate, and you can do that before your competitors, that's generally good."
Crypto mining is a highly opaque sector, with little reliable data on the bitcoin network or bitcoin miners.
Bitcoin miners draw on huge amounts of computing power as they battle against others to solve complex mathematical equations to earn new coins. The higher the hashrate, the more power is needed to produce bitcoin.
And mining has become more difficult. The network's hashrate has risen 80% since June, in part because of strong profitability of miners and more powerful machines, said London-based CoinShares, which manages around $600 million in digital assets.
Click here https://tmsnrt.rs/2sBLQwV for an interactive graphic.
China has cracked down on crypto exchanges and fundraising in recent years, even as it develops its own digital currency.
After looking at banning crypto mining, Beijing last month indicated it would not do so. Some analysts interpreted the move as indicating tolerance of the sector.
The most significant crypto mining hubs are in China's Yunnan, Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia and Sichuan provinces, CoinShares said, with the latter accounting for over half the global hashrate. Other centres are spread from the United States to Russia and Kazakhstan.
China's share of hashrate may fall as more Chinese-made next generation gear makes it way into other markets, CoinShares said.
(Reporting by Tom Wilson; Editing by Catherine Evans)
[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
None available.
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Trend: up || Prices: 9729.80, 9795.94, 9865.12, 10116.67, 9856.61, 10208.24, 10326.05, 10214.38, 10312.12, 9889.42
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Analyze the provided historical prices, technical indicators, news, and social media sentiment from the last 60 days. Based on this context, predict the overall trend (up, down, or no change) and the specific daily closing prices for Bitcoin for the next 10 days.
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[Technical Analysis for 2016-11-30]
BTC Price: 745.69, BTC RSI: 60.55
Gold Price: 1170.80, Gold RSI: 24.46
Oil Price: 49.44, Oil RSI: 58.67
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
A Harvard Professor Studied Infamous White-Collar Criminals. Here’s What He Learned.: Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? Eugene Soltes does, at least if the men are disgraced corporate executives. Soltes, an associate professor at Harvard Business School, struck up relationships--mainly by phone, email, and letter--with close to 50 prominent white-collar criminals in order to learn what made them tick, why they blew it all, and what, if anything, distinguishes them from us. He eventually got to knowPonzi schemers Bernard Madoffand Allen Stanford, former Tyco CEO Dennis Kozlowski, Enron CFO Andy Fastow, ImClone CEO Samuel Waksal, McKinsey partner Anil Kumar, KPMG partner Scott London, and many others.
The resulting book,Why They Do It: Inside the Mind of the White-Collar Criminal(Public Affairs, 447 pages), comes out October 11. For this article, Soltes also struck up a brief telephone relationship withFortunelegal affairs writer Roger Parloff, though he has not yet been convicted of anything.
Fortune: When did you start working on this project and why?
The project began almost a decade ago, although at the time it wasn't even a scholarly endeavor. It was just my curiosity. I was a graduate student, finishing my doctorate at the University of Chicago School of Business. One night I was working on my dissertation, which involved a large empirical dataset, and was waiting for some data output. I was watching TV and came across a show on MSNBC calledLockup--a cross between a reality and documentary show.
It was about criminals--mostly violent offenders. From this I started wondering: What about all the nonviolent offenders--like the executives I'd read about in the papers. That spurred me to write down the first ten questions that came to mind and to send letters to a number of prominent white-collar criminals. That led, down the road, to this project.
Were most the white-collar criminals fundamentally like you and me, or were they sociopaths?
By and large, they were like us. That's one of the main things I took away in this project.
Once they've been indicted or convicted, we tend to distance them from ourselves and say we'd never do this. We're not like them. But when we look at their errors more carefully, they're actually ones we are all susceptible to making. The main difference is that we are not generally in those types of leadership positions that when we make an error it actually has that kind of cataclysmic consequences on thousands or tens of thousands of people.
The main challenge that not just managers face, but that we all face as humans, is that we're not hardwired to detect harm that we're doing when the harm is distant. It's not enough to know the difference between right and wrong. One actually has to feel that one's actions are harmful to avoid going forward. So take something like insider trading. You don't see the victims. It's actually impossible in many instances to identify who those victims are. So it's not surprising that if you engage in insider trading, there's not going to be any internal alarm screaming out that you're engaging in some extraordinarily heinous crime.
So I could sit in a room all day with these executives and never be worried about them going into my back pocket and taking $5 out of my wallet. They're socialized. They wouldn't do that. Yet many of these individuals--I've held stock in some of their firms--they've taken actually far more than that out of my retirement account, or my stock account. But they don't feel any kind of deep harm in doing so. That's a discrepancy.
Was Bernie Madoff a sociopath?
Out of all the individuals I've spent time with, Madoff is different. Unlike other managers, Madoff knew his victims in intimate ways--they were family, friends, people in his religious circle.
Madoff is a brilliant individual. Cordial. Open. I see why he was such a successful manager in terms of bringing people into his fund and taking on this leadership position. But he doesn't feel a great deal of remorse for his actions. He’s simply less empathetic.
Did most people feel remorse?
Very few. That was something that did surprise me. That's something I found puzzling for awhile until I started appreciating the fact that it's hard to feel deep remorse if you don't actually see the people whom you've hurt. You read that you've harmed the integrity of the markets--but that doesn't resonate internally with us very well.
Do you think any of the people you met were actually innocent?
There were a couple cases where the penalties they faced seemed quite remarkable. One person that particularly resonated with me Scott Harkonen, the CEO of a biotech firm called InterMune. In his case they were developing a new drug for a fatal lung disease called IPF (idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis). They ran this trial. When the results came back, they found some things potentially working, and other things weren't quite so successful. They put together a press release describing all the technical detail, all the nitty gritty. But they started the press release at the top saying that the trial demonstrated that this had some success in treating IPF. A number of years later the government went after them for fraud, saying that "demonstrate" was misleading. And in his particular case, I'd say the word "suggest" would probably have been a more conservative way of framing it. But he faced up to 10 years in prison, which is what the government sought.
He received probation, but, still, the effects on his life and career are really extraordinary. He spent millions of dollars in defense. The loss of his license. The loss of his reputation.
And I look at the current political discourse, and some of the things that our potential leaders are saying, and how they frame them, and I think ofhow Scott Harkonen faced ten years in prisonbecause he used the word "demonstrate" rather than "suggest"?
The two major presidential candidates have each been accused by their critics of criminal wrongdoing. How do their personalities and temperaments stack up against those of the people in your book? [This interview took place beforedisclosure of the 2005Access Hollywoodvideoin which Republican candidate Donald Trump made lewd comments about groping women.]
There's a trait associated with being a leader of any large firm. We have people who are CEOs and CFOs come regularly to Harvard Business School and there's a lot of similarities. You don't become head of large firm by luck. There are some characteristics of temperament that allow you to get there. Temperament, discipline, and self-control are crucial.
I see momentary lapses of self-control and restraint as being one of the things that actually undermined the executives in my book. They showed discipline and self-control for decades. But we all have momentary lapses.
I think Secretary [Hillary] Clinton has said about her email server: This was a mistake. It was a lapse in judgment.
And then I think what we've seen from Mr. Trump is, he's struggling to maintain that discipline and temperament in any consistent way. It's actually being able to maintain discipline and control under stress, under different circumstances, which is, it seems to me, one of the most important characteristics of being a successful leader. This is what took down the people I've been speaking with, who are, in many cases, really remarkable individuals. Brilliant individuals. And when you see the mistakes they made, and how that has changed their lives and careers and harmed others, it is really remarkable and humbling.
So when I look at the political candidates, I think of that. It doesn't require very many mistakes to have really catastrophic consequences not only for their own careers, but for those around them. In the business context, the victims are shareholders. But in politics, the victims would be us, and citizens of the world.
See original article on Fortune.com
More from Fortune.com
• Here's Who's Most Likely to Rip Off Their Employer
• Justice Department is setting its sights on white-collar criminals
• These hackers allegedly stole insider info to make big trades
• Bitcoin's first criminal goes to prison today
• This is what white collar criminals do after prison || ETF Winners and Losers If Dollar Rally Persists: October is shaping up to be a great month for the U.S. dollar. Month-to-date, the U.S. Dollar Index is up 3.4%, a sizable move for the world's most important currency. October's rally has pushed the buck into positive territory for the year, and to the highest level since February.
A Brexit-fueled slide in the British pound and growing expectations of a Federal Reserve rate hike in December are the two biggest drivers of the latest jump in the Dollar Index.
The dollar now finds itself near key levels that could turn out to be extremely meaningful not just for the currency itself, but for broader financial markets. Currently, the Dollar Index is trading at 98.6, less than 2% below the multiyear high of 100 set last year.
US Dollar Index
The Dollar Index ticks into the green for the year after surging 12.8% in 2014 and 9.3% in 2015.
"If it can break above that level in a meaningful fashion, it is going to be incredibly bullish for the dollar on a technical basis," wrote Matt Maley, equity strategist for Miller Tabak, in a recent research note.
Though Maley doesn't consider a Dollar Index "breakout" above 100 his base-case scenario, the fact that the index is so close to this key level means investors should at the very least be prepared for another big increase in the dollar.
Impact On Currency ETFs
In the ETF world, the most obvious impact from a dollar breakout will be oncurrency ETFs. The $863 millionPowerShares DB US Dollar Index Bullish ETF (UUP)(which tracks the U.S. Dollar Index), and the $217 millionWisdomTree Bloomberg US Dollar Bullish Fund (USDU)(which tracks the broader Bloomberg Dollar Index), both stand to benefit from gains in the greenback.
Certain ETFs tied to single-currency pairs will also benefit, such as theProShares UltraShort Euro ETF (EUO)and theProShares UltraShort Yen ETF (YCS), which provide 2x-leveraged exposure to the dollar against the euro and yen, respectively.
On the flip side, most of the other currency ETFs on the market provide investors with short dollar exposure and would likely get hit hard if the dollar continues to rally.
Currency-Hedged ETFs Back In Focus
A spike in the dollar will also putcurrency-hedged ETFsback in focus for investors. These ETFs were extremely popular in 2014 and 2015, when the dollar was surging, but fell out of favor this year, as the currency stalled.
For example, theWisdomTree Europe Hedged Equity Fund (HEDJ)was the most popular ETF of 2015, with inflows of $13.9 billion, according to FactSet. In sharp contrast, the ETF is 2016's least popular ETF, with outflows of $7.4 billion.
When the dollar is rising, vanilla funds with international exposure face pressure as their holdings―which are denominated in foreign currencies―lose value when translated back into dollars. Currency-hedged ETFs offset these losses by shorting the foreign currencies in question. In the case of HEDJ, it shorts the euro to offset the underlying long euro position of its equity holdings.
HEDJ, like other currency-hedged ETFs, tends to outperform its vanilla counterparts in a rising-dollar environment and underperform in a falling-dollar environment.
Pressure On Large-Cap Equity ETFs
Though currency-related exchange-traded funds will be the most impacted, any significant increase in the dollar will reverberate throughout financial markets.
Many U.S. companies will have to deal with a much more challenging export environment as a strong dollar makes them less competitive. Those same companies will see their overseas profits reduced when converted back into dollars.
Stocks of these multinationals tend to be concentrated in large-cap indexes such as the S&P 500 (the percentage of products and services produced or sold by S&P 500 companies outside the U.S. was 44.3% in 2015). Thus, ETFs such as theSPDR S&P 500 (SPY)could face head winds from the dollar's ascent.
In the fixed-income markets, a strong buck makes it more difficult for foreign governments and companies to service their dollar-denominated debt. In turn, ETFs such as theiShares JP Morgan USD Emerging Markets Bond ETF (EMB), which has seen a lot of interest this year, may stumble if the Dollar Index spikes well above 100.
Contact Sumit Roy atsroy@etf.com.
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Permalink| © Copyright 2016ETF.com.All rights reserved || Winklevoss brothers name State Street as bitcoin ETF administrator: (Adds dropped word "bitcoin" in 7th paragraph, fixes typographical error in 10th paragraph and corrects source to say ... according to company data ... instead of ... Gemini said on Tuesday)
By Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss
NEW YORK, Oct 18 (Reuters) - Investors Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss on Tuesday filed amendments to their proposed bitcoin exchange-traded fund, naming State Street as administrator, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
The Winklevoss brothers, identical twins, had filed their first application for a bitcoin ETF called Winklevoss Bitcoin Trust three years ago.
Investors have shown keen interest in the Winklevoss ETF. If approved by the SEC, this would be the first bitcoin ETF issued by a U.S. entity.
According to the amended filing, State Street will provide the fund administration and accounting services, including calculating the bitcoin trust's net asset value (NAV).
Another major change involved the ETF's custodian, Gemini Trust Company, doing monthly "proof of control" exercises and publishing the reports on the ETF's website.
"Custodian's cold storage system was purpose-built to demonstrate 'proof of control' of the private keys associated with its public bitcoin addresses," the filing said.
"The sponsor and the custodian have engaged an independent audit firm to verify that the custodian can demonstrate 'proof of control' of the private keys that control the Trust's bitcoin on a monthly basis."
Burr Pilger Mayer, based in San Francisco and known for working with venture-backed digital currency companies, has been named the ETF's auditor, the filing said.
In addition, the SEC filing said Gemini's daily auction price at 4 p.m. EDT will now be used to price the NAV of the ETF. The previous pricing mechanism was the Gemini spot price. Gemini runs a digital currency trading venue.
Since its launch in September, the Gemini auction has transacted more than 1,900 bitcoin on average per business day, which represents more than 16 percent of all U.S.-based bitcoin exchange volume, according to company data.
The daily auction along with Gemini's expansion has increased the company's market share to about 9 percent of all U.S. dollar-denominated exchange-traded bitcoin volume.
The ETF would trade under the ticker symbol COIN.
Late on Tuesday, bitcoin traded at $632.88 on the BitStamp platform.
(Reporting by Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss; Editing by Tom Brown) || Traders take their position on bank stocks ahead of earnings: The "Fast Money" traders weighed in on the bank stocks ahead of earnings reports from Citigroup(NYSE: C), Wells Fargo(NYSE: WFC)and JPMorgan Chase(NYSE: JPM)before the market open on Friday.
Trader Brian Kelly said he's keeping an eye on the financial sector, but thinks the "banks are a sell here."
Trader Tim Seymour disagreed and said investors should be looking at the banks and find companies with relatively "pristine balance sheets" and "earnings power."
Trader Karen Finerman said she likes the valuation of the banks at current levels.
Disclosures:
TIM SEYMOUR
Tim Seymour is long ABX, APC, AVP, BAC, BBRY, CLF, DO, DVYE, EDC, EWZ, F, FB, FCX, FXI, GM, GOOGL, GE, INTC, LQD,MCD, MUR, OIH, PG, RACE, RAI, RH, RL, SINA, T, TWTR, VALE, VZ, XOM and short: SPY, XRT. His firm is long ABX, BABA, BIDU, CBD, CLF, EWZ, F, KO, MCD, MPEL, NKE, PEP, PF, SAVE, SBUX, SINA, VALE, VIAB, WMT, WEN, X, YHOO, short EWG, HYG, IWM
KAREN FINERMAN
Karen is long AAL, BAC, C, DAL, long DB calls, short DB preferred, FB, FL, GOGO, GOOG, GOOGL, JPM, LYV, KORS, KORS calls, KORS puts, M, MA, SEDG, SPY puts, UAL, URI, WIFI long call spreads. Her firm is long ANTM, AAPL, BAC, C, C calls, FB, GOOG, GOOGL, JPM, JPM calls, KORS, LYV, M, MOH, PLCE, SPY puts, URI, WIFI. Her firm is short IWM, MDY. Finerman is on the board of GrafTech International.
BRIAN KELLY
Brian Kelly is long Bitcoin, DXJ, US Dollar UUP. He is short the euro and Japanese yen.
GUY ADAMI
Guy Adami is long CELG, EXAS, GDX, INTC. Adami's wife, Linda Snow, works at Merck. || PayPal is homing in on high-growth areas: PayPal Bank Chart (BII) This story was delivered to BI Intelligence " Payments Briefing " subscribers. To learn more and subscribe, please click here . PayPal posted strong results across segments in Q3 2016, allowing the firm to increase its growth targets for the year without changing its margins — a good sign for the rest of the year. PayPal posted strong growth in two key metrics. The firm’s total payment volume (TPV) rose 28% year-over-year (YoY) to $87 billion in Q3 2016. That was likely driven partly by an increase in customers, which grew by 19 million YoY to 192 million during the quarter. But even as PayPal adds customers, those clients are getting more engaged — average interactions per customer rose to 30, from 27 in the previous year, during Q3. Increased engagement likely means that PayPal’s focus on high-growth areas, like mobile payments and P2P functionality, is helping to drive customers to the service. Continuing to find ways to grow engagement will likely shape PayPal’s development moving forward. The company is pushing hard into other high-growth areas in order to better become “an everyday essential financial service” for people worldwide. Two such initiatives highlighted in the call stood out: Aggressive pursuit of Chinese and cross-border e-commerce: PayPal is expanding its partnership with Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba so that Paypal will become a single-click buy button option on AliExpress, one of Alibaba’s largest marketplaces. PayPal customers are already interested in Chinese e-commerce — 40 million of the firm’s customers have made a purchase to China — so this could help them better channel that interest into purchasing. But it also could allow the firm to get a share of China’s fast-growing e-commerce market, and, if successful, could pave the way for more cross-border partnerships in the future. Mobile in-store payments: The firm’s recent partnerships with Visa and Mastercard will allow PayPal’s wallet to be accepted in-store anywhere that accepts contactless payments from those cards. And in Europe, PayPal is partnered with Vodafone in markets like the UK, Italy, and Spain, to begin allowing users to pay via NFC. Physical stores present PayPal with a massive volume opportunity, and could help it better monetize some of its mobile and digital platforms through merchant processing fees, for example. These partnerships could also help keep customers loyal to PayPal for a wider variety of financial interactions rather than pushing them to a third-party, which could increase engagement. Story continues PayPal is an important piece of the larger payments ecosystem, but it's still just one piece. The rest of it included merchants, processors, acquirers, gateways, and more. Evan Bakker and John Heggestuen, analysts at BI Intelligence , Business Insider's premium research service, have compiled a detailed report on the payments ecosystem that drills into the industry to explain how a broad range of transactions are processed, including prepaid and store cards, as well as revealing which types of companies are in the best and worst position to capitalize on the latest industry trends. Here are some key takeaways from the report: 2016 will be a watershed year for the payments industry. Payments companies are improving security, expanding their mobile offerings, and building commerce capabilities that will give consumers a more compelling reason to make purchases using digital devices. Payments is an extremely complex industry. To understand the next big digital opportunity lies, it's critical to understand how the traditional credit- and debit-processing chain works and what roles acquirers, processors, issuing banks, card networks, independent sales organizations, gateways, and software and hardware providers play. Alternative technologies could disrupt the processing ecosystem. Devices ranging from refrigerators to smartwatches now feature payment capabilities, which will spur changes in consumer payment behaviors. Likewise, blockchain technology, the protocol that underlies Bitcoin, could one day change how consumer card payments are verified. In full, the report: Uncovers the key themes and trends affecting the payments industry in 2016 and beyond. Gives a detailed description of the stakeholders involved in a payment transaction, along with hardware and software providers. Offers diagrams and infographics explaining how card transactions are processed and which players are involved in each step. Provides charts on our latest forecasts, key company growth, survey results, and more. Analyzes the alternative technologies, including blockchain, which could further disrupt the ecosystem. To get your copy of this invaluable guide, choose one of these options: Subscribe to an ALL-ACCESS Membership with BI Intelligence and gain immediate access to this report AND over 100 other expertly researched deep-dive reports, subscriptions to all of our daily newsletters, and much more. >> START A MEMBERSHIP Purchase the report and download it immediately from our research store. >> BUY THE REPORT The choice is yours. But however you decide to acquire this report, you’ve given yourself a powerful advantage in your understanding of the payments ecosystem. More From Business Insider THE MOBILE PAYMENTS REPORT: Market forecasts, consumer trends, and the barriers and benefits that will influence adoption THE CONNECTED DEVICE PAYMENTS REPORT: Market opportunities, top stakeholders, and new use cases for the next frontier in payments THE PAYMENTS INDUSTRY EXPLAINED: The trends creating new winners and losers in the card-processing ecosystem || Cable & Wireless Preliminary Q2 2016/17 Results: MIAMI, FL--(Marketwired - Nov 4, 2016) -Cable & Wireless CommunicationsLimited ("CWC") is the leading telecommunications operator in substantially all of its consumer markets, which are predominantly located in the Caribbean and Latin America, providing entertainment, information and communication services to 3.5 million mobile, 0.4 million television, 0.6 million internet and 0.8 million telephony subscribers. In addition, CWC delivers B2B services and provides wholesale services over its sub-sea and terrestrial networks that connect over 30 markets across the region.
Liberty Global's Acquisition of CWCOn May 16, 2016, a subsidiary of Liberty Global plc ("Liberty Global") acquired CWC (the "Liberty Global Transaction"). Revenue, Adjusted Segment EBITDA and subscriber statistics have been presented herein using Liberty Global's definitions for all periods presented unless otherwise noted. Further adjustments to these metrics are possible as the integration process continues. The results for the six months ended September 30, 2016 ("Q2 2016/17") have also been aligned to Liberty Global's EU-IFRS accounting policies and estimates. Significant policy adjustments have been considered in our calculation of rebased growth rates for revenue and Adjusted Segment EBITDA.
Operating and financial highlights*:
• Delivered 9,000 organic RGU additions in Q2 2016/17
• Mobile revenue 2% lower than the prior year in Q2 2016/17, as compared to Q2 2015/16 on a rebased basis, due primarily to a decrease in the Bahamas
• Establishing Flow as a leading sports broadcaster in the CaribbeanSuccessful Olympics campaign with over 4.6 million viewers tuning into Flow channels85% increase in Flow Sports viewership in August versus May through July averageExclusive rights to broadcast Premier League commenced during the quarter
• Strengthened customer proposition in Panama through launch of MAST3R fixed bundles in SeptemberProviding HD, play from start, live pause and rewind functionality300 Mbps broadband product now available to 135,000 homes
• YTD revenue of $1,141 million, 2% lower YoY, on a rebased basis10% rebased top-line growth in Jamaica more than offset by declines in other major geographies primarily due to competitive and macroeconomic factors and lower managed services revenue
• Net losses of $18 million and $124 million in Q2 2016/17 and YTD, respectively
• YTD Adjusted Segment EBITDA of $411 million, up 1.5% YoY, on a rebased basis$9 million (4%) sequential EBITDA improvement from Q1 2016/17 to Q2 2016/17, reflecting margin improvement of 200 basis points
• Property, equipment and intangible asset additions declined to 17% of revenue in Q2 2016/17 from 25% in Q2 2015/16
• BTC in the Bahamas suffered significant infrastructure damage and business interruption as a result of Hurricane Matthew during early October 2016Anticipate Q3 2016/17 adverse Adjusted Segment EBITDA impact of $8 million to $12 millionTotal infrastructure repair costs estimated at $35 million to $45 millionWe expect that our third-party insurance will cover a significant portion of the hurricane-related losses
Synergies from combination with LiLAC
• LiLAC is targeting $150 million of synergies by December 31, 202050% OCF related -- primarily recurring cost reductions50% capital expenditure related -- recurring and nonrecurringAnticipate a substantial amount of total LiLAC synergies will benefit CWC
* The financial figures contained in this release are prepared in accordance with EU-IFRS.28CWC's financial condition and results of operations will be included in Liberty Global's condensed consolidated financial statements under U.S. GAAP10. There are significant differences between the U.S. GAAP and EU-IFRS presentations of our condensed consolidated financial statements.
Subscriber Statistics
We delivered organic subscriber growth across video, internet and telephony product categories in Q2 2016/17. In our mobile business, which represents roughly 40% of total revenue, postpaid subscriber growth was more than offset by a decline in our prepaid base, primarily due to the impact of competitive offers to lower value subscribers in Panama.
On the mobile front, we continue to invest in our networks to enable the delivery of high speed, resilient mobile services and leading converged products to our customers. We are actively expanding our LTE coverage in Panama and plan to launch LTE in the British Virgin Islands later this year.
Turning to our video, internet and telephony businesses, we added 9,000 organic RGUs during the quarter, as we achieved subscriber growth in each of our products. In terms of broadband internet, we added 7,000 organic subscribers on the back of 5,000 RGU additions in Jamaica and 2,000 RGU additions in Trinidad and Tobago. On the video front, we added 1,000 RGUs in the quarter, primarily driven by our DTH business in Panama. The increased RGUs from our DTH business were largely offset by declines in video RGUs in Barbados and Trinidad and Tobago as a result of increased competition.
During the quarter, our regional sports offering, led by Flow Sports and Flow Sports Premier, performed strongly, helping to establish Flow as a leading sports broadcaster in the Caribbean. Our official Olympic Games application was downloaded approximately 60,000 times during the event with over 73,000 hours of live content streamed. Flow Sports Premier, following its launch in July, also began providing unrivaled coverage of the Premier League in the region beginning in August 2016.
Rounding out fixed-line products, we added 1,000 telephony subscribers in the quarter, as we continued to modestly increase penetration of our VoIP-based services through bundling across our footprint.
At September 30, 2016, our bundling ratio stood at 1.51 RGUs per customer as 10% of our customers subscribed to a triple-play product, 32% to a double-play product, and 58% took only one product from us. This relatively low bundling ratio provides ample runway for RGU growth as we seek to sell additional products to our customers.
From a geographic standpoint, highlights of the trends in our largest markets are as follows:
• In Panama, mobile subscribers declined by 36,000 in the quarter on an organic basis with the decline weighted towards lower value customers as our postpaid base continued to grow (up 2,000). We are seeking to improve our fixed video and internet performance with our improved "Mast3r" bundles featuring HD, play from start, live pause and rewind functionality and 300 Mbps broadband speeds.
• In the Bahamas, we grew our mobile customer base by 4,000 subscribers (up 1%) due to increased promotional activity, successfully targeting higher-ARPU postpaid customers. We have made steady progress with our broadband internet and video products following the roll-out of our fiber-to-the-home ("FTTH") network, which now passes 14,000 homes.
• Turning to Jamaica, broadband internet and video RGUs were up 3% and 1%, respectively, as our improved product offering and strong Olympics campaign resonated well in the market. We grew our mobile subscriber base by 3,000 RGUs in the quarter, as we continued to win back market share and launched new products such as Flow Lend, an innovative solution enabling prepaid customers to request credit advances and earn rewards for prompt payment.
• In Barbados, competition drove RGUs lower across all products in the quarter. We are implementing changes to our bundling strategy and focusing on quickly migrating customers who are on legacy DSL services to our high-speed FTTH network.
• Rounding out our main operations, in Trinidad and Tobago we delivered 3,000 organic RGU additions, despite a tough macroeconomic environment and increased competition.
About C&W CommunicationsC&W is a full service communications and entertainment provider and delivers market-leading video, broadband, telephony and mobile services to consumers in 18 countries. Through its business division, C&W provides data center hosting, domestic and international managed network services, and customized IT service solutions, utilizing cloud technology to serve business and government customers.
C&W also operates a state-of-the-art submarine fiber network - the most extensive in the region.
Learn more atwww.cwc.com, or follow C&W onLinkedIn,FacebookorTwitter.
About Liberty GlobalLiberty Global is the world's largest international TV and broadband company, with operations in more than 30 countries across Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean. We invest in the infrastructure that empowers our customers to make the most of the digital revolution. Our scale and commitment to innovation enables us to develop market-leading products delivered through next-generation networks that connect our 29 million customers who subscribe to over 60 million television, broadband internet and telephony services. We also serve 10 million mobile subscribers and offer WiFi service across seven million access points.
Liberty Global's businesses are comprised of two stocks: the Liberty Global Group (NASDAQ:LBTYA) (NASDAQ:LBTYB) (NASDAQ:LBTYK) for our European operations, and the LiLAC Group (NASDAQ:LILA) and (NASDAQ:LILAK) (OTC PINK:LILAB), which consists of our operations in Latin America and the Caribbean.
The Liberty Global Group operates in 12 European countries under the consumer brands Virgin Media, Ziggo, Unitymedia, Telenet and UPC. The LiLAC Group operates in over 20 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean under the consumer brands VTR, Flow, Liberty, Mas Movil and BTC. In addition, the LiLAC Group operates a subsea fiber network throughout the region in over 30 markets.
For more information, please visitwww.libertyglobal.com. || Winklevoss brothers name State Street as bitcoin ETF administrator: By Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Investors Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss on Tuesday filed amendments to their proposed bitcoin exchange-traded fund, naming State Street as administrator, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
The Winklevoss brothers, identical twins, had filed their first application for a bitcoin ETF called Winklevoss Bitcoin Trust three years ago.
Investors have shown keen interest in the Winklevoss ETF. If approved by the SEC, this would be the first bitcoin ETF issued by a U.S. entity.
According to the amended filing, State Street will provide the fund administration and accounting services, including calculating the bitcoin trust's net asset value (NAV).
Another major change involved the ETF's custodian, Gemini Trust Company, doing monthly "proof of control" exercises and publishing the reports on the ETF's website.
"Custodian's cold storage system was purpose-built to demonstrate "proof of control" of the private keys associated with its public bitcoin addresses," the filing said.
"The sponsor and the custodian have engaged an independent audit firm to verify that the custodian can demonstrate "proof of control" of the private keys that control the Trust's on a monthly basis."
Burr Pilger Mayer, based in San Francisco and known for working with venture-backed digital currency companies, has been named the ETF's auditor, the filing said.
In addition, the SEC filing said Gemini's daily auction price at 4 p.m. EDT will now be used to price the NAV of the ETF. The previous pricing mechanism was the Gemini spot price. Gemini runs a digital currency trading venue.
Since its launch in September, the Gemini auction has transacted more than 19,00 bitcoin on average per business day, which represents more than 16 percent of all U.S.-based bitcoin exchange volume during the 4 p.m. period, Gemini said on Tuesday.
The daily auction along with Gemini's expansion has increased the company's market share to about 9 percent of all U.S. dollar-denominated exchange-traded bitcoin volume.
The ETF would trade under the ticker symbol COIN.
Late on Tuesday, bitcoin traded at $632.88 on the BitStamp platform.
(Reporting by Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss) || Venezuelans are turning to bitcoin as the bolívar crumbles: Venezuelan bolivar banknotes and a U.S. dollar banknote folded as boats are seen at a fruit and vegetable store in Caracas Venezuelas currency has lost so much of its value that people have given up on counting the notesthey just weigh piles of cash . So far this year, the bolívar has lost nearly half its value compared to the dollar, while inflation has shot up as much as 15 times. Thats according to best estimates, since official data isnt available. Its brutal: Slack took out a full-page ad in the New York Times to welcome its new competitor, Microsoft When a national currency is tanking as badly as the bolívar, a stateless cryptocurrency thats gaining in value suddenly sounds pretty appealing. It looks like at least some Venezuelans are turning their bolívar into bitcoins to not only escape the spiral of devaluation in the state-issued, or fiat, currency, but to reap the profits of a bitcoin price thats been buoyant all year. Trading out of terminally weak or volatile fiat currencies for bitcoin isnt unique to Venezuela; Argentinians have been doing it for years , as the New York Times (paywall) has reported. Thinking of moving to Canada if Trump wins? Think again Trading volumes on LocalBitcoins essentially an online classifieds page for bitcoin buyers and sellers to find one anotherhave spiked in Venezuela. Trading volume has spiked recently to as high as 370 bitcoins a week, worth about $224,000 at the time. In the grand scheme of things, the bolívar-bitcoin trade is minuscule; trillions of dollars change hands on the worlds currency markets daily. Its also not an easy trade to execute, as a Venezuelan must know her way around bitcoin marketplaces and currency exchangesVenezuela has one major exchange, called Surbitcoin to cash out their bolívar. Once a Venezuelan user has bitcoin, however, she could hang onto the cryptocurrency, which might break past its highest point for the year, or hold it in US dollars or other currencies at a wallet service or on an exchange. One service, Xapo, founded by Argentinian entrepreneur Wences Casares, says its seeing a number of users in Venezuela heavily utilizing its app. Story continues Of course, caveats apply: Bitcoin exchanges and wallets are regularly hacked for billions . Xapo, incidentally, offers a vault option that involves air-gapped servers stored in secret underground locations not the worst way to wait out the bolívars downward spiral. Sign up for the Quartz Daily Brief , our free daily newsletter with the worlds most important and interesting news. More stories from Quartz: Steve Jobss worst decision was promoting Tim Cook Design has nothing to do with art: Design legend Milton Glaser dispels a universal misunderstanding || Bitcoin is flying after Donald Trump's victory: Price of bitcoin since Oct. 20 In May, a Juniper Research study ( Will Bitcoins Bite Back? ) predicted that the price of the digital currency bitcoin would jump if Donald Trump were elected. On Tuesday, Trump was elected, and bitcoin jumped. The currency is up nearly 3% since Tuesday night, hovering around $725. If Donald Trump becomes President of the US, said Dr. Winslow Holden in a statement with the study , there is the very real prospect of turmoil on world markets
Bitcoin would thrive in such an environment. Bitcoin has in fact been on the rise all fall, not only because of the election . The price is up 19% in the last month, 23% in the last three months, and 68% in 2016. But in the next few days and perhaps months, the uncertainty after Trumps win will likely serve as an accelerant. Investors see bitcoin as a safe haven from fiat currencies (hence why it rises when the Chinese yuan falls), and an asset largely untied to mainstream markets. Gold typically behaves the same way, and indeed, gold shot up to $1,320 on Tuesday night as Trump closed in on the presidency , though it fell back to earth on Wednesday and is now at $1,275. Bitcoins October rise has been mostly due to heightened activity in China, where the yuan is falling and the government has tightened capital controls. Bitcoin prices also spiked during the bank shutdown in Greece last year. Juniper Research says the Brexit vote, back in June, is still having an impact as well: The ongoing ramifications around Brexit are also likely to act as an additional spur for higher activity levels. If Brexit helped contribute to a bitcoin bump , then Trumps win is likely to do it, too. Many were quick to compare the surprising result of the US election to the EU referendum result. Trump, in the days before the election, told crowds that his win would be like Brexit plus plus plus, and nicknamed himself Mr. Brexit. While Trump and bitcoin might seem to have something in common (Coin Telegraph made the case that Trump would eventually cozy up to the coin ), his campaign never accepted donations in bitcoin. Hillary Clintons campaign considered accepting donations in bitcoin, a leaked email thread revealed, but John Podesta was more intrigued by the digital currency Ven, writing that bitcoin suffers from a libertarian Ayn Rand schtick. Sen. Rand Paul and Gov. Gary Johnson were the only two presidential candidates to accept bitcoin. Story continues It doesnt matter now: Trump won, and bitcoin benefited without his support. The coin doesnt need Trump to champion it in order to succeed. The defining word of this US election is the same word that defined the Brexit vote: uncertainty. As the Juniper Research report noted, bitcoins price rose in the weeks leading up to the Brexit vote, then fell a little bit just before the vote when the outcome looked clear, then spiked when the outcome was, in fact, a big surprise. Expect the same to happen after Trumps win. Daniel Roberts is a writer at Yahoo Finance, covering technology and sports business. Follow him on Twitter at @readDanwrite . Read more: The latest bitcoin price surge isnt just about Brexit Heres where big banks stand on blockchain Why 21.co is the most exciting bitcoin company right now Coinbase is more bullish on bitcoin than ever || Netscape Co-Founder: Passwords Are the Weak Link in Cyber Security: Jim Clark, co-founder of Netscape and Shutterfly, weighs in on the flaws of current cyber security efforts in place to prevent hacks.
Clark discussed the rise in security breaches facing business of all sizes as well as organizations and government agencies.
“Recently there’s been a spate as you know of disruptions, the DNC getting emails tapped and small business owners getting their machines encrypted so that they couldn’t do business and having to pay Bitcoin ransom and there’s, you know, massive password theft at companies like Yahoo. So we’re seeing it in a lot of different places,” Clark told the FOX Business Network’s Maria Bartiromo.
Clark sees the use of passwords as a weak link in efforts to improve cyber security.
“In the end it all, in one way or another, points to this deficiency I call it, that we call a password.”
Clark then went into greater depth as to why he sees the use of passwords as a deficiency.
“You don’t want to use it for access to a site because that requires that the site have a copy. You see, passwords are deficient because they amount to a shared secret. And there’s that old joke, ‘a secret is something you tell one person at a time.’ And the thing about a secret, this particular secret, you don’t want anyone to know.”
Because of this, Clark added, “You’ve got to get out of passwords, there’s no question about that.”
Clark explained the certificate concept used to authenticate websites.
“The certificate concept has been around for years. It’s used to authenticate and make sure that you’re connecting to Google, make sure you’re connected to Yahoo. Any site you go to has a certificate. And that certificate is issued by a certification authority – there’s a complete infrastructure for dealing with that kind of issue.”
Clark says that this certification could be implemented for users as well to replace the need for passwords.
“The exact same mechanism can be used to authenticate users, so users need to be issued a certificate, then they don’t need a password and this certificate gets shared with everyone because it can’t be altered, it can’t be messed with. If you mess with it, It’s no longer valid.”
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[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
1 KOBO = 0.00000217 BTC
= 0.0015 USD
= 0.4560 NGN
= 0.0216 ZAR
= 0.1525 KES
#Kobocoin 2016-11-14 20:00 pic.twitter.com/MuDWWQHgAP || One Bitcoin now worth $610.63@bitstamp. High $615.17. Low $610.00. Market Cap $9.721 Billion #bitcoin || $654.29 at 08:45 UTC [24h Range: $633.27 - $656.00 Volume: 5206 BTC] || 1 KOBO = 0.00000000 BTC
= 0.0000 USD
= 0.0000 NGN
= 0.0000 ZAR
= 0.0000 KES
#Kobocoin 2016-10-24 22:00 pic.twitter.com/Eec9NFX8n4 || 1 #BTC (#Bitcoin) quotes:
$701.13/$702.97 #Bitstamp
$699.75/$700.00 #BTCe
⇢$-3.22/$-1.13
$701.14/$708.45 #Coinbase
⇢$-1.83/$7.32 || Nocoj - Zgornja Korena - 20.00 .. Klemen SlakonjaSiTi Teater BTC http://fb.me/126NWh9xO || 1 KOBO = 0.00000000 BTC
= 0.0000 USD
= 0.0000 NGN
= 0.0000 ZAR
= 0.0000 KES
#Kobocoin 2016-11-03 14:00 pic.twitter.com/SIfMNdLEyi || 1 KOBO = 0.00000000 BTC
= 0.0000 USD
= 0.0000 NGN
= 0.0000 ZAR
= 0.0000 KES
#Kobocoin 2016-11-04 04:00 pic.twitter.com/LEuyJvbATe || #UFOCoin #UFO $0.000006 (-1.03%) 0.00000001 BTC (-0.00%) || $707.57 #bitfinex;
$704.64 #GDAX;
$697.10 #btce;
$701.21 #bitstamp;
$705.54 #OKCoin;
$700.00 #itBit;
#bitcoin news: http://bit.ly/1VI6Yse
|
Trend: up || Prices: 756.77, 777.94, 771.16, 773.87, 758.70, 764.22, 768.13, 770.81, 772.79, 774.65
|
Analyze the provided historical prices, technical indicators, news, and social media sentiment from the last 60 days. Based on this context, predict the overall trend (up, down, or no change) and the specific daily closing prices for Bitcoin for the next 10 days.
|
[Technical Analysis for 2021-09-10]
BTC Price: 44883.91, BTC RSI: 42.94
Gold Price: 1789.60, Gold RSI: 47.33
Oil Price: 69.72, Oil RSI: 53.67
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
DOGE and SHIB See Biggest Gains in Top 100 Over Weekend: BeInCrypto –
Dogecoin (DOGE) and Shiba Inu (SHIB) saw the biggest gains over the weekend as market sentiment appears to have shifted in favor of bullish sentiment.
Following a weekend that finally saw Bitcoin climb well over $45,000. Altcoins DOGE and SHIB appear to have been the biggest benefactors of the market conditions over the weekend. Bitcoin rallied to a nearly three month high, touching $45,300 on Sunday.
The surge in bullish momentum spilled over to ethereum, which also saw a nearly three month high, hitting $3,195 on Sunday. The total market capitalization increased to$1.8 trillionas bullish buying saw a majority of the top 100 coins increase in value.
This storywas seen first onBeInCryptoJoin our Telegram Groupand get trading signals, a free trading course and more stories likethisonBeInCrypto || Argo Blockchain First-Half Revenue Surges on Bitcoin Production, Price: Argo Blockchain said first-half revenue surged 180% to £31.1 million (US$43 million) as it produced morebitcoinand the cryptocurrency’s price increased.
• The London Stock Exchange-listed mining companyreportedgrowth of more than 300% in earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization to £16 million ($22 million).
• The company also said it canceled its $8 million order,announcedFebruary, for mining machines from ePIC Blockchain Technologies due to “limitations of technology.” With $5 million already deposited with ePIC, Argo has the option of purchasing ePIC mining machines, ePIC shares or receiving a full refund.
• As of June 30, Argo held 1,268 bitcoin and bitcoin equivalent compared with 127 a year previously.
• Argo CEO Peter Wall attributed the performance to a change in market conditions.
• The price of bitcoin jumped to about $36,000 at the end of June from around $9,200 a year earlier.
• At the time of writing, Argo Blockchainshareshave slumped almost 7% today.
• The London-based firm recentlysaidit expects to list in the U.S. this quarter subject to regulatory approval and has submitted a draft registration statement to the Securities and Exchange Commission.
UPDATE (AUG. 9, 9:34 UTC):Adds cancelled order for mining machines.
• Several Crypto Mining Stocks Up Sharply as Bitcoin Rises Above $46K
• Sphere 3D Acquires Exclusive Rights to Hertford Advisors’ Crypto Mining Assets
• Bitfarms’ Bitcoin Production Rose 47.5% in July
• Fidelity Takes 7.4% Stake in Marathon Digital || Ethereum ETF to List on Brazils Stock Exchange: Blockchain investment firm QR Capital is to list an ethereum exchange-traded fund (ETF) on Brazils stock exchange after winning approval from the markets regulator. The ETF will list on the Sao Paulo-based B3 exchange under the ticker QETH11, QR Capital said in a tweet Tuesday. QETH11 won approval from Brazils Securities and Exchange Commission and will use institutional custody provided by crypto exchange Gemini. It is Latin Americas first ethereum ETF, QR Capital said. QR Capital will buy ether and offer investors exposure to it without them having to worry about wallets or private keys. Last month, QR Capitals bitcoin ETF began trading on B3, itself the first bitcoin ETF to be approved in Latin America. Related Stories Hashdex to Launch Bitcoin ETF Seeking to Offset Mining Emissions Brazilian Securities Commission Should Pay Special Attention to Crypto Assets, Director Nominee Says Brazils Bitcoin Banco Group and Leader Arrested for Alleged Embezzlement of $300M in Crypto SoftBank Invests $200M in Brazil Crypto Exchange Mercado Bitcoin View comments || Bitcoin Miners Can Escape US Taxes by Sending Mining Proceeds Direct to IRAs: U.S. clients of Compass Mining can now avoid tax on the bitcoin they mine by buying mining hardware through their individual retirement accounts (IRAs). Through an agreement with Choice IRA, a crypto-friendly retirement offering by digital asset custodian Kingdom Trust , Compass clients can mine bitcoin without triggering a taxable event. Compass provides individual miners with a hosting facility and operates their hardware for them, in what could be seen as an Airbnb-esque model for mining facilities. The miners might be discouraged by having to pay tax twice: once as income on the bitcoin they mine and again on the capital gains when they sell. The Compass arrangement allows clients to circumvent this requirement by buying mining hardware with funds in their Choice IRA, which then receives the payouts. CORRECTION (JULY 29, 16:01 UTC): Corrects that mining hardware needs to be bought through the IRA. Related Stories Love Bitcoin? Mine Your Values Israeli Bill Would Force Crypto Investors to Report Holdings Above $61K Luxor Technologies Launches Index of Crypto Mining Stocks Genesis Digital Assets Raises $125M to Fuel US and Nordic Expansion || Bitcoin crashes to below $50,000 in sudden, sharp fall: Bitcoin's (BTC-USD) price crashed on Tuesday afternoon, falling below the $50,000 (£36,152) mark, on the same day that El Salvador began accepting the crypto as legal tender.
To mark the occasion, Twitter and Reddit users pledged to buy $30 worth of BTC on 7 September, dubbed 'bitcoin day'.
Some Reddit users even suggested that if all 3,316,862 community members were to buy $30 of bitcoin each on Thursday, $99,505,860 would be added to the cryptocurrency.
But bitcoin was down almost 10%, trading at $47,142. This has wiped hundreds of billions from the overall market, which was worth more than $2.35tn at the start of the day.
"The euphoria surrounding El Salvador’s adoption of Bitcoin has well and truly fizzled out with the losses accelerating as the day wore on," said Susannah Streeter, senior investment and markets analyst, Hargreaves Lansdown.
"This is after all a big gamble for the country’s payment system given that making transactions in the currency when the price is so volatile is highly risky. There is also concern that by becoming known as a Bitcoin haven, the country could attract the wrong kind of investment from criminal groups seeking anonymity."
She added that it was also likely that "a pump and dump scenario is partly playing out after there were calls on social media forums for fans to buy tranches of bitcoin to celebrate the bitcoin law in El Salvador. Some speculators cashing in on the previous sharp gain may have sparked further falls."
In recent times, bitcoin, which went as high as $63,000 in April, has been hit by concerns over the environmental impact of mining it, as well as regulatory crackdowns in countries including China and the UK.
It had only just managed to gain some momentum, going as high as $52,853 early Tuesday morning, before crashing by the evening.
"Bitcoin is hammered day but if you look at the price action more closely you can see that traders have actually bought the dip as the price has bounced near its 50-day simple moving average," Naeem Aslam, chief market analyst at Ava Trade, told Yahoo Finance UK.
"In other words, today, we have tested the early 40Ks price level and it seems like that this could be last big fires sale opportunity we may have this year."
Meanwhile, the UK's Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) continues to issue warnings to consumers about the risks of buying cryptocurrencies, because they are highly volatile and pose a high risk of consumer harm.
Earlier this week it sent out a warning against buying into social media influencer ads promoting cryptoassets.
Watch: What are the risks of investing in cryptocurrency? || Market Wrap: Sentiment Away From Risk Sends Bitcoin Toward $30K: Bitcoin traded lower on Monday, mirroring declines in traditional markets as investors pull away from risky assets because of concerns about weaker monetary and fiscal stimulus and rising COVID-19 cases, including those caused by the Delta variant . Bitcoin was trading at around $30,600 at press time and is down about 3% over the past 24 hours. The world’s largest cryptocurrency is up about 4% year to date, compared with a roughly 12% return for the S&P 500 Index. Latest prices Cryptocurrencies: Bitcoin (BTC) $30755.8, -2.78% Ether (ETH) $1825.6, -3.96% Related: Europe and UK Binance Users React to Recent Restrictions Placed on Exchange Traditional markets: S&P 500: 4258.7, -1.58% Gold: $1811, -0.05% 10-year Treasury yield closed at 1.2%, compared with 1.294% on Friday Macro and regulatory headwinds Regulatory scrutiny regarding stablecoins is also weighing on cryptocurrencies. The People’s Bank of China (PBOC) issued a white paper on Friday outlining initial research for the nation’s digital currency project, which appears to challenge existing cryptocurrencies and stablecoins. “Cryptocurrencies are mostly speculative instruments, and therefore pose potential risks to financial security and social stability,” the PBOC’s white paper stated. “Some commercial institutions even plan to launch global stablecoins, which will bring three risks and challenges to the international monetary system, payment and clearing system, monetary policies, cross-border capital flow management, etc.,” the report said. Related: Ether Falls Toward $1.7K as Bitcoin’s Price Drop Weighs on Broader Market Another source of selling pressure across risk assets could be the reduction of government stimulus. “Too much stimulus breeds complacency,” MRB Partners wrote in a research note published on Friday. MRB also noted widespread asset price inflation, which can lead to market imbalances similar to an episode in Japan in the 1980s that preceded a decade of low investment returns. Story continues Bitcoin market parallels The chart below shows bitcoin’s current range, which is similar to the sideways pattern of between $5,900 and $7,400 in 2018. The previous range, although more volatile than the current pattern, preceded a nearly 45% sell-off, which extended the bear market until prices recovered in mid-2019. A decline was also seen in ether (ETH) below the $400 price level in 2018, similar to the drop to below $2,000 last week. Bitcoin volatility trap Bitcoin’s near-term volatility is starting to rise after declining from peak levels in June. Some analysts expect selling pressure could increase, causing bitcoin to break below $30,000 support. “Front-end vols have been hit the hardest, creating a very steep volatility term structure,” QCP Capital wrote in a Telegram chat. “It makes sense to roll short July positions to September given the significant dip in front-end vols.” “Front-end vols” refers to “short-term volatility.” “Bitcoin volatility has started to spike up and is trading close to 80% for July expiry,” Pankaj Balani, CEO of Delta Exchange , wrote in an email to CoinDesk. “We can see sharp moves on the downside if BTC breaks below $30,000 convincingly.” Balani also noted that options sellers have become more aggressive as bitcoin trades in a tight range. There has been more put writing at $30,000 and $32,000 strikes on the downside, he said. Ethereum funds capture inflows Digital-asset funds have attracted capital over the past two weeks, albeit at a slower pace as investors remain cautious after the crypto crash in May. It appears that investors are warming up to ether , which saw a third consecutive week of inflows, totaling $11.7 million, according to a report by CoinShares. Stablecoin regulations As the President’s Working Group on Financial Markets discusses stablecoins at a meeting today, debates about how stablecoins should be regulated heated up. CoinDesk Columnist JP Koning wrote that regulators may have contributed to the fast growth of stablecoin supply because of their failure to close the “pseudonymity loophole” in such financial products earlier. In an academic paper titled “ Taming Wildcat Stablecoins ” released Saturday, Yale economist Gary Gorton and U.S. Federal Reserve attorney Jeffery Zhang said that without proper regulation, the world of stablecoins could evolve into one reminiscent of the 19th century’s free banking period in the U.S. It is not the first time for the analogy to be used, and Nic Carter, another CoinDesk columnist explained why. Altcoin roundup Polygon Launches New Unit: Polygon has launched Polygon Studios, a unit that aims to advance blockchain gaming and non-fungible tokens (NFTs). The unit will help “bridge the gap between Web 2 and Web 3 gaming,” according to Polygon. The division will look to attract big brands and franchises looking to launch games and NFTs. Grayscale Unveils DeFi Fund: Grayscale, the largest cryptocurrency investment manager, said Monday it has started a fund focused on decentralized finance (DeFi) tokens, based on a new DeFi-specific index produced by CoinDesk’s TradeBlock division. The companies, both subsidiaries of CoinDesk parent Digital Currency Group (DCG), wrote in a joint press release the Grayscale DeFi Fund provides “exposure to a selection of industry-leading DeFi protocols through a market-capitalization weighted portfolio.” ARK Investment Increases Square Holdings: ARK Investment Management increased its holdings of payments services firm Square after Jack Dorsey, Square’s founder, announced Friday the company is creating an “open developer platform.” Following the announcement, Cathie Wood’s New York-based ARK Investment purchased a total of 225,937 shares of Square, according to its daily holding files . Relevant news El Salvador May Issue Its Own Stablecoin: Report Ethereum Co-Founder Anthony Di Iorio to Sell Decentral and Cut Major Ties to Cryptocurrency ASX’s Blockchain Upgrade Costing Members ‘Millions,’ Says Industry Body Other markets All digital assets on CoinDesk 20 ended up lower on Monday. Notable losers: the graph (GRT) -8.56% polkadot (DOT) -7.98% aave (AAVE) -7.12% Related Stories Bitcoin Struggles Below $30K; Next Support at $27K Bitcoin Drops Below $30K for First Time in 4 Weeks || Bitcoin Momentum Improves, Faces Resistance at $34K: Bitcoin (BTC) is holding onto gains after a strong return above $30,000 on Wednesday. The cryptocurrency is starting to stall at around $32,400 at press time and is up about 2% over the past week.
Short-term momentum is improving, albeit within an intermediate-term downtrend that began in April. Initial resistance is seen at the 50-day moving average near $34,000.
• The relative strength index (RSI) on the daily chart is rising from oversold levels, which could keep short-term buyers active into the weekend.
• Resistance remains strong at around $40,000, which is near the top of the two-month price range.
• The weekly chart is not yet oversold, although downside momentum is starting to slow.
• Market Wrap: Bitcoin Analysts Expect a Short-Squeeze
• Bitcoin’s Big Institutional Week: JPMorgan Brings Crypto to All Wealth Management Clients & More
• What Is Bitcoin Freedom?
• Axie Infinity Token Price Doubles in Two Days || 7% Of Crypto Asset Could Be Held In Hedge Funds In The Next Five Years And Here's Why: By Rebecca Barnatt-Smith
A recent survey conducted by Intertrust has indicated that hedge funds will increase their cryptocurrency holding to 7% in the next five years. Moreover, by 2026, hedge funds plan to increase their crypto exposure significantly, producing new digital assets and currency confidence.
The increasing involvement of prominent figures and names in the hedge funding world has led to this outlook. For example, a survey of 100 hedge fund chief financial officers worldwide expects that, on average,7.2% of their assets will be held in cryptocurrenciesin the next five years. Most of whom expect to see their assets exceed by a generous 10%.
(Image Source: Bitcoin News)
If this is to be the case in five years, and this figure is copied across to the entire hedge fund industry, the total amount of assets invested in crypto in five years could be shy of $312 billion.
If this happens and expectations are exceeded, then there will be a significant increase in the collection of crypto held worldwide, making it a prominent feature in the financial industry. Although $312 billion only scratches the surface ofBitcoin's (CRYPTO: BTC) market capitalization today, it paints a vivid picture of the future.
However, some analysts argue that purchasing digital assets remain at large still quite limited to clients, especially for those who have a high-risk tolerance. Even with this in mind, investments are still typically low portions of inevitable assets compared to more traditional assets.
Crypto asset and hedge funds
Currently, the amount of crypto assets held in hedge funds is unknown as only a few owners have declared their figures. However, those who have made their figures known are still respectively very small compared to crypto and hedge funds as a whole.
Some big names in the hedge fund market have been one of the reasons there has been an uplift in crypto in hedge funds. For example, Paul Tudor Jones, a billionaire hedge fund manager, has so far invested 1% of his assets with the potential to increase it to 5%.
(Image Source: Yahoo Finance)
Anthony Scaramucci, an American financier of SkyBridge Capital, has too declared some support for Bitcoin, but he reduced his holdings with fears of the price dropping. With this being said, some hedge fund managers are claiming that crypto is one of the biggest scams in history, holding little or no fiat in the future of the digital currency market.
One of the biggest threats to cryptocurrencies is their future if regulations get put into place. How willcrypto be regulated, and what will this mean for investors are some of the most significant and more dominant questions asked by investors today. Its rocky future also prevents many investors from taking the plunge into the currency, but on the flip side, today, we have more cryptocurrencies than ever before.
The future of crypto
Although there is a bright side to crypto, there is also a dark side. The nature of crypto and how they work means they sit on a decentralized ledger, which is not controlled by an entity. Unfortunately,transaction anonymityhas also made crypto an attractive form of currency for those on the dark web conducting illegal activities. This has, in turn, attracted government agencies' attention, which could result in centralization and regulations for the entire system.
Another limitation provided by crypto is the fact that they can be hacked and erased. However, this issue may be overcome by advanced technology breakthroughs to come in the near future. For crypto to really take off and behave like a digital currency, we need it to behave like fiat currency.
As more merchants are transitioning to accepting crypto payments, the more popular crypto will become. Ist widespread acceptance amount consumers will allow it to increase steadily. However, the complexity of using crypto may deter many from using it. Crypto does add some promise to the future of technology as a whole with the possibilities of newer tech at lower prices backed by cryptocurrencies.
For this reason, a cryptocurrency that aspires to become a part of the mainstream financial system and the world will need to be able to satisfy vast and divergent criteria to enable it to work. However, this may seem challenging in today's world. But, tomorrow's world will be very different. As the world becomes more advanced and crypto debit cards become a part of our everyday lives, there ispotential in the next 15-20 years, if not sooner, we will begin to see the rise of digital currency flourish in all its glory.
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© 2021 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Blockstream Energy Could Let Bitcoin Miners Set Up Anywhere There’s a Power Source: Bitcoin and blockchain infrastructure company Blockstream has introduced Blockstream Energy, its new service for energy producers to sell excess electricity to proof-of-work miners. Combined with connectivity provided by the Blockstream satellite, the new service is designed to expand the potential reach ofbitcoinmining to renewable energy sources even in remote locations.
Blockstream Mining provides bitcoin mining equipment to institutional and enterprise customers. It also offers hosting services where it deploys mining equipment and then turns over full control of the rigs to the customer.
Blockstream Energy utilizes modular mining units (MMUs), which are essentially independent mining facilities that can be operated remotely. Power producers like turbine or nuclear power plant owners can sell energy to the operators of these MMUs that otherwise would have gone unused.
Related:Market Wrap: Bitcoin Buyers Could Take Profits as Volume Declines
“For the first time, energy producers can control and scale demand to meet their supply. This incredibly powerful tool can be used to make existing electrical grids far more efficient while also significantly improving the economics of renewable energy projects,” said Chris Cook, CIO and head of mining at Blockstream.
Energy producers can use Blockstream MMUs for a variety of purposes including balancing electric grids and improving carbon trading strategies. Since MMUs can be shipped globally and are plug-and-play, many renewable energy mixes can fuel them. Blockstream deploys these MMUs to energy production sites in order to enable scalable and dynamically adjustable energy demand.
“Much of the world’s usable renewable sources are concentrated in remote locations where there is little local demand and not much surrounding infrastructure,” said Adam Back, chief executive officer at Blockstream.
The global Blockstream Satellite network can connect to MMUs anywhere in the world and allow their operators to manage them remotely, opening up the potential for them to situate their operations at sites isolated from high-demand civilian or commercial power infrastructures. Renewable energy generation facilities, therefore, can locate in a variety of locations, such as near isolated waterfalls or volcanos, and take advantage of profitable energy sources that might otherwise be inaccessible.
Related:Bitfarms Increases Revenue by Almost 400% in Q2
Recently, Blockstream has come out with a series of announcements pursuing renewable energy in bitcoin mining. In March, it announced a partnership with energy infrastructure company Aker and a $5 million open source deal with Square.
• Market Wrap: Bitcoin Rally Expected to Pause
• These North American Bitcoin Firms Mined 59% More Bitcoin in July || China, Euro Data Cheer, Bitcoin Goes Legal and Disney - What's Moving Markets: By Geoffrey Smith
Investing.com -- Economic data from China and Europe keep the global recovery on track. Bitcoin becomes legal tender in El Salvador. Disney blows away a 13-year old record for a Labor Day weekend debut at the box office, and oil falls despite a slow return to normal in the Gulf of Mexico. Here's what you need to know in financial markets on Tuesday, 7th September.
1. Chinese trade booms, Europe GDP upgraded
Economic data inChinaandEuropegave reassurances that the recovery is still largely on track despite the wave of Delta-variant Covid-19 that has snarled supply chains and complicated the summer tourist season.
Chinese imports grew by 33% on the year in August, while exports grew by 25.6%, both numbers coming in comfortably expectations. The numbers included record value amounts of iron ore imports, although that wasn’t enough to stop iron ore futures falling to a 14-month low on expectations of further output curbs on steelmakers.
Eurozone GDPfor the second quarter was meanwhile revised up to show growth of 2.2% on the quarter and 14.3% on the year, largely due to stronger consumption.
The pandemic nonetheless left its mark in Australia, where the central bank said it will take more time to phase out its asset purchases, even though it tapered its rate of bond-buying as planned
2. Bitcoin's legal milestone
Bitcoin (BitfinexUSD) briefly rose above $52,000 on a wave of positive sentiment as the cryptocurrency formally becamelegal tender in El Salvador. The Latin American country is the first in the world to take this step, which it hopes will facilitate the flow of remittances from expatriate workers back to the local economy.
Hopes that this could spark a trend still seem ambitious, however. Even El Salvador has said that Bitcoin can’t be used to pay taxes, an eloquent statement as to what the government thinks of its real underlying value.
That, plus the fact that the news had been well flagged, meant that the rally soon reversed. Other coins also reversed under pressure from the selling in Bitcoin.
3. Stocks set to open flat; 737 MAX disappointment, Match Group eyed
U.S. stock markets are set to reopen after the long weekend flat, against a backdrop of constant rumblings about supply chain disruptions and high Covid-19 case rates. New infections hit their highest since the January peak last week, although there are signs of the infection curve flattening. Deaths meanwhile hit their highest level since March.
By 6:15 AM ET (1015 GMT), Dow Jones futures were up 8 points, less than 0.1%, while S&P 500 futures and Nasdaq 100 futures, which closed on Friday near record highs, were both down by less than 0.1%.
Stocks likely to be in focus later include Boeing (NYSE:BA), after one of its biggest customers – European budget carrier Ryanair – walked away from negotiations for a big order for 737 MAX 10 aircraft, citing differences over price. Match Group (NASDAQ:MTCH) may also be in focus after the dating-site operator was included in the S&P 500 index.
4. Disney shatters box office record with Shang Chi
Disney’s Asian-led superhero movie “Shang-Chi” made $90 million on its debut weekend in North American cinemas, a boost to an entertainment sector still haunted by the risks of Covid-19 and lockdowns.
That’s three times the 13-year old record for a Labor Day weekend debut, previously held by “Halloween”.
The release was given exclusively to movie theaters, rather than being simultaneously released on the Disney+ streaming channel. Disney is being sued by actorScarlett Johanssonover the hybrid release of “Black Widow” earlier in the summer, as it eroded her contractual cut from box office revenues.
AMC Entertainment (NYSE:AMC) stock, which has often veered wildly in response to no news at all, rose 0.7% on one of the clearest signs in months that movie theaters can still draw crowds.
5. Oil falters despite extended shut-ins in Gulf of Mexico
Crude oil prices fell again as China’s trade data indicated that imports of crude were still running at more than 1 million barrels a day below February levels in August, despite rising 8% from July. Over the weekend, Saudi Arabia had announced asharp cut in official selling pricesto Asian buyers for October, a sign that it sees the regional market softening as winter starts.
By 6:30 AM ET, U.S. futures were down 1.0% at $68.58 a barrel, while Brent futures were down 0.2% at $72.08 a barrel.
The weak tone is at odds with what appears to be a slow restoration of output atproduction platforms in the Gulf of Mexicoafter Hurricane Ida. Government data on Monday showed that some 1.53 million barrels a day of crude output is still shut in, equivalent to 83% of Gulf output.
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China, Euro Data Cheer, Bitcoin Goes Legal and Disney - What's Moving Markets
El Salvador leads world in adopting bitcoin as official currency
EU seeks penalties on Poland in dispute over judicial reform
[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
None available.
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Trend: down || Prices: 45201.46, 46063.27, 44963.07, 47092.49, 48176.35, 47783.36, 47267.52, 48278.36, 47260.22, 42843.80
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Analyze the provided historical prices, technical indicators, news, and social media sentiment from the last 60 days. Based on this context, predict the overall trend (up, down, or no change) and the specific daily closing prices for Bitcoin for the next 10 days.
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[Technical Analysis for 2022-04-11]
BTC Price: 39521.90, BTC RSI: 35.17
Gold Price: 1944.30, Gold RSI: 53.54
Oil Price: 94.29, Oil RSI: 41.68
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
Bitcoin's strength is being driven by Russians choosing the crypto as an avenue to move their wealth out of the country, legendary investor Mark Mobius says: • Bitcoin's price recovery might be due to Russians choosing to store their wealth in the cryptocurrency, Mark Mobius said.
• "That's an avenue to get money out of Russia," he told CNBC Tuesday, after sanctions were imposed on the country.
• Mobius said Europe isn't a safe bet for investors because President Vladimir Putin may ramp up aggression in Ukraine.
Bitcoin'srally is being driven by Russians wanting to store their wealth somewhere safe, according to legendary investor Mark Mobius.
AfterRussia invaded Ukraineon Thursday, the US and its allies imposed a string of sanctions designed to isolate the country's economy. The West has effectivelyfrozen Russia's international trade relations, and clients of certain Russian banks are unable to liquidate their foreign-exchange reserves.
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday ordered a ban on Russian residents transferring money abroad, effective Tuesday, in retaliation for the sanctions.
The invasion initially brought even more volatility to the crypto market, while it was already struggling with the prospect of interest-rate hikes. Bitcoin,ethereum, and other major cryptocurrencies have swung wildly in price in the past week, turning lower as investors chose to pile into safe-haven assets.
Butbitcoin rose 14%Tuesday to around $44,495, prompted by talk that the digital asset is being bought by parties in both Russia and Ukraine.
The founder of Mobius Capital Partners, whoisn'tparticularly a fan of cryptocurrency investments,told CNBCTuesday he would only buy bitcoin if he were Russian — given the current geopolitical tensions.
Mobius said he'd heard from a property agent in Dubai that several Russians with Swiss-linked bank accounts, who are looking to buy real estate, are trying to place their money in bitcoin.
"If they can pay with bitcoin, of course, that's an avenue to get money out of Russia," he said. "So I would say that's the reason why bitcoin is showing strength now, because the Russians have a way of getting their wealth out."
"Otherwise, they're really in trouble, with all the closures of the different avenues for them to transfer money."
For global markets overall, the legendary investor suggested the worst is yet to come.
"Europe is not a very safe place to be, obviously, because Putin may ramp up his aggression and may decide to go after some of the European countries that are supporting Ukraine."
He recentlytoutedgold, Chinese stocks, and other emerging-market equities as safe bets for investors looking to cushion against the Russia-Ukraine crisis.
Read More:Goldman Sachs identifies 9 stocks to buy that are backed by over $5 trillion in mutual fund and hedge fund money — and explains the unique strategies each camp is pursuing as markets wobble
Read the original article onBusiness Insider || Algorand Brings a Level of Maturity to the Blockchain Space: Algorand ( ALGO-USD ) is in the news again as the crypto sector accelerates. ALGO may be able to break above the muck with its underlying maturity. Cryptos are risky, so if you buy, don’t say I didn’t warn you. Algorand logo in light blue against a simple dark-colored, futuristic-looking background Source: shutterstock.com/Shizume With well over 18,000 cryptocurrencies to choose from, investors have no shortage of options regarding where to put their money to work. But Algorand ( ALGO-USD ) stands out with a distinguished track record, a focused initiative and significant popularity. Algorand commands a market capitalization of $6 billion, putting it just inside the top 30 of the world’s most valuable cryptos. ALGO has also posted an impressive performance, up nearly 11% during the trailing week. As some positive news hits the crypto sector it’s reasonable to assume Algorand can keep moving higher. If future geopolitical stability can be assumed, here are some factors to consider for ALGO. InvestorPlace - Stock Market News, Stock Advice & Trading Tips ALGO Algorand $0.9056 What is Algorand? Billed as a self-sustaining blockchain network , Algorand aims to be the backbone of multiple decentralized applications. Underlying ALGO’s innovation is security, scalability and efficiency, which are crucial attributes for any next-generation utilitarian project. 7 Retail Stocks Worth a Buy Now But why bother with Algorand when you have other cryptos like Bitcoin ( BTC-USD ) with a longer track record? Although BTC will likely always be associated with blockchain and the virtual currency space, the actual network is rather anachronistic by modern crypto standards. Essentially, as Bitcoin became incredibly profitable, people jumped on the bandwagon. As you might imagine, the bandwagon just wasn’t designed from the ground up to accommodate such volume. To compensate, transaction costs increased to keep the nodes that run the show in the background happy — a problem not unique to Bitcoin. But that legacy made blockchains expensive and cumbersome platforms. Story continues That’s where Algorand could spark a paradigm shift. While providing the same level of decentralization and security, its network is simultaneously a much more scalable, quicker and efficient platform than Bitcoin. It enables not just peer-to-peer transactions, but other uses such as smart contracts. ALGO as a Breath of Fresh Air At this point, you might be wondering: What makes ALGO fundamentally different from other cryptos out there? Great question. I can perhaps interest you in recent news that Algorand released a major technical upgrade to support cross-chain interoperability . In short, ALGO will be able to communicate with other blockchains, enabling far greater utility. Imagine Algorand being a person who is suddenly fluent in 10 languages, and you can appreciate why so many people are buzzing about cross-chain interoperability. Still, such utility is not exclusive to it, so why bother with ALGO? It might just come down to reputation. My sense is people will eventually get turned off by weaker crypto projects that rely on memes and inane tweets from celebrities and influencers. With Algorand, the project is all business. For one thing, its founder is Silvio Micali, a professor of computer science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Second, Algorand is focused on catalyzing greater utility for blockchain projects. In other words, it’s not meandering into useless endeavors. On top of that, according to the Harvard Business Review , “in an economy where 70% to 80% of market value comes from hard-to-assess intangible assets such as brand equity, intellectual capital, and goodwill, organizations are especially vulnerable to anything that damages their reputations.” While we’re talking about the crypto space as opposed to the mainstream equities sector, the value of reputation probably doesn’t evaporate based on an investment market’s underlying distribution of control. Therefore, Algorand has an intangible edge. All Cryptos Carry Risk It must be noted that I own a position in ALGO. Therefore, rather than try to influence you into a binary buy-sell argument, you should conduct your own due diligence. At a time when the crypto space is seemingly dominated by memes and caricatures, there’s likely great value to a sober-minded blockchain project. I don’t know about you, but I’d rather put my money to work in an MIT professor’s project than that of some random person hacking away at a laptop in a coffee shop. Still, it’s the free market that will have the final say on Algorand. Given how unprecedented a 24/7/365 retail market is, you always have to tread carefully. On the date of publication, Josh Enomoto held a LONG position in ALGO and BTC. The opinions expressed in this article are those of the writer, subject to the InvestorPlace.com Publishing Guidelines . More From InvestorPlace Get in Now on Tiny $3 ‘Forever Battery’ Stock It doesn’t matter if you have $500 in savings or $5 million. Do this now. Stock Prodigy Who Found NIO at $2… Says Buy THIS Early Bitcoin Millionaire Reveals His Next Big Crypto Trade “On Air” The post Algorand Brings a Level of Maturity to the Blockchain Space appeared first on InvestorPlace . || Even after Berkshire Hathaway sank $1 billion into crypto-friendly bank, vice chairman Charlie Munger calls coins like Bitcoin a ‘venereal disease’: Months afterBerkshire Hathawayplowed$1 billion into a Brazilian digital bank with ties to cryptocurrency, company vice chairman Charlie Munger had some choice words for Bitcoin and its kind.
“I certainly didn’t invest in crypto. I’m proud of the fact I’ve avoided it. It’s like a venereal disease or something. I just regard it as beneath contempt,” Mungersaidduring the annual meeting of the publisher Daily Journal Corp., where Munger serves as chairman.
Munger, the 98-year-old billionaire investor, hascriticized Bitcoinin the past, calling the digital currency “rat poison” and, on Wednesday, said cryptocurrency should be banned, noting he “admire[s] the Chinese for banning it” already.
Yet Munger’s harsh words for Bitcoin strike a glaring contrast to reports on Wednesday that Berkshire Hathaway—the investment fund Munger manages with famed investor Warren Buffett—had invested $1 billion in Nubank, a Brazilian digital bank with a Bitcoin-friendly outlook.
Berkshire firstboughtinto the São Paulo–based bank in June of last year, investing $500 million in the eight-year-old startup. It was atimely investment. Nubank raised $2.6 billion in itsNew York IPOlast December, valuing the fintech firm at over $40 billion.
According to itsprospectus, Nubank has over 48 million customers across Brazil, Colombia, and Mexico. The company says it hasprovidedover 5 million people with their first ever credit cards, extending financial services to Latin America’s unbanked population, whichdecreasedto just 20% of the total population in 2020, from 45% in 2017.
Seeing growth potential, Berkshire increased its position in Nubank by $1 billion in the last quarter of last year. The investment fund’s big bet on Nubank came to light in a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commissionfilingreleased Monday.
Although the bank’s main trade is credit and debit services, Nubank also runs an investment platform called NuInvest, which allows users to invest money in a Bitcoin-backed exchange-traded fund (ETF).
However, reports of the bank’s “crypto-friendly” DNA might be overblown. Nubank acquired its Bitcoin-open investment platform in 2021 through the purchase of Brazil’s Easynvest, which it then rebranded as NuInvest. And the company’sprospectusdoesn’t mention revenues or products built on cryptocurrency.
Nubank, which still operates at a loss, only lists revenue from transaction fees, card fees, and its investments in financial instruments, which it says are “primarily in highly liquid government bonds.” The bank does note that its future growth depends, in part, on its ability to “keep pace” with tech developments including “virtual and cryptocurrencies,” but even that comes with a caveat.
Nubank warns that “cryptocurrencies and blockchain could limit our ability to track the movement of funds and therefore present a risk to our company,” by preventing the bank from performing due diligence onmoney laundering.
Nevertheless, Berkshire’s exposure to cryptocurrency through its investment in traditional banks hasincreasedas more banks offer services in the newfangled fintech product. Munger might be disappointed to learn he hasn’t avoided the “disease” quite as well as he’d like.
This story was originally featured onFortune.com || Bitcoin Donations Pour-In to Support the Ukrainian Army: • Bitcoin donations to Ukraine military groups “shot up” after the Russian invasion, says Elliptic
• Donations in Bitcoin surpassed $1 million on Friday
• Come Back Alive Ukrainian NGO has received over $400K worth of cryptos in the past day alone
Russian Prez Vladimir Putin’s attack on Ukraine has brought millions worth ofBitcoindonations to support the Ukrainian army financially.
Per new data from blockchain analytics company Elliptic, Ukrainian NGOs and volunteer groups receivedover $4 millionin crypto assets following the Russian offensive.
In a recent update, the firm confirmed that one Ukrainian NGO “received over $675,000 in Bitcoin on Thursday alone.” And as of 9.30 am GMT today, the donations have already reached more than $3.4 million. In addition, a single anonymous donor sent more than $3million worth of crypto assets.
“This pushes the total the group has raised in just 24 hours to over $4 million.”
According toCome Back Alive, an NGO that supports the Ukrainian armed forces, the funds will finance military equipment, including armor and medical supplies.
According to Elliptic, a fresh round of crypto donations poured in from users across the globe in recent weeks to stave off a Russian invasion.
“Cryptocurrency is increasingly being used to crowdfund war, with the tacit approval of governments,” said Tom Robinson, chief scientist of Elliptic.
Jess Symington, Elliptic’s head of research, said donations “haven’t stopped” and are expected to rise. According to a recentFortunereport, contributions from pro-Ukraine groups and crypto communities on social media platforms have led to a surge in donations.
Ukraine’s de facto bank, the National Bank of Ukraine, has announced yesterday that it has suspended electronic cash transfers, which triggered the use of cryptocurrencies.
In arecent order, the bank has clamped down the issuance of electronic cash or e-money (digital fiat cash) and indicated that the e-money distribution was temporarily off-limits. After Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky imposed martial law following the Russian invasion, the move came.
Remarkably, the order did not mention cryptocurrencies; however, the suspension of e-money is likely to apply to crypto-assets.
As a result, the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense has set up a bank account for theinflow of donationsbut has legally barred from accepting digital currencies.
“National legislation does not allow the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine to use other payment systems (“Webmoney,” “Bitcoin,” “PayPal,” etc.),” the government website stated.
However, crypto exchanges in Ukraine, such as Kuna, said that domestic buyers are paying a premium forTetherstablecoin.
“We don’t trust the government. We don’t trust the banking system. We don’t trust the local currency. The majority of people have nothing else to choose apart from crypto,” Michael Chobanian, the founder of Kuna, said in an interview with CoinDesk.
Thisarticlewas originally posted on FX Empire
• Silver Pulls Back As Demand For Safe-Haven Assets Declines
• Australian Dollar Recovers as Risk Appetite Returns
• Central Bank of Argentina to Set New Regulations for Digital Wallets
• US Dollar Continues to Find Buyers
• British Pound Pulls Back Below ¥155 Against Yen for the Week
• Founding Member of Rock Band Pussy Riot Announces UkraineDAO || $7.5 Trillion AUM Company Charles Schwab Files for Crypto Economy ETF: Key Insights: Charles Schwab filed for a crypto economy ETF. The ETF will be tracking the Schwab Crypto Economy Index. The fund will generally track the same securities as those included in the index. Charles Schwab, one of the biggest financial services companies, filed for a crypto economy ETF with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Approval of this exchange-traded fund (ETF) will enable Charles Schwabs clients to speculate on the index without holding any asset. Another ETF After Blackrock filed its crypto ETF in the latter half of the month, many companies are looking to make the most of the opportunity and follow suit. Charles Schwab already handles over $7.5 trillion of assets under its management. Thus it is not surprising that the company launched a crypto economy ETF. Unlike traditional ETFs, a crypto economy ETF will not directly track the cryptocurrencies. This is because Charles Schwab does not own any cryptocurrency. Within the SEC filing too, the company clearly said that the Schwab Crypto Economy ETF would not be investing in cryptocurrencies or any digital assets. Instead, the ETF is designed to track the Schwab Crypto Economy Index. This index is comprised of companies that are engaged in some of the other forms of crypto-related activities. Companies using, buying, selling, and facilitating crypto and digital assets or conducting similar activities are referred to as companies in the crypto economy. Reiterating the same the filing noted: The fund may, however, have indirect exposure to cryptocurrencies by virtue of its investments in companies that use one or more digital assets as part of their business activities or that hold digital assets as proprietary investments. Plan in Making It isnt surprising to see the sudden appearance of this ETF filing because not too long ago, Charles Schwabs CEO had something positive to say about cryptocurrencies. In an interview, CEO Walt Bettinger said that firms such as Schwab have a void for crypto, highlighting the importance of digital assets in digital finance. Story continues Adding to the same, Jonathan Craig, Head of Investor Services at Charles Schwab, said: A full 16% of Schwabs clients plan to put money into cryptocurrencies in the first half of the year. Thus, filing for a crypto economy ETF makes much more sense considering what clients are leaning towards. This article was originally posted on FX Empire More From FXEMPIRE: Silver Markets Continue to Threaten Major Resistance Barrier Natural Gas Prices Consolidate Despite Sizeable Inventory Draw SEC Begins the Investigation of Fractional NFTs Suspected To Be Illegal Best Oversold ETFs to Buy Now for March 2022 Terras LUNA becomes Second-Largest Staked Asset, Surpassing ETH PBoC Claims Chinas Share in Bitcoin Transactions Dropped to 10% || Coinbase Could Reportedly Buy Mercado Bitcoin’s Parent Company: Key Insights: Coinbase could reportedly acquire Brazilian Giant 2TM. 2TM is valued at $2.2 billion and is Latin America’s largest crypto brokerage. Crypto adoption saw a boom in Brazil as stablecoin trading tripled in 2021. American cryptocurrency exchange platform Coinbase Global is in conversation to acquire 2TM, the firm behind Mercado Bitcoin – Brazil’s largest crypto exchange . Coinbase to Acquire Brazilian Giant A Brazilian newspaper Estadão reported on Sunday that negotiations between Coinbase and 2TM have been taking place since last year, and an agreement could be announced by the end of this month. No sources have been cited for now. Estadão is the third-largest newspaper read by almost 212 million Brazilians. In 2021, Mercado Bitcoin had 3.2 million customers, with close to 1.1 million added just last year. Furthermore, the firm reached $7 billion in trading volume in 2021. Mercado Bitcoin is one of Latin America’s largest crypto brokerages, owned by 2TM. It got its unicorn status as a billion-dollar company in 2021. 2TM is valued at $2.2 billion, and acquired firms like Meubank, MB Digital Assets, CriptoLoja, Bitrust, Blockchain Academy, MezaPro, Wuzu, and Portal do Bitcoin under its umbrella. Furthermore, 2TM aims to expand its operations in Latin America through acquisitions in Argentina, Chile, Colombia, and Mexico. Earlier this year, the Brazilian giant acquired a controlling stake in CriptoLoja – Portugal’s first regulated crypto exchange. 2TM raised $200 million in a Series B funding round and $50 million in a second closing of the funding in November last year. The funding rounds in 2021 took the firm’s value to $2.1 billion. Exchanges Eyeing Latin America As crypto adoption across the globe and in Brazil continues to rise, enterprises are turning their eyes towards Latin American countries. Notably, the Brazilian crypto adoption boom tripled stablecoin trading in 2021 as global exchanges such as Coinbase, Binance and Crypto.com turned their eyes to the Latin American country. Story continues In November last year, Coinbase announced the creation of an engineering hub in Brazil and announced the expansion of its team in the country. One of the most retail-friendly exchanges, Binance, plans to acquire banks and payment processors in Brazil. Recently, the firm signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to acquire Brazilian securities brokerage Sim;paul Investimentos. It is also reported that Coinbase also identified Mexican crypto exchange Bitso as an acquisition target. Still, no deals have been made for now. This article was originally posted on FX Empire More From FXEMPIRE: AMC Price Forecast – Price Breakout Supports $32.00 Target Is HYMC the Next Meme Stock? The S&P500 Melt-Up to 5500+ Is Still on Track. Silver Is Under Pressure As Dollar Heads Towards Yearly Highs Crude Oil Markets Take a Plunge Why Tesla Stock Is Up By 8% Today || Bitcoin Enters Resistance Zone Between $40K-$45K: Bitcoin (BTC) rallied as much as 10% over the past 24 hours as buyers reacted to short-term oversold readings.
Resistance, or the point where an uptrend is expected to pause temporarily due to a concentration of supply, at around the $40,000-$45,000 price zone could stall the current upswing, similar to what occurred last week.
The relative strength index (RSI) on the four-hour chart is oversold, which typically precedes a brief pullback in price. On the daily chart, however, the RSI is neutral, suggesting that lower support around $37,000-$40,000 could stabilize pullbacks into the Asia trading day.
For now, bitcoin remains in a tight trading range, although downside momentum has slowed over the past two months. That means bulls could remain active at short-term support levels.
BTC was trading near $42,000 at press time and is down 3% over the past week. || Bitcoin Testing Resistance Near $40K; Support at $35K-$37K: Bitcoin (BTC) continues to hover around the $40,000 price level amid choppy trading conditions. The cryptocurrency faces strong overheadresistance, which could stall the recent upswing in price. Still, lower support at $35,000 and $37,000 could stabilize pullbacks into the Asia trading day.
BTC was recently trading around $40,800 and is up 3% over the past week.
The relative strength index (RSI) on the four-hour chart is approachingoverboughtlevels, similar to what occurred earlier this month, which preceded brief pullbacks in price. On the weekly chart, however, the RSI is rising from oversold levels, decreasing the likelihood of a significant price sell-off.
Typically, BTC consolidates for about two months following an extreme upswing or downtrend. That means the current trading range between $30,000 and $40,000 could persist until a decisive breakout or breakdown occurs. || Stock Market Today: Russia-Ukraine Escalation Knocks S&P Into Correction: Investors sliding down red arrow Getty Images Any feelings of relaxation from the long holiday weekend were snuffed out Monday, as the worsening Ukraine-Russia conflict sent the S&P 500 into correction territory for the first time since 2020. Over the weekend, Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered troops to enter areas of eastern Ukraine – a move that President Joe Biden dubbed an "invasion" and was met with international sanctions. SEE MORE 66 Best Dividend Stocks You Can Count On in 2022 Among them: Biden prohibited American financial institutions from processing any transactions from large Russian bank VEB and the country's military bank, Promsvyazbank, while U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson said his country's first round of sanctions would target IS Bank, General Bank and other Russian financials. Commodities rose – U.S. crude oil prices were up 1.4% to $92.35 per barrel while gold was up 0.4% to an eight-month-high settlement of $1,907.40 per ounce. Sign up for Kiplinger's FREE Investing Weekly e-letter for stock, ETF and mutual fund recommendations, and other investing advice. But stocks declined throughout the session, led lower by the consumer discretionary sector (-2.9%), which saw the likes of Tesla ( TSLA , -4.1%) and Best Buy ( BBY , -7.3%) suffer sizable declines. The S&P 500, off 1.0% to 4,304, finally dipped into correction territory (a decline of 10% or more from a peak). The Nasdaq Composite (-1.2% to 13,381) remains in correction, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average (-1.4% to 33,596) would need to decline another 2.0% to mark a 10% drop from its Jan. 3 record high. stock chart for 022222 YCharts Other news in the stock market today: The small-cap Russell 2000 slumped 1.5% to 1,980. Bitcoin was punished, dropping 5.3% from Friday's levels to $37,925.63 (Bitcoin trades 24 hours a day; prices reported here are as of 4 p.m.) Home Depot ( HD ) was the worst Dow Jones stock today, shedding 8.9% after earnings. The home improvement retailer reported stronger than anticipated earnings of $3.21 per share and revenue of $35.7 billion in its fourth quarter, but gave a conservative fiscal 2022 outlook to account for rising inflation. Still, CFRA Research analyst Kenneth Leon maintained a Buy rating on HD stock and called its recent pullback "an enhanced buying opportunity." Kraft Heinz ( KHC ) was a rare splash of green today, with the stock climbing 5.0% after the food and beverage firm raised its long-term growth targets and reiterated its fiscal 2022 adjusted EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization). "Over the past 18 months, KHC has strengthened its product portfolio, reduced its debt load, and set the foundation for more profitable growth," writes CFRA Research analyst Arun Sundaram (Buy). "Phase three will look to use technology and data-driven solutions to accelerate the pace of innovation and use resources more effectively." Tempur Sealy International ( TPX ) plunged 19.4% after the mattress maker reported earnings. In its fourth quarter, TPX reported adjusted earnings of 88 cents per share on $1.36 billion in revenue, falling short of the 96 cents per share and $1.45 billion expected by analysts. The company also lifted its quarterly dividend by 11.1% to 10 cents per share. Story continues What Russia-Ukraine Means for Your Portfolio While stocks are facing numerous headwinds this year, military conflict is unlikely to have a lasting effect. SEE MORE 2022's Best Mutual Funds in 401(k) Retirement Plans "As devastating as a major conflict could be between Russia and Ukraine, the truth is stocks likely will be able to withstand the geopolitical struggle," says Ryan Detrick, chief market strategist of LPL Financial, who adds that historically, major geopolitical events are often a "nonevent" for U.S. equities. But that doesn't mean there won't be at least some short-term consequences, as today's declines clearly signal. In the short term, for instance, commodities of all types are expected to gain additional ground – a boon for commodity funds such as these energy exchange-traded funds or these gold ETFs . And you can check out our primer for a wider look at the various ways strategists and analysts see the Russia-Ukraine conflict making itself felt in U.S. portfolios . SEE MORE The Pros' 10 Best S&P 500 Stocks to Buy Now You may also like Your Guide to Roth Conversions 7 Best ETFs for Rising Interest Rates Should You Own Your Home in Your Trust? View comments || Nat Gas Steady After US-EU Deal to Ensure Western Supplies: Natural gas futures are trading slightly lower on Monday after touching its highest level since October 18 earlier in the session. The market is being underpinned by global supply worries and robust demand for U.S. exports. Additionally, on Friday, the Biden administration and European Union (EU) leaders announced a new effort to ensure Western supplies of natural gas to the continent through 2022 and beyond. The United States and the EU now have a joint goal to send an additional 15 billion cubic meters of LNG to EU countries in 2022 – about 1.5 Bcf/d – with “expected increases going forward,” according to the White House, Natural Gas Intelligence (NGI) reported. At 10:09 GMT, May natural gas futures are trading $5.600, down $0.011 or -0.20%. On Friday, the United States Natural Gas Fund (UNG) settled at $19.48, up $0.51 or +2.69%. Increasing Domestic Supply Issues Beside Europe, the United States could face could face its own short-term supply challenges, according to analysts. U.S. utilities withdrew 51 Bcf natural gas from storage for the week-ended March 18, the Energy Information Administration (EIA) reported Thursday. This lowered inventories to 1,389 Bcf, leaving stocks well below the five-year average of 1,682 Bcf. At the same time, Bespoke Weather Services noted, U.S. production has in recent weeks held well below early-2022 and late-2021 highs. It also said long-range forecasts point to a hot summer and strong cooling demand. Should heat prove intense in the season ahead and LNG exports hold at record levels, U.S. producers would have to boost output to keep pace with demand and provide room for utilities to restock inventories ahead of next winter, the firm said. “The longer we go without even getting back to year-to-date highs, the more difficulty we see in comfortably refilling storage by the end of injection season, especially when factoring in our expectation of a hotter summer,” Bespoke said. Daily Forecast Friday’s price jump suggests the US – EU liquefied natural gas (LNG) was likely priced in so we’re not expecting much more upside related to this event at this time. Story continues Furthermore, U.S. exporters of LNG are already maxing out and have little room to ramp up more in the near term. Additionally, Western governments do not have the power to order private companies in the LNG market to direct shipments to Europe. In order to make the deal work, the US is going to have to figure out a way to work with Europe to provide a roadmap to maximize deliveries to the continent. One way they could do this is have European countries pay a premium to secure shipments from the U.S. that would otherwise be headed to Asia. For a look at all of today’s economic events, check out our economic calendar . This article was originally posted on FX Empire More From FXEMPIRE: Citigroup Buying Interest Drops to 10-Year Low Euro Dipping Lower Rio De Janeiro To Begin Accepting Taxes in Bitcoin in 2023 Australian Dollar Continues to See Resistance Above Top 5 Cryptocurrencies to Watch This Week – ADA, ALGO, VET, FIL, UNI Russia’s Deputy Energy Minister Demands Legalization of Crypto Mining
[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
None available.
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Trend: no change || Prices: 40127.18, 41166.73, 39935.52, 40553.46, 40424.48, 39716.95, 40826.21, 41502.75, 41374.38, 40527.36
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Analyze the provided historical prices, technical indicators, news, and social media sentiment from the last 60 days. Based on this context, predict the overall trend (up, down, or no change) and the specific daily closing prices for Bitcoin for the next 10 days.
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[Technical Analysis for 2022-07-22]
BTC Price: 22714.98, BTC RSI: 56.13
Gold Price: 1727.10, Gold RSI: 38.40
Oil Price: 94.70, Oil RSI: 37.84
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
Buy Amazon Stock After It Splits On June 6: Down 35% year to date, Amazon’s ( AMZN )stock looks attractive at current levels. And the stock is about to get cheaper following a 20-for-1 split scheduled to take place on June 6. The current problems plaguing the e-commerce company are temporary. Long-term, shareholders will make out just fine. Closeup of the Amazon (AMZN) logo at Amazon campus in Palo Alto, California. The Palo Alto location hosts A9 Search, Amazon Web Services, and Amazon Game Studios teams. Source: Tada Images / Shutterstock.com Following its latest earnings, e-commerce giant Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN ) looks to be in the penalty box with investors. The year-to-date decline in AMZN stock is now 36%, outpacing the 26% drop in the Nasdaq exchange on which the company’s shares trade. At its current price of $2,141.72 a share, Amazon’s stock has given up all the gains it achieved during the pandemic when the online retailer became an essential resource for consumers all over the world who could no longer make in-person visits to shopping malls and brick-and-mortar retail outlets. InvestorPlace - Stock Market News, Stock Advice & Trading Tips While the pullback this year has been steady, the shares really fell off a cliff over the past month following Amazon’s first-quarter results , which saw the company report a rare net loss and the slowest growth in 20 years. AMZN Amazon $2,141.72 The Bad Old Days To be fair, many of the problems that are currently vexing Amazon are not within the company’s control. Inflation at a 40-year high, rising interest rates, renewed Covid-19 lockdowns in China, and war in Ukraine are not problems unique to Amazon. Neither are global supply chain delays and elevated prices for oil and gas. 7 REITs to Buy for the Second Half of 2022 However, Amazon did take a major hit in the first quarter from a very bad investment decision the company made. In Q1, Amazon recorded a massive $7.6 billion loss on its stake in electric vehicle start-up Rivian (NASDAQ: RIVN ), whose share price has plunged 76% since is initial public offering (IPO) last fall. Amazon, along with Ford Motor Co. (NYSE: F ), was one of the biggest investors in Rivian, and expected that the EV company would supply it with 100,000 electric delivery vans. That investment has soured with RIVN stock cratering and the delivery vans now delayed . For its part, Ford has been dumping Rivian shares as quickly as the automaker’s management team can hit the “sell” button. Regardless, the big loss on its Rivian investment led Amazon to post a Q1 net loss of $3.8 billion. It was Amazon’s first net loss since 2015 and prompted more than a few analysts to take their feet off their desks when the news appeared online. In terms of sales, Amazon reported its slowest growth rate since the dot-com bubble burst in 2001, harkening back to the bad old days when the last widespread meltdown in technology stocks occurred. Story continues Revenue at Amazon increased 7% during Q1, a marked comedown from 44% growth in the first quarter of 2021, and the slowest rate of growth for any quarter since the turn of the century. Worse, the company forecast even slower growth for the current second quarter, saying it expects revenues to expand between 3% and 7% from a year earlier. Amazon forecast Q2 revenue of $116 billion to $121 billion , well-below the $125.5 billion analysts had penciled in. Working To Recover Given the mounting problems, Q1 net loss, and slowing sales, investors can hardly be faulted for taking a wait-and-see approach towards AMZN stock. However, the company is taking steps to improve its fortunes and win back the confidence of Wall Street and Main Street . The company announced that it is introducing a 5% surcharge for some of its U.S. sellers, the first such fee it has levied. Plus, Amazon is raising the price of its U.S. Prime membership for the first time in four years to $139 a year from $119 previously. And, the company plans to hold its annual Prime Day sales event in July this year rather than June. That move will help to boost the company’s third quarter results during what has traditionally been the slowest period of the year. Also, Amazon is executing a 20-for-1 stock split on June 6, its first since 1999. The split should put AMZN stock within reach of smaller retail investors and could lead to a rally in the downtrodden share price. And, the company has also approved $10 billion worth of share buybacks this year, which should further strengthen the stock in coming months. Will it be enough? Time will tell. But the company is clearly taking offensive maneuvers to try and improve its situation and overcome the pressures that are being exerted on its business and share price. For their part, analysts remain optimistic about Amazon’s stock. Among 46 professionals who cover the e-commerce company, the median price target on Amazon’s share price is $3,700, implying 60% upside over the next year. Plan To Buy AMZN Stock After It Splits Amazon remains the world’s dominant e-commerce company and a leading technology concern. Long-term, the stock is still a great investment. And with the share price about to come down to about $110 a share (based on current levels) following the June 6 split, investors would be smart to buy shares on the dip and hold them in their portfolio for the long haul. In time, shareholders will continue to be rewarded by Amazon. Treat the current selloff and upcoming stock split as a rare opportunity. AMZN stock is a buy. On the date of publication, Joel Baglole did not have (either directly or indirectly) any positions in the securities mentioned in this article. The opinions expressed in this article are those of the writer, subject to the InvestorPlace.com Publishing Guidelines . More From InvestorPlace Stock Prodigy Who Found NIO at $2… Says Buy THIS It doesn’t matter if you have $500 in savings or $5 million. Do this now. Get in Now on Tiny $3 ‘Forever Battery’ Stock Early Bitcoin Millionaire Reveals His Next Big Crypto Trade “On Air” The post Buy Amazon Stock After It Splits On June 6 appeared first on InvestorPlace . View comments || Crypto Market Daily Highlights – June 4 – Weekend Support Kicked In: • It was a bullish Saturday for bitcoin (BTC) and the broader market though the gains were modest.
• The market had started the day in a bearish fashion before finding afternoon support to wrap up the day in positive territory.
• Concerns over Fed monetary policy, following Friday’s US nonfarm payrolls, pegged the majors back from a full recovery of Friday’s losses.
It was a relatively bullish Saturday session for thecryptomarket, with the top ten partially recovering Friday’s heavy losses.
The news wires tested support early in the session, with anti-crypto chatter testing investor sentiment.
Over the weekend, the FTC reported on crypto cybercrime numbers that could give regulators greater incentive to clamp down on the crypto market to protect investors.
Crypto winter chatter and talk of exchanges laying off employees or freezing headcounts added to the negative mood.
For bitcoin (BTC), it was the sixth gain from eight sessions, though resistance at $30,000 left bitcoin at sub-$30,000.
On Saturday, the total crypto market cap slipped to a day low of $1,190 billion before the afternoon recovery.
The fall back to sub-$1,200 billion for a second consecutive day suggests continued volatility.
For the crypto bulls, steering well clear of the May 12 current year low of $1,082 billion will be the key.
Looking at the crypto top ten, Dogecoin (DOGE) and Solana (SOL) led the way with gains of 2.06% and 1.99%, respectively.
ADA(+1.07%),BNB(+0.97% ),BTC(+0.56%),ETH(+1.70%), andXRP(+0.66%) also found support.
From the top 100, The Graph (GRT) and Helium (HNT) led the pack, rallying by 11.6% and by 12.6%, respectively.
Both benefitted from a shift in sentiment on the day and are set for a week of solid gains. GRT is currently up 16.2% for the week, with HNT up an impressive 28.7%.
Having spiked at $500 million levels in the week, 24-hour total liquidations stood at just $55.82 million, according toCoinglass.
Over 1-year, total liquidations reflected a further easing in selling pressure, with liquidations standing at $0.961 million.
A pickup in total liquidations through the early part of the day could test investor sentiment, however.
• The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC)reportedconsumers losing more than $1 billion in crypto scams since 2021.
• New York Proof-of-Work mining bill,Assembly Bill A7389C, is on the way to New York Governor Kathy Hochul for consideration.
• Fed Governor Christopher J. Wallertalkedcrypto risk at the SNB-CIF Conference on Crypto Assets and Financial Innovation.
• South Korean regulators continue totargetthe crypto industry after the collapse of TerraUSD (UST) and TerraLUNA.
• LUNA 2.0 failed to reignite after the launch day slump to $4.14. At the time of writing, LUNA 2.0stoodat $6.37.
Thisarticlewas originally posted on FX Empire
• Explosions shake Ukraine’s capital Kyiv after weeks of relative calm
• Kazakh leader seeks political capital in constitutional reform vote
• Philippines raises alert level at restive volcano after spewing cloud of ash
• Sixteen killed, scores injured in Bangladesh container depot fire
• Chinese astronauts blast off to space station as construction enters high gear
• The Week Ahead – Central Banks and US Inflation in Focus || Dollar dips as hopes rise that inflation has peaked: By Chuck Mikolajczak NEW YORK (Reuters) - The U.S. dollar index retreated from earlier highs and fell on Tuesday as Wall Street stocks erased initial declines amid growing hopes that inflation may have peaked, but the greenback managed to hit its highest level in 20 years against the Japanese yen. While a decline in Target dented gains on Wall Street, U.S. stocks mostly advanced as some investors took the retailers profit warning as a sign price pressures on the consumer may start to ease. Longer-dated U.S. Treasury yields, which hit a 3-1/2 week high overnight on concerns the Federal Reserve will continue on its aggressive rate hike path as it seeks to combat inflation, also eased as a tapering off of inflation could slow the central bank's hiking plans. "The market is pricing in that the Fed is going to do almost all of what it says it is going to do, but that being said you are starting to get this idea that maybe inflation has reached its peak and might be starting to roll over," said Thomas Martin, senior portfolio manager at Globalt Investments in Atlanta, Georgia. "Retailers are having inventory accumulation problems and you are seeing some prices come down so rates in the U.S. at least have stalled out in this area." Investors will get a look at the latest inflation reading on Friday in the form of the May consumer price index. The dollar index fell 0.176% to 102.270, with the euro up 0.14% to $1.0709. After touching a near 20-year high of 105.01 on May 13, the dollar index has eased back to around the 102 level, although Friday's strong payrolls report helped the greenback notch its first weekly gain in three. The yen weakened to touch 132.99 per dollar, its softest since April 3, 2002. The greenback has been strengthening against the yen as the policy paths of their countries' respective central banks diverge. On Tuesday, Bank of Japan Governor Haruhiko Kuroda repeated his view that a weak yen benefited the economy if its moves were not too sharp, a comment that followed the currency's fall to a fresh two-decade low. Story continues The Japanese yen weakened 0.55% versus the greenback at 132.59 per dollar, while sterling was last trading at $1.2596, up 0.53% on the day. The pound gained against the dollar, rebounding after falling to a three-week low against the greenback on the heels of British Prime Minister Boris Johnson escaping a confidence vote that left him politically wounded. The Australian dollar rose 0.65% versus the greenback to $0.724 after the Reserve Bank of Australia lifted its cash rate by 50 basis points to 0.85%, the most in 22 years, and flagged more tightening to come as it battles to restrain surging inflation. Investors will hear from the European Central Bank at its next policy announcement on Thursday, with the U.S. Federal Reserve set to announce policy next week. In cryptocurrencies, Bitcoin last fell 3.03% to $30,489.49. (Reporting by Chuck Mikolajczak; Editing by Bernadette Baum and Mark Heinrich) || Brazil's Ebanx lays off 20% of employees as cuts sweep tech sector: SAO PAULO (Reuters) - Brazilian payments fintech Ebanx said on Tuesday it had laid off about 20% of its staff, joining billion-dollar tech companies across the country bracing for a gloomy economic landscape.
Ebanx's dismissal of 340 employees is the latest in a wave of large Brazilian startups who have announced they are slimming down amid high inflation, shrinking capital pools, and rising interest rates.
Facily, Brazil's e-commerce darling, also recently cut around 30% of its workforce, while local cryptocurrency exchange Mercado Bitcoin and investment platform Empiricus have also announced layoffs.
Meanwhile, Mexican SoftBank-backed tech unicorn Kavak laid off 150 employees in Brazil's operation earlier this month. [L1N2XW1DF]
Ebanx, which boasts a $1 billion valuation and previously had over 1,700 employees, said in a statement that it is reviewing its operations and focusing down on its main business, international payments.
The company, which processes payments in 15 Latin American countries, has restructured and discontinued some projects, without giving further details.
"The decision was made based on the current scenario of the technology market as a whole, impacted in a profound and fast way by the macroeconomic environment," it said.
In March, Ebanx's CEO and founder Joao Del Valle announced he had postponed a fresh fundraise until later this year due to the current mood of investors.
(Reporting by André Romani; Writing by Carolina Pulice; Editing by Nick Zieminski) || The Crypto Mile: Has bitcoin reached rock bottom?: Watch: The Crypto Mile - The Power and Potential of Cryptocurrencies Crypto is often heralded as the best innovation since world wide web and its disruptive power as the force that is going to redefine the world's financial networks. Its backers vouch by its liberating and reforming potential to switch transactions to decentralised finance, thus getting rid of intermediaries, including and most importantly banks. Critics, however, point out that the blockchain technology that crypto is based on has some merits but claims of crypto tokens replacing money is pure baloney. That, however, hasn't deterred punters taking huge bets. Some made big gains, several lost fortunes and lifelong savings. In recent months the crypto crash has only become deeper, with several false alarms of 'hitting the bottom'. The crypto market cap has shrunk from $3.2tn (£2.6tn) in November 2021 to barely $1tn. Bitcoin ( BTC-USD ) tanked to below $20,000 earlier in June, while ether, the token linked to the Ethereum ( ETH-USD ) blockchain, fell to nearly $1,000. The crypto churn is still on, and many claim that those still standing at the end will be the Amazons of the post-dotcom crash. Amid this backdrop comes Yahoo Finance's new show 'The Crypto Mile' where we will be interviewing some of the leading figures in the industry, both backers and critics, to try and make sense of everything: from buying plots in the metaverse to owning NFTs. Episode 1, published today, features a diverse range of opinions from Johns Hopkins University Applied Economics professor Steve Hanke, bitcoin educator and entrepreneur Jimmy Song, and 'the real Wolf of Wall Street' Jordon Belfort. We try to assess if bitcoin has finally hit the floor after recent downward spiral into prices not seen since 2017, or it still has further to fall. Read more: Crypto: Tether hole widens as it loses another billion in a day Bitcoin had a recent rebound, jumping from levels not seen since 2017 to now stand at $21,443, up around 5% in the last seven days. Story continues Ethereum, the second largest cryptocurrency by market capitalisation, has also rebounded to $1,234, up 10% in the last week. Jimmy Song: 'Bitcoin hasn't hit the bottom yet' Bull ride hopes: Jimmy Song, Bitcoin advocate, developer and author, rides a mechanical bull in the exhibition hall during the Bitcoin 2022 Conference at Miami Beach Convention Center on 7 April in Miami, Florida, US. Photo: Marco Bello/Getty Images (Marco Bello via Getty Images) Jimmy Song believes that for those looking to ascertain whether bitcoin has reached a bottom, look no further than the current activity of the US Federal Reserve. Speaking to Yahoo Finance, Song said that if the Fed's quantitative tightening measures escalate we can see a further drop. Read more: Crypto: Stablecoin storm spreads after billions of tether is cashed out "Half the equation is controlled by the Federal Reserve. "The larger bear market we are seeing, not just in bitcoin and crypto, is due to the Federal Reserve's quantitative tightening measures. "If the Fed continues to tighten, I can say we haven't hit bottom yet. "But, if the Fed starts to reverse its policy and starts loosening I think you could say that we've probably hit bottom," Song said. Steve Hanke: 'Bitcoin is a complete disaster look at El Salvador' Former economic advisor to US president Regan, Steve Hanke, spoke to Yahoo Finance and disputed the concept of a global Bitcoin Standard. The Bitcoin Standard concept involves using the world's preeminent cryptocurrency as a decentralised alternative to modern central bank issued fiat currencies. Speaking to Yahoo Finance's The Crypto Mile, Hanke said: "First let's start with the Bitcoin Standard, you can forget that one, we had a little experiment in that in El Salvador and it has ended up being a complete disaster. "They have destroyed their credit rating for their sovereign bonds that are all denominated in dollars by passing this Bitcoin Law, so that little experiment was a complete flop." Read more: Crypto live prices Jordan Belfort: 'Bitcoin is a long-term hedge' Jordan Belfort, the real 'Wolf of Wall Street'. Photo: Lucas Jackson/Reuters (Lucas Jackson / reuters) Finally, the 'Real Wolf of Wall Street' Jordan Belfort spoke to The Crypto Mile and warned against taking a "12-month or 24-month horizon" when investing in bitcoin. The man, whose life inspired the Martin Scorsese film 'The Wolf of Wall Street' added: "With reasonable luck, I think if you take a 24-month horizon you'll almost certainly make money. "But, if you take a three or maybe five-year horizon, I would be shocked if you didn't make money because the underlying fundamentals of bitcoin are really strong. "It has a limited supply, and as inflation keeps rising there will come a time when bitcoin will start to trade more like a store of value and less like a growth stock." || 4 Undervalued Energy Stocks to Buy and Hold for the Long Term: With prices on the move, investors would be wise to look to undervalued energy stocks. The recovery for oil has been robust and Brent currently trades at $120 per barrel. With the surge in energy prices, oil and gas exploration stocks have also been market out-performers. An important point to note is that there are fears of a global recession in 2023. However, this factor has not translated into a correction for oil and gas. The key reason is geopolitical tensions being discounted in energy prices. InvestorPlace - Stock Market News, Stock Advice & Trading Tips 7 of the Hottest Energy Stocks to Buy This Summer Further, the slowdown in the global economy is likely to be temporary. With renewed growth, demand for energy will remain strong. Considering the demand and geo-political factors, I believe that energy prices will remain high in the next few years. Let’s therefore talk about four undervalued energy stocks that can deliver robust returns. RIG Transocean $4.59 HP Helmerich & Payne $51.00 LNDNF Lundin Energy $49.00 EQNR Equinor $36.88 Transocean (RIG) An image of an offshore oil rig Source: Arild Lilleboe / Shutterstock.com Several oil and gas exploration stocks have surged with Brent trading well above $100. However, there seems to be value in onshore and offshore drilling rig service providers. In the offshore rig services segment, Transocean (NYSE: RIG ) seems undervalued. Even after an upside of almost 50% for year-to-date 2022. I believe Transocean has significant upside potential for two reasons. First, the company has a robust order backlog of $6.5 billion . With a strong order intake in the recent past, there is clear cash flow visibility. Second, new contracts are coming at a higher day rate. This will imply EBITDA margin expansion and cash flow upside in the coming years. Transocean is also well-positioned from a financial perspective with a total liquidity buffer of $2.7 billion. With positive cash flows, the company expects to deleverage in the next few years. Story continues It’s also worth mentioning that if demand remains robust, the cold-stacked rigs provide visibility for healthy revenue upside. Helmerich & Payne (HP) A photo of the Helmerich Payne Company logo on a smartphone screen in front of a computer, being held in a hand. Source: Trismegist san/ShutterStock.com Helmerich & Payne (NYSE: HP ) is another name among undervalued energy stocks worth adding. The onshore drilling rig services provider has ample headroom for revenue and cash flow upside in the next few years. As of April 2022, the company reported a fleet of 271 rigs. However, only 168 rigs were contracted . The percentage of contracted rigs has been trending higher in the last few quarters. With Brent well above $100 per barrel, contracting activity is likely to remain robust. Therefore, Helmerich & Payne has clear revenue and cash flow upside visibility. Another reason to like the stock is the fact that the company is gradually building an international presence. With a quality fleet of super-specification rigs, the company is positioned to gain market share. Helmerich & Payne is also attractive from a balance sheet perspective. As of March 2022, the company had a total liquidity buffer of $1.0 billion. Lundin Energy (LNDNF) Big industrial oil tanks in a refinery base. Oil stocks., CEI stock Source: OlegRi / Shutterstock Lundin Energy (OTCMKTS: LNDNF ) has been trending higher in the last few quarters. However, I believe that there still is more upside for this hidden gem energy stock. As an overview, Lundin Energy is focused on the Norwegian Continental Shelf. Organically and through acquisitions, the company has some high-quality assets. Importantly, the assets have a low break-even, which makes the company’s business a cash flow machine. Lundin has one billion barrels of reserves and resources. The company plans to achieve production of 200 million barrels of oil equivalent per day (mboped) by 2023. The long-term target is to increase production to 525 mboepd by 2028 . 7 Top-Rated Large-Cap Stocks to Buy and Hold Even if oil averages $80 to $90 per barrel in the next five years, Lundin will be positioned to generate incremental cash flows. There also seems to be clear visibility for dividend growth since the company has an investment-grade balance sheet. For Q1 2022, Lundin reported operating cash flow of $1.0 billion. This implies an annualized OCF potential of $4.0 billion. Clearly, with high financial flexibility, Lundin Energy is positioned for aggressive investments and sustained growth. Equinor (EQNR) Illustrative editorial of EQUINOR (EQNR) website homepage, with EQUINOR logo visible on display screen. I Source: II.studio / Shutterstock.com Equinor (NYSE: EQNR ) seems like another quality pick from the Norwegian Continental Shelf. The 2.1% dividend yield stock has quality assets and seems positioned for long-term value creation. Stocks like Chevron (NYSE: CVX ) and Marathon Oil (NYSE: MRO ) are already in the limelight, so it makes sense to wait for some correction before any fresh exposure to these stocks. I also prefer to look at oil and gas stocks with a low break-even. Last year, Equinor guided for free cash flow of $45 billion between 2021 and 2026. This was assuming a scenario where oil trades at $60 per barrel. Currently, Brent is at $120 per barrel. Even if an average price of $90 per barrel is considered through 2026, Equinor is positioned to report free cash flow of approximately $70 billion. This leaves ample scope for value creation through dividends and share repurchase. Additionally, the financial flexibility will allow Equinor to achieve its ambitious target of investing in renewable energy. Therefore, even after an upside of 60% in the last 12-months. EQNR stock looks attractive. On the date of publication, Faisal Humayun did not hold (either directly or indirectly) any positions in the securities mentioned in this article. The opinions expressed in this article are those of the writer, subject to the InvestorPlace.com Publishing Guidelines . More From InvestorPlace Stock Prodigy Who Found NIO at $2… Says Buy THIS It doesn’t matter if you have $500 in savings or $5 million. Do this now. Get in Now on Tiny $3 ‘Forever Battery’ Stock Early Bitcoin Millionaire Reveals His Next Big Crypto Trade “On Air” The post 4 Undervalued Energy Stocks to Buy and Hold for the Long Term appeared first on InvestorPlace . || Top 3 Ways To Invest In Crypto Without Actually Buying: Investors interested incryptocurrencyare probably aware of the huge dip bitcoin and other cryptos have taken over the last couple months. It all started when the algorithmic stablecoin Terra collapsed, sparkinga steep sell-off that affected the entire crypto market.
See:9 Bills You Should Never Put on AutopayMore:The Best Cities To Retire on $2,000 a Month
Considering its volatility, cryptocurrency is not for the faint of heart. It not only tends to make wild swings in price, but it’s also expensive, it can’t be bought through traditional brokerage accounts and doesn’t have backing from financial institutions, CNBC reported.
So what’s the best way for investors to get a piece of cryptocurrency without actually buying the coins? One alternative is to invest in companies that either have crypto-related services or hold the coins themselves.
If you want exposure to cryptocurrency without the direct risk, here are some options:
• Invest in companies with crypto technology: These include Square and PayPal, which let users to trade cryptocurrency on their platforms. Even Big Tech companies such as Amazon, Google, Microsoft, IBM and SAP use blockchain in different parts of their businesses.
• Look for cryptocurrency funds: Some funds hold Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. For example, Grayscale and Osprey have created Bitcoin trusts, Doug Boneparth, CFP and president of Bone Fide Wealth in New York, told CNBC. And funds with exposure to cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology include the Ark Next Generation Internet exchange-traded fund. Just keep in mind that funds might charge a fee.
• Buy Tesla stock. Last year, the electric vehicle maker purchased $1.5 billion worth of Bitcoin and said it would soon accept it as payment, although Tesla later suspended the latter option after CEO Elon Musk voiced environmental concerns tied to crypto.
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This article originally appeared onGOBankingRates.com:Top 3 Ways To Invest In Crypto Without Actually Buying || Bitcoin Consolidates Under $21K While Ethereum Rises to $1.2K: Key Insights: Bitcoin is inching closer to escaping the $20ks resistance and close above $21k. Ethereum, despite recovering to $1.2k, might face some hurdles before reaching $1.3k. The combined market cap of all cryptocurrencies also breached past $920 billion. Crypto investors had a relatively good day today as the king coin and the altcoins king rose further and reclaimed critical levels. At least the latter did, Bitcoin is yet to make an achievement as such. Bitcoin Needs To Be Pulled Up Stuck around $20k for more than a month now, Bitcoin hasnt been one of the best-performing cryptocurrencies for a while now. The all-time high that Bitcoin registered stands at $67k, and while reclaiming that is out of the question, it will be euphoric enough for the investors if BTC even reaches $25k or $30k at this point. The chances of the same are pretty bleak at the moment. Trading at $20,947, Bitcoin is far away from flipping the 50-day Simple Moving Average, a critical resistance into support. This would bring BTC closer to the 100-day SMA, which currently coincides with the $30k mark. Going forward, this is where Bitcoin is mostly going to end up anyways, as forecasted by FXEmpire. If the Relative Strength Index (RSI) continues this movement sustainably, it might end up in the bullish zone. Buy pressure from here on will be crucial for the king coins rise. If that fails, the RSI will end up returning to the bearish zone, or if the broader market is influenced negatively by external factors, the neutral line will become the next major resistance. Ethereum Is Losing the Bullish Charm While Bitcoin needs bullishness, Ethereum is wasting away the bullishness that it already has. The altcoin king, which rose by 27.36% in the last three days, was found to be trading at $1,257 at the time of writing. This was a big deal for ETH investors since the altcoin was actually stuck under $1200 for almost a month now. But the chances of a rise arent very strong at the moment, despite price indicators exhibiting the same. The MACD, which has maintained the bullish crossover since the end of June, is still keeping up with it. Story continues In the same duration, the bars on the indicator have been positive despite the appearance of a few red ones. However, the lack of volatility will certainly kill this bullishness before ETH can make the most of it. The Bollinger Bands lack of divergence indicates that the chances of price swings are minimal. Usually, that isnt a good thing, but given ETHs current position above the indicators basis, this volatility wouldve kicked it above $1.3k. Regardless, even if ETH can make it to that point gradually, it will find the support to rally ahead. This article was originally posted on FX Empire More From FXEMPIRE: Donald Trumps fundraising juggernaut slows as other Republicans gain XRP Price Prediction: A Return to $0.3450 to Test Sellers at $0.36 Crypto Market Daily Highlights BTC Extends Winning Streak U.S. Navy ship again sails near disputed S. China Sea islands Peru Congress votes to host OAS summit after outrage over gender neutral bathrooms Biden abandons plan to nominate anti-abortion judge in Kentucky || Global Web3 Payments Leader Banxa Announces Partnership with Digital Assets Platform WonderFi: The leading on-and-off ramp solution for Web3 and leading compliant crypto ecosystem are collaborating on flexible, local, secure payment tools for users globally
TORONTO, ON and MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA / ACCESSWIRE / June 14, 2022 /BANXA Holdings Inc.(TSXV:BNXA)(OTCQX:BNXAF)(FSE:AC00) ("Banxa" or "The Company"), the leading on-and-off ramp solution for Web3, today announced it has formally entered a new partnership withWonderFi Technologies Inc.(NEO:WNDR)(OTC PINK:WONDF) (WKN: A3C166)(FTX:WNDR) ("WonderFi"), a leading technology company with the mission of creating better access to digital assets through compliant centralized and decentralized platforms. The partnership builds on Ethereum, Polygon, and Bitcoin blockchains, and targets key markets including Australia, Brazil, European Union, United Kingdom, and the United States.
Banxa enables WonderFi customers to utilize local payment and banking options with less friction, fewer fees, and better fraud protection. Users are able to easily and securely convert fiat currency to cryptocurrencies and back again.
Banxa's solutions also provide many important benefits to WonderFi's gateway platform, including higher conversion rates along with rigorous compliance and risk management across countless geographies.
"We are thrilled to be partnering with WonderFi. Together, we are building the foundational infrastructure needed for the next generation of financial services," said Banxa CEO Holger Arians. "Banxa's B2B services provide a seamless experience for our partners to offer their customers local payment methods in a safe, compliant way."
Kevin O'Leary, Strategic Advisor and Investor at WonderFi, said of the partnership: "With regulatory interest in crypto rapidly increasing around the world, it is more important than ever for Web3 to embrace best-in-class compliance and risk management. Our partnership with Banxa provides this assurance for our customers across the globe." Mr. O'Leary added: "WonderFi is committed to ensuring customers in our network can transact crypto securely and confidently, without the concerns that might come from less developed platforms."
"Thanks to our partnership with Banxa, WonderFi's users can safely purchase crypto through the widest range of payment methods available," commented Ben Samaroo, CEO of WonderFi. "This added flexibility is another step in our mission to bring fair, efficient, and accessible finance to the masses."
WonderFi joins Banxa's growing list of marquee partners, such as leading Web3 projects like Binance, KuCoin, OKX, Huobi, and many more.
###
Media Contacts:
Adriana Saindon / Ethan Lylebanxa@wachsman.com
About BANXA Holdings Inc.
Banxa's mission is to accelerate the world to Web3 with its leading global on-and-off ramp solution. Through its extensive network of local payment solutions paired with the required crypto licences, Banxa gives its partners and projects access to global audiences with less friction and higher conversions. Banxa has a global team of Web3 natives - with operating headquarters in the USA, Europe and APAC regions.
For further information go towww.banxa.com.
About WonderFi Technologies Inc.
WonderFi is a leading technology company with the mission of creating better access to DeFi through the core principles of simplicity and education. WonderFi has a multi-pronged business strategy which includes a high-growth consumer finance app which will serve as a trusted gateway to the new financial system, and a digital asset portfolio which consists of leading crypto and DeFi assets. WonderFi's executive team and Board of Directors have an established track record in finance and crypto, with previous experience at Amazon, Shopify, PayPal, Galaxy Digital and Hut 8. WonderFi's core team of engineers and technologists believe that everyone should have equal access to finance and are aligned in the mission to empower people around the world to access DeFi in a simple, smart and secure way.
For more information, visitwww.wonder.fi.
Forward-Looking Information and Statements
This press release contains certain "forward-looking information" within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities legislation and may also contain statements that may constitute "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the safe harbor provisions of the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Such forward-looking information and forward-looking statements are not representative of historical facts or information or current condition, but instead represent only the Company's beliefs regarding future events, plans or objectives, many of which, by their nature, are inherently uncertain and outside of the Company's control. Generally, such forward-looking information or forward-looking statements can be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as "could", "intend", "expect", "believe", "will", "projected", "estimated", or variations of such words.
By identifying such information and statements in this manner, the Company is alerting the reader that such information and statements are subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause the actual results, level of activity, performance or achievements of the Company to be materially different from those expressed or implied by such information and statements. In addition, in connection with the forward-looking information and forward-looking statements contained in this press release, the Company has made certain assumptions. Among the key factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking information and statements are the following: the ability of the Company to work effectively with strategic investors; and changes in general economic, business and political conditions, including changes in the financial markets, changes in applicable laws, and compliance with extensive government regulation. Should one or more of these risks, uncertainties or other factors materialize, or should assumptions underlying the forward-looking information or statements prove incorrect, actual results may vary materially from those described herein.
Although the Company believes that the assumptions and factors used in preparing, and the expectations contained in, the forward-looking information and statements are reasonable, undue reliance should not be placed on such information and statements, and no assurance or guarantee can be given that such forward-looking information and statements will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such information and statements. The forward-looking information and forward-looking statements contained in this press release are made as of the date of this press release, and the Company does not undertake to update any forward-looking information and/or forward-looking statements that are contained or referenced herein, except in accordance with applicable securities laws. All subsequent written and oral forward- looking information and statements attributable to the Company or persons acting on its behalf is expressly qualified in its entirety by this notice.
Forward-Looking Information
Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.
ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS
Per: "DOMENIC CAROSA"https://twitter.com/dcarosa
Domenic CarosaChairman (1-888-218-6863)
SOURCE:BANXA Holdings Inc.
View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/705003/Global-Web3-Payments-Leader-Banxa-Announces-Partnership-with-Digital-Assets-Platform-WonderFi || Big Four Firm KPMG Enters Metaverse & Sets Up $30M web3 Investment: • The hub will be opened jointly by KPMG US and Canada.
• KPMG looks at the Metaverse and Web3 as the ‘next iteration of the internet’.
• Back in February, KPMG Canada made its first direct crypto investment in BTC and ETH.
Web3 and Metaverse have become a point of focus for many companies both affiliated withcryptoas well as those belonging to the mainstream industries.
In line with the same, one of the Big Four Accounting firms, KPMG, has decided to step into the virtual world.
In a press release a few days ago, the company announced the opening of its first Metaverse” Collaboration Hub,” launched jointly by its US and Canada arms.
This is their fourth major undertaking concerning web3, and the company intends on further expanding on the same going forward.
In line with the announcement, the Leader of KPMG US’ Enterprise Innovation, Cliff Justice, stated,
“The metaverse and Web 3.0 represent the next generation of the internet and will reshape the way businesses and consumers engage, transact, socialize and work. Business leaders are looking to move quickly past exploratory phases and deploy solutions to train employees, engage customers and extend their brand in this new market.”
Not only this, but the company will also be making a $30 million investment in web3 experiences this year, and the Metaverse Collaboration Hub will be its signature piece.
The accounting firm’s affiliation with crypto has enabled it to integrate core features of the crypto space, making it viable in this industry.
Asreportedby FXEmpire back in February, KPMG’s Canada arm allocated crypto assets to its treasury, particularlyBitcoinandEthereum, making the instance the first direct crypto investment by the firm.
Additionally, the US arm has also integrated the NFT experience and crypto training into onboarding for its new professionals.
The company’s deeper foray into the crypto industry comes at a time when many mainstream companies, including media and entertainment, as well as sports-affiliated organizations, are also entering the space.
Despite this increased demand, the market continues to struggle to retrace its steps towards the $1 trillion mark, and by the looks of it, it will take some more time to do so.
Thisarticlewas originally posted on FX Empire
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[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
None available.
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Trend: up || Prices: 22465.48, 22609.16, 21361.70, 21239.75, 22930.55, 23843.89, 23804.63, 23656.21, 23336.90, 23314.20
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Analyze the provided historical prices, technical indicators, news, and social media sentiment from the last 60 days. Based on this context, predict the overall trend (up, down, or no change) and the specific daily closing prices for Bitcoin for the next 10 days.
|
[Technical Analysis]
Not fully available.
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
Latest Bitcoin price and analysis (BTC to USD): Bitcoin is testing the $10,000 level of resistance once again this morning after surging by 2.55% over the past 24 hours. This marks the fourth time it has tested the psychological level of resistance since May 7, with a break out looking increasingly likely. Levels of support and resistance get weaker with every touch as respective sellers and buyers get exhausted, meaning that its break out to the yearly high of $10,500 seems to be on the cards. However, another rejection from $10,000 would indicate a lack of momentum from the buy side, which would then lead to a sell-off to the $8,830 level of support before a period of consolidation. It’s also worth noting that the recent daily golden cross has yet to take effect after the 50 EMA crossed the 200 EMA to the upside last Tuesday. The previous golden cross preceded a 30% rally while the one before that came in April 2019 before a tremendous 175% surge to the upside. Any kind of break out above $10,000 on strong volume will cause a cascade of short position liquidations on derivative exchanges like BitMEX and Deribit, which may cause price to extend to as far as $11,300. This ties into the recent narrative around the halving, with analysts suggesting that the reduction in miner rewards will act as a bull market catalyst as new supply gets reduced. For more news, guides and cryptocurrency analysis, click here . Bitcoin pricing Current live BTC pricing information and interactive charts are available on our site 24 hours a day. The ticker bar at the bottom of every page on our site has the latest Bitcoin price. Pricing is also available in a range of different currency equivalents: US Dollar – BTCtoUSD British Pound Sterling – BTCtoGBP Japanese Yen – BTCtoJPY Euro – BTCtoEUR Australian Dollar – BTCtoAUD Russian Rouble – BTCtoRUB About Bitcoin In August 2008, the domain name bitcoin.org was registered. On 31st October 2008, a paper was published called “Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System”. This was authored by Satoshi Nakamoto, the inventor of Bitcoin. To date, no one knows who this person, or people, are. Story continues The paper outlined a method of using a P2P network for electronic transactions without “relying on trust”. On January 3 2009, the Bitcoin network came into existence. Nakamoto mined block number “0” (or the “genesis block”), which had a reward of 50 Bitcoins. More BTC news and information If you want to find out more information about Bitcoin or cryptocurrencies in general, then use the search box at the top of this page. Here’s an article to get you started. As with any investment, it pays to do some homework before you part with your money. The prices of cryptocurrencies are volatile and go up and down quickly. This page is not recommending a particular currency or whether you should invest or not. Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed by the author should not be considered as financial advice. || Bitcoin Doesn’t Take Sides: Why Apolitical Solutions Are the Internet’s Future: As Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell steers U.S. monetary policymakers away from negative interest rates, he risks becoming increasingly isolated among the world’s top central bankers.
Officials in the U.K., Europe and New Zealand are reportedly considering the once-unthinkable strategy of pushing interest rates below zero, seen as a form of economic stimulus. And bitcoin might be a beneficiary of looser monetary policy outside the U.S., even if the Fed never joins its foreign counterparts.
You’re readingFirst Mover, CoinDesk’s daily markets newsletter. Assembled by the CoinDesk Markets Team, First Mover starts your day with the most up-to-date sentiment around crypto markets, which of course never close, putting in context every wild swing in bitcoin and more. We follow the money so you don’t have to. You cansubscribe here.
The divergence over the issue shows just how challenged central bankers are as they struggle to find consistent strategies for healing economies devastated by the coronavirus and related lockdowns. The World Bank on Monday forecast that global output will tumble by 5.2% this year, the worst recession since World War II.
With the situation so dire, more central bankers are willing to consider negative interest rates, which encourage people to spend money by making it more costly to deposit money in a bank account, as a viable monetary-policy tool.U.S. President Donald Trump joined the choruslast month, tweeting that “as long as other countries are receiving the benefits of Negative Rates, the USA should also accept the ‘GIFT.'”
It’s unlikely that Powell will change his tune now, with Federal Reserve policymakers scheduled on Wednesday to announce the outcome of this week’s two-day, closed-door meeting. So far, the Fed’s response to economic crisis has been to cut interest rates to zero, roll out emergency-lending programs and inject trillions of dollars of new money into the financial system via asset purchases.
As recently as month, Powell said that top Fed officials “do not seenegative policy rates as likely to be an appropriate policy response here in the U.S.”
Related:First Mover: Bitcoin Bulls Might Get Negative Rates From Central Banks, Just Not the Fed
Bitcoin prices do appear to have risen in sync with this year’s announcements of new stimulus measures. According to thecryptocurrency research firm Delphi Digital,bitcoin began to “flirt” with the psychological $10,000 price threshold last week as the European Central Bank and Bank of Japan ramped up their asset-purchasing programs by a combined $1.5 trillion.
And now the drumbeats are starting for negative rates.
Last month, Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey raised hackles when he told a parliamentary select committee thatnegative interest rates were under “active review”for the very first time in the bank’s 324-year history. The week before, he had explicitly ruled out the possibility.
The U.K. central bank already has cut its base interest rate to a record low of 0.1%.
Then there’s the European Central Bank, led by President Christine Lagarde, which opted last week toexpand its stimulus measuresby 600 billion euros.
But central bank analysts still forecast an 8.5% contraction in the euro area this year, and ECB board member Isabel Schnabel said Tuesday that cutting rates below zero “remains an option.”
“Our experience with negative interest rates has been positive,” the German economistsaid in a Twitter Q&A, according to Reuters.
The Reserve Bank of New Zealand said last month that negative rates could “become an option in future,” possibly as early 2021.
Central banks’ dalliances with negative interest rates in the mid-2010s didn’t seem to affect bitcoin’s price. But the digital asset has grown since then, with a market capitalization that’s roughly 20 times where it stood when the ECB went negative in 2014.
And while analysts in the past claimed that bitcoin was uncorrelated with most traditional assets, recent price action has shown an increasing connection between the cryptocurrency and broader economic and market developments.
Bitcoin is now increasingly regarded as a hedge against inflation, and negative rates represent an aggressive form of monetary-policy easing that could ultimately help to push up consumer prices.
Another school of thought says that if banks try to set deposit rates at negative levels, many customers would just pull their money out to avoid charges. And rather than keeping cash under the mattress, some might instead decide to store the value as bitcoin in a digital wallet.
More broadly, negative rates might simply highlight how experimental monetary policymaking has become in the coronavirus era, Stack Funds, a bitcoin index provider, wrote in a report last month.
“By being in bitcoin, you’re opting into transparency,” Lewis Harland, founder ofanalytics site Formal Verification, told CoinDesk.
BTC: Price: $9,759 (BPI) | 24-Hr High: $9,838 | 24-Hr Low: $9,637
Trend: Bitcoin has rallied by nearly 150% in the last three months, but a long-term bullish breakout is yet to arrive.
That’s because the cryptocurrency is still contained within a 2.5-year long descending triangle represented by trendlines connecting the December 2017 and July 2019 highs and the December 2018 and March 2020 lows.
According to the weekly chart, the triangle resistance (upper edge) is currently located at $10,260. A weekly close Sunday (midnight, UTC) above that level would confirm a long-term bearish-to-bullish trend change and open the doors for a rally to $20,000 by the year’s end.
Bloomberg analysts expectthe cryptocurrency to challenge record highs this year on the back of increased institutional participation and rise in haven demand.
While $10,260 is the level to beat for the bulls, the June 2 low of $9,136 is key support currently. A breach there would invalidate a bullish lower-highs setup on the daily chart. Acceptance under $9,136 would likely yield a deeper decline to $8,630 (May 25 low).
The bearish divergence of the three-day chart’s relative strength index (RSI)suggests scopefor a drop to $9,136. At press time, bitcoin is changing hands near $9,750, representing a 0.3% decline on the day.
• LocalBitcoins’ Volume Holds Steady Despite Stricter Compliance Procedures
• Bitcoin News Roundup for June 9, 2020 || China's Crypto Is All About Tracing — and Power: (Bloomberg Opinion) -- The coronavirus has disrupted the world in very large ways. While that battle has been waged, however, another event has almost been missed: the birth of a new kind of fiat currency, which could forever reshape the relationship between money, economic power and geopolitical clout.
An official Chinese digital yuan, more than five years in the making, is now in pilot runs to slowly start replacing the physical legal tender. If the experiment succeeds, this new cash, valued the same as the familiar banknotes bearing Mao Zedong’s image, will become the world’s first sovereign token to reside exclusively in the ether.
The trials are taking place just as the blame game around the coronavirus deepens mistrust between the U.S. and China. With President Donald Trump warning that Washington would respond if Beijing intervenes against protests and democratic movements in Hong Kong, chances of a detente from last year’s trade war are fading.
Outside the People’s Republic, the big question is if the digital yuan is a challenger to the dollar. Within China, though, there’s a more mundane explanation for why Beijing wants to turn banknotes in circulation into virtual tokens.
Chinese consumers have bypassed both computers and credit cards to embrace mobile payment apps, which have gone on to spawn large money-market funds investing in high-yielding wealth-management products. This has led to the accumulation of risks in opaque shadow banking. Bringing them out in the open requires a leg up for traditional lenders in payments, an area where financial technology has left them far behind. The digital yuan, which will be pushed out to consumers via banks, seeks to restore this missing balance; it will allow authorities to “regulate an overstretched debt market more effectively,” says DBS Group Holdings Ltd. economist Nathan Chow.
Still, there’s also a power play. It isn’t a coincidence that China’s project picked up speed last year as Facebook Inc. announced Libra. The proposed stablecoin promised to hold its value against a basket of major official currencies rather than gyrating wildly like Bitcoin. When it looked like regulators in the U.S. and elsewhere would nix this synthetic global cryptocurrency, the Libra Association curbed the scope of its undertaking. But the idea of “a regulated global network for cost-effective retail payments,” as described by Singapore state investor Temasek Holdings Pte, a new member of Libra’s Geneva-based governing body, remains alive. For Beijing to shake the dollar’s hegemony, it has to pre-empt Silicon Valley from taking the pole position.
Hence the hurry for China’s test runs. According to media reports, half the May transport subsidy for Suzhou municipal employees will be in the form of digital currency electronic payment, or DCEP, as it’s being called in the absence of a catchier moniker. The pilot plan in Xiong’an, a satellite city of Beijing, includes coffee shops, fast food, retailers, theaters and bookstores, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. has noted. The other trials are reserved for Chengdu and Shenzhen.
Thanks to Alipay and WeChat Pay, 80% of Chinese smartphone users whip out their mobiles to make payments, more than anywhere in the world. To them, the DCEP wallets being provided by the big four state banks should seem much the same. But there are differences. In this new system, a low-value transaction can go through even if both parties are offline. Also, this is sovereign liability, safe if an intermediary goes bankrupt. The big four lenders — and later fintech firms — will distribute the tokens, but the funds won’t reside in bank accounts. This will be unlike existing payment apps that only move one institution’s IOUs to another.
Beijing was going to launch the digital money even before the pandemic. However, adoption could be faster now because of people’s fear of catching an infection from handling cash. Also, it’s possible to trace in real time whether an anti-virus subsidy, given out in tokenized form, is reaching the target. Once it has, the tracking would be “turned off” to ensure corporate and household spending stays anonymous, Goldman says.
Strictly speaking, though, the anonymity of cash will no longer exist. Authorities can look under the hood of pseudonymous transactions for unwanted activity, an outcome far removed from the vision that drove libertarians (and money launderers) to cryptocurrencies in the first place. With the outbreak giving legitimacy to intrusive physical contact tracing, the case for financial tracing gets even stronger. Exchange of digital yuan between customers and merchants will pop up on a centralized ledger, and go through far more swiftly than in Bitcoin-style setups that rely on widely distributed ledgers of asset ownership.
Every nation projects power when others desire its money — something that costs the home country nothing to produce. But as with any digital network, the sovereign tokens that take off first could end up winning disproportionately. The digital yuan could find customers overseas, especially in places where China is making belt-and-road investments. For one thing, they wouldn’t have to pay banks fat fees for running the $124 trillion-a-year business-to-business international transfers market.
By distributing digital currency through banks, China has given its big institutions a chance to match the payment technology of fintech rivals. But it’s possible that a central bank in another country would bypass intermediaries altogether, potentially making the state the monopoly supplier of money to retail customers. That, as I wrote in December, could upend banking. The digital yuan may have started modestly, but it might pave the way for changes that are both ambitious and long outlast the coronavirus.
This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.
Andy Mukherjee is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering industrial companies and financial services. He previously was a columnist for Reuters Breakingviews. He has also worked for the Straits Times, ET NOW and Bloomberg News.
For more articles like this, please visit us atbloomberg.com/opinion
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©2020 Bloomberg L.P. || Bitcoin flirts with major breakout as bull market beckons: A cryptocurrency bull market may be upon us following Bitcoins successful block reward halving on Monday. Bitcoin is now more than 21% up in the past four days, as it sets its sights on the psychological level of resistance at $10,000. The rally approached a critical point on Thursday morning as the worlds largest cryptocurrency surged to break out above the $9,400 level before continuing to the upside with a test of $9,970. It has since suffered a minor sell-off with price falling back to around $9,700 although it remains in a bullish posture in light of the recent exponential moving average golden cross. As analysts and speculators focused on the impact of Mondays halving, what went by unnoticed was the golden cross as the 50 EMA rose above the 200 EMA on the daily chart. A golden cross is a bullish indicator across all markets while it has also led to a number of 30% plus rallies in the history of Bitcoin. This is a clear sign of a transition into a bull market, which ties into the narrative of a reduction in supply in light of the halving. The halving results in rewards for miners being slashed from 12.5BTC per block to 6.25BTC per block, an event that has historically been very kind to Bitcoin in terms of price action. The previous halving in 2016 preceded an astonishing bull market that saw Bitcoin surge to its all-time high of $20,000 in late 2017. A key hurdle Bitcoin needs to surpass in the short term is forming a series of lower highs, which mean it needs to close daily or weekly candles above $10,500 and $13,800 before it can begin to rally back towards $20,000. For more news, guides and cryptocurrency analysis, click here . || US Stock Market Overview – Stock Whipsaw and Close Higher Despite Elevated Jobless Claims: US stock prices whipsawed initially moving lower and then rebounding higher to close the session in the black. This comes despite a larger than expected increase in jobless claims. Despite a rally in the larger indices, the Russel lagged falling more than 1%. Mastercard reported on Thursday that the company was seeing continued improvement in consumer spending in the first two weeks of May. Most sectors in the S&P 500 were higher led by a surge in financials, consumer staples bucked the trend. The VIX volatility index surged higher during AM trade, hitting 40%, but eased as the market rallied during the PM trading session. Oil prices rallied on Thursday following an announcement from the US government that they would begin to buy 1-million barrels of crude oil per day for the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Gold prices broke out on Thursday helping to buoy the miners. US Initial Jobless Claims Rise US initial jobless claims rose just shy of 3 million according to the Labor Department. Claims totaled 2.981 million pushing the total since the shelter in place orders to nearly 36.5 million, by far the biggest loss in U.S. history. Expectations were for a 2.7 million rise in new claims. With 36.5 million people out of work, on a workforce of 160 million people puts the unemployment rate near 23%. Import Prices US import prices declined to a 5-year low in April, according to the Labor Department. The BLS reported that import prices dropped 2.6%, the largest decline since January 2015, after a revised 2.4% decline in March. Import prices, which exclude tariffs, decreased 2.3% in March. Expectations were for import prices to decline by 3.1% in April. On a year over year basis, April, import prices tumbled 6.8%. That was the largest decrease since December 2015. This article was originally posted on FX Empire More From FXEMPIRE: EUR/USD Price Forecast – Euro Testing Support Has the Stock Downswing Started in Earnest? Silver Price Daily Forecast – Silver Stays Glued To The $15.50 Level US Open – Waking From a Stimulus Induced Dream – Oil, Gold and BTC in Focus USD/JPY Price Forecast – US Dollar Finding Support Against Japanese Yen Silver Price Forecast – Silver Markets Reach Top of Range || Bitcoin News Roundup for June 2, 2020: The head of Venezuelas cryptocurrency initiative, the petro, is wanted by the U.S government on charges of corruption and links to the narcotics trade. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) added Joselit Ramirez Camacho to its Most Wanted List on Monday, accusing him of a number of violations related to international commerce and his alleged involvement in the international drug trafficking scene. Ramirez Camacho is a public official and serves as the superintendent for Venezuelas petro initiative, a cryptocurrency supposedly backed by the countrys oil and mineral reserves. The superintendent is wanted by ICEs Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) arm for violating the International Emergency Economic Powers Act and the Kingpin Act, and for breaking a series of sanctions imposed by the Treasury Department. ICE is offering up to $5 million for any information that leads to his arrest and conviction. Ramirez Camacho is accused of having deep political, social and economic ties to multiple alleged narcotics kingpins, including Tareck EI Aissami, a former vice president of Venezuela who is also wanted by ICE on charges of money laundering and an alleged role in international narcotics trafficking. See also: Venezuelas Maduro Says He Will Airdrop Half a Petro Each to Public Employees, Retirees Related: US Offers $5M Bounty for Arrest of Venezuelas Crypto Chief If arrested, Ramirez Camacho will be sent to the U.S. and tried in the Southern District of New York. Geoffrey Berman, district attorney, of New York, accused him last month of being part of a corrupt group of high-ranking Venezuelan officials including President Nicolas Maduro running a narco-terrorism partnership intent on flooding the United States with cocaine in order to undermine the health and wellbeing of our nation. Related Stories Crypto Scams Targeting Pacific Communities on the Rise, Say New Zealand Regulators Bitcoin in Emerging Markets: Latin America || Latest Bitcoin price and analysis (BTC to USD): Bitcoin has resiliently remained above the $9,000 level of support despite losing a portion of its momentum to the upside. It has traded within this tight range since the beginning of May, culminating in one of the least volatile periods in Bitcoin’s ten-year history. Stagnant price action typically precedes a major move, with analysts currently torn over whether Bitcoin will suffer a major correction to the yearly high at $7,100 or break out above the stubborn $10,500 level of resistance. Bitcoin hasn’t traded above $10,500 since September, 2019 , with three subsequent rejections coming in October, February and more recently in May. A breakout above that level would undoubtedly be the first indicator of a prolonged bullish move to the upside, which would tie into the stock-to-flow model that is attributed to the recent halving event. As supply of new Bitcoin onto the market is reduced, as long as demand remains the same, price will naturally surge. However, it’s worth noting that global socio-economic factors such as the impact of covid-19 also poses an issue to the trajectory of Bitcoin over the coming months. With Bitcoin being closely correlated to the S&P500, a second wave in covid-19 cases could plunge the index as well as the world’s largest cryptocurrency as it did in March. For more news, guides and cryptocurrency analysis, click here . Bitcoin pricing Current live BTC pricing information and interactive charts are available on our site 24 hours a day. The ticker bar at the bottom of every page on our site has the latest Bitcoin price. Pricing is also available in a range of different currency equivalents: US Dollar – BTCtoUSD British Pound Sterling – BTCtoGBP Japanese Yen – BTCtoJPY Euro – BTCtoEUR Australian Dollar – BTCtoAUD Russian Rouble – BTCtoRUB About Bitcoin In August 2008, the domain name bitcoin.org was registered. On 31st October 2008, a paper was published called “Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System”. This was authored by Satoshi Nakamoto, the inventor of Bitcoin. To date, no one knows who this person, or people, are. Story continues The paper outlined a method of using a P2P network for electronic transactions without “relying on trust”. On January 3 2009, the Bitcoin network came into existence. Nakamoto mined block number “0” (or the “genesis block”), which had a reward of 50 Bitcoins. More BTC news and information If you want to find out more information about Bitcoin or cryptocurrencies in general, then use the search box at the top of this page. Here’s an article to get you started. As with any investment, it pays to do some homework before you part with your money. The prices of cryptocurrencies are volatile and go up and down quickly. This page is not recommending a particular currency or whether you should invest or not. Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed by the author should not be considered as financial advice. || Latest Bitcoin price and analysis (BTC to USD): Bitcoin has begun to stutter over the past 24-hours as it slumped to a five percent move to the downside, with it currently trading at $9,470. The world’s largest cryptocurrency has enjoyed a period of relative calm recently as it established a level of support above $9,000. It has, however, failed to break out above $10,500 on multiple occasions which demonstrates a lack of momentum on the buyside. The plunge in price was also reflected in US stock markets with the S&P500 falling by 6.77% before finding support around the daily 200 moving average. In Bitcoin’s perspective it will be hoping that it can surge back to around $9,800 before Sunday evening and the crucial weekly candle close. Having opened the week at $9,776 if it closes 3.5% lower it would indicate the beginning of a bearish reversal, with downside targets remaining at both $8,830 and $7,800. With the hype from the recent halving event slowly subsiding it’s now time for Bitcoin to find its true value, whether that be into five digits as analysts predicted or back lower as the global economy continues to suffer. Breaking above $10,500 with conviction would be a good start as this particular level, as detailed in the chart above, has been confronted with three swift rejections within the past eight months. A breakout would open the metaphorical floodgates for a move back to the $10,900 and $12,300 regions, which would almost certainly cause a wave of retail interest as global currencies weaken. For more news, guides and cryptocurrency analysis, click here . Bitcoin pricing Current live BTC pricing information and interactive charts are available on our site 24 hours a day. The ticker bar at the bottom of every page on our site has the latest Bitcoin price. Pricing is also available in a range of different currency equivalents: US Dollar – BTCtoUSD British Pound Sterling – BTCtoGBP Japanese Yen – BTCtoJPY Euro – BTCtoEUR Australian Dollar – BTCtoAUD Russian Rouble – BTCtoRUB Story continues About Bitcoin In August 2008, the domain name bitcoin.org was registered. On 31st October 2008, a paper was published called “Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System”. This was authored by Satoshi Nakamoto, the inventor of Bitcoin. To date, no one knows who this person, or people, are. The paper outlined a method of using a P2P network for electronic transactions without “relying on trust”. On January 3 2009, the Bitcoin network came into existence. Nakamoto mined block number “0” (or the “genesis block”), which had a reward of 50 Bitcoins. More BTC news and information If you want to find out more information about Bitcoin or cryptocurrencies in general, then use the search box at the top of this page. Here’s an article to get you started. As with any investment, it pays to do some homework before you part with your money. The prices of cryptocurrencies are volatile and go up and down quickly. This page is not recommending a particular currency or whether you should invest or not. Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed by the author should not be considered as financial advice. || DeFi Hedging Startup Opyn Raises $2.16M Seed Round Led by Dragonfly Capital: A hedging instrument for decentralized finance (DeFi) has closed a $2.16 million funding round, led by Dragonfly Capital, with participation from 1kx, Version One Ventures, CoinFund, DTC Capital, Uncorrelated Ventures and A.Capital.
The funding is for Opyn, which offers crypto-based derivatives, beginning with the oToken, which is a permissionless hedging instrument. The company reports $36 million in trading volume since launch. Others in the funding round include angel investors Balaji Srinivasan, formerly of Coinbase; Robert Leshner, founder ofCompound; and Linda Xie, also a Coinbase alum whoco-founded Scalar Capital.
Crypto getting down with the risk management business sounds like the death knell of the punk-rock era of the industry. On the other hand, as projects like Opyn become more robust they will create ways for thesis-driven investors to make money via contrarian positions, and that could be very punk rock.
Related:Market Wrap: Bitcoin Hits $9.6K as Bullish Crypto Sentiment Returns
With the surge indemand for the COMP token, many users may have funds that would normally be in cash rather than crypto right now, which could feel risky for users. The ability to insure their USDC deposits on Compound might now be unusually attractive.
Read more:Options Protocol Brings ‘Insurance’ to DeFi Deposits on Compound
Opyn offers oTokens, which arebasically insurance policies, but without insurance adjusters. So here’s how a user would insure their USDC using the product. An oToken would allow them, for a small fee, to recover most of the investment’s value if they turned in the underlying token.
So a user could insure $100 in USDC for $95. The user could unlock the $95 in collateral on their oUSDC token but they would have to turn in 100 USDC to do it. They can do this at any time without any kind of check or verification.
Related:Compound Tops MakerDAO, Now Has the Most Value Staked in DeFi
“Opyn is starting a new chapter in DeFi by unlocking options and offering a new and powerful financial primitive that brings stability to a historically-volatile market,” Tom Schmidt of Dragonfly Capital Partners said in a press release.
The company is working now on v2 of its platform, which will include many new kinds of options.
“This release will include margining for capital efficiency, enable options spreads and combinations positions, and create the infrastructure to add governance down the line,” co-founder Alexis Gauba told CoinDesk. The update should be released later this year.
• DeFi Hedging Startup Opyn Raises $2.16M Seed Round Led by Dragonfly Capital
• DeFi Hedging Startup Opyn Raises $2.16M Seed Round Led by Dragonfly Capital || Bitcoin Wallet Electrum Now Supports Lightning, Watchtowers and Submarine Swaps: One of the most popular Bitcoin wallets, Electrum, now supports Lightning Network payments.
The latest swathe of major changes was released inversion 4.0, one of its biggest upgrades since the Bitcoin wallet launched in 2011. (Note: Since the 4.0 release, somebug fixes have been added.) Lightning payments are seen as the future of Bitcoin because they’re cheaper and would allow many more users to makebitcoincryptocurrency transactions at once.
This makes Electrum the oldest wallet to have adopted Lightning payments so far.
Related:CoinSwap and the Ongoing Effort to Make Bitcoin Privacy 'Invisible'
Lightning support in Electrum is a long time coming. Electrum founder Thomas Voegtlin first told CoinDesk lastsummerthat Lightning would make it into the next release.
“[We] decided to adopt Lightning because we see it as the way forward for Bitcoin. Lightning is quite complicated and not without its issues but ultimately it is the most promising currently known way of scaling Bitcoin. It also allows fast, cheap and more private payments,” pseudonymous Electrum developer SomberNight told CoinDesk in an email.
Read more:What is Bitcoin’s Lightning Network?
In order to support Lightning transactions, the developers actually wrote an entirely new implementation of the Lightning protocol “from scratch,” SomberNight said, instead of using a popular implementation, such as Lightning Labs’ LND or Blockstream’s c-lightning. That’s one reason the release took so long.
Related:Listen: What a Bitcoin Researcher Says About Lightning
In addition to support for Lightning payments, Electrum 4.0.2 now supports a number of other innovations with this new release that could make using Lightning more secure and less bumpy for users.
For one, Electrum has implemented its own Lightningwatchtower, an important component of the Lightning Network, which scans the Bitcoin blockchain in order to detect and prevent fraud.
Read more:Bitcoin Lightning Fraud? Laolu Is Building a ‘Watchtower’ to Fight It
Though there are a few watchtower implementations out there now, they still aren’t commonly used yet across the Lightning Network, despite being an important piece. In this way, Electrum’s watchtower support is a step toward a better Lightning Network.
Then, there are “submarine swaps.” Accepting payments is still a tricky part of the Lightning Network because users need what’s called “incoming capacity” to receive payments, which means funds need to be placed in a certain part of a person’s Lightning “channel,” which is sort of like an account .
The irony is users “will not be able to receive payments until they spend some money,” as SomberNight put it.
“To solve this, we implemented‘submarine swaps,’ which are atomic exchanges of on-chain and Lightning bitcoins,” SomberNight told CoinDesk. In other words, submarine swaps makes it possible to send normal bitcoin to a Lightning channel, offering one way for users to fill up their incoming capacity.
“Electrum Technologies runs a central server that facilitates these swaps, for a fee. This allows users to buy incoming capacity to be able to receive Lightning payments,” the developer added.
Electrum also integrated Lightning with hardware support. Because hardware wallets store bitcoin offline beyond the reach of hackers they are considered one of the best ways of securing bitcoin.
“You can [now] use Lightning directly with your hardware wallet: Channel-opens and channel-closes can directly pay from and to addresses backed by a hardware device. Your Lightning balance, while in channels, will not be secured by the hardware but all your on-chain balance will be, and it’s very convenient to have a shared single wallet that you can use to pay both on-chain and Lightning,” SomberNight told CoinDesk.
The Electrum team has been working on other features too. Electrum wallet users can view the full release noteshere.
• Bitcoin Wallet Electrum Now Supports Lightning, Watchtowers and Submarine Swaps
• Bitcoin Wallet Electrum Now Supports Lightning, Watchtowers and Submarine Swaps
[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
None available.
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Trend: up || Prices: 9276.50, 9243.61, 9243.21, 9192.84, 9132.23, 9151.39, 9159.04, 9185.82, 9164.23, 9374.89
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Analyze the provided historical prices, technical indicators, news, and social media sentiment from the last 60 days. Based on this context, predict the overall trend (up, down, or no change) and the specific daily closing prices for Bitcoin for the next 10 days.
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[Technical Analysis for 2016-07-01]
BTC Price: 676.30, BTC RSI: 56.18
Gold Price: 1336.70, Gold RSI: 69.13
Oil Price: 48.99, Oil RSI: 52.71
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
What the Brexit means for your retirement: Brexit and the chaos it unleashed in financial markets are no reason for investors with a sound financial plan to panic. That’s the word from Ric Edelman, who runs one of America’s top financial advisory firms.
Stocks (^DJI,^IXIC,^GSPC) tanked on Friday, with all three major indexes plunging three to four percent. Investors turned to classic safe havens, sending gold prices (GCN16.CMX) soaring and bond yields (^TNX) sharply lower. U.S. stocks are pointing to a slightly lower open Monday after mixed results in Europe and Asia overnight.
“This is a classic knee-jerk reaction from Wall Street traders,” Edelman tells Yahoo Finance about theBrexit selloff in stocks. “Our clients are focused on their long-term goals. There will be no sustained impact five years from now. They can ignore it, or if anything, capitalize.”
Edelman Financial Services manages $16 billion for more than 30,000 clients.
Edelman says given Brexit, theUS presidential electionand other worries, investors should expect market volatility for a while. In response to wild market swings, his strong advice is “do not change your long-term investment strategy.”
Edelman says his clients will take advantage of the volatility to rebalance their portfolios, selling assets that have appreciated in value and adding assets like stocks that have suffered declines. “This represents investment opportunity,” he said.
Unfortunately, Edelman says, many investors will do exactly the opposite and dump stocks when they’re falling. “Nobody knows how low is low, and nobody knows what the market is going to do to.Trying to time the market is a fool’s bet, and that’s precisely what a lot of people try to do.”
That said, Edelman says events like the Brexit vote and the market’s reaction are a good time for people who need to get their financial houses in order to take action and to avoid making mistakes.
“If you don’t have a long term strategy, if you’re not properly diversified, this is the time to get effective financial advice,” Edelman says. “Investors could act on impulse and do the very wrong thing at the very wrong time.”
More from Yahoo Finance
The Brexit vote could bring uncertainty to America's scotch imports
The big question looming over the markets after the Brexit bombshell
The newest Bitcoin price surge isn’t just about Brexit || This Is The Hacker Taking The Fight To ISIS: A hacker by the name of WauchulaGhost is doing his/her part in battling the terrorist group ISIS where it has a dominant presence: online. Terrorist groups like ISIS are notorious for maintaining a strong social media presence to spread their propaganda and recruit new members. Over the past month, WauchulaGhost has hacked over 250 accounts on Twitter Inc (NYSE: TWTR ) that have been linked with ISIS members. Related Link: Orlando Shooting: How Past Acts Of Terror Affected Stock Markets The hacker replaces ISIS' terrorist ideology and content with pornography and gay pride messages an act that is even more meaningful following the terrorist attack in Orlando, Florida, in which a gunman pledged allegiance to ISIS and massacred 49 people at a gay club. hacker2.jpg Once an account is hacked, ISIS' black flags are replaced with rainbows and gay couples embracing. The hacker has a network of people across the world willing to help him however possible, including translating conversations to and from Arabic. hacker4.jpg "There was a few of us... that discovered a vulnerability," the hacker told CNNMoney. "We thought, 'Hey let's go start taking their accounts ... and [start] humiliating them.'" The hacker also criticized social media companies, including Twitter, for not doing enough to shut down the accounts linked to Terrorist groups. For its part, Twitter told CNN Money it has suspended over 125,000 accounts related to ISIS sine the middle of 2015. hacker1.jpg "Sometimes you have to stand up for what you believe in," he told CNNMoney. "If you want change, you have to make that change, even if it means doing something illegal." See more from Benzinga Reaction To Criticism Of 'Chef Curry' Shoe Cooking Up Buying Opportunity For Under Armour London's Tech Sector Thinks Brexit Will Be A Disaster Bitcoin Is Up 30% This Week And 200% This Year: Here Is What You Need To Know © 2016 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || 8 Investments Riskier Than Vegas: In the world of a Las Vegas gaming hall, there are no clocks to tell time and no one to tell you when to stop blowing your dough. Gambling is risky business at best -- or maybe reckless is more like it. The bright lights of the strip blind many casino patrons to a simple, irrefutable fact: The decks and dice are always stacked against the player. So it goes with certain investments where playing the market is anything but fun and games. Watching a roulette wheel whirl might offer fleeting excitement, but there's nothing thrilling about seeing your investment dollars spin down the drain. Penny stocks wind up worth less than Monopoly money, and repeated stabs at market timing land somewhere between futile and foolish. [See: 8 Easy Ways to Make Money .] Still, that doesn't stop the adrenaline junkies from stepping up to the table with a fistful of dollars and a head full of fantasies about the Big Score. It almost always ends up badly -- and you can likewise tank if you try the eight investment categories below with anything less than wisdom, patience and experience. Foreign exchange markets. It looks so simple -- then again, so does blackjack. Too many novices see it this way: Buy loads of a slumping currency in dollars, wait for it to go back up, and buy back lots more dollars. But experts say it's like DIY plumbing: Spring a big leak and you could soon flood your financial foundation. "For do-it-yourself investors, forecasting in and attempting to profit from movements in currencies can be difficult and dangerous," says Joe Jennings, senior vice president and investment director at PNC Wealth Management in Baltimore. Bitcoin. Maybe someday, you'll be able to feed Bitcoins into slot machines. That might produce a steadier payoff than Bitcoin itself, the mysterious virtual currency without a central bank. On Dec. 14, 2013, speculators jacked the price up to a dizzying $1,150. Eighteen days later, it fell by more than half. Today Bitcoin goes for $453. Story continues Startups. Silicon Valley daydreams can divert attention from a real-life investor's nightmare. Report after report drives home this fact: 90 percent of startups fail. The May 16 green flag for equity crowdfunding investment promises to drum up new startup excitement, but it's not going to change the batting average anytime soon. In fact, it could attract an even higher percentage of losers. "I don't foresee most top-tier startups adopting Title III equity crowdfunding as a fundraising outlet," says Chance Barnett, CEO of Crowdfunder. [See: 13 Money Hacks to Turbocharge Your Investments .] 'Story' stocks. Some companies have a fantastic story to tell, such as Tesla Motors ( TSLA ), a pioneer in the luxury electric car market. Charismatic CEO Elon Musk predicts Tesla sales will increase tenfold by 2020. Enter the Big Bad Wolf: Tesla hasn't reported a profit in any quarter since going public. The progenitors of story stocks "are companies with big ideas but very few fundamentals to back up investors' hopes," says Jim Hardison, branch manager and managing director in the private client group at Stephen in Little Rock, Arkansas. Market timing. You know how to time a roulette wheel, right? Of course not -- so why try to time a stock? Still that doesn't deter the Smartest Gamblers in the Room. "Market timing is a scam," says Robert Novy-Marx, a professor of finance at the University of Rochester's Simon Business School. "You might get it right -- and someone always does, and they're happy to tell you what a genius they are. But you are just as likely to sell too early, or get back in too late, or too soon." Media stocks. Anxiety over the mass exodus of cable customers -- known anecdotally as "cutting the cord" -- has media companies reeling. A and B classes of Viacom (VIA, VIAB), the home of MTV, Comedy Central, BET and Nickelodeon, are down more than a third since May 2015. On the newspaper side, Chicago-based Tribune Publishing Co. (TPUB) is off 54 percent since splitting from Tribune Co. in 2014. Many investors hope Gannett Co. (GCI) will double down its $15-a-share takeover bid. TPUB currently trades at $11. But so far, no dice. Options. Options can hedge risk when you own its underlying asset, says Yale Bock, a portfolio manager on Covestor and president of YH&C, a registered investment advisor in Las Vegas. "But if you don't, you're essentially betting on the direction of your trade; if wrong, it can force you into coughing up hard-earned dough." And in many cases, "the cash you get from selling the option is minimal relative to what you can potentially make on the asset. Conversely, the cost of protecting the downside is often large." [Read: Decoding Wall Street's Wall of Jargon .] Penny stocks. The name conjures images of breaking open a piggy bank on the way to breaking the bank and walking away with enough coin to fill up an armored car. In reality, penny stocks are very high-risk investments, especially for those who sink a great deal of money into them. For starters, penny stocks get almost no scrutiny because the companies aren't required to file with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Assuming you can find out anything about the stock, it's likely not credible -- though the hype might be incredible. More From US News & World Report 11 Stocks That Donald Trump Loves 10 Out-of-the-Box Ways to Save Money 7 Great Ways to Invest in Cuba || Bank of Canada studies payments system using tech behind bitcoin: By Ethan Lou and Leah Schnurr TORONTO/OTTAWA (Reuters) - The Bank of Canada is experimenting with a payments system based on the technology behind the bitcoin virtual currency, the central bank said on Thursday. Bank of Canada Senior Deputy Governor Carolyn Wilkins said the central bank has been working with commercial banks to build the experimental interbank payment system. The goal "is solely to better understand the technology first-hand," she said in a statement. "Other frameworks need to be investigated, and there are many hurdles that need to be cleared before such a system would ever be ready for prime time." Wilkins, expected to speak further on the issue on Friday, said the experiment is among many financial technology research projects. Such experiments, she noted, are not aimed at developing central-bank issued e-money for use by the general public. Details of the project, which uses the distributed-ledger technology associated with web-based currency bitcoin, were revealed at a payment-technology event in Calgary on Wednesday that was closed to media. Kyle Kemper, an entrepreneur and head of the Bitcoin Alliance of Canada, who was present at Wednesday's event, said the experiment is called "Project Jasper" and involves blockchain technology. Blockchain's distributed-ledger system allows users to conduct secure transactions with each other without the need for middlemen or central oversight, unlike traditional electronic funds transfers. A slide from a presentation at the event seen by Reuters details how the banks in the experiment would pledge cash collateral in a pool that the Bank of Canada would convert into a digital version. The digital currency would then be used as a medium of exchange and could be converted back to cash. While long known as the backbone of bitcoin, launched under a pseudonym, blockchain has garnered the attention of large financial institutions in recent years. R3, a New York-based research consortium that includes all of Canada's major banks, is a partner in the Bank of Canada's project, along with Payments Canada. Royal Bank of Canada, CIBC, TD Bank and Payments Canada declined to comment. (Reporting by Leah Schnurr and Ethan Lou; Editing by Dan Grebler) || Bitcoin spikes as yuan hits five-and-a-half year low on Brexit: The price of global cryptocurrencybitcoin (: BTC=) spiked on Friday as the yuan dipped after Britain voted to leave the European Union. Bitcoin moves are often counter-linked to the yuan because the majority of trade in the cryptocurrency comes from China. The yuan hit a five-and-a-half-year low on Friday, while the price of bitcoin jumped around 8.7 percent from the day's opening price, hitting highs of around $680.19, according to Coindesk which tracks the price of the cryptocurrency. "We are seeing trading volumes almost $100 million traded in the past 24 hours, it's two or three times compared to a slow day," Bobbly Lee, chief executive of BTCC, one of the largest bitcoin exchanges in the world based in China, told CNBC by phone on Friday. The value of bitcoin continues to be volatile. On Thursday, it plunged 25 percent since hitting a two-and-a-half year high on June 17 of $774.94. It is still not back at that level. But it's important to note that Brexit is just one among several factors that have affected the bitcoin price in recent times. Sentiment was dampened when earlier this week, Hong Kong-based bitcoin exchange Bitfinex was closed for a few hours because of "networking issues" in the company's data center, it said on Twitter. The issues were fixed on the same day. "The correction from a day or two ago had more to do with a technical correction that it did with Brexit," Lee said. More From CNBC Top News and Analysis Latest News Video Personal Finance || Bid for SolarCity may mean Elon Musk doesn't see Tesla as an auto company: "Fast Money" trader Brian Kelly said that Tesla Motors(NASDAQ: TSLA)'bidfor SolarCity(NASDAQ: SCTY)indicates that "Elon Muskdoesn't view Tesla as an auto company."
He explained that while Tesla is selling electric vehicles at the moment, there have been signs that its CEO, Musk, has been intending to do more.
"If you look at what he's doing with the Gigafactory, you look at this acquisition, he's clearly going after the decarbonization of the electric grid in the U.S. To me, that's the bigger play in all of this," Kelly said.
Trader Karen Finerman said that Tesla's offer, valued up to $28.50 per share, "doesn't seem like a gigantic price for a company that was trading significantly higher not that long ago."
SolarCity shares closed at $21.19 on Tuesday, which is more than 75 percent below its all-time closing high of $86.14.
Trader Tim Seymour said that the timing of the deal seems "distracting," citing Tesla's struggles to meet sky-high expectations for deliveries and its mass-market car.
"They just had a capital raise. They probably need more capital. I mean, why now? ... This deal makes no sense," he said, adding that he's always found Tesla's valuation tough to justify.
Wall Street will surely be watching the aftermath of Tuesday's announcement closely. Famed short seller Jim Chanos has been outspoken about hisshort positions in both companies.
In September,Chanos told CNBC's "Squawk Box"that SolarCity is the most problematic of companies led by Musk because it's "burning $300 million to $500 million a quarter putting up solar panels that may not be worth anything in 20 years."
Disclosures:
Karen Finerman
Karen is long BAC, C, DRII, DRII calls, FB, FL, GOOG, GOOGL, JPM, LYV, KORS, KORS, KORS puts, WIFI long call spreads, M, MA, SEDG, SPY puts, URI. Her firm is long ANTM, AAPL, BAC, C, C calls, DRII, DRII calls, FB, GOOG, GOOGL, JPM, JPM calls, KORS, LYV, M, MOH, PLCE, SPY puts, URI, WIFI. Her firm is short IWM, MDY. Karen Finerman is on the board of GrafTech International.
Steve Grasso
BA CC EVGN KBH MJNA MU OLN PFE PHM T TWTR UA GDX KIDS own EFA EFG EWJ IJR SPY NO SHORTS Stuart Frankel & Co Inc. and some of its partners: DAL LUV AAPL UAL LDP WDR AVP CVX FCX IBM ICE KDUS KO MAT MCD MJNA NE NEM OLN OXY RIG STAG TAXI TEX TITXF URI VALE WDR WYNN ZNGA CUBA HSPO ICE AMZN MJNA TITXF NXTD
Brian Kelly
Brian Kelly is long Bitcoin, GLD, SFK, SLV, TLT, US Dollar UUP. He is short CS, DB, UBS
Tim Seymour
Tim Seymour is long APC, AVP, BAC, BBRY, CLF, DO, EDC, EWZ, F, FCX, FXI, GM, GOOGL, GRMN, GE, INTC, LQD, M, MCD, MPEL, NKE, RACE, RAI, RH, RL, SINA, T, TWTR, UA, VALE, VZ, XOM. short: SPY, WYNN, XRT. Tim's firm is long ABX, BABA, BIDU, CLF, EWZ, F, HD, KO, MCD, MPEL, NKE, PEP, PF, SAVE, SBUX, SINA, VALE, VIAB, WMT, WEN, YHOO, short HYG, IWM
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• Personal Finance || Santander says first UK bank to use blockchain for overseas payments: By Andrew MacAskill and Huw Jones LONDON (Reuters) - Santander is the first British bank to start using the technology behind virtual currency Bitcoin for recording international payments, and may start rolling out the service to customers next year, the head of innovation at its UK arm said.Blockchain, or distributed ledger technology, creates a shared database in which participants can trace every transaction ever conducted. Its proponents say it has the potential to shake up how financial markets operate.Santander said about 6,000 staff in Britain would be eligible to begin using the technology internally in a pilot program that aims to make the transfer of money faster, more accurate and more transparent. The technology may eventually allow banks to settle the estimated annual $26 trillion of international transactions almost instantaneously. That compares with settlement times of days under the current systems used by banks. "The main customer benefits are certainty of timing, so you know when the payment is going to arrive and certainty of value," said Ed Metzger, head of innovation, technology and operations at Santander UK.Metzger said at the moment when customers transfer money overseas the charges between banks and delivery times are estimates, whereas with this technology when a customer hits send that will be the amount that reaches the recipient account. Blockchain is part of the growing financial technology sector being encouraged by Britain to keep the country's financial sector competitive with New York and Singapore. Santander and other banks such as Citi, BNP Paribas and Goldman Sachs are investing in the sector to avoid being left behind by start-ups racing to apply blockchain in payments, and clearing and settlement of trades. Santander's pilot, however, underscores how the speed that blockchain could offer is shackled by being slotted into slower, legacy payments systems. Metzger said unless all the banks are using the same technology then the "last mile" of its pilot using blockchain will use slower, existing payments links. In March, broker ICAP said it was the first to distribute data on trades to customers using blockchain. (Editing by Mark Potter) || Bitcoin has a governance problem, no matter who created it: By Jemima Kelly LONDON (Reuters) - As one would-be father of bitcoin falls by the wayside, squabbling among the web-based currency's lead developers is exposing a fundamental flaw: it must evolve to meet growing demand, but may lack a governance structure to achieve this. The latest bickering erupted after Australian entrepreneur Craig Wright promised to prove he was the mysterious creator of bitcoin - which allows users to move money across the world quickly and anonymously - but then said on Thursday he could not provide further evidence to back this up. Wright stopped short of reneging on his claim to be Satoshi Nakamoto, assumed to be a pseudonym for the person or people who launched the digital cryptocurrency in 2009. However, he apologised for damaging the reputations of bitcoin experts who had believed him. Many members of the bitcoin community reckon this is all a distraction and agree with Wright when he said that the identity of Nakamoto "doesn't, and shouldn't, matter". "Satoshi's biggest achievement was to create a system that doesn't require his participation to run," said Peter Todd, one of bitcoin's core software developers. "That's what makes all this stuff kind of funny. It's like searching for the creator of a system that's designed not to require a creator." While grey-suited central bankers print conventional currencies and commercial banks control transactions in them, no one person or entity is in charge of bitcoin. Instead it runs on a decentralised system of shared trust without any third-party verification of transactions - one reason why many people are attracted to it. Critics, however, say it needs a "benevolent dictator" or at least some "adults" to manage the expansion that it needs to cope with the increasing number of transactions. Someone, or some group, must decide how to meet users' requirements, they say. Trades are handled by thousands of "mining" computers around the world which validate blocks of transactions by competing to solve mathematical puzzles every 10 minutes. Story continues The first computer to solve the puzzle clears the transaction and is currently rewarded with 25 new bitcoins, now worth around $11,250. (BTC=BTSP). This is how the computers' owners cover their costs - largely power bills - and make a profit. The system also ensures there is no single point in the system that might fail. CIVIL WAR In practice, there do appear to be people who can make decisions, but it is also possible to be excluded from this magic circle. One of the bitcoin experts who initially believed Wright's claim is Gavin Andresen. Nakamoto handed control of bitcoin's software to Andresen when he stepped aside in 2011, a transfer that kept the creator's identity a mystery as it was conducted in cyberspace without human contact. Andresen later shared that control with others. But when he stated publicly he believed Wright, sceptical developers responded by revoking his "commit access" to a shared repository of bitcoin rules. Initially, these developers justified their move on security grounds, saying his computer must have been hacked - something Andresen denied. When Reuters asked Todd whether Andresen's access would be reinstated, he responded: "Heck no", saying a belief in Wright amounted to "inexcusable incompetence". Andresen admitted to bewilderment over whether he still believed Wright's claims. "Ask me in six months; I don't trust my own judgement right now after all the drama," he said on Twitter. The squabbling is not new. One of the lead developers, Mike Hearn, stood down from bitcoin in January because of a power struggle nicknamed the "bitcoin civil war". Hearn and Andresen had proposed increasing the size of the blocks in which transactions are processed but the other developers opposed this. In quitting, Hearn said that "what was meant to be a new, decentralised form of money that lacked systemically important institutions" had now become "a system completely controlled by just a handful of people". Many investors and start-up firms remain optimistic about bitcoin and are making money from it. But Emin Gun Sirer, a computer science professor at Cornell University, said the appearance of internal conflict was undermining it. "For bitcoin to retain its value, it's important to have hope that there's good management in charge, that there are adults in charge," Sirer said. "When we see opportunistic moves, that's a problem." BENEVOLENT DICTATORS But Sirer also said that any open-source project such as bitcoin, which runs using software that anyone can access, change, and distribute, faces the challenge of governance. "Is it a pipe dream to expect to be able to build a currency system that is completely decentralized and free of any control whatsoever? The short answer to that is yes, but that's not what anyone should have expected anyway," he said. Sirer added that he was concerned that his brightest young students at Cornell were being deterred from getting involved with bitcoin because of the in-fighting and the appearance that developers were unable to agree on change. One other digital currency system which is attracting bright young minds is Ethereum, created in 2013 by Russian-Canadian Vitalik Buterin when he was just 19. It works with the "benevolent dictator model", as Sirer calls it, with Buterin holding the decision-making power. "Over the last couple of years it's become apparent that having a static protocol is just not a viable approach," Buterin told the Consensus bitcoin conference in New York earlier in the week. "Software has to evolve ... and there has to be some mechanism for agreeing on how software is going to upgrade." Most, however, reckon that even if Nakamoto were to be found, the other developers - many of whom have written more code than he ever did in the seven years since bitcoin was launched - would not accept his having ultimate power. "(Nakamoto) would be thanked for creating this amazing thing, but if there comes a time when there's a technical debate over whether we should go one way or the other, his opinions would only be persuasive, not controlling," said Jerry Brito, executive director of bitcoin advocacy group Coin Center. (Additional reporting by Toby Sterling in Amsterdam; editing by David Stamp) || Exclusive: Coinbase, Ripple close to landing New York bitcoin licenses - source: By Suzanne Barlyn
NEW YORK (Reuters) - New York state's financial regulator is close to approving licenses for bitcoin companies Coinbase Inc and Ripple Labs Inc, which would allow them to offer digital currency services in the state, a person familiar with the matter said on Thursday.
The New York State Department of Financial Services received applications from both companies, according to an April 28 notice published on the regulator's website. The notices, usually published after virtual currency firms have completed the regulator's paperwork, signal that the licensing process is nearly complete, according to the person familiar with the matter and other sources.
An exact time frame for approval of the licenses is not yet clear. The sources requested anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.
Bitcoin is a Web-based "cryptocurrency" that enables users to move money across the world quickly and anonymously without the need for third-party verification. Despite being championed by some as the digital money of the future, it is often dismissed as a currency that is too volatile to invest in.
Last year, New York became the first U.S. state to issue extensive rules for virtual currency companies. The guidelines, aimed at consumer protection and prevention of money laundering, require companies to obtain what is known in the state as a "BitLicense."
Both Coinbase and Ripple are based in San Francisco.
"We are committed to being fully compliant with all state and federal laws and applied for the license to ensure we remain so," said a Ripple spokesman, who declined to elaborate. Coinbase declined to comment.
The four-year-old Coinbase is one of the world's largest U.S.-based bitcoin companies. Among its backers are USAA and venture capital firms Andreessen Horowitz and Ribbit Capital. Coinbase, which markets its services to consumers and merchants, has also applied for a license that would allow it to facilitate dollar transactions.
Backers of Ripple, which filed for the license under the corporate name XRP II LLC, also include Andreessen Horowitz along with Google Ventures and IDG Capital Partners. Ripple's service and currency, known as XRP, is for financial institutions and companies, such as banks, that provide liquidity for foreign exchanges.
Once approved, the licenses would add to a nascent digital currency industry taking hold in New York. On Thursday, NYDFS approved the application of Gemini Trust Company, founded by investors Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, to trade a digital currency called ether on its bitcoin exchange.
(Additional reporting by Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss in New York; Editing by Lauren Tara LaCapra and Matthew Lewis) || Vietnam Is Ready for the and Wave of Privatization: - By Long Tran Thang
The first thing that comes to people's minds about Vietnam is usually a 20 years' war that divided the country and somehow the world until 1975. Vietnam has more to offer than just a war memory or an emerging travel destination.
So permit me to briefly summarize Vietnam and its economy. Located in the southeast of the continent of Asia, Vietnam covers 310,070 square kilometers of land and 21,140 square kilometers of water, making it the 66th-largest nation in the world with a total area of 331,210 square kilometers. Vietnam shares land borders with China, Laos and Cambodia and sea border with China, Taiwan, The Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand and Cambodia. Vietnam's GDP reached U.S. $204 billion last year with a 10-year growth average of 5.7%.
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The dynamic behind one of the fastest-growing economies is the golden structure of a young and large population (94 million people and 60% under 30 years old). After "Doimoi" 1986 (30 years ago), Vietnam transformed from a centralized economy to a market-oriented economy and joined the lower middle income countries group.
Vietnam currency, real GDP growth, stock return, P/B vs.Aemerging countries(2015)
(click to enlarge)
Source: BIDV Securities Company BSC
Enough about the big picture, let's take a look at Vietnam's stock market which is classified as a frontier market by MSCI. The main Index a Vnindex (Hochiminh Stock Exchange) started from 100 points in 2000 and now stays around 600 points after 16 years. Among the youngest stock markets, the "mid-teen" stock market of Vietnam has gone through many ups and downs. On May 23, President Barack Obama visited Vietnam. The last two times an American president visited Vietnam, the Vnindex soared in the two months before and after the event by 31% in 2000 and 49.9% in 2006.
The first wave of privatizationinVietnam's stock market
What I call the first wave of Vietnam's stock market (2002-2006) was the golden time when foreign investors visited and stayed for a few weeks just to open an account to invest in listed stocks and IPOs in Vietnam.
Vnindex at the Hochiminh Stock Exchange increased by 144% in 2006 while HNX-Index in the Hanoi Stock Exchange rose by 152.4%. The total market capitalization was $13.8 billion in late 2006 (22.7% of GDP), in which foreign investors held approximately U.S. $4 billion, accounting for 16.4% of the capitalization of the entire market.
In 2007, the Vietnam market boomed with a new securities law. The Vietnam stock market witnessed strong growth in terms of size and volume. By the end of 2007, total stock market capitalization reached nearly VND500,000 billion, about 43.7% of GDP.
Up to 2007, the stock market helped Vietnam privatize around 3,274 state-owned companies. The first wave of privatization created a number of popular companies for public and great stocks for investors. Some of those companies were considered the gems of the country, and one even gained as much as 2,200%. Vietnam today could be so underdeveloped without the strong privatization wave of 2006.
Standout Vietnam stocks that transformed from SOE
Source: HSX, HNX
Researchers show that after being privatized, most Vietnam SOEs had significant improvement in both business aspects (in terms of growth in sales, profit and ROA, ROE, ROS) and social aspects (job creation, labor welfare).
How SOEs improve after privatization
Source: Dr. Doan Ngoc Phuc's Doctoral Thesis 2012
Vietnam's stock market hasn't recovered from the global financial crisis of 2007. Compared to the peak in 2007 (post-crisis), Vnindex now is about 50% discounted while the size of the economy has been tripled from U.S. $75 billion to $204 billion. The fact that Vnindex still is lagging far behind all Asian markets makes Vietnam such an attractive investment opportunity.
Vnindex and Asia main indices (2007-2016)
(click to enlarge)
Source: Bloomberg
Ready for the second wave of privatization
It seems that all the years ending with a six are "transition years" for Vietnam, such as "Doimoi" in 1986 (decentralized planning economy), ASEAN and AFTA membership in 1996 and WTO membership in 2006. This year 2016, Vietnam will have a new political term cabinet which is expected to make Vietnam more open to the Western world, attracting both direct and indirect foreign investment. For foreign investors, it is about time to catch the second wave of IPO and divestment of Vietnamese SOEs.
I do not mean that Vietnam will have a super bull this year, but investors should keep their eyes on Vietnam's stock market. There are three main investment points:
Obama has "Buncha" for dinner at a traditional shop in Hanoi
(click to enlarge)
Source: Tuoitre online
First, the privatization of the rest of SOEs (the private sector and SOE reforms are the main story of Vietnam).
The real story at present in Vietnam is the rapidly improving performance of the private sector, including FDIs, domestic private firms and especially soon privatized SOEs. The Vietnamese government now realizes that it should reduce the number of SOEs to improve efficiency and promote a market-oriented economy. In the past, the first wave of IPO has created great companies and equities for investors. This time is the last chance to catch the new IPO and divestment in Vietnam. Some popular names that investors have been waiting for:
• Telecommunication: Mobifone (the second biggest telecom company in Vietnam).
• Consumer products: Vinamilk, SJC (the biggest gold bar producer in Vietnam).
• Insurance: BaoMinh, VinaRe (the biggest reinsurance in Vietnam).
• Transportation: VietjetAir, Vinalines, Danang Port, Nhatrang port.
• Oil and gas: Binhson, Pvoil, PV Power.
• Construction and materials: Binh Minh, Tien Phong.
• Real estate: Handico, Udic, Rescovn, Benthanh.
Number of IPOs in Vietnam
Source: HSX, HNX
Vietnam is so ready to push the privatization of the SOEs (which local authorities called "equalization"). The Vietnam government targeted to reduce the number of SOEs by 50% to 200 companies from 2016 to 2020. That is the reason why investors should be in a hurry. Vietnam's government has new policies to push the process that will be in favor of foreign investors' participation:
Lifting the foreign ownership limitation. The government issued Decree 60, which will increase the cap for foreign stake holding in a local company. Previously, foreign ownership ratio in listed companies was the same for all companies (49% for nonbanks and 30% for banks). Decree 60 now provides different foreign ownership ratios for each sector and subsector. For some sectors, foreign investors are allowed to own up to 100% of the stocks.
State-owned enterprises IPO meaning listed stocks. Previously, IPO companies in Vietnam don't need to be listed in the stock market like in other countries. The Ministry of Finance's Circular 01/2015/TT-BTC issued on Jan. 5 has laid down regulations for unlisted securities operating in the local stock market. State-owned enterprises (SOEs) must trade in the unlisted public-company market (UPCoM) within 90 days of an initial public offering before official listing (in Hochiminh Stock exchange or Hanoi Stock Exchange). This policy is expected to raise the market capitalization of Vietnam which is now only U.S. $60 billion, equivalent to 34% of GDP, by 17.3% year over year.
Second, Vietnam completed negotiations for two majorA free trade agreements.
The free trade agreement Vietnam - EU (EVFTA) and the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) are making the year of 2016 somehow look a lot like 2006 when Vietnam was about to join WTO. The only difference is that this time the economy is much more ready for a global integration than it was 10 years ago.
Up to now, Vietnam has signed 17 free trade agreements, which exposes Vietnam to 62% of the world's population and 80% of the world's GDP. In the near future, these 17 FTAs will be promoting Vietnam's exportation. They have made significant impacts on medium and long-term growth in both politics and the economy of Vietnam.
• 62.2% of the world's population is 4.5 billion of 7.3 billion people.
• 79.6% of the world's GDP $61.3 trillion of $77 trillion.
Countries have FTA with Vietnam
(click to enlarge)
Source:BIDV Securities(BSI)
Third, valuation compared with other regional stock markets.
Most Asian stock markets excluding Vietnam have reached the previous high of 2007. That lagging makes Vietnam's stock market worth a superior site for investment in Asia (both listed stock and IPO).
• Compared to Southeast Asia (emerging stock markets), Vietnam's stock market has always been valued at a discount in terms of P/B and P/E. With the EPS annual growth rate around 10%, the low P/E ratio makes Vietnam's market quite attractive.
• The economic growth was strong in the last five years. In 2015, Vietnam has become a bright spot when the gross domestic product (GDP) grew by 6.68% year over year, and it is the only place in Asia where exports grew significantly.
P/E ratio of Vnindex and Asian indices (2007-2016)
(click to enlarge)
Source: Bloomberg
How to invest in Vietnam's stock market
Here is how to get a ticket to catch the opportunities in Vietnam's stock market. I will briefly explain how investors can invest in Vietnam's stock market, including (1) listed stocks and (2) IPOs.
How to invest in listed stocks
There are three ways for foreigners to invest in Vietnam's listed stock market: (1) ETFs, (2) Vietnam focus funds and (3) open a trading account at a local broker.
ETFs:There are only a few ETFs that have exposure to Vietnam. Two of the biggest areMarket Vectors Vietnam ETF(VNM) listed in the U.S. and the FTSE Vietnam listed in EU and Asia.
• Vaneck VNM - NAV: U.S. $338 million invest in 31 stocks.
• FTSE Vietnam (FTSE) - NAV: U.S. $353 million invest in 21 stocks.
Vietnam focus funds:There are few listed and unlisted funds that have large exposure to Vietnam stock markets. The good news is some of the close-end funds are trading with huge discounts. Here are some of the names:
• Vietnam Holdings Ltd.(VNMHF): NAV U.S. $109.5 million.
• Vietnam Enterprise Investment(STC:FID): NAV U.S. $850 million.
• VinaCapital Vietnam Opportunity Fund Ltd.(VOF.L) NAV U.S. $743 million.
• PYN - Elite (Gray market ELITE:FH): NAV U.S. $215 million.
• Vietnam Emerging Equity Fund Limited (Grey market PXP) NAV U.S. $100 million.
Open a trading account:If you want to directly invest by yourself, there are three main steps to open an account for foreigners (to directly invest in listed stock market):
• Register for an indirect investment capital account (IICA) at State Bank of Vietnam (SBV). Your custodian bank can do that for you in one or two weeks.
• Apply for a trading code at Vietnam Securities Depository (VSD). Your custodian bank or a local broker house can do that for you in one or two weeks.
• Open a trading account at a local broker house. When the IICA and TCA are completed, you can instantly open trading account at local broker.
How to bid IPO in Vietnam
It is quite a process to bid in Vietnam's IPO; hence you will need your local broker's assistance. If you already have a trading account to invest in Vietnam, the process will be much simpler than starting a new one. Anyway, as people always say, a hidden gem is worth the digging. A list of the ongoing IPOs and more information can be found on the website of Hochiminh Stock Exchange, Hanoi Stock Exchange or local stock broker's website. There are some steps to take:
Bidding registration requires documents as below (in order):
• Bidding register form (with the confirmation of the bank where investor opened the account).
• Indirect investment account (at the State Bank of Vietnam) : Original copy plus a copy.
• Business license (or equivalent documents): Notarized copy.
• Authorization form for authorized executing individual: Original copy.
• ID or passport of authorized individual: A copy.
• Deposit paper: A copy (investor has to deposit 10% of value of amount registered to buy, calculated at starting price before the deadline).
• Account opening confirmation of the bank in Vietnam where the investor opened indirect investment account and will pay through: Original copy.
Bidding participation form submission:
• After submitting all the required documents, investor will receive the receipt to get bidding participation form. Complete and put the bidding participation form directly to the ballot box in the auction agency.
• Or send the bidding participation form in the envelope that is sealed with the signature on the edge. Time for receiving is the time when the auction agency receives and signs with the post or the investor.
Conclusion
It seems that all the years ending with six are "transition years" for Vietnam, such as "Doimoi" in 1986 (decentralized planning economy), ASEAN and AFTA membership in 1996 and WTO membership in 2006. In 2016 Vietnam will have its new term cabinet which is expected to make Vietnam more open to the Western world, attracting foreign investment both direct and indirect.
On May 23 President Barack Obama visited Vietnam, putting the country under the spotlight of businessmen and investors. In the last two times a USA President visited Vietnam, Vnindex soared during 2 months before and after the event by respectively 31% in 2000 and 49.9% in 2006.
Vietnam stock market has been in a lagging cycle since the 2008 financial crisis which makes it attractive for investors. This year, we expect that it will be the last chance to catch the second wave of IPO, divestment and privatization of big SOE in Vietnam. There will be more and more interesting SOEs going IPO and get listed soon. The stock market and investors will benefit from (1) Privatization (state divestment and IPOs), (2) Lifting up the Foreign ownership limitation and (3) low valuation ratio compared to Asian countries.
Disclosure:I/we have no positions in any stocks mentioned, and no plans to initiate any positions within the next 72 hours.
Additional disclosure:A Long Tran Thang is proud to work for BIDV Securities Company Vietnam (BSC) as head of research and before that as deputy head of investment and analyst since 2007. BIDV Securities is one of the first securities firms in Vietnam. Being a subsidiary of BIDV a the largest commercial Banks in Vietnam A aA BSC inherits both the 55 years of experience in investment, banking and finance and the nationwide network of enterprises. Long Tran Thang earned an MBA from Solvay Brussels School (ULB) in 2014. Long Tran Thang graduated with a B.A. in economics from the ANU Australian National University (ANU) and a B.A. in finance from The National Economics University (NEU).
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[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
BTCTurk 1472.7 TL BTCe 519.165 $ CampBx $ BitStamp 528.00 $ Cavirtex $ CEXIO 539.32 $ Bitcoin.de 469.98 € #Bitcoin #btc || $456.00 #coinbase;
$453.27 #bitfinex;
$453.10 #bitstamp;
$451.18 #btce;
Prices & News: http://bit.ly/1VI6Yse
#bitcoin #btc || LIVE: Profit = $901.03 (11.25 %). BUY B19.39 @ $420.00 (#VirCurex). SELL @ $460.01 (#Bitfinex) #bitcoin #btc - http://www.projectcoin.org || #UFOCoin #UFO $ 0.000018 (2.54 %) 0.00000004 BTC (-0.00 %) || LIVE: Profit = $660.13 (8.24 %). BUY B19.39 @ $420.00 (#VirCurex). SELL @ $447.64 (#Bitfinex) #bitcoin #btc - http://www.projectcoin.org || #Ripple #XRP $ 0.006769 (-0.78 %) 0.00001000 BTC (-2.00 %) || BTCTurk 1936.9 TL BTCe 657.581 $ CampBx $ BitStamp 667.00 $ Cavirtex $ CEXIO 673.51 $ Bitcoin.de 609.21 € #Bitcoin #btc || LIVE: Profit = $634.29 (7.92 %). BUY B19.40 @ $420.00 (#VirCurex). SELL @ $447.08 (#Kraken) #bitcoin #btc - http://www.projectcoin.org || 1 KOBO = 0.00001994 BTC
= 0.0105 USD
= 2.0910 NGN
= 0.1650 ZAR
= 1.0580 KES
#Kobocoin 2016-05-29 15:00 pic.twitter.com/bvEWWrA9h1 || 1 #BTC (#Bitcoin) quotes:
$447.69/$448.37 #Bitstamp
$448.20/$449.34 #BTCe
⇢$-0.17/$1.65
$450.90/$451.00 #Coinbase
⇢$2.53/$3.31
|
Trend: down || Prices: 703.70, 658.66, 683.66, 670.63, 677.33, 640.56, 666.52, 650.96, 649.36, 647.66
|
Analyze the provided historical prices, technical indicators, news, and social media sentiment from the last 60 days. Based on this context, predict the overall trend (up, down, or no change) and the specific daily closing prices for Bitcoin for the next 10 days.
|
[Technical Analysis for 2020-03-17]
BTC Price: 5225.63, BTC RSI: 25.85
Gold Price: 1524.90, Gold RSI: 38.95
Oil Price: 26.95, Oil RSI: 18.51
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
Bitcoin Faces Move to $8,200 After Dropping Out of Trading Range: • Bitcoin’s range breakdown has opened the doors for a deeper pullback to support levels at $8,200 and $8,000.
• The short-term indicators have turned bearish, supporting the case for further losses.
• A move above $8,750 is needed to revive the immediate bullish view.
• The broader outlook will remain bullish as long as prices are holding above $7,700, according to the weekly chart.
Bitcoin has dived outits recent trading range, opening the doors for a pullback to deeper supportlevels.
The top cryptocurrency ran into offers around $8,580 at 08:35 UTC and fell through thelong-heldsupport of $8,460 in a few minutes to hit a low of $8,340 – a level last seen on Jan. 14, according to CoinDesk’sBitcoin Price Index.
The drop to nine-day lows confirmed a downside break of the recent trading range of $8,460 to $8,750.
Related:Crypto Asset Firm Amun Launches Inverse Bitcoin ETP
The cryptocurrency had entered consolidation mode during Sunday’s U.S. trading hours after the sudden reversal lower from highs near $9,200 range out of steam at $8,460 – the level, which saw bitcoin turn lower on Jan. 8.
So it seems safe to say the pullback from $9,200 has resumed with the range breakdown and a deeper drop to support at $8,200 and $8,000 could be in the offing.
At press time, bitcoin is changing hands near $8,415, representing a 2.72 percent drop on a 24-hour basis.
The range breakdown has created room for a drop to at least $8,170 (target as per the measured move method).
Related:Bitcoin’s Lighting ‘Torch’ Reignites, Blazes Through 38 Countries in 3 Days
Bitcoin charted multiple four-hour candles with highs around $8,200 in the Jan. 11-13 period. As a result, $8,200 is a key support to watch out for. On similar lines, the psychological level of $8,000 is also crucial support.
On the higher side, $8,750 is the level to beat for the bulls. A sustained move at that level would revive the short-term bullish view and allow a re-test of recent highs near $9,200.
However, a break above $8,750 looks unlikely, as the short-term indicators have made a bearish shift.
The MACD histogram, which is widely used to gauge trend strength and trend reversals, has crossed below zero, confirming a bullish-to-bearish trend change.
The five- and 10-day moving averages (MAs) have produced bearish crossover.
Bitcoin has lost its upward trajectory, as indicated by the “ascending pitchfork” breakdown.
The ascending pitchfork is a trend channel tool consisting of a median line in the center with two parallel equidistant lines on either side. These lines are drawn by from three points, representing a bottom, a correction high and a higher low.
All in all, the oddsappear stacked in favor of a drop to $8,200 and possibly to $8,000.
Bitcoin broke out of a six-month-long falling channel two weeks ago, confirming a long-term bullish reversal. The setup will remain valid as long as prices are holding above $7,700.
Disclosure:The author holds no cryptocurrency assets at the time of writing.
• Bitcoin Bulls Seek Stronger Move After Bounce to $8.8K Loses Momentum
• Square Crypto Is Creating a ‘Lightning Development Kit’ for Bitcoin Wallets || Sudden Bitcoin price drop could threaten $10,000 mark: After reaching its highest value this year earlier this morning, a sudden drop saw almost $300 wiped off the price of Bitcoin (BTC) over a three hour period. Bitcoin now sits at just north of $10,140—down more than 1.4% in the last day. Bitcoin is now just inches about the $10,000 threshold, which it only broke through earlier this week.
This loss comes just hours after the US Treasury Secretarypromisedthat the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) will roll out "some significant new requirements" in the near future—though it remains unclear if this relates to cryptocurrency holders or businesses. This bearish price action comes after almost two months of near-constant growth, which saw the cryptocurrency appreciate by more than 54% since mid-December.
Binance’s real headquarters are in the Cayman Islands
Despite this sudden bearish turn,Bitcointrading volume is at its highest point in almost a month—more than $45 billion worth of BTC changed hands in the last 24 hours.
The bullish momentum over the last few days came after comments were made in a hearing of theUS House Committee on Financial Serviceson the idea of the US launching a digital currency. Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said that the Fed was working hard researching whether a digital currency could be a viable option. || Bitcoin takes aim at $10,000 as golden cross comes into effect: Bitcoin surged with a stunning 5% rally to the upside on Wednesday, going on to test the $9,650 level of resistance as it looks to build momentum before setting its sights on the psychological $10,000 price target. It has since been flirting with a breakout following yesterday evenings daily candle close, which provided the first marginal higher high since it shot to $14,000 in June. After rallying to its yearly high, Bitcoin slumped into a bearish market trend with four consecutive lower highs at $13,200, $12,400, $11,000 and $10,300. This resulted in an eventual decline towards Decembers local low of $6,410, which coincidentally came exactly two years after Bitcoin achieved its all-time high of $20,000. If Bitcoin can continue to rally over the weekend it will almost certainly test the psychological level of $10,000. A break above here would see the worlds largest cryptocurrency establish a truly bullish trend with upside targets emerging above $11,300. One key technical aspect from the past week is that a golden cross has come into fruition on the daily chart, with the 50 EMA crossing the 200 EMA to the upside. The previous time this happened was in April 2019 when Bitcoin was trading at $4,800, it went on to rise by 195% in the following two months. Eyes on halving The recent rally, which has seen Bitcoin skyrocket from $6,400 to $9,700 in six weeks, has been attributed to the upcoming halving event. Bitcoins block reward halving will commence in May, with miners seeing rewards for each block slashed from 12.5 to 6.25. This has historically caused a tremendous upswing in the price of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies as miners are incentivised to hold rewards, thus reducing supply amid rising demand. Miners also need to ensure the price of Bitcoin trades at a level where the industry remains profitable in order to cover overheads like staff, equipment and electricity. With just three months to go until the halving the price of Bitcoin is predicted to keep rising as anticipation mounts from early adopters and hopeful new investors. Story continues Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed by the author should not be considered as financial advice. Pricing Current live Bitcoin pricing information and interactive charts are available on our site 24 hours a day. The ticker bar at the bottom of every page on our site has the latest Bitcoin price. Pricing is also available in a range of different currency equivalents: US Dollar BTCtoUSD British Pound Sterling BTCtoGBP Japanese Yen BTCtoJPY Euro BTCtoEUR Australian Dollar BTCtoAUD Russian Rouble BTCtoRUB About Bitcoin In August 2008, the domain name bitcoin.org was registered. On 31st October 2008, a paper was published called Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System. This was authored by Satoshi Nakamoto, the inventor of Bitcoin. To date, no one knows who this person, or people, are. The paper outlined a method of using a P2P network for electronic transactions without relying on trust. On January 3 2009, the Bitcoin network came into existence. Nakamoto mined block number 0 (or the genesis block), which had a reward of 50 Bitcoins. More Bitcoin news and information If you want to find out more information about BTC or cryptocurrencies in general, then use the search box at the top of this page. Heres an article to get you started. As with any investment, it pays to do some homework before you part with your money. The prices of cryptocurrencies are volatile and go up and down quickly. This page is not recommending a particular currency or whether you should invest or not. The post Bitcoin takes aim at $10,000 as golden cross comes into effect appeared first on Coin Rivet . || Why Lightning Payments Aren’t Clicking for Porn Companies (Just Yet): Bitcoin may finally achieve broader traction through the adult entertainment industry in 2020, but the chips aren’t stacked in its favor. So far, typical sex industry businesses like London’s 23 Paul Street strip club, said in June the venue stopped accepting bitcoin because customers simply weren’t paying with it. But the lightning network, a layer on top of bitcoin used for faster transactions with lower fees, may now be ready to facilitate broader payments for online platforms. Iterative Capital’s Escher project offers fiat on-ramps to the lightning network, with other projects like Zap offering similar functionality. There are now service providers to feed a fledgling demand for lightning channels. Related: Deutsche Bank Says Digital Currencies Could Be Mainstream in 2 Years According to Veronika Mishura, marketing manager at the payment processor CoinGate , her startup processed 1,400 lightning invoices in 2019 for clients like adult industry sites LiveJasmin and CooMeet, with the average payment being worth around 12 euro. A LiveJasmin spokesperson confirmed the site does receive lightning payments for porn, although he declined to specify details. “We don’t offer payouts in crypto and we don’t track the content per payment method,” he added. There is certainly room for growth in the adult entertainment industry, as Pornhub famously had trouble paying performers with PayPal in 2019 and now lets performers cash out with Tether instead. ZmnSCPxj, a pseudonymous bitcoin researcher who recently received a grant from Jack Dorsey’s Square Crypto, said he expects privacy-enhancing mixing services to become a more popular part of the lightning economy. “Improved privacy is always desirable and people will pay for such,” ZmnSCPxj said, adding that channel fees and transaction costs will be “minimal compared to mixer fees.” Related: What Are Lightning Wallets Doing to Help Onboard New Users? Blockstream’s lightning expert, Rusty Russell, said in Q1 2020 his team is “working on making our payment paths less predictable, which improves privacy,” along with setups that can help “businesses transition from ‘playing with lightning’ to ‘relying on lightning.’” Story continues He believes porn is an “obvious avenue” for lightning usage, given the high rate of credit card chargebacks. But, he added, “at the moment it makes more sense as an experiment for such sites given our small user base.” Bitrefill CCO John Carvalho, who formerly ran the adult entertainment company XO Media, said, “Lightning payments can work in the adult industry, but not in any major capacity any time soon.” Namely, Carvalho said, because video monetization software is expensive to build at scale and erotic content creators aren’t offered access to some popular site hosting services. Few service providers will work with porn companies (at least at the same rate), which contributed to why some started accepting cryptocurrency in the first place. But these sites generally use internal credit systems, accepting bitcoin or credit card payments for centralized credits. Spankchain CEO Ameen Soleimani said although his ethereum startup was “one of the first companies to put payment channels into production,” it promptly shifted gears because there’s still a lot of work to be done “around watch towers, wallet integrations, and merchant integrations before it can reach critical mass.” “While crypto natives gave us a lot of support for being payment channel pioneers, normal users couldn’t care less,” Soleimani told CoinDesk. “They want a product that just works, and with SpankPay we’ve discovered (or rediscovered) that 0-conf instant payments are the way to go for fiat-competitive checkout systems.” Still an experiment Some bitcoiners are still altogether skeptical about lightning. Regardless of payment channels, bitcoin itself has plenty of privacy kinks to work out. An anonymous Samourai Wallet co-founder, behind the privacy-focused bitcoin wallet that powers the Nodl mixing feature, said his own open-source team has “no interest in lightning” because mainstream adoption is a “poison pill.” (Perhaps as illustrated by the companies like LiveJasmin that don’t offer erotic performers the chance to hold their own crypto.) “Bitcoin is in danger of replicating the system it set out to destroy,” he said. “I also don’t see retail, mass adoption pickup. … That’s a blessing in disguise and we should embrace that.” Beyond adult entertainment, Mishura said CoinGate also processed payments for Habsak cafe in Oslo and usage is trickling down from tech experiments to rare customers. OpenNode’s head of marketing, Ryan Flowers, saying his startup processed over 68,970 lightning invoices received and 38,986 payments sent in 2019. Most lightning-oriented startups, including Carvalho’s Bitrefill and Flower’s OpenNode , are focused on expanding their pool of merchants in 2020. As it stands, lightning analytics site 1ML.com tallies at least 11,174 nodes online and a network capacity exceeding $7.8 million. That’s why lightning advocates believe broader commercial usage of the network, beyond isolated experiments, could be on the horizon. “The network is definitely becoming more liquid over time,” said developer Anand Patel, who earned roughly $3 a day over the past year by routing lightning payments. “If you’re going to pay a merchant, it makes sense that they don’t see your whole transaction balance or history.” So far, small groups of merchants accept lightning payments, mostly for the curiosity factor. But since those adult performers and adventurous merchants rarely cash out in crypto, it’s still too early to see any significant benefits. “Usability, thanks to something like [ lightning wallet ] Phoenix, is now good enough that more people can try it,” Bitcoin Core contributor Sjors Provoost said, noting that the last merchant rush followed the 2014 bull market, but hasn’t revived since. “So maybe, if there’s a price spike, we’ll see … more merchants trying it. Then we’ll see if it sticks.” Related Stories Pornhub Now Lets Models Get Paid With the Tether Stablecoin Why High-Profile Defections Aren’t Libra’s Biggest Challenge || Information Overload Is Stopping Us From Seeing the Truth: Yorke Rhodes III, a CoinDesk columnist, co-founded Blockchain at Microsoft and is principal program manager, Azure Blockchain engineering and board member of Blockchain for Social Impact Coalition and Enterprise Ethereum Alliance , and founding team member of baseline protocol . Congratulations, we’ve arrived in 1984. Books, television and movies have foreshadowed our eerie relationship with technology since long before 1984. The idea of a reality so perfectly created you can’t tell it is manufactured has long been the stuff of science fiction. You need look no farther than films like “The Matrix,” “Total Recall” or “Inception.” While real life attempts at pervasive virtual reality have largely failed outside of gaming, things are going swimmingly well in the world of data manipulation. Our perception of reality is now shaped by the data we willingly consume from unquestioned sources across social media, news and video. Related: The Tokenization Delusion Congratulations, he says to himself, this new reality has arrived in your lifetime. We now live in a world where people speak their truth. I applaud people speaking their truth, especially people speaking truth to power, but what is the objective truth? What does the phrase objective truth mean now and how do we arrive at it? Some philosophers will disagree there can be an objective truth: It is all about perception. For simplicity, let us say it is an attribute of reality that all people can agree on, whether they have met or had a shared experience. Know that your truth may not be the same as their truth. This is about lived experiences. Regardless, we must share our truth and speak truth to power even though it may disrupt the status quo. Cue Greta Thunberg. Her fortitude in bringing light to the science of climate change amidst trolls, skeptics and science deniers provides a stunning example of speaking truth to power. Information is so dense that most people cannot consume enough to ferret out what is real. Story continues Related: The Dangerous Truth About India’s Cryptocurrency Verdict In the United States, our court systems mete out justice circumstantially based on the many variables at play in courtrooms. The biggest variable is information presented and withheld, and what jurors can be convinced to believe. My legal colleagues would agree this is simply a legal proceeding designed to determine the truth of whether a defendant committed the crimes charged. This isn’t about truth but about the presentation of a set of information to jurors and their perception based on data. This is the system we have, but it is clearly about creating a reality and perception of the circumstances based on a select set of data. In contract law, truth means sticking to the terms of the contract. Agreement about a common state of things defined by a contract is, in this case, the truth. Arriving at that common understanding of the truth often involves a great deal of effort by both parties to a contract. In many cases, the data don’t support a single view of the truth, so the parties agree to split the difference or disputed values and continue on contracting the next month. This is a pretty sad state of affairs caused simply by not having a common set of data to determine the truth of what happened. The problem is information overload It’s an old meme that on the internet no one knows you are a dog. Since search became prevalent on the internet, the question of who you are has been answered through available data. Creating a positive perception about yourself or your business on the internet is possible, even if the reality is different. Even fixing reputation can be solved by creating many positive references and getting them to rank high or show up on the first few pages of searches. Do this with enough good references and the negative references become invisible to most casual searchers. This isn’t an information asymmetry problem, it is a stack overload problem for our brains. There is too much information overloading our circuits. This overload pervades everything we do daily and creates our reality. This is the problem with social media. It presents a few short data points without much substance. If the source, posting organization or individual is credible or supposedly believable, and the sound bite is good, it can become viral. This unverified sound bite then pervades more and more information feeds to more and more people. If this sound bite is repeated enough, it becomes people’s reality. Even worse, if historically trusted sources are taken over by people with different interests, what was once a credible news outlet can use that credibility to advance questionable sound-bites into our collective psyche. We have seen plentiful examples of the impact of this. Fox News now looks more like RT, the @potus Twitter account bears little semblance to an official presidential account. Sinclair Media requires “talking points” of a particular political group to be injected into local radio broadcasts . No amount of digital uniqueness, truth machine, and magical internet money will save us from ourselves Al Gore’s plan for the Information Superhighway was legislated to solve a commercial problem with political will. It was meant to bridge the digital divide to advantage those without access to the internet. The goal was to remove a blind spot to the digital world of information. But the superhighway we envisioned has become a landfill of soap boxes and used car salesmen hawking their next “promotion” or scam. The road isn’t clogged, our brains are saturated. Information is so dense that most people cannot consume enough to ferret out what is real, let alone validate the actual source crafting that reality. And this is only getting worse in the form of fake news, questionable information sources across our media, credible sources taken over, promotions disguised as good causes, charity washing, and more recently the risk of deep fakes. We haven’t escaped this problem in our little blockchain-cryptocurrency bubble of the world. The exact same symptoms exist here. All one has to do is look at Crypto Twitter. How can anyone not well versed in the history, personalities, names, and background material possibly make an informed decision based on the data presented? No amount of digital uniqueness, truth machine, and magical internet money will save us from ourselves, and from being bought by others. It’s not like we don’t see this happening every day in our politics, passions and, yes, in our blockchain bubble. If we can’t find a way to create inherent trust into the data we feed our brains, our worst instincts will overwhelm our ability to change the world. I have some ideas. Join me on a journey to find out how trust-bearing technologies can help transform our digital and physical world and maybe just, just maybe, help save our planet. Related Stories With Freedom at Stake, More Hongkongers See Bitcoin’s Unique Value Tron’s Takeover of Steemit Is Internet History Repeating Itself || Fidelity International Invests $14M in Hong Kong Crypto Exchange Operator: Fidelity International, a spin-off from the U.S. financial services giant Fidelity Investments, has invested $14 million in the Hong Kong-based operator of crypto exchange OSL.
According topublic disclosureson Friday, Fidelity International bought 17 million shares of OSL owner BC Group at a price of HK$6.50 (US$0.83) per share, which brings it a 5.6 percent stake in the firm.
The investment is part of a $36 million share placement Hong Kong Stock Exchange-listed BC Group announced last month. While the transaction was completed Feb. 12, the names of the investors were not disclosed until today.
Related:Binance Is Not Under Our Jurisdiction, Says Malta Regulator
Another major investor that participated in the round isEternity Investment Limited, a Hong Kong-based investment holding firm primarily focused on jewelry products.
One of the largest crypto exchanges in Asia, OSL targets institutional and individual investors with trading, brokerage and custody services.
“We’re excited to see that world-class equity investors are increasingly participating in the fast-growing digital asset sector, and we look forward to reaching new milestones with our industry-leading institutional investors,” BC Group CEO Hugh Madden said in a statement.
Fidelity International was founded in 1969, originally as an investment subsidiary to the Boston-based financial giant targeting overseas markets. It was spun off from Fidelity as an independent entity in the 1980s.
Related:Insolvent Exchange FCoin Had Bitcoin Outflow Problems Just Two Months After Launch: Report
According to the company’s own disclosures, Fidelity International was managing total client assets of $418.8 billion across Asia, Europe, the Middle East and South America as of June 2019.
• Riot Blockchain Plans Sale of Crypto Exchange as It Invests More Millions in Bitcoin Mining
• Norwegian Air May Allow Customers to Pay With Crypto as Soon as Spring || New Zealand Plans to Drop ‘Unfavorable’ Sales Tax Treatment of Cryptocurrencies: New Zealand’s tax authority is considering changes to its treatment of cryptocurrencies that would drop the current and controversial application of goods and services tax (GST).
The current regime seesbitcoin(BTC) and other digital currencies as property, with normal rules applying. That means crypto is liable for 15 percent GST when changing hands within the country as part of a business’s operations and potentially throws up a “double taxation” problem when income tax is later applied.
Calling the situation “unfavorable,” the New Zealand Inland Revenue Department (IRD) has now suggested doing away with the GST liability for cryptocurrencies in many cases, but keeping the treatment for income tax.
Related:IOTA Being Shut Off Is the Latest Chapter in an Absurdist History
In apolicy issues papermade public on Monday, the IRD states:
“Because of their innovative nature, [cryptocurrencies] will often also have different features to … other investment products. This means that some existing tax rules can be difficult to apply, involve very high compliance costs or may provide policy outcomes for some crypto-assets that lead to over-taxation compared to other alternative investment products.”
The overall aim of any changes would be that cryptocurrencies should have a similar treatment to other investment products or asset classes that are “close substitutes” for the digital asset.
An issue being considered by the IRD is whether different types of tokens should have different tax treatments depending on how they are used. One way forward is that tokens used like currency or shares would likely not be liable to GST while other types might see the sales tax applied.
Related:Wikipedia Co-Founder Says Crypto Integration Would Be ‘Completely Insane’
“An advantage of this approach is that it should provide a neutral tax treatment for those crypto-assets which are close substitutes for existing financial products such as currency or shares,” the IRD says.
The tax department suggests it might still treat some tokens differently; for instance, if a token is considered to be a share “but if it does not provide an interest in a foreign company or partnership, it would still be taxed very differently to other foreign equity investments.”
Yet, with thousands of tokens now available offering different use cases and features, the IRD says there may be “practical limitations” to their potential classification for tax purposes.
As such, a different approach being considered is to usher in more general changes to tax rules that are seen as throwing up “the most significant policy issues when applied to crypto-assets.”
“There appears to be a case to exclude most types of crypto-asset from the GST and financial arrangement rules by developing a broad definition of crypto-assets for this purpose,” says the IRD.
Whatever the solution, Inland Revenue recognizes change is needed. The department says, “The current GST rules provide an uncertain and variable GST treatment making, using or investing in crypto-assets less attractive than using money or investing in other financial assets.”
Parties with an interest in the issue have until April 9 to offer their opinions on the best solution.
Australia, which had previously also imposed GST on some crypto transactions,ended the policyin October 2017. Singaporeproposed the same policy changelast summer.
• Policymakers Shouldn’t Fear Digital Money: So Far It’s Maintaining the Dollar’s Status
• The IRS Is Inviting Crypto Firms to a ‘Summit’ in DC Next Month || Twitter co-founder backs an app that lets users buy bitcoin: Christopher Isaac “Biz” Stone, co-founder of Twitter and Medium, has invested in a fintech app that allows users to trade bitcoin. The app, Mode Banking, claims to allow opening an account in less than 60 seconds and completing know-your-customer (KYC) requirements in less than two minutes, according to a statement shared with The Block. However, a test user at The Block, could not verify their KYC even after 45 minutes. The Mode app is accessible globally, except in the U.S, and users can buy bitcoin from £50 (~$65). The London-based firm charges a trading fee of 0.99% and also supports the U.K.’s faster payments scheme for instant GBP transfers, per the statement. Once bought, users’ bitcoins are then stored with crypto custodian BitGo, said Mode. “Although there are multiple existing ways to access the Bitcoin market right now, few appeal to the everyday person, who wants to buy and hold some Bitcoin. Most of the current apps all have one problem at their core—access," said Stone, who is also an advisor to Mode. He added that Mode offers a simple user interface and experience, “rivaling that of the major challenger banks.” Mode's parent firm R8 Group raised $5 million in a funding round last April, from investors including Stone. Another co-founder of Twitter, Jack Dorsey, also offers an app ( Cash App via his other firm Square) that lets users buy bitcoin. || Blockforce Capital’s Crypto Fund Captures 86% of Bitcoin’s Upside in 2020: In the first two months of 2020, Blockforce Capital’s multi-strategy master fund saw a 16.8 percent return compared to a 19.5 percent return inbitcoin(BTC), the company announced in a note to accredited investors.
Blockforce is a seasoned exchange-traded fund (ETF) issuer that specializes in alternative investment vehicles for investors. In February of last year the company infamously filed the first proposal for an ETF made up of amix of currenciesincluding bitcoin, only topull the fundat the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s request the next day. Currently, the company only offers bitcoin-related funds to accredited investors.
Low volatility is the San Diego-based asset manager’s target for its multi-strategy fund, which hit its one-year anniversary this month.
Related:Australian Regulator Gives Green Light to App-Based Retail Bitcoin Fund
With volatility of 24.5 percent compared to bitcoin’s 74 percent, Blockforce claims its fund has a third of the volatility of the cryptocurrency, capturing 86 percent of the upside of bitcoin and 12.5 percent of the downside.
The fund’s goal is to capture more than 80 percent of bitcoin’s returns with about 40 percent of bitcoin’s losses. It’s supposed to “give people something they can invest in without all the stomach acid of a direct cryptocurrency investment,” Blockforce CEO Eric Ervin said.
Forty percent of the fund is based on systematic strategies based on long-term and short-term trends in a mix of large-cap cryptocurrencies: bitcoin,bitcoin cash(BCH),litecoin(LTC),ether(ETH),XRPand Binance coin (BNB). (This 40 percent is heavily weighted toward bitcoin, Ervin said.) Twenty percent of the fund is based on a mix of these large-cap crypto assets in general, and the rest is based on stablecoin lending.
The upside performance of the fund has improved significantly since last year, the company noted. In the first four months of the fund’s operations in 2019, the fund only increased by 32 percent while bitcoin rose more than 180 percent. From July to December, the fund only dropped 16 percent while bitcoin fell by 33 percent.
Related:Why the SEC Asked Blockforce Capital to Pull a Bitcoin ETF Proposal as Soon as It Was Filed
“One thing to keep in mind when evaluating performance throughout 2019 was the erratic nature of returns,” Ervin said in the note, adding:
“In November, after a portfolio management team change, we significantly reduced the complexity of the models, we slowed down some of the signals and focused our research efforts on optimizing for trade frictions as well as identifying high-probability trends to confirm either up, down or sideways markets. These model updates went live in December and we have been very pleased with the results since that time.”
The company will continue to add updates to its “research in pain pattern recognition, predictive signals for correlation breakdowns and some other areas.”
Blockforce’s thesis, Ervin wrote, is the firm “will generate the bulk of [its] alpha through downside risk mitigation, portfolio overweights and underweights and the tactical use of digital asset lending in the portfolio.”
• Canadian Fund Manager 3iQ Files Prospectus for Bitcoin Fund IPO
• ASX-Listed DigitalX Seeds New Fund With Half Its Bitcoin Holdings || Latest Bitcoin Cash price and analysis (BCH to USD): Bitcoin Cash has been one of most affected cryptocurrencies during the recent sell-off , falling by more than 20% after being rejected from the $500 level of resistance. Despite the fact that a number of top altcoins have rallied against their respective BTC trading pairs today, Bitcoin Cash has struggled to make a gain. At the time of writing it was trading at around $391, six percent lower than the crucial level of support turned resistance at $418. The daily 22 exponential moving average (EMA) is now ticking to the downside which suggests that momentum in the short term is driving price towards the $358 level of support. A break below the daily 55 EMA and the $357 level of support would undoubtedly cause continuation to the downside as cryptocurrency bulls put the champagne on ice. However, much of it depends on the upcoming direction of Bitcoin, which will undergo a block reward halving in May. The block reward halving is considered a key event in the cycle of Bitcoin bull and bear markets as it theoretically dries up supply, thus causing a natural increase in price. Breaking above $500 would mark a fairly substantial and historic moment for Bitcoin Cash, which has failed to trade above that level since November 2018. Key price targets fn a breakout comes into fruition would be at $560 and $644 with another level at $855. Pricing Current live BCH pricing information and interactive charts are available on our site 24 hours a day. The ticker bar at the bottom of every page on our site has the latest BCH price. Pricing is also available in a range of different currency equivalents: US Dollar – BCHtoUSD British Pound Sterling – BCHtoGBP Japanese Yen – BCHtoJPY Euro – BCHtoEUR Australian Dollar – BCHtoAUD Russian Rouble – BCHtoRUB Bitcoin – BCHtoBTC About Bitcoin Cash Bitcoin Cash was born out of the idea of making Bitcoin more practical for small, day-to-day payments. In May 2017, Bitcoin payments took about four days unless a fee was paid, which was proportionately too large for small transactions. A change to the code was implemented and Bitcoin Cash was born on 1st August 2017. Story continues More Bitcoin Cash news and information If you want to find out more information about Bitcoin Cash or cryptocurrencies in general, then use the search box at the top of this page. Here’s an article to get you started: Roger Ver to launch crypto exchange on Bitcoin.com By Oliver Knight – February 18, 2020 As with any investment, it pays to do some homework before you part with your money. The prices of cryptocurrencies are volatile and go up and down quickly. This page is not recommending a particular currency or whether you should invest or not. You may be interested in our range of cryptocurrency guides along with the latest cryptocurrency news . The post Latest Bitcoin Cash price and analysis (BCH to USD) appeared first on Coin Rivet .
[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
None available.
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Trend: up || Prices: 5238.44, 6191.19, 6198.78, 6185.07, 5830.25, 6416.31, 6734.80, 6681.06, 6716.44, 6469.80
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Analyze the provided historical prices, technical indicators, news, and social media sentiment from the last 60 days. Based on this context, predict the overall trend (up, down, or no change) and the specific daily closing prices for Bitcoin for the next 10 days.
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[Technical Analysis for 2019-11-29]
BTC Price: 7761.24, BTC RSI: 43.73
Gold Price: 1465.60, Gold RSI: 46.06
Oil Price: 55.17, Oil RSI: 43.77
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
Litecoin proposes privacy upgrade designed with Bitcoin in mind: Litecoin has revealed its draft plans for a privacy upgrade, using techniques that were originally developed for Bitcoin . The proposal would allow users to access opt-in privacy by conducting MimbleWimble (MW) transactions on an Extension Blocks (EB) style side-chain. Litecoin founder Charlie Lee originally announced plans to explore privacy technologies earlier this year , noting that “now that the scaling debate is behind us [for Bitcoin and Litecoin], the next battleground will be on fungibility and privacy.” Now that a draft Litecoin Improvement Proposal (LIP) has been published, the project is now looking to gauge community reaction before looking to write, test and audit new code. What are Extension Blocks and MimbleWimble? Both the proposed technologies to upgrade Litecoin were originally developed for the Bitcoin blockchain. Extension Blocks (EB) were originally proposed by Johnson Lau in 2013 as a soft fork scaling solution for Bitcoin that could enable better fungibility whilst minimizing the potential impact on the existing wallet ecosystem. It was eventually rejected in favor of the SegWit scalability upgrade for Bitcoin. MimbleWimble (MW) transactions, proposed in a July 2016 white paper by an anonymous developer using the moniker “Tom Elvis Jedusor,” obfuscate transactions by enabling the recipient to randomly select a range of blinding factors (random values used to encrypt amounts of bitcoin in a transaction) provided by the sender. Since the appearance of the white paper, MimbleWimble has been implemented in the Grin and Beam cryptocurrencies. What does Litecoin’s proposal entail? The Litecoin proposal “introduces opt-in MimbleWimble (MW) as a new transaction format through extension blocks (EB)”. The team has said that “Extension blocks run alongside main chain canonical blocks at the same interval of 2.5 minutes.” The actual functionality to deploy private transactions occurs “inside the EB” where users can use “MW by moving their coins in and out of the EB through an integrating transaction.” Story continues That sounds complicated, but by offloading the private part of the transaction to the EB side-chain, it means the upgrade can be carried out with a backward-compatible soft-fork upgrade. That means there’s no risk of the upgrade leading to a “hard-fork” that could potentially result in two versions of Litecoin. What is Litecoin (LTC) ? The Litecoin Foundation has proposed a one-year activation time-frame after code is released—but the activation could come sooner if 75% of the mining hash rate signals support for the change. Given that the proposal has just been announced, it’s likely that any privacy changes won’t go live on the Litecoin blockchain till next year. What are the risks for Litecoin? The proposal isn’t without its challenges. Extension blocks haven’t been implemented on a live blockchain before. “It will take a lot of time, care, and auditing to make sure it is up to snuff,” volunteer Litecoin researcher and technical writer Andrew Yang told Decrypt . “If not, coins can be lost or total supply inflated.” Apart from just technical concerns, Yang is looking to gauge the reaction from government regulators, bankers, and exchanges. “In the past few months, we saw Coinbase delist privacy marketed/focused coins like Zcash and Dash; we saw similar things with OKEx ,” he said. “Opt-in MW will put Litecoin on the same page.” That, Yang said, could put Litecoin’s liquidity at risk. However, the upgrade has the potential to make an impact beyond Litecoin. Blockchain developers are increasingly shifting their focus from scaling solutions to privacy measures. And with Litecoin regarded as the “silver to Bitcoin’s gold”, Yang sees its privacy upgrade as a testbed for Bitcoin: “I'd love to see something like this on Bitcoin,” he told Decrypt . “Whether or not something like this gets implemented on Bitcoin will depend on the community—but it will provide a proof of concept and case study which I hope will be valuable.” || Bitcoin Hovers Near Price Support as Long-Term Bear Cross Looms: • BTC is on the defensive and may face selling pressure in the run up to the bearish crossover of the 100- and 200-day averages.
• Prices will likely breach the 50-day average support near $8,550 and extend losses toward $8,000 in the short term.
• Confirmation of the bear cross may mark an interim bottom in BTC, according to historical data.
• A high-volume move above a three-month descending trendline, currently at $9,200, is needed to revive the bullish view.
Bitcoin risks falling below key support near $8,550, with a widely followed bitcoin price indicator teasing its first bearish turn in over a year.
The top cryptocurrency by market value is currently trading at $8,610 on Bitstamp, having bounced up from the 50-day moving average (MA) support at $8,543 earlier today.
The 50-day MA has been restricting downside since Nov. 8, but may be breached soon, courtesy of a looming bearish crossover between major price averages.
Related:CME Says It Will Launch Bitcoin Options in January
Bitcoin’s 100-day MA (now at $9,436) is now beginning to trend south and looks set to cross below the 200-day MA (at $9,290) in the next couple of days. That would confirm a bearish crossover – the first of these MAs since April 17, 2018.
Seasoned traders would argue that MA crossovers are based on past data and are lagging indicators. While that’s true, BTC is already on the defensive, having repeatedly failed to break above a 3.5-month bearish trendline in the last three weeks.
The cryptocurrency has also found acceptance below the 200-day MA – a barometer of long-term trend. As such, the impending bear cross will likely bolster the bearish sentiment and give prices another nudge down.
The cryptocurrency has pulled back from $9,300 to $8,600 in the last few days, validating the bearish view put forward by the multiple rejections at the trendline connecting June and August highs.
Related:Alibaba Offers Bitcoin Rewards Through Lolli Shopping App for ‘Singles Day’
The relative strength index is hovering below 50, indicating a bearish bias, while the MACD histogram is producing deeper bars below the zero line – also a sign of strengthening downside momentum.
So, the 50-day MA support at $8,543 could be breached ahead of the bear cross. Below that level, the next major support is seen at $8,000.
The bearish case would weaken if there is a strong bounce from the 50-day MA, but that seems a tall order right now. A high-volume UTC close above the descending trendline hurdle at $9,200 is needed for bullish reversal.
Note that confirmation of the bear cross, however, could mark an interim bottom in BTC, as has been seen historically.
BTC sell-off ran out of steam near $275 two days ahead of a bear cross confirmation on Oct. 7, 2014, following which prices jumped to levels above $400 by mid-October, according to Bitstamp data. Another bear cross on April 29 the same year was followed by consolidation in the range of $420-$450 and a rally to $680 by early June.
And in 2018, prices rallied from $7,900 to levels near $10,000 in the 2.5 weeks following the bear cross in mid-April.
Back then, BTC was better bid in the days leading up to the crossover with prices rising from $6,500 to $8,500. In such situations, looming bearish crossovers barely receive any market attention.
Disclosure: The author holds no cryptocurrency assets at the time of writing.
Bitcoinimage via Shutterstock; charts byTrading View
• Bitcoin Price Faces Drop to $8.5K After Consecutive Weekly Losses
• Why Bitcoin’s Next ‘Halving’ May Not Pump the Price Like Last Time || Bitcoin drops below $6,800, hitting a six-month low: Bitcoin prices fell sharply this morning from $7,700 to below $6,800an almost 12% drop hitting a six-month low. Data from Rekto shows that derivatives exchange BitMEX saw more than $388 million worth of XBT Perpetual Swap contracts liquidated over the past 24 hours, which means that the exchange system has automatically closed a large number of bitcoin levered positions. By publication time, Bitcoin prices have clawed their way back above $7,000. According to a market brief provided to The Block by QCO, a crypto trading firm based in Singapore, BiMEX Open Interest (OI) has dropped below $700 million following rapid liquidationsan indicator of positioning extremes. The exchange is likely to observe a negative funding rate while futures remain in contango, the brief says. Although it is possible for Bitcoin to approach the $6,000 level by year-end, the brief adds, right now it is more bullish than bearish. QCP also believes that Chinese retail traders will likely buy on dips if Bitcoins prices fell below $7,000. || Bitcoin-powered RSK Announces New Increased Merged Mining Rewards Program: The project that brought Smart Contracts to Bitcoin is now the most profitable Bitcoin merged mining platform in the blockchain space. CHENGDU, CHINA / ACCESSWIRE / October 12, 2019 / RSK, the Bitcoin-backed smart contracts platform, has announced that it has launched an incentives program that significantly increases mining rewards, paid in RBTC, RSK's native token. The network has increased mining rewards by over 1,000 percent compared to the current rewards. The rewards program was announced today at the Global Mining Leaders Summit in Chengdu, China, and has made RSK the most profitable merged mining platform on Bitcoin. The program has been running since September 1, with an analysis for the period of September 1 to September 5 showing a 1000% increase in rewards per block. Rewards payout since the launch date has surpassed all other Bitcoin merged-mining platforms, totaling $48,788 in the first month, distributed across three mining pools. All miners on the RSK network are now eligible for reward under the new program. This means that throughout October, at least $50k in compensation is available to miners who participate in merged-mining on the RSK network. Three of the top Bitcoin mining pools already allow merged-mining with RSK. Pools interested in introducing RBTC merged-mining to their operations can visit mining.rsk.co for more information. Under the old merged-mining rewards rate, RSK has already been able to reach up to 45 percent of Bitcoin's hash rate. This achievement makes it the most secure and stable smart contract platform in the world. Now, by offering increased mining rewards, RSK will be able to attract even more miners to merged-mining RBTC, further enhancing network security and the scalability, functionality, and interoperability of the entire Bitcoin ecosystem. The rewards-per-block increase comes just after IOV Labs announced its acquisition of the Latin America's largest social network, Taringa, and its plans to integrate RSK and RIF blockchain infrastructure to serve the 30 million users on the network. Story continues The MinerSummit event, in which the new mining incentives program was announced, is an exclusive cryptocurrency mining conference aimed at bringing together the global leaders who are shaping the crypto mining industry today. Attendance is limited to 300 invited guests, which includes representatives from some of the top companies in the mining space. Adrian Eidelman, CTO at RSK Labs, commented: Bringing enough rewards to miners and pools is crucial for RSK goal of becoming the most secure smart contracts platform. As we drive adoption and increase the volume of transactions in the network, we want to be sure incentives are already enough to make it attractive for miners and pools to integrate RSK. Having reached up to 45% of Bitcoin's total hashing power, we continue working to increase this number even more in the near future. The incentives program is the next step towards fostering a closer collaboration with the mining industry and building out a full DeFi ecosystem on Bitcoin." About IOV Labs IOV Labs is a purpose driven organization focused on developing the platforms needed for a new blockchain-based financial system that will enable worldwide financial inclusion and bridge the gap between these nascent technologies and mass adoption. The organization currently develops the most popular implementations of the RSK Smart Contract Network and RIF OS platforms . RSK Network is the most secure Smart Contract platform in the world, as it relies on Bitcoin's hash power. RIF OS protocols, are a suite of open and decentralized infrastructure protocols that enable faster, easier and scalable development of distributed applications (dApps) within a unified environment to enable mass adoption of Bitcoin and RSK. For press inquiries contact: press@iovlabs.org SOURCE : IOV Labs View source version on accesswire.com: https://www.accesswire.com/562921/Bitcoin-powered-RSK-Announces-New-Increased-Merged-Mining-Rewards-Program || Asia Pacific Shares Mixed: Violence Pressures Hang Seng, Weak Data Drives Shanghai, Nikkei Lower, Aussie Stocks Rise on Rate Cut Hopes: The major Asia Pacific stock indexes finished mixed the week-ending November 15 with shares rising in South Korea and Australia, but losing ground in Hong Kong, Japan and China. U.S.-China trade relations dominated the news, but the price action was also influenced by escalating violence in Hong Kong and weak economic data in the region. Last week, in Japan, the Nikkei 225 Index settled at 23303.32, down 88.55 or -0.38%. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index closed at 26326.66, down 1324.48 or -4.79% and China’s Shanghai Index finished at 2891.34, down 72.84 or -2.46%. South Korea’s KOSPI Index settled at 2162.18, up 24.95 or +1.17% and Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 Index finished at 6793.70, up 69.60 or +1.04%. Hong Kong Violence Escalates Protests in Hong Kong drove the Hang Seng Index down 4.79% last week with a violent turn Monday, heightening an already volatile situation days after a group of pro-democracy lawmakers was arrested in the city. In one incident, a Hong Kong protester is in critical condition after being shot by police. In an unrelated incident, police said “rioters” poured “flammable liquid” on a man and set him on fire. The latest mass demonstrations come after three pro-democracy lawmakers were arrested on November 9 and reports indicated that other were warned they soon could be taken into custody. Japan’s Economy Grinds to Near Standstill The Nikkei was pressured by a report that showed growth in Japan’s economy ground to a near standstill in the third quarter, at its weakest in a year, as the U.S.-China trade war and soft global demand knocked exports and kept pressure on policymakers to ramp up stimulus in order to bolster a fragile recovery, according to the Japan Times. Private consumption also cooled from the previous quarter, casting doubt on the Bank of Japan’s view that robust domestic demand will offset the impact from intensifying global risks. Story continues In the third quarter the world’s third-largest economy grew an annualized 0.2 percent, slowing sharply from a revised 1.8 percent expansion in April to June, according to preliminary gross domestic product data released by the government Thursday. It fell well short of a median market forecast for a 0.8 percent gain, and marked the weakest growth since a 2.0 percent contradiction in the July-September period last year. China’s Economy Weakens as October Indicators Miss Forecasts China’s industrial output grew significantly slower than expected in October, as weakness in global and domestic demand and the drawn-out Sino-U.S. trade war weighed on activity in the world’s largest economy. Industrial production rose 4.7% year-on-year in October, data from the National Bureau of Statistics released on November 14 showed, below the median forecast of 5.4% growth in a Reuters poll. Indicators showed other sectors also slowing significantly and missing forecasts with retail sales growth back near a 16-year trough and fixed asset investment growth the weakest on record. Other data showed China’s property investment growth in the first 10-months of 2019 slowing year-on-year. Fixed asset investment, a key driver of economic growth, grew 5.2% from January-October, against expected growth of 5.4%. The January-October growth was the lowest since Reuters records began in 1996. Private sector fixed-asset investment, which accounts for 60% of the country’s total investment, grew 4.4% in January-October. Retail sales rose 7.2% year-on-year in October, missing expected growth of 7.9% and matching the more than 16 year low hit in April. Aussie Shares Rise Shares in Australia were unpinned last week after disappointing October jobs data raised the chances of another rate cut by the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) in the coming months. The surprise report caused the Australian Dollar to fall 0.6 percent, while the Australian 10-year bond dipped 9 basis points to 1.179 percent. The fall in yields pushed investors into bond proxies and high-growth stocks, with technology companies among the market’s best performers. Australian shares were pulled higher throughout the week while the major U.S. stock indexes hovered near record highs. The gold mining sector also provided some support as investors sought the safe-haven allure of the precious metal amid uncertainty about a Sino-U.S. trade resolution. This article was originally posted on FX Empire More From FXEMPIRE: U.S Mortgage Rates Rise as Sentiment towards the Economy Improves E-mini NASDAQ-100 Index (NQ) Futures Technical Analysis – Posts Record High Close; Trend Changes to Down on Trade Through 8216.25 Bitcoin Cash – ABC, Litecoin and Ripple Daily Analysis – 17/11/19 European Equities: A Week in Review – 15/11/19 Gold Price Prediction – Prices Slip Despite Declining Greenback Bitcoin Cash – ABC, Litecoin and Ripple Daily Analysis – 16/11/19 || China Crypto Crackdown Elicits Binance, Tron Weibo Appeal: (Bloomberg) -- Crypto giants Binance Holdings Ltd. and Tron have been banned on China’s largest micro-blogging service amid what appears to be fresh steps to crack down on digital currency trading.
The official accounts of exchange operator Binance and blockchain platform Tron were suspended by Twitter-like Weibo last week. At the same time watchdogs in Shanghai issued notices calling for a cleanup of companies involved in cryptocurrency trading, while one in Beijing warned against illegal exchange operations.
The latest crackdown came after President Xi Jinping urged faster development of blockchain last month, hailing it as one of the core technologies requiring China-led innovations. Xi’s remarks spurred companies to jump on the blockchain bandwagon to drive share prices. State media have warned against the frenzy.
The Shanghai headquarters of China’s central bank and the city’s financial regulator said in a notice they co-signed on Nov. 14 that local government agencies should work with any companies under their supervision that are tied to cryptocurrency to exit such business immediately, Bloomberg News has reported.
A Binance spokeswoman said Monday that Weibo suspended the exchange’s account last Wednesday, before the notice was issued, adding that the social media platform didn’t give a reason. Binance is appealing the decision, she said. Tron founder Justin Sun told Bloomberg on Monday that he doesn’t think the Weibo account shutdown is related to the government notice. Tron is working to restore the account.
Weibo didn’t respond to requests for comment.
In the notice, the Shanghai regulators cited an order from China’s top internet-finance watchdog, which they said is concerned about the resurgence of speculative bubbles after the recent promotion of the blockchain technology that underpins cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin.
A representative with the Shanghai branch of the People’s Bank of China confirmed the authenticity of the notice, which has been circulating online, but referred to the city’s financial-stability office for comment. Calls to that office went unanswered.
A separate announcement, published on the website of Beijing’s financial regulator on the same day, warned against the risks of illegal operations of financial-asset exchanges in the capital -- but didn’t cite crypto specifically.
Bitcoin fell 0.3% on Tuesday to $8,191 as of 8:08 a.m. Hong Kong time, dropping a fifth straight day amid concern about China’s restrictions.
Read more: From Pigs to Party Fealty, China Harnesses Blockchain Power
While China is an avid supporter of blockchain -- the central bank is working on its own digital currency -- authorities have waged a two-year campaign to restrain crypto activities amid concerns like speculation, fraud and capital flight. In 2017, China ordered an end to exchange trading of digital currencies, but trades are still rampant through alternatives like over-the-counter channels offered by exchanges Huobi and OKEx. Malta-based Binance also recently started to host OTC yuan trading.
“We want to follow the recommendations very closely, and we want to promote the blockchain research and development,” Binance Founder and Chief Executive Officer “CZ” Zhao Changpeng told Bloomberg Television last week about its China strategy. “We just want to help where we can.”
Zhao said Binance doesn’t have an office in Beijing, following a recent report from industry publication CoinDesk that it’s planning to open one that cited two unnamed sources. The Binance spokeswoman said Monday that the exchange doesn’t have fixed operations in mainland China at the moment.
As for Tron, its controversial Chinese founder apologized in July for “excessively” promoting his charity lunch with Warren Buffett, noting it raised concerns among authorities. The lunch that Sun had won with a more than $4.6 million bid at auction was delayed and still appears not to have been rescheduled.
(Updates Bitcoin level in 10th paragraph.)
--With assistance from Joanna Ossinger.
To contact the reporter on this story: Zheping Huang in Hong Kong at zhuang245@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Joanna Ossinger at jossinger@bloomberg.net, Colum Murphy, Dave Liedtka
For more articles like this, please visit us atbloomberg.com
©2019 Bloomberg L.P. || Top 10 altcoins in 2019: Most crypto investors and enthusiasts are always looking for the best opportunity to scoop some altcoins. However, while it may be tempting to value altcoins versus the US Dollar, such a metric may lead to bad outcomes. In this piece I will look into the top altcoins and how they’re performing versus Bitcoin. Hopefully, at the end, it will be clear if now is a good time to purchase additional units, given each altcoin price vs BTC. Looking into Bitcoin dominance BTC dominance vs altcoins, courtesy of Trading View First things first. As I did mention last week , it’s important to focus on the overall state of the altcoin market. Hence, a key metric to look into, at either Coinmarketcap, Messari or Trading View, is the total Bitcoin dominance (BTC.D). Since early 2018, when Bitcoin’s dominance was on the low of around 33%, the world’s leading cryptocurrency has slowly begun to regain its due credit, as investors and traders flee the altcoin market on the burst of the ICO bubble. After the turmoil that remained throughout 2018 and the altcoin bloodshed of the current year, it seems Bitcoin investors may be looking into diversifying with riskier assets. Looking above, dominance shifted after the high during early September, when BTC.D touched 73%, to around 68%, where it sits now. Looking at the macro trend, it seems BTC.D has a tendency to grow exponentially fast and then spill over altcoins. If the trend continues, I argue altcoins are in for a treat. We could expect BTC dominance to eventually touch the support line (pink), perhaps after the halving event happening sometime in May 2020. This means some altcoins could have a serious pump. Which ones though? Current top contenders Top-10 altcoins vs BTC, courtesy of Messari.io Looking at the real top-10 list of altcoins, when measured versus Bitcoin, there seem to be some interesting surprises. I will ignore the coins I’ve discussed last week, such as ChainLink, Stellar and Binance coin. On this piece I will mainly focus on the rest of the pack. Story continues The first, and most obvious, is Ethereum. Looking above, it’s the most liquid after Bitcoin and has been out-performing the BTC over the last three months. However, ETH is still quite below it’s all-time-high (ATM), both in BTC and USD. Looking at the past year alone, ETH has underperformed BTC at some 30%. Moreover, in dollar terms, ETH is still 80% below its ATM. Ripple’s XRP has mostly suffered the same fate. It is down close to 50% since last year in Bitcoin terms and over 90% in dollar terms since its ATM, in early 2018. XRP has been recovering and, during the past three months, it went up more than 30% in BTC terms. Quite a nice recovery for the cryptocurrency. Bitcoin Cash, the project led by Roger Ver – an awesome guy I was able to talk to early this year – has been the worst performer of the pack. Even though it has been having loads of new commits, BCH hasn’t been able to push higher. It’s still sitting 60% below since last year in BTC terms and hasn’t been improving recently. Finally, both Litecoin (LTC) and EOS have been making shy attempts at pushing higher. While LTC is still down more than 20% since last year’s highs, EOS is above 55%. After the LTC halving event, which took place a month ago, the coin saw a huge pump followed by a massive dump. EOS has also been facing some issues with block producers, which may explain some of the recent price-action. Will altcoins ever pump? Even though it is impossible to see the future, if history has taught us anything, it is that present moments have a tendency to rhyme with the past. With new, fresh cash coming into the market, let it be due to DeFi, IEOs, STOs, or whatever new trend may happen, what I expect is a selected number of altcoins to massively pump, as they get adopted by new investors and traders. Surely history does not repeat itself, but since altcoins are a thing, they’ve pumped massively on every Bitcoin bull-run. Why wouldn’t the same happen again? Beats me. Hence, my stance is that some level of portfolio diversification may be the smart thing to do, in order to increase potential gains. Of course, with additional reward comes additional risk. Never forget, altcoins are not the king. On the best case scenario, most crypto enthusiasts will surf the altcoin trend in order to maximize Bitcoin gains. Safe trades! The post Top 10 altcoins in 2019 appeared first on Coin Rivet . || AUD/USD and NZD/USD Fundamental Weekly Forecast Trade Deal Optimism Likely to Underpin Aussie, Kiwi: Three-factors contributed to the mixed performances in the Australian and New Zealand Dollars last week U.S.-China trade relations, an unexpected central bank decision and a surprisingly weak economic report. Mixed headlines over the progress of the trade talks between the two economic powerhouses led to a choppy, two-sided trade with money leaving the Aussie and Kiwi for the safety of the Japanese Yen. An unforeseen policy decision by the Reserve Bank of New Zealand (RBNZ) triggered a short-covering rally, which spiked the Kiwi higher. Meanwhile, weak employment data drove up the chances of another rate cut by the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA), scorching the Aussie Dollar. Last week, the AUD/USD settled at .6821, down 0.0038 or -0.56% and the NZD/USD finished at .6402, up 0.0075 or +1.19%. Australian Dollar The Australian Dollar closed lower last week with most of the loss occurring on November 14 after the Australian 10-year government bond yield slumped to over a 1-week low after the countrys employment report for the month of October created a surprise disappointment among investors, as the jobless rate rose and the employment change slumped. The 19,000 drop in employment in October was the largest decline in three years and well-below the Bloomberg median forecast of a rise of 15,000. Annual employment growth eased from 2.5 percent in September to 2.0 percent in October, the report added. Further, the unemployment rate bounced back from 5.2 percent to 5.3 percent and the only reason why it didnt rise even more was that the participation rate fell for the second consecutive month. Our view is that the participation rate is more likely to rise in coming months adding further upward pressure on the unemployment rate, Capital Economics further noted in the report. The news has rekindled expectations the RBA will have to cut official rates. This drove the Australian Dollar sharply lower. Traders are expecting a rate cut in February 2020, but some may try to build a case for a December cut. Story continues New Zealand Dollar The New Zealand Dollar finished the week sharply higher after wholesale interest rates spiked after the Reserve Bank left its official cash rate (OCR) unchanged at 1 percent. Market expectations were weighted towards a rate cut at todays monetary policy statement. Analysts described the RBNZs decision as a surprise with several indicating the central banks new growth outlook still appears too rosy. The financial markets are now pricing in a February or May rate cut. To some, the market reaction showed the positioning ahead of the policy announcement was clearly the wrong way. The RBNZ, in its statement, said further monetary stimulus would be added if needed. It said employment remained around its maximum sustainable level while inflation remained below the 2 percent target midpoint but within its target range. Economic developments since the August statement do not warrant a change to the already stimulatory monetary setting at this time, it said. Weekly Forecast The key economic reports this week are the RBA Monetary Policy Meeting Minutes on Tuesday and Fridays ISM US Flash Manufacturing PMI report. However, most of the focus this week will be on the progress of the U.S.-China trade talks after last week ended on an optimistic note with high ranking U.S. officials pushing all the positive news buttons. White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow said on Thursday that negotiations over the first phase of a trade agreement with China were coming down to the final stages, with the two sides in daily contact. U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said in an interview on Fox Business Network Friday that there was a very high probability the United States would reach a final agreement on a phase one trade deal with China. Furthermore, there was a potentially bullish development over the week-end. According to Chinese state media, Chinese Vice Premier Liu He spoke with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer about a phase-one trade deal in a phone call Saturday morning. The two sides had constructive discussions about each others core concerns and agreed to remain in close contact, Xinhua reported. The call came at the request of Mnuchin and Lighthizer, according to Xinhua. Nonetheless, there are still skeptics out there. To be blunt, such rhetoric is more or less the same as Steven Mnuchin (who) said months ago that a deal was 99% done, Commerzbank analysts wrote in a note to clients, though they acknowledged the comments had benefited sentiment. Aussie and Kiwi traders are going to continue to make adjustments to their positions in reaction to the chances of further rate cuts by the RBA and RBNZ, respectively. However, most eyes will be on the progress of the trade talks that could make bearish traders forget about the problems in the Australian and New Zealand economies, at least over the short-run. This article was originally posted on FX Empire More From FXEMPIRE: Natural Gas Price Fundamental Weekly Forecast Cautious Trade Ahead as Week Expected to Start with Mixed Weather Risks Price of Gold Fundamental Weekly Forecast Prepare for Trade Deal Related Volatility
Whether On or Off E-mini Dow Jones Industrial Average (YM) Futures Technical Analysis Uptrending Gann Angle at 27687 Guiding Market Higher Bitcoin Cash ABC, Litecoin and Ripple Daily Analysis 16/11/19 Yen Rises on Safe-Haven Buying, Surprises Drive Kiwi Higher, Aussie Lower USD/JPY Fundamental Weekly Forecast Unless US-China Officials are Lying, the Week Begins with Cautiously Bullish Tone || Binance Futures’ Bitcoin trading volumes hit a record high: Number one spot cryptocurrency exchange Binance has seen its futures trading business rocket as of late, with 24-hour trading volume hitting a high of $820m on 15 October. Trading volume has since settled to around $700 million—the same level that occurs on Binance’s highly successful spot trading exchange.
Since thelaunchof Binance futures’ bitcoin derivatives market in September, 24-hour tradingvolumehad mostly settled in the $250-$500 million range. However, since the futures exchange hit a recent volume low of $300 million on 13 October, daily trading volumes have more than doubled in the last 3 days to hit a high of over $800 million.
Futures trading is classified as a type of derivatives market. Unlike spot markets—where the settlement happens immediately—in futures trading, the market only needs to be settled dependent on the specific market’s settlement date. This settlement delay means that high leverage is commonplace for futures trading exchanges.
At the momentBinance Futuresoffers traders up to 20x leverage, with rivals such asBitMEXoffering up to 100x. Spot markets most often have no or very low leverage. The pick up in Binance futures trading could indicate that crypto-traders are increasingly interested in speculating (with high leverage) in cryptocurrency investments.
Interestingly, Binance’s other futures market,Binance JEX, is faring less well. The sister venture, which started trading five days after Binance Futures, splits its US-dollar denominated trading pairs between Bitcoin (52%), Ethereum (20%) and EOS (28%). Binance JEX also kicked off trading with around $300 million worth of 24-hourvolume, but has seen a steady decline in interest, with daily volumes currently at $160 million, and seemingly trending lower.
According to data fromCoinGecko, Binance Futures currently ranks at fifth place in the overall crypto futures trading market, in terms of its daily trading volumes. Ahead of Binance isBybit($710 million) and the three futures heavyweights ofHuobi($1.6 billion), BitMEX ($2 billion) and finallyOKEx($2.8 billion). || How to make money with Bitcoin: With Bitcoin dominating the headlines for the past few years, it’s no surprise that lots of people are keen to find out how they can make money from the world’s largest cryptocurrency. Thanks to the coin’s growing popularity, there are now a whole host of ways to make money with Bitcoin. The method you choose will depend on a range of factors like your technical knowledge, investment experience, how much risk you’re willing to take, and how quickly you want to see rewards. Bitcoin mining The most obvious way to make money with Bitcoin is through Bitcoin mining – the process by which new coins are created and transaction information is verified. Mining is performed by high-powered computers which solve complex mathematical problems. Miners are rewarded Bitcoin whenever they add a new block of transactions to the blockchain. In the early days of Bitcoin, it was possible to make a decent amount of money with limited expenditure. Over time, however, mining Bitcoin has become a lot harder and more competitive. More processing power is required, which means miners need specialised equipment and must fork out a lot of money on electricity. For those who can’t afford a large mining rig, the only feasible way to make money through Bitcoin mining is to join a mining pool and combine your processing power with other miners. Investing in Bitcoin You can invest in Bitcoin by buying and holding the cryptocurrency in the hopes it will increase in value over time. Bitcoin is extremely volatile and high-risk, so investing is only recommended for people who have a good level of knowledge and can afford to lose their investment. You also need to be patient, as it could take a very long time for your Bitcoin to grow in value. If you do want to invest in Bitcoin, it’s important to store your crypto in a digital wallet to keep it safe. Trading Bitcoin Trading Bitcoin is even riskier than investing in Bitcoin, but if you’re successful, it can be very lucrative. The idea is to buy Bitcoin at a low price and sell it soon after at a higher price, thereby banking the profits. Story continues Trading is only suitable for people who have experience and knowledge of the market, but even then the risk of losing money is extremely high. Some people choose to run a Bitcoin trading bot, such as 3Commas. A trading bot has a set of parameters and indicators which when met will cause the bot to sell or buy on the exchange you prefer. Bots are efficient because they minimise human error, eliminate decisions based on emotion, and calculate formulae much faster than people can. However, they can be expensive and aren’t really designed for novice traders. Another option to consider is contracts for difference, where you buy a contract for Bitcoin without actually buying or storing the coin itself. Bitcoin lending It is possible to get high returns from Bitcoin lending, although again it carries a very high level of risk. By using a website such as Unchained Capital, Bitbond, or BTCpop, you can lend your Bitcoin to another person at an interest rate of up to 15%. The main risk is that the borrower doesn’t pay you back, meaning you’ll have lost the entire loan amount. Micro jobs and Bitcoin faucets Some websites enable you to carry out small tasks in return for small amounts of Bitcoin. The tasks could include retweeting a post, testing a plugin, or watching a YouTube video. Websites to check out include Coinworker, Microworkers, Bitcoinget, and Cointasker. Similarly, a Bitcoin faucet website dispenses small rewards for visitors to claim in exchange for completing a captcha or other task described by the website. There are also paid-to-click websites which pay Bitcoin if you visit particular websites or view certain ads. These methods are simple, low-risk ways to earn Bitcoin, although the amount of money you can get is pretty negligible. Run a signature campaign Bitcointalk, one of the oldest Bitcoin forums originally set up by Satoshi Nakamoto, enables you to get paid by sponsors for posts you make on the forum. You need to post consistently and achieve minimum word limits to get a decent level of payment. Get tipped You can get tipped in Bitcoin by helping other people through platforms such as bitfortip. You can assist with a range of problems like finding a certain pair of shoes or identifying a song in a film. Conclusion Whether you’re new to the cryptocurrency market or an experienced trader, there are numerous ways you can make money with Bitcoin. Just make sure you assess the risks and level of knowledge required before you take the plunge. The post How to make money with Bitcoin appeared first on Coin Rivet .
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Trend: down || Prices: 7569.63, 7424.29, 7321.99, 7320.15, 7252.03, 7448.31, 7547.00, 7556.24, 7564.35, 7400.90
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Analyze the provided historical prices, technical indicators, news, and social media sentiment from the last 60 days. Based on this context, predict the overall trend (up, down, or no change) and the specific daily closing prices for Bitcoin for the next 10 days.
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[Technical Analysis]
Not fully available.
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
Costas Inc. Is Pleased to Present Its Position on the Financial Technology Space: NEW YORK, NY--(Marketwired - Jul 6, 2015) - Costas Inc. ( OTC PINK : CSSI ) Costas Inc. (CSSI) or "Costas" has focused over the last year and invested heavily in Distributed Asset Technology; "DAT" is the systemic foundation to what is now known as Digital Currency "DC". DC has taken the world by storm and created a new class of asset. Quite simply, the world economy has evolved from gold and silver as the only accepted form of payment to paper currency and now DC has started to weave itself into the fabric of our global economy. The public generally associates DC with the market's preferred digital coin, Bitcoin. Bitcoin and its peers, have fascinating properties that Costas strongly believes will accelerate the speed at which a store of value can move regionally and/or globally. Decentralized currency without borders is now a viable option for consumers. DC and the institutions that bridge the gap between merchants, consumers and investors stand to capitalize exponentially as investment floods into the space. There are very few opportunities in the realm of DC available to investors through public markets. Investment in the space, to most, is out of reach apart from purchasing DC coins. Costas intends to create a portfolio of diverse DC businesses under its umbrella. Costas will offer a unique opportunity to invest in a cross-section of companies in what The Company believes is the most exciting investment vehicle made available in decades. Costas will acquire companies in full, or a take a significant position in a variety of companies, then facilitate their growth. Costas is also open to creating businesses by putting capable people together, giving them an equity stake and capitalizing them. In the event that there is no pre-existing company with whom to partner, Costas would create its own company to fill that investment vacuum. We are actively searching for strong innovative leaders with an entrepreneurial spirit to either join our board of directors or to offer their services to targets we are looking to acquire and thereby incentivizing them to partner with Costas. Story continues Costas, through its relationships, has the ability to raise capital for the companies it chooses to acquire or create. The management at Costas has built relationships with investment groups that focus on funding, incubating and growing potential business ventures. This network spans the globe and truly has very few limits. We feel confident we can pair any opportunity with the appropriate funds and management, preparing them for their entry into any competitive market. Safe Harbor Act Notice: Statements contained herein that are not historical facts are forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended. Those statements include statements regarding the intent, belief or current expectations of the company and its management. Such statements reflect management's current views, are based on certain assumptions and involve risks and uncertainties. Actual results, events, or performance may differ materially from the above forward-looking statements due to a number of important factors, and will be dependent upon a variety of factors, including, but not limited to, the company's ability to obtain additional financing and the demand for the company's products. Any investment in the company would be extremely speculative and involve a high degree of risk and should not be pursued unless the investor could afford to lose their entire investment. Before investing, please review this filing, all past public filings with the SEC, all current Pinksheets.com filings and consult a registered broker dealer or contact the financial industry regulatory authority ("FINRA") for more information regarding locating a qualified party to assist in making an investment decision. The company undertakes no obligation to publicly update these forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances that occur after the date hereof or to reflect any change in the company's expectations with regard to these forward-looking statements or the occurrence of unanticipated events. Factors that may impact the company's success are more fully disclosed in the company's most recent public filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Forward-looking statements are typically identified by the use of terms such as "anticipate," "believe," "could," "estimate," "expect," "intend," "may," "might," "plan," "predict," "project," "should," "will," and similar words, although some forward-looking statements are expressed differently. Although we believe that the expectations reflected in such forward-looking statements are reasonable, we can give no assurance that such expectations will prove to be correct. About Costas Inc. Costas Inc. is a publicly traded company focused on investing in and incubating promising digital currency-based businesses and entrepreneurs by providing access to a global infrastructure of financial and legal professionals and investment groups. Costas identifies "Fintech" emerging companies that, with some incubation and professional experience, will become the next standard in banking, commercial trading and lending. || Bitcoin May Not Go Mainstream, But Blockchain Will: The challenges associated with using a cryptocurrency have kept much of the public from rushing to adopt bitcoin. Issues related to trust and security have plagued the digital currency after several widely publicized scams painted bitcoin as a tool for criminal activity.
However, while the general population has been slow to adopt digital currencies themselves, blockchain, the system bitcoin runs on, could have a place in everyday life.
Blockchain In Banks
Banks have been receptive to the possibility that blockchain could vastly improve their outdated systems.UBS(OTC: OUBSF) has already jumped on board the concept by setting up a research lab in London that focuses on how blockchain can be used in banking.
Related Link:"Dope" Becomes The First Movie To Allow Bitcoin Ticket Sales
Now,Banco Santander, S.A. (ADR)(NYSE:SAN) is similarly exploring how blockchain could revamp its business with a research team called Crypto 2.0. The Spanish bank believes there is potential for using blockchain to do things like facilitate international payments and develop smart contracts.
Regulation Will Weigh Down Progress
Head of Santander's fintech investment fund InnoVentures, Mariano Belinky toldBusiness Insiderthat the bank could develop a working prototype system that would facilitate real-time international payments in a matter of months, but that it would likely take much longer to pass such a system through the financial sector's strict regulations. The bank says it would also need to partner with a few like-minded banks across the globe in order to make the new system viable, but has already been in talks with several other institutions about the possibility.
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• The Video Streaming Space Is Getting Crowded
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© 2015 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Block26 Leads Seed Round in Bitcoin Wallet Platform Airbitz With $450,000 Investment: LOS ANGELES, CA--(Marketwired - July 10, 2015) -Block26, the blockchain venture firm, today announced that it has invested $450,000 in Airbitz Inc., a digital wallet platform. Block26 joins Airbitz Board of Directors while leading a $1,250,000 seed round expected to close later this summer. The $450,000 infusion marks the first investment from Block26, led by Co-Founders Ni'coel Stark and Pedram Hasid, in the hot Bitcoin technology space. Airbitz was awarded first place at the 2015 Inside Bitcoin NYC startup competition and was named one of AlwaysOn OnFinance's 50 Companies to Watch in 2015.
Airbitz's decentralized and open source platform solves many of the current usability, security and privacy issues inherent in the current generation of bitcoin wallets. Airbitz is a remarkably easy-to-use and intelligently designed wallet that allows users to receive, store, or send funds with confidence. The digital wallet software is protected by ironclad and effortless security that prevents any third party from accessing user funds or data, including Airbitz itself, and features the world's first one-touch 2-factor authentication.
Available for iOS and Android, Airbitz automatically encrypts, secures and backs up user data without requiring complicated user prompts, and the decentralized server architecture ensures that Airbitz wallets are functional even if company servers are disabled. Altogether, Airbitz provides the familiar feel and functionality of mobile banking while implementing blockchain operations under the hood, reducing friction and making Bitcoin universally approachable and usable. Block26 understands that this same technology has the potential to disrupt arenas beyond digital currency.
Block26 Co-Founder and Managing Principal Ni'coel Stark said, "Block26 is making its first investment in Airbitz because not only is it the best digital wallet for consumers, it is far more than a wallet. Airbitz technology enables a multifaceted financial tool, an extraordinary implementation on edge security, and a whole new contribution to the Internet of Things. Block26 is excited to empower Airbitz solutions in revolutionizing transaction, authentication and security processes."
Airbitz is led by CEO and Co-Founder Paul Puey, a former Nvidia senior engineer and a prominent leader of Bitcoin advocacy in Southern California. The Airbitz leadership team includes CTO and Co-Founder Tim Horton, the former CTO of startup Breadcrumbs Inc.,; VP Design and Co-Founder Damian Cutillo, formerly Co-Founder at Breadcrumbs Inc.; Chief Architect and Co-Founder William Swanson, the core developer of Libbitcoin; and COO Rick "Henri" Chan, Co-Founder of AlphaPoint with 15 years experience at finance and technology firms including Robertson Stephens, Deutsche Bank and UBS Financial Services.
Airbitz CEO and Co-Founder Paul Puey said, "Airbitz is tremendously honored to have Block26 as our partner and lead investor. Their core focus on bitcoin, blockchain, and decentralized technologies is perfectly inline with the DNA of Airbitz founders. Block26 brings incredible experience in building highly tuned team dynamics and they see the value in people, companies, and industries that aren't afraid to disrupt the status quo. We look forward to building a decentralized world with their passion and support at our side."
Airbitz COO Rick "Henri" Chan added, "Block26 is more than an investor to Airbitz; they are an integral partner in our rapid development. We look forward to closely working with Block26 as partners in building a company that thrives as it grows. Block26's unique financial model allows for a flexible investment strategy that could provide Airbitz and other portfolio companies with early stage capital, with the capacity to provide bridge funding as well. For these reasons and many more, we greatly look forward to Block26 joining our Board."
For more information, visit Airbitz atwww.airbitz.coor Block26 atwww.block26.com. || Despite Warnings About A Grexit, Investors Remain Calm: With Greece and its EU creditors still trying to work out the details of an agreement to release the nation's bailout funds just days before Athens is due to make loan repayments, policymakers in other parts of the world are beginning to worry that aGreek exitfrom the eurozone is becoming a real possibility.
However, warnings from the U.S. and Canada have done little to upset investors, who appear to firmly believe that the two sides will reach a deal in the 11th hour.
Concern Abroad
On Wednesday, US Treasury Chief Jacob LewwarnedEU lawmakers that a Greek exit from the currency union would be devastating to global financial markets.
Lew appeared worried that European policy makers were complacent now that stability has returned to the region, and he cautioned that a crisis in Greece would almost certainly upset the balance in the region.
Related Link:Will Spain Become The Next Greece?
Canadian Finance Minister Joe Oliver reiterated Lew's remarks, saying that Greece may be small, but the ripple effect of a Greek crisis would be massive.
Lew and Oliver are heading to a Group of Seven meeting in Germany on Thursday, where Greek financial troubles will undoubtedly be a part of the discussion.
Investors Believe Resolution Is In Sight
Despite the tension surrounding Greek debt talks, investors have kept their calm. A Sentix survey of 1,000 investors showed that only 41 percent believe a Grexit is imminent.
That figure, though still high, marks a decline from the 49 percent who saw Greece leaving the euro in April. Although the debt talks have dragged on longer than anticipated, rhetoric from both sides suggest that there is a commitment to keeping Greece inside the eurozone, which has given investors confidence that the deal will be completed before Athens defaults.
Image Credit: Public Domain
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© 2015 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || What to Watch in the Week Ahead and on Monday, July 13: (The Day Ahead is an email and PDF publication that includes the day's major stories and events, analyses and other features. To receive The Day Ahead, Eikon users can register at . Thomson One users can register at RT/DAY/US. All times in ET/GMT)
WEEK AHEAD
The stock market this quarter doesn't get its usual one-week on-ramp to earnings season, instead getting hit with JPMorgan, Wells Fargo, Intel, Netflix, Google, General Electric Co and Honeywell, all in one week. Add in the political yelling that has become the semi-annual Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen's testimony and the ongoing craziness that is Greece's potential exit from the euro zone - to say nothing of China's turmoil - and it should be a lively week for markets, and one that will likely see a lot of volatility. Euro zone finance ministers may make a "major decision" when they hold a special meeting on Saturday to weigh a new Greek proposal for emergency funding. The ministers' conclusions will be reviewed by euro zone leaders at a summit called for on Sunday.
Fed Chair Janet Yellen delivers semi-annual testimony on monetary policy before the House Financial Services Committee in Washington on Wednesday and Thursday. The July hearing has more drama heading into it than the February testimonies. For one, Yellen starts this time with the House, where she ended last time, after trading some testy exchanges with Republican congressmen. This week's congressional appearance also comes as the Fed appears closer to raising interest rates for the first time since 2006. Yellen's appearance comes just a few weeks after the Fed's last Federal Open Market Committee meeting, and two weeks before its next one - so Yellen will be unlikely to drop too many policy hints and changes in this round or testimony, unless she wants to point the market harder to September lift-off.
Dow components Johnson & Johnson, General Electric Co, JP Morgan Chase & Co, Intel Corp, Goldman Sachs Group Inc and UnitedHealth Group Inc are scheduled to report quarterly results in the coming week. Johnson & Johnson is expected to report on Tuesday lower second-quarter sales and earnings as weak revenue from medical devices and consumer products and a stronger dollar more than offset the benefit of surging sales of its newer prescription medicines. The same day, JPMorgan Chase & Co releases second-quarter results. Separately, Goldman Sachs is expected to report lower second-quarter profit on Thursday. Intel Corp is expected to report second-quarter revenue and profit below analysts' expectations on Wednesday, according to Thomson Reuters StarMine. General Electric reports second-quarter earnings on Friday, with Wall Street eyeing updates on the U.S. conglomerate's desired portfolio moves as it seeks to become a more focused industrial company. UnitedHealth Group Inc will report second-quarter earnings on Thursday. The quarter is expected to be a strong one for UnitedHealth, whose technology and pharmacy management business has helped it report regular growth in quarterly operating profit.
Google Inc, the operator of the world's No. 1 Internet search engine, is scheduled to post second-quarter results on Thursday. The company is expected to report quarterly revenue slightly below analysts' estimates, according to Thomson Reuters StarMine data, hurt by the impact of a stronger dollar. Google, which generates about half of its revenue outside the United States, has also faced challenges in mobile advertising and it is investing heavily in new businesses.
Citigroup Inc reports second-quarter results on Thursday. The most international of banks based in the United States is expected to see quarterly profits rebound sharply from a year earlier, when net income was all but obliterated by high legal and restructuring costs. Separately, Wells Fargo & Co will also report second-quarter results on Tuesday. The bank's mortgage banking business is expected to do well during the quarter as more people buy new homes in an improving economy. On Wednesday, Bank of America Corp is expected to report an increase in its second-quarter profit. The bank's results from fixed-income trading are expected to lag those of competitors because it is more heavily weighted toward trading credit instruments such as corporate bonds and it handles relatively fewer interest rate-sensitive government securities, Chief Financial Officer Bruce Thompson warned investors in June.
The U.S. Labor Department releases its Consumer Price Index for June on Friday. The index is expected to have risen at a slower pace than in the previous month. Separately, the department will issue on Wednesday its June producer price index for final demand. On the same day, the Federal Reserve releases data for June industrial output, which is expected to have risen 0.2 percent after falling 0.2 percent in May. Meanwhile, the Commerce Department issues June retail sales data on Tuesday. Economists expect retail sales, which surged 1.2 percent in May, to have risen just 0.3 percent in June. On Friday, the University of Michigan's preliminary reading on its overall index on consumer sentiment for July is expected to come at 96.0 compared with a final reading of 96.1 for the previous month. Also, the Federal Reserve issues its so-called Beige Book on Wednesday.
Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City President Esther George speaks on economic conditions and monetary policy before the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City 2015 Agricultural Symposium in Kansas City, Missouri, on Tuesday. On Wednesday, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland President Loretta Mester speaks on the economic outlook and participates in live interview before the Columbus Metropolitan Club Forum in Columbus, Ohio. The same day, the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco President John Williams will speak on the economic outlook before the Mesa Chamber of Commerce in Mesa, Arizona and in another event, he will also give a brief summary on the economy before a Greater Phoenix Economic Council panel on economic trends in Phoenix, Arizona.
On Thursday, e-commerce company eBay Inc is expected to report second-quarter revenue below expectations, according to some analysts. Revenue from the company's marketplace business, which includes its e-commerce platform ebay.com, fell last quarter, hurt by increasing competition from rivals such as Amazon.com and changes in Google's search algorithms. Investors will be looking for signs of a turnaround at eBay's marketplace business. They will also look for any commentary from the company regarding post-spinoff valuation of the marketplace business.
Schlumberger Ltd, the world's No.1 oilfield services provider, is expected to report a fall in second-quarter profit on Thursday as lower oil prices weigh on global drilling activity. Schlumberger, which has cut 20,000 jobs this year, has swiftly controlled costs to maintain margins in a weak commodity market. With oil prices staying around $50 per barrel, a handful of optimistic shale producers are looking to deploy more rigs. Investors will also look for comments on pricing and expectations for industry spending in the second half of the year. Another topic of interest this quarter is the company's pending deal with Russia's Eurasia Drilling.
BlackRock Inc, the world's largest asset manager, will report second-quarter results on Wednesday. Investors will await Chief Executive Larry Fink's comments on the results, the markets, Greece and China, among other issues.
Charles Schwab Corp will report its second-quarter results on Thursday. Analysts expect the company's profit to rise to 24 cents per share from 23 cents a year earlier, helped by higher fees for advisory accounts and slightly higher trading commissions. But the big revenue bonus that Schwab expects from investing cash it will get in its clients account once rates rise remains evasive, amid signs that the Federal Reserve may again delay rate hikes.
Delta Air Lines Inc is expected to post second-quarter results in line with analysts' expectations on Wednesday. However, investors will want to know how the airline plans to respond to falling demand abroad due to a stronger dollar, a regulatory investigation into U.S. airlines' capacity plans and pilots' decision to reject management's proposal for a new contract.
Yum Brands reports second-quarter results on Tuesday. Yum's China business remains in the spotlight as it fights to recover from a food scandal in its biggest market for profit. Analysts say that the company is suffering from "brand fatigue" in China, where competition is mounting and its image has been hurt by food scares that have raised doubts over its supply chain. The KFC, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell chain owner said it expected another tough quarter before a recovery in China, but this recovery could be pushed further as consumers cut back on discretionary spending amid an economic slowdown and fears stemming from the sharp decline in the Chinese stock market over the past few weeks. Investors will be looking for outlook and commentary on the impact from recent developments in China. Profit and sales are expected to beat a generally low bar for second-quarter estimates, according to Thomson Reuters StarMine.
Netflix Inc, a TV and movie streaming service provider, is scheduled to post second-quarter results on Wednesday. The company is expected to report quarterly revenue above estimates, according to analysts, as it is expected to sign up more video streaming subscribers than previously expected. The cost of driving subscriber growth has been high as Netflix continues to invest heavily in international markets, but it is yet to see any profits from outside the United States.
Kinder Morgan Inc, the leading U.S. pipeline company, is expected to report a lower second-quarter profit on Wednesday, but the focus this quarter will be on the company's reorganization. Kinder Morgan shed its tax-advantaged master limited partnership structure last August by folding its units into one publicly traded corporation in a $70-billion deal. Investors will see if the new structure will help allay concerns about the company's growth prospects and complicated financial structure. The company has said the reorganization would help it grow its dividend by about 10 percent a year and clock bigger income tax savings.
Domino's Pizza Inc reports second-quarter results on Thursday. The second-largest U.S. pizza chain is expected to report revenue below the average analyst estimate, according to Thomson Reuters StarMine. Chief Executive Patrick Doyle has said the company would need to raise minimum wage to stay competitive following McDonald's announcement of wage hikes in April. Investors will look out for any related announcement and updates on commodity costs, which the company said are likely to come down after cheese prices soared last year.
On Thursday, chipmaker Advanced Micro Devices Inc is expected to report second-quarter earnings below the average analyst estimate, according to Thomson Reuters StarMine data. The company lowered its revenue estimate for the second quarter on Monday, citing weaker-than-expected demand for personal computers. All eyes will be on weak PC sales and whether the company can mitigate some of the impact with cost cuts.
Barbie doll and Fisher-Price toys maker Mattel Inc is expected to report on Thursday second-quarter revenue above the average analyst estimate, according to Thomson Reuters StarMine. The company will report its first quarter under new Chief Executive Christopher Sinclair, who took the top post in April. Sinclair has said Mattel needs to move urgently to create toys that connect with young customers in the face of flagging Barbie sales. Investors will look for announcements from Sinclair, a former Pepsi executive, on how he plans to turn around Mattel and make it more competitive, and any updates on the company's preparations for the holiday season.
Honeywell International Inc, a major manufacturer of aircraft electronics and climate control systems, is expected to report second-quarter results below analysts' expectations on Friday, according to Thomson Reuters StarMine. Honeywell said in April that it expected a stronger dollar to hurt revenue by 4-6 percent in the quarter ended June. Investors will be looking for updated comments on how Honeywell expects the dollar to affect business in the full year.
The initial public offering of the U.S. deep discount retailer Ollie's Bargain Outlet Holdings Inc is scheduled for Thursday. Ollie's Bargain operates 181 stores across the United States, selling excess inventory and salvage merchandise such as houseware, sporting goods and toys from manufacturers who make too much of an item or change their packaging. Ollie's net income rose 38 percent to $27 million in fiscal 2014, while revenue increased 18 percent to $638 million.
Bank of Canada announces its rate decision on Wednesday and Governor Stephen Poloz holds a news conference upon the release of the Monetary Policy Report. A series of weak economic data suggesting Canada may already be in recession has prompted a growing minority of economists to predict the central bank may cut rates again, possibly as soon as next week, a Reuters poll has found.
Chile's central bank meets on Tuesday to set the interest rate. The central bank is expected to keep its benchmark interest rate on hold at its current 3.0 percent through the following 11 months, scaling back expectations, according to the median response of 61 analysts and economists surveyed by the bank in a poll. Also, Argentina is due to release June consumer inflation data on Wednesday.
ON MONDAY, JULY 13
Treasury Department issues a monthly budget report for June. The department is expected to post a budget surplus of $51.0 billion in June compared with a $82.4 billion deficit reported in May. (1400/1800)
The United Auto Workers (UAW) union and General Motors Co hold the ceremonial handshake between union president Dennis Williams and company CEO Mary Barra to mark the start of labor negotiations for a new four-year contract for about 51,000 workers. The union has lost power but it can still upset GM's quest to keep labor costs low enough to compete with Japanese, Korean and German automakers with U.S. plants. UAW leaders will bargain with Fiat Chrysler Automobiles and Ford Motor Co later in the week.
LIVECHAT - BITCOIN BITES with Anatoliy Knyazev, managing partner, Exante With Greek worries contributing to Bitcoin's best run in 18 months and the crypto currency even touted as a possible parallel currency in the Hellenic Republic, has the controversial payment system's time come? We chat with Anatoliy Knyazev, managing partner at Malta-based brokerage Exante, which previously debuted the world's first Bitcoin-only fund. (0500/0900) To join the Global Markets Forum, click herehttp://bit.ly/1kTxdKD(Compiled by Nivedita Balu in Bengaluru; Editing by Kirti Pandey) || President of Bit-X Financial Corp. (OTCQB: BITXF) Talks About Pending Launch of Company's Bitcoin Exchange and How Bitcoin Is Gaining Recognition in Major Financial Circles: POINT ROBERTS, WA and NEW YORK, NY--(Marketwired - May 28, 2015) - Investorideas.com, a global news source covering leading sectors including Bitcoin and payment technology issues an exclusive interview with Mr. Brad Moynes, President of Bit-X Financial Corp. ( OTCQB : BITXF ). Brad shares insight on the history of his company, the pending launch of the company's Bitcoin exchange and recent developments in the Bitcoin sector that have legitimized Bitcoin in the financial community, making some predict that it may replace traditional currency in the future. As one of the few publicly traded companies in the space, Brad talks about the future of Bitcoin as a digital currency and how his company is posturing to be part of the evolution of currency. Interview: Q: investorideas.com Brad, can you start by giving us a brief history of your company and why you decided to participate in the Bitcoin market? A: Brad Moynes, President of Bit-X Financial After several years of evaluating various technology start-up opportunities, in 2012 I became aware of Bitcoin and the Blockchain. It was exactly what I wanted to get involved with; a new decentralized technology that combined finance, currency, trading and the ability to transfer a store of value (money) between end users instantly, with no intermediaries, at a very low cost. This was also a brand new segment of innovation that is positioned for massive growth, unlike other stagnant industry sectors like traditional banking. This seemed like a really good idea -- world changing potential -- and I became fascinated with the technology and its potential, whereby anyone could become their own bank. Q: investorideas.com For investors unfamiliar with the technology behind Bitcoin can you explain what Blockchain is and how significant it is? I have heard quotes that it is considered "as important of an opportunity as the creation of the Internet itself." A: Brad Moynes, President of Bit-X Financial The Blockchain (created 2009) is very powerful invention and could become as big as the internet itself. It is a public ledger of all Bitcoin transactions that have ever been executed. It is constantly growing as "completed" blocks are added to it with a new set of recordings. The blocks are added to the Blockchain in a linear, chronological order. Bitcoin is the financial application of the Blockchain and the most important. Story continues Q: investorideas.com The New York Stock Exchange launched a Bitcoin index last week. Nasdaq Stock Exchange, Goldman Sachs, Richard Branson and other big names in the financial markets are all getting on board with Bitcoin. What does that mean for a company like yours and the industry overall? A: Brad Moynes, President of Bit-X Financial Many of these large institutions including the Nasdaq, NYSE and Goldman provide awareness about Bitcoin to the masses. It validates the technology and says to the market, "pay attention, there is something special here." A start-up such as Bit-X Financial stands to gain tremendously from these endorsements and large-scale investments into the Bitcoin ecosystem, as it can lead to price increases in Bitcoin and overall consumer awareness. BITXF is a digital exchange whereby users can buy & sell Bitcoin and other crypto-currencies. Blue chip participants will become a catalyst for BITXF to launch successfully and become universally acceptable. Q: investorideas.com You are about to launch your Bitcoin exchange in June. What can users expect to see once it's live in terms of service features? A: Brad Moynes, President of Bit-X Financial Some of the service features of the proprietary trading and matching engine have been pioneered from the ground up, leveraging the skills of experienced developers with respected and long-standing careers working for low latency software development firms. It is designed to manage high volume, high throughput, and low latency trading and was modeled on the same LMAX pattern now also leveraged by the world's largest Investment Banks. This investment grade trading platform has a simple and user-friendly UI for users to buy and sell all major crypto currencies. It also features one consolidated shared order book for blended multi-currency settlement in addition to real time FX pricing and risk management. The order engine delivers pre-scan indicative pricing and users can choose to either fix the quantity of Bitcoins or fix the price paid for every order. Lock in a guaranteed execution or alternatively lock in the ultimate price you're prepared to pay for your order; the choice remains yours. And this all relies on an order engine that achieves low latency performance along with the reliability of an exchange that has been verified in supporting millions of daily transactions. At the start, our platform will offer trading in Bitcoin, Litecoin, Dogecoin, Stellar and Ripple. As we grow, we will earn listing fees to other crypto-assets who are seeking access to a trading platform and liquidity. Q: investorideas.com For any users concerned about security, how is your exchange addressing this issue? A: Brad Moynes, President of Bit-X Financial BITXF takes security very seriously. Security is the cornerstone of the platform which is the most secure on the market today. We provide a 3-level login verification that includes a 2-step process to login, 3 levels of verification for withdrawals. This provides our users extra protection to prevent accounts from unauthorized access. Other than your regular password, you will be asked to enter a real-time password generated by Google Authenticator. To provide you an extra level of security, when you withdraw, you will need to activate a link on the verification email to complete the request. SSL ENCRYPTION We use 128-bit encryption to encrypt all communication between you and our website. This is the highest encryption available and is used as the gold standard for all secure communication on the net. DDOS PROTECTION We leverage one of the world's strongest forms of protection against Distributed Denial of Service attacks. We do not pretend to do this by ourselves and partner with multiple third-parties who have proven to mitigate some of the largest DDOS attacks in Internet history. PASSWORDS We do not use MD5 hashing to encrypt your password. To avoid common weaknesses, our proprietary procedures are designed to provide you, our valued clients, with the peace of mind that comes from our Next Level security implementation. DB SECURITY Our databases are encrypted and protected against SQL injection attacks. We also do hourly backups where we send the backups off-site to multiple locations. STATE OF THE ART INFRASTRUCTURE The platform is hosted in Tier 3+ ISO 27001/9001 compliant data centers. Digital currencies are not stored with cloud providers. MULTI-FIREWALL PROTECTION We closely monitor all incoming and outgoing traffic in a very stringent manner to ensure we prevent our network from malicious attack and injection as well as data threats. BUSINESS CONTINUITY PLANNING We have process and controls in place to deal with outages or attacks. Emails will be sent out to notify you of alternative ways to get back into our site. Our site and funds are totally segregated so you can be assured your funds are safe with us. REGULAR STRESS & SOAK TESTING Our technology is immediately scalable. Our regular stress testing has proven it achieves low latency processing and we've soak-tested to over 10 million transactions within a 24 hour period. Translation: our engine and underlying infrastructure can handle load, and lots of it. COMPLIANCE FRAMEWORK We insist on a comprehensive and thorough KYC (Know-Your-Customer) and AML (Anti Money Laundering) compliance framework. This includes the monitoring of suspicious transactions and obligatory reporting to local regulators and other compliance bodies. Our AML and KYC policies differ depending on the country of origin of which our clients are located, and furthermore recorded through the BITXF registration process. Our specific policies are detailed within our Terms of Use and which you must accept as per the new user registration process. Our robust compliance framework ensures that regulatory requirements are being adhered to at both a local and global level, providing the highest levels of trust and ensuring the Site continues to operate reliably for the long term. Q: investorideas.com Can you tell us about the significance of your Exclusive Bitcoin Exchange and Services Agreement with Hong Kong based ANX, announced in April? Will the coin exchange be called Bit-X Financial or will there be a different trade name and branding concept? A: Brad Moynes, President of Bit-X Financial Partnering with ANX, a Bitcoin Exchange industry leader, will provide BITXF and our shareholders a turn-key solution to gain immediate exposure to Bitcoin while leveraging the ANX technical and support assets as we prepare to go live. Among the many initiatives occurring with our Company at the moment we have yet to announce what the exchange trade name and branding will be. We want to be original and come up with something unique, something that has not been done before and we plan to release that in the upcoming weeks prior to our go-live date. The public company (BITXF) will be the parent company that owns 100% of the newly branded exchange. Q: investorideas.com In closing what are your goals following the launch and roll out of the site in June and how do you see your company playing an integral role in the future of Bitcoin? A: Brad Moynes, President of Bit-X Financial Our go-live date is on track and we fully expect to launch our world-class proprietary trading platform and provide our users a simple efficient way to trade Bitcoin. Our goals following the launch will be to provide our users a safe, secure and fully compliant Bitcoin exchange experience at a low cost. We are a customer service orientated company and we expect to be the best when it comes to customer support responses and solutions. We are also in the planning and development stage of a new Blockchain technology concept that may see BITXF become the first public company to offer such a technology and offer it to third parties worldwide. More details regarding this excited new concept will be provided as they materialize. About BIT-X: ( OTCQB : BITXF ) Bit-X Financial Corp is a Vancouver; British Columbia based Company listed on the OTCQB under the trading symbol BITXF. Bit-X Financial Corp is a reporting issuer in the Province of British Columbia, Canada with the British Columbia Securities Commission "BCSC" and in the United States with the Securities Exchange Commission "SEC." www.bitxfin.com About Investorideas.com InvestorIdeas.com newswire is a global investor news source covering multiple sectors including Bitcoin and payment technology. Follow Investorideas.com on Twitter http://twitter.com/#!/Investorideas Follow Investorideas.com on Facebook http://www.facebook.com/Investorideas Sign up for free news alerts at Investorideas.com http://www.investorideas.com/Resources/Newsletter.asp Disclaimer/ Disclosure: The Investorideas.com newswire is a third party publisher of news and research as well as creates original content as a news source. Original content created by investorideas is protected by copyright laws other than syndication rights. Investorideas is a news source on Google news syndication partners. Our site does not make recommendations for purchases or sale of stocks or products. Nothing on our sites should be construed as an offer or solicitation to buy or sell products or securities. All investment involves risk and possible loss of investment. This site is currently compensated by featured companies, news submissions, content marketing and online advertising. Contact each company directly for press release questions. Disclosure is posted on each release if required but otherwise the news was not compensated for and is published for the sole interest of our readers. Disclosure: BITXF is a PR client of Investorideas.com and compensates us for news publication, PR and media.( two thousand five hundred per month and 144 shares ) More info: http://www.investorideas.com/About/News/Clientspecifics.asp and http://www.investorideas.com/About/Disclaimer.asp BC Residents and Investor Disclaimer : Effective September 15 2008 -- all BC investors should review all OTC and Pink sheet listed companies for adherence in new disclosure filings and filing appropriate documents with Sedar. Read for more info: http://www.bcsc.bc.ca/release.aspx?id=6894 . Global investors must adhere to regulations of each country. || The 21st Century Cures Act Gets A Mixed Reception: Last week, the House Energy and Commerce Committeeunanimously passedthe 21st Century Cures Act, a new bill that will help fund medical research and relax regulations related to the discovery, development and delivery of new drugs.
While some consider the new bill as a major step forward for the industry where the cost of developing new drugs has skyrocketed, others say the bill puts the public in danger as it doesn't require the meticulous testing that has been necessary in the past.
Funding Change
The bill offers incentives for scientists working on drugs that are important to the industry as a whole. The act dedicates government dollars to researchers working to develop precision medicine drugs and antibiotics that combat resistant strains.
The legislation also supports the creation of a massive genomic database that will use large volumes of genetic data in order to help in the push toward developing precision drugs that target a specific gene.
Related Link:Bio Applauds Approval Of 21st Century Cures Act
Safety Questions
Public safety groups have questioned the safety of such a bill, saying that allowing drugs to be approved by the Food and Drug Administration without full clinical testing creates a risk for patients. If passed, the bill would allow high-risk medical devices like pacemakers to gain approval without a full clinical study, something many say could create a dangerous precedent.
Biotechs On Board?
Biotech companies initially saw the bill as good for the industry as an initial draft extended market exclusivity rules for new drugs. However, those offers were dropped in the final version of the bill, leaving the biotech industry with little reason to back the bill.
The Energy and Commerce Committee recentlyrequestedfinancial support for the bill from the Biotechnology Industry Organization, something the group is unlikely to offer without any benefits.
Image Credit: Public Domain
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© 2015 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Are Data Centers Worsening California's Drought?: In California, water has become scarce and residents have begun cutting back on their usage in order to conserve the resource and end a four-year drought. However, while most look to shorter showers and strategic plant watering in order to cut down on waste, another industry has been under the microscope for its water usage — data centers . Environmentally Unfriendly With San Francisco being home to several large tech names, California has a large population of massive data centers. The facilities have been criticized in the past for their energy usage, but now the centers are being forced to take a look at their cooling systems, which require a substantial amount of water. Related Link: California's Drought Turns Traders Attention To Water Plays Major Drain In order to keep rooms full of servers from overheating, many data centers use cooling towers that take water in, use it to cool the air and expel it. In this way, data centers are a major contributor to California's drought, as they rid the state of its water supply through evaporation. The facilities require a great deal of water to maintain the cooling systems as well; Utah's NSA Data Center uses up to 1.7 million gallons of water per day to keep its servers cool. New Designs Now that water usage has become a concern, many tech companies are rethinking their cooling systems in order to make their operations more sustainable in times of drought. Google Inc (NASDAQ: GOOG ) (NASDAQ: GOOGL ) has explored using non-potable water in its cooling process, while Facebook Inc (NASDAQ: FB ) has tried using a system that cools outside air using a water mist, which requires much less water than traditional cooling. Image Credit: Public Domain See more from Benzinga Dangers Of Marijuana Uncertain In Growing Industry 3D Printer And A Latte, Please Overstock Loses Big On Bitcoin © 2015 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Could Marijuana Help House Prices?: In states where marijuana has been legalized, many homeowners have complained that the opening of pot dispensaries could bring down property values. However, in Colorado, where both medical and recreational marijuana has been legalized, some claim the opposite is true . New Jobs In Denver, home prices have risen 10 percent since March 2014, according to the S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Index. Some say a large part of that rise can be attributed to the marijuana industry. The new industry has created thousands of jobs across a variety of sectors. Not only are businesses directly linked to pot – like growers and dispensaries – taking on new employees, but security companies, electricians and hotels have all seen an influx of business due to marijuana. Related Link: Marijuana Industry Blazes The Path For A New Kind Of Lawyer Access To Marijuana The rental market in Colorado has also been booming as people from out of state come in looking for access to marijuana. Some families are interested in obtaining medical marijuana to treat a chronic condition, while others are keen to live in Colorado to enjoy the relaxed lifestyle the new laws permit. Still Some Concern While the real estate market in Colorado appears to be booming, some warn that it will fizzle as the long-term problems with pot settle in. For one, laws allowing people to cultivate up to six plants means prospective buyers will need to look for a new set of issues when it comes to home inspections. Buyers will need to check for tampering with the home's electrical systems and mold issues associated with marijuana growing before committing to a new home. Another concern is increased traffic in neighborhoods where marijuana is being grown. Many people disregard the state's limit of six plants and set up illegal grow houses, which could decrease the value of properties in the area. Image Credit: Public Domain See more from Benzinga Have You Met The Bitcoin Booty Girls? AgriScience Makes Smart Soil To Improve Farming Dutch Bank Issues Europe's First Certified Climate Bond © 2015 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Bitcoin Shop Posts Video Presentation: ARLINGTON, VA--(Marketwired - Jun 23, 2015) - Bitcoin Shop, Inc. ( OTCQB : BTCS ) ("BTCS" or the "Company"), a blockchain technology company that engages in transaction verification services, announced the release of a video from its Chairman and CEO Charles Allen. In the video, Allen discusses recently disclosed developments and provides a tour of the Company's North Carolina facility. Highlights of the video include commentary on the recently announced pending merger with Spondoolies-Tech, including post-merger valuation metrics and peer comparisons, as well as revenue information related to the Company's transaction verification services for both 2014 and Q1 2015. Additionally, Allen discusses the Company's near-term plans to increase capacity at its North Carolina facility and the potential positive financial impacts of bringing Spondoolies' highly-efficient next-generation servers online. The video update is available at: https://youtu.be/b2DA98yeGho "We believe we're well-positioned to achieve key milestones on multiple fronts in the coming months that could lead to significant shareholder value improvement," stated Allen. "Our planned merger with Spondoolies will bring together a phenomenal team with the shared vision and work ethic necessary to capitalize on the immense opportunities in the digital currency space. I look forward to providing future updates as we move forward." About BTCS: BTCS is a blockchain technology company that provides transaction verification services for digital currency. BTCS is building a universal digital currency platform with the goal of enabling users to engage in the digital currency ecosystem through one point of access. BTCS continues to actively partner and integrate with strategic digital currency technology companies who provide products or services that are complementary to its business strategy. BTCS operates its public beta site ( www.btcs.com ) where consumers can purchase products using digital currency such as bitcoin, litecoin, and dogecoin, by searching through a selection of over 250,000 items. For more information visit: www.btcs.com Forward-Looking Statements: Certain statements in this press release constitute "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the federal securities laws. Words such as "may," "might," "will," "should," "believe,""expect," "anticipate," "estimate," "continue," "predict," "forecast," "project," "plan," "intend" or similar expressions, or statements regarding intent, belief, or current expectations, are forward-looking statements. While the Company believes these forward-looking statements are reasonable, undue reliance should not be placed on any such forward-looking statements, which are based on information available to us on the date of this release. These forward-looking statements are based upon current estimates and assumptions and are subject to various risks and uncertainties, including without limitation those set forth in the Company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, not limited to Risk Factors relating to its digital currency business contained therein. Thus, actual results could be materially different. The Company expressly disclaims any obligation to update or alter statements whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by law. Embedded Video Available: http://www2.marketwire.com/mw/frame_mw?attachid=2845331
[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
In the last 10 mins, there were arb opps spanning 20 exchange pair(s), yielding profits ranging between $0.00 and $1,178.61 #bitcoin #btc || Bitcoin traded at $238.26 USD on BTC-e at 07:00 PM Pacific Time || buysellbitco.in #bitcoin price in INR, Buy : 17631.00 INR Sell : 17084.00 INR. Buy and sell bitcoin in #India using #buysellbitcoin || Gold $1,175.56 | Silver $16.26 | Platinum $1,106.00 | Bitcoin $228.49 #spotprice #finance #ticker #bitcoin #crypto #preciousmetal || $277.83 #bitstamp;
$273.00 #btce;
Instantly buy GH/s with BTC: http://bit.ly/LN53k1
#bitcoin #btc || buysellbitco.in #bitcoin price in INR, Buy : 15343.00 INR Sell : 14873.00 INR. Buy and sell bitcoin in #India using #buysellbitcoin || Bitcoin traded at $272.76 USD on BTC-e at 10:00 PM Pacific Time || buysellbitco.in #bitcoin price in INR, Buy : 15259.00 INR Sell : 14792.00 INR. Buy and sell bitcoin in #India using #buysellbitcoin || bitcoin rate-2015-07-25 PDT start_rate:$288.75 current_rate:$288.76(0.00%) #bitfinex @MoneysEdge http://www.moneysedge.com/bitcoin || LIVE: Profit = $1,869.97 (1.39 %). BUY B490.37 @ $274.00 (#BTCe). SELL @ $275.80 (#HitBTC) #bitcoin #btc - http://www.projectcoin.org
|
Trend: down || Prices: 292.69, 293.62, 294.43, 289.59, 287.72, 284.65, 281.60, 282.61, 281.23, 285.22
|
Analyze the provided historical prices, technical indicators, news, and social media sentiment from the last 60 days. Based on this context, predict the overall trend (up, down, or no change) and the specific daily closing prices for Bitcoin for the next 10 days.
|
[Technical Analysis for 2019-05-13]
BTC Price: 7814.92, BTC RSI: 85.27
Gold Price: 1300.10, Gold RSI: 60.11
Oil Price: 61.04, Oil RSI: 41.91
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
Mike Novogratz claims Bitcoin can ‘easily’ pass gold’s $7.5 trillion market cap: CEO of Galaxy Digital Mike Novogratz says Bitcoin’s market cap can “easily” surpass gold in the next 20 years. In a recent interview with Anthony Pompliano, the Wall Street veteran says it’s a matter of time before institutional players like Goldman Sachs and Intercontinental Exchange enter the crypto space. Going LIVE with @novogratz — stop whatever you’re doing…you don’t want to miss this! https://t.co/jtBo6tKjIA — Pomp 🌪 (@APompliano) March 20, 2019 Novogratz said that he knows Goldman Sachs, for instance, is building a framework for securities tokens. He commented: “They’re not doing anything yet, but they’re getting really ready.” The hedge fund mogul said that Goldman Sachs was looking to answer questions like: “Where would you store them? Do you have to build your own custody, or can you use someone else’s custody?” Whilst the Galaxy Digital CEO did say that “the regulatory framework isn’t there yet on security tokens”, he claims his team is “working really hard on our security token business”. Still bullish on Bitcoin According to Novogratz, Bitcoin’s upside potential remains strong, and long-term investors would still be smart to allocate a small percentage of BTC in their portfolio. He said: “I think the macro case for Bitcoin is pretty strong. And so, if you can put a couple of per cent of your portfolio in, there’s a decent chance it catches wind. “Fidelity is just getting set up, Bakkt continues to get delayed a little bit, but it’s not going to be delayed forever. They’re going to be in the game. And there are lots of other players coming.” Mike Novogratz: ‘All the big macro funds should hold at least a small percentage of Bitcoin’ By Nawaz Sulemanji – March 26, 2019 Overtaking gold in 20 years Commenting on the much-loved store of value, Novogratz said: “Gold’s got a $7.5 trillion market cap, and we’re 100x off on that. We’re not going to get there in Bitcoin in the next year or two. But over a 20-year period, that could happen easily – and that’s giving zero optionality to all the other stuff, so I think it seems like a pretty smart portfolio bet.” Story continues Talking about the recent CBOE Bitcoin future delisting , he said: “The reality is, the CME kicked their butts. And these guys have limited resources on what they’re going to spend their focus on, and they decided to spend it elsewhere. Finding leverage in Bitcoin is going to get easier as the architecture in the space gets better.” On going short, the hedge fund chief said: “You can already see the lending market around Bitcoin went from 10% to like 3%. So once you can borrow you can short. And so now it’s not so hard to short Bitcoin. It used to be almost impossible to short Bitcoin in 2016… It wasn’t great, but it’s not critical.” The post Mike Novogratz claims Bitcoin can ‘easily’ pass gold’s $7.5 trillion market cap appeared first on Coin Rivet . || China’s 11th Crypto Rankings: EOS First, TRON Second, Ethereum Third, Bitcoin Fifteenth: Chinahasreleasedits latest government-sponsored rankings of majorcryptocurrencieson March 22, placing Bitcoin (BTC) in 15th, whileEOSkeeps its top spot. Tron (TRX) came in second, afterovertakingEthereum(ETH) in February.
The crypto rankings by China’s Center for Information and Industry Development (CCID) were firstannouncedin May last year. In this eleventh edition of the index, EOS has remained as the top-rankedblockchain, a place occupied by the platform since June 2018.
The eleventh CCID Global Public Chain Technology Evaluation Index puts Tron on the second spot, as did the tenth edition. The ninth edition had previously placed Ethereum in the second spot, while Tron wasn’t present at all on the list.
In the tenth edition, Bitcoin hadmovedfrom number 15 to number 13, now falling back down two spots to occupy 15th place again.
As Cointelegraph recentlyreportedin a dedicated analysis, EOS is seemingly still a work in progress, as the blockchain has seencontroversyover some aspects of its allegedly centralized governance system.
Two major crypto exchanges —Singapore-headquartered Huobi Global and Malta-basedOKEx—proclaimedtheir support for theTron-based version of stablecoinTetherthis week. At the beginning of the current month, Tron and Tether had firstannouncedtheir intention to introduce the USDT to the Tron network.
Recently, Cointelegraphreportedthat Ethereum is being used by aNorth Koreanpolitical dissident group, the Cheollima Civil Defense, toselltokenized visas for entering the country once it is supposedly liberated.
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• Bitcoin, Ethereum, Ripple, Litecoin, EOS, Bitcoin Cash, Binance Coin, Stellar, TRON, Cardano: Price Analysis, March 13 || Bitcoin Price Falls 6% from $7,500; Is BTC Really Vulnerable to Plunge below $6,000?: Bitcoin price posts a retreat after hitting a peak $7,500 during its ongoing bull run. | Source: Shutterstock By CCN : In the past 24 hours, following an intense 25 percent rally within a seven-day span, the bitcoin price has slightly retraced to around $7,000 from its peak at $7,500, by nearly 6 percent. Several technical analysts expected a minor retracement to occur as the bitcoin price surged from $5,000 to $7,500 in a relatively short time frame, demonstrating a parabolic upside movement. The bitcoin price has dropped by more than six percent in the last 24 hours in a slight correction (source: coinmarketcap.com) Although technical indicators of bitcoin have portrayed oversold conditions subsequent to its strong rally, the momentum of the dominant cryptocurrency may allow the asset to sustain its positive trend in the near-term. Why a Large Retracement is Unlikely For Bitcoin Speaking to CCN in an interview, a cryptocurrency trader known to the community as Satoshi Flipper explained that it is sensible to expect bitcoin to retrace slightly in the short-term coming off of a $2,000 movement in less than a month. The trader said that he has been vocal about a potential bitcoin retrace, which would be healthy for the asset, but does not see it dropping to the $4,000 region as some have claimed. Ive been definitely vocal about a healthy BTC retrace, but I do not believe it will be a drastic 30% retrace back into the $4ks. Once we form a local top, I believe we will 10% at the most, then settle down sideways, the trader said. Read the full story on CCN.com . || Bitcoin Core’s Peter Todd Fires Back at Sex Assault Allegation: Earlybitcoincore developerPeter Toddis fighting for his reputation. Todd, a Canadian who started contributing to bitcoin’s codein 2012, revealed on Twitter that he has filed a lawsuit against someone in the community who allegedly accused him of rape and sexual assault, also on Twitter.
Todd vehemently denies the accusations. According to the defamation complaint, which was filed in a California federal court, he is seeking injunctive relief and damages from the defendant, a California resident whose pseudonym is Isis Agora Lovecruft. You can’t make this stuff up.
Todd has directed any questions to his attorneys Kronenberger Rosenfeld with the exception of saying:
“I hope Isis Lovecruft does the right thing here. If she does I hope the wider community acts in the spirit of forgiveness and healing, as will I.”
Widely cited crypto attorney Stephen Palley suggests that Todd may have his work cut out for him,tweeting:
“[It] is hard to get a court to enjoin speech, even defamatory speech; unlikely to happen at a prelim injunction hearing.” || ICEs Bakkt Has Issues. A N.Y. Crypto License Might Fix Them.: (Bloomberg) -- Intercontinental Exchange Inc. has been facing resistance from federal regulators over a key part of its ambitious plan to bring Bitcoin to the masses. Now, the owner of the New York Stock Exchange is turning to state watchdogs to get the project over the goal line. ICEs plan is to create a highly regulated Bitcoin ecosystem that would encourage pension funds, endowments and other institutions to invest more money in the space, and make it much easier for consumers to buy products with the cryptocurrency. The venture, announced to much fanfare in August, has lined up big-name backers, including Starbucks Inc. and Microsoft Inc. But the launch date for the project -- known as Bakkt -- has been delayed for months because of skepticism from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the U.S. regulator that polices Bitcoin futures. The issue that that has made the CFTC the most concerned is how clients tokens will be stored, and thus safeguarded from possible theft and manipulation, according to people familiar with the matter. To placate the agency, ICE is considering seeking a license from New York financial regulators that would permit Bakkt itself to hold custody of customers tokens, said three of the people, who asked not to be named because the discussions arent public. Should ICE secure a state license it would still need sign-off from the CFTC on the broader Bakkt project. Bakkt Chief Executive Officer Kelly Loeffler, who is married to ICE CEO Jeff Sprecher, said last month that the company is in discussions with the CFTC and that the initiative is moving forward. Spokesmen for ICE and the CFTC declined to comment. In theory, Bakkt would address two of the main hurdles that have prevented Bitcoin from becoming anything more than a speculative fad: The investors with the deepest pockets have mostly shunned it and consumers rarely use cryptocurrencies to buy anything. Those problems have become even more acute over the past 16 months with Bitcoin suffering through a drawn-out slump that has erased more than 70 percent of its value. Story continues Atlanta-based ICE is trying to attract institutional investors by providing Bitcoin futures that differ in a crucial way from derivatives already offered by CME Group Inc. and Cboe Global Markets Inc.: When Bakkts one-day contracts expire they would pay out in Bitcoin tokens instead of U.S. dollars. The reason why thats important is that institutions have been hesitant to buy Bitcoin on the unregulated platforms where its now mostly sold -- the Wild West that dominates the crypto market. So having a futures contract overseen by ICE that delivers Bitcoin would potentially give mutual funds and endowments a more secure way to obtain tokens. Bakkt would also facilitate retail transactions by providing Starbucks and other businesses a platform to easily convert Bitcoin into dollars. Combined, the features are central to ICEs plan to enable consumers and institutions to buy, sell, store and spend digital assets on a seamless global network. From the CFTCs perspective, that objective makes Bakkt far more complicated than the Bitcoin futures that CME and Cboe launched in late 2017. The regulators rules require clearinghouses to deposit customer funds at a bank or trust company, and Bakkt is currently neither of those things. Also, some of the Wall Street partners that ICE needs to operate a derivatives market have been lukewarm about getting involved with a project that involves handling Bitcoin, according to two people familiar with the matter. The CFTC recognizes state bank and and trust licenses, and could let ICE list futures through a self-certification process if it obtains permission from New Yorks Department of Financial Services to hold tokens, said one of the people. The CFTC, which doesnt police the spot market for Bitcoin, is still likely to require public comment on Bakkt or have an ICE panel that assess risks approve the futures contracts, the person said. A spokeswoman for the New York regulator, which has granted virtual currency licenses for a number of crypto projects, said the agency doesnt comment on applications. ICE initially planned to have Bitcoin futures available last November. In a March 29 post on Medium, Loeffler said that the company was continuing to work with the CFTC and that the derivatives would eventually trade and be cleared on ICE platforms, which are overseen by the regulator. While were not yet able to provide a launch date, were making solid progress in bringing the first physical delivery price discovery contracts for Bitcoin to the U.S., where price formation will occur in federally regulated, transparent markets, Loeffler said in the Medium post. To contact the reporters on this story: Ben Bain in Washington at bbain2@bloomberg.net;Matthew Leising in Los Angeles at mleising@bloomberg.net To contact the editors responsible for this story: Jesse Westbrook at jwestbrook1@bloomberg.net, Gregory Mott For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com ©2019 Bloomberg L.P. || Tether Scandal Sparks Bitcoin Price Gains; Litecoin, Bitcoin Cash Up 4%-11%: ByCCN.com: The bitcoin price has increased from $5,173 to $5,297 on major regulated crypto exchanges including Coinbase in the past 24 hours, by 2.3 percent. Major crypto assets such as Litecoin and Bitcoin Cash spiked by 4 to 11 percent against the U.S. dollar.
The unexpected recovery of the crypto market overnight comes after the office of the New York Attorney General filed a lawsuit against iFinex, alleging Bitfinex of mismanaging the cash reserves of stablecoin Tether.
On April 30, as CCNreported, the general counsel of Tether stated in an affidavit that only 74 percent of Tether is backed by cash, sparking debates within the crypto community on the solvency of the most dominant stablecoin in the market.
The bitcoin price is up more than 2 percent in the past 24 hours. Source: coinmarketcap.com
Despite the Tether controversy, which one expert hassaidthat it may evolve into “the most consequential regulatory intervention in the crypto-sphere” in the past three years, the crypto market has rebounded fairly strongly.
After the release of the affidavit filed by the legal team of Tether, eToro founder and CEO Yoni Assia stated that the bitcoin price may positively benefit from it, at least in the short-term.
He suggested that if the confidence towards Tether as a stablecoin declines, investors would sell Tether for bitcoin, raising the volume and eventually the value of the asset.
Read the full story on CCN.com. || Bitcoin set to surpass rival payment systems, DataLight: Bitcoin is on track to usurp Visa, Mastercard and PayPal as the top global payment system within the decade, according to a report from DataLight. This is based on such factors as a greater number of nodes, lower fees and average transaction size. In just 10 years, Bitcoin has managed to compete with the leaders of the payment system industry. Its development is occurring exponentially, the report states. If it maintains this pace, in another 10 years, it will surpass all competition. At the moment, the only factor that hinders quick development of its network is an upscaling problem. However, the solution for this the Lightning network is upcoming. This will allow Bitcoin to increase its upscaling potential and network bandwidth tenfold, DataLight says. Read the full report here . The post Bitcoin set to surpass rival payment systems, DataLight appeared first on Coin Rivet . || Buffett Bro: Bitcoin ‘Dementia’ Patients Worship Judas Iscariot: Charlie Munger, the longtime sidekick of Berkshire chair Warren Buffett, joked that bitcoin fans are traitors who celebrated Judas Iscariot at happy hours. | Source: Johannes EISELE / AFP By CCN : Billionaire pals and colleagues Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger doubled-down on their bitcoin haterade at the 2019 Berkshire Hathaway annual shareholders meeting. Munger said bitcoin fans had invited him out for a drink this weekend, but he didn’t even consider it because he thinks they’re all traitors. “I’ve been invited during this gathering to go to a happy hour put on by the bitcoin people. And I tried to figure out what the bitcoin people do in their happy hour and I finally figured it out: They celebrate the life and work of Judas Iscariot.” The audience erupted into laughter in response to Munger’s crypto diss. Buffett followed up by asking, “Is your invitation still good?” Highlight: "Your vice chairman is getting new social distinction," Munger says. "I've been invited during the gathering to go to a happy hour put together by the bitcoin people. And I tried to figure out what the bitcoin do in their happy hour and I finally figured it out…" pic.twitter.com/BM7FHiKPyf — Yahoo Finance (@YahooFinance) May 4, 2019 Munger Echoes Legacy Banks’ Fear of Bitcoin For reference, Judas Iscariot was the apostle who betrayed Jesus Christ for 30 pieces of silver. Calling someone a Judas is saying he’s a traitor. Munger’s comment is indicative of the way many established financial institutions view cryptocurrencies: As a means to topple traditional banks. Read the full story on CCN.com . View comments || Experts: Bitcoin Will Take Down Gold, Fiat Currencies: A pair of cryptocurrency and blockchain industry insiders made some bold predictions about the disruptive potential of blockchain technology in recent days.
On Saturday, founder and CEO of Block.one Brendan Blumertweetedthat bitcoin may soon make gold obsolete as a store of value.
Bitcoin Versus Gold
Bitcoin prices have tanked since peaking at nearly $20,000 in late 2017, and it now trades at around $4,070.
Still, bitcoin is by far the largest and most valuable cryptocurrency on the market today with a market cap of $71.6 billion. Ethereum is a distant second with a market cap of just $14.7 billion. Block.one’s currency, EOS, is fifth-largest with a market cap of $3.4 billion.
If Blumer’s prediction is correct, bitcoin will have tremendous upside in the years ahead. The current value of the world’s gold supply is $7 trillion. Even after all 21 million bitcoins are mined, the price of a single bitcoin will need to top $330,000 to fully match the value of the world’s gold.
Bitcoin As A Global Currency
Tim Draper, venture capitalist and founder of Draper Associates, also said in a recent interview that cryptocurrency won’t stop at disrupting the gold market.
“The great thing about cryptocurrency is that it is not tied to a government. Governments control you by controlling your currency,” he said.
However, in the future, Draper said cryptocurrency will help citizens around the world avoid that centralized control.
“I am bullish long term because I believe that no one will want to hold onto a currency that’s tied to a government,” he said.
Draper, who was an early investor in companies likeTesla, Inc.(NASDAQ:TSLA), Hotmail and Skype, pointed out that countries like Japan are already taking the lead in allowing bitcoin to be a natural currency.
“And that attracted people to Japan, it attracted entrepreneurs, businesses, money,” he said.
Draper reportedly earned $89.1 million by investing in bitcoin starting back in 2014.Draper and Blumer will both be discussing their views on the future of cryptocurrency and blockchain technology at the upcoming SALT Conference in Las Vegas starting on May 7.
Stabilizing Crypto Market
After a massive run-up in 2017 and a huge sell-off in 2018, the price of bitcoin has stabilized so far in 2019. Year-to-date, bitcoin prices are up 6.2 percent, while the price of EOS is up 43.5 percent. TheGrayscale Bitcoin Trust(OTC:GBTC) is up 26.1 percent in 2019.
Related Links:
2018: The Year Of The Bitcoin Bust?
Why The Bitcoin Bubble Is Different From All Other Bubbles
Image Credits: Collision Conf, Devsgaskarth
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© 2019 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Hackers Steal $40 Million Worth of Bitcoin From Binance Exchange: (Bloomberg) -- Binance, one of the worlds largest cryptocurrency exchanges, said hackers withdrew 7,000 Bitcoins worth about $40 million via a single transaction in a large scale security breach, the latest in a long line of thefts in the digital currency space. The hackers used a variety of techniques including phishing and viruses to obtain a large amount of user data, Binance said in a post on its website. There may be additional accounts that have been affected but not yet identified, Binance said. The largest digital tokens including Bitcoin slid about 3 percent after the disclosure, then recovered most of the drop. The company will use its Secure Asset Fund for Users, an emergency insurance fund, to cover the incident in full and no user funds will be affected, it said. The transaction was limited to Binances BTC hot wallet, which contains about 2 percent of the companys Bitcoin holdings, according to the post. Other wallets are secure and unharmed, the exchange said. The 7,000 Bitcoins are worth roughly $40 million, based on current Bitcoin composite pricing calculated by Bloomberg. Bitcoin pared its decline to 0.5 percent as of 10:53 a.m. in London, after earlier dropping as much as 3.1 percent from Tuesday. The broader Bloomberg Galaxy Crypto Index also dipped. The hackers had the patience to wait, and execute well-orchestrated actions through multiple seemingly independent accounts at the most opportune time, according to the post, written by Zhao Changpeng, Binances chief executive officer. We must conduct a thorough security review. The security review will include all parts of our systems and data. Binance estimates the review will take a week, during which time all deposits and withdrawals will remain suspended, while trading will continue to be enabled to allow investors to adjust their positions. The hackers may still control some user accounts and may use those to influence prices in the meantime, the exchange said. Story continues The hackers structured the transaction to bypass existing security checks, and Binance was unable to block the withdrawal before it was executed, according to the post. Once the transaction was executed, it triggered alarms on Binances system and all withdrawals were stopped immediately after that, the post said. In a tweet linking to the post, Zhao said it was not the best of days, but we will stay transparent. (Updates price reaction, from third paragraph.) --With assistance from Todd White. To contact the reporter on this story: Eric Lam in Hong Kong at elam87@bloomberg.net To contact the editors responsible for this story: Christopher Anstey at canstey@bloomberg.net, Cormac Mullen For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com ©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
@jasonfreiert @nickchodge @K92Mining Lots of wind at the back of #bitcoin right now but still to volatile for us.
#wealthprotection #gold for the time being. || 2 Nisan'da tek bir hesap 3 borsadan 20 bin BTC toplamıştı. Piyasaya yapımcının topladıklarını yükseltip, tepeden satması ne zaman olacak göreceğiz. https://t.co/26QF0QFJE2 || While HODLers of $ETH $XRP $LTC and $BTC settle their crypto into their bank accounts, $BCH users use their Bitcoin as cash, the way it was intended.
Fast, cheap, reliable and instant transactions with #BitcoinCash
#Spedn #Adoption #Bitcoin #Cash https://t.co/yf7NzidNsH || @ceredigionman @SE7ENCE @GetDeepOnion Oh no it's still a Bitcoin fork. The rebase "simply" put is upgrading from old Bitcoin code to new Bitcoin code. It's a lot of work and something $genx will solve with bitcoin-modules. Instead of taking a year and being a year behind, rebase will be able to happen in minutes || Bitcoin Squeeze! - https://t.co/vi88GolCtM || 2019年5月11日 10時3分7秒
【 liquid 】のBTCを 702134.99 円で買って
【 coincheck 】のBTCを 702707.0 円で売れば
572.0100000000093 円の利益！
※投資は自己責任でお願いします※ || Average Bitcoin market price is: USD 5,243.00, EUR 4,678.79 || China central bank brags about killing Bitcoin trading in the country – BGR #invest #crypto https://t.co/q6IUSr5Swl via @chris_writes || WANT TO BE A CT GURU?
STEP 1- Tweet your thoughts/chart
STEP 2- Add in a BUT followed by opposing thoughts
STEP 3- Retweet once a move in either direction occurs with an emphasis on being RIGHT
STEP 4- Repeat
#BTC $BTC #crypto $crypto || Here is this hour's Machine Learned Bitcoin insights. A Strong Upward Trend is being seen. Support Resistance at: 3882.01, 3903.97, 3919.00, 3969.02, 3984.04, 4000.01, 4014.21. For more AI insights go to http://www.revereanalytics.com pic.twitter.com/b0hJsWoezn
|
Trend: down || Prices: 7994.42, 8205.17, 7884.91, 7343.90, 7271.21, 8197.69, 7978.31, 7963.33, 7680.07, 7881.85
|
Analyze the provided historical prices, technical indicators, news, and social media sentiment from the last 60 days. Based on this context, predict the overall trend (up, down, or no change) and the specific daily closing prices for Bitcoin for the next 10 days.
|
[Technical Analysis for 2020-08-07]
BTC Price: 11601.47, BTC RSI: 69.36
Gold Price: 2010.10, Gold RSI: 73.50
Oil Price: 41.22, Oil RSI: 54.41
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
Twitter's Bitcoin hackers had almost limitless access: On Wednesday, July 15, Twitter was the target of avery public hackattack that’s still sending shockwaves across the internet. In what is a major security breach for the company, a handful of the most-followed Twitter accounts belonging to some of the world’s wealthiest individuals and companies all published a tweet asking followersto send Bitcoinwith a claim offering to double their money in return.
Turns out it was a coordinatedsocial engineeringattack on Twitter’s employees that allowed the perpetrators access to company admin panels. Now, the FBIhas started an investigation.
Just hackers burning up a 0day like it’s a fire sale
Imagine getting the keys to the Twitter kingdom -- access to all the account admin panels in the world. What would you do? You could grab high-value accounts and sell them on the black market. You could extract unimaginably valuable blackmail material from DMs. Or maybe you'd wait until an event like the upcoming US election to launch an evil plan of some kind.
But if you're any kind of seasoned attacker, you wouldn't blow your own cover by tweeting from the world's biggest accounts -- for a bitcoin scam. Sure, some have posited that the cryptocurrency spam tweets were a distraction for something bigger going on in the background. Maybe the attackers already did their sneaky stuff and are ready to do what's called "burning your 0day."
And boy, did they burn that perfectly good 0day hot, bright, and fast.
Twitter’s response — a worrying five hours later — was to do something few knew the company had the power to do: lock every verified account across the globe. Unfortunately this is akin to discovering a burglar is in your house because they started blasting music in your living room, and your response is to turn off all the lights.
Except freezing the “blue checks” is actually worse, because many essential emergency services around the world use Twitter as a critical communication channel. Like the National Weather Service, which found itself suddenlyunable to tweet weather warnings.
The account freezes appeared to be a decision governed by panic. Twitter seemed to have no idea what was happening or how to stop it. And wow, do we have questions about the who, what, why, and future implications of it all.
Ina tweet threadposted during and after the hack attack, Twitter wrote: “We detected what we believe to be a coordinated social engineering attack by people who successfully targeted some of our employees with access to internal systems and tools.”
The verified account freeze also impacted those users’ ability to reset their passwords.
Twitter bracketed the thread with a caveat that its investigation is “ongoing.”
Don’t worry the rich celebrities will be okay
The compromised accounts included Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Barack Obama, Apple, Kanye West, Joe Biden, Uber, Mike Bloomberg, Floyd Mayweather, Wiz Khalifa, and others. Twitter updated its ongoingincident report support threadThursday evening to state that130 accounts were affectedby the attack.
The problem is that the tweets looked normal to anyone following Kanye or Elon Musk, who basically tweet outJohn McAfee-style crazy claptrapon the regular, and a significant number of people fell for the scam. As wereported yesterday, the haul equaled around $118,000 and “At the time of writing, all but $114 of that $118,000 haul has been transferred to other wallets.”
That's a paltry amount of money, especially when,according to Glassdoor, the lower end of what most engineers at Twitter make $131,403 a year. This was an intrusion with enormous impact, the potential for extreme scope, and a serious amount of damage.
You’d assume the attackers wanted more than what it takes to eat and sleep in the poor parts of San Francisco. But again, even thoughthe attack beganwith a slightly different bitcoin scam, the perpetrators went public immediately, guaranteeing they'd be found out and shut down right away.
Of course, one very strong possibility is that the attackers were just really bad at crime.
Many observers immediately assumed that these high-profile accounts must have lax security standards, or don’t have two-factor enabled. However, Reutersreportedthat “Several users with two-factor authentication — a security procedure that helps prevent break-in attempts — said they were powerless to stop it.”
Motherboardobtained anonymous comment from sourcesat Twitter who said the account takeovers were done via access to an internal account management tool; Vice published screenshots of the tool (while anyone on Twitter publishing the same screenshots got put in Twitter jail real quick).
If Twitter was trying to stop the spread of those images, this is the internet after all. They spread quickly to news sites and forums. The hack’s forbidden screencaps revealed the presence of “blacklist” buttons on individual account pages. Many now want to know,is that evidence of shadowban and blacklisting we see?
Twitter users who work in and around human sexuality have for years made a case that they are being “shadowbanned” by Twitter, the practice of silencing accounts by hiding them in various ways. Only recently have far-right conspiracy theoristsco-opted the shadowban conceptto “play the [censorship] refs” in their favor. Now Twitter will be facing direct questions it has struggled toavoid confronting head-on.
When reached for comment about “blacklist” buttons seen on account pages in Twitter’s compromised management tool, The company’s spokesperson did not directly address the question. Instead, they said via email, “Since July 2018we’ve made clearthat we do not shadowban.”
Twitter’s rep included a boilerplate listing Twitter policy on Trends content inclusion and exclusion, content newsworthiness, trending topic hashtag exclusion policy, andsearch rules and restrictions.
A different source toldMotherboardthe allegedly compromised Twitter employee was paid for their participation in the low-rent bitcoin scheme. “A Twitter spokesperson toldMotherboardthat the company is still investigating whether the employee hijacked the accounts themselves or gave hackers access to the tool,” Vice wrote.
Since the tool allowed account management, this confirmed early speculation that the attackers not only had the ability to change account emails and reset passwords, but that it also granted them access to the targeted users’ direct messages (DMs). That is a breathtaking problem, considering that many people — including celebrities and politicians — don’t understand that Twitter DMs are not protected with end-to-end encryption, and are not particularly secure.
Senator Ed Markey (D-MA) addressed exactly that in a statement saying Twitter “must fully disclose what happened and what it is doing to ensure this never happens again”. This was in addition to Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO) firing off an angry letter to Jack Dorsey, and Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) issuing a similar statement, adding “this is a vulnerability that has gone on too long.”
Which is an interesting point to make, if the “vulnerability” in question was a paid-off employee — the vulnerability was human. That means the attack wasn’t necessarily as technical as it was a pretty capital feat of social engineering. This would most likely be a quid pro quo social engineering attack, where the human vulnerability is offered something in exchange for the access, information, or credentials the attacker wants.
It’s also plausible that the attacker used pretexting, where they pretend to be a person with a legitimate need for access, relying on the victim’s trust and gullibility. (“No, I swear, I reallyneedto get in that server closet.”) Another possibility would be baiting, or a bait-and-switch in which the attacker might trick an employee into inserting a malicious USB stick or file into a computer to compromise it.
While this is certainly a huge black eye for Twitter, what might be more interesting to explore is what the attack tells us about who did this, and why. Which is something we’ll most likely find out, based on my colleague’s excellent point that bitcoin is not actually anonymous, and hiding the loot conversion trail is not trivial. Certainly not for hackers who decided to make what could have been the heist of the century into a clumsy bitcoin smash and grab -- and didn’t even ban a single Nazi in the process. || Many Bitcoin Developers Are Choosing to Use Pseudonyms – For Good Reason: “Here lies thehugeirony in this discussion. Persistent pseudonyms aren’t ways to hide who you are. They provide a way to be who you are. You can finally talk about what you really believe; your real politics, your real problems, your real sexuality, your real family, your real self.”— EngineerKee Hinckley
Fiatjaf is a pseudonymous Bitcoin developer in the Lightning community where he contributes to LNURL. He’s also working on Etleneum, his “centralized Ethereum” app that uses the Lightning Network for faster and more scalablebitcoinpayments. Like many other bitcoin users, Fiatjaf doesn’t want to expose his real name to the whole world. He worries his bitcoin software projects could make him and his family a target for criminals.
As a resident of Brazil, where the crime rate isunusually high, Fiatjaf is particularly concerned for his safety. “I think in Brazil criminals are greater than in other places,” he said.
Related:Facebook, IoTeX, R3 Among New Members of Confidential Computing Consortium
He also worries that if the price of bitcoin skyrockets, or “goes to the moon,” he could be painting a target on his back as a public figure in the Bitcoin space.
“Local criminals might want to take my bitcoin. They’d see my name and think, ‘Oh this guy is a local guy, not using any special precautions. He may be very rich because he’s using bitcoins.'” he said.
Though Fiatjaf doesn’t want to overreact to his safety concerns, he sees the threat of criminal activity in Brazil as enough of a potential peril to adopt a pseudonym as he carries out his work as a bitcoin developer.
Fiatjaf is part of a larger trend that isn’t openly talked about much. He’s one of dozens of developers working in the Bitcoin sphere choosing to conceal their real names.
Related:Summer 2020 Is Funding Season for Open-Source Bitcoin Development
This widespread pseudonymity makes sense seeing as Bitcoin’s culture puts so much emphasis on privacy.
The great mystery of Bitcoin is no one knows the real identity of its creator, who went by the monikerSatoshi Nakamoto. He, she or they released the Bitcoin software in 2010, posted on the Bitcoin forums regularly until 2011 and then disappeared.
Nakamoto’s pseudonym set the tone for other Bitcoin developers to use fake names.
Also, privacy is a prevalent theme in Bitcoinland. The digital currency was born out of thecypherpunk movement, in which a loose worldwide group of cryptographers have promoted digital privacy and security technologies since the 1990s in hopes of bringing about positive social change.
Read more:Why CoinDesk Respects Pseudonymity: A Stand Against Doxxing
“Being able to minimize what other people know about you is literally the theme of the first paragraph of the Bitcoin white paper,” pseudonymous bitcoin researcher 0xB10C noted.
To try to meet that very goal, many bitcoin developers have devoted their research to improving Bitcoin’s privacy.
“Privacy should be a basic human right. As I am, in fact, a basic human of indeterminate detail, I would like to exercise that right,” said pseudonymous Lightning developer ZmnSCPxj, who receives funding fromSquare Cryptoto work on Bitcoin development. On hiswebsite, ZmnSCPxj describes himself as a “randomly-generated Internet person.”
ZmnSCPxj is one of the most frequent posters to the Lightning mailing list, making several proposals (often related to improving privacy) and responding to others’ posts with criticism and other feedback.
Similar to Fiatjaf, many developers choose to use pseudonyms out of an abundance of caution.
Samourai Wallet, founded in 2015, allows users to make more private bitcoin transactions. The two co-founders of the wallet chose pseudonyms when they launched the wallet partly for “personal protection” reasons.
“What we’re doing is going to offend *someone*,” SW told CoinDesk. “That could be from competitors or angry people online who feel that we’re a threat, to — whoever.”
Other developers worry that governments won’t like what they’re up to, fearing persecution or retribution for their involvement in an independent monetary system that challenges the status quo. While many governments have welcomed Bitcoin and blockchain technology as innovations,othershave taken a critical view of the new technology.
Being able to minimize what other people know about you is literally the theme of the first paragraph of the Bitcoin white paper.
“There is always a possibility of Bitcoin becoming unpopular with some government, thus it is always safer to simply avoid possible conflicts with local governments by making it unclear who exactly I am,” ZmnSCPxj told CoinDesk.
“Alternately, it may becometoopopular, and the government might want to acquire more of it by other means,” he added.
Not everyone sees the government as a threat, however.
“I’m not paranoid enough to be afraid of the government. Google and Facebook already know my name and they can easily link my name with my pseudonym. So I’m not targeting them,” Fiatjaf said.
Developers gave other reasons beyond feeling threatened. For some, it’s a simple matter of keeping their private lives private.
“When I started working on Bitcoin I didn’t see the need for having my ‘real name’ attached to my work. I was working for a company totally unrelated to Bitcoin. They didn’t really need to know what I do in my free time. But it wouldn’t have been a problem if they knew,” 0xB10C told CoinDesk.
Now awell-respected developerin the space, ZmnSCPxj was initially worried about embarrassing himself when he started submitting his ideas.
“My initial reason [for using a pseudonym] was simply that I was concerned [about] making a massive mistake; thus ZmnSCPxj was originally intended to be a disposable pseudonym that could be abandoned in such a case. However it seems to have garnered a mostly positive reputation, so I have retained it,” he told CoinDesk.
Conversely, SW and TDevD wanted to use pseudonyms as they launched Samourai Wallet because the duo was already known in the Bitcoin world by their real names before they created their privacy-focused bitcoin wallet.
“We didn’t want it to be about personalities or anything. A lot of us are known inside of the space, outside of the Samourai project. And we didn’t want it to be about our personal reputation. We wanted the project to stand on its own merits,” SW said.
For others, anonymity provides a sort of end run around exclusion in an industry that tends to be dominated by a typical demographic. In such cases, pseudonyms truly do provide a way to “be who you are.”
“[M]inorities of all kinds (economic, racial, communal, gender, etc) may not be confident in exposing identities easily traceable to their person, especially in contributing to communities where that minority is underrepresented,” ZmnSCPxj said.
Read more:Money Reimagined: Crypto’s Diversity Problem
“It is important to realize that the Earth is large and conditions in various points on it can vary tremendously, even in local social, governmental, or economic states, and habits and attitudes developed as protection against prejudices of local communities may prevent participation with the real identity even in online communities. But participation in online communities may be enabled by pseudonyms.”
• Many Bitcoin Developers Are Choosing to Use Pseudonyms – For Good Reason
• Many Bitcoin Developers Are Choosing to Use Pseudonyms – For Good Reason || What People Who Aren’t Bullish on Bitcoin Still Like About It: In this audio interview, CoinDesk’s Leigh Cuen and researcherNadia Eghbal, author of the upcoming book “Working in Public,” talk about open-source software projects. From platforms like Github to software languages like Rust, Cuen and Eghbal explore what the open source movement looks like in 2020.
Formore episodesand free early access before our regular 3 p.m. Eastern time releases, subscribe withApple Podcasts,Spotify,Pocketcasts,Google Podcasts,Castbox,Stitcher,RadioPublica,iHeartRadioorRSS.
This episode is sponsored byCrypto.com,BitstampandNexo.io.
Related:Dark-Web Vendor and Pharmacist Charged With Trafficking Drugs Worth $270M in Bitcoin
There are people who understandbitcoinyet aren’t obsessively bullish on it. (I know, it’s weird. Like, how?)
Eghbal, a Protocol Labs alum who is familiar with bitcoin, is among them. She described bitcoin as a rare example of a project growing throughout a decade and continuing. Many people measure growth in terms of unique contributors, users or profits. For Eghbal, looking at different types of “activity” might offer a better spectrum.
“Measuring activity is maybe a better way to think about project health … some projects also don’t need to be as actively developed as others,” Eghbal said. “I was also looking at things like maintainers’ responsiveness.”
In short, are problems promptly fixed before they affect users? The quality of contributions should be evaluated in addition to the sheer number of contributors. Do the people who use the software get unique value from it when they need it?
Related:Missouri Man Pleads Guilty to Trying to Buy Chemical Weapons With Bitcoin
Another useful metric, she said, can be “work done,” including “how many pull requests are being merged or how many issues are being closed.”
And, luckily, Eghbal isn’t the only researcher who understands bitcoin without being “active” in the “Bitcoin community.” (To be fair, I use these silly words more than anyone.) Privacy tech legend Claudia Diaz, Nym’s chief technologist, said she believes there could be value in cryptocurrency projects, although that’s not her focus nor passion.
“Cryptocurrency offers an option for the people who use the systems to fund them,” Diaz said. “I’m interested in making systems that make sense and self-sustain because everyone has the right incentives.”
There are many different types of value people derive from open-source software projects.
Sometimes they use the software, sometimes they use public work to develop their own personal brand. Eghbal said some of the most widely sought after engineers are “building an active fanbase for whatever they are creating.”
She added there are “different types of open-source projects” with passionate fandoms, like Rust, plus open source developers have “a lot in common” with other types of online content creators. These public displays can lead to dramatic Twitter feuds and heated rivalries, just like otherpersonality-driven roleslike TikTok stars and podcasters.
“I’ve been told so many things are definitely, absolutely true, yet are all conflicting with each other,” Eghbal said of her research. “If I’ve learned anything it’s that developers have opinions.”
This is why Diaz’s token-funded startup, Nym, is developing a privacy layer comparable toTor, the latter of which she said is heavily reliant ongovernmentfunding. In contrast, her startup Nym raised$2.5 millionin a private token sale in 2019.
“Tor offers different trade-offs,” Diaz said. “We built Nym and the applications on top can be messaging applications or cryptocurrency applications … using the infrastructure to protect their metadata in the sense the network can’t figure out what services you are accessing or what they might be doing with those services.”
Diaz considers herself somewhat of an outsider to the open-source developer community, like Eghbal. Their motivations are primarily research-oriented, because research is their job.
Nym co-founders like Harry Halpin have more experience in (ideological) open source software development. Even coming from different perspectives, Halpin, Diaz and Eghbal all agreed that collaboration and interdependence are the crux of the open source development process.
“Now instead of relying on a couple of other developers’ code you may now be relying on hundreds of thousands of people’s projects and you don’t even know who these people are,” Eghbal said.
As such, Halpin said Nym works closely with teams contributing to other open-source projects, like Rust,Cosmosand Zcash. In addition, his team often works with independent (quasi-celebrity) developers likeAmir Taaki. Sometimes people contribute as a hobbyist or a user with specific needs, other times they are paid. There are many reasons why people work on cryptocurrency projects.
“I think it would be great to have an infrastructure that could support privacy in a variety of applications,” Diaz said. “Cryptocurrency offers an option for the people who use the systems to fund them … Privacy technologies have been very difficult to market.”
On the other hand, Eghbal described bitcoin as moving more slowly than some other cryptocurrency projects.
“Trying to prioritize stability is a very different development style rather than allowing people to have lots and lots of features,” Eghbal said, describing Bitcoin as relatively “stable.”
And even if the price of the asset never goes “to the moon,” perhaps continuing to provide reliable software tools can be a metric of success in itself.
Formore episodesand free early access before our regular 3 p.m. Eastern time releases, subscribe withApple Podcasts,Spotify,Pocketcasts,Google Podcasts,Castbox,Stitcher,RadioPublica,iHeartRadioorRSS.
• What People Who Aren’t Bullish on Bitcoin Still Like About It
• What People Who Aren’t Bullish on Bitcoin Still Like About It || The Crypto Daily – Movers and Shakers – June 24th, 2020: Bitcoin fell by 0.64% on Tuesday. Partially reversing Monday’s 4.28% rally, Bitcoin ended the day at $9,635.2. It was a bearish start to the day for Bitcoin and the broader market. Bitcoin slid from an early morning intraday high $9,724.0 to a late morning intraday low $9,589.7. Steering well clear of the first major support level at $9,390.27, Bitcoin recovered to $9,700 levels before easing back. A late pullback saw Bitcoin fall back to a low $9,611.8 and into the red before steadying. The near-term bullish trend remained intact in spite of a 2 nd consecutive week in the red last week. Bitcoin continued to hold above the 23.6% FIB of $8,900. For the bears, Bitcoin would need to slide through the 62% FIB of $6,400 to form a near-term bearish trend. The Rest of the Pack Across the rest of the majors, it was a mixed day on Tuesday. Monero’s XMR (+1.06%), Tezos (+3.84%), and Tron’s TRX (+0.54%) found further support. It was bearish for the rest of the majors, however. Cardano’s ADA and Stellar’s Lumen fell by 1.02% and 1.13% respectively to lead the way down. Binance Coin (-0.73%), EOS (-0.66%), and Litecoin (-0.45%) weren’t far behind. Bitcoin Cash SV (-0.10%), Ethereum (-0.05%), and Ripple’s XRP (-0.15%) saw more modest, while Bitcoin Cash ABC ended the day flat. Through the start of the week, the crypto total market cap rose from a Monday low $258.11bn to a high $272.54bn. At the time of writing, the total market cap stood at $269.02bn. Bitcoin’s dominance fell to a Monday low 65.85% before jumping to a high 66.20%. At the time of writing, Bitcoin’s dominance stood at 65.89%. This Morning At the time of writing, Bitcoin was up by 0.15% to $9,649.6. A mixed start to the day saw Bitcoin fall to an early morning low $9,633.7 before striking a high $9,658.7. Bitcoin left the major support and resistance levels untested early on. Elsewhere, it was a mixed start to the day for the majors. Story continues Tron’s TRX bucked the trend, with a 0.04% loss at the time of writing. It was bullish for the rest of the majors, with Tezos rallying by 1.80% to lead the way. For the Bitcoin Day Ahead Bitcoin would need to move through the $9,650 pivot to support a run at the first major resistance level at $9,709.57. Support from the broader market would be needed, however, for Bitcoin to break back through to $9,700 levels. Barring another extended crypto rally, the first major resistance level and Tuesday’s high $9,724 would likely cap any upside. In the event of a crypto breakout, Bitcoin could test the second major resistance level at $9,783.93 and resistance at $9,800. Failure to move through the $9,650 pivot level could see Bitcoin struggle on the day. A fall through the morning low $9,633.7 would bring the first major support level at $9,575.27 into play. Barring an extended crypto sell-off, however, Bitcoin should steer well clear of sub-$9,500 levels. The second major support level at $9,515.33 should limit any downside on the day. This article was originally posted on FX Empire More From FXEMPIRE: Litecoin, Stellar’s Lumen, and Tron’s TRX – Daily Analysis – June 24th, 2020 The RBNZ Stands Pat, as Markets Continue to Find Relief from the June PMIs EOS, Ethereum and Ripple’s XRP – Daily Tech Analysis – June 24th, 2020 USD/CAD Daily Forecast – Test Of Support At 1.3500 E-mini NASDAQ-100 Index (NQ) Futures Technical Analysis – Momentum Turns Lower Under 9843.50 Apple Shakes Off Headwinds and Rallies to All-Time High || Bitcoin’s mining difficulty hits a new all-time high: The bitcoin mining difficulty jumped 9.89% on Monday, pushing the total rate to above 17 trillion for the first time.
The difficulty rate, which benchmarks how difficult it is to mine a block and is adjusted approximately every two weeks, hit 17.34 trillion after its latest adjustment. The total network hashrate currently sits at around 124 EH/s.
Positively related to the total network hashrate, the bitcoin difficulty has had a turbulent year thus far. At the beginning of the year, it was impacted by delays in mining machine shipments due to COVID-19. In May, the Bitcoin subsidy halving — when the block reward dropped from 12.5 BTC per block to 6.25 BTC — left a temporary dent on the total network hashrate.
However, since early June, the difficulty rate has been slowly rising, along with an increase in total hashrate. BTC.comprojectsthat the next difficulty adjustment will push the figure above 19 trillion.
[caption id="attachment_71375" align="alignnone" width="2772"]
Sources: The Block Research[/caption]
© 2020 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice. || Vulgar Crypto Index (Rhymes With ‘Bitcoin’) Hits All-Time High: An index of 50 low-capitalization cryptocurrencies, the so-called Shitcoin Index , is up 114% so far this year. Launched in 2019 by FTX, the index was trading at an all-time high of $1,065 Monday after making all-time highs for the past three consecutive trading days. The novel futures product has outperformed bitcoin by 88 percentage points this year. Wednesday marked the first trading day the index closed above $1,000. September futures continue to trade in mild backwardation (at a discount) to perpetual futures. Daily trading volumes are low, staying below $10 million for the past month, but open interest, or the total value of contracts not yet settled, grew 43% over the past week, according to CoinGecko data. “Over the past month the ‘Robinhood Rally’ seems to have made its way into crypto, with popular and /or lower-cap coins running up while their respective market leaders stay quiet,” said Sam Bankman-Fried, CEO of FTX, the exchange that launched the index futures in August 2019. The index includes 50 low-cap cryptocurrencies including grin, theta, bitcoin gold, nano and ardor. Related Stories Vulgar Crypto Index (Rhymes With ‘Bitcoin’) Hits All-Time High Vulgar Crypto Index (Rhymes With ‘Bitcoin’) Hits All-Time High Vulgar Crypto Index (Rhymes With ‘Bitcoin’) Hits All-Time High Vulgar Crypto Index (Rhymes With ‘Bitcoin’) Hits All-Time High || Market Wrap: Derivatives, Altcoins Take Market Spotlight as Bitcoin Dozes at $9,100: Traders want a bitcoin price breakout but they aren’t sure when that will happen.
• Bitcoin(BTC) trading around $9,174 as of 20:00 UTC (4 p.m. ET). Gaining 0.64% over the previous 24 hours.
• Bitcoin’s 24-hour range: $9,054-9,184
• BTC above 10-day and 50-day moving average, a bullish signal for market technicians.
Read More:Exchanges See Drop in Volumes as Bitcoin Volatility Approaches 2020 Low
Traders are optimistic that bitcoin’s weak market, with low volumes and low volatility, can quickly change. Price movement outside of the low $9,000s territory is key, said Rupert Douglas, head of business development and institutional sales at London brokerage Koine. “This tussle between bulls and bears from $9,000 to $9,500 is a slow grind at the moment. A close outside these boundaries will likely see a sharp move either way.”
Related:Bitcoin Futures Trading Volume Slips to 3-Month Low on CME
It will take more exciting news thana Twitter hackattempting to scam social media users out of bitcoin to bring the world’s oldest cryptocurrency out of stagnation, said Jean-Baptiste Pavageau, a partner at Paris-based quantitative trading firm ExoAlpha.
Read More:Why Bitcoin Traders Couldn’t Give a Sat About the Twitter Hack
“The fact that bitcoin didn’t move because of the Twitter scam shows the importance of $9,100-$9,200 range to either consolidate the trend and move higher or invalidate the level and fall toward $8,200,” said Pavageau.
In a sleepy bitcoin sector, several analysts pointed to the crypto derivatives market as a sign the industry is still growing. “In general, the markets have come a long way and I am particularly excited about some of the new derivatives platforms that have emerged.” Mick Sherman, founder of New York-based Trading Firm Altcoin Advisors.
Related:
In particular, CME, Binance and ByBit have seen growth in open interest.
In addition, U.S. dollar-denominated open interest on Seychelles-based derivatives exchange BitMEX is around $700 million, a high not seen since the excitement surrounding May 12’s bitcoin halving, a scheduled reduction in the cryptocurrency’s new supply output that happens roughly every four years.
Read More:Bitcoin Halving 2020 Explained
“We still see a lot of interest and building momentum for derivatives and expect this to continue for some time, particularly as traditional managers seem less interested in holding the underlying but still want exposure to price movement,” said Douglas Bilyk, business development director at crypto brokerage Copper.
Derivatives might be a factor, but cryptocurrencies other than bitcoin could weigh on the market as well, Bilyk added. “We’re expecting a large bitcoin move but direction is unclear. One ‘canary in the coal mine’ might be the bullish moves in some of the blockchain development tokens these past few weeks.”
The second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization,ether(ETH), was up Friday, trading around $233 and climbing 0.33% in 24 hours as of 20:00 UTC (4:00 p.m. EDT).
This week, the Ethereum network experienced the most transactions in over two and a half years. On Monday, total transactions reached 1,151,834, the first time it has been that high since Jan. 18, 2018, according to data from aggregator Etherscan.
With decentralized exchanges now around $60 million in volume per day, tokens on the Ethereum network, often referred to as altcoins, are giving traders new ideas to profit within the cryptocurrency ecosystem. “I don’t see bitcoin as a clear trading opportunity right now, however there are some opportunities with altcoins that have performed really well lately.” said Alessandro Andreotti, an Italy-based bitcoin over-the-counter trader.
Read More:Crypto Custodian Curv Is Helping Institutions Dabble in DeFi
Digital assets on theCoinDesk 20are mostly in the red Friday. Notable winners as of 20:00 UTC (4:00 p.m. ET):
• stellar(XLM) + 11%
• 0x(ZRX) + 3.5%
• dogecoin(DOGE) + 3.3%
Read More:Aave’s LEND Token Is Now Up 1,600% in 2020
Notable losers as of 20:00 UTC (4:00 p.m. ET):
• basic attention token(BAT) – 2%
• chainlink(LINK) – 1.3%
• cardano(ADA) – 1%
Read More:ConsenSys Accused of Stealing Payment Startup’s Code for Rival Service
Equities:
• In Asia, the Nikkei 225 closed down 0.32% because oflosses in the industrial and real estate sectors.
• In Europe, the FTSE 100 in London ended the day in the green 0.63% as European Union leadersheld a summit to make plans for more economic stimulus.
• The U.S. S&P 500 index gained 0.30% during alightly traded session amid increasing coronavirus cases and possible fresh U.S. stimulus.
Read More:CoinDesk Quarterly Review, Q2 2020
Commodities:
• Oil is down 0.23%. Price per barrel of West Texas Intermediate crude: $40.59
• Gold is up 0.76% Friday at $1,810 per ounce
Read More:Binance Pool Poised to Grab More Bitcoin Hashrate in Russia and Asia
Treasurys:
• U.S. Treasury bonds all climbed Friday. Yields, which move in the opposite direction as price, were up most on the two-year bond, in the green 5.7%.
Read More:BlockFi Hires Former Deutsche Bank, Barclays Alum as General Counsel
• Market Wrap: Derivatives, Altcoins Take Market Spotlight as Bitcoin Dozes at $9,100
• Market Wrap: Derivatives, Altcoins Take Market Spotlight as Bitcoin Dozes at $9,100 || Market Wrap: As Stocks Rally, Bitcoin Trades Above $9.3K for the First Time in 10 Days: A rising tide in equities is lifting all boats – including in the bitcoin market. Bitcoin (BTC) is trading around $9,295 as of 20:00 UTC (4 p.m. ET), gaining 2.7% over the previous 24 hours. Bitcoin’s 24-hour range: $8,938 – $9,345 BTC above 10-day and 50-day moving average, bullish signal for market technicians. Market participants are pointing to global stock markets as reasons for bitcoin’s rise in price, with the world’s oldest cryptocurrency in a narrow range just above $9,000 since July 3. “Equity markets are up across the board and so you see a spike in bitcoin’s price,” said Michael Rabkin, head of institutional sales at Chicago crypto trading firm DV Chain. Related: Delta Exchange Predicts $40 Price for COMP Ahead of Governance Token Deluge Read More: Bitcoin Rises in Line With Stocks After Dip Below $9K Indeed, stock indexes globally are flashing green. In Asia, the Nikkei 225 index of companies ended the day up 1.8%. Despite a rising number of coronavirus cases in Japan, gains were made in industrial stocks including conglomerate Mitsubishi . Europe’s FTSE 100 index closed up 1.5%. Optimism on fresh government stimulus across the continent contributed to leading the index higher. The U.S. S&P 500 index gained 1.6%. Record highs for tech stocks Netflix and Amazon led the way. Since the start of June, the major stock indexes are actually beating bitcoin. Despite some excitement in crypto price action Monday, traders point out volatility has been absent in the bitcoin markets, said Elie Le Rest, a partner at Paris-based cryptocurrency trading firm ExoAlpha, “Since the bitcoin halving on May 12, the digital asset markets have gone nowhere for six weeks in a row,” said Le Rest. “Volatility has collapsed abruptly and bitcoin remains stuck between $8,200 and $10,500.” Related: Bitcoin Up 27% in First Half of 2020, Beating Gold, Silver and Platinum Story continues Read More: ConsenSys, Polychain, Tron, CipherTrace: Blockchain Startups Got $18M+ in US ‘PPP’ Bailout Loans Bitcoin’s one-month at-the-money (ATM) implied volatility, reflecting the market’s future expectation of volatility and calculated by using options with a strike price nearest to the spot price, has dipped. In the past month, ATM implied volatility for bitcoin has dropped from as high as 70% on June 11 to 43% on July 3, though it is creeping back up. This is something derivatives traders are following closely as they make option bets on future price action. Read More: Kraken-Owned Crypto Facilities Wins UK License to Offer Derivatives To be sure, the bitcoin price pop on Monday has stakeholders ready for a bigger price move, hopefully up, said Mostafa Al-Mashita, an executive at Toronto-based crypto liquidity provider Secure Digital Markets. “Bitcoin is poised for a big move as it’s held a tight range for a couple of weeks now,” he told CoinDesk. A dip in DEX The second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, ether (ETH), was up Thursday, trading around $238 and climbing 5.7% in 24 hours as of 20:00 UTC (4:00 p.m. ET). Read More: Arca Labs Launches Ethereum-Based SEC-Registered Fund Ethereum-based decentralized exchanges, or DEX, have seen volumes decrease over the past few weeks. DEX week-over-week volume growth has dropped 19%, according to data from aggregator Dune Analytics. Nevertheless, decentralized finance (DeFi) traders seem to be finding creative ways to profit that don’t necessarily require DEX. “DeFi has been killing it,” said Karl Samsen, director of strategy for crypto merchant services firm Global Digital Assets Despite the drop in volumes. Read More: What Is Yield Farming? The Rocket Fuel of DeFi, Explained Samsen pointed to at least one new play that might be contributing to a dip in DEX: Yield farming, where crypto stakeholders leverage lenders such as Compound to gain a profit on Ethereum-based tokens. Other markets Digital assets on CoinDesk’s big board are mostly in the green Monday. Notable gainers (as of 20:00 UTC (4:00 p.m. ET): bitcoin SV (BSV) + 23% dogecoin (DOGE) + 9% tron (TRX) + 7%. Commodities Oil is up 0.86%. Price per barrel of West Texas Intermediate crude: $40.58 Gold is up 0.69% at $1,786 per ounce U.S. Treasury bonds all climbed Monday. Yields, which move in the opposite direction as price, were up most on the two-year, in the green 2.65%. Related Stories Market Wrap: As Stocks Rally, Bitcoin Trades Above $9.3K for the First Time in 10 Days Market Wrap: As Stocks Rally, Bitcoin Trades Above $9.3K for the First Time in 10 Days || New Zealand police seize $90 million from alleged BTC-e operator Alexander Vinnik: New Zealand police have seized NZ$ 140 million (~US$90 million) from Alexander Vinnik, the alleged operator of the now-defunct crypto exchange BTC-e, and his company Canton Business Corporation (the managing shell company of BTC-e).
The policesaidit is the largest seizure in its history. Vinnik was arrested on money laundering allegations in Greece in 2017, and earlier this year wasextraditedto France, where he remains in custody.
It is alleged that Vinnik operated BTC-e without anti-money laundering controls and policies, which resulted in criminals laundering proceeds derived from illegal activities via the exchange.New Zealand police commissioner Andrew Coster said the seized funds are "likely to reflect the profit gained from the victimisation of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of people globally as a result of cyber-crime and organised crime."
Coster added that the police worked closely with the U.S. Internal Revenue Service to address this "very serious offending."
The police plan to file an application to the High Court seeking forfeiture of the seized funds. It is not clear whether the funds are in the form of fiat or cryptocurrency. When reached, the police declined to comment to The Block.
The case is still ongoing. Once it is completed in France, Vinnik is said to extradite to Greece, then the U.S. and later to his native Russia.
© 2020 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice. || DeFi Startups Built on Compound Weigh What to Do With $200 COMP Tokens: The token for the decentralized finance (DeFi) app Compound,COMP, hit an all-time high of $231 on Friday. Now startups built on top of the lending protocol are considering what to do about this sudden windfall.
Compound wasbuilt from the beginningas a simple marketplace for placing collateral and borrowing money. The intention was always to make it easy for other companies to build products atop it, and several have.
But some startups are in a situation where they have control of COMP earned from funds entrusted to them by their customers. The question then becomes: Do they return that COMP to users immediately or use it to lock in other benefits? And if they do redistribute it now, do they simply give users COMP or convert it first to a more familiar form of crypto?
Related:Compound Tops MakerDAO, Now Has the Most Value Staked in DeFi
CoinDesk checked in with companies built on top of the Ethereum-based application this week to find out their plans for using the fresh COMP tokens earned by users of their platforms.
While the startups we spoke with were still exploring which course of action would be best, they generally agreed COMP’s rapid ascent is a positive moment for the DeFi industry.
Read more:A Coinbase Pro Listing and Other Eye-Opening Data Points on Compound’s Surge in Demand
Dharma CEO Nadav Hollander explained the implications ofopening up governanceof Compound for a company like his. In an email to CoinDesk, he wrote, “It’s like being a bank and getting to vote at Federal Reserve meetings – only any user of the protocol can do it.”
Related:Market Wrap: Bitcoin Spot Volumes Are Weak While Options and DeFi Strengthen
In fact, Dharma has already been actively taking part. It hasa proposal in nowto increase the amount of interest earned on tether (USDT) deposits on Compound. Such deposits go into the reserve pool, a sort of security blanket that each liquidity pool creates for itself. As a governance token, COMP is used to stake a person’s or entity’s vote, either for or against.
According toDeFi Pulse, Compound’s total value locked (TVL) now stands at $418 million, $80 million short of overtakingMakerDAO, the dominant protocol in DeFi. Compound has added over $300 million in liquidity since COMP distribution began on June 15.
The COMP token is trading at $218 as of this writing,according to CoinGecko, for a market cap – separate from the Compound protocol’s TVL – of roughly $570 million. The market cap of Maker’s governance token,MKR, currently sits at $466 million.
Meanwhile, Dharma is still sorting out how to handle COMP that its users are earning.
Dharmais a smart-wallet app that lets users deposit dai to earn interest easily. It also allows them to easily pay each other in dai, much like Venmo. While dai has not been the most popular asset on Compound lately (USDC and USDT have), each depositor and borrower on Dharma still earns some COMP each day as it gets distributed.
Read more:Crypto Lender Dharma Pivots to Stablecoin Savings Accounts
Dharma’s COO has spoken about the options that Dharma is consideringon Twitter. It is considering holding onto the COMP for now so that Dharma can be a stronger voter in governance, but it may also directly distribute the COMP to users or convert it to dai and then distribute it.
Forstertweeted, “We’ve been discussing this internally and in our Discord channel. Haven’t reached a conclusion yet.”
PoolTogether is a lossless lottery. Users deposit their funds with PoolTogether in order to win a chance at winning all the interest earned by everyone else who did the same.
PoolTogether has a weeklydai pool and a daily USDCpool, but their returns have been hammered by the way liquidity mining has changed the market.
“PoolTogether contracts are earning COMP and currently, the value of that COMP is actually greater than the value of the interest accruing to the prizes!,” Leighton Cusack, the founder, told CoinDesk in an email. “However, when we designed the protocol we did not have COMP in mind so there is not a mechanism right now to re-distribute it to depositors or include it in the prize.”
Read more:Coinbase Pumps $1.1M USDC Into DeFi Sites Uniswap and PoolTogether
Cusacklet his community knowthat this was a question under consideration the week before COMP started to be distributed.
Like Dharma, it’s considering holding onto COMP so it can vote the tokens in the interest of PoolTogether users. That said, Cusack also wrote, “The most likely scenario though is that we’ll include the accrued COMP in the prize distribution. So longer-term this will be great for users as the value of the COMP will supercharge the prize size.”
Stakedis a startup that takes care of the hard part if users have a token on which they can earn a yield. It even has a product that will move assets around to optimize their income, calledRAY, for Robo Advisor for Yield.
Staked CEO Tim Ogilvie told CoinDesk, “Any COMP earned is distributed to depositors. Next week we’re going to update our algorithm so the yield attributable to Compound includes both interest and the value of the COMP earned.”
LinenandArgentare both wallet applications that make it easy to move assets into Compound and earn interest. Because all deposits in Compound are tokenized, this is simple to do in a non-custodial fashion; if your wallet can hold USDC it should be able to hold cUSDC (the tokenized version of a deposit of USDC on Compound).
Argent postedon its blog Wednesdaythat its users would be able to keep track of COMP earnings right in their wallet and use it like any other token.
Read more:Paradigm Leads $12M Round for DeFi-Friendly Wallet Startup
Linen founder and CEO Vitaly Bahachuk told CoinDesk via email that it would do the same. He wrote, “Linen app is powered by a user self-custody wallet and Linen does not have access to members’ assets including access to COMP. We will build an in-app interface where our members can claim their COMP and use COMP however they chose to.”
One choice they might make, HODL the COMP and delegate to Linen to vote their interests. Linen has declared itselfas a delegatefor voting on Compound protocol questions.
Opyn has also declared itself asa Compound delegate.
The company built a decentralizedprotocol for hedging riskon ERC-20 tokens. While using Opyn itself does not create a way that users would earn COMP, its application may be more valuable in a highly volatile market like the one created by COMP’s release into the wild.
Read more:Options Protocol Brings ‘Insurance’ to DeFi Deposits on Compound
When Opyn creates a hedge, it also tokenizes it. So if a user buys a hedge againstETHdropping they get oETH. With so many users converting USDT into Compound deposit tokens, cUSDT, the ever-lingering concerns about tether have become salient to Opyn’s community.
“We’ve seen user demand for ocUSDT (protection on USDT deposits in Compound) as lots of DeFi users have been attracted to the COMP incentives for USDT,” Opyn co-founder Alexis Gauba told CoinDesk.
With the price of COMP going so high so suddenly, there has beendiscussion on Twitterof creating a hedge for the governance token.
Gauba wrote, “The Opyn team does currently have plans for an oCOMP token, however, the protocol is completely open and supports options on any arbitrary ERC-20 token, so anyone could create an oCOMP token!”
• DeFi Startups Built on Compound Weigh What to Do With $200 COMP Tokens
• DeFi Startups Built on Compound Weigh What to Do With $200 COMP Tokens
[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
None available.
|
Trend: up || Prices: 11754.05, 11675.74, 11878.11, 11410.53, 11584.93, 11784.14, 11768.87, 11865.70, 11892.80, 12254.40
|
Analyze the provided historical prices, technical indicators, news, and social media sentiment from the last 60 days. Based on this context, predict the overall trend (up, down, or no change) and the specific daily closing prices for Bitcoin for the next 10 days.
|
[Technical Analysis for 2018-11-29]
BTC Price: 4278.85, BTC RSI: 31.76
Gold Price: 1224.10, Gold RSI: 53.93
Oil Price: 51.45, Oil RSI: 26.79
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
A First: U.S. Treasury Makes Bitcoin Addresses Focal Point in Sanctions: For the first time, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) has traced illicit bitcoin activity to the public addresses of two sanctioned individuals.
According to a November 28, 2018,press release, the department is bringing action against Ali Khorashadizadeh and Mohammad Ghorbaniyan for their alleged involvement in the SamSam ransomware scheme. The two men reportedly helped the hackers behind SamSam convert millions of dollars of ransomed bitcoin to Iranian rials.
“As a result of today’s action, all property and interests in property of the designated persons that are in the possession or control of U.S. persons or within or transiting the United States are blocked, and U.S. persons generally are prohibited from dealing with them,” the release states.
These charges coincide with the U.S. Department of Justice’sindictment of Faramarz Shahi Savandi and Mohammad Mehdi Shah Mansouri, the ringleaders behind the 34-month long SamSam ransomware attack. Beginning in 2015, the ransomware affected some 200 international entities, including hospitals and government departments in California, Colorado, Georgia and Kansas. The malicious actors used the ransomware to gain administrative control over the victims’ IT servers and sensitive documents, and they leveraged this control to demand bitcoin as ransom.
Khorashadizadeh and Ghorbaniyan helped Savandi and Mansour process some $6 million in extorted payments. Tracing the illicit activity back to Khorashadizadeh and Ghorbaniyan’s primary Bitcoin public addresses, the OFAC found that the two men have executed roughly 7,000 transactions across 40 exchanges since 2013. The department believes that a significant sum of the 6,000 bitcoin either man has handled is related to the SamSam ransomware scheme, indicating that they converted these funds into Iranian rials and deposited them into bank accounts on behalf of Khorashadizadeh and Ghorbaniyan.
The Bitcoin addresses in question are as follows: 149w62rY42aZBox8fGcmqNsXUzSStKeq8C and 1AjZPMsnmpdK2Rv9KQNfMurTXinscVro9V.
“Treasury is targeting digital currency exchangers who have enabled Iranian cyber actors to profit from extorting digital ransom payments from their victims. As Iran becomes increasingly isolated and desperate for access to U.S. dollars, it is vital that virtual currency exchanges, peer-to-peer exchangers, and other providers of digital currency services harden their networks against these illicit schemes. We are publishing digital currency addresses to identify illicit actors operating in the digital currency space. Treasury will aggressively pursue Iran and other rogue regimes attempting to exploit digital currencies and weaknesses in cyber and AML/CFT safeguards to further their nefarious objectives,” Treasury Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Sigal Mandelker said in a statement.
The release continues to state that “persons that engage in transactions with Khorashadizadeh and Ghorbaniyan could be subject to secondary sanctions.”
This article originally appeared onBitcoin Magazine. || Bitcoin Market Cap Slides Below $100 Billion as BCH Fork Spooks Investors: It has been more than 24 hours since bitcoin scared investors with a sudden 10 percent drop. But there hasn’t been a concrete recovery action — yet.
Thebitcoin-to-dollar exchange ratehas surged 2.21 percent from its previous low at 5291-fiat, now trading at 5408-fiat. The coin’s market cap has risen likewise but remains below the three-figure billion dollar valuation. The weekly chart onCoinbaseindicates BTC/USD is testing the support area of a giant falling wedge formation. Technically, a falling wedge formation predicts a potential breakout action. But in the case ofbitcoin, the negative trend more or less is driven by fears raised at the behest of a hard fork event.
The ongoingBitcoin Cash (BCH) hard forkhas beentoutedby some as the main perpetrator of the latest crypto market crash. The software upgrade has split the original BCH blockchain into two networks, tentatively called BCHABC and BCHSV. Traders are pondering whether the coin, which itself broke from the original Bitcoin blockchain, is weighing on its older sibling.
BKCM’s Brian Kelly thinks investors are confused about the outcome of the said hard fork. They are running away from both the BTC and BCH markets, fearing slowdown that may ponder upon their holdings in near-term.
“People started selling. That triggered stops. Everybody got concerned,” Kelly explained onCNBC Fast Money. “And that’s what happened today — the entire market sell-down.”
Kelly expected the entire sell-off episode to be a “short-term event,” adding that it could be an opportunity for large investors to enter the space at the newfound bottom.
Meltem Demirors, chief strategy officer at CoinShares, supported the theory but provided a separate fundamental altogether. To her, it would be the failure of second-class coins that would allow investors to jump back on the bitcoin train.
“They’re going to need to start firing employees. They’re going to need to cut costs,” she said. “You’re going to see consolidation, and some of these assets, inevitably, will get marked to zero.”
Many analysts believe that the bitcoin downtrend isfar from over, and the coin is yet to find a bottom level.
Stephen Innes, Oanda Corp Asia’s trading head, predicted that the BCH hard fork could destabilize the crypto market for far longer than expected. According to the analyst, BTC price should stay on a downward path and break the psychological support level at $5,000.
“Market opens the door to a test of $2,500 as bitcoin retail traders move from buying on a dip to full-out panic mode,” Innestold Bloomberg.
Meanwhile, global crypto exchanges have pledged to support the new BCH alternative with an aim to improve the current market sentiment.
Featured Image from Shutterstock. Charts fromTradingView.
The postBitcoin Market Cap Slides Below $100 Billion as BCH Fork Spooks Investorsappeared first onCCN. || Bitcoin turns 10: An annotated timeline: This post has been updated.
Wednesday marks 10 years since the white paper “Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System” was posted to a cryptographic mailing list, sparking one of the biggest flurries of tech innovation in a decade.
Thepaper, by the still-unknown Satoshi Nakamoto, led to the creation of bitcoin, the first cryptocurrency. There are now over 2,000 cryptocurrencies in circulation and the entire industry is worth over $200 billion.
For those who haven’t been following bitcoin closely, below is a rundown of the story of the asset thus far:
Although the initial idea for bitcoin was first proposed in late 2008, it wasn’t until January 2009 that the bitcoin network was first created. Even then, there were no bitcoin exchanges for the first year, meaning there was no quoted price for bitcoin. The first exchange — the now defunct BitcoinMarkets.com — launched in March 2010. The first real-world bitcoin transaction took place a few months later whenLaszlo Hanyecz bought two pizzas for 10,000 BTC in Florida. The highest price for bitcoin across 2010 was $0.39.
Over the next few years bitcoin slowly began to creep into mainstream consciousness but, unfortunately, for the wrong reasons.
One of the first people to grasp the radical possibilities of an anonymous online currency was Ross Ulbricht, aka Dread Pirate Roberts, who founded dark web marketplace Silk Road in 2011. The infamous online site was dominated by drug sales and used bitcoin as its currency. An estimated $1 billion-worth of bitcoin changed hands over the site before it was shut down by the FBI in 2013.
Bitcoin went properly mainstream in 2013 with increasing media mentions, growing numbers of new bitcoin companies popping up, and big businesses such as Baidu and Overstock agreeing to accept bitcoin.
In early 2013, leading exchange Coinbase said it had sold over $1m-worth of bitcoin in a month for the first time, a sign that the market was growing. Indeed, bitcoin experienced its first major price spike in 2013, rising to over $1,200 by the end of the year.A Forbes article in December declared 2013 the “Year of the Bitcoin.”However, the Chinese government banned bitcoin at the end of the year, causing the price to drop.
Bitcoin was dealt a major blow in 2014 with the collapse of bitcoin exchange MtGox, which was by far the largest cryptocurrency exchange globally at the time. Tokyo-based MtGox filed for bankruptcy in February 2014 after suffering a major hack that it initially thought cost it 850,000 bitcoin.
The collapse of MtGox coincided with some of the air coming out of the bitcoin price bubble that had inflated in 2013. After starting the year at close to $1,000, bitcoin finished 2014 nearer $300.
Despite retail investors getting their fingers burned by MtGox, venture capital firms were beginning to wake up to the potential of bitcoin, cryptocurrencies, and blockchain, which is the cryptographic database technology underpinning virtual currencies. Over $1 billion was invested in bitcoin and blockchain startups across 2015 and 2016,according to CB Insights. That’s more than double what was invested across the prior three years.
Banks, which had long dismissed and derided bitcoin, also began to look at blockchain (although not cryptocurrencies). A report from Santander in 2015 estimated thatbanks could save $20 billion a year in back office costs by moving to the new technology.
Bitcoin’s price remained stuck in a range while all this was going on, failing to beat the price high it recorded in 2014.
Bitcoin finally passed its 2014 price peak in 2017 — and then some. The price exploded in 2017 as interest in cryptocurrencies surged. It coincided with a slew of new cryptocurrencies being launched, which attracted huge amounts of retail investment.
Bitcoin surged to a high of over $20,000 by the end of 2017, with daily price spikes of more than 10% not unusual. As the price rocketed, more mainstream financial firms began to look at the asset. Exchange operators CBOE and CME Group both launched bitcoin futures in December.
However, the surge appeared to be driven by investors piling in looking for short-term returns. By the end of the year, analysts were warning about a bubble.
Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies crashed back down to earth in 2018 as people began to realise that 2017 price rise was largely driven by hopes of short term gains rather than any fundamentals. Bitcoin dropped sharply during the first three months of the year but has now been stuck in a range around the $6,200 mark for the past two months. This has coincided with a period of unusually low volatility of the cryptocurrency.
In October theFinancial Action Task Force (FATF), the Paris-basedglobal money-laundering watchdog,announcedthat it would establish rules for governments to oversee cryptocurrencies. Also in October, theSecurities and Exchange Commission (SEC)widenedits crackdown on certain parts of the crypto market.
READ MORE:What crypto investment firms are telling clients during a bear market
Follow Yahoo Finance onTwitter,Facebook,Instagram,Flipboard,LinkedIn, andreddit. || Debunked: Bitcoin Dev. Jimmy Song Exposes Fradulent ‘Satoshi’ Tweet: bitcoin hacker satoshi nakamoto There was some recent buzz from both sides of the Bitcoin Cash chain split regarding an allegedly authentic tweet from pseudonymous Bitcoin inventor Satoshi Nakamoto. The tweet, and indeed the entire account, is no longer available from Twitter proper. The text of the original tweet reads: “I do not want to be public, but, there is an issue with SegWit. If it is not fixed, there will be nothing and I would have failed. There is only one way that Bitcoin survives and it is important to me that it works. Important enough, that I may be known openly. He then provides a signature which, on the surface, appears legitimate.” However, according to people much more educated on the subject, the signature was definitely falsified. Jimmy Song is a veteran blockchain developer who has previously worked on Armory Wallet and Paxos, as well as in the financial space as a partner at Blockchain Capital. He frequently blogs on Bitcoin subjects, and clearly could not resist the urge to deconstruct any dreams people had that Satoshi Nakamoto was back from the grave with an anti- SegWit message in hand. His post doesn’t gloss over the technicalities, which we will ignore here. However, he concludes that the signature was fake, and then reproduces the forgery in his own example . “The Tweet is equivalent to someone that’s ‘proving’ that they ran a marathon in under 2 hours while allowing us to only observe them at the finish line. The nonsense signature is equivalent to someone ‘running’ a marathon in under 2 hours by starting close to the finish line.” He notes that billionaire Calvin Ayre used the tweet from @satoshi as proof that the Bitcoin creator “lives” (a fact few besides those who believe he was either Hal Finney or Dave Kleiman dispute) and used it in the ongoing war with Bitcoin.com and Bitcoin Cash ABC. calvin ayre bitcoin cash satoshi More on the @Satoshi Handle A bit of web history research reveals that the account @satoshi has existed almost as long as the social media platform itself, and it must have been only recently started tweeting about anything related to Bitcoin. As recently as 2013, when news of Bitcoin was spreading rapidly, and CCN was just getting started, there were less than 50 followers, and the account was private . Twitter accounts have frequently been sold online, with prices ranging depending on popularity of the account, username, and follower account. There are sites dedicated to the practice . Satoshi is a Japanese name meaning “ clear thinking, quick-witted, wise. ” In 2007, Twitter was generally a plaything of the technorati, not taken overly seriously. Blogspot would have been considered a more viable platform to develop a following. The day of the microblog was many eons off in web history, really coinciding with the smartphone revolution. Story continues We present the above unrelated facts to float a potential theory: whoever made the fake signature tweet claiming to be Satoshi Nakamoto this past week probably bought the Twitter handle . As to who that person is, well, it would seem Twitter is reviewing the account – perhaps the real Satoshi is welcome to claim it, but just as likely, the company has decided the account violated their wide-berth terms of use. This is, of course, not the first time someone has come to the fore claiming to be Satoshi Nakamoto with an urgent message from Bitcoin past . Featured Image from Shutterstock The post Debunked: Bitcoin Dev. Jimmy Song Exposes Fradulent ‘Satoshi’ Tweet appeared first on CCN . View comments || Crypto crisis: a year on from its record high, is this the end of the road for Bitcoin?: Bitcoin's reverse in fortunes in 2018 has led many to question the future of the cryptocurrency industry. - Getty Images Europe Last year, Christmas came early for Bitcoin investors. As the 2017 holiday season loomed into view exactly one year ago, cryptocurrency investors were surfing a wave of optimism, which sent the digital currency cruising to an all-time high. In the first 17 days of December alone, its price more than doubled to $20,000. Across the board, the valuation of cryptocurrencies was surging, helping tempt new investors that the hype was for real as portfolios swelled. For people inside the cryptocurrency bubble, soaring valuations offered proof that their investments were paying off. In fact, so many cryptocurrency enthusiasts purchased high-end sports cars that it became a running joke online. “When Lambo?” people asked whenever a new cryptocurrency project was launched. After nearing a $20,000 high last December, Bitcoin is now languishing under $4,000 But a year later, the atmosphere could not be more different. The digital currency has collapsed in spectacular fashion, with almost $250bn being wiped off Bitcoin's total market cap since December, while deepening woes have caused prices to sink below $4000 for the first time since September 2017. On Saturday, Nouriel Roubini, the US economist who famously predicted the 2008 financial crash, offered a damning perspective, describing Bitcoin as "the biggest bubble [and] bust in history", exceeding even the South Sea bubble and the tulip mania of the 1630s. So what exactly happened? And is it really curtains for the crypto market, as Roubini and many others believe? Accusations of market manipulation haven't helped, of course. They cast a pall around a cryptocurrency industry that was already being treated with caution, given its origins as a merry band of outsiders thumbing their collective nose at the stodgy world of conventional finance. In the US, federal prosecutors are investigating a cryptocurrency named Tether, which claims to be pegged to the US dollar, over accusations that the alternate currency was used to manipulate the price of Bitcoin. Story continues Prosecutors claim that some of Bitcoin’s 2017 rally to its all-time high of $20,000 was down to traders using Tether to buy up Bitcoin at crucial moments. Earlier this year, researchers published a paper which sought to link the rise in Bitcoin’s price to suspicious market activity using Tether. Claims of artificial manipulation of Bitcoin’s price have been troubling to institutional investors considering a move into Bitcoin. But market manipulation isn’t the only issue faced by Bitcoin, however. The wider cryptocurrency community has recently been grappling with a “hard fork” of cryptocurrency Bitcoin Cash. A “fork” is tantamount to a breakup. Last year, a group of developers grew frustrated with rising operational costs in Bitcoin and the limits on what’s known as the “blocksize” of data held on the blockchain. They saw an opportunity to break away from Bitcoin by preparing a code change that would lead to the development of Bitcoin Cash, a new cryptocurrency spun off from Bitcoin that leveraged the name of the original. It held the promise of delivering on the features they thought Bitcoin should really be delivering. But no path is free from bumps in the road. The newly formed Bitcoin Cash, which is barely a year old, experienced another “hard fork” mid-November that split it into Bitcoin Cash ABC and Bitcoin Cash SV. According to Iqbal Gandham, UK managing director of crypto trading platform eToro, the recent shifts in price were inevitable given the fork. Market analysts were waiting for a sharp downturn in cryptocurrencies mid-November following a period of stability at around $6000 - in part due to the general performance of tech stocks globally in recent weeks, compounded by the uncertainty injected by the Bitcoin Cash divide. “This issue of Bitcoin Cash forking also occurring at the time around the 14th or 15th [of November] has caused the movement down,” says Gandham. “It’s ‘two tribes go to war’ kind of thing.” To further complicate matters for the industry, regulators in the UK have also begun to place focus on Bitcoin. Members of Parliament have urged the Financial Conduct Authority to extend its Regulated Activities Order to also cover cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin. The government’s Cryptoasset Taskforce, which is comprised of the Financial Conduct Authority, HM Treasury and the Bank of England, has recommended holding a consultation in early 2019 on whether so-called Initial Coin Offerings should be regulated. This is a process that involves the offering of digital coins for sale from startups launching new cryptocurrencies. Signs of impending regulation on cryptocurrencies in the UK have concerned investors, with experts publishing a report alleging that overzealous regulation could harm cryptocurrency traders in the UK. “If you crowbar everything into the Regulated Activities Order you are making everything into an investment bank,” said Neil Foster, corporate technology partner at Baker Botts. It’s hard to see how Bitcoin recovers in a year when Bank of England Governor Mark Carney warned that the digital coin was “failing” as a currency, and had become a “global speculative mania” that “exhibited all the classic hallmarks of bubbles”. But not everyone is running for the hills just yet. There are signs that the industry can survive and win over at least some key players in traditional finance. Earlier this month, Christine Lagarde, managing director of the International Monetary Fund, made a serious proposal for central banks to issue digital currencie s at a fintech event in Singapore. The Winklevoss twins, two brothers who have made fortunes from their Bitcoin investments, remain bullish on the future prospects of the market, while a more mature approach to digital coins like Tether being pegged to fiat currencies is taking shape in what’s known as Stablecoins. Buying still seems to be occurring too in over the counter markets run by major institutions and exchanges. Though Gandham sees Bitcoin falling further still, with a levelling of price possible at the $2500 mark, he is keen to see what happens this December as less-experienced investors are shaken out. As time marches on, he says, regulation will become concrete, offering a new wave of enthusiasts a chance to participate within a safe investment environment. “The people who bought in September 2017 when we saw the huge rise, I’m sure there is a certain amount of concern among them. But the industry itself is still moving forward towards its goal saying ‘we still believe in this’” he says. “The ones who really understand the power of Bitcoin and the power of blockchain realise this is not something that's going to disappear. I don't think traditional finance is going to miss the opportunity again.” || PIVX to Launch Cryptocurrency Exchange Platform ZDEX in November: PIVX’s, a privacy-focused cryptocurrency that allows for full anonymity during transactions, is transforming to a fully-fledged cryptocurrency exchange platform by November this year. PIVX offers full privacy by essentially erasing a coin’s transaction history after each subsequent transaction. According to the operator’s announcement, its cryptocurrency exchange platform, ZDEX is set to be a privacy-enabled decentralized exchange.
Zerocoin
PIVX is built on the Zerocoin protocol technology developed by Prof. Matthew D. Green in collaboration with two of his former students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technololgy. Green’s Zerocoin was initially developed as an alternative for the traditional mixing service for potentially traceable Bitcoins. It sought to address distrust issues with the mixing services where efficiency relied on the mixing service operator’s subjective trustworthiness.
Now with Zerocoins, it was intended that Bitcoin itself (without dependence on 3rdparty mixing services) would annihilate identifiable tokens then mint fresh coins with no transaction history thus allowing traders to transact incognito. Unfortunately, Bitcoin turned down the proposal prompting Prof. Green and team to launch their protocol as an independent cryptocurrency.
Anonymity
PIVX uses the Zerocoin protocol on itsexchange platformthus allowing users to trade in untraceable tokens, preventing anyone from having a birds-eye view of where a particular coin has been through its transaction history. PIVX is pioneering a new era of private decentralized exchange services that will go a long way to frustrating governments’ efforts to regulate cryptocurrencies; they can’t fight what they can’t see.
PIVX is not building entirely new infrastructures for its upcoming exchange platform. ZDEX will utilize existing PIVX masternodes. Through the 1,350 masternodes making up the PIVX network, users can trade in zPIV and other diverse digital assets.
PIVX is researching other uses of the zerocoin technology. In June, the company announced that it had come up with a private in-wallet that leverages zerocoin technology.
With thezDEXwallet, users will save on transaction fees, have uncompromised privacy as the coins cannot be traced to their source as well as avoid government regulations. The company also has several works in progress that are zerocoins-based.
The cryptocurrency space has not quite seen the kind of exchange solution like one offered by PIVX but one could only envision that the service will be embraced considering the fact that traders place high value on their privacy.
The postPIVX to Launch Cryptocurrency Exchange Platform ZDEX in Novemberappeared first onMarket Exclusive. || Millennials Are Conflicted About Their Finances, but This Solution Can Help: Millennials tend to get a bad rap for their so-called reckless spending habits, but in reality, they're pretty grounded on the money front. Not only do 41% of younger Americans manage to save a portion of their earnings each month, but a larger number of millennials is socking away funds for retirement than any other age group, including Gen Xers and baby boomers. Still, a large number of millennials are confused about managing their money, and it's no doubt causing them undue stress. Only 40% of younger Americans feel they're clear on how much they can afford to spend versus how much they should be saving for the future, according to new data from Northwestern Mutual . Meanwhile, 78% of millennials feel torn by the pressure to strike a good balance between current and future responsibilities (say, paying off student loans versus saving for their own kids' college). Man in suit presenting document to smiling young couple. IMAGE SOURCE: GETTY IMAGES. Furthermore, while the stereotypical millennial picture involves a young adult sipping overpriced coffee while indulging in a $10 slice of avocado toast, the reality is that many millennials feel overwhelmingly guilty about treating themselves. In fact, 29% feel uncomfortable or nervous about spending money even when they know they can afford the purchases in question. The truth is that millennials, by nature, have limited experience in the real world compared to their older counterparts. As such, many might learn to resolve these issues over time. But if you're struggling to manage your money or balance your priorities, it pays to enlist the help of a financial advisor to set you on the right track. The guidance you need Some people think that financial advisors are only for wealthy folks who need help managing their millions. But that's just a myth, because you certainly don't need to be rich to seek outside help with money matters, nor do you need to reach a certain income level or age. In fact, the younger you are when you first meet with a financial advisor, the more you stand to benefit in your lifetime. Story continues Not only can a financial advisor help you determine how much to spend versus save, but he or she can help you invest your money in a manner that aligns well with your risk tolerance and goals. Imagine you want to build a family and own a home in the next 10 years. Your strategy will probably be quite different from that of your neighbor who has no interest in procreating or owning property. But without the help of a financial advisor, you might struggle to make the right choices. Of course, you shouldn't just hire any old financial advisor , so if you're new to the game, here are some questions to ask when making your decision: What sort of fees do you charge? Advisors typically make money by collecting commissions or charging you a fee that's a percentage of your assets under management. Usually, the latter is better for you as a client. Either way, your goal should be to find an advisor who's open about his or her fees, no matter what they happen to be. Are you a fiduciary? Not all financial professionals are fiduciaries, but those who are must always put your best interests as a client ahead of their own. Be sure to favor advisors who hold to the fiduciary standard, since you're less likely to get sold an investment that generates a massive commission but not so much in the way of returns. How risky are the investments you'd recommend? There's no such thing as a risk-free investment, and anyone who tells you otherwise isn't honest enough to deserve your business. How often do you check in with clients? Managing your money is an ongoing process, and one you should be involved in, even if you're outsourcing that task to a professional. That's why you'll want to choose an advisor who will communicate with you regularly and schedule ongoing meetings to assess your goals and progress and review your investments' performance. Of course, a good way to know that you're getting a solid financial advisor is to seek out recommendations from colleagues, neighbors, or family members who already work with people they're happy with. You'll still want to ask the above questions to ensure that you're covering the right points, but this way, you can approach those conversations with an added degree of assurance. More From The Motley Fool 3 Growth Stocks at Deep-Value Prices 5 Expected Social Security Changes in 2018 6 Years Later, 6 Charts That Show How Far Apple, Inc. Has Come Since Steve Jobs' Passing 10 Best Stocks to Buy Today The $16,122 Social Security Bonus You Cannot Afford to Miss Bitcoin's Biggest Competitor Isn't Ethereum -- It's This The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy . || Bitcoin Market Cap Slides Below $100 Billion as BCH Fork Spooks Investors: bitcoin ghost It has been more than 24 hours since bitcoin scared investors with a sudden 10 percent drop. But there hasnt been a concrete recovery action yet. The bitcoin-to-dollar exchange rate has surged 2.21 percent from its previous low at 5291-fiat, now trading at 5408-fiat. The coins market cap has risen likewise but remains below the three-figure billion dollar valuation. The weekly chart on Coinbase indicates BTC/USD is testing the support area of a giant falling wedge formation. Technically, a falling wedge formation predicts a potential breakout action. But in the case of bitcoin , the negative trend more or less is driven by fears raised at the behest of a hard fork event. Bitcoin Cash Hard Fork The ongoing Bitcoin Cash (BCH) hard fork has been touted by some as the main perpetrator of the latest crypto market crash. The software upgrade has split the original BCH blockchain into two networks, tentatively called BCHABC and BCHSV. Traders are pondering whether the coin, which itself broke from the original Bitcoin blockchain, is weighing on its older sibling. BKCMs Brian Kelly thinks investors are confused about the outcome of the said hard fork. They are running away from both the BTC and BCH markets, fearing slowdown that may ponder upon their holdings in near-term. People started selling. That triggered stops. Everybody got concerned, Kelly explained on CNBC Fast Money . And thats what happened today the entire market sell-down. Kelly expected the entire sell-off episode to be a short-term event, adding that it could be an opportunity for large investors to enter the space at the newfound bottom. Meltem Demirors, chief strategy officer at CoinShares, supported the theory but provided a separate fundamental altogether. To her, it would be the failure of second-class coins that would allow investors to jump back on the bitcoin train. Theyre going to need to start firing employees. Theyre going to need to cut costs, she said. Youre going to see consolidation, and some of these assets, inevitably, will get marked to zero. Bearish Predictions Many analysts believe that the bitcoin downtrend is far from over , and the coin is yet to find a bottom level. Stephen Innes, Oanda Corp Asias trading head, predicted that the BCH hard fork could destabilize the crypto market for far longer than expected. According to the analyst, BTC price should stay on a downward path and break the psychological support level at $5,000. Story continues Market opens the door to a test of $2,500 as bitcoin retail traders move from buying on a dip to full-out panic mode, Innes told Bloomberg . Meanwhile, global crypto exchanges have pledged to support the new BCH alternative with an aim to improve the current market sentiment. Featured Image from Shutterstock. Charts from TradingView . The post Bitcoin Market Cap Slides Below $100 Billion as BCH Fork Spooks Investors appeared first on CCN . View comments || Is It Time to Give Up on International Business Machines (IBM)?: Shares ofIBM(NYSE: IBM)slid nearly 5% during after-hours trading on Oct. 16 after the tech giant posted a mixed third quarter report. Its revenue fell 2% annually to $18.8 billion, missing estimates by $330 million and breaking its two-quarter streak of revenue growth. On a constant currency basis its revenue stayed flat year-over-year.
On the bottom line, IBM's non-GAAP net income rose 3% to $3.1 billion, and its EPS rose 5% to $3.42, beating estimates by two cents. On a GAAP basis, IBM's net income fell 1% to $2.7 billion, and its EPS grew just 1% to $2.94.
Image source: Getty Images.
Those numbers likely disappointed investors, who were expecting Big Blue to maintain its positive growth. But is it time to finally give up on this sluggish stock, which shed about a quarter of its value over the past five years?
IBM's turnaround hingeson its abilityto keep growing its "strategic imperatives" (cloud, analytics, mobile, social, and security) businesses to offset the weakness of its legacy (IT services, enterprise hardware, and software) businesses.
IBM's strategic imperatives revenues rose 13% annually (11% on a constant currency basis) to $39.5 billion over the past 12 months, accounting for nearly half of its total revenue. That growth sounds solid, but it also represents a slowdown from its 15% growth (12% on a constant currency basis) during the second quarter.
IBM's strategic imperatives aren't reported as a separate business segment. Instead, they're scattered across Big Blue's multiple business units. Most of those units fared poorly during the quarter, as the weakness of older products and services offset the growth of its strategic imperatives:
[{"": "Cognitive Solutions", "Revenue": "$4.15 billion", "Year-over-year growth*": "(5%)"}, {"": "Global Business Services", "Revenue": "$4.13 billion", "Year-over-year growth*": "3%"}, {"": "Technology Services & Cloud Platforms", "Revenue": "$8.29 billion", "Year-over-year growth*": "0%"}, {"": "Systems", "Revenue": "$1.74 billion", "Year-over-year growth*": "2%"}, {"": "Global Financing", "Revenue": "$388 million", "Year-over-year growth*": "(7%)"}]
Source: IBM Q3 report. *Constant currency basis.
IBM's 5% decline in Cognitive Solutions revenue was extremely disappointing since the unit houses its Watson AI platform and analytics tools. IBM previously claimed that Watson's ability to apply machine learning to massive amounts of data would revolutionize a wide range of industries, including the healthcare, cybersecurity, education, and financial markets.
However, Watson's results haven't impressed industry experts, who generally think that Watson is an overhyped platform built on marketing gimmicks and old technologies. Oren Etzioni, CEO of the Allen Institute of AI, toldGizmodothat IBM makes "outlandish claims that aren't backed by credible data," while Social Capital CEO Chamath Palihapitiya called Watson "a joke" during aCNBCinterview last year.
Meanwhile, IBM's Cognitive Solutions business facestough competitionfrom similar analytics platforms fromAmazon's(NASDAQ: AMZN)Amazon Web Services andMicrosoft's(NASDAQ: MSFT)Azure, which both have much larger public cloud platforms than IBM.
Image source: Getty Images.
That's why IBM's flat growth in Technology Services & Cloud Platforms revenues looks downright ugly. IBM reported that it finished the quarter with an annual run rate of $11.4 billion for its cloud services, which represented 24% growth on a constant currency basis.
However, Microsoft's commercial cloud revenues grew 53% annually to $6.9 billion last quarter, while Amazon's AWS revenues jumped 49% to $6.1 billion. On an annualized basis, both companies are generatingmore than twiceas much revenue from cloud services as IBM. Those are the "big strong competitors" Warren Buffett referred to onCNBCprior to selling all of his IBM stock earlier this year.
During the second quarter IBM managed to offset some of the weakness in its other businesses with a 23% jump (on a constant currency basis) in Systems revenue. But during the third quarter the unit's growth rate hit a brick wall, posting just 2% growth. That big drop was likely caused by soft demand for its z14 servers, which launched a year ago.
On the bright side, IBM's gross margin held steady year-over-year at 46.9% as higher margins at Global Business Services, Technology Services & Cloud Platforms, and Global Financing offset declining margins at Cognitive Solutions and Systems. Its guidance for the full year also wasn't terrible -- it still expects its non-GAAP EPS to advance "at least" 1% to $13.80, and it expects to generate about $12 billion in free cash flow. This means that it can easily cover its forward yield of 4.5% for the foreseeable future.
IBM's stock looks cheap at about 10 times this year's earnings, and it's still a decent income stock. Unfortunately, the company simply lacks any meaningful catalysts, and faces far too many long-term headwinds. Until IBM gets its act together, I'd rather stick with other "mature tech" stocks with better growth potential.
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John Mackey, CEO of Whole Foods Market, an Amazon subsidiary, is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors. Teresa Kersten is an employee of LinkedIn and is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors. LinkedIn is owned by Microsoft.Leo Sunowns shares of Amazon. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Amazon. The Motley Fool has adisclosure policy. || Crypto Markets See Ongoing Mild Losses, Bitcoin Trades Below $6,400: Friday, Nov. 9: crypto markets are continuing to see downward momentum, with virtually all of the major cryptocurrencies at least mildly in the red, as data from Coin360 shows. Market visualization Market visualization by Coin360 Bitcoin ( BTC ) is down just over 1 percent, trading around $6,340 at press time. After a period of protracted stability , the top coin has seen a short-lived burst of price action of late, growing Nov.7 to break above the $6,500 mark. Bitcoin has since corrected downard to trade close to the start of its weekly chart, where it is seeing virtually no price percentage change to press time. On the month, Bitcoin is down a mild 3.6 percent. Bitcoin 7-day price chart Bitcoin 7-day price chart. Source: Cointelegraph Bitcoin Price Index Bitcoin pioneer Jeff Garzik – reportedly the “third-biggest contributor” to Bitcoin’s code and one of Bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto's key collaborators – gave an interview today in which he reflected that: “[Bitcoin] hasn’t evolved in the direction of high-volume payments, which is something we thought about in the very early days: getting merchants to accept Bitcoins. But on the store-of-value side it’s unquestionably a success." The market’s largest altcoin Ethereum ( ETH ) has also sustained a fractional loss, down just over percent to trade at $211. Correlating with Bitcoin, the altcoin saw an intra-week spike at around $220 Nov. 7, and has since jaggedly shed value down to its current price point. Nonetheless, on the week, the asset remains a strong 6 percent in the green, with monthly losses at around 7.2 percent. Ethereum 7-day price chart Ethereum 7-day price chart. Source: Cointelegraph Ethereum Price Index Most of the remaining top ten coins on CoinMarketCap are in the red, although remaining within a 1-4 percent range. Bitcoin Cash ( BCH ) has taken the heftiest hit among the top ten, down just under 4 percent to trade around $567, as controversies ahead of its forthcoming hard fork – scheduled for Nov. 15 – continue to divide the community. Story continues Another top ten alt shaken by larger-than-average losses is Cardano ( ADA ), down 3.19 percent at $0.074. Altcoins Ripple ( XRP ) and Stellar ( XLM ) are the only top ten coins in the green by press time, both up under 1 percent over the past 24 hours. The top twenty coins by market cap are likewise almost unanimously red, with the exception of the 19th largest crypto, privacy-focused alt Zcash ( ZEC ), which is pushing 3.5 percent growth to trade at around $133. For the remaining coins, losses are capped below 4 percent, with Vechain ( VEC ) and DASH ( DASH ) each on the higher end, down 3.9 and 3.47 percent respectively. Total market capitalization of all cryptocurrencies is around $212.5 billion as of press time, down from an intra-week high of around $220.7 billion Nov. 7, but above the $207-210 billion levels it held throughout much of the past month. 7-day chart of the total market capitalization of all cryptocurrencies 7-day chart of the total market capitalization of all cryptocurrencies from CoinMarketCap In other major crypto news of the day, ConsenSys -backed blockchain startup Kaleido and Amazon Web Services (AWS) have launched a full-stack platform that helps enterprises implement blockchain solutions without starting from scratch. The platform, dubbed Kaleido Marketplace, reportedly “eliminates 80 percent of the custom code” needed to build a given blockchain project. In Asia, Thailand’s securities regulator is set to clear “at least one” Initial Coin Offering ( ICO ) “portal” to operate legally this month, with officials saying that ICOs themselves “might” start being approved as soon as December. Related Articles: Crypto Markets See Widespread Wave of Green, Bitcoin Pushes $6,500 Crypto Markets Placid on 10th Anniversary of Bitcoin Whitepaper Crypto Markets See Mixed Signals After Recent Downturn Bitcoin, Ethereum, Ripple, Bitcoin Cash, EOS, Stellar, Litecoin, Cardano, Monero, TRON: Price Analysis, Nov. 9
[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
11-12 12:00(GMT)
#SPINDLE price
$SPD (BTC)
Yobit :0.00000036
HitBTC :0.00000037
LiveCoin:0.00000030
$SPD (JPY)
Yobit :0.26
HitBTC :0.26
LiveCoin:0.21 || Feel how Crypto will stay alive ♾
Monero Token XMRT
more infos @ https://t.co/ZSHYpeC4wH
#cryptocurrencies #bitcoin #XMR #Monero #Unstoppable #noKYC #decentralized #ethereum @tolgn1907 @SaturnProtocol @SaturnWhale @BitcoinClassicT @nytimes @elonmusk @CyberpunkGame @saturn_dao https://t.co/48RXwfLaF6 || BOUGHT [ #NEOBTC | #binance | Price: 0.00282000 | Time: 2018-10-01 21:27:34 ] Uptime: 01:55 | #BTC #NEO #trading #bitcoin || Desejo-lhes uma excelente leitura!!! - Prof. Joel de Souza.
---
BRE Education - Business School, Blockchain & Inovação.
http://www.brecoins.com.br
#BREExchange #BREEducation #Bitcoin #MoedasDigitais #Blockchain #BTC #Logica #Raciociniohttps://twitter.com/breexchange/status/1046877665540657158 … || 4550-4650$ Olası hedef şu anda $BTC için.
Bakalım sonuç ne olacak || Bitcoin: $6,411.01
+0.75% (+$48.01)
High: $6,459.71
Low: $6,353.00
Volume: 170
$BTC #BTC #bitcoin || #crypto price changes last hour
$FTC +16.32%
$PINK +11.15%
$GTO +10.46%
$SPC -7.09%
$NPXS -4.90%
$SIB -4.67%
#bitcoin #cryptocurrency || #LIZA #LAMBO price
10-17 04:00(GMT)
$LIZA
BTC :0.00000
ETH :0.00000
USD :0.0
RUR :0.0
JPY(btc) :0.0
JPY(eth) :0.0
$LAMBO
BTC :0.024
ETH :0.750
USD :185.0
RUR :10600.0
JPY(btc) :16781.0
JPY(eth) :17332.5 || Make money trading on Binance - The best Crypto Exchange
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$BTC $ETH $EOS $TRX $XRP $BCH $ETC $LTC $DASH $BTG $XLM $XMR $ZEC $ADA $NEO $OMG $XEM $LSK $DGB $ZRX $XVG $GRS $SC $NANO $ZCL $ICX $STORM $VEN $WTC $ONT $BNB $NCASH Thursday, 04 Octoberpic.twitter.com/oifk50l4M9 || Canada’s Leading Jewelry Brand Birks Group Now Accepts Bitcoin https://bitcoinist.com/birks-canada-jewelry-accept-bitcoin/ …
|
Trend: down || Prices: 4017.27, 4214.67, 4139.88, 3894.13, 3956.89, 3753.99, 3521.10, 3419.94, 3476.11, 3614.23
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Analyze the provided historical prices, technical indicators, news, and social media sentiment from the last 60 days. Based on this context, predict the overall trend (up, down, or no change) and the specific daily closing prices for Bitcoin for the next 10 days.
|
[Technical Analysis]
Not fully available.
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
Why Bitcoin Mining Stock Cipher Mining Is Surging Today: Cipher Mining Inc (NASDAQ: CIFR ) is trading significantly higher Wednesday amid a sharp increase in the price of Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC ). Bitcoin climbed above $65,000 to new all-time highs amid the debut of the first ever Bitcoin futures ETF. Last week, Cipher Mining announced plans to make monthly purchases through December 2022 of 4,000 to 8,000 next-generation mining rigs. According to data from Benzinga Pro , Wednesday's session volume was approaching 7 million at time of publication. View more earnings on CIFR Cipher Mining is an industrial-scale Bitcoin mining company in the United States. It is dedicated to expanding and strengthening the Bitcoin network's critical infrastructure in the United States. CIFR Price Action: Cipher Mining traded as high as $9.52 and as low as $7.46 during Wednesday's session. The stock was up 16.80% at $8.70 at time of publication. Photo: Ricardo Goncalves from Pixabay . See more from Benzinga Click here for options trades from Benzinga Why Netflix Shares Are Trading Lower Today EXCLUSIVE: ZASH Global Media Co-Founder Explains Miscommunication Involving Vinco Ventures Management Transition © 2021 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || LBank Exchange Will List BTA (Bitcoin Asset) on October 11, 2021: DUBAI, Oct. 11, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- LBank Exchange, a global digital asset trading platform, will list BTA on October 11, 2021. For all users of LBank Exchange, the BTA/USDT trading pair will be officially available for trading at 22:00 (UTC+8) on October 11, 2021. More than a decade ago, Bitcoin introduced itself to the whole world, since then, the crypto space has grown rapidly and created one miracle after another. Today, a brand new asset named Bitcoin Asset is here to recreate the momentum of Bitcoin with more advanced developments. BTA, the token of Bitcoin Asset, will be listed on LBank Exchange at 22:00 (UTC+8) on October 11, 2021. Introducing Bitcoin Asset Bitcoin Asset hopes that with the presence of BTA, it can bring back the momentum of Bitcoin like 10 years ago. Bitcoin itself is the mother of all coins that exist today. Therefore, BTA also relies on Bitcoin to create the current euphoria of the market but with new sophistication and much more complete protocols and features. Bitcoin Asset combines bitcoin with the current developments, namely protocol, Defi, swap and NFT. Thus, BTA is an asset that deserves to be valued the higher in the future and is worthy of long-term storage like Bitcoin. What is BTAChain The BTAChain is a protocol developed by the BTA team itself without the interference of any other protocol team. It is an open-source protocol in smart contract documentation for everyone. BTAChain invites all developers to join-in and create win-win solutions with all customers. BTAChain is also designed to be environment friendly, which allows its blockchain to run on the server without having to active computer for 24 hours. It aims to provide the lowest possible fee and fast transactions, every Bitcoin Asset transaction or token registered on BTAChain is subject to a very low fee starting from 1 GWEI. In addition, the wallet address of BTAChain is very user friendly, it is a fork of ethereum, where the ethereum wallet can fuction as a recipient/sender of Bitcoin Assets, coins or tokens under its network. The wallets used in BTAChain can be synchronized to several protocols on the market eventually. Story continues The BTAChain network can also be connected to various protocols with a bridge system built using smart contracts. Crosschain transactions in its blockchain can be monitored by anyone to ensure its transactions run openly and transparently. The T okenomics of BTA The total supply of BTA is 5,000,000 (i.e. 5 million), 96% of it has been provided for liquidity pools in Pancakeswap, 2% of it was locked for developers, 1.78% of it is for development, branding and marketing, 0.2% of it was distributed for airdrop, 0.02% of it was given away to 10 lucky holders. With a very limited supply, which is only 5 Million Bitcoin Asset Coins, BTA can be an alternative future crypto asset, in addition to the limited supply in the Network, BTAChain is a solution for token transactions with very low fees. The listing of BTA on LBank Exchange will undoubtedly help it further expand its business and draw more attention in the market. Learn More about BTA Token: Official Website: https://bitcoinasset.io/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/Bitcoinassetx Telegram: https://t.me/bitcoinassetx Whitepaper: https://bitcoinasset.io/assets/whitepaper/en/bitcoinasset-whitepaper-v.1.1.pdf?v=2.0 Listing Announcement on LBank Exchange: https://support.lbank.site/hc/en-gb/articles/4407627242521-BTA-Bitcoin-Asset-will-be-listed-on-LBank About LBank Exchange LBank Exchange, founded in 2015, is an innovative global trading platform for various crypto assets. LBank Exchange provides its users with safe crypto trading, specialized financial derivatives, and professional asset management services. It has become one of the most popular and trusted crypto trading platforms with over 6.4 million users in more than 50 countries around the world. Visit us on social media: l Facebook l Twitter l LinkedIn Contact Details: LBK Blockchain Co. Limited LBank Exchange marketing@lbank.info Source Link || FOREX-Dollar hovers near one-year high while Bitcoin hits $50,000: * Safe-haven dollar supported by equity sell-off
* Australia dollar among biggest fallers
* RBNZ meets Wednesday, markets expect interest rate hike
* Graphic: World FX rates https://tmsnrt.rs/2RBWI5E
By Ritvik Carvalho
LONDON, Oct 5 (Reuters) - The U.S. dollar edged back towards a one-year high versus major rivals on Tuesday ahead of a key payrolls report at the end of the week while cryptocurrency Bitcoin hit $50,000 for the first time in four weeks.
The risk-sensitive Australian dollar was among the biggest fallers, with the Reserve Bank of Australia reiterating that it does not expect to raise interest rates until 2024.
The U.S. dollar index, which measures the currency against six rivals, rose 0.13% to 93.932, moving back towards Thursday's peak of 94.504, its highest since late September 2020.
The index had rallied as much as 2.8% since Sept. 3 as traders rushed to price in tapering of economic stimulus this year and possible rate rises for 2022.
The dollar has also benefited from safe-haven demand amid worries ranging from the risk of global stagflation to the U.S. debt ceiling standoff.
"The dollar started the week on the back foot yesterday, failing to rise on yet another equity sell-off, and suffering from the OPEC+ decision to stick to gradual (oil) supply hikes (400k barrels/day) which sent oil prices (and oil-sensitive currencies) higher," ING strategists said in a note.
"As highlighted in yesterday’s FX Daily, we think markets will keep buying the dips in the dollar, and this is what appears to have happened overnight, as the greenback rebounded across the board."
Friday's non-farm payrolls data is expected to show continued improvement in the labour market, with a forecast for 488,000 jobs to have been added in September, a Reuters poll showed.
Meanwhile, an index of Asia-Pacific equities fell by 0.74% after a 1.3% tumble overnight for the S&P 500 .
The Aussie dropped 0.1% to $0.7281, retreating further from Monday's four-day high of $0.73045.
The New Zealand dollar declined 0.34% to $0.6939, also backing away from a four-day peak at $0.6981. The Reserve Bank of New Zealand (RBNZ) decides policy on Wednesday, with markets priced for a quarter point increase to interest rates.
"The RBA’s firm on-hold stance is a weight on AUD," Commonwealth Bank of Australia strategist Joseph Capurso wrote in a report.
For the RBNZ, "with markets already pricing a rate hike cycle, the likelihood of material NZD upside is low", he said.
The dollar gained 0.25% to 111.19 yen, while the euro weakened by 0.21% to $1.15965.
Sterling edged up 0.15% to $1.3629 and hit a three-week high against the euro at 85.11 pence.
While the consensus view is for further gains for the greenback - with speculators pushing net long bets to their highest since March 2020 - TD Securities warns that headroom may be limited.
"While the near-term USD bias leans higher, we're wary about chasing the move at these levels," Mark McCormick, TD's global head of FX strategy, wrote in a report.
There is a lot of bad global news priced into the U.S. dollar already and "the key for markets in the weeks ahead is to sort out the extent of the risk premium already priced in versus how these factors play out", McCormick said.
Cryptocurrencies rallied, meanwhile. Bitcoin, the world's biggest cryptocurrency by market value, hit $50,000 for the first time since Sept. 7.
(Reporting by Ritvik Carvalho Additional reporting by Kevin Buckland in Tokyo Editing by Raissa Kasolowsky and David Goodman ) || Bitcoin (BTC) On-Chain Analysis: >95% of UTXOs in Profit: BeInCrypto –
In this article, BeInCrypto takes a look at on-chain indicators for bitcoin (BTC), specifically, the percentage of Unspent Transaction Outputs (UTXO). The current reading is dissimilar to that of the 2017 market cycle top. This indicates that the current increase is likely not a relief rally, but rather the continuation of a bullish trend.
This storywas seen first onBeInCryptoJoin our Telegram Groupand get trading signals, a free trading course and more stories likethisonBeInCrypto || 7 Meme Stocks That Will Be More Than Just a Flash in the Pan: With many concerns looming over the market , a full-on downturn may be unavoidable. Of course, thats bad news for the markets in general. But its worse news for meme stocks. Why? If we see a correction or selloff, the names most popular with traders on platforms like Reddit could see much larger declines than others. For now, that may be a sign to take profits if you hold any meme stocks, or to steer clear if you hold no positions. But once this potential downturn plays out? There are a few meme plays that are actually promising buys for investors on the dip. Right now, they still trade at rich valuations, but they could fall to more reasonable prices. What do I mean by promising here? Well, Im certainly not talking about AMC (NYSE: AMC ) or GameStop (NYSE: GME ), both of which could tumble toward pre-meme levels (and stay there) once the hope and hype fades. Instead, Im referring to plays that have more in their corner than diamond hands. Some of these picks are growth stories still in their early stages. Others are more established players that have catalysts which could potentially send them soaring again down the road. After the dust settles, that is. InvestorPlace - Stock Market News, Stock Advice & Trading Tips 7 High-Yield Dividend Stocks That Will Please Any Income Lover Which meme stocks should you keep an eye on if a possible market maelstrom hits? These seven stocks could become screaming buys once theyre selling for the right price: AST SpaceMobile (NASDAQ: ASTS ) BlackBerry (NYSE: BB ) Greenidge Generation (NASDAQ: GREE ) Microvast (NASDAQ: MVST ) Palantir (NYSE: PLTR ) Tilray (NASDAQ: TLRY ) Upstart (NASDAQ: UPST ) Meme Stocks to Buy: AST SpaceMobile (ASTS) Meme Stocks: ASTS stock On the surface, ASTS stock seems like a very risky play. However, the upside potential could be massive here if the company succeeds in building out its space-based cellular network. Projections call it to one day generate as much as $16.5 billion in annual sales by 2030. Not bad, considering that at todays prices (between $11 and $12), its market capitalization stands at $607 million. Story continues If this company lives up to projections, it will be worth many times what it trades for today at the very least. However, if AST SpaceMobile fails to deliver, the shares will likely fall to zero. Admittedly, its hard to handicap the companys true odds of hitting big success. But comparing potential three- or four-digit percentage gains against a total loss, the risk-return here is probably in your favor given the present price. That said, waiting for meme stocks to lose more steam could be an even better way to approach this space play. Trading on its future potential rather than its current results, shares could make a trip back to their low of $6.96, or even lower. Its going to take time for ASTS stock to lift off, if it can even do so. Still, the company has potential to scale into a massive enterprise if the stars align. Buying it on weakness could be a shrewd move. BlackBerry (BB) BB stock Source: Shutterstock BlackBerry has already given up the bulk of its 2021 gains. Trading for as high as $28.77 during the first wave of the trend, BB stock now changes hands at around $10 per share. Thats still up from where it was when meme stocks first took off. However, a continued move lower for stocks overall will likely push BB back to the sub-$5 prices it saw in 2020. So, if the meme trend fully goes away in a potential downturn, whats the appeal of owning this pick? You may still think of BlackBerry as the mobile device maker that failed to keep up with the changing smartphone market. But thats the past. Today, its a cybersecurity and IoT (Internet of Things) play . Now, if the company manages to scale up both its Spark security platform and QNX IoT platform (which should benefit from autonomous driving), it may have a path back to the moon. And thats without having to employ any help from Reddit. 7 Growth Stocks to Buy Now for Their Millionaire-Maker Potential It may take time for this turnaround to finally play out. But between now and then, BB stock could fall to a much lower price, enabling investors to buy it ahead of a potentially epic comeback. Meme Stocks to Buy: Greenidge Generation (GREE) GREE stock Source: biggunsband / Shutterstock.com Recently, the Support.com-Greenidge merger (and the short-squeeze frenzy that happened in the lead-up to the deal) seriously burned meme traders who took a position in this customer support turned Bitcoin (CCC: BTC-USD ) mining play back in August. As you likely know, shares in SPRT stock the predecessor to GREE stock went from $8 to nearly $60 per share as speculators tried to turn the heavily shorted name into the next AMC. Unfortunately, though, it didnt turn out that way. Per the terms of the merger deal, each share of SPRT converted into 0.115 shares in the new entity once the transaction had been completed. That meant an immediate big loss for existing SPRT shareholders. Given the exchange rate, investors who held stock through the merger have seen their shares plummet from a split-adjusted $102.61 per share to $43.40 per share on GREEs first day of trading. And the losses have continued to pile up, with the recent crypto selloff putting more pressure onto shares. Plus, now if meme traders with massive paper losses decide to move on, the stock could take another dive. Nevertheless, although the stock is a stay away situation today, you may want to give this pick of the meme stocks a look once the storms have passed. Still one of the better crypto mining plays out there, GREE could be a winner at the right price. Of course, thats assuming increased regulation doesnt push BTC lower and keep it there. Microvast (MVST) Meme Stocks: MVST stock Source: Shutterstock Former special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) stock Microvast has certainly seen better days. Earlier this year, while its merger was still pending, shares hit prices topping $25. This was thanks in part to the excitement surrounding electric vehicle (EV) plays (and EV battery plays like this one) once President Joe Biden took office. Flash forward to now and Bidens EV policy plans many of which are included in the infrastructure bill are still being debated. Because of that, investors have moved out of green wave plays in a big way, realizing a full entry into EVs is years away. Plus, a further selloff in speculative growth stocks caused by Federal Reserve tapering may mean another round of declines is imminent. But if MVST stock gets pushed back into the single digits? This pick of the meme stocks may actually be a great long-term play. Last month, I made a case for why its one of the SPAC stocks with the biggest potential . Focusing on commercial vehicles while most rivals fight over the passenger market, Microvast may face fewer competitive challenges. Plus, it has already partnered up with industry leaders like Oshkosh (NYSE: OSK ). 7 Undervalued Stocks to Keep an Eye on as We Head Towards October This could give the company an edge, as commercial vehicles transition from gas to battery power. So, with the potential to become a multi-billion dollar business by the start of the next decade, buying MVST after another big pullback could become a very profitable move. Meme Stocks to Buy: Palantir (PLTR) PLTR stock Source: Ascannio / Shutterstock.com The trend in meme stocks has played a big role in making Palantir what Ive called a wonderful company at an inflated price. This name has a strong underlying business. Palantirs growth is great and it has a deep economic moat, thanks to the relationships it has built with the federal government through multiple administrations . The commercial business is gaining speed as well, which could give Palantir further room to grow sales. But these advantages may not be enough to keep this data-focused company steady, if whats brewing right now turns volatile short-term. For example, Federal Reserve tightening could push this richly priced stock which trades for a forward price-earnings (P/E) ratio of 177 times to a much lower valuation . PLTR stock could take a 50%-plus dive and still trade at a premium forward multiple. However, if my bearish prediction plays out? If PLTR moves down from around $28 today toward $10 to $15 per share, it may make sense for investors to lock down a position. Sure, the stock will still be pricey at those levels. But if it continues to grow at a 30%-plus clip, this pick probably wont have a tough time rebounding once the potential downturn wraps up. Tilray (TLRY) TLRY stock Source: Jarretera / Shutterstock.com Sure, you could say Tilrays brief time as one of the meme stocks back in February was a flash in the pan situation. Pushed from around $25 to as high as $67 thanks to a short squeeze related to its Aphria merger, this Canada-based cannabis company has since given up its gains. However, there are still catalysts in play that could send TLRY stock to substantially higher levels in the years ahead. For example, this name has exposure to the potential legalization of marijuana in the United States. Investors may be skeptical of federal legalization happening anytime soon. But CEO Irwin Simon believes the move is not so far away . If pot becomes fully legal in the States, the news alone will give TLRY stock a big boost. And, even if legalization remains on the back burner, other catalysts could help propel this marijuana stock higher; as InvestorPlace contributor David Moadel recently pointed out, the cannabis company is pursuing growth in Canada and Europe as well. Success outside of the U.S. could prove to be enough to move the needle. 7 Buffett Stocks Trading at a Steep Discount You Need To Keep an Eye On There is one risk to watch out for, however. Shareholders recently gave Tilray the go-ahead to increase its authorized share count. This means dilution in the pursuit of revenue growth, either through secondary offerings or mergers and acquisitions. However, dilution fears and overall market volatility could also send TLRY lower, making for a great vehicle to gain exposure to the cannabis legalization trend. Meme Stocks to Buy: Upstart (UPST) Meme Stocks: UPST stock Source: Shutterstock Unlike other meme stocks, its only been in recent weeks that UPST stock has really taken off. Since Aug. 2, the fintech play has skyrocketed from about $133 per share to around $329 per share today. With the investing public more aware of Upstarts artificial intelligence (AI) potential to revolutionize automotive and consumer lending , its no surprise shares have moved up so quickly. However, though its future appears bright, UPST is still another richly priced stock (with a forward P/E of 241). It could experience declines if market conditions change and growth plays see their forward multiples compress. That said, taking advantage of any weakness could pay off in the long term. As one Seeking Alpha commentator recently noted, Upstarts high rate of projected growth over the next year may make it less pricey than it looks right now. So, if it pulls back from where it trades today? Upstart would be even more of a bargain. Once its fundamentals become the main driver, UPST stock could become a long-term winner. FREE REPORT: 17 Reddit Penny Stocks to Buy Now Thomas Yeung is an expert when it comes to finding fast-paced growth opportunities on Reddit. He recommended Dogecoin before it skyrocketed over 8,000%, Ripple before it flew up more than 480% and Cardano before it soared 460%. Now, in a new report, hes naming 17 of his favorite Reddit penny stocks. Claim your FREE COPY here! On the date of publication, Thomas Niel held a long position in Bitcoin. He did not have (either directly or indirectly) any positions in any other securities mentioned in this article. The opinions expressed in this article are those of the writer, subject to the InvestorPlace.com Publishing Guidelines . Thomas Niel, contributor for InvestorPlace.com , has been writing single-stock analysis for web-based publications since 2016. More From InvestorPlace Stock Prodigy Who Found NIO at $2
Says Buy THIS Now Analyst Who Found Microsoft at $0.38 Names #1 Pick for the AI Boom Americas #1 EV Stock Still Flying Under the Radar The post 7 Meme Stocks That Will Be More Than Just a Flash in the Pan appeared first on InvestorPlace . || What Companies Has Mark Cuban Invested In?: Mark Cuban is best known as the billionaire owner of the Dallas Mavericks, but it turns out he has a number of diverse interests — and he's willing to support them financially. A look at the website of Mark Cuban Companies shows the variety of companies he either owns outright or has invested in, and the list is impressive in both its volume and breadth.
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His investments include businesses owned by minorities or women and those started by entrepreneurs with ties to the military. His portfolio is growing in the block chain sector. Cuban's interests in companies include those that focus on health, fitness and eating well, as well as the environment.
The investments Cuban has made through the television show "Shark Tank," where he and other business experts hear pitches from entrepreneurs who need an infusion of cash for their startups, mirror the depth of the billionaire's interests.Read on to learn more about 10 of the companies Mark Cuban has bought into through "Shark Tank" — and some of the impressive financial gains so far.
Last updated: Oct. 13, 2021
In 2014, Marl Cuban invested $500,000 for a 30% stake of Gameday Couture, which started out making officially licensed college apparel for women. Co-owners Kurt and Shawnna Feddersen began the Oklahoma-based company to help women look stylish while cheering for their favorite team. By 2018, Gameday Couture had annual sales of $12 million. At the time of Cuban’s investment, Gameday Couture held licenses with more than 30 universities. Today, it holds more than 200 NCAA licenses and is sold in more than 2,500 stores nationwide.
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A meeting between three forty-something friends in 2010 in Providence, Rhode Island, led to the creation of Nuts ‘N More, which started out selling high-protein nut butter spread with fitness enthusiasts in mind. An appearance on “Shark Tank” in 2013 garnered the young company an investment of $75,000 from Cuban and fellow shark Robert Herjavec in exchange for 35% of the company. Today, the company has more than 20 flavors and sells high-protein peanut and almond butter spreads, snack packs and more. Before the appearance on “Shark Tank,” the company made sales of about $100,000 a year. By 2018, sales reached about $6 million annually.
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Konel Banner long had recognized the need for fire-starting technology, and when he met outdoor enthusiast Frank Weston, who also had a background in firefighting, they partnered to develop InstaFire. They met mornings for nine months in an abandoned, owl-infested warehouse to develop a product that was safe, easy to use and reliable – something that could be counted on in an emergency. Cuban teamed with fellow investor Lori Greiner to put $300,000 into the company in exchange for 30% ownership in 2016. The company has expanded its product offerings, especially those that boost environmental friendliness. On her website, Greiner said the InstaFire had $7.5 million in retail sales in the first three years since its “Shark Tank” appearance.
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Jenny Goldfarb grew up in a family that ran a Jewish deli business in New York. Once she went vegan, she decided that the deli staple of a corned beef sandwich could co-exist with her lifestyle and created Mrs. Goldfarb’s Unreal Deli in 2018, producing plant-made deli meats. Her products are kosher, animal-free, cholesterol-free, nitrate-free, low in fat, low carb and full of protein. In a 2019 “Shark Tank” episode, Cuban gave Goldfarb $250,000 for a 20% stake in the company, and it’s one of just several investments he’s made in plant-based businesses. Cuban is a vegetarian.
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Lani Lazzari was a young teen looking to find relief from her eczema. Despite numerous visits to the dermatologist, she had no solution for her sensitive skin until she started experimenting with her own concoctions in the family kitchen. By 2005, for the first time ever, she had relief and was eczema-free, thanks to her own recipes. She appeared on “Shark Tank” in 2013, and Cuban walked away with 33% of the company for his $100,000 investment. Sales for the Pittsburgh-based company rose from $44,000 to $6 million after the “Shark Tank” appearance.
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In 2018, first-generation AmericanKrystal Persaud decided to use her experience designing consumer electronics at a New York company to start Grouphug and emphasize sustainability. Her creation: window solar panels that connect to charges for cell phones and other devices. “While the sun hits your solar panel during the day, all of that energy gets stored in an internal battery, meaning you can charge your favorite devices day or night,” she said on a 2020 episode of “Shark Tank.” Sold on the promise of the concept, Cuban gave her $150,000 for a 25% stake in the company.
There currently is a waiting list for the $149 solar charger.
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Spurred by his belief in healthy eating (and maybe a sweet treat, too), Cuban bought a 20% stake of Coconut Girl in 2020 for $180,000. The company was founded byFrancheska "Frankie" Yamsuan, who developed the dairy-free, gluten-free line of ice cream sandwiches in 2018. Coconut Girl’s products are sold in flavors that include Hang Loose Vanilla and Aloha Chocolate. Coconut Girl doesn’t use cane sugar and products are sweetened with dates, honey and maple syrup. The company’s website boasts the treats are "grain free, paleo and pretty much guilt free."
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An outdoor enthusiast, Georgia mom Kressa Peterson knew what it’s like to get grimy and muddy with no way to remove her dirty clothes to wash off – without creating a public spectacle. So she created Shower Toga – which users put over their clothes before pulling them off from underneath – with campers, bikers, endurance athletes and more in mind. It’s washable and reusable. While at least one of the investors on “Shark Tank” likened it to a plastic trash bag, Cuban and guest SharkAlli Webbsaw the value and plunked down $80,000 for a 40% ownership of the company.
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Founded in 2017, the company – Ready. Set. Eat! – introduces children as young as 4 months old to peanut, egg and milk allergens with the goal of reducing kids’ risk of developing allergies to them by as much as 80%. That is achieved by supplementing a baby’s bottle or food with a packet of the allergens. Cuban made an initial investment of $350,000 through “Shark Tank” and then took part in a $3 million financing round.
“As a parent of a child with a severe peanut allergy, I know firsthand the impact it has on families across the country. ... We will work on making sure every parent knows about early allergen introduction,” Cuban said in a news release. He is a father of three.
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As a teenager in Southern California, Scott Martin used to deliver Christmas trees to customers. “Because I worked in a nursery I thought, 'Why do people cut down trees to bring in the house when there are perfectly good living trees that can be brought in the house and afterwards they keep on living,'" he told Spectrum News in 2019. So as an adult, he founded The Living Christmas Co., which delivers live, potted trees that families care for during the holidays, and he’ll return to pick them up. Then, he will rent the same tree to another family next year, saving the life of a tree. Needing money for capital and infrastructure, he went on “Shark Tank” and found some disbelievers. But Cuban, calling himself a “believer in convenience with a conscience,” invested $150,000 for 40% of the company. The company is still in business, but not much is known about its growth and revenues.
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This article originally appeared onGOBankingRates.com:What Companies Has Mark Cuban Invested In? || Important Investor Reminder: Kessler Topaz Meltzer & Check, LLP Reminds Coinbase Global Inc. Investors of Deadline in Securities Fraud Class Action Lawsuit and Urges Investors with Losses Over $100,000 to Contact the Firm: RADNOR, Pa., Sept. 16, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The law firm of Kessler Topaz Meltzer & Check, LLP announces that a securities fraud class action lawsuit has been filed in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California against Coinbase Global Inc. (NASDAQ: COIN) (“Coinbase”) on behalf of those who purchased or acquired Coinbase Class A common stock pursuant and/or traceable to the registration statement and prospectus (collectively, the “Offering Materials”) for the resale of up to 114,850,769 shares of its Class A common stock, whereby Coinbase began trading as a public company on or around April 14, 2021 (the “Offering”) . Deadline Reminder: Investors who purchased or acquired Coinbase Class A common stock pursuant and/or traceable to the Offering may, no later than September 20, 2021 , seek to be appointed as a lead plaintiff representative of the class. For additional information or to learn how to participate in this litigation please contact Kessler Topaz Meltzer & Check, LLP: James Maro, Esq. (484) 270-1453; toll free at (844) 887-9500; via e-mail at info@ktmc.com ; or click https://www.ktmc.com/coinbase-global-class-action-lawsuit?utm_source=PR&utm_medium=Link&utm_campaign=coinbase According to the complaint, Coinbase “powers the cryptoeconomy,” offering a “trusted platform” for sending and receiving Bitcoin and other digital assets built using blockchain technology to approximately 43 million retail users, 7,000 institutions, and 115,000 ecosystem partners in over 100 countries. On April 14, 2021, Coinbase filed its prospectus on a Form 424B4, which forms part of the registration statement. Coinbase registered for the resale of up to 114,850,769 shares of its Class A common stock by registered shareholders. Coinbase’s operations would continue to be financed with cash flow from operating activities and net proceeds from the sale of convertible preferred stock. The complaint alleges that one month later, the high-flying promise of Coinbase came to a screaming halt, as Coinbase conceded the need to raise capital and revealed performance issues that prevented users’ ability to trade cryptocurrencies. On May 17, 2021, Coinbase announced its plans to raise about $1.25 billion via a convertible bond sale. Then, on May 19, 2021, Coinbase revealed technical problems, including “delays . . . due to network congestion” affecting those who want to get their money out. Story continues Following this news, Coinbase’s share price fell $23.44 per share, nearly 10%, over two consecutive trading sessions, to close at $224.80 per share on May 19, 2021. By the time the complaint was filed, Coinbase stock traded as low as $208.00 per share, a decline from its April 14, 2021 opening price of $381.00 per share. The complaint alleges that the Offering Materials were false and misleading and omitted to state that, at the time of the Offering: (1) Coinbase required a sizeable cash injection; (2) Coinbase’s platform was susceptible to service-level disruptions, which were increasingly likely to occur as Coinbase scaled its services to a larger user base; and (3) as a result of the foregoing, the defendants’ positive statements about Coinbase’s business, operations, and prospects, were materially misleading and/or lacked a reasonable basis. Coinbase investors may, no later than September 20, 2021 , seek to be appointed as a lead plaintiff representative of the class through Kessler Topaz Meltzer & Check, LLP or other counsel, or may choose to do nothing and remain an absent class member. A lead plaintiff is a representative party who acts on behalf of all class members in directing the litigation. In order to be appointed as a lead plaintiff, the Court must determine that the class member’s claim is typical of the claims of other class members, and that the class member will adequately represent the class. Communicating with any counsel is not necessary to participate or share in any recovery achieved in this case. Your ability to share in any recovery is not affected by the decision of whether or not to serve as a lead plaintiff. Kessler Topaz Meltzer & Check, LLP prosecutes class actions in state and federal courts throughout the country involving securities fraud, breaches of fiduciary duties and other violations of state and federal law. Kessler Topaz Meltzer & Check, LLP is a driving force behind corporate governance reform, and has recovered billions of dollars on behalf of institutional and individual investors from the United States and around the world. The firm represents investors, consumers and whistleblowers (private citizens who report fraudulent practices against the government and share in the recovery of government dollars). The complaint in this action was not filed by Kessler Topaz Meltzer & Check, LLP. For more information about Kessler Topaz Meltzer & Check, LLP please visit www.ktmc.com . CONTACT: Kessler Topaz Meltzer & Check, LLP James Maro, Jr., Esq. 280 King of Prussia Road Radnor, PA 19087 (844) 887-9500 (toll free) info@ktmc.com || Move Aside Millennials. Baby Boomers Won’t Be Left Behind In Bitcoin Adoption: Millennials and Generation Z are those with the highest stake in the cryptocurrency market, but new research has shown an increasing interest from baby boomers. Baby Boomers Are Becoming Increasingly Interested In Bitcoin New research conducted by Australian cryptocurrency exchange BTC Markets revealed that an increasing number of baby boomers are entering the cryptocurrency market. They are gaining exposure to BTC at a fast rate, the research revealed. According to the research , BTC Markets has experienced a 15% increase in the number of investors aged 60 to 65 and those above 65. The cryptocurrency exchange said more people within that age range are entering the crypto market and gaining exposure to BTC and other digital currencies. BTC Markets said thanks to the surge in the number of baby boomers, they now comprise 5% of its total 325,000 customer base. The CEO of the cryptocurrency exchange Caroline Bowler stated that young male traders are no longer in control of the market, with the generation Z and baby boomers taking the first and second spot on the platform. The cryptocurrency exchange said more than a quarter of its users are those aged above 44, and they have more money to invest in the market. BTC Markets said the baby boomers have the highest average initial deposit at $3,200, with an average crypto portfolio of $3,700. Bitcoin has become an alternative investment vehicle Bowler pointed out that the current low-interest rates are a crucial factor behind baby boomers adopting Bitcoin as an alternative investment vehicle. She added that the baby boomers have acquired wealth and assets over time and are not worried about allocating a small portion of their portfolios to BTC and other cryptocurrencies. BTC/USD chart. Source: FXEMPIRE Bitcoin has been performing well in recent days. The leading cryptocurrency is up by less than 1% and is currently trading around the $48k mark. BTC looks set to surpass the next resistance point at $50,000, which could set it up for higher gains close to the $51,500 region. Story continues This article was originally posted on FX Empire More From FXEMPIRE: Daily Gold News: Thursday, Sep. 16 – Gold Price Breaking Lower Crude Oil Price Forecast – Crude Oil Markets Pull Back Slightly American Express Could Hit 140 in the Fourth Quarter Natural Gas Price Fundamental Daily Forecast – Traders Booking Profits Ahead of EIA Report S&P 500 Price Forecast – Stock Markets Continue to Hang on Trendline Why Beyond Meat Stock Is Down By 5% Today || Coinbase quietly scraps 'Lend' product after SEC dustup: C ryptocurrency exchange platform Coinbase has tossed out plans to start a lending product after pressure from the Securities and Exchange Commission. Coinbase didn’t broadcast its surrender to the SEC but announced in an update tacked on to a days-old press release that the product, dubbed Coinbase Lend, would be canceled. The move came after the platform’s CEO, Brian Armstrong, accused regulators of “really sketchy behavior” surrounding the product. Coinbase Lend would have allowed Coinbase users in possession of stablecoin USD Coin to earn at least 4% interest by lending their assets to others on the platform. Coinbase, which had wanted to release the product soon, revealed that the SEC contacted the company and said that it intended to sue. SEC BOSS SAYS CRYPTOCURRENCY CAN’T LAST LONG OUTSIDE REGULATION: ‘FINANCE IS ABOUT TRUST’ Stablecoins such as USD Coin have their value tied to another asset class such as gold or a fiat currency and don’t oscillate in value as wildly as other cryptocurrencies . Stablecoins have caught the eye of regulators, and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen convened a meeting of top regulators earlier this year to discuss the matter. In the lead-up to Coinbase Lend’s release, the company revealed that the SEC served it with a Wells notice. Wells notices are sent by regulators to inform firms that legal enforcement is being planned and give companies a month to provide a response. Armstrong had accused the SEC of “engaging in intimidation tactics behind closed doors,” tweeting earlier this month that his company had worked to be as transparent as possible with regulators but that the SEC did not offer clarity or communication in the lead-up to the lawsuit threat. There had been an extensive waitlist for the Lend product, although that has now been trashed in light of the regulatory obstacles. “We had hundreds of thousands of customers from across the country sign up and we want to thank you all for your interest,” Coinbase said in the update. “We will not stop looking for ways to bring innovative, trusted programs and products to our customers.” Story continues Coinbase, which was the first publicly traded cryptocurrency exchange, has been at the forefront of the cryptocurrency industry as it has burgeoned from obscurity into the portfolios of Wall Street investors. CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER Bitcoin, the flagship cryptocurrency, has grabbed headlines for the past few years and went from being worth less than $1,000 per coin in 2017 to a peak of nearly $65,000 in April. Since April, the price of Bitcoin has fallen to its current level of about $43,500. This month, El Salvador became the first country to adopt Bitcoin as a national currency , although the initial rollout was blemished by technical issues, and instead of posting gains, the digital asset actually dropped in value upon being made legal tender. Washington Examiner Videos Tags: News , Cryptocurrency , SEC , Regulation , Bitcoin , Lending , Wall Street Original Author: Zachary Halaschak Original Location: Coinbase quietly scraps 'Lend' product after SEC dustup || Oil Price Fundamental Daily Forecast – OPEC+ to Hold Production Steady, but Willing to Discuss Increases: U.S. West Texas Intermediate and international-benchmark Brent crude oil futures are trading mixed early Monday as traders prepare for the meeting between OPEC and its allies, including Russia, which may set the tone the rest of week. Bullish traders are hoping the group known as OPEC+ leaves production levels at current levels as the market continues to overcome supply shocks and demand destruction from the COVID-19 pandemic. At 08:01 GMT, December WTI crude oil futures are trading $75.57, down $0.01 or -0.01% and December Brent crude oil futures are at $79.37, up $0.09 or +0.11%. Oil prices rose throughout September on the back of supply disruptions and a rise in global demand. This helped drive both WTI and Brent crude oil to three-year highs. Bullish traders are hoping the market continues to build on these gains through growing confidence in a strong pick up in global growth, but first they have to get some help from OPEC+. OPEC and Allies to Discuss Greater Production One key topic of discussion at Monday’s meeting between OPEC and its allies is whether to produce more to help lower prices as demand has recovered faster than expected in certain parts of the world. OPEC+ agreed in July to boost output by 400,000 barrels per day (bpd) every month until at least April 2022 to phase out 5.8 million bpd of existing cuts. Four OPEC+ sources told Reuters recently that producers were considering adding more than that deal envisaged. The earliest any increase would take place would be November since the previous OPEC+ meeting decided October volumes, according to Reuters. Soaring Gas Prices Fueling Increased Demand for Crude Oil In addition to supply disruptions and the global economic recovery, the oil price rally has also been fueled by and even bigger increase in natural gas prices. Natural gas prices have spiked 300% and are trading around $200 per barrel in comparable terms, prompting switching to fuel oil and other crude products to generate electricity and for other industrial needs. Story continues “The uneven nature of the post-pandemic recovery will keep demand-side uncertainties in play, giving rise to oil price volatility,” Fitch Solutions said in a note. Daily Forecast Prices could firm later in the session if OPEC and its allies decide to stick to their existing agreement to add 400,000 barrels per day (bpd) to the market in November. There is some risk to the downside if OPEC+ gives into consumer pressures to cool a red hot market by increasing production to 500,000 – 600,000 bpd. However, this new oil wouldn’t hit the market until December. Nonetheless, the announcement of the new terms would be enough to set prices sharply lower. For a look at all of today’s economic events, check out our economic calendar . This article was originally posted on FX Empire More From FXEMPIRE: Dogecoin Fans Swoon Over Elon Musk’s Floki Update Bitcoin and Ethereum – Weekly Technical Analysis – October 4th, 2021 EUR/USD Mid-Session Technical Analysis for October 4, 2021 Preview: What to Expect From Beer Giant Constellation Brands’ Earnings on Wednesday E-mini S&P 500 Index (ES) Futures Technical Analysis – Strengthens Over 4366.00, Weakens Under 4328.25 GBP/USD Daily Forecast – Resistance At 1.3575 Stays Strong
[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
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Trend: down || Prices: 63557.87, 60161.25, 60368.01, 56942.14, 58119.58, 59697.20, 58730.48, 56289.29, 57569.07, 56280.43
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Analyze the provided historical prices, technical indicators, news, and social media sentiment from the last 60 days. Based on this context, predict the overall trend (up, down, or no change) and the specific daily closing prices for Bitcoin for the next 10 days.
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[Technical Analysis]
Not fully available.
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
3 IT Stocks to Sell Before They Die: Cryptocurrencies are still facing a myriad of issues. For one, the value of most cryptos arestill hovering around 52-week lows. Two, theBiden Administrationis looking to regulate the sector intensively. Three, there are concerns about the impactBitcoin(CCC:BTC-USD)miners are having on the climate.I also believe the chances of crypto mining being greatly curbed or even banned in the U.S. are quite high. Given all of these points, I view crypto miners as being among the most important IT stocks to sell.
Here’s more information about the three IT stocks to sell that I’ve identified.
[{"MARA": "HUT", "Marathon Digital": "Hut 8 Mining", "$11.78": "$1.93"}, {"MARA": "DOCU", "Marathon Digital": "DocuSign", "$11.78": "$48.59"}]
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Source: Viacheslav Lopatin / Shutterstock.com
Marathon Digital (NASDAQ:MARA)focuses on miningBitcoin. In addition to being badly hurt by the falling price of Bitcoin, the company’s second-quarter results were negatively impacted by rising electricity prices and higher energy costs. Unfortunately, rising costs and falling revenue are not a formula for success for any company.
Given the obstacles that Marathon is facing, it’s not surprising that last quarter, itstop line droppedto $24.9 million from $29.3 million during the same period a year earlier, while its gross profit tumbled to just $8.2 million from $25.3 million in Q2 of 2021. Further, Marathon reported an operating loss of of $156.7 million last quarter.
With theFederal Reserve continuing to tightenmonetary policy, Bitcoin’s value is likely to remain depressed for some time. Meanwhile, regulators are looking to crack down on cryptos in general and bitcoin mining in particular, creating big risks for Marathon and the owners of MARA stock.
Finally, as of the end of Q2, thecompany had just $86.5million of cash, meaning that it will, likely, relatively soon, either have to take out loans at relatively high interest rates, sell more MARA stock at relatively low prices, sell off limited assets, or declare bankruptcy. Those are some of the top reasons MARA makes the list of IT stocks to sell.
Source: Voyagerix / Shutterstock.com
Hut 8 Mining(NASDAQ:HUT)focuses on mining Bitcoinand is another IT stock to sell.
At the moment, Hut 8 Mining alsofaces plenty of regulatory risk.That’s partly because Canada reportedly has a “stringent regulatory environment” for cryptocurrencies in general.
In addition, according toTime Magazinecontributor Laura Millan Lombrana, “Bitcoin mining’sclimate impactis comparable to farming cattle or burning gasoline when taken as a proportion of market value, according to researchers at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque.”
On the financial front, Hut 8’sresults are deteriorating. In its second quarter, the company’s revenue jumped to $43.8 million from $33.5 million, year over year. However, it generated a gross profit of negative $3.8 million, as compared to a profit of $16.97 million in Q2 of 2021. On the balance sheet, Hut 8 had $60.1 million in cash and equivalents at the end of last quarter, down from $140 million in Q2 of 2021. Like MARA, HUT is another top IT stock to sell.
Source: Sundry Photography / Shutterstock.com
Aside from the Bitcoin miners, another IT stock to sell isDocuSign(NASDAQ:DOCU).
Morgan Stanley(NYSE:MS) analyst Josh Baer warned that, “intensifying competition and commoditization of the company’s core digital signature capabilities” would negatively impact DOCU, leading to “pricing pressures,”as reported byBarron’s. The analyst also noted that DOCU is encountering “demand normalization” in the wake of the pandemic.
“Further out, he sees intensifying competition and commoditization of the company’s core digital signature capabilities, leading to pricing pressure,” notesBarron’scontributor Eric J. Savitz.
In addition, DocuSignreported an operating loss of$39 million for last quarter, much worse than its operating loss of $18.7 million during the same period a year earlier.
Although DOCU’s cash and equivalents last quarter came in at $637.2 million, up from $518.6 million during the same period a year earlier, it has $854.6 million of debt. Additionally, it relies a great deal on stock-based compensation to pay its employees, shelling out$141.2 million of DOCU stockfor compensation purposes last quarter.
On the date of publication, Larry Ramer did not have (either directly or indirectly) any positions in the securities mentioned in this article.
Larry Ramer has conducted research and written articles on U.S. stocks for 15 years. He has been employed by The Fly and Israel’s largest business newspaper, Globes. Larry began writing columns for InvestorPlace in 2015. Among his highly successful, contrarian picks have been GE, solar stocks, and Snap. You can reach him on StockTwits at @larryramer.
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The post3 IT Stocks to Sell Before They Dieappeared first onInvestorPlace. || Bitcoin ‘might double in price’ under CFTC regulation, its chairman says: Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) chairman Rostin Behnam said Thursday the crypto industry has “a massive opportunity for institutional inflows that will only occur if there’s a regulatory structure,” pushing for his office to lead the effort.
See related article:Crypto community pushes back following CFTC charges against Ooki DAO
• “Growth might occur if we have a well-regulated space,” Behnam said, adding: “Bitcoin might double in price if there’s a CFTC-regulated market.”
• “Non-bank [crypto] institutions thrive on regulation, they thrive on regulatory certainty, they thrive on a level playing field … because they are the smartest, the fastest and the most well-resourced,” he said.
• Benham’s statements follow growing international calls for crypto regulation, with the European Commission’s Mairead McGuinness recently urging international coordination in resolving the challenges the industry poses to “some of the fundamental aspects of the financial system.”
• Behnam also claimed the CFTC’s budget is currently too limited to effectively monitor the crypto industry. “The 60 or so cases [the CFTC] has brought, we’ve had to solely rely on whistleblowers, on customer complaints and on tips coming to us,” he said.
• Behnam also declared his support for a bill introduced by the Senate Agriculture Committee which would license the CFTC as the primary regulator of the crypto industry. This would resolve the long-running dispute between the CFTC and the Securities and Exchange Commission over who is to regulate which aspects of the crypto industry, as well as allowing the commission to impose fines, healing the “wounds and scars” of their underfunding.
• Behnam said it is these issues of incomplete crypto regulation and the CFTC’s supposed underfunding that is limiting their ability to fight crypto crime.
See related article:South Korea unlikely to push out crypto regulation before the U.S., authority says || 3 Reddit Stocks That Are Too Cheap to Ignore: In 2020 and 2021, so-called Reddit stocks came roaring to life. Investors were increasingly piling into these names in a way that many in the industry knew would end in disaster. Ultimately, it did, with these stocks falling significantly in 2022. However, that does leave us with some cheap Reddit stocks to pick over.
In early 2021, there were some short-squeeze discussions, mostly centered aroundGameStop(NYSE:GME). Bands of traders convened on Reddit, looking for stocks that had high short-interest readings, to load up on the stock and try to force what’s called a short-squeeze — essentially, forcing short sellers to stem their losses by buying back shares they initially borrowed.
Many of these names became popular Reddit stocks, although that list expanded as more and more investors began looking into investing. As a bear market roils the stock market, let’s revisit some of these names and see if we can’t shake out a couple of cheap Reddit stocks.
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[{"AMD": "GOGO", "Advanced Micro Devices": "Gogo", "$58.17": "$12.52"}, {"AMD": "BB", "Advanced Micro Devices": "BlackBerry", "$58.17": "$4.42"}]
Source: JHVEPhoto / Shutterstock.com
Advanced Micro Devices(NASDAQ:AMD) is not the first name that comes to mind when I think of cheap Reddit stocks. However, upon further inspection, it’s one that certainly warrants a closer look.
First, it’s one of the top Reddit stocksright now, and shares of AMD stock recently hit a new 52-week low. So, while it may not be cheap in the sense of its share price, it sure is cheap based on its valuation. However, there is good news and bad news here.
AMD shares trade at less than 14-times this year’s earnings. That’s darn cheap for a company churning out as much growth as this firm is. But this is where the good news meets the bad news. On Oct. 6, the companyreleasedpreliminary third-quarter results, with expectations for revenue of roughly $5.6 billion vs. estimates of $6.71 billion.
That miss sent shares to new 52-week lows, with AMD stock now down about 65% from the high. Given its role in the semiconductor space and how far the stock has already sunk, long-term investors may want to pay attention to AMD.
Source: Shutterstock
One popular Reddit stock from the 2020-21 bull run wasGogo(NASDAQ:GOGO). This stock went from $10-plus to single digits in the lead-up to the Covid-19 correction, then it slumped all the way down below $2. Investors were leaving this one for dead — and for good reason.
Who was going to pay for wireless internet on planes during a global pandemic? On the surface, the question made sense and the doubt surrounding Gogo were reasonable. However, investors didn’t consider what private jets were doing and the WiFi revenue that was being driven from business aviation.
In fact, the company’s business aviation was a profitable and free cash positive venture. It was Gogo’s commercial aviation product that didn’t do so well. However, the company thensold itin December 2020. Theoretically, even getting zero dollars for the business would have been a positive, but instead, Gogo received $400 million in cash.
Now the company is profitable,growing revenueat a double-digit clip and even trades at a reasonable valuation.
Source: Shutterstock
Last but not least we have a Reddit favorite:BlackBerry(NYSE:BB).
In fact, BlackBerry has been a favorite among certain investors for a long time, but the stock has never panned out to be the winner that the bulls had hoped. In that respect, avoiding BlackBerry is a reasonable takeaway for many readers and without question, is the riskiest pick on this list.
That said, BlackBerry is like that pesky stock that just won’t die off. No one has acquired the company, and while there have been positives at times, BlackBerry just never capitalized on its opportunities enough for the stock to break free and run higher.
While the stock had periods of momentum (and ripped higher during short-squeezes), BlackBerry now finds its stock trading at its lowest price since Nov. 2020.
Down in the $6-range, this name has typically found a bid. That observation stretches back all the way to 2012 (although shares did trade at a low of $2.70 during March 2020). It’s now below $5.
While analysts doexpecta notable pullback in business this year, 2023 estimates call for a rebound back towards 2021 levels. Admittedly, that’s not the greatest endorsement, but break-even results on $900 million in revenue and (hopefully) positive free cash flow could be enough to send this stock higher — even if it remains below $10.
On the date of publication, Bret Kenwell did not have (either directly or indirectly) any positions in the securities mentioned in this article. The opinions expressed in this article are those of the writer, subject to the InvestorPlace.comPublishing Guidelines.
Bret Kenwell is the manager and author ofFuture Blue Chipsand is on Twitter@BretKenwell.
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The post3 Reddit Stocks That Are Too Cheap to Ignoreappeared first onInvestorPlace. || Coinbase Backs Grayscale’s Bitcoin ETF Lawsuit Against SEC: America’s largest cryptocurrency exchange,Coinbase, is putting its weight behind Grayscale—the world’s largestBitcoinfund—in its legal battle with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
Grayscale issuingthe federal regulator over its refusal to approve the company’s application, or any other, for aBitcoin ETF. The fund claims the SEC is “failing to apply consistent treatment to similar investment vehicles,” as evidenced by the Commission’s willingness to approve multipleBitcoin futures ETFs, but refusal to allow spot market ETFs to go forward.
Coinbase’s amici curiaebrief, filed with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia on Tuesday, levied the same argument.
“Both spot and future [exchange-traded products], whether tied to Bitcoin or other commodities like gold, platinum, or palladium, create the same investment exposure for investors,” argued the exchange. “Both products are designed to track the price of the underlying commodity, Bitcoin.”
An ETF is an investment vehicle that allows buyers to gain exposure to an asset without the need to purchase and hold the underlying asset itself. A Bitcoin ETF, for example, would allow investors to indirectly invest in Bitcoin without buying the cryptocurrency through an exchange and storing it in a digitalwallet.
Both futures and spot market ETFs essentially achieve the same goal, but through different means. Whereas a futures ETF tracks the price of derivative contracts—which themselves allow traders to bet on the future price of Bitcoin—a spot market ETF would back its shares directly with Bitcoin.
Grayscale Is Suing SEC After Spot Bitcoin ETF Rejection
The futures market is also regulated by the CFTC. SEC Chair Gary Genslerhas in the past impliedthat he believes this may make these markets safer for ordinary investors. The Bitcoin spot market, the buying and selling of physical BTC, is not regulated.
In its brief, however, Coinbase claimed that restricting Bitcoin spot ETFs from reaching the market “unjustifiably limits investor choice,” and further argued that the SEC is “engaging in an arbitrary and capricious practice of picking winners and losers among investment products.”
Multiple crypto-centric non-profits were also represented as amici curiae in the brief, including, the Blockchain Association, the Chamber of Digital Commerce,Chamber of Progress, and Coin Center.
Having denied multiple Bitcoin spot ETF proposals fromdifferent parties, the SEC’s reasoning remains the same: ETF providers must form a “surveillance sharing agreement” with a “regulated market of significant size” related to the underlying Bitcoin being tracked, as a measure against potential market manipulation.
SEC Rejects WisdomTree Bitcoin Spot ETF Application—Again
Before being denied in June, Grayscale’s application argued that it could use the CME Bitcoin futures market as a source of market manipulation data. However, the commission claimed that this market, while regulated, was not adequately related to “spot Bitcoin.”
Multiple other countries have already approved Bitcoin spot ETF products, including Canada, Australia, Germany, and Brazil. According to Coinbase, the SEC’s refusal to do the same is driving U.S. investors to those markets and other trading venues that are not within the Commission’s purview. || Beware! GME Stock Is Still a Long Shot Despite Crypto Deal.: Video-game retailer GameStop (NYSE: GME ) seeks to enter into the worlds of cryptocurrency trading and the metaverse, it seems. Is this a sufficient reason to buy GME stock, though? Probably not, as GameStop’s financial results are subpar. Meme-stock traders might not heed this warning, but long-term investors should check GameStop’s fundamentals before taking a position. Reddit users started a revolution when they targeted GameStop for a short squeeze last year. It was exciting to witness but hard to profit from, as meme stocks have brief shelf lives and tend to decline as fast as they ascend. The meme-sters might be back in action in 2022, though, and they could rally the troops around GameStop at any given moment. If you’re going to hold a stock position for more than a few days, however, don’t forget to check GameStop’s financial stats before committing any capital. InvestorPlace - Stock Market News, Stock Advice & Trading Tips What’s Happening With GME Stock? We haven’t seen a repeat of 2021’s wild ride, but GME stock did double from $20 to $40 a couple of times this year. Each climb has been followed by a share-price decline, though; evidently, meme-stock gains can lead to meme-stock pains. Perhaps some new, decentralized-market ventures could get the short-squeeze crowd excited about GameStop again. For one thing, GameStop launched a non-fungible token (NFT) marketplace a couple of months ago. There hasn’t been much mention about this recently, though, and it’s too early to assess the NFT marketplace’s success. More recently, GameStop disclosed a partnership with FTX , or more precisely, with FTX US. This is a cryptocurrency marketplace, and the stated purpose of the collaboration is to “introduce more GameStop customers to FTX’s community and its marketplaces for digital assets.” Analyst Calls GameStop a ‘Mess,’ and Rightly So GameStop’s meme-worthiness, and the company’s forays into NFTs and cryptocurrency, are all fine and well. Cautious investors, however, shouldn’t consider buying any stock until they’ve checked the company’s recent financials. Story continues And, when it comes to GameStop’s financials, there are serious problems. To quote Wedbush analyst Michael Pachter, “Fundamentally, GameStop remains a mess .” Pachter backed this assessment up with, “The company has lost money for the last six consecutive quarters, and has lost over $700 million since January 2019” — messy, indeed. Let’s see what GameStop’s second-quarter 2022 results reveal. Revenue of $1.136 billion indicate a slight year-over-year (YOY) decline and missed the analyst consensus estimate of $1.266 billion. Meanwhile, analysts braced for GameStop to post a quarterly earnings loss of 42 cents per share. The actual result was a loss of 36 cents per share, or $109 million, so the bulls might claim a victory there. On the other hand, this result showed deterioration compared to the prior-year quarter’s earnings loss of $62 million, or 21 cents per share. So, any claimed victory here is a hollow one. What You Can Do Now I’m not quite prepared to call GameStop traders a “cult” like some people might. Yet, some bullish traders might be overly focused on GameStop’s NFT and crypto angles. The problem is that they’re ignoring the company’s “messy” fundamentals. Don’t misunderstand — GME stock could pop back up to $40 without warning. Since it’s a meme stock, however, it could fall right back down to $20. It’s fine to play these meme-trade games in the short term, if that’s what you want to do. For the long term, though, fundamentals do matter, and GameStop’s fiscal data doesn’t support a confident investment now. On the date of publication, David Moadel did not have (either directly or indirectly) any positions in the securities mentioned in this article. The opinions expressed in this article are those of the writer, subject to the InvestorPlace.com Publishing Guidelines . David Moadel has provided compelling content – and crossed the occasional line – on behalf of Motley Fool, Crush the Street, Market Realist, TalkMarkets, TipRanks, Benzinga, and (of course) InvestorPlace.com. He also serves as the chief analyst and market researcher for Portfolio Wealth Global and hosts the popular financial YouTube channel Looking at the Markets. More From InvestorPlace Buy This $5 Stock BEFORE This Apple Project Goes Live The Best $1 Investment You Can Make Today Early Bitcoin Millionaire Reveals His Next Big Crypto Trade “On Air” It doesn’t matter if you have $500 or $5 million. Do this now. The post Beware! GME Stock Is Still a Long Shot Despite Crypto Deal. appeared first on InvestorPlace . || Are These Cryptos the Next Bitcoin or Ethereum?: While there are literally thousands of cryptocurrencies, when it comes to the big dogs, there are really only two: Bitcoin and Ethereum. Bitcoin is the originalcrypto, created in 2009, and Ethereum was created as a “Bitcoin killer” in 2015. Together, the two comprise nearly two-thirds of crypto’s $1.3 trillion global market cap, with Bitcoin alone comprising nearly one-half.
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Although their prices have been volatile, both cryptos have provided exceptional long-term returns since their respective inception dates. That is part of why investors have been piling into alternative cryptocurrencies, hoping to pick out “the next Bitcoin or Ethereum.” But how likely is it that another crypto can rise in prominence like the two market leaders?
Here are three cryptocurrencies that various experts and market analysts thinkhave a shot at being contenders.
Solana quickly became a favorite among traders to become “the next” Ethereum in late 2021, when its price shot up to over $260. Since then, it has fallen dramatically to less than $40 as of August 2022. However, the crypto market, in general, has been hammered in 2022, and Solana still maintains a market cap of about $12.3 billion, good enough to rank it as the ninth-largest cryptocurrency.
One of the reasons that Solana has often been hyped as a crypto of the future is that it is the only major cryptocurrency blockchain that uses proof-of-history. Proof-of-history is meant to be extremely fast when compared with the proof-of-work protocol used by cryptos like Ethereum, and it also has lower fees.
Solana claims it can process about 50,000 transactions per second, compared with the 15 to 45 transactions per second handled by Ethereum. This can allow Solana to scale up rapidly, one of the major requirements for a coin to catch or even surpass industry leaders Bitcoin and/or Ethereum.
Check It Out:Crypto on the GO
These characteristics have helped Solana win over the confidence of large institutions like JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America, which once said that Solana could become the “Visa of the digital asset ecosystem.”
Currently, Solana runs over 400 projects on its ecosystem, including decentralized exchanges, wallets and other defi projects. Stablecoins like Circle’s USD Coin also run on the platform. Given its low cost and scalability, the future may still be bright for Solana.
Whereas Solana has gained popularity for being faster and cheaper than Ethereum, Cardano aims to beat the top cryptos by being a more environmentally sustainable alternative. Cardano was actually developed by one of Ethereum’s creators, Charles Hoskinson, suggesting that Ethereum may be based on older technology and principles than Cardano.
Indeed, Cardano was designed as the first proof-of-stake cryptocurrency, designed to provide a faster, cheaper, more secure blockchain.
Cardano’s approach is more research-intensive than Ethereum’s, with each stage of its development peer-reviewed and thoroughly tested before implementation. The third-generation crypto is also launching smart contract capabilities, which will help make Cardano more sustainable and scalable. As some analysts describe it, Bitcoin is Crypto 1.0, Ethereum is Crypto 2.0, and Cardano is Crypto 3.0.
Cardano actually sits as the eighth-largest cryptocurrency, with a current market cap of about $15.6 billion. Like most other cryptos, Cardano’s price has been hammered. After peaking at about $3.10 in September 2021, Cardano now sits at just $0.46, demonstrating the immense risk of investing even in market-leading cryptocurrencies.
Polkadot is the 11th-largest cryptocurrency, with a current market cap of about $8.4 billion. Polkadot’s “special talent” is its interoperability, or its ability to connect multiple blockchains together into one network. As part of a single network, these numerous blockchains can exchange information without compromising security by leaving the network. This type of secure protocol is viewed by some as essential to the future of Web3, or the decentralized digital ecosystem.
As with Cardano and Solana, Polkadot aims to perform better than Ethereum when it comes to cost and scalability. But what may differentiate Polkadot from either of these other cryptos is its interoperability.
Unlike many other cryptocurrencies, many investors buy Polkadot not just to speculate on the currency itself but to bet on the success of its underlying technology. If this trend gains momentum, it could help Polkadot’s price remain less volatile than other cryptos, which in turn might attract additional long-term investors.
However, Polkadot still remains quite volatile, falling from a 2021 high of $55 to its current level below $10.
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This article originally appeared onGOBankingRates.com:Are These Cryptos the Next Bitcoin or Ethereum? || Ethereum blockchain slashes energy use with 'Merge' software upgrade: By Elizabeth Howcroft and Maria Ponnezhath LONDON (Reuters) -The Ethereum blockchain has undergone a major software upgrade, drastically reducing its energy usage, its inventor and co-founder tweeted on Thursday. The new system will use 99.95% less energy, according to the Ethereum Foundation. The upgrade, which changes how transactions occur and how ether tokens are created, could give Ethereum a major advantage as it seeks to surpass rival blockchain bitcoin. "We believe this is a significant moment that will lead to ETH outperforming the broader crypto market for some time," said Richard Usher, head of over-the-counter trading at London-based crypto firm BCB Group. Most blockchains devour large amounts of energy and have come under fire from environmentalists and some investors. Before the software upgrade, which is known as the Merge, a single transaction on Ethereum used as much power as an average U.S. household uses in a week, according to researcher Digiconomist. With the software upgrade, Ethereum has moved from a "proof of work" system, in which energy-hungry computers validate transactions by solving complex maths problems, to a "proof of stake" system, where individuals and companies act as validators, using their ether as collateral, to win newly created tokens. "Happy merge all," inventor Vitalik Buterin said in a tweet. "This is a big moment for the Ethereum ecosystem." Ethereum was born in 2013. Proponents say it will form the backbone of much of the widely hyped but still unrealised "Web3" vision of an internet where crypto technology takes centre stage in applications and commerce. It powers platforms involving crypto offshoots such as decentralised finance and non-fungible tokens, and is used in so-called "smart contracts" - blockchain-based covenants seen as having use in traditional finance and other industries. The cryptocurrency ether fell as much as 4% to $1,571, a move analysts put down to a cautious mood for risk assets more generally. Story continues Investors bet ahead of Merge that the upgrade would bolster the price of the ether token. Ether has gained about 85% from its June lows, outperforming larger rival bitcoin's 15% gain. Overall, however, cryptocurrencies have suffered this year, with bitcoin and ether both down by around 55%. Ether took market share from bitcoin ahead of the Merge, and now accounts for about a fifth of the $1 trillion crypto market. Bitcoin's share has dropped to 39.1% from this year's peak of 47.5% in mid-June. In addition to energy consumption, high costs and slow transaction times are key issues facing the Ethereum network. Merge will not immediately tackle these problems, though some analysts say it lays the ground for Ethereum's expansion. The bolstering of Ethereum's environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) credentials "would be good for regulatory-driven institutions that want to start to explore the Ethereum ecosystem," said Marc Arjoon, ethereum research analyst at digital asset manager CoinShares. (Reporting by Maria Ponnezhath in Bengaluru and Elizabeth Howcroft in London; editing by Tom Wilson, Edwina Gibbs and David Evans) || Binance Froze Russian Gun Maker's Crypto Assets, Amid Ukrainian Pressure: Binance, the worlds largest crypto exchange by volume, froze a wallet related to Vladislav Lobaev, a Russian gun manufacturer who raised funds for the country's troops in Ukraine, according to a Lobaev representative and blockchain data analysis. While the Ukrainian government did not mention Lobaev or anyone else by name, last week the Security Service of Ukraine (SSU) published a press release saying the agency blocked a crypto wallet belonging to a Russian citizen who is sponsoring Russian war in Ukraine. CoinDesk has confirmed that the wallet was Lobaevs Binance account. This article is part of CoinDesks Sin Week series. Lobaev is a founder of Lobaev Arms , a private firm producing rifles and other military ammunition. He is an enthusiastic supporter of Russias invasion of Ukraine and regularly asks subscribers to his Telegram channel to donate money so that Lobaev can provide more ammunition for the Russian troops in Ukraine. The channel listed several payment methods for subscribers to donate, including blockchain addresses for bitcoin (BTC), ether (ETH) and tether (USDT). Call for donations in Lobaev's Telegram channel After the Ukrainian law enforcement discovered the fundraising activity, it apparently persuaded Binance to freeze the account, which by then had received over $21,000 in bitcoin, ether and USDT. Security Service of Ukraine do not respond to CoinDesks requests to comment. Binance would not discuss the ownership of crypto wallets in question. Any government or law enforcement agency in the world can make lawful requests regarding users in their jurisdiction provided these are accompanied by the proper legal authority," a spokesperson for Binance said. "However, Binance also protects its users and reserves the right to reject law enforcement requests that dont stand up to legal scrutiny, where no legal purpose is served or there are flaws in the investigative approach. We apply the same level of scrutiny to requests as any leading bank, financial institution or multinational company would." Story continues Lobaev Z Vladislav Lobaev is a well-known gun manufacturer with right-wing views. Lobaev Arms, which Vladislav Lobaev runs with his brother Nikolay, has been producing firearms since 2003, specializing in sniper rifles. The firm benefitted from earlier sanctions on Russia, when the import of Western ammunition in Russia stopped, the state-run news service Sputnik wrote . The use of Lobaevs rifles during the war in Ukraine has been advertised by Russian state media. In his Telegram channel , Lobaev has been actively supporting Russias invasion of Ukraine and even re-named his channel as Lobaev Z, adding the letter Russian troops put on their vehicles, which became an unofficial symbol of Russia during this war. Lobaev praises Russian troops, analyzes weapons used by the Ukrainian army, and badmouths Ukraine, NATO and the LGBT community. CoinDesk reached out to Lobaev via a feedback bot in his Telegram channel and got a response from a person saying he was Lobaevs son Evgeny, who was in charge of the crypto fundraising. He confirmed Lobaevs Binance account was frozen and said he did not know what to do in this case. He also sent CoinDesk a screenshot of a chat with the exchanges support team: According to the customer service rep, the account was locked due to an account review. Chat with Binance support team Lobaev's representative shared with CoinDesk The exchange stopped accepting Russian bank cards this spring, following the international sanctions on Russia and the exit of MasterCard (MA) and Visa (V) from the country. Asked how he was able to cash out crypto from a Binance account, Evgeny Lobaev said he used over-the-counter (OTC) brokers. He also said cryptocurrencies constituted not a big part of all the incoming donations. (Lobaev also uses Russian fiat payment service Yoomoney and an account at the Russian financial institution Sberbank.) Evgeny Lobaev is not a public person and the rare mentions of him on the internet are usually related to the war. There is a LinkedIn account for a Evgeny Lobaev working as a supply chain coordinator at Lobaev Arms. The person who corresponded to CoinDesk via the Telegram bot did not respond to a question asking whether it was his LinkedIn account or not. Evgeny Lobaev, according to some accounts, participated in the war himself. In an amateur video published on YouTube March 1, a man in military fatigues is smiling in front of artillery machines shooting. Another amateur video said this person was Evgeny Lobaev and he was captured by Ukrainian forces. Later, a Russian blogger known as WarGonzo published a clip showing a similar looking person, saying it was Lobaev and that he was not captured. Screenshot of a video of Evgeny Lobaev Lobaev told CoinDesk he was not captured and he was now in Russia. Blocked wallets In its press release , the Security Service of Ukraine (SSU) said it blocked a crypto wallet belonging to a Russian citizen who is sponsoring Russian war in Ukraine. The agency said it identified the crypto wallets a certain individual used to raise funds for ammunition and arms that later was being sent to the troops invading Ukraine . The SSU said it was working on ways to confiscate the funds. The individual, whom SSU did not name, managed to raise an amount equivalent to 800,000 Ukrainian hryvnias (US$21,700), the announcement said, and used that money to buy equipment for the troops of the self-proclaimed Peoples Republics of Donetsk and Luhansk breakaway Eastern regions of Ukraine that have received clandestine armed support from Russia since 2014. Since Russia started a full-fledged invasion of Ukraine in February, it has been actively recruiting the population of these regions for helping its own troops. The Ukrainian news website Liga.net identified the individual SSU talked about by the photos in the press release with pro-Russian forces carrying weapons, which match photos on Lobaevs Telegram channel (for example, this one and this one ). According to the blockchain analytics firm Crystal Blockchain, all crypto addresses Lobaev published for fundraising belong to Binance, the largest centralized crypto exchange. This explains how the Ukrainian authorities were able to block the wallets. Decentralized blockchains, such as Bitcoin and Ethereum, do not allow anyone to block or freeze any addresses or transactions. However, centralized custodial exchanges, such as Binance, Coinbase (COIN), FTX, which hold cryptocurrency on their users behalf, can refuse service to individual users at the request of authorities. This happened in the past to accounts that received money stolen from hacked exchanges or designated terrorists . Also, smart contracts for tokens created on top of blockchains, such as the contract that issues USDT, allow freezing individual wallets. Tether, the issuer of USDT, has done so in the past. Read also: Hamas Tapped Binance to Launder Bitcoin Donations, Blockchain Data Suggests According to the blockchain data, the bitcoin wallet Lobaev listed for fundraising received over 6.4 BTC (about $19,700) since late April. The ether wallet received 3.25 ETH (over $1,500), a USDT wallet on the Tron blockchain received a little over $840 in the U.S. dollar-pegged stablecoin. All the wallets have been mostly drained of funds, with the latest transactions recorded between late July and Aug. 14. This does not necessarily mean Lobaev was able to cash out all of his crypto donations: deposit addresses for exchanges can be just temporary storage for coins, and what is actually happening to users money is not fully reflected on the public blockchain, only in exchanges private records. In July, analytics firm Chainlalysis said 54 pro-Russian militant and volunteer groups raised over $2,2 million on crypto via social media channels. These organizations used donations to buy firearms, medical supplies, satellite communication hardware and other products. The list included Terricon, a group led by the sanctioned Russian citizen Alexander Zhuchkovsky; Rusich, a group associated with the Russian mercenary group known as Wagner; and anonymously written blogs Rybar and SouthPost. || Powerful Crypto Miner RamoX released by Bitramo: New York, Sept. 12, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- RamoX, a recently released product fromBitramo, is now the most powerful crypto miner in the market. Powered by extraordinarily high hash rates, this mining hardware has taken mining profitability to a new level altogether. In addition to RamoX, Bitramo also offers Ramo 1 and Ramo 2 miners. All Bitramo miners can be used for mining Bitcoin, Litecoin, Ethereum, and Monero.
Bitramois a crypto start-up run by a team of experienced technology experts dedicated to making crypto mining simple and profitable like never before. Though all the Bitramo miners are extremely powerful, RamoX offers hash rates that have never been heard of in the industry. As a result of these hash rates, RamoX is more profitable compared to any other crypto miner released so far.
Some Key Figures for Ramo X
Bitcoin Litecoin Ethereum Monero
Hash Rates: 2250 TH/s 210 GH/s 15 GH/s 15 MH/s
Power Consumption: 2200 Watt 2200 Watt 2200 Watt 2200 Watt
Monthly Profit: $12,300 $10,500 $17,000 $20,000
Within its limited lifespan so far, RamoX has already emerged as a favorite product amongst seasoned miners as well as newbies looking for a stable earning alternative. Many of these users have been able to recover their investment completely within just one month. One of the most important features of RamoX and other Bitramo miners is their ease of use. In spite its high capabilities; RamoX can be used by anyone, including those without any exposure to the field of crypto.
All Bitramo miners are delivered pre-configured, and only requires to be connected to a power point to start mining. The product has moderate system requirements, and can operate on minimum internet speed of 10 KB/s. Bitramo also has its own mining pool that is available for free to all its customers.
RamoX and other miners from Bitramo are shipped worldwide, with a delivery time of 7 days only. The company covers delivery and custom fees for all its customers and offers warranty for all types of software or hardware issues.
To find out more, please visithttps://bitramo.com/
CONTACT: Alessia P. marketing (at) bitramo.com +1 917 512 2959 || 6 Critical Charts to Watch Ahead of the 2022 Midterm Elections: While the matter represents a contentious topic, investors must realize that the 2022 midterm elections will soon arrive. Further, with President Joe Bidens administration generally struggling to forward its agenda, the upcoming battle for control of Congress will be crucial. Should the Republicans win, they can potentially gridlock the president, which would then set the framework for 2024. Now, if history is any guide, the Republicans stand a solid chance of taking both the House and the Senate . Without jumping on one side or the other, its probably fair to at least be prepared for a red wave during the 2022 midterm elections. According to data from U.C. Santa Barbara, in the 22 midterm elections from 1934-2018, the Presidents party has averaged a loss of 28 House seats and four Senate seats. The presidents party gained seats in the House only three times, but gained seats in the Senate on six occasions. The presidents party has gained seats in both houses only twice. InvestorPlace - Stock Market News, Stock Advice & Trading Tips To be clear, we live in extraordinary times, so its possible that the Democrats will pull a surprise for the 2022 midterm elections. Either way, below are critical stock charts to watch ahead of the votes. RGR Sturm Ruger $50.77 LMT Lockheed Martin $401.39 NEE NextEra Energy $82.66 META Meta Platforms $139.59 GOOG Alphabet $99.85 HOG Harley-Davidson $37.26 Sturm Ruger (RGR) RGR stock Source: Ycharts.com Irrespective of personal opinions about the munitions industry, the overriding reality is that because of the Second Amendment, qualified law-abiding U.S. citizens and permanent residents may purchase firearms. Per the Washington Post , there are more guns than people in this country . And that makes firearms manufacturer Sturm Ruger (NYSE: RGR ) one of the must-watch charts ahead of the 2022 midterm elections. Given that the topic of self-defense and the right for individuals to bear arms represents much controversy, RGR inherently makes the ranks as a real-time economic and social indicator to monitor ahead of the 2022 midterm elections. Still, it may be a contrarian indicator as well. If political circumstances bode well for Republicans, then arguably the primary incentive to acquire guns the fear of restrictive gun control measures will abate. Therefore, lower market valuations for RGR could imply a Republican surge. The opposite may hold true for a surprising run by Democrats. So far, RGR is down about 33% in the trailing year. Lockheed Martin (LMT) LMT stock Click to Enlarge Story continues Source: Ycharts.com Famed defense contractor Lockheed Martin (NYSE: LMT ) represents one of the top charts to watch ahead of the 2022 midterm elections. Still, LMT embodies ambiguities. Therefore, it may feature conflicting insights. Traditionally, Republicans present a pro-military and pro-defense profile. Thus, a rising LMT price may indicate growing support for Republicans in most other circumstances. These are not most other circumstances. Fundamentally, the Democrats led the charge against the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Even when going back into the archives, it appears Democrats have a stronger sense of global politics. For instance, then-Senator John F. Kennedy arguably presented a more cogent framework about geopolitics than former Vice President Richard Nixon. Given that the Biden administration continues to support Ukrainian resistance and independence, a rising LMT could be a positive indicator for the Democrats. Over the trailing year, shares are up almost 13%. NextEra Energy (NEE) NEE stock Source: Ycharts.com In my opinion, NextEra Energy (NYSE: NEE ) unquestionably represents a must-watch chart ahead of the 2022 midterm elections. Developing wind and solar energy infrastructures, NextEra provides the tangible platform for the climate change ideology. Scientists recognize that we humans must do something about the problem, and NEE is one cog in the solutions machinery. Should NEE shares rise, the perhaps obvious conclusion is that the narrative bolsters Democrats. To be fair, many conservative politicians also support environmentally sustainable policies. However, the left tends to attract the most attention for making climate change a top priority in its political agenda. Thus, a bullish NEE price chart could mean a positive outcome for Democrats. On the other hand, a declining NEE price chart could be an indicator that Republicans may enjoy a big day for the 2022 midterm elections. According to the Pew Research Center, while environmental concerns have risen between the two major political parties, the prioritization gap remains massive. In the trailing year, NEE has gained about 5%. Meta Platforms (META) META stock Source: Ycharts.com Owning the biggest social media network in Facebook, Meta Platforms (NASDAQ: META ) is one of the charts to watch anyways. But ahead of the 2022 midterm elections, not many more pertinent stocks exist. Fundamentally, members across the political and ideological spectrum voiced concerns about Metas hegemony. As the Pew Research Center noted, a majority of U.S. adults believe that their personal data is less secure now. In addition, they feel that data collection poses more risks than benefits. In some ways, its not surprising that META collapsed this year. On the flipside, an argument rose to the forefront about Big Tech and social responsibility. For instance, deliberately disseminating misleading narratives may cause social harm. Ironically, the Columbia Journalism Review pointed out that in 1987, under President Ronald Reagans Federal Communications Commission, the fairness doctrine was dropped , removing required balance from broadcast reporting. Its a difficult matter to decipher. However, in my view, a rising META price bodes well for Democrats. However, META is down 62% in the trailing year. Alphabet (GOOG, GOOGL) GOOG stock Source: Ycharts.com Frankly, you cant get more Big Tech than Alphabet (NASDAQ: GOOG , NASDAQ: GOOGL ). Fundamentally, under the corporate umbrellas Google machinery, Alphabet effectively owns the internet. Based on the latest data, Google maintains a 92% global market share for the search engine segment. Nothing else comes close. However, as with Meta above, privacy concerns became a major priority in recent years. According to another Pew report, half of Americans have decided not to use a product or service because of privacy concerns . Therefore, GOOG and GOOGL represent major challenges for both parties. Partially because of this, they also represent charts to watch ahead of the 2022 midterm elections. Fundamentally, many young people care about social justice . It is possible then that they may support censorship initiatives that mitigate potentially dangerous ideas. After all, for a tolerant society to succeed, it must not tolerate intolerance. Politically, I view rising GOOG and GOOGL prices as a positive for Democrats. Still, the fact on the ground for the trailing year is that GOOG is down 29%. Harley-Davidson (HOG) HOG stock Source: Ycharts.com Just mention the name Harley-Davidson (NYSE: HOG ) and certain images immediately come to mind. Because the company represents a niche segment, its a clear indicator for conservative ideologies. According to one data set, Harley-Davidson tends to attract predominantly males, aged 55 and above . Significantly, the company attempted to reach other demographics. Obviously, with the aforementioned rich diversity of the U.S., you cant just feature a narrow focus. However, the company also struggled with expanding beyond its core consumer base. However, these struggles also make HOG a useful indicator for charts to watch ahead of the 2022 midterm elections. Yes, Democrats ride motorcycles too. Still, as an average view, Harley leans toward conservative sentiments. Thus, a rising HOG price bodes well for Republicans. Currently, HOG runs 3.5% below parity in the trailing year. On the date of publication, Josh Enomoto did not have (either directly or indirectly) any positions in the securities mentioned in this article. The opinions expressed in this article are those of the writer, subject to the InvestorPlace.com Publishing Guidelines . A former senior business analyst for Sony Electronics, Josh Enomoto has helped broker major contracts with Fortune Global 500 companies. Over the past several years, he has delivered unique, critical insights for the investment markets, as well as various other industries including legal, construction management, and healthcare. More From InvestorPlace Buy This $5 Stock BEFORE This Apple Project Goes Live The Best $1 Investment You Can Make Today Early Bitcoin Millionaire Reveals His Next Big Crypto Trade On Air It doesnt matter if you have $500 or $5 million. Do this now. The post 6 Critical Charts to Watch Ahead of the 2022 Midterm Elections appeared first on InvestorPlace . View comments
[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
None available.
|
Trend: up || Prices: 19345.57, 20095.86, 20770.44, 20285.84, 20595.35, 20818.48, 20635.60, 20495.77, 20485.27, 20159.50
|
Analyze the provided historical prices, technical indicators, news, and social media sentiment from the last 60 days. Based on this context, predict the overall trend (up, down, or no change) and the specific daily closing prices for Bitcoin for the next 10 days.
|
[Technical Analysis for 2016-12-19]
BTC Price: 792.71, BTC RSI: 69.20
Gold Price: 1140.50, Gold RSI: 30.80
Oil Price: 52.12, Oil RSI: 59.67
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
UFOMiners Boasts High-Quality Miners with Competitive Prices: LAS VEGAS, NV / ACCESSWIRE / November 10, 2016 /UFOMiners LLC is striving to keep ahead of the competition. Providing first-in-classBitcoin and Litecoinmining hardware, this young company not only guarantees high-quality products, but it also promises affordable pricing, mix-and-match consumer-friendly promotions and free international shipping.
UFOMiners focuses on three main areas: developing crypto hardware, creating blockchain-based technologies and delivering remote access service. The company's product offering now includes four powerful, cost-effectivecryptocurrency miners, each with optimal hashing speeds specifically designed for Bitcoin and Litecoin mining. All hardware goes through rigorous testing before it reaches the client and comes with a 5-year warranty.
What sets the company apart, is its growing team of experts and its philosophy of offering high-performance technologies at low costs. "We're a rapidly growing team of specialists who is extremely passionate about what we do. Our primary mission is to make high-techcryptocurrency miningavailable to a wide range of clients and offer them innovative solutions that are profitable," a spokesperson for UFOMiners explains. UFOMiners is a group of young and ambitious enthusiasts with top-notch experience in hardware development, computer programming, engineering and management. Having in-house experts allows the company to produce key hardware components on site, which eliminates third-party expenditures.
With a recent launch of a promotional deal, UFOMiners demonstrates its commitment to making high-quality cryptocurrency mining economical and readily available. "Our new promotional offer allows customers to mix and match units, according to theirBitcoinor Litecoin preferences. As long as they buy three miners in one purchase, they'll receive a fourth one for free, no matter what the combination," say a company spokesman. To save their customers, even more, money, UFOMiners is also covering the shipping costs, international destination included. Customers can conveniently order on the company website.
Company Profile
UFOMiners was founded in 2014 by XX. It all began with a vision to develop hardware equipment for mining scrypt cryptocurrencies, a project that later expanded to the development of Bitcoin miner. This Las Vegas-based firm is now a rapidly growing provider of cryptocurrency mining hardware and blockchain-based technologies.
For more information visit:www.ufominers.com
SOURCE:UFOMiners || Most Popular ETFs Of The Year: In the ETF world, the rich get richer. The biggest funds by assets typically attract the largest flows each year. In that regard, 2016 was no exception.
The smallest ETF to make the top 10 inflows list for the year has an impressive $16.9 billion in assets, according to FactSet. The other ETFs on the list are much larger still.
Together, these 10 ETFs took in $87.1 billion of fresh investor money in the year-to-date period ending Dec. 6. To put that in context, total flows into all ETFs so far this year have been $225 billion.
There's still another three weeks left to go in the year, so the final numbers could change (we'll publish the official figures once they're released). But if there's any conclusion to be reached from these numbers, it's that investors still favor plain-vanilla index ETFs over their more complex counterparts―whether it besmart-beta funds,active fundsor otherwise.
Investors Embrace S&P 500 ETFs
Indeed, for all this year's hype about "smart beta," it's "dumb beta" that investors wanted. In particular, when it comes to U.S. equities, investors plowed billions intoS&P 500 ETFs. Three out of the top four funds on the flows list track the venerable large-cap index, including theSPDR S&P 500 ETF (SPY), theiShares Core S&P 500 ETF (IVV)and theVanguard S&P 500 Index Fund (VOO)―all with inflows of more than $10.7 billion.
The only other U.S.-focused equity fund to make the cut was the broaderVanguard Total Stock Market Index Fund (VTI), but its year-to-date flows of $5.2 billion were less than half that of the three S&P 500 funds.
Emerging Market Comeback
In a year that featured concerns about China and "Brexit," it's no wonder investors preferred U.S. equities. Even so, a trio ofinternational equity ETFsalso showed up in the top 10. TheVanguard FTSE Developed Markets ETF (VEA), which tracks developed-market stocks outside the U.S., had inflows of $8.8 billion in the year-to-date period.
At the same time, two low-cost emerging market ETFs—theVanguard FTSE Emerging Markets ETF (VWO)and theiShares Core MSCI Emerging Markets ETF (IEMG)—made an appearance on the list, with inflows of $8.8 billion, and $6.5 billion, respectively.
GLD Falls Down The RanksMeanwhile, three nonequity ETFs found themselves on the list. TheiShares Core U.S. Aggregate Bond ETF (AGG)took in $10.9 billion so far this year. AGG provides exposure to the market of U.S. investment-grade bonds, weighted by market value.
TheiShares TIPS Bond ETF (TIP)was another popular bond fund, with inflows of $6.6 billion. TIP holds Treasury inflation-protected securities, a type of U.S. government bond that protects investors in a rising-rate environment.
TheSPDR Gold Trust (GLD)is another inflation-hedge in the top 10. The physically backed gold ETF was at the top of the flows leader board for much of the year, but fell down the ranks rapidly in the weeks following Donald Trump's victory at the polls. A post-election spike in interest rates and the U.S. dollar led GLD to lose some of its luster.
Incidentally, GLD is the most expensive ETF on the top inflows list, with an expense ratio of 0.40%. All the other funds in the top 10 have an expense ratio of 0.20% or less.
Flows For Jan. 1 to Dec, 6, 2016
[{"Ticker": "SPY", "Fund": "SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust", "Net Flows*": "11,329.80"}, {"Ticker": "IVV", "Fund": "iShares Core S&P 500 ETF", "Net Flows*": "11,250.62"}, {"Ticker": "AGG", "Fund": "iShares Core U.S. Aggregate Bond ETF", "Net Flows*": "10,910.56"}, {"Ticker": "VOO", "Fund": "Vanguard S&P 500 Index Fund", "Net Flows*": "10,743.41"}, {"Ticker": "GLD", "Fund": "SPDR Gold Trust", "Net Flows*": "9,076.08"}, {"Ticker": "VEA", "Fund": "Vanguard FTSE Developed Markets ETF", "Net Flows*": "8,814.22"}, {"Ticker": "VWO", "Fund": "Vanguard FTSE Emerging Markets ETF", "Net Flows*": "6,698.77"}, {"Ticker": "TIP", "Fund": "iShares TIPS Bond ETF", "Net Flows*": "6,562.40"}, {"Ticker": "IEMG", "Fund": "iShares Core MSCI Emerging Markets ETF", "Net Flows*": "6,498.14"}, {"Ticker": "VTI", "Fund": "Vanguard Total Stock Market Index Fund", "Net Flows*": "5,236.37"}, {"Ticker": "*Net Flows in USD Million", "Fund": "", "Net Flows*": ""}]
Contact Sumit Roy atsroy@etf.com
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Permalink| © Copyright 2016ETF.com.All rights reserved || UFOMiners Expands its Hardware Selection with Four New Products: Summary: UFOMiners, a Leading Cryptocurrency Mining Manufacture Based in Las Vegas, Just Released Four New High-Performance Products for Unbeatable Prices LAS VEGAS, NV / ACCESSWIRE / December 5, 2016 / When it comes to quality miner hardware development, UFOMiners LLC ( www.UFOMiners.com ) continues to push ahead of the competition. The growing company recently expanded its cost-efficient product offering, demonstrating their commitment to customer service and making high-quality cryptocurrency mining economical and readily available. The four additions to their hardware repertoire include two ethereum miners and two ZCash miners. Each device is unique in its features, offering a variety of hashing algorithms, hashing speeds, and consumption power rates of up to 1650 Watts. Like UFOminers first wave of miners, these four models are equipped with ports for monitor, mouse, and keyboard connection. All products come with a 5-year warranty and function in cascade mode at a connecting capacity of up to 32 devices via 100 Mbps Ethernet LAN. See product list . "Our in-house team of experts have outdone themselves again," says a spokesman of the firm. "The team's vast knowledge of blockchain technologies coupled with an innovative spirit to excel in delivering optimal, low-cost mining solutions to our customers is what brought this new line of products to fruition." The young and ambitious cryptocurrency mining developers at UFOMiners strongly believe in the philosophy of in-house quality production as a way of keeping costs low and making high-performance mining technologies readily available. They are not above offering consumer-friendly promotions and free international shipping to give their customers an exceptional experience. The new hardware, Ethereum RhinoMiner, Ethereum RhinoMiner Prime, ZCash Equinox and ZCash Equinox Prime, are now available for purchase at www.UFOMiners.com , ranging from $3200 to $4900. Company Profile UFOMiners was founded in 2014 on a vision to develop hardware equipment for mining scrypt cryptocurrencies, a project that later expanded to the development of the Bitcoin miner. This Las Vegas-based firm is now a rapidly growing provider of cryptocurrency mining hardware and blockchain-based technologies. UFOMiners currently services up to 1000 private customers as well as dozen businesses. Contact: Ruben Vos Ruben@UFOMiners.com SOURCE : UFOMiners View comments || Traders look at housing trades that are building up for the new year: With the SPDR S&P Homebuilders ETF (NYSE Arca: XHB) climbing about half a percent Monday, the " Fast Money " traders weighed in on housing stocks building up for 2017. Trader Brian Kelly noted that even though housing starts fell below estimates last week, 2017 could be the year for homebuilders to break out. The sector's climb reminded him of another big performer from 2016. "The homebuilder is set up similar to how the financials did last year where this could be a big breakout trade if you have that economic growth that's going to push people in homes," he said. Trader Karen Finerman said she's not concerned about the move in the homebuilders ETF. She attributed it to the end of the election and the end of uncertainty. As the low-end buyer in the sector, KB Home (NYSE: KBH) has the potential to be a strong stock next year in the face of regulation rollbacks from the Trump administration, trader David Seaburg said. Even thought the stock is up 33 percent year to date, Seaburg said it still has room to grow, while the high-end Wall Street banks are going to continue to have problems with regulation. "I like the KBH. Even though it's up strong, I think it continues," he said. Disclosures: GUY ADAMI long CELG, EXAS, GDX, INTC, Guy Adami's wife, Linda Snow, works at Merck. KAREN FINERMAN long AAL, BAC, BAC short calls, C, DAL, FB, FL, GLMP,, GOGO, GOOG, GOOGL, JPM, LYV, KORS, KORS calls, KORS puts, M, MA, SEDG, SPY puts, TACO, UAL, URI, WIFI long call spreads. Her firm is long ANTM, AAPL, BAC, C, C calls, FB, GOOG, GOOGL, JPM, JPM calls, KORS, LYV, M, MOH, PLCE, SPY puts, URI, WIFI, her firm is short IWM, MDY. Karen Finerman is on the board of GrafTech International. BRIAN KELLY long Bitcoin, TLT, US30Y. He is short EUR=.,AUD,GPB DAVID SEABURG Opinions expressed by David Seaburg are solely his own and do not reflect the views and opinions of Cowen Group, Inc. David Seaburg and Cowen have a financial interest in EDIT.Diamond Offshore: an employee of Cowen and Company, LLC serves on the Board of Directors of Diamond Offshore More From CNBC Traders weigh oil stocks amid pullback Stress boom to boost drug sales? Rumor visits the Nasdaq, fresh off her Westminster win || Bitcoin is flying after Donald Trump's victory: Price of bitcoin since Oct. 20 In May, a Juniper Research study ( Will Bitcoins Bite Back? ) predicted that the price of the digital currency bitcoin would jump if Donald Trump were elected. On Tuesday, Trump was elected, and bitcoin jumped. The currency is up nearly 3% since Tuesday night, hovering around $725. If Donald Trump becomes President of the US, said Dr. Winslow Holden in a statement with the study , there is the very real prospect of turmoil on world markets
Bitcoin would thrive in such an environment. Bitcoin has in fact been on the rise all fall, not only because of the election . The price is up 19% in the last month, 23% in the last three months, and 68% in 2016. But in the next few days and perhaps months, the uncertainty after Trumps win will likely serve as an accelerant. Investors see bitcoin as a safe haven from fiat currencies (hence why it rises when the Chinese yuan falls), and an asset largely untied to mainstream markets. Gold typically behaves the same way, and indeed, gold shot up to $1,320 on Tuesday night as Trump closed in on the presidency , though it fell back to earth on Wednesday and is now at $1,275. Bitcoins October rise has been mostly due to heightened activity in China, where the yuan is falling and the government has tightened capital controls. Bitcoin prices also spiked during the bank shutdown in Greece last year. Juniper Research says the Brexit vote, back in June, is still having an impact as well: The ongoing ramifications around Brexit are also likely to act as an additional spur for higher activity levels. If Brexit helped contribute to a bitcoin bump , then Trumps win is likely to do it, too. Many were quick to compare the surprising result of the US election to the EU referendum result. Trump, in the days before the election, told crowds that his win would be like Brexit plus plus plus, and nicknamed himself Mr. Brexit. While Trump and bitcoin might seem to have something in common (Coin Telegraph made the case that Trump would eventually cozy up to the coin ), his campaign never accepted donations in bitcoin. Hillary Clintons campaign considered accepting donations in bitcoin, a leaked email thread revealed, but John Podesta was more intrigued by the digital currency Ven, writing that bitcoin suffers from a libertarian Ayn Rand schtick. Sen. Rand Paul and Gov. Gary Johnson were the only two presidential candidates to accept bitcoin. Story continues It doesnt matter now: Trump won, and bitcoin benefited without his support. The coin doesnt need Trump to champion it in order to succeed. The defining word of this US election is the same word that defined the Brexit vote: uncertainty. As the Juniper Research report noted, bitcoins price rose in the weeks leading up to the Brexit vote, then fell a little bit just before the vote when the outcome looked clear, then spiked when the outcome was, in fact, a big surprise. Expect the same to happen after Trumps win. Daniel Roberts is a writer at Yahoo Finance, covering technology and sports business. Follow him on Twitter at @readDanwrite . Read more: The latest bitcoin price surge isnt just about Brexit Heres where big banks stand on blockchain Why 21.co is the most exciting bitcoin company right now Coinbase is more bullish on bitcoin than ever || PayPal is homing in on high-growth areas: (BII)This story was delivered to BI Intelligence "Payments Briefing" subscribers. To learn more and subscribe, pleaseclick here.
PayPal postedstrong resultsacross segments in Q3 2016, allowing the firm to increase its growth targets for the year without changing its margins — a good sign for the rest of the year.
PayPal posted strong growth in two key metrics. The firm’s total payment volume (TPV) rose 28% year-over-year (YoY) to $87 billion in Q3 2016. That was likely driven partly by an increase in customers, which grew by 19 million YoY to 192 million during the quarter.
But even as PayPal adds customers, those clients are getting more engaged — average interactions per customer rose to 30, from 27 in the previous year, during Q3. Increased engagement likely means that PayPal’s focus on high-growth areas, like mobile payments and P2P functionality, is helping to drive customers to the service.
Continuing to find ways to grow engagement will likely shape PayPal’s development moving forward. The company is pushing hard into other high-growth areas in order to better become “an everyday essential financial service” for people worldwide. Two such initiatives highlighted in the call stood out:
• Aggressive pursuit of Chinese and cross-border e-commerce:PayPal is expanding its partnership with Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba so that Paypal will become a single-click buy button option on AliExpress, one of Alibaba’s largest marketplaces. PayPal customers are already interested in Chinese e-commerce —40 millionof the firm’s customers have made a purchase to China — so this could help them better channel that interest into purchasing. But it also could allow the firm to get a share of China’s fast-growing e-commerce market, and, if successful, could pave the way for more cross-border partnerships in the future.
• Mobile in-store payments:The firm’s recent partnerships with Visa and Mastercard will allow PayPal’s wallet to be accepted in-store anywhere that accepts contactless payments from those cards. And in Europe, PayPal is partnered with Vodafone in markets like the UK, Italy, and Spain, to begin allowing users to pay via NFC. Physical stores present PayPal with a massive volume opportunity, and could help it better monetize some of its mobile and digital platforms through merchant processing fees, for example. These partnerships could also help keep customers loyal to PayPal for a wider variety of financial interactions rather than pushing them to a third-party, which could increase engagement.
PayPal is an important piece of the larger payments ecosystem, but it's still just one piece. The rest of it included merchants, processors, acquirers, gateways, and more.
Evan Bakker and John Heggestuen, analysts atBI Intelligence, Business Insider's premium research service, have compileda detailed report on the payments ecosystemthat drills into the industry to explain how a broad range of transactions are processed, including prepaid and store cards, as well as revealing which types of companies are in the best and worst position to capitalize on the latest industry trends.
Here are some key takeaways from the report:
• 2016 will be a watershed year for the payments industry. Payments companies are improving security, expanding their mobile offerings, and building commerce capabilities that will give consumers a more compelling reason to make purchases using digital devices.
• Payments is an extremely complex industry. To understand the next big digital opportunity lies, it's critical to understand how the traditional credit- and debit-processing chain works and what roles acquirers, processors, issuing banks, card networks, independent sales organizations, gateways, and software and hardware providers play.
• Alternative technologies could disrupt the processing ecosystem. Devices ranging from refrigerators to smartwatches now feature payment capabilities, which will spur changes in consumer payment behaviors. Likewise, blockchain technology, the protocol that underlies Bitcoin, could one day change how consumer card payments are verified.
In full, the report:
• Uncovers the key themes and trends affecting the payments industry in 2016 and beyond.
• Gives a detailed description of the stakeholders involved in a payment transaction, along with hardware and software providers.
• Offers diagrams and infographics explaining how card transactions are processed and which players are involved in each step.
• Provides charts on our latest forecasts, key company growth, survey results, and more.
• Analyzes the alternative technologies, including blockchain, which could further disrupt the ecosystem.
To get your copy of this invaluable guide, choose one of these options:
1. Subscribe to an ALL-ACCESS Membership with BI Intelligence and gain immediate access to this report AND over 100 other expertly researched deep-dive reports, subscriptions to all of our daily newsletters, and much more. >>START A MEMBERSHIP
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The choice is yours. But however you decide to acquire this report, you’ve given yourself a powerful advantage in your understanding of the payments ecosystem.
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• THE MOBILE PAYMENTS REPORT: Market forecasts, consumer trends, and the barriers and benefits that will influence adoption
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• THE PAYMENTS INDUSTRY EXPLAINED: The trends creating new winners and losers in the card-processing ecosystem || C&W Networks Wins Fourth Consecutive Best Caribbean Wholesale Carrier Award: PARIS, FRANCE and MIAMI, FL--(Marketwired - Nov 10, 2016) - C&W Networks , a division of C&W Communications (C&W), one of the largest full service communications and entertainment providers in the Caribbean and Latin America region, now part of Liberty Global (LiLAC Group), again won the Best Caribbean Wholesale Carrier award on November 8 at the 12 th Global Carrier Awards in Paris. The award recognizes C&W Networks' innovation in new service technology, excellence in customer experience and leadership in the wholesale telecoms market across the Caribbean region. The Global Carrier Awards have become the most prestigious awards among the wholesale telecoms industry by celebrating innovation, excellence and vision and setting the benchmark for performance throughout the marketplace. The awards were independently judged by a panel of over 20 judges, which includes leading analysts, industry experts and the senior editorial team of Capacity magazine. The judging panel was carefully selected to cover a wide range of market areas and regions and were aided by a new scoring system, which was refined for 2014 to ensure that the shortlisting and winners decisions remained objective and transparent. This year's submissions attracted a record number of over 200 entries. "C&W Networks won the Best Caribbean Wholesale Carrier award at the 2016 Global Carrier Awards in our brand new Paris location. In recognition for increasing revenue and profitability, network reach, scale and reliability this provider of choice in the Pan-Caribbean region boasts a world-class Net Promoter Score of 50% above industry standard," said the Global Carrier Awards organization. "And with its demonstrated success in completing strategic acquisitions, ongoing network expansion and rollout of innovative services this carrier continues to exceed all expectations." "We are elated to be recognized as the Best Caribbean Wholesale Carrier for the fourth time across the region. We are very proud to receive this recognition for our success in a challenging and rapidly evolving marketplace. In anticipation of growing customer demands that rely more and more on advanced technologies, we've greatly expanded our capabilities in new services and network security over the past year -- which the judges recognized tonight. The award highlights the commitment of our teams and their tireless efforts across the region to better serve our carrier clients and their customers and our ongoing commitment towards striving to be the best Caribbean telecoms carrier," said Paul Scott, President of C&W Networks. Story continues In selecting C&W Networks as the Best Caribbean Wholesale Carrier winner, the judges recognize that the company operates the largest subsea network across the Pan-Caribbean region, serving over 260 local, regional and international carriers. Its diverse IP backbone, along with its over 38,000 in-country fiber backhaul and local terrestrial networks that are continually expanding throughout the region were also key factors that impressed the selection committee. In addition, the selection committee noted the beneficial impact to the region from C&W Networks that has enabled unmatched scale and reach spanning some 48,000 kilometers of submarine fiber reaching 42 countries. "Throughout 2016, we have been laser focused on finding the best ways to connect, protect, manage and optimize carrier services for our clients and their customers. We are enabling them to capture new revenue, protect profits, and grow their businesses. We are proud to be providing the tools they need to be successful in today's global telecoms market and will continue to deliver greater connectivity, flexibility and scalability across the Caribbean region," said Scott. Click here to view the Global Carrier Awards Judging Panel . Click here to view the list of winners . For more information on the Global Carrier Awards please visit http://www.capacitymedia.com/Global-Carrier-Awards . About C&W Networks C&W Networks is a wholly owned subsidiary of C&W Communications and a wholesale telecommunications service provider that offers broadband, IP capacity and a growing portfolio of managed services and integrated solutions to global, regional and local telecom carriers, TV cable companies, Internet Service Providers and Network Integrators. C&W Networks operates the largest subsea multi-ring fibre-optic network throughout the greater Caribbean, Central American and Andean region along with the most comprehensive fully meshed MPLS network in the region. Connecting over 42 countries, the company's fully protected ringed submarine fibre optic network spans more than 48,000km. Cable routes include the Caribbean Optical-ring System (ARCOS-1), Colombia-Florida Express (CFX-1), EC-Link cable system, Fibralink, Maya 1, Eastern Caribbean Fiber Express (ECFS), Taino-Carib, East-West, Cayman-Jamaica Fibre system, Caribbean-Bermuda U.S (CBUS), Americas II, Gemini Bermuda, Pan America (PAN-AM), Antillas 1 and Pacific Caribbean Cable System (PCCS). For more information, visit: www.cwnetworks.com . About C&W Communications C&W is a full service communications and entertainment provider and delivers market-leading video, broadband, telephony and mobile services to consumers in 18 countries. Through its business division, C&W provides data center hosting, domestic and international managed network services, and customized IT service solutions, utilizing cloud technology to serve business and government customers. C&W also operates a state-of-the-art submarine fiber network -- the most extensive in the region. Learn more at www.cwc.com , or follow C&W on LinkedIn , Facebook or Twitter . About Liberty Global Liberty Global is the world's largest international TV and broadband company, with operations in more than 30 countries across Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean. We invest in the infrastructure that empowers our customers to make the most of the digital revolution. Our scale and commitment to innovation enables us to develop market-leading products delivered through next-generation networks that connect our 29 million customers who subscribe to over 60 million television, broadband internet and telephony services. We also serve 10 million mobile subscribers and offer WiFi service across seven million access points. Liberty Global's businesses are comprised of two stocks: the Liberty Global Group ( NASDAQ : LBTYA ) ( NASDAQ : LBTYB ) ( NASDAQ : LBTYK ) for our European operations, and the LiLAC Group ( NASDAQ : LILA ) ( NASDAQ : LILAK ) ( OTC PINK : LILAB ), which consists of our operations in Latin America and the Caribbean. The Liberty Global Group operates in 12 European countries under the consumer brands Virgin Media, Ziggo, Unitymedia, Telenet and UPC. The LiLAC Group operates in over 20 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean under the consumer brands VTR, Flow, Liberty, Mas Movil and BTC. In addition, the LiLAC Group operates a subsea fiber network throughout the region in over 30 markets. For more information, please visit www.libertyglobal.com . Image Available: http://www2.marketwire.com/mw/frame_mw?attachid=3079140 Image Available: http://www2.marketwire.com/mw/frame_mw?attachid=3079139 || Swiss rail operator to sell bitcoins at its ticket machines: ZURICH (Reuters) - Switzerland's national railways firm SBB is branching out next month with the launch of a new service on its ticket machines to sell bitcoins, the web-based digital currency. Beginning Nov. 11, customers will be able to trade Swiss francs for bitcoins using the ticket machines in a two-year experiment that will test Switzerland's appetite for the cryptocurrency, the state-owned company announced on Friday. "There have been few possibilities to obtain bitcoins in Switzerland until now," SBB said. "With its 1,000-plus ticket machines, SBB operates a dense, around-the-clock distribution network that's suited for more than just ticket sales." SBB is working with Zug-based digital payments firm SweePay to allow customers to top up their digital 'bitcoin wallet' accounts by mobile phone. Customers can exchange anywhere between 20 and 500 Swiss francs ($20-503) per transaction. SBB will act as distributor, while the exchange will be performed by SweePay and require users to hold an account with a wallet service that allows storage of the digital currency. Bitcoin is known for allowing users to move money across the world quickly and relatively anonymously but, on the Swiss ticket machines, users won't be able to procure it without a trace: customers will need to identify themselves using a Swiss mobile phone. While bitcoins can be purchased, they won't be accepted as payment at the machines, meaning ticket revenues will be unaffected by changes in the bitcoin exchange rate. ($1 = 0.9943 Swiss francs) (Reporting by Brenna Hughes Neghaiwi; Editing by Greg Mahlich) || REPORT: Trump team's top pick for Treasury secretary is an ex-Goldman Sachs banker: Steven Mnuchin (AP/Evan Vucci) It looks as if President-elect Donald Trump's advisers have a clear top pick for Treasury secretary: ex-Goldman Sachs banker Steven Mnuchin, who served as the national finance chair on Trump's presidential campaign. That's according to Bloomberg's Saleha Mohsin, Kevin Cirilli, and Jennifer Jacobs , who report that Trump's transition team has recommended the banker. Mnuchin spent 17 years with Goldman Sachs. Mnuchin was chief information officer at The Goldman Sachs Group before leaving the firm in 2002. He also worked briefly for George Soros. Mnuchin was seen at Trump Tower on Monday, according to a pool report. When asked why he was there and whether he was interested in the position, he said: "I'm here just helping with the transition this week. A lot of work to do." Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein last week called Mnuchin a "highflier, a very nice guy," and a "smart, smart guy." "He was a very senior guy at a very young age at Goldman Sachs," Blankfein said in an interview with Andrew Ross Sorkin of The New York Times. Blankfein said Mnuchin reported to him when he ran the fixed-income division. "I follow his career, I know what he's done, but I haven’t really engaged with him that much," Blankfein said. "I'm sure he stayed just as smart as he was when he was at Goldman." Another potential candidate is JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon. CNBC last week reported that Dimon, a lifelong Democrat, was in the running for the position. NOW WATCH: Ex-Wells Fargo employees reveal how some bankers abused customers More From Business Insider Michael Bloomberg has a plan to shift the conversation on climate change Here's why Trump's win boosted Bitcoin Europe's Trump rally evaporated || Traders look at housing trades that are building up for the new year: With the SPDR S&P Homebuilders ETF(NYSE Arca: XHB)climbing about half a percent Monday, the "Fast Money" traders weighed in on housing stocks building up for 2017.
Trader Brian Kelly noted that even though housing starts fell below estimates last week, 2017 could be the year for homebuilders to break out. The sector's climb reminded him of another big performer from 2016.
"The homebuilder is set up similar to how the financials did last year where this could be a big breakout trade if you have that economic growth that's going to push people in homes," he said.
Trader Karen Finerman said she's not concerned about the move in the homebuilders ETF. She attributed it to the end of the election and the end of uncertainty.
As the low-end buyer in the sector, KB Home(NYSE: KBH)has the potential to be a strong stock next year in the face of regulation rollbacks from the Trump administration, trader David Seaburg said. Even thought the stock is up 33 percent year to date, Seaburg said it still has room to grow, while the high-end Wall Street banks are going to continue to have problems with regulation.
"I like the KBH. Even though it's up strong, I think it continues," he said.
Disclosures:
GUY ADAMI
long CELG, EXAS, GDX, INTC, Guy Adami's wife, Linda Snow, works at Merck.
KAREN FINERMAN
long AAL, BAC, BAC short calls, C, DAL, FB, FL, GLMP,, GOGO, GOOG, GOOGL, JPM, LYV, KORS, KORS calls, KORS puts, M, MA, SEDG, SPY puts, TACO, UAL, URI, WIFI long call spreads. Her firm is long ANTM, AAPL, BAC, C, C calls, FB, GOOG, GOOGL, JPM, JPM calls, KORS, LYV, M, MOH, PLCE, SPY puts, URI, WIFI, her firm is short IWM, MDY. Karen Finerman is on the board of GrafTech International.
BRIAN KELLY
long Bitcoin, TLT, US30Y. He is short EUR=.,AUD,GPB
DAVID SEABURG
Opinions expressed by David Seaburg are solely his own and do not reflect the views and opinions of Cowen Group, Inc. David Seaburg and Cowen have a financial interest in EDIT.Diamond Offshore: an employee of Cowen and Company, LLC serves on the Board of Directors of Diamond Offshore
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[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
Want to put your #bitcoin company at the end of every #game played? Sponsor a day for 0.24BTC ;) http://cashclamber.com/CashClamber/Default/Translator.php?page=Main.html?subpage=/Pages/Game/Streaker/Streaker.html?app=def … #bitcoin #biz || MMMBTC || Bitcoin pay invest $300 pay you $6000 in 24 hours,christmas eve traditions. http://ow.ly/AgcT307d5Qt || MMMBTC || 1 bitcoin = 1 decking level , do d maths @devsdistrict. #devsdistrict || Meet The 27-Year-Old Mathematician Building a Bitcoin Empire https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/meet-27-year-old-mathematician-building-bitcoin-empire-mitchell … || Be A Crypto Currency Miner And Start Earning Your First Bitcoins, Etherium and other #btc http://bit.ly/2e1Fbz4 00:45 || Bitcoin http://www.coindesk.com/price/ pic.twitter.com/4jYzXLq8ET || http://ift.tt/2hK0AAl http://Darknetmarkets.org is a scam site. They suggest Bitcoin tumbling services that take your money. #Bitcoin #Bloc… || ☼} new PCIe Express x1 to x16 Adapter Extender Cable 1X To 16X http://ebay.to/1OGyqBs pic.twitter.com/qbOrHO8eYO
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Trend: up || Prices: 800.88, 834.28, 864.54, 921.98, 898.82, 896.18, 907.61, 933.20, 975.92, 973.50
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Analyze the provided historical prices, technical indicators, news, and social media sentiment from the last 60 days. Based on this context, predict the overall trend (up, down, or no change) and the specific daily closing prices for Bitcoin for the next 10 days.
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[Technical Analysis for 2020-01-28]
BTC Price: 9358.59, BTC RSI: 70.56
Gold Price: 1569.20, Gold RSI: 66.12
Oil Price: 53.48, Oil RSI: 26.49
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
Cardano Climbs 10% As Investors Gain Confidence: Investing.com - Cardano was trading at $0.045826 by 14:15 (19:15 GMT) on the Investing.com Index on Friday, up 10.07% on the day. It was the largest one-day percentage gain since January 17. The move upwards pushed Cardano's market cap up to $1.17890B, or 0.47% of the total cryptocurrency market cap. At its highest, Cardano's market cap was $23.91700B. Cardano had traded in a range of $0.041172 to $0.045826 in the previous twenty-four hours. Over the past seven days, Cardano has seen a rise in value, as it gained 24.6%. The volume of Cardano traded in the twenty-four hours to time of writing was $98.91140M or 0.07% of the total volume of all cryptocurrencies. It has traded in a range of $0.0365 to $0.0458 in the past 7 days. At its current price, Cardano is still down 96.61% from its all-time high of $1.35 set on January 4, 2018. Elsewhere in cryptocurrency trading Bitcoin was last at $8,945.1 on the Investing.com Index, up 2.83% on the day. Ethereum was trading at $173.24 on the Investing.com Index, a gain of 5.59%. Bitcoin's market cap was last at $162.06478B or 64.33% of the total cryptocurrency market cap, while Ethereum's market cap totaled $18.89802B or 7.50% of the total cryptocurrency market value. Related Articles Price Analysis Jan 17: BTC, ETH, XRP, BCH, BSV, LTC, EOS, BNB, ETC, TRX US SEC Charges Convict and Associates for $30M Fraudulent ICO Amid Legal Controversy, Telegram Blockchain Explorers Are Already Available || Grayscale to Fund Ethereum Classic Developers for 2 More Years: Grayscale Investments has committed to financially supporting development of the ethereum classic (ETC) cryptocurrency for another two years. Announced Wednesday, the asset manager will continue to donate one-third of the management fees from its Grayscale Ethereum Classic Trust to the ETC Cooperative each quarter through 2021. It is a big vote of confidence which we deeply appreciate. This funding allows us to continue our support of the ETC protocol and ecosystem, ETC Cooperative executive director Bob Summerwill said by private message. We will provide grants for key projects, as we have through 2018 and 2019. Related: Grayscales Bitcoin Trust Is Now Open to More Investors as SEC Reporting Company Since 2017, Grayscale has donated a total of $1.1 million, including $338,000 in 2019, to the cooperative, which funds development of the protocol behind the 15th-largest cryptocurrency by market cap. Grayscale manages some $80 million of assets in its ethereum classic vehicle , with nearly 10 million shares backed by about 0.92 ETC each. The trust controls about 14 percent of the total supply of ETC, based on fund disclosures and data from ETC Block Explorer . The manager charges a fee of three percent of assets under management. The company is a subsidiary of Digital Currency Group, which is also the parent of CoinDesk. Ethereum classic was created in 2016 as a splinter currency from ethereum (ETH) after the team leading development for the latter made a controversial decision to roll back a hackers transactions. Related: Ethereum Classic Successfully Completes Agharta Hard Fork More recently, however, ETC has been building bridges with its sister chain. Recent hard forks, or system-wide upgrades, in September 2019 and January 2020 added ethereum-based updates to ethereum classic for improved interoperability. The ethereum classic team expects to achieve protocol parity with ETH from a pending hard fork known as Aztlán, Summerwill said. Story continues Update (Jan. 22, 20:30 UTC): A previous version of this story said Grayscale donated $338,000 in Q4 2019 alone. That is the full-year figure . Related Stories What Do Women Want? More Educational Materials Before Investing in Bitcoin Grayscales Bitcoin Trust Seeks SEC Reporting Company Status || ‘Proof of Keys’ takes place today – but what does that actually mean?: In case the festivities have played havoc with your mental calendar, today is Jan 3. That means it’s now 11 years since the Bitcoin Genesis block was mined (in other words, it’s Bitcoin’s birthday). And it’s also the annual Proof of Keys celebration created by Trace Mayer . So, what exactly is that and what do people mean when they say “not your keys, not your crypto”? Let’s take a closer look… What is Proof of Keys? The Proof of Keys celebration is all about taking control of your funds. Contrary to popular belief, when you own cryptocurrencies, you never actually own any digital coins. What you receive when you purchase cryptos are private keys that give you access to the funds you bought. These are a long jumble of letters and numbers allowing you to make transactions. When you keep your BTC, ETH, or any cryptocurrency on an exchange or similar third-party service, you rescind control of your private keys. This has a few implications, as you can see in the helpful explainer video below by exodus.io. You see, we’re very used to giving up control of our money to banks. We deposit our earnings into a bank and trust them to keep it safe. But people have been burnt before from bank collapses and account freezes. And when it comes to cryptocurrency, this nascent space presents some risks of its own. While regulators are getting stricter, there is still a real lack of protection for exchange users whose funds may be exposed to hacks. There’s also the possibility that the exchange or wallet provider you use becomes insolvent, has its accounts frozen, or pulls a salacious exit scam. In the event that a less-than-desirable event like a hack or fraud happens to the service you keep your crypto on, you may have no way of getting it back. That’s why people say “ not your keys, not your crypto ” as you don’t have control over what happens to your crypto-assets. Story continues Keeping your funds on an exchange is convenient and easy. However, what the Proof of Keys event is trying to promote is awareness among cryptocurrency users. How does Proof of Keys Work? You don’t have to be an experienced user to participate in the Proof of Keys celebration today. As Trace Mayer explains in the above video, all you need to do is withdraw all your BTC (or other cryptos) from any third-party service, “just to prove that they’re there”. This means that you’ll need to have a noncustodial wallet to transfer your funds to. This could be a software solution such as exodus.io or MyEtherWallet or a hardware wallet like a Ledger or Trezor . Depending on your cryptocurrency and your choice of wallet, you’ll need to take different steps. This can present a challenge for a novice user but it’s essential if you want to prevent falling victim to another of the industry’s rampant hacks and scams. It’s also an excellent lesson in self-sovereignty. As Exodus explains in the video, if you don’t have control of your own keys, that means the exchange does. They are the custodian of your funds (just like a bank). A noncustodial solution, on the other hand, is where you can be 100% certain that the funds are your own and within your control. For example, the cash in your wallet is completely yours, there is no third party involved. The same applies to cryptocurrency. A centralised crypto exchange is just like your bank. You deposit and withdraw funds, but the exchange controls them and merely allows you access. The exchange controls the keys and can access all accounts on the system. This is where noncustodial solutions are so important, but they’re “not all unicorns and rainbows”. Disadvantages of noncustodial solutions While exchanges can be targets for hackers or deny access to your funds, noncustodial solutions are not perfect either. Being in full control of your crypto funds places the whole responsibility on you. You need to learn how to store your private keys correctly, ensure that you have a backup seed safely stored separately and generally learn more about interacting with the blockchain. You also run the risk of losing your crypto if you use a solution like Ballet hardware wallet which has no recovery. At the end of the day, when it comes to managing your crypto assets, it’s really up to you. You may hold little and prefer to accept the risks and disadvantages of centralised exchanges. But if you do choose to do this, you can still participate in the Proof of Keys celebration. It is an excellent way of proving that your funds are available when you want them. Not only that, but it’s an extremely useful exercise in learning how to use a noncustodial wallet or simply reminding yourself how to make a transaction. The post ‘Proof of Keys’ takes place today – but what does that actually mean? appeared first on Coin Rivet . || Binance Invests Undisclosed Sum in Crypto Derivatives Platform FTX: Crypto exchange colossus Binance has invested an undisclosed amount of money in derivatives platform FTX as part of a strategic partnership between the two firms. As part of the deal announced Thursday, Binance has purchased equity in the derivatives firm and purchased long positions in the FTX Token, FTT, the platforms native coin. The investment will help accelerate the growth of FTX with support and strategic advisory from Binance while FTX maintains its independent operations, FTX founder and CEO Sam Bankman-Fried said. Related: Binance Adds New Fiat Payment Options Through Integration With P2P Exchange Paxful In return, FTX will help develop Binances products, particularly its flagship exchange, Binance.com, and over-the-counter (OTC) trading desk. FTX also announced its intention to build out a suite of products complementary to tokenized ecosystems, a project Malta-based Binance will assist. Founded in the spring of 2019, FTX was an incubation project for Alameda Research, a digital asset research firm. FTX offers OTC, futures, indexes and spot trading and operates out of the Caribbean islands of Antigua and Barbuda. The exchange processes nearly a half-billion dollars of trade volume per day, according to a release from Binance. The FTX team has built an innovative crypto trading platform with stunning growth, Binance CEO Changpeng CZ Zhao said in a statement. We see quite a bit of ourselves in the FTX team and believe in their potential in becoming a major player in the crypto derivatives markets. The investment follows Binances September acquisition of JEX, a Seychelles-based spot and derivatives platform. The acquisition helped the exchange add options and futures to its trading platform. Related Stories Crypto Exchange OKEx Launching Options Trading Later This Month Four Insights on Crypto Liquidity From Binance US and FTX Crypto Lender BlockFi Rolls Out Zero-Fee Trading for Bitcoin, Ether, GUSD || E-mini Dow Jones Industrial Average (YM) Futures Technical Analysis – Trade Deal Concerns Likely to Encourage More Profit-Taking: December E-mini Dow Jones Industrial Average futures closed lower on Friday in a lackluster post-holiday trade. Volume was extremely light with many of the major players on the sidelines. There wasn’t any major news per se, but investors did express some concerns over a possible retaliation from China after President Trump signed a pair of bills late Wednesday supporting the pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong.
On Friday,December E-mini Dow Jones Industrial Averagefutures settled at 28073, down 75 or -0.27%.
The main trend is up according to the daily swing chart. A trade through 28173 will signal a resumption of the uptrend. The main trend will change to down on a move through the last swing bottom at 27643.
The short-term range is 27643 to 28173. Its 50% level at 27908 is the first downside target.
The minor range is 27337 to 28173. Its 50% level at 27755 is the second downside target.
The second minor range is 26847 to 28173. Its 50% level is 27510.
The market closed lower on Friday. The move was likely fueled by a combination of position-squaring, profit-taking and the lack of buyers.
The Dow also closed on the weak side of an uptrending Gann angle at 28091. This could be the first sign of a top. If it continues then look for the selling to possibly extend into the 50% level at 27908 and the next uptrending Gann angle at 27867.
The selling could start to open up to the downside under 27867 with the next target the 50% level at 27755. This is the last potential support level before the 27643.
The last leg up from 27643 was primarily fueled by optimism over a trade deal between the United States and China. It makes sense that if we take away this optimism, the market may retrace the entire rally.
Furthermore, investors seem to be buying without any concern over value. So if the buying dries up and investors begin to book profits then we can expect a pullback into a support zone or value area.
With investors renewing concerns over U.S.-China trade relations, we expect them to use this as an excuse to continue to trim positions until the news turns positive again or the market retreats into a support or value area.
Thisarticlewas originally posted on FX Empire
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• Bitcoin hit seven-week highs during the Asian trading hours and could extend the rally to a key Fibonacci hurdle above $8,600.
• A weekly close (Sunday, UTC) above $7,960 looks likely and would confirm a falling channel breakout on the weekly chart and signal a revival of the bull run from lows near $4,100 seen in April 2019.
• Gold witnessed a channel breakout at the end of December and has rallied by more than $100 ever since.
• Acceptance below $8,000 would weaken the odds of channel breakout this week.
Bitcoin jumped to seven-week highs early on Wednesday and appears on track to confirm a significant price breakout similar to that seen by gold.
According to CoinDesk’sBitcoin Price Index, the number one cryptocurrency by market value rose to $8,463 – the highest level since Nov. 18 – during the Asian trading hours as Iran launched retaliatory attacks on the American bases in Iraq.
Related:Bitcoin Hits New 2020 High Above $8,400 After Iranian Missile Attack
While bitcoin rallied to multi-week highs, gold, a classic haven asset, jumped above $1,600 for the first time since 2013. Other anti-risk assets like Japanese yen, Swiss franc and U.S. bonds also drew bids.
The safe-haven narrative surrounding bitcoin has strengthened with the cryptocurrency gaining ground in tandem with gold since Friday.
The yellow metal found takers near $1,530 on Friday after the U.S. killed a top Iranian military commander and rose to a high of $1,611 earlier today. Meanwhile, bitcoin turned higher from lows near $6,850 on Friday and has gained more than 20 percent since.
The cryptocurrency now looks set to take a page out of gold’s book and confirm a falling channel breakout on the weekly chart.
Related:Bitcoin Probes Major Resistance After 15 Percent Price Rally
As can be seen, both assets had a tough time in the second half of 2019.
Gold (above right) topped out at $1,557 at the end of August and fell to lows below $1,450 in November, creating a falling channel on the weekly chart. The channel was breached on the higher side in the last week of December with a convincing move above $1,483. The breakout signaled a resumption of the rally from lows near $1,270 seen in April and since then, the yellow metal has rallied by more than 8 percent.
Bitcoin’s weekly chart (above left) also shows a falling channel, which represents the sell-off from the June 2019 high of $13,880 to the low of $6,425 reached in December.
The cryptocurrency is currently trading above the falling channel resistance of $7,960. A breakout would be confirmed if prices close the week (Sunday, UTC) above $7,960. That would imply a continuation of the rally from April 2019 low of $4,100 and open the doors for a re-test of $13,880.
A breakout looks likely with bullish developments on key technical indicators.
Bitcoin’s rise to seven-week highs has confirmed seller exhaustion signaled by multiple long-tailed weekly candles and the bullish divergence of the MACD histogram, an indicator used to gauge trend strength and identify trend changes.
A bullish divergence occurs when an indicator produces higher lows, contradicting lower lows on price and is considered an advance warning of an impending bullish reversal. The MACD has charted higher lows since early December.
Meanwhile, the daily chart is reporting an inverse head-and-shoulders breakout, also a bullish reversal pattern. The recent rally looks to have legs, as buying volumes (not shown) have risen over the last few days and the MACD is charting higher bars above the zero line, signaling a strengthening of bullish momentum.
All-in-all, the odds appear stacked in favor of a rise to $8,626 –the 61.8 percent Fibonacci retracement of the sell-off from $10,350 to$6,425.
The odds of bitcoin confirming a channel breakout this comingSunday would drop if prices find acceptance below $8,000 with highvolumes.
That said, stronger buying pressure could emerge in the subsequent weeks, yielding a breakout, as miner reward halving (supply-cutting event) is due in May.
At press time, bitcoin is changing hands at $8,340, representing a 5.4 percent gain on a 24-hour basis.
Disclosure: The author does not currently hold any digital assets.
• Store of Value Remains Crypto’s Best Use Case
• CORRECTED: Bitcoin Price Jumps $200 in One Hour || That letter from the IRS could be a fake. Watch out for this tax scam and others in 2020: Most of us find it nerve-wracking enough that we're forced to focus on gathering our piles of paperwork to fill out our tax returns.
Now adding to our stress, we must watch out for tax season scam artists, too. The crooks are everywhere from the gym parking lot to the latest emails and text messages.
A new trend: Expect an increase in ransomware attacks in 2020 on tax preparers where time-sensitive files may be frozen and only thawed when tax preparers pay a ransom to the hackers, according to Adam Levin, founder of CyberScout, which offers identity theft protection and data security.
Levin said sometimes a ransom is paid, the files are released and the hackers still use data that has been stolen to file false tax returns.
Fraudsters want your Social Security number and other key personal information in order to file fake tax returns as early as they can in the season to claim inflated tax refunds.
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So, the con artists will be busy long before the April 15 tax deadline.
The crooks want to e-file tax returns before you do because they know that the Internal Revenue Service system will reject a tax return when the IRS has already received another return using the same Social Security number. The IRS will first process e-filed tax returns on Jan. 27.
One huge red flag for ID theft: You discover that you can’t e-file your tax return because of an issue relating to aduplicateSocial Security number. (The IRS will also reject an e-filed return for basic errors, such as if you misspelled the name the IRS has on file, but you would be able to resubmit an e-file in many cases if the issue is properly corrected.)
If you discover that a fraudulent tax return has been filed with your Social Security number, you must first file IRSForm 14039to alert the IRS that you're a victim of ID theft.
In 2018, the 649,000 confirmed fraudulent returns attempted to claim $3.1 billion in refunds, according to the IRS.
The IRS said it stopped 597,000 tax returns filed by identity thieves claiming $6 billion dollars in tax refunds 2017. As part of a Security Summit Initiative, the IRS is working with representatives of state tax agencies, tax preparation firms, payroll processors and others to combat tax refund fraud that hinges on stolen personal information.
The crooks get a leg up by stealing key information to make their fake returns look more legitimate. Much financial information is already out there after major data breaches such as those at Equifax, the U.S. Office of Personnel Management and Anthem. But cybercriminals are still actively seeking Social Security numbers and other data, too, with tricks as common as a phishing email that targets tax professionals, retirees or business owners.
Here's a rundown on some of the latest scams:
Crooks are claiming that there is a problem with your Social Security account. Some may tell you that your Social Security number has been suspended. It's another attempt to scare you into returning a robocall.
Many demand action now. Some want you to "verify" your financial information, such as your Social Security account and banking information. Others might demand money on a gift card or Bitcoin.
In January, the Inspector General of Social Security warned that telephone scammers may take the next step by sendingphony documentsby email to convince potential victims that they must comply with the fraudster's demands. The attachments may involve letters that appear to be from Social Security or the Social Security Office of the Inspector General. But retirees and others shouldn't be fooled by official-looking letterhead and government jargon.
A new online system was announced in November toreport Social Securityscams online atoig.ssa.gov.
Never provide sensitive information – or authenticate yourself – to someone who contacts you out of the blue, Levin said. Don't trust caller ID.
ID thieves are increasingly showing sophisticated knowledge of the tax code and even aiming to file fraudulent tax returns relating to a business or partnership, according to the IRS.
Business owners are warned that one sign of trouble is that the company may fail to receive routine correspondence from the IRS because the thief has changed the address for the business. Or you might receive an IRS notice that doesn't seem to make sense based on your business or tax situation.
Tax preparation software for business-related returns now requests more information to protect the tax filer, including the name and Social Security number of the company executive authorized to sign the corporate tax return.
Sophisticated phishing scams are targeting payroll offices, too, and requesting W-2 information. Scammers might pose as the CEO or vice president of the company's payroll organization trick someone with access to data into disclosing sensitive information for the entire workforce.
"This scam has emerged as one of the most dangerous phishing emails in the tax community," according to H&R Block's Tax Institute.
The W-2 scam has hit all types of organizations – big corporations, small businesses, public schools, universities, hospitals, tribal governments and charities.
"Never click on a link or open an attachment without independent confirmation of the sender," Levin warns.
Cybercrooks are engaging in social engineering to make some emails seem more legitimate. Some may reach out to you directly by name to sound like your boss, such as: "Dear Chris: You really messed up this time. See attached."
Or you might receive a text, robocall or email that's supposedly from the security department of your bank or the board of elections to "confirm your information on file." A text may even say your account has been frozen due to suspicious activity and ask you to click on a link and enter your USER ID in order to resolve the issue.
Don't be fooled. Contact your bank directly if you're concerned.
Levin warned that some of the malware-laden links may include authentic-looking graphics, excellent grammar and no misspellings.
"Often the only way to tell something is amiss is by looking at the URL – but even that can be misleading," Levin said.
Fraudsters have really narrowed their focus on tax preparers, not only to steal client data but also to get their hands on information from the professional, such as e-service passwords, said Andy Phillips, director of H&R Block's Tax Institute.
"If a fraudster is able to hack into a tax preparer's network, they may be able to steal personal information of all clients that have filed with that preparer," Phillips said.
Some fraudsters, he said, have even found ways to change refund account information to ensure that the fraudster gets the tax refund.
ID thieves are crafting phishing emails to trick users into giving up passwords and other information, perhaps by even impersonating your tax provider. And they're sending attachments hoping that you'll be duped into downloading malware.
One scam involves emails that pretend to be from the “IRS Online.” The scam email carries an attachment labeled “Tax Account Transcript” or something similar, and the subject line uses some variation of the phrase “tax transcript.”
Phillips, of H&R Block, said other examples of imposter IRS emails include phrases such as "Automatic Income Tax Reminder" or "Electronic Tax Return Reminder."
The pitch might look more legitimate because of links that show an IRS-like website and details pretending to be about a taxpayer's income tax refund or e-filed return. Some emails contain a "temporary password" to access the files.
"But when taxpayers try to access these, it turns out to be a malicious file," Phillips said.
You can forward malicious emails to phishing@irs.gov.
Crooks can go the old-fashioned route by breaking into unlocked cars in a subdivision or lockers at the local gym to steal personal ID information too, such as a Social Security card or an old Medicare card that includes your Social Security number in your wallet.
It should go without saying but you need to make sure that you don't leave tax returns on the kitchen table or sitting on the front seat of your car where crooks could access that information too.
ContactSusan Tomporat313-222-8876orstompor@freepress.com.Follow her on Twitter@tompor.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press:Taxes 2020: Beware of scams like fake letters, phishing emails, calls || $60 million liquidated as Bitcoin pumps 8% in three minutes: Bitcoin unexpectedly rose by 8% in just three minutes earlier today as bullish sentiment begins to re-enter the cryptocurrency markets. Following an abrasive daily candle close which saw Bitcoin suddenly drop from $7,300 to $7,100 yesterday evening, it consolidated today at $7,200 before surging towards the $7,800 level of resistance. The dramatic rise from $7,200 to $7,800 saw a total of $59.71 million in short positions liquidated on derivatives exchange BitMEX, according to Datamish . Price has now began to consolidate in the $7,500 region, which could fuel a continuation rally back to the $8,000 region. However, the 100 exponential moving average (EMA) on the four-hour chart has been a bitter point of resistance on three occasions over the past month, and that level will need to be broken before an extended rally can take place. The 100 EMA currently lies at around $7,600, while the 200 EMA is at $7,950. Its also worth noting that in addition to last months death cross, the 100 EMA is now sloping dangerously towards the 200 EMA, which could indicate that a further downside correction is on the cards. If Bitcoin fails to break out above $8,000 over the coming weeks, it would mark another sinister lower high, which would suggest that the ongoing bear market is far from over and that downside price targets of $5,900 and $3,150 could well come into play. For more news, guides, and cryptocurrency analysis, click here . The post $60 million liquidated as Bitcoin pumps 8% in three minutes appeared first on Coin Rivet . View comments || Latest Bitcoin Cash price and analysis (BCH to USD): At the time of writing, Bitcoin Cash (BCH) is trading at around $202 after gaining over 3% since last week. Over the past 24 hours, BCH has lost more than 1.5%. In October, BCH rebounded spectacularly towards the end of the month in response to Bitcoin’s positive momentum. However, over the last two months , the crypto market has tumbled again and BCH has come crashing down. Will BCH start pushing higher again thanks to recent developments ? And if so, what are the next levels of support to look out for? Or will Bitcoin Cash drop further? Let’s take a look at the chart, courtesy of TradingView . As you can see from the chart above, the price of BCH recovered during late October before crashing around 45% as we moved through November. The October gains were lost and the price came crawling back down to as low as $200 as the huge market-wide meltdown hit the coin hard. And it seems that the downtrend is continuing as BCH has now fallen below $200 for the first time since March. In addition, Bitcoin Cash is now trading below all its EMAs. BCH needs to try and regain support at around $225, as there’s a steep drop to $170 below that. For the time being, I expect BCH to trade below its EMAs for a while and to attempt to recover towards the 200-day EMA – even though the market is showing no signs of a recovery just yet. Right now, volume sits at just above $1 billion – around half of what it was last week. Safe trades! BCH fundamentals I recently spoke with Bitcoin Cash’s strongest advocate, Roger Ver , and discussed the most recent developments on the horizon for BCH. You can find all the details here , but the most juicy news seems to be the recent spike in adoption due to the implementation of smart contracts. Roger, like myself, believes key components for mass adoption are speed and flexibility. What Bitcoin Cash Oracles offers is a way for any user to easily deploy an “escrow” transaction that can be used to trade globally – without the hassle of trusting the other party. Story continues I personally think these “trade escrows” will be key in terms of adoption, especially for work-related tasks. In a way, they do enable milestone-based funding, which may be the new and better way of conducting ICOs instead of simply creating an extra layer of complexity with STOs that require KYC and accreditation – something that goes against what we should be promoting within the crypto ecosystem. Current live BCH pricing information and interactive charts are available on our site 24 hours a day. The ticker bar at the bottom of every page on our site has the latest BCH price. Pricing is also available in a range of different currency equivalents: US Dollar – BCHtoUSD British Pound Sterling – BCHtoGBP Japanese Yen – BCHtoJPY Euro – BCHtoEUR Australian Dollar – BCHtoAUD Russian Rouble – BCHtoRUB Bitcoin – BCHtoBTC About Bitcoin Cash Bitcoin Cash was born out of the idea of making Bitcoin more practical for small, day-to-day payments. In May 2017, Bitcoin payments took about four days unless a fee was paid, which was proportionately too large for small transactions. A change to the code was implemented and Bitcoin Cash was born on 1st August 2017. More Bitcoin Cash news and information If you want to find out more information about Bitcoin Cash or cryptocurrencies in general, then use the search box at the top of this page. Here’s an article to get you started: Roger Ver to launch crypto exchange on Bitcoin.com By Oliver Knight – January 2, 2020 As with any investment, it pays to do some homework before you part with your money. The prices of cryptocurrencies are volatile and go up and down quickly. This page is not recommending a particular currency or whether you should invest or not. You may be interested in our range of cryptocurrency guides along with the latest cryptocurrency news . The post Latest Bitcoin Cash price and analysis (BCH to USD) appeared first on Coin Rivet . || Coinbase rolls out Android app for professional investors: Coinbase Pro, the cryptocurrency exchange’s trading platform for professional investors, has released a new Android application.
The app, available in over 100 countries,allowsusers to trade and check their portfolios on the go. Itsupportsmore than 50 trading pairs, including bitcoin (BTC)-U.S. dollar (USD), ether (ETH)-USD and XRP-USD.
The launch of the Android app follows Coinbase Pro’siOS appin October. Linda Xie, product manager at Coinbase Pro, said: “In just over eight weeks, we’ve seen hundreds of millions in trade volume via the mobile platform.”
Orders made via the apps carry the same fees as those executed via the desktop platform, Xie added.
While the Coinbase platform is for “everyone,” Coinbase Pro is for “experts,” the exchange's CEO, Brian Armstrong, oncesaid. “All assets listed on any of our products are subject to our digital asset framework, but some assets listed on Coinbase Pro may be more appropriate for experienced traders due to, for example, higher volatility or less volume than assets listed on Coinbase,” he explained at the time.
[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
None available.
|
Trend: up || Prices: 9316.63, 9508.99, 9350.53, 9392.88, 9344.37, 9293.52, 9180.96, 9613.42, 9729.80, 9795.94
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Analyze the provided historical prices, technical indicators, news, and social media sentiment from the last 60 days. Based on this context, predict the overall trend (up, down, or no change) and the specific daily closing prices for Bitcoin for the next 10 days.
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[Technical Analysis for 2022-01-14]
BTC Price: 43099.70, BTC RSI: 39.61
Gold Price: 1816.50, Gold RSI: 53.55
Oil Price: 83.82, Oil RSI: 69.52
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
Top 5 Things to Watch in Markets in the Week Ahead: By Noreen Burke
Investing.com -- The coming week will bring closely followed inflation figures, while Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell and Vice Chair Lael Brainard are to testify at their nomination hearings on Tuesday and Thursday, respectively. It also marks the start of fourth quarter earnings season with several large banks reporting on Friday. Volatility looks set to remain elevated in equities markets after a choppy start to 2022 and Bitcoin remains under pressure. Here’s what you need to know to start your week.
Inflation data
Wednesday’s consumer price inflation data is expected to show headlineCPIbreaking above 7% year-on-year - rapidly approaching a four-decade high – with thecore raterising well above 5% year-over-year.Producer price inflationdata the following day is also expected to show a surge higher.
The inflation numbers will likely underscore why the Fed could start its rate hike cycle as early as March. Adding to the argument for faster tightening is Friday’sjobs reportwhich indicated that the labor market is at or near maximum employment.
While jobs growth underwhelmed in December, the unemployment rate tumbled to a 22-month low, and wages increased solidly.
The inflation data will be followed by reports on Decemberretail salesandindustrial productionon Friday.
Powell testimony
Fed Chair Jerome Powell is due totestifyTuesday before the Senate Banking Committee at a hearing to confirm his nomination to a second four-year term as Fed head while Fed Governor Lael Brainard is to appear before the same committee two days later for a confirmation hearing on her nomination to vice-chair.
Several Fed officials are also due to make appearances during the week, including Esther George, James Bullard, Loretta Mester, Charles Evans, Thomas Barkin and John Williams.
Their comments will be closely watched in the wake of last week'sFed minuteswhich indicated that a "very tight" job market and elevated inflation might require officials to raise interest rates sooner than expected.
Earnings
Earnings season kicks off in earnest in the coming week with investors getting a look at fourth quarter results from several large banks, including JPMorgan Chase (NYSE:JPM), Citigroup (NYSE:C) and Wells Fargo (NYSE:WFC) ahead of the market open on Friday.
Massive profit increases from U.S. companies helped fuel a 27% gain in the S&P 500 in 2021, but companies will likely have a difficult time posting similar numbers for the fourth quarter.
Earnings for S&P 500 companies are expected to jump 22.3%, according to Refinitiv data cited by Reuters - a solid increase, but still a slower pace than was seen in the first, second and third quarters.
Investors will be eager to hear about inflation, whether companies believe the supply chain crunch that helped drive prices up last year will ease in coming months and forecasts for 2022.
Volatility to continue
Indications that the Fed is ready to hike rates faster than previously anticipated as it combats surging inflation roiled markets in the first week of 2022 and that volatility looks set to continue.
Last week saw the Dow fall 0.3%, the S&P 500 decline 1.9% and the Nasdaq drop 4.5%, while the U.S. benchmark 10-year yield soared to a two-year high on Friday on the outlook for Fed rate hikes.
"The sentiment has turned negative," Jake Dollarhide, chief executive officer of Longbow Asset Management in Tulsa, Oklahoma told Reuters. "Right now, the market is nervous and, in the mood, to sell at the first hint of bad news."
Investors have been rotating out technology-heavy growth shares and into more value-oriented shares, which they think may do better in a high interest-rate environment.
Rising cases of the Omicron variant of the coronavirus also contributed to the risk-off mood in markets.
Bitcoin
Bitcoin has come under pressure since the start of the new year, falling to its lowest level since late September amid a broader selloff in cryptocurrencies driven by concerns over the prospect of a more hawkish Fed.
The world's largest cryptocurrency by market value has fallen over 40% since hitting an all-time high of $69,000 in November driven lower by expectations that the U.S. central bank will hike interest rates sooner than expected.
More aggressive policy action by the Fed would sap investor appetite for riskier assets.
"We are seeing broad risk-off sentiment across all markets currently as inflationary concerns and rate hikes appear to be at the forefront of speculators' minds," Matthew Dibb, COO of Singapore crypto platform Stack Funds told Reuters.
"Liquidity in BTC has been quite thin on both sides and there is risk of a retreat back to the mid-30's on the short term."
Bitcoin was also pressured lower as global computing power of its network dropped sharply last week following the shutdown of Kazakhstan's internet during an uprising, which hit its rapidly growing cryptocurrency mining industry.
--Reuters contributed to this report
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German government addresses spiralling energy prices || How NFT Tokens Are Helping People Make Real Money: The world of finance is changing and is heading towards gamification. Initially, earlier computer games were just a source of entertainment, users today can earn real money for completing tasks and levels. The creation of Play-2-Earn technologies contributed to the development of a whole sector of financial computer games that combine a whole sector of financial computer games utilizingNFT’s blockchain-based technology. In this article, we will analyze how Play-2-Earn games were initially developed, and how they are evolving today.
The idea of uniting the world of computer games and finance was first introduced in the early 2000s. As video and computer games were first being developed, so was that concept of financial gaming economies. It was not until the last few years that this was made possible to achieve, due to the advancements of cryptocurrencies, and the introduction of NFTs.
The first Play-2-Earn protocol was developed by a group of programmers from Cyprus. Then the Playneta team released their own NFTs featuring unique robots.
“We launched the first Cryptobots collection in 2017 and actually became the first company in the world to create the Play-2-Earn protocol. Today, about 2,000 users from all over the world hold our NFTs, and anyone can purchase the NFTs on theOpenSea marketplace”, explains Dmitry Filatov, founder of TopFace and co-founder of Cryptobots.
Later, the project was temporarily frozen, and the developers diverted their attention to other areas. Nevertheless, the owners of NFT project decided to continue communication and even and moved their communication to a publicDiscord channel, where they still discuss ongoing events, sharing ideas and opinions on the development of Cryptobots.
“When creating the NFT collection, we did not expect to receive such a response from our community. Our team was inspired by the ideas of cryptobot holders and today we are developing a new Play-2-Earn game where users can receive rewards in cryptocurrency or NFT”, — explains Dmitry Filatov.
What we’re seeing in the market is a shift to a collaborative ecosystem effort to advance theGameFi sectorinto what’s now known as the metaverse; where end-users can deploy their NFTs, whether it be cryptobots, punks, or cats for future utility. Holders of completely different NFT tokens can exchange or combine them within one metaverse. For example, Sandbox is already following this path. Various heroes already exist in their metaverse, and lands in the virtual world are sold for LAND tokens.
“We are also planning the development of the metaverse, in which cryptobots will be used both in our own game and in other games. We also plan to support third-party developers who need finance and marketing and are ready to add cryptobots to their games. In addition, we will enable the use of NFTs from well-known collections in our game. As a result, we make mutual integration of NFT with other projects and develop the idea of the Metaverse”, — says Dmitry Filatov.
Players will be able to receive crypto coins and NFTs for completing certain tasks. The more experienced the player, the greater the rewards. The received cryptocurrencies can be used to upgrade your cryptobot, purchase other NFTs, or simply withdraw them to a wallet or exchange them for fiat money.
The GameFi market is evolving at a rapid pace, creating new opportunities for crypto users. The creation of Play-2-Earn games allows players to earn real money by playing computer games. In addition, the popularization of financial games allows players to use NFT tokens to generate profits, and the tokens themselves acquire a certain value.
Thisarticlewas originally posted on FX Empire
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• How NFT Tokens Are Helping People Make Real Money || Blockchain firm BTCS soars on retail rush for bitcoin dividends: (Reuters) -Shares in blockchain technology-focused firm BTCS Inc rocketed on Thursday, set to extend a four-day rally, as more retail investors scooped them up after the company last week offered to pay dividends in bitcoin. The Silver Spring, Maryland-based company has seen its stock value more than double since Jan. 5, when it proposed to pay $0.05 per share in bitcoin to those who opt for it. Its first bitcoin dividend, or "bividend" as BTCS calls it, is due on March 16. Shares of BTCS climbed 20% to a six-week high of $7.80 in early trading on Thursday as the online buzz over its plan grew in forums such as Reddit and stocktwits.com, which were instrumental in the "meme stock" frenzy last year. Nearly 9 million BTCS shares changed hands within the first few minutes of trading, more than double the company's public float of 4.2 million shares. A smaller number of free float shares makes the stock vulnerable to sharp moves. "This is a moment we have long anticipated since the Company purchased the domain, bividend.com, in February 2015," CEO Charles Allen said in a statement last Wednesday. BTCS, last valued at $69 million, claims to be the first Nasdaq-listed firm to offer dividends in bitcoin. Video game retailer GameStop on Friday jumped as much as 22% on plans to launch a division to develop a marketplace for nonfungible tokens (NFTs). Meanwhile, prices of highly-volatile cryptocurrencies have tumbled since hitting all-time highs late last year. Bitcoin was last trading at $44,306.29 on Thursday, about 36% below its all-time peak. (Reporting by Medha Singh in Bengaluru; Editing by Ramakrishnan M.) || HIVE Blockchain Announces Supplemental Listing of Warrants: This news release constitutes a "designated news release" for the purposes of the Company's prospectus supplement dated February 2, 2021 to its short form base shelf prospectus dated January 27, 2021.
Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - January 12, 2022) - HIVE Blockchain Technologies Ltd. (TSXV: HIVE) (NASDAQ: HIVE) (FSE: HBF) (the "Company" or "HIVE") is pleased to announce that the TSX Venture Exchange (the "TSXV") has accepted for listing common share purchase warrants of the Company (the "Warrants") composing the units ("Units") underlying the 19,170,500 special warrants issued by the Company ("Special Warrants") pursuant to the terms of the bought-deal private placement announced on November 9, 2021 (the "Offering"). For more information about the Offering, please see the Company's news release announcing the Offering dated November 9, 2021, and the news release announcing the closing of the Offering dated November 30, 2021, which are available under the Company's SEDAR profile atwww.sedar.com. The TSXV has advised that the Warrants will be listed for trading on the TSXV under the symbol "HIVE.WT" effective at market open on January 14, 2021.
Each Special Warrant entitles the holder thereof to receive, subject to adjustment in certain circumstances, without payment of additional consideration, one (1) Unit upon the exercise or deemed exercise of each Special Warrant. Each Special Warrant was deemed to be exercised as of January 11, 2022. Each Unit consists of one (1) common share of the Company and one-half (0.5) of one Warrant. Each Warrant entitles the holder thereof to purchase one common share of the Company (a "Warrant Share") at a price of $6.00 per Warrant Share until May 30, 2024.
The Warrants and the Special Warrants are governed by a warrant indenture between the Company and TSX Trust Company dated November 30, 2021, a copy of which is available under the Company's SEDAR profile atwww.sedar.com.
The securities described herein have not been, nor will they be, registered under the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended, or any state securities laws and may not be offered or sold in the United States or to U.S. persons absent registration or an applicable exemption from the registration requirements. This press release shall not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy nor shall there be any sale of the securities in any jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful.
About HIVE Blockchain Technologies Ltd.
HIVE Blockchain Technologies Ltd. went public in 2017 as the first cryptocurrency mining company with a green energy and ESG strategy.
HIVE is a growth-oriented technology stock in the emergent blockchain industry. As a company whose shares trade on a major stock exchange, we are building a bridge between the digital currency and blockchain sector and traditional capital markets. HIVE owns state-of-the-art, green energy-powered data centre facilities in Canada, Sweden, and Iceland, where we source only green energy to mine on the cloud and HODL both Ethereum and Bitcoin. Since the beginning of 2021, HIVE has held in secure storage the majority of its ETH and BTC coin mining rewards. Our shares provide investors with exposure to the operating margins of digital currency mining, as well as a portfolio of cryptocurrencies such as ETH and BTC. Because HIVE also owns hard assets such as data centers and advanced multi-use servers, we believe our shares offer investors an attractive way to gain exposure to the cryptocurrency space.
We encourage you to visit HIVE's YouTube channelhereto learn more about HIVE.
For more information and to register to HIVE's mailing list, please visitwww.HIVEblockchain.com. Follow@HIVEblockchain on Twitterand subscribe toHIVE's YouTube channel.
On Behalf of HIVE Blockchain Technologies Ltd."Frank Holmes"Executive Chairman
For further information please contact:Frank HolmesTel: (604) 664-1078
Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this news release
Forward-Looking Information
Except for the statements of historical fact, this news release contains "forward-looking information" within the meaning of the applicable Canadian securities legislation that is based on expectations, estimates and projections as at the date of this news release. "Forward-looking information" in this news release includes, but is not limited to, statements with respect to information about the Offering and the use of proceeds, the business goals and objectives of the Company; and other forward-looking information concerning the intentions, plans and future actions of the parties to the transactions described herein and the terms thereon.
Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those described in such forward-looking information include, but are not limited to, the volatility of the digital currency market; the Company's ability to successfully mine digital currency; the Company may not be able to profitably liquidate its current digital currency inventory as required, or at all; a material decline in digital currency prices may have a significant negative impact on the Company's operations; the volatility of digital currency prices; continued effects of the COVID-19 pandemic may have a material adverse effect on the Company's performance as supply chains are disrupted and prevent the Company from carrying out its expansion plans or operating its assets; and other related risks as more fully set out in the registration statement of Company and other documents disclosed under the Company's filings atwww.sec.gov/EDGARandwww.sedar.com.
The forward-looking information in this news release reflects the current expectations, assumptions and/or beliefs of the Company based on information currently available to the Company. In connection with the forward-looking information contained in this news release, the Company has made assumptions about the Company's ability to deploy the proceeds of the Offering to achieve corporate objectives or otherwise advance the progress of the Company, and the Company's objectives, goals or future plans, the timing thereof and related matters. The Company has also assumed that no significant events occur outside of the Company's normal course of business. Although the Company believes that the assumptions inherent in the forward-looking information are reasonable, forward-looking information is not a guarantee of future performance and accordingly undue reliance should not be put on such information due to the inherent uncertainty therein.
NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION TO UNITED STATES NEWSWIRE SERVICES OR FOR DISSEMINATION IN THE UNITED STATES.
To view the source version of this press release, please visithttps://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/109966 || Best Stocks, Crypto, and ETFs to Watch – Bitcoin, GameStop, Costco and SPY in Focus: Bitcoingot smashed over the weekend, dropping to a two-month low under 42,000 before bouncing above 49,000 ahead of the new trading week. The selloff follows ‘de-risking’ in other volatile assets, along with a flight to safety, as traders and investors speculate on fallout from the Omicron variant. The senior cryptocurrency failed a breakout above the April peak near 65,000 in November, with selling pressure since that time raising odds for a long-term double top reversal.
Speaking of de-risking, 2020 meme monsterGameStop Inc. (GME)reports Q3 2021 earnings after Wednesday’s closing bell, with analysts looking for a loss of $0.52 per-share on $1.29 billion in revenue. If met, earnings-per-share (EPS) will mark a slight improvement compared to the $0.53 loss in the same quarter last year. The options market could go ballistic ahead of the report, with the most aggressive bearish bets of 2021, fueled by last week’s 23% decline in meme cousin AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc. (AMC).
Costco Wholesale Corp. (COST)has defied gravity through most of 2021, posting a 40% year-to-date return. However, big box rivalsWalmart Inc. (WMT)andTarget Corp. (TGT)have been under active distribution for weeks, raising odds for an aggressive sell-the-news reaction after COST reports fiscal Q1 2022 earnings on Thursday evening. Technical readings are deteriorating into the news, with weekly relative strength indicators nearing a potent sell signal.
SPDR S&P 500 Trust (SPY)reached short-term support at the 50-day moving average and breakout above the September high at 454 in Wednesday’s session. The fund bounced on Thursday but relinquished the majority of those gains on Friday, raising odds for a breakdown that could unfold as early as Sunday’s overnight session. That violation may signal additional downside into the 200-day moving average at 428, which has narrowly aligned with the October swing low.
Tesla Inc. (TSLA)had a bad week as well, dropping more than 6%, as investors dumped high growth stocks in favor of defensive plays. The selloff also marked a delayed reaction to a bearish Monday Tweet by CEO Elon Musk, in which he reiterated supply chain issues and warned “I will provide an updated product roadmap on next earnings call.” The decline has the potential to complete an Adam and Eve double top, with critical support just below the psychological 1,000 level.
Catch up on the latest price action with our newETF performance breakdown.
Disclosure: the author held no positions in aforementioned securities at the time of publication.
Thisarticlewas originally posted on FX Empire
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• Best Stocks, Crypto, and ETFs to Watch – Bitcoin, GameStop, Costco and SPY in Focus || MicroStrategy has added to its Bitcoin holdings, according to latest SEC filings: MicroStrategy’s gamble on Bitcoin is getting bigger.
The publicly traded mobile software company, in an8-K filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, said it had purchased another 7,002 Bitcoin during its fiscal fourth quarter. That cost the company $414.4 million.
MicroStrategy says it paid an average of $59,187 per Bitcoin. That’s about $2,000 above where Bitcoin is currently trading.
The purchase bringsMicroStrategy’s total Bitcoin holdingsto 121,044 on expenditures of $3.57 billion. Based on the average purchase price of its portfolio, approximately $29,534 per Bitcoin, the company has unrealized gains of nearly $3.4 billion on its cryptocurrency holdings.
As one of the few publicly traded companies that has tied its value so close to the volatile digital currency, MicroStrategy stock is oftenaffected by Bitcoin’s volatility. Other companies, includingPepsiCo, say there’sno waythey would park cash in Bitcoin, pointing to the risk and potential other uses for the money.
MicroStrategy’s push for Bitcoin comes as the company itself reports growing financial losses. In the third fiscal quarter, it saw net losses nearly double compared with a year ago, surging to $36.1 million. In the first six months of this year, the company has lost $409 million pretax.
Not only is the company investing heavily in Bitcoin, but CEO Michael Saylor does as well. In late October, he announced he personally has 17,732 Bitcoin in his wallet, which he bought for an average of $9,882 each. That brings his personal unrealized gains to over $840 million.
https://twitter.com/saylor/status/1453716975180451840
MicroStrategy shares were up more than 4% in premarket trading Monday.
This story was originally featured onFortune.com || 15 Stocks To Avoid at the Start of 2022: After the massive recovery stocks have made off their March 2020 coronavirus low, some analysts are calling for investors to be a bit more cautious in 2022. And while there's definitely risk that some highflyers will fall back to Earth, there might be even more danger instocksthat suffered mightily in 2021. In the midst of a broad market rally in 2021, stocks that actually lost money during the year likely had something go wrong, be it government intervention, changing consumer sentiment or business mismanagement. Typically, companies that are misfiring continue to do so until some major change to their fundamentals occurs, making the stocks on this list cautionary tales.
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That being said, there's no doubt that a least a few of these names will get their act together in 2022 and snap back. The bottom line is that you should consult with your financial advisor if youplan on going bottom fishing with these underperformers from 2021.
• Jan. 4, 2021 price:$21.77
• Nov. 26, 2021 price:$17.38
• Dollar change in price:-$4.39
• Percentage change in price:-20.17%
Western Union has suffered the same fate as many of its fellow payment processors in 2021. While the economy is slowly rebounding from the effects of the pandemic, consumer-to-consumer payment levels are still below pre-COVID-19 levels. Investors are unlikely to move back into the stock until processing volumes pick up significantly.
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• Jan. 4, 2021 price:$54.53
• Nov. 26, 2021 price:$43.07
• Dollar change in price:-$11.46
• Percentage change in price:-21.02%
Wall Street investors seem to have a love-hate relationship with Twitter, and lately its been the latter. After a decent first half of the year, the stock has traded down on poor earnings, a general selloff of growth stocks and the resignation of CEO Jack Dorsey in November. Investors may wait to see how former chief technology officer Parag Agrawal handles the new role as CEO before piling back into the stock.
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• Jan. 4, 2021 price:$153.16
• Nov. 26, 2021 price:$120.85
• Dollar change in price:-$32.31
• Percentage change in price:-21.10%
Zimmer Biomet Holdings is a medical device company with a lot of things working against it right now. First off, earnings slowed during the pandemic and have yet to recover. Margins have contracted and company management has slashed earnings and revenue guidance for the year, making for black clouds that may take a bit of time to recover from.
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• Jan. 4, 2021 price:$139.91
• Nov. 26, 2021 price:$107.98
• Dollar change in price:-$31.93
• Percentage change in price:-22.82%
Shares of Fidelity National Information Service began tumbling in May and have been more or less straight down ever since. The provider of cloud-based technology for financial services companies just isn't keeping up with analyst earnings expectations thus far in 2021. In an environment where many companies are exceeding expectations, this stock will likely be held back until it can keep up with estimates.
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• Jan. 4, 2021 price:$106.90
• Nov. 26, 2021 price:$82.27
• Dollar change in price:-$24.63
• Percentage change in price:-23.04%
Wynn Resorts suffered in 2021 from a multitude of factors, including another Chinese crackdown on junket operators. This seems to be a perennial problem with Wynn and other Macau-focused casino stocks. However, this time the company's problems have been exacerbated by the impressive persistence of the coronavirus pandemic. Until these underlying concerns go away, you may want to steer clear of Wynn Resorts.
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• Jan. 4, 2021 price:$75.67
• Nov. 26, 2021 price:$58.04
• Dollar change in price:-$17.63
• Percentage change in price:-23.30%
Rising inflation is worrying investors about food products company Lamb Weston's stock. In addition to rising packaging and oil costs, the company is also spending about $415 million to upgrade its facilities, so investors are taking more of a "wait and see" attitude with Lamb Weston shares until these headwinds subside.
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• Jan. 4, 2021 price:$30.63
• Nov. 26, 2021 price:$23.28
• Dollar change in price:-$7.35
• Percentage change in price:-24.00%
Discovery Communications stock has had quite a wild ride in 2021. After shares rose more than 100% in the first quarter, they got absolutely decimated shortly thereafter on a slew of analyst downgrades and the forced liquidation of $20 billion in shares by investment firm Archegos Capital Management. Fear of increased competition in the streaming space and uncertainty over the announced merger of AT&T's WarnerMedia and Discovery's entertainment and sports platform are also ongoing concerns.
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• Jan. 4, 2021 price:$218.21
• Nov. 26, 2021 price:$165.77
• Dollar change in price:-$52.44
• Percentage change in price:-24.03%
Disappointing earnings has been the weight around the neck of IPG Photonics Corp. in 2021. The fiber laser technology company reported second quarter earning below market expectations, then further hurt its own cause by offering future guidance below expectations. In a market where investors are looking for companies rebounding after depressed COVID-19-era earnings, IPG Photonics is coming up short.
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• Jan. 4, 2021 price:$562.78
• Nov. 26, 2021 price:$410.42
• Dollar change in price:-$152.36
• Percentage change in price:-27.07%
MarketAxess Holdings offers a fixed-income trading platform that benefits from market volatility, as traders are more active and generate higher fees for the company. This made for a great 2019 and 2020 for the company, with shares rising 77.34% and 50.13%, respectively. However, volatility has been limited in 2021, driving trading volumes down and the share price of MarketAxess Holdings with it.
• Jan. 4, 2021 price:$18.54
• Nov. 26, 2021 price:$13.03
• Dollar change in price:-$5.51
• Percentage change in price:-29.72%
Generic drug manufacturer Viatris is still a big unknown for investors, which is likely keeping a lid on the stock. The company was formed barely over a year ago through the combination of Mylan and Upjohn, a legacy division of pharmaceutical giant Pfizer. The company carries a huge debt load and is unprofitable, so it's likely a feast-or-famine stock for investors going forward.
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• Jan. 4, 2021 price:$89.90
• Nov. 26, 2021 price:$61.36
• Dollar change in price:-$28.54
• Percentage change in price:-31.75%
Activision Blizzard hares have been on a pronounced downtrend since the middle of the year, including its worst trading day in 13 years on Nov. 3, 2021, when shares dropped 14% in a single day. The big one-day drop was thanks to game delays, analyst downgrades and the stepping down of co-head Jen Oneal, who said she lacked faith the company could turn around its culture of sexual harassment. Later that month, shares fell again after the revelation that Activision Blizzard's CEO was aware for years of sexual harassment and misconduct at the company.
• Jan. 4, 2021 price:$128.33
• Nov. 26, 2021 price:$83.52
• Dollar change in price:-$44.81
• Percentage change in price:-34.92%
Citrix Systems is undergoing an expensive restructuring, expected to cost the company between $130 million and $240 million. The company also lost its CEO, David Henshall, when he stepped down in October. The uncertainty surrounding the stock has dragged it steadily down almost all year.
• Jan. 4, 2021 price:$207.22
• Nov. 26, 2021 price:$128.07
• Dollar change in price:-$79.15
• Percentage change in price:-38.20%
Global Payments is a software and technology company that processes payments, much like PayPal. And just like its competitor, the stock has suffered in 2021 through a combination of decreased revenue forecasts, competition and slowing payments due to the coronavirus. Global Payments is actually considered an attractive bounceback candidate by some analysts, but first it must get through its recent troubles.
• Jan. 4, 2021 price:$57.95
• Nov. 26, 2021 price:$35.44
• Dollar change in price:-$22.51
• Percentage change in price:-38.84%
Even though the company has "Las Vegas" in its name, the Las Vegas Sands derives most of its revenue from its Macau-based operations. Just like Wynn Resorts, the company is currently enduring another Chinese crackdown on junket operators, keeping high rollers out of its properties. Additionally, other gamblers are being held back by the coronavirus and related travel bans.
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This article originally appeared onGOBankingRates.com:15 Stocks To Avoid at the Start of 2022 || Cuplr Announces BEP-20 Token On Pancakeswap: Cuplr App announces partnership with Anthony "Showtime" Pettis and CPLR Coin listing on PancakeSwap
Nesbit, United States, Dec. 26, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) --
There’s a new competitor turning heads in the smart contract platform space with a 5x gain in 48 hours. Cuplr (CPLR) launched for public trading onPancakeSwapand the BEP-20 token outperformed every other cryptocurrency in the top 100, including Bitcoin ($BTC), Ethereum ($ETH), and Binance Coin (BNB).
CPLR was generated to be used inside of theCuplr appecosystem, while also having the strength, volume, and liquidity to be traded, or converted to cash at any time. The app’s launch in the first quarter of 2022 will mark the beginning of a process to evolve into a full-fledged smart contract platform with an impressive library of protocols that developers can use to build their decentralized apps. At this time, Cuplr developers are finalizing the payment processing code for in-app transactions.
"We are thrilled about the success of our listing but our focus is set on moving the app forward with development,” said Brad Bishop, Cuplr Vice President. “ We plan to list the token on an exchange in March 2022."
CPLR is unique in featuring a smart contract that distributes five percent of the transactions to every wallet holder. Wallet holders receive tokens every time someone buys, sells, or transfers tokens.
“Crypto has made a major impact on my life recently and one of my best investments was CPLR token,” said Anthony Showtime Pettis, UFC Veteran and former UFC Champion. “The Cuplr app is going to blow the social media/metaverse game away.”
The CPLR wallet is locked with fifty percent of its tokens as operational coins to ensure the app has the proper tokens to function efficiently. Twenty-five percent will be reserved for exchange release and whitelist. The remaining twenty-five percent are being released immediately to investors’ wallets and cryptocurrency markets. Founder wallets have all been blacklisted to protect the integrity of the project and mitigate any possible "Rug Pull" events.
For further information, intending users can visit the official website ofCuplr. Moreover, joinTelegramto stay connected!
Website:https://cuplr.com/
CONTACT: Name: Brad Bishop Email: admin@cuplr.com Organization: Cuplr LLC || What do people buy with crypto?: The 2017 bull run produced a freshly-minted group of first generation crypto millionaires – amateurs rich off the spoils of their early intuitions – but fortunes are spent as quickly as they’re made. With a new graduating class of cryptocurrency investors joining the elusive ranks of the international moneyed following sensational all-time highs for Bitcoin (BTC) and an impressive NFT craze – we ask the question: What do people buy with their crypto? The class of 2017 Those brave few that were bold enough to cash in on the 2017 bull run seemingly spent much of their wealth quite exorbitantly; with their high risk financial plays paying off they clearly deserved some high rewards. One of the most popular purchases in 2017 was a brief trend for Jacobsen Egg Chair’s produced by Arne – retailing at around $15,000 mid-range – these iconic design pieces were thrones fit for the first generation. In the spirit of free thinking, some media outlets report that the 2017 class spent quite a bit on education – with a preference for Montessori schooling which encourages education through kinetic hands-on learning that puts intellectual curiosity in the driving seat. These unique and elite schools cost around $30,000 annually in tuition. Clearly, higher education was another priority for many of these freshly minted rich, with student loan debts being widely cited as major spendings – we can only speculate that this would match the average American student debt of $40,000. Of course, exotic cars is an important status symbol in the space – with the ‘wen lambo’ meme still circulating to this day. British trader Peter Saddington took this quite literally, spending 45 BTC on a 2015 Lamborghini Huracan worth around $200,000. While cars are well-known depreciating assets, Saddington must be stung that he blew the equivalent of $2.3m in today’s valuations on a big red piece of expensive Italian plastic. Story continues The class of 2021 Lamborghinis are still on the menu, with the sports car manufacturer reporting surging record sales this year – no doubt helped in part due to the explosive 2021 bull run. Luxury watches seem very popular too, if degen traders are able to hold onto them… how it started vs how it ended pic.twitter.com/P2JYUV2BI4 — rookiexbt 🧲 (@RookieXBT) December 9, 2021 However, with many still speculating that we’re mid-cycle, and some even daring to suggest we’ve broken the cycle entirely – it appears long-term holders aren’t racing to cash in quite like they have in the past. According to a recent CNBC Millionaire survey a majority of millennial millionaires now have over half their wealth in cryptocurrencies, and most of them reported that they planned to hold and accumulate more in 2022. Read More: What was the most popular cryptocurrency in Germany in 2021? || Why Bitcoin-Related And Ethereum-Related Stocks Are Rising: Shares of crypto-related stocks, including Marathon Digital Holdings Inc (NASDAQ: MARA ), Riot Blockchain Inc (NASDAQ: RIOT ) and Coinbase Global Inc (NASDAQ: COIN ) are trading higher Friday afternoon. Ethereum (CRYPTO: ETH ) dipped Thursday and is up again on Friday. See Also: Bitcoin Exchange Gemini Raises 0M To Build A Metaverse Outside Facebook's Walled Garden Marathon Digital focuses on mining digital assets. It owns crypto-currency mining machines and a data center to mine digital assets. The company operates in the digital currency blockchain segment and its cryptocurrency machines are located in Canada. Marathon Digital shares are trading higher by 9.8% at $56.48. Riot Blockchain is focused on building, supporting and operating blockchain technologies. The company's portfolio consists of Verady, Tesspay and Coinsquare. Riot Blockchain shares are trading higher by 8.7% at $36.57. Coinbase is a provider of end-to-end financial infrastructure and technology for the crypto-economy. Coinbase shares are trading higher by 4.2% at $337.19. See more from Benzinga Click here for options trades from Benzinga Why Kohl's Shares Are Falling Why Nvidia Shares Are Rising © 2021 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.
[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
None available.
|
Trend: down || Prices: 43177.40, 43113.88, 42250.55, 42375.63, 41744.33, 40680.42, 36457.32, 35030.25, 36276.80, 36654.33
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Analyze the provided historical prices, technical indicators, news, and social media sentiment from the last 60 days. Based on this context, predict the overall trend (up, down, or no change) and the specific daily closing prices for Bitcoin for the next 10 days.
|
[Technical Analysis for 2015-09-03]
BTC Price: 227.18, BTC RSI: 40.29
Gold Price: 1123.70, Gold RSI: 48.29
Oil Price: 46.75, Oil RSI: 54.80
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
Bitcoin Payments Decline Significantly At Expedia: Expedia Inc (NASDAQ: EXPE ) introduced bitcoin as a payment option about a year ago. The company hoped to reach new users and meet the growing demand for digital payments by adding a bitcoin option. However over the past 12 months, the travel website said it has seen a significant decline in the number of payments made using bitcoin, something which could be attributed to the cryptocurrency's marked decline. Loss Of Value Expedia's Senior Payments Product Manger Connie Chung told CoinDesk that bitcoin purchases on the site have declined by 40 percent over the past year. Chung said that drop makes sense when you look at how much value bitcoin has lost over the past 12 months. When bitcoin was added to Expedia's service in June last year, it was worth more than $600. Now, the currency is trading at just over $270 following a price rally earlier in the month. Related Link: Venture Capitalists Pouring Money Into Bitcoin Bitcoin To Stay Put While the decline in bitcoin payments suggests that consumers aren't as willing to use the cryptocurrency as merchants had predicted, Chung said Expedia plans to continue offering bitcoin as a payment choice for as long as there is some demand for it. She said the company's decision to incorporate bitcoin had little to do with the firm's stance on digital currencies and that it has simply been a way to meet customer needs. See more from Benzinga EU In Favor Of Iran Deal Is Social Activism And Marketing A Good Combination? Deloitte Expresses Interest In Cryptocurrencies By Joining Australian Industry Group © 2015 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || What to Watch in the Week Ahead and on Monday, July 13: (The Day Ahead is an email and PDF publication that includes the day's major stories and events, analyses and other features. To receive The Day Ahead, Eikon users can register at . Thomson One users can register at RT/DAY/US. All times in ET/GMT)
WEEK AHEAD
The stock market this quarter doesn't get its usual one-week on-ramp to earnings season, instead getting hit with JPMorgan, Wells Fargo, Intel, Netflix, Google, General Electric Co and Honeywell, all in one week. Add in the political yelling that has become the semi-annual Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen's testimony and the ongoing craziness that is Greece's potential exit from the euro zone - to say nothing of China's turmoil - and it should be a lively week for markets, and one that will likely see a lot of volatility. Euro zone finance ministers may make a "major decision" when they hold a special meeting on Saturday to weigh a new Greek proposal for emergency funding. The ministers' conclusions will be reviewed by euro zone leaders at a summit called for on Sunday.
Fed Chair Janet Yellen delivers semi-annual testimony on monetary policy before the House Financial Services Committee in Washington on Wednesday and Thursday. The July hearing has more drama heading into it than the February testimonies. For one, Yellen starts this time with the House, where she ended last time, after trading some testy exchanges with Republican congressmen. This week's congressional appearance also comes as the Fed appears closer to raising interest rates for the first time since 2006. Yellen's appearance comes just a few weeks after the Fed's last Federal Open Market Committee meeting, and two weeks before its next one - so Yellen will be unlikely to drop too many policy hints and changes in this round or testimony, unless she wants to point the market harder to September lift-off.
Dow components Johnson & Johnson, General Electric Co, JP Morgan Chase & Co, Intel Corp, Goldman Sachs Group Inc and UnitedHealth Group Inc are scheduled to report quarterly results in the coming week. Johnson & Johnson is expected to report on Tuesday lower second-quarter sales and earnings as weak revenue from medical devices and consumer products and a stronger dollar more than offset the benefit of surging sales of its newer prescription medicines. The same day, JPMorgan Chase & Co releases second-quarter results. Separately, Goldman Sachs is expected to report lower second-quarter profit on Thursday. Intel Corp is expected to report second-quarter revenue and profit below analysts' expectations on Wednesday, according to Thomson Reuters StarMine. General Electric reports second-quarter earnings on Friday, with Wall Street eyeing updates on the U.S. conglomerate's desired portfolio moves as it seeks to become a more focused industrial company. UnitedHealth Group Inc will report second-quarter earnings on Thursday. The quarter is expected to be a strong one for UnitedHealth, whose technology and pharmacy management business has helped it report regular growth in quarterly operating profit.
Google Inc, the operator of the world's No. 1 Internet search engine, is scheduled to post second-quarter results on Thursday. The company is expected to report quarterly revenue slightly below analysts' estimates, according to Thomson Reuters StarMine data, hurt by the impact of a stronger dollar. Google, which generates about half of its revenue outside the United States, has also faced challenges in mobile advertising and it is investing heavily in new businesses.
Citigroup Inc reports second-quarter results on Thursday. The most international of banks based in the United States is expected to see quarterly profits rebound sharply from a year earlier, when net income was all but obliterated by high legal and restructuring costs. Separately, Wells Fargo & Co will also report second-quarter results on Tuesday. The bank's mortgage banking business is expected to do well during the quarter as more people buy new homes in an improving economy. On Wednesday, Bank of America Corp is expected to report an increase in its second-quarter profit. The bank's results from fixed-income trading are expected to lag those of competitors because it is more heavily weighted toward trading credit instruments such as corporate bonds and it handles relatively fewer interest rate-sensitive government securities, Chief Financial Officer Bruce Thompson warned investors in June.
The U.S. Labor Department releases its Consumer Price Index for June on Friday. The index is expected to have risen at a slower pace than in the previous month. Separately, the department will issue on Wednesday its June producer price index for final demand. On the same day, the Federal Reserve releases data for June industrial output, which is expected to have risen 0.2 percent after falling 0.2 percent in May. Meanwhile, the Commerce Department issues June retail sales data on Tuesday. Economists expect retail sales, which surged 1.2 percent in May, to have risen just 0.3 percent in June. On Friday, the University of Michigan's preliminary reading on its overall index on consumer sentiment for July is expected to come at 96.0 compared with a final reading of 96.1 for the previous month. Also, the Federal Reserve issues its so-called Beige Book on Wednesday.
Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City President Esther George speaks on economic conditions and monetary policy before the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City 2015 Agricultural Symposium in Kansas City, Missouri, on Tuesday. On Wednesday, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland President Loretta Mester speaks on the economic outlook and participates in live interview before the Columbus Metropolitan Club Forum in Columbus, Ohio. The same day, the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco President John Williams will speak on the economic outlook before the Mesa Chamber of Commerce in Mesa, Arizona and in another event, he will also give a brief summary on the economy before a Greater Phoenix Economic Council panel on economic trends in Phoenix, Arizona.
On Thursday, e-commerce company eBay Inc is expected to report second-quarter revenue below expectations, according to some analysts. Revenue from the company's marketplace business, which includes its e-commerce platform ebay.com, fell last quarter, hurt by increasing competition from rivals such as Amazon.com and changes in Google's search algorithms. Investors will be looking for signs of a turnaround at eBay's marketplace business. They will also look for any commentary from the company regarding post-spinoff valuation of the marketplace business.
Schlumberger Ltd, the world's No.1 oilfield services provider, is expected to report a fall in second-quarter profit on Thursday as lower oil prices weigh on global drilling activity. Schlumberger, which has cut 20,000 jobs this year, has swiftly controlled costs to maintain margins in a weak commodity market. With oil prices staying around $50 per barrel, a handful of optimistic shale producers are looking to deploy more rigs. Investors will also look for comments on pricing and expectations for industry spending in the second half of the year. Another topic of interest this quarter is the company's pending deal with Russia's Eurasia Drilling.
BlackRock Inc, the world's largest asset manager, will report second-quarter results on Wednesday. Investors will await Chief Executive Larry Fink's comments on the results, the markets, Greece and China, among other issues.
Charles Schwab Corp will report its second-quarter results on Thursday. Analysts expect the company's profit to rise to 24 cents per share from 23 cents a year earlier, helped by higher fees for advisory accounts and slightly higher trading commissions. But the big revenue bonus that Schwab expects from investing cash it will get in its clients account once rates rise remains evasive, amid signs that the Federal Reserve may again delay rate hikes.
Delta Air Lines Inc is expected to post second-quarter results in line with analysts' expectations on Wednesday. However, investors will want to know how the airline plans to respond to falling demand abroad due to a stronger dollar, a regulatory investigation into U.S. airlines' capacity plans and pilots' decision to reject management's proposal for a new contract.
Yum Brands reports second-quarter results on Tuesday. Yum's China business remains in the spotlight as it fights to recover from a food scandal in its biggest market for profit. Analysts say that the company is suffering from "brand fatigue" in China, where competition is mounting and its image has been hurt by food scares that have raised doubts over its supply chain. The KFC, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell chain owner said it expected another tough quarter before a recovery in China, but this recovery could be pushed further as consumers cut back on discretionary spending amid an economic slowdown and fears stemming from the sharp decline in the Chinese stock market over the past few weeks. Investors will be looking for outlook and commentary on the impact from recent developments in China. Profit and sales are expected to beat a generally low bar for second-quarter estimates, according to Thomson Reuters StarMine.
Netflix Inc, a TV and movie streaming service provider, is scheduled to post second-quarter results on Wednesday. The company is expected to report quarterly revenue above estimates, according to analysts, as it is expected to sign up more video streaming subscribers than previously expected. The cost of driving subscriber growth has been high as Netflix continues to invest heavily in international markets, but it is yet to see any profits from outside the United States.
Kinder Morgan Inc, the leading U.S. pipeline company, is expected to report a lower second-quarter profit on Wednesday, but the focus this quarter will be on the company's reorganization. Kinder Morgan shed its tax-advantaged master limited partnership structure last August by folding its units into one publicly traded corporation in a $70-billion deal. Investors will see if the new structure will help allay concerns about the company's growth prospects and complicated financial structure. The company has said the reorganization would help it grow its dividend by about 10 percent a year and clock bigger income tax savings.
Domino's Pizza Inc reports second-quarter results on Thursday. The second-largest U.S. pizza chain is expected to report revenue below the average analyst estimate, according to Thomson Reuters StarMine. Chief Executive Patrick Doyle has said the company would need to raise minimum wage to stay competitive following McDonald's announcement of wage hikes in April. Investors will look out for any related announcement and updates on commodity costs, which the company said are likely to come down after cheese prices soared last year.
On Thursday, chipmaker Advanced Micro Devices Inc is expected to report second-quarter earnings below the average analyst estimate, according to Thomson Reuters StarMine data. The company lowered its revenue estimate for the second quarter on Monday, citing weaker-than-expected demand for personal computers. All eyes will be on weak PC sales and whether the company can mitigate some of the impact with cost cuts.
Barbie doll and Fisher-Price toys maker Mattel Inc is expected to report on Thursday second-quarter revenue above the average analyst estimate, according to Thomson Reuters StarMine. The company will report its first quarter under new Chief Executive Christopher Sinclair, who took the top post in April. Sinclair has said Mattel needs to move urgently to create toys that connect with young customers in the face of flagging Barbie sales. Investors will look for announcements from Sinclair, a former Pepsi executive, on how he plans to turn around Mattel and make it more competitive, and any updates on the company's preparations for the holiday season.
Honeywell International Inc, a major manufacturer of aircraft electronics and climate control systems, is expected to report second-quarter results below analysts' expectations on Friday, according to Thomson Reuters StarMine. Honeywell said in April that it expected a stronger dollar to hurt revenue by 4-6 percent in the quarter ended June. Investors will be looking for updated comments on how Honeywell expects the dollar to affect business in the full year.
The initial public offering of the U.S. deep discount retailer Ollie's Bargain Outlet Holdings Inc is scheduled for Thursday. Ollie's Bargain operates 181 stores across the United States, selling excess inventory and salvage merchandise such as houseware, sporting goods and toys from manufacturers who make too much of an item or change their packaging. Ollie's net income rose 38 percent to $27 million in fiscal 2014, while revenue increased 18 percent to $638 million.
Bank of Canada announces its rate decision on Wednesday and Governor Stephen Poloz holds a news conference upon the release of the Monetary Policy Report. A series of weak economic data suggesting Canada may already be in recession has prompted a growing minority of economists to predict the central bank may cut rates again, possibly as soon as next week, a Reuters poll has found.
Chile's central bank meets on Tuesday to set the interest rate. The central bank is expected to keep its benchmark interest rate on hold at its current 3.0 percent through the following 11 months, scaling back expectations, according to the median response of 61 analysts and economists surveyed by the bank in a poll. Also, Argentina is due to release June consumer inflation data on Wednesday.
ON MONDAY, JULY 13
Treasury Department issues a monthly budget report for June. The department is expected to post a budget surplus of $51.0 billion in June compared with a $82.4 billion deficit reported in May. (1400/1800)
The United Auto Workers (UAW) union and General Motors Co hold the ceremonial handshake between union president Dennis Williams and company CEO Mary Barra to mark the start of labor negotiations for a new four-year contract for about 51,000 workers. The union has lost power but it can still upset GM's quest to keep labor costs low enough to compete with Japanese, Korean and German automakers with U.S. plants. UAW leaders will bargain with Fiat Chrysler Automobiles and Ford Motor Co later in the week.
LIVECHAT - BITCOIN BITES with Anatoliy Knyazev, managing partner, Exante With Greek worries contributing to Bitcoin's best run in 18 months and the crypto currency even touted as a possible parallel currency in the Hellenic Republic, has the controversial payment system's time come? We chat with Anatoliy Knyazev, managing partner at Malta-based brokerage Exante, which previously debuted the world's first Bitcoin-only fund. (0500/0900) To join the Global Markets Forum, click herehttp://bit.ly/1kTxdKD(Compiled by Nivedita Balu in Bengaluru; Editing by Kirti Pandey) || The weird Florida connection in a massive bank data breach that impacted 76 million households: A sign outside the headquarters of JP Morgan Chase & Co in New York, September 19, 2013. JPMorgan Chase & Co will pay $920 million in penalties in two countries to settle some of its potential liabilities from its (Thomson Reuters) JP Morgan Chase Four arrests made on Tuesday in two separate cases—one involving penny stocks and the other an underground Bitcoin exchange—might tie back to last year's massive cyberattack against JPMorgan Chase, Bloomberg News reports . Two people were arrested in Israel and the other two were arrested in Florida. One person is still at large. The JPMorgan cyberattack is not mentioned in any of the indictments. What's striking about these two separate cases is that they can be connected by a friendship that goes back a decade to Florida State University, Bloomberg News pointed out. Anthony Murgio, 31, was arrested in Florida and charged with running an unlicensed Bitcoin exchange. He was also charged with one count of money laundering. Joshua S. Aaron, a 31-year-old American citizen who resides in Tel Aviv and Moscow, faces multiple charges related to an alleged penny stock scheme. Aaron is the one who remains at large. On what appears to be Murgio's personal website, he mentions his friend Aaron, who he said " showed me the ropes to online marketing." Murgio and Aaron were both mentioned in an FBI memo from October 2014 regarding the JPMorgan hack, the Bloomberg report said. Bloomberg News noted that it was asked not to report about the memo earlier this year because it might impact the FBI's investigation. The JPMorgan breach Last year, JPMorgan said that 76 million households and 7 million small businesses may have had their data compromised in a cyberattack. At the time, the bank said that that the hackers had access to customer names, addresses, phone numbers, and email addresses. No customer money was lost. The bank also said there was no indication that account numbers, passwords, user IDs, dates of birth or Social Security numbers were compromised. That attack was so massive though that it was even believed that the Russian government may have been behind it. Millions of penny stock emails penny stock fraud (US DOJ) These are the charges the trio faces. Story continues The US Attorney's Office in New York charged Gery Shalon, Joshua Samuel Aaron, and Zvi Orenstein for their roles in an alleged multi-million dollar penny stock pump-and-dump that goes back to 2011. Shalon, 31, and Orenstein, 41, were arrested in Israel by the Israel Police. Aaron hasn't been arrested . Bloomberg pointed out that his wife shared photos on Instagram of them in St. Petersburg, Russia just a couple of days ago. We've also sent an email to Aaron seeking comment. The Securities and Exchange Commission has also filed civil charges against the trio. Shalon, who used the aliases "Phillipe Mousset" and "Christopher Engeham," and Aaron, who went by "Mike Shields," allegedly wrote emails that Shalon allegedly disseminated through "their possession of vast email lists," the SEC said. Orenstein, who went by "Aviv Stein" and"John Avery", is accused of handling brokerage accounts using the aliases. Authorities said that they sent spam emails to millions of people daily that contained "materially false" and "fraudulent" statements about the microcap companies based in Florida, Virginia, South Carolina, and California. They also allegedly used about 20 promotional sites to tout these stocks. "These promotional campaigns frequently urged people to buy shares of the promoted issuers without properly disclosing that the promoters themselves owned shares of these issuers and, contrary to their exhortations to readers of their emails to buy shares, intended to sell those shares immediately," the SEC alleged in its complaint. The Florida arrests The US Attorney's Office in New York also arrested and charged Florida residents Anthony Murgio, 31, and Yuri Lebedev, 37, for allegedly running an unlicensed Bitcoin exchange that " exchanged at least $1.8 million for Bitcoins on behalf of tens of thousands of customers." Murgio and Lebedev are accused of "knowingly operated Coin.mx, a Bitcoin exchange service, in violation of federal anti-money laundering (“AML”) laws and regulations," the US Attorney's Office in New York said. Murgio and his co-conspirators are also accused of having "knowingly exchanged cash for Bitcoins for victims of 'ransomware' attacks, that is, cyberattacks in which criminals (here, distributors of the ransomware known as 'Cryptowall') electronically block access to a victim’s computer system until a sum of 'ransom' money, typically in Bitcoins, is paid to them." The US Attorney's Office alleged that the pair hid the illegal exchange under the guise that they were operating a business called the "Collectables Club," a members-only group for people to buy and sell collectibles like sports memorabilia. Public records show a number of fictitious businesses registered to Murgio, including the "Collectables Club." The records also show that in 2013 he was hit with felony charges for allegedly not paying $110,000 in sales taxes for a a restaurant he owned . NOW WATCH: People doing backflips on a two-inch wide strap is a real sport called slacklining More From Business Insider Ex-JPMorgan star Blythe Masters is going to work for one of the biggest US auto lenders Carl Icahn told Larry Fink that Blackrock is 'dangerous' to his face Watching Ted Cruz talk to a room full of Wall Streeters is about as awkward as expected || What to watch on Monday: The " Fast Money " traders gave their final thoughts of the day. Steve Grasso was watching the S&P 500 (CME:Index and Options Market: .INX) 's technical levels. David Seaburg was a buyer of TWTR (NYSE: TWTR) . Brian Kelly had his eye on the DXY (Exchange: .DXY) . Guy Adami was also watching key levels of the S&P 500 (CME:Index and Options Market: .INX) . Trader disclosure: On August 21, 2015 the following stocks and commodities mentioned or intended to be mentioned on CNBC's "Fast Money" were owned by the "Fast Money" traders: Brian Kelly is long BBRY, BTC=; DAX, DXGE, ITB, TAN, TSL, TWTR call spread, U.S. Dollar; he is short AUDJPY, GBPJPY, Euro, Ruble, Yen, Yuan. Today he bought DAX, DXGE, US Dollar. Today he sold VIX and Euro. Today he closed his CAC40 short position. Today he shorted Euro and Yen. Guy Adami is long CELG, EXAS, INTC, Guy Adami's wife, Linda Snow, works at Merck. Steve Grasso is long AAPL, BA, BAC, CC, DD, DIS, DECK, EVGN, FIT, KBH, MJNA, MU, PFE, PHM, T, TWTR, GDX. His kids are long EFA, EFG, EWJ, IJR, SPY. His firm and some of its partners are long WLL, DNR, DVN, TWTR, NE, NEM, OXY, RIG, TSE, VALE. More From CNBC Top News and Analysis Latest News Video Personal Finance || Time-Release Capsules Make Medical Marijuana More Approachable: Colorado-based Wana Brands got its start making edible marijuana products. When using pot became more and more socially acceptable across the United States, the company recognized that there was a large percentage of the population that would be interested in trying the drug, but not smoking it. The company's edibles make marijuana less intimidating for non-smokers and appeal to a wider range of customers. Medical Marijuana With medical marijuana gaining legalization in several states across the US, Wana Brands looked to create a new product that would similarly make medical marijuana use more approachable for those who had little or no exposure to the drug. To fill that gap, the company has developed an extended release pill that delivers doses of the drug to a patient's system over the course of 12 hours. Each capsule contains two measured doses; one that takes effect soon after ingestion and another that activates several hours later. Related Link: Technology Proves Invaluable For Marijuana Industry Making Pot More Medical The capsules, Wana owner John Whitman said, are a good way for the medical marijuana industry to change its image and be considered as a serious treatment option. Many people are skeptical about marijuana use for treating diseases because most of the delivery methods appear recreational. Eating a pot brownie to cope with muscle spasms or smoking a joint to deal with anxiety can make potential patients skeptical about the drug's benefits. However, time release capsules make marijuana treatments more comparable to being prescribed a traditional medicine. Many believe that products like this one and could help propel the medical marijuana market into more states. See more from Benzinga Greeks Begin To See An Opportunity In Bitcoin LendingRobot And Lending Club Aim To Automate Investing Donald Trump Making Powerful Enemies In Silicon Valley © 2015 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Bitcoin is faltering at a bad, bad time for Greece: (GettyImages/Pacific Press)
Bitcoin's decentralized system is leaving loophole for technical errors — reminding investors that virtual money might not bethe perfect alternative to paper,Bloomberg's Olga Kharif reports.
At least not yet.
As some Greeks rushed to buy Bitcoinduring bank closures,the payment system, which has been trading at its highest since March, took a stumble over the weekend.
It took nearly five-times longer than usual to process transactions, said Gil Luria, an analyst at Wedbush Securities.
A payment could take up to five hours to be confirmed, while some users were also unable to create new Bitcoin, he said.
The lag was caused by an update to the payment system's PC software over the weekend — or more precisely, it was caused by a disjunction in the versions of software users own. Operators who hadn't updated the software "put the whole system out of whack," the article said.
Though the issue is expected to be fixed within a few days, it's not the first time Bitcoin has seen this kind of software problem, Luria said.
"I don't know that it's (ever) happened to this extent, because Bitcoin has never been this big," he said.
Bitcoin's customer base has increased, with nearly 120,000 transactions occurring a day in early June — an increase of 10 times since the same period in 2011, reported Coindesk, a Bitcoin-focused newsdesk.Last week, Coinbase, a Bitcoin exchange and wallet provider, waived fees for customers buying with euros due to the Greek Crisis.
According to Bloomberg, software updates will be much smoother if companies take more market share from Bitcoin machine hobbyists.
"This is test of a decentralized network," Luria said. "Every time Bitcoin passes one of these tests, it gets stronger."
Read the original article at Bloomberg>
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• A Greek politician told us Grexit will '100%' happen if 'No' wins on Sunday — and plans are already being made || The most elite students in America have had it with investment banking: MBA Grad (flickr/willbeardphoto) Harvard MBA grads are no longer interested in banking. Harvard Business School graduates are some of the most sought-after new hires in the world. They're among the top choices for companies in just about every industry — including Wall Street investment banks. It turns out, however, many of them are no longer interested in that industry. Only 4% of the 2015 graduating class said they wanted to work at an investment bank, reports Bloomberg's Jennifer Surane . Of the 46 students in the top 5% of the class, only one expressed an interest in banking, according to the report. The report cited data from a member of the graduating MBA class , who blogged about the findings of a class survey he received from the university. Banking no longer sexy This may not come as a surprise. Entry-level jobs on Wall Street are notoriously grueling: Young people work 90-hour weeks perfecting pitch books, scrolling through spreadsheets, or making presentations . MBA grads, of course, would typically join banks at the associate or vice-president level. But many of them started out their careers as interns and analysts and may not have shaken the memories. The Harvard blog's author started out in M&A at Morgan Stanley, according to his bio . Now he's running a tech startup as well as a family healthcare business, Bloomberg reported. Industry veterans, too, know that banking is no longer as sexy. Ex-Credit Suisse managing director Fred Lanes said: "The opportunities elsewhere ... are more attractive outside of investment banking." And then there's the buyside That doesn't mean that bright Harvard MBA-holders are leaving finance altogether. Many young financiers, after putting in their time at investment banks, make the jump to the "buyside" — hedge funds or private-equity firms. The Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday that many MBA students are now only interested in becoming activist investors like Bill Ackman or Carl Icahn. Ackman's Pershing Square even holds an annual investing competition at Columbia as part of its recruiting efforts. Story continues Ex-Merrill Lynch analyst and Financial Times writer Sujeet Indap published a study on Wednesday on where his banking analyst class from the year 2000 now work. Over half the class, he found, had taken a break at some point to earn graduate degrees, two-thirds of which were MBAs. More than 40% of the analyst class now work in private equity or in the hedge fund/investment management industry. Less than 20% still work at investment banks. NOW WATCH: The 10 trickiest Goldman Sachs interview questions More From Business Insider A 10-year-old cyber security company just raised $35 million from Goldman in its first series A This is one Wall Street business that big banks won't lose to upstarts and tiny rivals Bitcoin keeps surging, makes another new high for 2015 || SunGard And HSBC's Massive IT Glitches: Why Customers Freaked Out Last Friday: Last Friday, two major banks were reported to be experienced big IT problems, affecting thousands of customers.
HSBC Leaves Thousands Without Salaries
According to a recent Finextraarticle, a big tech issue surfaced on Friday morning when HSBC customers checking their account balances noticed their latest monthly salaries were not accounted for. Apparently, the glitch affected roughly 275,000 Bacs payments – Bacs is the system used for fund transfers in the UK.
Bacs released a statement assuring that it is "aware of an isolated issue that has affected one of its member organizations. The Bacs system is operating as normal and we [Bacs] are currently working with our partners to help them resolve this as quickly as possible."
Related Link:Barclays Becomes First Big UK Bank To Accept Bitcoin
The HSBC bank is owned byHSBC Holdings plc (ADR)(NYSE:HSBC), which fell 0.65 percent on Friday trading and continues to tumble on Monday.
BNY Mellon, Mispriced Funds Cause Panic
Another third-party service provider that had trouble on Friday is SunGard. It seems like its InvestOne system, used by custody bankBank of New York Mellon Corp(NYSE:BK) to price funds, failed on Friday, causing panic among the bank’s U.S. fund management clients.
The main fear was that the system failure had led to a mispricing of hundreds of funds “during a week of especially high market volatility,” another Finextraarticleexplained.
In a public statement, SunGard assured that, while they “are confident that no data was lost as a result of the incident, calculation and processing of net asset values (NAVs) of certain mutual funds and ETFs was disrupted."
They added that, despite the speculation, no “external or unauthorized systems access” had caused the glitch, which wasn’t a result of "recent turmoil in the equity markets” either. Instead, the issued derived from “an unforeseen complication resulting from an operating system change carried out by SunGard last Saturday.” SunGard pledges this was an isolated incident, and that it is now working with Bank of New York Mellon to resolve the problems caused.
Research firm Morningstar calculated that approximately 796 funds were missing NAVs as of Wednesday.
Image Credit: Public Domain
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© 2015 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Bitcoin Glitch Costs Miners Thousands: This weekend, bitcoin miners suffered a setback after it was revealed that those running some software clients which were out of date were creating invalid blocks, or transaction records. The glitch gave miners the impression that they had earned bitcoins for adding to blockchain, when in actuality, the invalid blocks weren't accepted. Warning Bitcoin.org issued a warning regarding the invalid blocks over the weekend. The notice said that an initial invalid block has been built upon by other miners, who don't fully validate their blocks. The practice, called Simple Payment Verification (SPV) mining, has caused several large mining operations to loose more than $50,000 dollars in mining income so far due to the glitch. Related Link: Minecraft Teaches Kids To Use Bitcoin To combat the problem, Bitcoin.org recommended that all miners update to the latest software to ensure that the invalid blocks are detected. The site also encouraged those using Web-based wallets to make sure they are using the most up-to-date version as well. How Did It Happen SPV mining means that the verification of new blocks relies on a connection to a trusted node. However, since the software was unable to detect invalid blocks, it allowed miners to continue building strings of blocks on top of an invalid one, rendering all of them worthless. Effects? While the effects of this glitch appear to be concentrated on mining firms, some worry that it could refuel worries about bitcoin's safety and security. The cryptocurrency already has a reputation for being unreliable and many fear that this incident will contribute to that stigma. See more from Benzinga What Does Greece Do Now? What's Next In Greece: Will Tsipras Stay And Will We See A Grexit? Sealed Air Just Took Away A Guilty Pleasure For Millions © 2015 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Costas Inc. Announces New Agreement Regarding Platforms for Digital Currency Transactions: CYPRESS, TX--(Marketwired - Jul 30, 2015) - Costas Inc. ( OTC PINK : CSSI ) today announces the mutual termination and replacement of a previously announced Original Share Exchange Agreement with AuthentaTrade Inc., an Alberta, Canada corporation. The initial agreement, in which Costas would acquire 48% of the shares AuthentaTrade in exchange for 250,000 shares of Costas, has not been completed and has been replaced by an agreement with AuthentaTrade Ltd. (a Republic of Seychelles corporation, "AuthentaTrade Seychelles"). AuthentaTrade Seychelles is currently in negotiations with an Asian based company that brings significant value to their business. Based on the value added in AuthentaTrade Seychelles, Costas has negotiated an increase in shares used as consideration in this new share swap agreement. Details on the letter of intent between AuthenaTrade Seychelles and the Asian based group will be released shortly. Pursuant to the new agreement, Costas will own 48% of the AuthentaTrade Seychelles in exchange for 4,000,000 shares of Costas. The physical share exchange is expected to occur within the next 30 days. In addition, AuthentaTrade Seychelles shall remain liable to pay to Costas USD $200,000 as a debt owning. AuthentaTrade Seychelles is in the business of developing a high security digital currency exchange. Costas believes that the management of digital currencies is a burgeoning market ripe with opportunity. To this accord, AuthentaTrade Seychelles is developing technology to simplify transactions in digital currencies, such as Bitcoin, while specifically addressing security concerns of the broader digital currency market. AuthentaTrade Seychelles' operations in the Province of Alberta will cease, and will now be managed outside of Alberta. Costas advises that it is subject to a cease trade order issued by the Alberta Securities Commission for its jurisdiction of Alberta. Safe Harbor Act Notice: Statements contained herein that are not historical facts are forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended. Those statements include statements regarding the intent, belief or current expectations of the company and its management. Such statements reflect management's current views, are based on certain assumptions and involve risks and uncertainties. Actual results, events, or performance may differ materially from the above forward-looking statements due to a number of important factors, and will be dependent upon a variety of factors, including, but not limited to, the company's ability to obtain additional financing and the demand for the company's products. Any investment in the company would be extremely speculative and involve a high degree of risk and should not be pursued unless the investor could afford to lose their entire investment. Before investing, please review this filing, all past public filings with the SEC, all current Pinksheets.com filings and consult a registered broker dealer or contact the financial industry regulatory authority ("FINRA") for more information regarding locating a qualified party to assist in making an investment decision. The company undertakes no obligation to publicly update these forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances that occur after the date hereof or to reflect any change in the company's expectations with regard to these forward-looking statements or the occurrence of unanticipated events. Factors that may impact the company's success are more fully disclosed in the company's most recent public filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Forward-looking statements are typically identified by the use of terms such as "anticipate," "believe," "could," "estimate," "expect," "intend," "may," "might," "plan," "predict," "project," "should," "will," and similar words, although some forward-looking statements are expressed differently. Although we believe that the expectations reflected in such forward-looking statements are reasonable, we can give no assurance that such expectations will prove to be correct.
[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
buysellbitco.in #bitcoin price in INR, Buy : 18076.00 INR Sell : 17496.00 INR. Buy and sell bitcoin in #India using #buysellbitcoin || buysellbitco.in #bitcoin price in INR, Buy : 17075.00 INR Sell : 16543.00 INR. Buy and sell bitcoin in #India using #buysellbitcoin || In the last 10 mins, there were arb opps spanning 14 exchange pair(s), yielding profits ranging between $0.00 and $685.09 #bitcoin #btc || In the last 10 mins, there were arb opps spanning 23 exchange pair(s), yielding profits ranging between $0.00 and $1,563.26 #bitcoin #btc || #RDD / #BTC on the exchanges:
Cryptsy: 0.00000005
Bittrex: 0.00000005
Average $1.4E-5 per #reddcoin
00:15:02 || buysellbitco.in #bitcoin price in INR, Buy : 17143.00 INR Sell : 16602.00 INR. Buy and sell bitcoin in #India using #buysellbitcoin || Current price: 244.15€ $BTCEUR $btc #bitcoin 2015-07-10 09:00:09 CEST || buysellbitco.in #bitcoin price in INR, Buy : 18491.00 INR Sell : 17904.00 INR. Buy and sell bitcoin in #India using #buysellbitcoin || Stop: [Time=8/28/2015 2:24:00 PM, Action=BTC, StopPrice=21.03, DependsOn=62644]
http://hitechmaster.net/ || Current price: 292.82$ $BTCUSD $btc #bitcoin 2015-07-14 15:00:03 EDT
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Trend: no change || Prices: 230.30, 235.02, 239.84, 239.85, 243.61, 238.17, 238.48, 240.11, 235.23, 230.51
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Analyze the provided historical prices, technical indicators, news, and social media sentiment from the last 60 days. Based on this context, predict the overall trend (up, down, or no change) and the specific daily closing prices for Bitcoin for the next 10 days.
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[Technical Analysis]
Not fully available.
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
Hormel Stock Split History: When Will the Dividend Aristocrat Split Again?: From a business standpoint, Hormel Foods (NYSE: HRL) is a pretty typical company, with an emphasis on meat processing and food products that has made it a household name for millions of Americans . For investors, the impressive combination of regular dividend increases and frequent stock splits puts its shares into elite ranks. Ambitious investors want to know when Hormel's stock price is likely to get back to levels that could prompt another decision to split its stock. Let's look more closely at Hormel to see what's coming next for the company and whether another split could be just around the corner. Hormel's history of stock splits Here are the dates and split ratios for the stock splits that Hormel has done in the past: Date of Split Split Ratio 100 Shares in 1959 Would Now Be Jan. 29, 1960 2 for 1 200 shares Feb. 2, 1968 2 for 1 400 shares Nov. 22, 1971 2 for 1 800 shares Jan. 30, 1980 2 for 1 1,600 shares Aug. 19, 1985 2 for 1 3,200 shares April 4, 1987 2 for 1 6,400 shares Jan. 31, 1990 2 for 1 12,800 shares Jan. 26, 2000 2 for 1 25,600 shares Feb. 1, 2011 2 for 1 51,200 shares Jan. 26, 2016 2 for 1 102,400 shares Data source: Hormel investor relations. As you can see, Hormel has been splitting its stock for a long time. It's always been a believer in two-for-one splits, never being content to go with more modest ratios that some companies have used in order to prompt more frequent split decisions. Splits have tended to come at roughly five- to 10-year intervals. Hormel hasn't always used the traditional approach in choosing when to split its shares. In 1987, Hormel shares were at about $50 per share before splitting, but shortly before the 1990 move, the company had only seen its stock climb into the $30s. Similarly, back in 2000, Hormel was priced below $50 per share when it did a two-for-one split, and subsequent price declines sent shares into the teens shortly thereafter. Story continues Over the ensuing decade, Hormel waited a bit longer before splitting. But in 2011, the stock price was only in the $50s when the company decided to do a stock split, pushing the post-split price down into the $25 to $30 per share range. Only by 2016 did the company use a more typical benchmark for doing a stock split. The company waited until its stock had climbed all the way toward $90 per share before splitting its shares, sending the price back into the $40s. Hormel pepperoni label Image source: Hormel. Why Hormel stock splits don't follow a typical pattern One big reason why Hormel doesn't follow a typical approach for stock splits is that it puts a high priority on dividends. The company is a member of the elite Dividend Aristocrats , with 52 years of consecutive annual dividend increases. At 2.25%, its dividend yield isn't stellar, but regular payouts have taken some of what would otherwise have gotten incorporated into share-price appreciation and instead paid it directly to its shareholders. Hormel is also generous with its dividend increases. The most recent one early this year boosted the payout by more than 10% to $0.1875 per share on a quarterly basis, and sizable dividend growth has been a regular feature for the food company. Without the downward pressure on the stock that dividend payments make, Hormel would likely have been in position to do stock splits a lot more often. Could a Hormel stock split be coming soon? For most companies, it would be almost inconceivable that a split could happen for a stock whose price was in the mid-$30s. For Hormel, however, unusual stock split behavior is the norm. Yet with the company having just done a split two years ago, it's more likely that Hormel will wait at least a little longer rather than pulling the trigger on a stock split in 2018. More From The Motley Fool 3 Growth Stocks at Deep-Value Prices 5 Expected Social Security Changes in 2018 6 Years Later, 6 Charts That Show How Far Apple, Inc. Has Come Since Steve Jobs' Passing 10 Best Stocks to Buy Today The $16,122 Social Security Bonus You Cannot Afford to Miss Bitcoin's Biggest Competitor Isn't Ethereum -- It's This Dan Caplinger has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy . || Wynn Resorts Ltd. Disposes of a Major Legal Headache: Wynn Resorts(NASDAQ: WYNN)put one of its biggest sources of uncertainty behind it on Thursday by settling a lawsuit withUniversal Entertainment Corp.,and its subsidiary,Aruze USA Inc., which were controlled by Kazuo Okada. In 2012, Wynn redeemed Okada's 20% stake in the company after finding him to be an "unsuitable" partner, giving him a promissory note worth $1.94 billion with an interest rate of 2% that came due on Feb. 18, 2022.Wynn paid an implied value of $79.02 per share.
In Thursday's settlement, Wynn agreed to pay the full $1.94 billion principal amount for the redemption, plus another $463.6 million to "settle allegations surrounding the interest rate on the redemption note." Universal also agreed to cease considering itself a party to an agreement between itself, Steve Wynn and his ex-wife, Elaine Wynn. At the end of the day, this is a huge win for Wynn Resorts.
Image source: Wynn Resorts.
Ending this legal battle helps clear up some of the murkiness around the company's future without Steve Wynn at its helm. It also paves the way toward closing the legal dispute between the ex-spouses,which would free up Elaine Wynn to sell shares or vote them differently than Steve Wynn-- two things she's barred from doing now.
The effective price of the redemption of Okada's shares is now $97.76 per share. That's an improvement from the prior number, but still a steep discount to where shares trade today. This also ensures that the redemption will happen.
It's worth noting that the buyback will stretch Wynn Resorts' balance sheet. The company had $3.13 billion in cash at the end of 2017 and $9.63 billion of debt, not including $1.3 billion yet to be spent on the Wynn Boston Harbor project. The company may need to issue debt to fund both the note redemption and its growth plans.
Dispensing with the Universal lawsuit and the uncertainty it created isn't a game changer, but it's an incremental positive for Wynn Resorts. And after Steve Wynn's resignation earlier this year, it could clear the way for the company's new management team to chart its own path with less legacy baggage holding them back.
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Travis Hoiumowns shares of Wynn Resorts. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has adisclosure policy. || Vietnam Is Outraged Over a $658 Million Cryptocurrency Scam: The Vietnamese government has weighed in on a $658 million alleged cryptocurrency scam in the country, with Deputy Prime Minister Vuong Dinh Hue urging six ministries to “quickly consider and tackle” the issue. The scam apparently entailed fraudulent initial coin offerings (ICO) by a company in Ho Chi Minh City. According to a Bloomberg report , Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc also reiterated the illegality of Vietnamese financial institutions going anywhere near cryptocurrencies. ICOs are a form of fundraising in which “investors” pay for new virtual coins issued by a company, which will supposedly be useful at some point. In the U.S., the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is busily trying to crack down on scammy ICOs , although it is adamant that not all of the offerings are fraudulent . China has banned ICOs outright . As for the Vietnamese case, news outlet Tuoi Tre News reported earlier this week that the offices of the company behind the two allegedly fraudulent ICOs, Modern Tech, were besieged by angry investors. However, the building’s owners said Modern Tech had liquidated and cleared out its office a month ago. According to that report, Modern Tech claimed to be the authorized Vietnamese representative for the launches of the iFan and Pincoin platforms. It claimed iFan was a Singaporean project and Pincoin a Dubai-based scheme; in fact, Modern Tech itself was behind them. The websites for both schemes are still live. Pincoin claims to be a cryptocurrency for the “sharing economy.” Meanwhile, iFan is supposedly the “most advanced social network”--an Ethereum-based platform for celebrities and their communities of fans, using a token called ERC20. Both are apparently classic pyramid schemes, with new investors’ money going to pay off older investors. All investors were promised huge returns--”profit up to 40% monthly,” Pincoin’s investors were told. However, while investors could see the value of their token rise within the platforms’ systems, Tuoi Tre News reported that they were unable to withdraw their profits in cash. Story continues In total, 32,000 people reportedly fell victim to the scheme, shelling out 15 trillion Vietnamese dong ($658 million .) See original article on Fortune.com More from Fortune.com America's Largest Bitcoin Exchange Is Going to Invest in Cryptocurrency Startups Google Just Made It Harder to Mine Cryptocurrency with Chrome Bitcoin Price Jumps on News that Hack-Victim Exchange Coincheck May Be Rescued Bitcoin Price Shrugs Off Child Pornography Report to Top $9,000 Again CryptoKitties Wins $12 Million From Investors, Including Early Facebook Believer Andreessen Horowitz || Bitcoin is a bubble and a perfect example of ‘faddish human behavior,’ says Robert Shiller: Bitcoin is coming off one of its best one-day performances of the year, but one Nobel Prize-winning economist sees the cryptocurrency as more of a psychological experiment than a serious investment.
"I'm interested in bitcoin as a sort of bubble. It doesn't mean that it will disappear, that it'll burst forever. It may be with us for a while," Robert Shiller , professor of economics at Yale University and co-founder of the Case-Shiller Index, told CNBC's " Trading Nation " on Thursday.
"To me, it's interesting as another example of faddish human behavior. It's glamorous," he added.
The bitcoin craze reminds him of tulip mania in the 17 th century. At that time, the price of tulip bulbs ballooned, peaked and then crashed in early 1637. The event is considered one of the first recorded speculative bubbles where a buying frenzy and lofty expectations replace rational justifications for an item's value.
Bitcoin's ascent has been steep. The cryptocurrency hurtled above $1,000 in early 2017 after trading at less than a $1 at the beginning of the decade. It hit an all-time high north of $20,000 in mid-December. Prices ended last year more than 14 times higher than where they started.
While Shiller does not own any bitcoin, many of his students have bought them as fractions and he says many others have likely made a lot of money off their investments.
"I don't mean to dismiss it. Some smart people went into these and other cryptocurrencies," said Shiller, who won the Nobel Prize for economics in 2013. "But it's a story that I think goes way beyond the merit of the idea. ... It is more psychological than something that could be explained by the computer science department."
As with most things, politics has touched this, too, said Shiller.
"Part of it is political. Economists tend to neglect the political side," he said. "There's a big element of people [who] don't trust the government anymore. They like the idea that this didn't come from the government. It came from some real smart computer scientist. They like that. It's a great story for today's markets."
Bitcoin held above $8,000 on Friday morning after topping that level a day earlier. The two-day rally comes after a weak start to April likely tied to tax-related selling. Prices dipped below $7,000 earlier this month.
Disclaimer
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• Forget earnings. The banks need to see this before they’re a buy || Why Acxiom, Longfin, and Starbucks Slumped Today: Stocks rebounded on Thursday -- the final trading day of the quarter -- after a volatile start to the week. All told, theNasdaq Compositeand theS&P 500both popped about 1.5%, while theDow Jones Industrial Averagerose 1.1%.
But not every stock enjoyed today's outsize gains. Read on to learn whyAcxiom Corporation(NASDAQ: ACXM),Longfin(NASDAQ: LFIN), andStarbucks(NASDAQ: SBUX)lagged the broader market today.
After plummeting nearly 34% early today, shares of Acxiom partially recovered to close down 19% as the marketing technology and services company announced that its relationship withFacebook(NASDAQ: FB)will soon come to an end.
That's not to say the bad news was Acxiom's fault. Rather, Facebook announced that its Facebook Partner Categories product -- which leverages third-party data providers like Acxiom's Audience Solutions division -- will be discontinued over the next several months in response to its recentdata-privacy controversy.
So while Acxiom doesn't expect any changes to its fiscal 2018 guidance, it warned that its revenue and profitability for fiscal 2019 will be reduced by as much as $25 million.
That's a small slice of the $987 million in revenue that analysts were modeling for Acxiom next year. And the company still expects its LiveRamp segment will simultaneously grow by at least 30%. Nonetheless, it's hard to blame investors for taking a step back given this sudden loss of a meaningful revenue stream from a prominent customer.
Image source: Getty Images.
Longfin stock plummeted 48.8% today after the financial and cryptocurrency technology specialist was formally removed from the Russell 2000 Index less than two weeks after joining it.
To be fair, the news shouldn't come as a complete surprise. Today's drop only adds to a more-than-50% plunge earlier this week -- a harrowing move that came afterfraud accusationsfrom a noted short-seller, and a later announcement from FTSE Russell that Longfin had failed to meet the minimum requirement for having 5% of its shares available to the public. Regarding the latter -- and this helps explain today's big drop -- Longfin stock stopped being included in the Russell 2000 index as of yesterday's market close.
I should also note that shares of Longfin had skyrocketed as much as 2,600% over the past few months after the company announced it had purchased blockchain microlending solutions company Ziddu.com. In doing so, Longfin effectively propelled itself into the spotlight as a cryptocurrency play for speculative traders. As such, with short-sellers still bearing down after its index removal, it's no surprise to see the stock plunging again today.
Finally, shares of Starbucks fell as much as 2% early today -- a significant move for a business valued at over $81 billion -- before mostly recovering after an analyst warned that next year's sales growth may arrive below expectations.
According to Wedbush Securities' Nick Setyan, their recent analysis of the financial performance of Starbucks' China stores indicates that they will offer a "lower contribution to overall revenue growth than initial management commentary."
Setyan believes that Starbucks' China locations will "only" comprise around 20% of the company's overall growth next fiscal year. That's well below management's recent guidance for a contribution of around 25% from itsfastest-growing geography.
Wedbush also lowered its rating on Starbucks stock to neutral from outperform, and reduced its per-share price target to $56 from $70.
That said, many appeared to shrug off these concerns today -- though the broader market's rise likely helped dull the impact of Wedbush's warning. But going forward, you can be sure investors will be closely watching Starbucks' progress in the Middle Kingdom.
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Steve Symingtonhas no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Facebook and Starbucks. The Motley Fool has adisclosure policy. || Better Buy: Raytheon Company (RTN) vs. Northrop Grumman (NOC): Raytheon (NYSE: RTN) and Northrop Grumman (NYSE: NOC) are two well-run defense contractors who have been on a roll since the 2016 election, with shares up 61% and 54%, respectively, since November 2016. They also both now trade at price-to-earnings and price-to-sale ratios well above 10-year norms as a result. Tomahawk missile A Raytheon-made Tomahawk cruise missile. Image source: Raytheon. Increased Pentagon spending, the impetus behind the stock surge, is finally becoming a reality with lawmakers in February finally reaching a deal on a long-term budget. The question is whether it is too late for investors to jump in and buy one or either of these companies. Here is a comparison of Raytheon and General Dynamics to try to determine which is the smarter pick now. Market Cap 2017 Sales Price-to-Sales Ratio TTM PE Ratio TTM Dividend Yield Raytheon $63.46 billion $25.35 billion 2.50 31.66 1.46% Northrop Grumman $61.66 billion $25.8 billion 2.39 30.88 1.11% Data source: Yahoo! Finance, data as of Feb. 26, 2018. TTM = trailing 12 month. Raytheon: Right on target Raytheon, at $25.3 billion in sales, has a commanding presence in most of the areas of greatest interest to the Pentagon including precision weapons, anti-missile systems, electronic warfare systems, and sensors and radars. The company also records about one-third of total sales outside of the United States, making it one of the most diversified U.S. defense contractors. The company's Patriot missile systems are the first line of defense in the Middle East and gaining popularity elsewhere, and it is also responsible for the radars used by Lockheed Martin for its THAAD anti-ballistic system that is being deployed to counter North Korean threats. Raytheon ended 2017 with a $38.2 billion backlog, up 4% from a year prior, and in January predicted it will grow cash from operations by more than 40% in 2018 , including the benefit of tax reform. Raytheon also has a large cybersecurity unit, the result of a 2015 deal to combine its internal IT business with commercial vendor Websense. That business, now known as Forcepoint, has so far failed to live up to expectations, but the company continues to revamp the operations in hopes of jump-starting growth at what could be a hidden gem inside Raytheon's portfolio. Story continues Raytheon's board in November authorized a new $2 billion share buyback on top of the $900 million available at the time under a 2015 program, continuing a trend that has seen it reduce its share count by about 30%. Investors are expecting a dividend hike this spring , in keeping with what has become an annual tradition for the company. A streamlined fighting machine Northrop Grumman is a $25.8 billion-sales maker of bombers, drones, radars, sensors, and tech systems for the U.S. government and allied customers. The company in 2011 spun off its massive shipbuilding operation as Huntington Ingalls Industries , and in the years since, it has focused primarily on higher-tech -- and hopefully higher-margin -- systems development, including developing some of the brains behind aircraft and ships made by rival contractors. Northrop of late has been selective about what contracts it competes for , a welcome development for investors who want to make sure management is prioritizing profitability over generating headlines in an increasingly competitive business. The company's next big hit figures to be the still-under-development B-21 bomber, designed to be a long-range, stealth workhorse for the Air Force capable of delivering nuclear and conventional weapons wherever needed. The Pentagon is expected to buy at least 100 aircraft priced at more than $500 million apiece beginning in the mid 2020s, with the program expected to generate as much as $80 billion for Northrop and its subcontractors over its lifetime. B-21 sketch Artist rendering of the B-21 Bomber. Image source: Northrop Grumman. Northrop is also focused on space, with plans to massively increase its expertise in the coming months when it closes its $7.8 billion deal for Oribtal ATK . The combination will create a one-stop shop for sensors, satellites, and launch services along with adding Orbital's munitions business. The deal should also put Northrop in a prime position to compete for future contracts including the Ground Based Strategic Deterrent program, a plan to modernize the U.S. stockpile of intercontinental ballistic missiles, which could be worth upwards of $85 billion to contractors. The company had a poor showing in the final months of 2017, attributable primarily to adjustments due to changes in U.S. tax laws , but it expects 2018 earnings to be up nearly 33% from 2017 on sales 5% higher. Which is a better buy? At current valuations, neither Raytheon nor Northrop Grumman are a bargain, and it is understandable if most investors would conclude that today, these are both better holds than buys. For those wanting to put new money at work, Raytheon seems to be the better buy for 2018, but Northrop Grumman the better buy for long-term holders. While 2018 is more of a transition and integration year for Northrop Grumman, with the company focused on integrating Orbital and advancing the B-21 and other future programs, Raytheon, with its exposure to missile defense and cyber, figures to be more the subject of headlines -- and therefore could be the beneficiary of further momentum buying. Northrop is making smart moves, but those moves will take time to bear fruit. The company is best bought by investors who don't mind a little bit of a wait. More From The Motley Fool 3 Growth Stocks at Deep-Value Prices 5 Expected Social Security Changes in 2018 6 Years Later, 6 Charts That Show How Far Apple, Inc. Has Come Since Steve Jobs' Passing 10 Best Stocks to Buy Today The $16,122 Social Security Bonus You Cannot Afford to Miss Bitcoin's Biggest Competitor Isn't Ethereum -- It's This Lou Whiteman has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool recommends Orbital ATK. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy . || $81 Billion Allianz Says Bitcoin is a Bubble, Search Engine Results Show Otherwise: On March 14, $81 billion investment firm Allianz stated in a report released by the firm’s global economics and strategy head Stefan Hofrichter that the cryptocurrency market, regardless of its liquidity, is a bubble.
Hofrichter stated that cryptocurrencies like bitcoin lack intrinsic value, and that the base value of cryptocurrencies is zero.
“In our view, its intrinsic value must be zero. A bitcoin is a claim on nobody – in contrast to, for instance, sovereign bonds, equities or paper money – and it does not generate any income stream.
However, as stated many times by respected analysts and bankers like Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein, the concept of intrinsic value is flawed, and base value in assets simply does not exist. For instance, stocks, commodities, and fiat currencies also do not have intrinsic value, as their value solely depend on the supply and demand sought out by the free market.
Emphasizing that multi-billion dollar conglomerates rely on digital trust and thus do not have intrinsic value, Fundstrat analyst Tom Leeexplained:
“If you ask a baby boomer, ‘Can you justify the value of anything that’s a digital business?’ they probably don’t accept that Facebook, Google, Netflix, Amazon, Apple, these are the largest companies in the S&P 500 and they’re primarily digital businesses built almost purely on digital trust.”
The value of cryptocurrencies like bitcoin derive from their security, decentralized protocol, and the distributed network of nodes, miners, and users that sustain the network. The computing power of the bitcoin network has increased to a point in which no single entity or organization can ever match it, disallowing or eliminating the possibility of double spending, or taking advantage of the system to produce more digital currencies.
More importantly, unlike the stock market and other private markets that are open exclusively to accredited investors and brokers, the cryptocurrency market is public. Any investor can trade or invest in cryptocurrencies. As such, bitcoin and other major cryptocurrencies have become more liquid than any other stock or asset in the global stock market.
Box Mining, a renowned cryptocurrency analyst, revealed that the number of Google search engine searches for the keyword “bitcoin bubble” has actually decreased since late 2017.
The major correction that occured in the cryptocurrency market throughout January and February has shown that due to its liquidity, long-term bubbles within the cryptocurrency market do not form. Short-term bubbles implode with minor and major corrections, as the value of major cryptocurrencies drop 50 to 70 percent in some periods.
Hence, to describe the entire market as a bubble by disregarding investors within it, institutional and retail traders with billions of dollars in capital, and the $13.5 billion daily trading volume of the market is highly incorrect.
The post$81 Billion Allianz Says Bitcoin is a Bubble, Search Engine Results Show Otherwiseappeared first onCCN. || Salesforce Is Getting Into Blockchain. Here's Why That Matters: Salesforce.com (NYSE: CRM) CEO Marc Benioff often talks about having a beginner's mind -- trying to view the world like it's a new place you've never experienced before. That thinking is leading the company toward developing a blockchain and cryptocurrency solution that Benioff hopes will be ready for the company's Dreamforce 2018 software conference this September. For investors, that means Salesforce could be the latest way to take advantage of the cryptocurrency boom ... without having to buy any bitcoin . Cryptography and blockchain and cryptocurrency, oh my! Cryptocurrencies are virtual currencies, and there are lots of them -- more than 1,500 as of this writing. In some ways, they are no different than any other form of currency, like the dollar or the euro. People agree they are worth something and they can be exchanged for things of value. Where cryptocurrencies differ is that they're completely digital and decentralized -- not controlled by a central bank or backed by a government. Instead, the currency exists in a type of public ledger called a blockchain, and that ledger can only be altered if certain conditions are met. Alterations are made using cryptography, the science of encoding data to keep it safe from theft or other manipulation. Here's a more in-depth description from my Foolish colleague Adam Levy . Cryptocurrencies and the blockchain technology making them possible have garnered lots of interest and it's not surprising Salesforce is looking to create a product for this market. And Salesforce has had great success starting and quickly growing new business segments over the years, so the thought of Salesforce becoming a major player in blockchain technology and cryptocurrency isn't far-fetched. A man standing in front of an artist's rendition of blockchain, a link of encoded digital transactions. Image source: Getty Images. What's it to Salesforce? What remains to be seen is what the product or solution will look like. It could be as simple as integrating a payment processing system for cryptocurrencies into its current Commerce Cloud division. Or it could be a little more cutting edge, like a smart contracts system for crowdfunding or business development. What's for sure, though, is that it's happening. Benioff said in a recent interview that a random conversation he had at a bar in Davos, Switzerland, after an economic conference early this year got him thinking about how to integrate blockchain technology and cryptocurrency into his company. Never one to shy away from ambition, Salesforce quickly began work on the as-yet mysterious service. What's it to investors? When thinking about new investment trends like cryptocurrency, I often think back to an early investing lesson I was taught: the gold miner vs. the pick-and-shovel company. It is said that the most consistent winners in the gold rush days were those selling the equipment to mine the gold, not the miners themselves. Story continues Salesforce could become a pick-and-shovel play on cryptocurrency, much as it has done in other areas of software and technology over the years (like cloud computing and artificial intelligence, to name just two). Rather than entering the trend itself, oftentimes the most consistent way to win is by buying the enabler of the trend. Details are slim at this point, but the Dreamforce conference is just around the corner. If a Salesforce "solution" for cryptocurrency and blockchain technology is ready for launch by then, investors could be in early on a new way to play the virtual-money rush. More From The Motley Fool 3 Growth Stocks at Deep-Value Prices 5 Expected Social Security Changes in 2018 6 Years Later, 6 Charts That Show How Far Apple, Inc. Has Come Since Steve Jobs' Passing 10 Best Stocks to Buy Today The $16,122 Social Security Bonus You Cannot Afford to Miss Bitcoin's Biggest Competitor Isn't Ethereum -- It's This Nicholas Rossolillo and his clients own Salesforce.com. Nicholas Rossolillo has no position in any cryptocurrencies mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any cryptocurrencies mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends CME Group and Nvidia. The Motley Fool recommends Gartner and Salesforce.com. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy . View comments || Stranger Things Is Coming to a Theme Park Near You: As a writer, I sometimes get to wonder "what if?" In a previous comparison between streaming pioneer Netflix (NASDAQ: NFLX) and The Walt Disney Company (NYSE: DIS) in 1957, I wrote, "[Netflix] hasn't yet announced a theme park, but can you imagine an attraction based on Stranger Things ? I can -- and it would be awesome." Seems like I wasn't the only one that felt that way. Comcast 's (NASDAQ: CMCSA) Universal Studios revealed that the Netflix megahit Stranger Things will be brought to life at its theme parks just in time for Halloween. Sign reads "Just announced. Stranger Things. Netflix. The Demogorgan in hunting in our world now." Stranger Things is now headlining a theme park attraction. Image source: Universal. The Upside Down Stranger Things , Netflix's pop culture phenomenon will be part of Universal's Halloween Horror Nights event at locations in Hollywood, Orlando, and Singapore. The company partnered with Netflix and the show's creators Matt and Ross Duffer, and executive producer Shawn Levy, to create mazes that are "authentic representations" of the hit show. The team is recreating locations that will be familiar to fans of the popular sci-fi horror series. From the menacing Hawkins National Laboratory, under the U.S. Department of Energy, to the Byers home adorned with an erratic display of flashing Christmas lights and the eerie Upside Down woods oozing a shower of floating orb-like spores, the chilling new mazes will offer surprising twists and unexpected turns around every corner. Guests will be also be stalked by the Demogorgon, the monster that lives in the alternate reality portrayed in the show. Show me the merchandise This announcement is just the latest in a recent string of moves to position the company to reap the benefits of its growing cache of intellectual property. Early last year, Netflix revealed its licensing aspirations with a job posting seeking to hire a merchandising and promotion manager. The responsibilities of the position would involve the oversight of content distribution and the licensing of toys, comics, books and apparel for its popular programs. At the time, the company said it wanted to use merchandise to "help amplify fervor around key titles." Netflix even tested a limited assortment of products at cult-retailer Hot Topic before taking the plunge. Story continues The massive popularity of Stranger Things , the nostalgic 80s thriller, persuaded Netflix to delve further into licensing content. Late last year, Netflix executives wore Stranger Things -themed light-up Christmas sweaters during the third-quarter 2017 conference call to discuss the company's financial results. The purposefully ugly sweaters featured strings of holiday lights over letters of the alphabet, a theme that would be instantly recognizable to fans of the show. The company said this and other products would be available at Target , as it was "learning to do merchandise." Stranger Things Christmas sweater. Netflix executives wore this sweater to promote the show and signal the company's entry into merchandising. Image source: Target. Not just fun and games Sales of licensed merchandise totaled $263 billion in 2016 according to the International Licensing Industry Merchandisers' Association. Those numbers likely crept higher last year, though figures for 2017 are not yet available. It should be no surprise that Disney was the top licensor in 2016, generating $56.6 billion in retail sales. Netflix is following the template laid out by the House of Mouse in many ways, including creating its own content, generating buzz with merchandise, and even acquiring other content creators . Last year, RBC Analyst Mark Mahaney calculated that Netflix could generate more than $1 billion in revenue by selling merchandise from its hit shows. This deal with Universal could be the catalyst that drives Netflix even further into merchandising success. Stranger Things is just one of a number of hit shows for the streaming service, though it is surely the most visible. Future programs could capture lightning in a bottle again, and before long, the company could be sitting on a significant additional revenue stream. Take it from Reed Earlier this year, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings was asked about the potential for merchandising. He replied, "That's a big one for us. We'll be doing more of that over time." No time like the present. More From The Motley Fool 3 Growth Stocks at Deep-Value Prices 5 Expected Social Security Changes in 2018 6 Years Later, 6 Charts That Show How Far Apple, Inc. Has Come Since Steve Jobs' Passing 10 Best Stocks to Buy Today The $16,122 Social Security Bonus You Cannot Afford to Miss Bitcoin's Biggest Competitor Isn't Ethereum -- It's This Danny Vena owns shares of Netflix and Walt Disney and has the following options: long January 2019 $85 calls on Walt Disney. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Netflix and Walt Disney. The Motley Fool recommends Comcast. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy . || 3 High-Yield Stocks That Have Bucked the Stock Market Correction: Over the past two months, investors have been reminded of a valuable lesson: Stocks can also go down. Both theDow Jones Industrial Averageand broad-basedS&P 500are firmly in correction territory -- i.e., at least 10% below recent highs -- and have logged some of their biggest single-day point losses in history.
Yetinvesting strategiesto weather a downturn in the stock market do exist. Among the most successful of those strategies is the idea of purchasing high-quality dividend stocks.
Image source: Getty Images.
Dividend-paying companies offer three primary advantages to investors. First, they act as a beacon of profitability. In other words, no company would continue to share a percentage of its profits with investors if its board of directors didn't foresee continued growth and/or profitability. Second, the dividends received act somewhat as a hedge against the downside that investors can experience during corrections and bear markets.
Finally, dividends can be reinvested back into more shares of dividend-paying stock to accelerate wealth creation. You may be able to do this directly through your broker or use a Dividend Reinvestment Plan, or DRIP. This is how money managers build wealth for their clients.
In a perfect world, investors want the most income possible from dividends with the least amount of risk. Of course, a high dividend yield isn't necessarily a good sign. Since yield is a function of share price, a rapidly falling stock or a company whose business model is in trouble could lure in unsuspecting income investors. Finding high-quality high-yield dividend stocks takes a lot of digging and due diligence -- but the rewards could be great.
Since the stock market hit an all-time high in late January, the following three high-yield dividend stocks have bucked the recent correction and pushed higher.
Image source: Getty Images.
It shouldn't come as a surprise to investors that one of the best-performing high-yield stocks during this correction is a large drug developer:GlaxoSmithKline(NYSE: GSK). Even though healthcare stocks may have a tendency to move in step with the market, they're usually inelastic. We can't choose when we get sick or what ailment we develop, which creates a steady stream of revenue opportunities for pharmaceutical and biotech companies.
GlaxoSmithKline, which sports a delectable 7% yield, appears to havebenefited tremendouslyfrom the announcement last week that it was buying outNovartis' stake in its consumer health joint venture, for $13 billion. The deal is expected to be accretive to its 2018 earnings, as well as improve cash flow generation. More importantly, GlaxoSmithKline chose to deploy its cash internally rather than chasingPfizer's pricy over-the-counter business. Long story short, Wall Street and investors appear to approve.
Image source: Macy's.
Department storeMacy's(NYSE: M)might have been compared to a dinosaur in 2017, but it and its 5.3% yield have found new life this year.
Macy's management understands the need to cut costs and transform its business in order to compete with e-commerce retail giants, and its fourth-quarter results, released in February, showed just that. A1.3% increase in same-store salesduring the fourth quarter was well above expectations, while its same-store-sales growth forecast of 0% to 1% for 2018 was a notable surprise, indicative of the company's focus on getting the right merchandise in its department stores.
More recently, Macy's has benefited from rumors that Donald Trump may go after online kingpinAmazon.com, which the president doesn't believe pays enough in taxes. With Amazon representing a major speed bump in Macy's turnaround, anything that would slow its growth would be viewed as a positive. At just nine times its forward earnings, Macy's may still be on the sale rack.
Image source: Getty Images.
A select few high-yield technology companies have bucked the stock market correction.Seagate Technology(NASDAQ: STX), which currently sports a 4.3% yield, has galloped higher following strong second-quarter results amid growing data-storage demand. In particular, Seagate notes that the average capacity per hard-disk drive shipped during Q2 2018 rose from 1.7 terabytes to 2.2 terabytes. This increased capacity helped lower Seagate's operating expenses while meeting the growing demands of enterprise data centers.
Seagate also is making inroads in the sold-state-drive market. As noted by my Foolish colleague Keith Speights, Seagate forged along-term supply agreementfor NAND flash memory chips withToshibain October 2017 that can be used in solid-state drives, hard-disk drives, or hybrid solutions. Assuming Seagate's dividend is sustainable -- its payout ratio is above 80% -- it could be quite the bargain.
More From The Motley Fool
• 3 Growth Stocks at Deep-Value Prices
• 5 Expected Social Security Changes in 2018
• 6 Years Later, 6 Charts That Show How Far Apple, Inc. Has Come Since Steve Jobs' Passing
• 10 Best Stocks to Buy Today
• The $16,122 Social Security Bonus You Cannot Afford to Miss
• Bitcoin's Biggest Competitor Isn't Ethereum -- It's This
John Mackey, CEO of Whole Foods Market, an Amazon subsidiary, is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors.Sean Williamshas no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Amazon. The Motley Fool has adisclosure policy.
[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
只今のレート
#BTC = ￥713,205↑
#日経225 = ￥21,567.52↑
#USDJPY = ￥107.04↑
#EURJPY = ￥131.37↑
#GBPJPY = ￥150.80↑
#金相場 = ￥4597↑(NY金より試算)
#株 #オフパコ
2018-04-07 01:01:03 || bitcoin'de 19 binleri gösterip 14 binlere alışanları götürdüklerinde sesimi çıkarmadım. bitcoin'de 10 binleri gösterip 12 binlere alışanları götürdüklerinde yine sesimi çıkarmadım. bitcoin'de 6 binleri gösterip 9 binlere alışanları götürdüklerinde de sesimi çıkarmadım. || Daily update on $BTC #bitcoin:
The 4h chart shows bulls and bears been very active during these candles.
As the neither of them couldn't push the price it closed near to it's open price.
It reached upper support level few times but body did close above each time.
$cryptopic.twitter.com/oXXoPMhexB || “The 7 principles of the Skyllz Distributed Platform.” by @Skyllz_platform https://medium.com/skyllz/the-7-principles-of-the-skyllz-distributed-platform-64ca804ca1d3 … #Crypto #Blockchain #Skyllz #Investment #SDP #ethereum #bitcoin #cryptocurrency || (#BTC$8598)(1HR)(03-23-18)(9:25:00) thoughts: on the 1HR BTC looks like an overall downtrend. I think were getting quick exuberance with price flowing up, I'm guessing it'll probably be followed by a quick sweep down. https://www.coinigy.com/s/i/5ab5298271214/ … || START BITCOIN MINING http://keita2016.jp || #Cryptocurrencies in 20 1D EMA uptrend #cryptotrading #cryptosignals #cryptota
$BTC - $GAM in uptrend for 4 candle(s)
$BTC - $FCT in uptrend for 1 candle(s)
$BTC - $DCR in uptrend for 3 candle(s)
$BTC - $MEME in uptrend for 3 candle(s) || Bitcoin Price Is Reliant On Fools | Mark Carney Chimes In http://j.mp/2Fem6wb pic.twitter.com/1wpkAnocWY || #Crypto #Blockchain #PDATA #ethereum #bitcoin #cryptocurrency #Opirium #btc #brokageofpersonaldata
https://www.opiria.io/ https://twitter.com/PDATA_Token/status/981519631474200577 … || If you haven’t taken the 30mins it takes to read Satoshi’s whitepaper, then your opinion on the Blockchain and $BTC is irrelevant.
|
Trend: up || Prices: 8802.46, 8930.88, 9697.50, 8845.74, 9281.51, 8987.05, 9348.48, 9419.08, 9240.55, 9119.01
|
Analyze the provided historical prices, technical indicators, news, and social media sentiment from the last 60 days. Based on this context, predict the overall trend (up, down, or no change) and the specific daily closing prices for Bitcoin for the next 10 days.
|
[Technical Analysis]
Not fully available.
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
Flow's Summer and Back to School Initiatives Get Students Ready for the New Academic Year: MIAMI, FL--(Marketwired - Sep 19, 2016) - Thousands of students around the region are now primed for another school year, as Flow rolled out its summer camps and back-to-school initiatives around the Caribbean to support students and their families. Each year, Flow, the regional communications and entertainment provider, partners with local and national community groups to host youth development camps that provide a positive and fun learning environment covering everything from sports, technology and career development. As students get ready for the new academic year, Flow has embarked on its annual Back-to-School initiatives across the region to ensure that students are well prepared to head back to the classroom. Flow's Acting President, Michele English, stated, "We place a lot of emphasis on supporting and engaging youth throughout the Caribbean. We want to ensure that the programs we initiate are enjoyable and provide an environment that fosters learning and growth as we pursue our mission of 'Connecting Communities and Transforming Lives.'" In Barbados , Flow teamed up with the Ministry of Community Development to facilitate an "IT for Teens Summer Program" to sharpen kids' computer skills. The Company also launched a 'Flow Vision Summer Student Experience' giving teens invaluable insight into potential careers in Sales, Marketing, Accounts, Finance, Human Resources, Legal, Regulatory, IT, and Corporate Communications. Similarly, in St. Vincent , Flow hosted its Annual Internet Summer School program for children eight and older to teach them how to unlock the potential of the Internet. In St. Lucia , the focus was on the classroom of play. There, Flow teamed up with the Ministry of Youth Development and Sports to host the ' 758 Champions Tour ,' which gave sixth grade students a chance to meet with members of the island's Olympic team. They learned from past and present Olympians -- about the importance of discipline and character, not just in sports, but also as an approach to life. Story continues Then, just prior to the start of the new academic year, Flow launched its annual Back-to-School initiatives across the Caribbean. In Jamaica , Flow held its 7 th annual Skool Aid event -- the biggest back-to-school fair in the Caribbean that drew more than 30k children, parents and guardians this year. The highly anticipated event is a place where children get free medical and dental examinations; free haircuts and beauty consultations; free book bags and lunch kits; and discounted school supplies. The event helps ensure that students have what they need to head back to the classroom. After this year's event, one newspaper reported, "several parents praised Flow...saying the fair helped to ease the financial burden of back-to-school expenses." English added, "We are confident it's going to be a great year for Caribbean youth heading back to the classroom eager to embrace their education and experiences. We are proud to be a part of the process. The entire Flow family extends our best wishes for a successful school year to the children, teachers, school administrators and parents all around the Caribbean." About C&W Communications CWC is a full-service communications and entertainment provider and delivers market-leading video, broadband, telephony and mobile services to consumers in 18 countries. Through its business division, CWC provides data center hosting, domestic and international managed network services, and customized IT service solutions, utilizing cloud technology to serve business and government customers. CWC also operates a state-of-the-art submarine fiber network -- the most extensive in the region -- in over 30 markets. Learn more at www.cwc.com , or follow C&W on LinkedIn , Facebook or Twitter . About Liberty Global Liberty Global is the world's largest international TV and broadband company, with operations in more than 30 countries across Europe, Latin America, and the Caribbean. We invest in the infrastructure that empowers our customers to make the most of the digital revolution. Our scale and commitment to innovation enable us to develop market-leading products delivered through next-generation networks that connect our 29 million customers who subscribe to over 59 million television, broadband, internet, and telephony services. We also serve 11 million mobile subscribers and offer WiFi service across seven million access points. Liberty Global's businesses are comprised of two stocks: the Liberty Global Group ( NASDAQ : LBTYA ) ( NASDAQ : LBTYB ) ( NASDAQ : LBTYK ) for our European operations, and the LiLAC Group ( NASDAQ : LILA ) ( NASDAQ : LILAK ) ( OTC PINK : LILAB ), which consists of our operations in Latin America and the Caribbean. The Liberty Global Group operates in 12 European countries under the consumer brands Virgin Media, Ziggo, Unitymedia, Telenet and UPC. The LiLAC Group operates in over 20 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean under the consumer brands VTR, Flow, Liberty, Mas Movil and BTC. In addition, the LiLAC Group operates a subsea fiber network throughout the region in over 30 markets. For more information, please visit www.libertyglobal.com . Image Available: http://www2.marketwire.com/mw/frame_mw?attachid=3057593 Image Available: http://www2.marketwire.com/mw/frame_mw?attachid=3057606 Image Available: http://www2.marketwire.com/mw/frame_mw?attachid=3057653 Image Available: http://www2.marketwire.com/mw/frame_mw?attachid=3057660 Image Available: http://www2.marketwire.com/mw/frame_mw?attachid=3057662 Image Available: http://www2.marketwire.com/mw/frame_mw?attachid=3057664 || Bitcoin Services Inc. Secures New Facility, and 15 New Bitcoin Miners; Company to Begin Mining Bitcoin, Litecoin, Dogecoin, and Ethereum: GRANDVILLE, MI / ACCESSWIRE / September 6, 2016 /Bitcoin Services Inc. (OTC Pink: BTSC) announced it secured a 3,500 square foot facility, and fifteen new Bitmain Antminers S7 Batch 8, stable at 4.73TH/s. Antminer S7 ~4.73TH/s @ .25W/GH 28nm ASIC Bitcoin Miners. In addition to mining Bitcoin, it will also start mining Litecoin, Dogecoin, and Ethereum. Bitcoin Services Inc secured a strong electrical supply which is key to successful mining and its profitability.
About Bitcoin Services Inc.:The issuer's business operations are each Internet based to the consumer and consist of three separate streams, as follows: (1) bitcoin escrow services, (2) bitcoin mining, and (3) blockchain software development. The principal products and services are the mining of bitcoins, proving escrow services for buyers and sellers of bitcoins, and the development and sale of blockchain software. The market for these services and products is Worldwide, and sold and marketed on the Internet.
Safe Harbor Statement
This release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27a of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended and section 21e of the Securities and Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. Those statements include the intent, belief or current expectations of the company and its management team. Prospective investors are cautioned that any such forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance and involve risks and uncertainties, and that actual results may differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements as a result of various factors. Accomplishing the strategy described herein is significantly dependent upon numerous factors, many that are not in management's control. Some of these factors include the ability of the company to raise sufficient capital, attract qualified management, attract new customers and effectively compete against similar companies.
CONTACT:
info@bitcoinservices.biz
SOURCE:Bitcoin Services Inc. || At your service: cyber criminals for hire to militants, EU says: THE HAGUE (Reuters) - Cybercriminals offering contract services for hire offer militant groups the means to attack Europe but such groups have yet to employ such techniques in major attacks, EU police agency Europol said on Wednesday. "There is currently little evidence to suggest that their cyber-attack capability extends beyond common website defacement," it said in its annual cybercrime threat assessment in a year marked by Islamic State violence in Europe. But the internet's criminal shadow the Darknet had potential to be exploited by militants taking advantage of computer experts offering "crime as a service", Europol added: "The availability of cybercrime tools and services, and illicit commodities (including firearms) on the Darknet, provide ample opportunities for this situation to change." Overall, the report found, existing trends in cybercrime continued to grow, with some of the European Union's member states reporting more cyber crimes than the traditional variety. "Europol is concerned about how an expanding cybercriminal community has been able to further exploit our increasing dependence on technology and the internet," its director, Rob Wainwright, said in a statement. "We have also seen a marked shift in cyber-facilitated activities relating to trafficking in human beings, terrorism and other threats." "Ransomware" - programs which break into databases and demand payment for unlocking codes via virtual currencies such as Bitcoin - continued to expand as a problem, as did highly targeted "phishing" attacks to extract security data from senior figures - "CEO fraud" - and video streaming of child abuse. Attacks on bank cash-machine networks were also increasing, the report found, as were frauds exploiting new contactless payment card transactions, while traditional scams involving the physical presence of a card had been successfully reduced. (Reporting by Alastair Macdonald in Brussels; Editing by Jonathan Oatis) || These Two Charts Show How Much Damage Hurricane Matthew Could Cause: Hurricane Matthew could end up being a disaster well into the nine figures in the U.S.
As the storm, which has already been linked to more than 100 deaths in Haiti, bears down on the coast of Miami, the primary concernfor elected officials and everyone else on the southeastern coast of the United States is protecting human life.
But a secondary concern--and one that will be on people's minds in the coming days--is the likely very costly property damage thatwill ensue as the storm makes landfall. Analysts at CoreLogic, the global property information and analytics firm, has put together estimates of "number of properties at risk of storm surge damage for each of the five hurricane categories as well as the accompanyingreconstruction cost value for these properties."
The estimate: As much as $326 billion dollars.
That would certainly make Matthew a Mega story. It's highly unlikely, though, that damage would reach thatlevel. First of all, this would require Matthew to remain a category four hurricane as itbarreledthrough 4 states: Florida, Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina. Matthew does look likely to make landfall as a category four, but it is likely that only one of these states faces the maximum damages, and that the hurricane loses strength as it passes through others. The worst hurricane, in terms of damage in the U.S.--Katrina--which decimated New Orleans, topped out at just over $50 billion in damage.
Still, if Matthew ends up to doing anywhere nears as much damage as some estimate it could easily make the top 10 of worst storms.
See original article on Fortune.com
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• Giant Insurance Firm Pays $120 Million for Mini-Madoff
• Allstate Just Used Drones to Inspect Homes in Texas
• Risk of Bitcoin Hacks and Losses Is Very Real || Cryptocurrencies like bitcoin may become a target in the fight against ransomware: David A. Kris CSIS ransomware bitcoin nationa security (David S. Kris speaking at a CSIS panel event in September 2016.CSIS) Many crimes can be solved by following the money, and that may hold true for the growth of ransomware attacks — though the money itself may be different. Countering the increasing use of ransomware — malware that attacks computers and networks and encrypts files, which criminals then demand payment in order to decrypt — may require action against hard-to-trace cryptocurrencies like bitcoin that are often used to pay the criminals behind the attacks, according to David S. Kris, former assistant attorney general at the US Department of Justice's national-security division. "I think the way to attack this — and I think the way you’re probably going to see some legal change over the next few years — is on the other end, with respect to the payments," Kris said during the question-and-answer session of a Center for Strategic and International Studies panel event . "And as I understand it — again, without having studied it too extensively — is that, you know, fintech is what is enabling this, cryptocurrency," Kris added. Reports of ransomware use have increased considerably in recent months. "In the last six to 12 months, this has just gone so aggressively to the business environment," Marcin Kleczynski, CEO of cybersecurity company Malwarebytes, told Business Insider in August . "We see companies from 25 people all the way to 250,000 people getting hit with ransomware." Malwarebytes ransomware survey (An Osterman research survey sponsored by Malwarebytes found that 54% of businesses surveyed had come under attack from ransomware in the 12 months through August 2016.Malwarebytes) Tech firm Kaspersky Lab said this summer that the number of victims attacked was growing at an alarming rate — up from 131,000 in 2014-2015 to 718,000 in 2015-2016, according to AFP. Some researchers have seen a 3,500% increase in the web infrastructure needed to run ransomware campaigns. According to Kleczynski, some banks have begun stockpiling bitcoin — which currently trades about about $600 to one — in case of a ransomware attack. "I talked to a couple of banks, and they say they have 50-100 bitcoin ready at all times in a wallet to deploy if a ransomware attack hits," he told Business Insider's James Cook . Story continues A report this summer found that hackers employing ransomware could pull in as much as $7,500 a month . And while individual victims are usually only hit with demands for a few hundred dollars , the likelihood that they will pay has made ransomware an appealing venture for hackers. And financial-services firms and individual people aren't the only potential targets. A NASCAR team admitted to paying hackers after its computers where hit with a ransomware attack. In August, security researchers demonstrated a ransomware attack on a smart thermostat , raising the possibility that Internet of Things devices will come into the crosshairs. Hackers have reportedly stolen $65 million worth of Bitcoins from a major Hong Kong exchange Bitfinex, which has now suspended all transactions (Hackers have reportedly stolen $65 million worth of Bitcoins from a major Hong Kong exchange Bitfinex, which has now suspended all transactions© AFP/File Philippe Lopez) The appeal of ransomware has no doubt been burnished by cryptocurrencies like bitcoin coming into the mainstream. " I personally would not be surprised to see over the next few years increasing regulation that maybe makes it more challenging for these kinds of anonymous, substantially untraceable — I don’t want to say it’s completely untraceable — payments to be made," Kris said during the CSIS event. "I think probably where you’re going to see legal change is in the area of the payment scheme. That may be wrong, but that’s sort of what I expect." However authorities choose to counter the use of ransomware, it's unlikely the threat will go away any time soon. "The extortion model is here to stay," a Kaspersky Lab expert said in a statement about rising ransomware attacks on Android users. NOW WATCH: Mac users are being attacked by malware that locks their computer and demands a $400 ransom — here’s how to protect yourself More From Business Insider Spanish police busted 30 people suspected of using a 'crypto-currency' to launder money One of 'El Chapo' Guzmán's chief money launderers is involved in a strange Hollywood kidnapping plot The ECB is getting rid of drug cartels' favorite currency || Flow Study Gets More Caribbean Students Closer to Examination Success: MIAMI, FL--(Marketwired - Sep 20, 2016) - As parents and students get fully into the new school term,Flowunveils its e-learning platform,Flow Study,an online portal to help students better prepare for the CAPE and CSEC examinations.
One of the most significant features ofFlow Studyis that it offers access to a comprehensive range of educational materials, including exam strategies, past paper solutions, CyberPedia and virtual labs, that students can access from multiple devices including smartphones, tablets and desktop computers. The portal is also linked tovideo-based tutorialsviaFlow TV on Demand.
Ricardo D. Allen, head ofOne On One Educational Services, is the founder and developer of the Flow Study program. For the last several years, his team has been preparing students for the CSEC mathematics exam, maintaining a 100 percent pass rate with an average of 83 percent of these students, attaining a grade one. Flow sees the partnership with One to One as an opportunity to twin the educational expertise and successful track record of One on One with Flow's world class technological platform to significantly expand access to e-learning to thousands more Caribbean students.
"Our partnership with One On One Educational Services enables us to deliver the highest-quality educational content via our industry-leading technology, giving Caribbean students a better opportunity to excel," said Michele English, Acting President of Flow. "The platform supplements classroom learning and gives students the ability to study anytime, anywhere. It's the future of studying and we are pleased to offer this opportunity to our customers," she stated.
The App offers free access to basic study materials to all Flow's broadband customers. Parents who want more specialized and detailed material for their children, can access additional subjects and content for a small fee that they will be able to pay through their Flow bill or prepaid balance.
Getting started is simple --visitwww.flowstudy.co,'login' to register for a freeFLOW ID.Download the Flow Study app on your mobile device from theGoogle Play Storeto access learning material and you're on your way to better grades. Flow Study is available across all Flow markets except Curacao.
About C&W CommunicationsCWC is a full service communications and entertainment provider and delivers market-leading video, broadband, telephony and mobile services to consumers in 18 countries. Through its business division, CWC provides data center hosting, domestic and international managed network services, and customized IT service solutions, utilizing cloud technology to serve business and government customers.
CWC also operates a state-of-the-art submarine fiber network - the most extensive in the region - in over 30 markets.
Learn more atwww.cwc.com, or follow C&W onLinkedIn,FacebookorTwitter.
About Liberty GlobalLiberty Global is the world's largest international TV and broadband company, with operations in more than 30 countries across Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean. We invest in the infrastructure that empowers our customers to make the most of the digital revolution. Our scale and commitment to innovation enables us to develop market-leading products delivered through next-generation networks that connect our 29 million customers who subscribe to over 59 million television, broadband internet and telephony services. We also serve 11 million mobile subscribers and offer WiFi service across seven million access points.
Liberty Global's businesses are comprised of two stocks: the Liberty Global Group (NASDAQ:LBTYA) (NASDAQ:LBTYB) (NASDAQ:LBTYK) for our European operations, and the LiLAC Group (NASDAQ:LILA) (NASDAQ:LILAK) (OTC PINK:LILAB), which consists of our operations in Latin America and the Caribbean.
The Liberty Global Group operates in 12 European countries under the consumer brands Virgin Media, Ziggo, Unitymedia, Telenet and UPC. The LiLAC Group operates in over 20 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean under the consumer brands VTR, Flow, Liberty, Mas Movil and BTC. In addition, the LiLAC Group operates a subsea fiber network throughout the region in over 30 markets.
For more information, please visitwww.libertyglobal.com.
Image Available:http://www2.marketwire.com/mw/frame_mw?attachid=3058430Image Available:http://www2.marketwire.com/mw/frame_mw?attachid=3058433Image Available:http://www2.marketwire.com/mw/frame_mw?attachid=3058436 || At your service: cyber criminals for hire to militants, EU says: THE HAGUE (Reuters) - Cybercriminals offering contract services for hire offer militant groups the means to attack Europe but such groups have yet to employ such techniques in major attacks, EU police agency Europol said on Wednesday. "There is currently little evidence to suggest that their cyber-attack capability extends beyond common website defacement," it said in its annual cybercrime threat assessment in a year marked by Islamic State violence in Europe. But the internet's criminal shadow the Darknet had potential to be exploited by militants taking advantage of computer experts offering "crime as a service", Europol added: "The availability of cybercrime tools and services, and illicit commodities (including firearms) on the Darknet, provide ample opportunities for this situation to change." Overall, the report found, existing trends in cybercrime continued to grow, with some of the European Union's member states reporting more cyber crimes than the traditional variety. "Europol is concerned about how an expanding cybercriminal community has been able to further exploit our increasing dependence on technology and the internet," its director, Rob Wainwright, said in a statement. "We have also seen a marked shift in cyber-facilitated activities relating to trafficking in human beings, terrorism and other threats." "Ransomware" - programmes which break into databases and demand payment for unlocking codes via virtual currencies such as Bitcoin - continued to expand as a problem, as did highly targeted "phishing" attacks to extract security data from senior figures - "CEO fraud" - and video streaming of child abuse. Attacks on bank cash-machine networks were also increasing, the report found, as were frauds exploiting new contactless payment card transactions, while traditional scams involving the physical presence of a card had been successfully reduced. (Reporting by Alastair Macdonald in Brussels; Editing by Jonathan Oatis) || PayPal's Biggest Threat Is Still Unknown, but It Is Out There: - By Nicholas Kitonyi
PayPal(PYPL) is the world's largest online payments platform and its transition in the mobile payments market appears to be taking shape with user-friendly secure apps created for the main market drivers.
At the end of May, I wrote a piece discussing howPayPal has been slimming upto optimize its operations around partnerships that provide a good case for sustainable growth.
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• PYPL 15-Year Financial Data
• The intrinsic value of PYPL
• Peter Lynch Chart of PYPL
It discontinued support forBlackberry's (BBRY) OS with now only the mobile web version available on the ailing smartphone maker's devices.Microsoft's (MSFT) Windows Phone OS andAmazon's (AMZN) Fire Phone were also cut out as PayPal moved to focus on iOS and Android based platforms.
This move appeared to make sense, and it still does. However, the company has also been making various changes to its user policy as it seeks to tighten security and increase restriction on who can and cannot use its online money transfer services.
Currently, PayPal is only partially available in most of the emerging and developing countries. Its primary markets remain in North America and Western Europe, which at the moment offer a modest growth potential.
Leading smartphone manufacturersSamsung Electronics(SSNLF) andApple(AAPL) on the other hand, have realized there is a great opportunity up for the taking in these emerging markets and have moved to manufacture devices tailor-made for these markets.
As such, PayPal should be ready to do the same if it is to maintain its global leadership in online payments in the foreseeable future. The company already faces competition from European-based playersPaySafe Group(Skrill) (PAYS.L), Neteller,Worldpay Group(WPG.L) and several other localized platforms. This will make its presence in these countries difficult as most locals move to utilize the locally friendly alternatives.
For instance, KIWI is currently a major threat in Australia and New Zealand, whereas Moneta.ru is the preferred choice for many in Russia. On the other hand, Ali Pay continues to dominate in China.
That is not all, companies are now introducing alternatives which are backed by the emergence of cryptocurrencies in the financial markets. BitGold is a platform that allows people to store money in the form of gold bullion, but in this case, it has been made available to retail and individual investors.
On the other hand, Bitcoin has also sparked the launch of several startups that seek to disrupt the payments industry. A good example is Paxful, which is a Bitcoin-based online payments platform that allows people to make payments online without the requirement of a bank account or credit card.
Most of these platforms also support online gambling and financial trading, which give them the link to one of the world's largest marketplaces. In contrast, PayPal does not support payments for online gambling and financial trading platforms. This means that PayPal may not be able to access some users who prefer to put all their online payments business in one wallet.
However, most users that prioritize on security might still end up putting PayPal ahead of the rest, which means that at the moment, it is hard to pinpoint a single alternative to PayPal that could be the online payments giant's main threat going forward.
There are those who still think that Apple Pay andAlphabet's (GOOG) (GOOGL) Google Wallet could spark the downfall of PayPal, especially given their massive user bases from other services they provide. However, these too are subject to stringent regulatory requirements which make it harder for them to provide their services in most countries.
As such, with the U.S., the strictest nation when it comes to financial regulation accounting for just about 300 million worth of addressable market for online payments users, the larger cake is pretty much left for foreign players to cut their share.
This means that while PayPal's main threat to its global domination is still unknown, we could safely say that it is out there. It could be Paxful, Skrill, Neteller or BitGold, among others. You never know, but it is out there.
Conclusion
In summary, PayPal's obstacles to maintaining its global domination of the online payments market are policy-based. All its users agree with the terms, but probably not everyone likes them. Tweaking the terms to accommodate the current outlier class could see the company lose most of its users, especially the ones that like the current terms.
Therefore, the best card the company can play is to keep its services better than those of its rivals, but that can be replicated, especially given the fact we are currently in the age of "copy and paste" when it comes to innovation.
Disclosure: I have no position in any stock mentioned in this article.
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• PYPL 15-Year Financial Data
• The intrinsic value of PYPL
• Peter Lynch Chart of PYPL || Indian bitcoin company raises $1.5 million from U.S., Indian investors: NEW YORK (Reuters) - Unocoin, a Bangalore-based bitcoin startup, has raised $1.5 million in funding from a mix of Indian and U.S. investors, the company announced on Thursday. The company, which runs a trading platform to buy, sell, and store bitcoins for Indian customers, said the money raised was the largest for an Indian bitcoin startup. Unocoin, which has 100,000 users and more than 30 employees, has been in operation since December 2013. Unocoin describes itself as the Coinbase of India. San Francisco-based Coinbase is the largest U.S. bitcoin company and runs an exchange and a wallet service, among other businesses. Funding came from Indian entities such as Blume Ventures, Mumbai Angels and ah! Ventures along with U.S. investors such as Digital Currency Group, Boost VC, Bank to the Future, and FundersClub. Digital Currency Group was founded by one of the top U.S. bitcoin investors Barry Silbert, while Boost VC is run by U.S.-based Adam Draper, the son of billionaire entrepreneur Tim Draper. "We needed a separate exchange for India. A few years ago when we wanted to buy bitcoin, there was nothing available in India," Sunny Ray, Unocoin's co-founder and president told Reuters in an interview. "So if you want to buy bitcoin from an international exchange, you will have to do a wire transfer from India to these international exchanges and get your bitcoin and oftentimes it takes three to five days." Unocoin raised about $200,000 in its first financing round. It started from a small hometown called Tumkur, near Bengaluru. Bitcoin, a digital currency, was trading at $604.50 on the Bitstamp platform. (Reporting by Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss; Editing by Lisa Shumaker) || Indian bitcoin company raises $1.5 million from U.S., Indian investors: NEW YORK (Reuters) - Unocoin, a Bangalore-based bitcoin startup, has raised $1.5 million in funding from a mix of Indian and U.S. investors, the company announced on Thursday. The company, which runs a trading platform to buy, sell, and store bitcoins for Indian customers, said the money raised was the largest for an Indian bitcoin startup. Unocoin, which has 100,000 users and more than 30 employees, has been in operation since December 2013. Unocoin describes itself as the Coinbase of India. San Francisco-based Coinbase is the largest U.S. bitcoin company and runs an exchange and a wallet service, among other businesses. Funding came from Indian entities such as Blume Ventures, Mumbai Angels and ah! Ventures along with U.S. investors such as Digital Currency Group, Boost VC, Bank to the Future, and FundersClub. Digital Currency Group was founded by one of the top U.S. bitcoin investors Barry Silbert, while Boost VC is run by U.S.-based Adam Draper, the son of billionaire entrepreneur Tim Draper. "We needed a separate exchange for India. A few years ago when we wanted to buy bitcoin, there was nothing available in India," Sunny Ray, Unocoin's co-founder and president told Reuters in an interview. "So if you want to buy bitcoin from an international exchange, you will have to do a wire transfer from India to these international exchanges and get your bitcoin and oftentimes it takes three to five days." Unocoin raised about $200,000 in its first financing round. It started from a small hometown called Tumkur, near Bengaluru. Bitcoin, a digital currency, was trading at $604.50 (BTC=BTSP) on the Bitstamp platform. (Reporting by Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)
[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
1 MUE Price: Bittrex 0.00000091 BTC YoBit 0.00000114 BTC Bleutrade 0.00000092 BTC #MUE #MUEprice 2016-10-13 03:00 pic.twitter.com/Y7ydmNt1LG || #UFOCoin #UFO $0.000012 (-0.33%) 0.00000002 BTC (-0.00%) || One Bitcoin now worth $661.88@bitstamp. High $662.00. Low $643.00. Market Cap $10.556 Billion #bitcoin pic.twitter.com/EUIQ5iIM3N || 1 KOBO = 0.00000308 BTC
= 0.0019 USD
= 0.5776 NGN
= 0.0264 ZAR
= 0.1923 KES
#Kobocoin 2016-10-08 16:00 pic.twitter.com/gKSuTO6BpJ || #ChainCoin #CHC $0.000081 (-0.12%) 0.00000013 BTC (0.00%) || #AudioCoin #ADC $0.000262 (4.76%) 0.00000041 BTC (5.00%) || 1 KOBO = 0.00000000 BTC
= 0.0000 USD
= 0.0000 NGN
= 0.0000 ZAR
= 0.0000 KES
#Kobocoin 2016-09-21 11:00 pic.twitter.com/6jJrZ9vH4D || Bitfinex to Hacker: Can We Have Our Bitcoin Back? http://bit.ly/2eCmLqG || BTC-E LAST 609.00$ AVERAGE 606.80$ at 20:32 UTC #Bitcoin #BTCUSD || oh please, bitcoin will probably be obsolete before that.
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Trend: up || Prices: 701.86, 700.97, 729.79, 740.83, 688.70, 703.23, 703.42, 711.52, 703.13, 709.85
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Analyze the provided historical prices, technical indicators, news, and social media sentiment from the last 60 days. Based on this context, predict the overall trend (up, down, or no change) and the specific daily closing prices for Bitcoin for the next 10 days.
|
[Technical Analysis]
Not fully available.
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
Income Void With a 401(k)? Use NUSI to Fill the Gap: This article was originally published on ETFTrends.com. Employer-sponsored retirement plans, such as 401(k)s, are important parts of the retirement planning equation, and workers with access to those plans should take advantage of them, but they don't complete the retirement income puzzle. Investors can tap the Nationwide Risk-Managed Income ETF (NYSEArca: NUSI) to fill in those holes. NUSI can act as a complement to traditional equity and fixed income allocations or as the ideal protective hedge for investors with heavy exposure to technology and growth stocks because the fund is a “rules-based options trading strategy that seeks to produce high income using the Nasdaq-100 Index,” according to Nationwide . “If you share that worry, you might be thrilled to hear that more employers are showing interest in providing annuity-based lifetime income options within their 401(k)s. This would allow you to convert your 401(k) savings into a stream of retirement income that will last as long as you do,” reports USA Today . That's one option, but it's not a free lunch as it comes with risks and fees not found with NUSI. Consider NUSI Instead of Cumbersome Conversions The Nationwide Risk-Managed Income ETF incorporates options exposure to help generate income and mitigate risk as a way to enhance total returns. Investors have long capitalized on covered call options strategies for income generation, or protective put options strategies to protect against and limit losses. The Nationwide Risk-Managed Income ETF uses an options trading strategy called a protective net-credit collar to generate income. The options strategy sells an upside call option and uses a portion of the proceeds received to buy a put option to hedge downside risk on an underlying portfolio of securities. NUSI is an actively managed portfolio of stocks included in the Nasdaq-100 Index and an options collar. Per index rules, the fund only invests in the top 100 largest (by market cap) nonfinancial stocks listed on NASDAQ. A collar strategy involves selling or writing call options and buying put options, thus generating income to hedge some downside risk. The strategy seeks to generate high current income monthly from any dividends received from the underlying stock and the option premiums retained. However, in unprecedented times of panic, when people are scrambling to do anything to make ends meet, investors have shown the tendency to take on more risk or make less prudent investment choices. NUSI can even out this scenario, too, because it offers a blend of growth and income rarely found with income-generating funds. Story continues For more on income strategies, visit our Retirement Income Channel . POPULAR ARTICLES AND RESOURCES FROM ETFTRENDS.COM SPY ETF Quote VOO ETF Quote QQQ ETF Quote VTI ETF Quote JNUG ETF Quote Top 34 Gold ETFs Top 34 Oil ETFs Top 57 Financials ETFs Stock ETFs Climb Again Friday Despite Lackluster Jobs Data SoFi Becoming Publicly-Traded via Merger with Social Capital Hedosophia New York Plans Sport Bets, But It May Not All Be Good for Gambling ETF Bitcoin Surges Past $40,000, Sustaining Bitcoin ETF Optimism Stock Index ETFs Gain For Third Day As Political Tensions Abate READ MORE AT ETFTRENDS.COM > View comments || Coinbase acquires crypto builder Bison Trails, deal reported to be above $80M: Cryptocurrency giant Coinbase on Tuesday announced it has acquired Bison Trails, a firm that specializes in building blockchain infrastructure for banks and other companies.
The deal is the latest in a spate of acquisitions for Coinbase, which is slated togo publicin the coming weeks. The company is trying to position itself as the go-to firm for a variety of crypto-related services beyond buying and selling digital assets like Bitcoin.
“[The deal] will help drive one of the greatest transformations in finance in the last hundred years and will drive us closer to achieving our mission of creating an open financial system,” said Coinbase in ablog postannouncing the acquisition.
Coinbase did not provide a dollar figure for the transaction, but a person familiar with the deal said it was the company’s biggest acquisition to date. Prior to Bison Trails, Coinbase’s largest purchase came last May when it bought a brokerage firmcalled Tagomi.That all-stock deal was reported to be worth around $80 million.
Founded in 2018, Brooklyn-based Bison Trails had raised $31 million for various investors, including Coinbase Ventures. The company has not disclosed revenue figures.
In the cryptocurrency world, Bison Trails touts itself as an infrastructure provider, helping other firms stand up features like nodes, which are intrinsic to the blockchain networks on which a variety of crypto protocols, including Bitcoin, operate. Blockchain is a type of software that creates a tamper-proof record of transactions across multiple, far-flung computers.
In an interview withFortune, Joe Lallouz, the CEO and cofounder of Bison Trails, declined to identify the company’s clients. But he said the firm has “around 200” customers in fields ranging from banking to fintech to currency exchanges.
Lallouz says he will stay on at Coinbase for now, though his precise role is still being determined.
For Coinbase, the Bison Trails acquisition is a bet that the current crypto industry boom—which has attracted newfound interest from banks and payment companies like Square—will continue, and that its more esoteric elements will gain traction.
Such elements include node-hosting, and services likestaking, which describes a feature in some newer cryptocurrencies that lets owners vote on how their blockchains are governed. Other recent innovations to the world of cryptocurrency include services that enable people to lend out their crypto, as well as blockchain-basedartandsports collectibles.
Surojit Chatterjee, the chief product officer at Coinbase, toldFortunethat he expects the crypto industry to develop along the lines of the video game industry, which lets anyone—including his 8-year-old son—learn how to build or modify games just by watching YouTube. Chatterjee says this is possible because many of the technical elements of building games are now tucked away in the background, letting users tinker with easy-to-use dashboards.
If Chatterjee’s prediction comes to pass, it will mean a wide variety of companies and consumers will be able to take advantage of blockchain tools that are currently the province of programmers and crypto diehards.
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This story was originally featured onFortune.com || UK Man Offers Council $72M if He Finds Discarded Bitcoin Trove at Landfill: A U.K. IT engineer who mistakenly threw away a hard drive with around £210 million (US$288 million) of bitcoin on it is asking the local government once again to allow him to search the local landfill for his device. James Howells dumped the hard drive containing 7,500 bitcoins back in 2013, and has had several requests to search the landfill denied. However, this time he is offering the local government in Newport, Wales, a reward of 25% of the bitcoin on that hard drive, which he said would go to a Covid Relief Fund for the city’s residents, reports the South Wales Argus . “It’s quite a lot of money still sat there in the landfill,” Howells told the publication, adding he would like to present an “action plan” to retrieve the physical hard drive. Bitcoin prices have climbed from $10,000 to $41,000 over the past three months. The price of bitcoin was at $38,417 at the time of publication, so this now makes the stash worth an estimated $288 million and the loss of his hard drive that much more painful. A spokeswoman for the Newport City Council told the Argus: “Even if we were able to agree to his request, there is the question of who would meet the cost [of digging up the landfill, storing and treating the waste] if the hard drive was not found or was damaged to such an extent that the data could not be recovered.” Recently ex-Ripple Labs CTO Stefan Thomas shared his story with the New York Times about a digital wallet he is unable to access because he forgot his password, leaving his multimillion-dollar fortune in limbo. Related Stories UK Man Offers Council $72M if He Finds Discarded Bitcoin Trove at Landfill UK Man Offers Council $72M if He Finds Discarded Bitcoin Trove at Landfill UK Man Offers Council $72M if He Finds Discarded Bitcoin Trove at Landfill UK Man Offers Council $72M if He Finds Discarded Bitcoin Trove at Landfill || Stock Market Today: Electric E-Commerce Earnings Send Nasdaq to New High: An improving economic backdrop and a few standout earnings reports helped send some of the major indices back into record territory Thursday. Initial jobless claims for the week ending Jan. 30 came in at 779,000 – lower than expected, and 33,000 fewer than the prior week's claims, which were sharply revised downward to 812,000. SEE MORE 50 Top Stock Picks That Billionaires Love "Altogether, the signal from this week's claims data is one of modest further improvement following recent deterioration," write Barclays' Michael Gapen and Pooja Sriram. "Trends in initial claims in early 2021 point to some improvement in the rate of job separations in January, though this week's readings will be reflected in February employment conditions given the timing of the survey week for employment conditions (the week that includes the 12th of the month)." Also noteworthy were factory orders, which improved by 1% month-over-month in December, exceeding expectations. On the earnings front , PayPal Holdings ( PYPL , +7.4%) took off after reporting Wednesday night that fourth-quarter profits tripled amid continued pandemic-driven adoption of digital payments. "We continue to appreciate PYPL's growth and positioning for a post-Covid world, which is accelerating the secular trends of e-commerce and digitization of cash and payments," writes Chris Kuiper, analyst at CFRA, adding that "we are particularly interested in PYPL's foray into crypto assets, which we think could become a much bigger opportunity." "However, shares continue to embed very high growth expectations, therefore we remain neutral." SEE MORE Hedge Funds' 25 Top Blue-Chip Stocks to Buy Now Interestingly, eBay ( EBAY , +5.3%), which PayPal split from in 2015, also had itself a day after robust holiday sales fueled a Q4 earnings beat. Those and other strong tech performances led the Nasdaq Composite (+1.2% to 13,777) and S&P 500 (+1.1% to 3,871) to new closing highs. The Dow Jones Industrial Average finished with a strong 1.1% gain to 31,055. Story continues Other action in the stock market today: U.S. crude oil futures continued their ascent, finishing a full 1.0% higher to $56.23 per barrel. Gold futures tumbled 2.4%, settling at $1,791.20 per ounce. Bitcoin prices, at $37,068 on Wednesday, advanced 1.2% to $37,528. (Bitcoin trades 24 hours a day; prices reported here are as of 4 p.m. each trading day.) stock chart for 020421 Small Caps Keep Punching Above Their Weight But the stars of Thursday's show – and 2021, for that matter – were small-cap stocks. The Russell 2000 also clinched a new high, advancing 2.0% to 2,202, which puts the index up 11.5% for the year-to-date. A couple days ago, we pointed out that January was a tough one for the broader market , but Bank of America reminds investors that the Russell 2000 was the only segment that gained in January (+5.0%), and its analysts remain bullish for several reasons. "Small cap profits should bounce back stronger than their decline, and guidance trends are strongest here of the three size segments," they say, also pointing to stimulus, sentiment and support for smaller businesses as other catalysts for further gains. Investors can harness some of these effects in mid-cap stocks , which boast advantages such as more diversified revenue streams and better financial stability. But if you're willing to roll with the volatility punches the small-cap space can throw, these 11 smaller firms could fit the bill. Because of their size, they don't get as much media attention, so they fly under a lot of investors' radar, but they boast the potential for an electrifying year ahead. Kyle Woodley was long Bitcoin as of this writing. SEE MORE The 21 Best Stocks to Buy for 2021 || FOREX-Dollar extends 2020 losing streak amid upbeat sentiment; yuan shines: (Adds European PMIs, quote, new milestone) * Dollar softens against most majors; virus worries lift yen * China's yuan soars * Focus turns to Georgia Senate race * Bitcoin slumps after stellar rally By Julien Ponthus LONDON, Jan 4 (Reuters) - The U.S. dollar fell to mid-2018 lows on Monday as bullish sentiment across global markets prompted investors to buy riskier currencies such as the Chinese yuan and the euro, despite a resurgent pandemic. With U.S. interest rates pinned at record lows, massive U.S. deficits and a belief that rebounding world trade will drive non-dollar currencies higher, the dollar weakened on the first day of trading in 2021 after falling nearly 7% last year. The Chinese currency was the biggest beneficiary of the weak dollar trade. The yuan rocketed to a two-and-a-half-year high. "The U.S. dollar slipped further through the threshold of the new year as global risk sentiment stayed buoyant", said Alvin Tan, an FX strategist at RBC Capital Markets. The dollar index touched a low of 89.415, a level last seen in mid-2018, and was down 0.3% at 89.529. The Chinese yuan rose to 6.44 yuan per dollar after Beijing cut the weighting of the U.S. dollar in a key currency index basket. That could push the yuan's value higher against its peers this year, analysts said, while Chinese factory activity continued to accelerate in December. The euro, which had dipped on New Year's Eve profit-taking, rose 0.6% to $1.2294, just short of 2018 highs with positive economic indicators backing the single currency. IHS Markit economist Phil Smith said the latest data showed German manufacturing continued to power on at the end of the year. "With the rollout of the COVID vaccines, it's hoped that the pandemic will become less and less of a hindrance to demand and that investment will continue to recover in the year ahead." Also, a closely watched gauge of growth in British manufacturing activity rose to its highest level in three years as factories rushed to complete work before the end of the post-Brexit transition period on Dec. 31. Sterling abandoned most of its early gains against the dollar, retreating below $1.37 but close to levels last seen in early 2018. The safe-haven yen rose 0.4% to 102.87 per dollar, after Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga said his government was mulling a state of emergency in Tokyo as coronavirus cases rise. Bitcoin had a rough ride, falling as low as $27,734 at one point, after making dramatic gains over the new year's break. It was last down 6.4% at $30.980. The world's most popular cryptocurrency surged over $30,000 for the first time on Saturday, touched a record high of $34,800 a day later, as investors continued to bet the digital currency was on its way to becoming a mainstream asset. ======================================================== Currency bid prices at 12:08PM in London (01208 GMT) Description RIC Last U.S. Close Pct Change YTD Pct High Bid Low Bid Previous Change Session Euro/Dollar $1.2291 $1.2218 +0.61% +0.61% +1.2301 +1.2211 Dollar/Yen 102.8950 103.2900 -0.46% -0.47% +103.3100 +102.7300 Euro/Yen 126.47 126.15 +0.25% -0.35% +126.5200 +126.1100 Dollar/Swiss 0.8798 0.8847 -0.54% -0.54% +0.8845 +0.8789 Sterling/Dollar 1.3647 1.3662 -0.10% -0.10% +1.3703 +1.3645 Dollar/Canadian 1.2694 1.2734 -0.43% -0.31% +1.2735 +1.2666 Aussie/Dollar 0.7719 0.7693 +0.34% +0.34% +0.7740 +0.7682 NZ 0.7208 0.7181 +0.40% +0.40% +0.7230 +0.7183 Dollar/Dollar All spots Tokyo spots Europe spots Volatilities Tokyo Forex market info from BOJ (Reporting by Julien Ponthus; editing by Lincoln Feast, Larry King) || GLOBAL MARKETS-Global equities rise as U.S. bond yield fears ease: (Adds gold, oil settlement prices)
* Reuters Live Markets blog:
* Graphic: Global asset performance http://tmsnrt.rs/2yaDPgn
* Graphic: World FX rates http://tmsnrt.rs/2egbfVh
By Herbert Lash
NEW YORK, Feb 24 (Reuters) - A gauge of global equity markets rose on Wednesday after Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said interest rates will remain low, calming market jitters sparked by a jump in U.S. Treasury yields on fears a robust recovery would drive inflation higher.
Sales of new U.S. single-family homes increased more than expected in January as the median sale price rose 5.3% on a year-over-year basis, the latest data to show certain consumer prices are rising faster than expected.
Crude oil rose more than 2% to fresh 13-month highs while gold prices struggled for traction as elevated Treasury yields eroded the allure of bullion as an inflation hedge.
The dollar slid to multi-year lows against the pound and commodity-linked currencies including the Canadian, Australian and New Zealand dollars, as they're expected to benefit from a pick-up in global trade as world growth rebounds.
MSCI's all-country world index, a gauge of equity markets in 49 countries, added 0.16%, as rising stocks on Wall Street pushed the global benchmark to reverse losses.
Progress in the roll-out of coronavirus vaccines, which was boosted by news that Johnson & Johnson's one-shot vaccine appeared safe and effective, has increased economic optimism but also inflation concerns, said Patrick Leary, chief market strategist and senior trader at Incapital in Minneapolis.
"If you look at commodity prices, you look at real estate prices and you look at energy prices, they're up significantly higher than even pre-pandemic levels," he said.
In testimony before the House of Representatives Financial Services Committee, Powell reiterated the Fed's promise to get the U.S. economy back to full employment and to not worry about inflation unless prices rise in a persistent and troubling way.
While rising yields give stock investors pause, the Fed is "pretty comfortable" with them as they take some of the froth out of the financial system, Leary said.
The 10-year U.S. Treasury note yield rose 2.2 basis points to 1.3859% after hitting 1.435% earlier. The benchmark Treasury yield traded at 0.912% at the end of 2020.
The slipping of 10-year Treasury yields below the 1.4% mark helped equity markets rebound from early losses, but the rotation out of technology stocks was apparent, with Apple Inc and Amazon.com Inc leading Wall Street lower. In Europe, the tech sector has lost nearly 4% this week.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 1.23%, the S&P 500 gained 0.97% and the Nasdaq Composite advanced 0.63%.
Europe's broad FTSEurofirst 300 index closed up 0.4% at 1,590.09 after earlier trading lower on inflation fears.
The benchmark 10-year German Bund was steady after yields jumped on Tuesday.
A sharp rise in real bond yields in line with those seen during previous "bond tantrum episodes" would reduce the upside potential for European equities, BofA Global Research said.
Sectors set to benefit from a stronger economy were supported by German GDP data, as exports and solid construction activity helped Europe's biggest economy to grow by a better-than-expected 0.3% in the fourth quarter.
Germany's DAX rose 0.8%.
Falling tech stocks, which are sensitive to rising yields, pulled Asian markets lower overnight.
Bitcoin recovered a bit, up 0.5% at $49,139.34.
The dollar index rose 0.074%, with the euro down 0.03% to $1.2145. The Japanese yen weakened 0.65% versus the greenback to 105.92 per dollar.
Oil prices rose after U.S. government data showed a drop in crude output after a deep freeze disrupted production last week.
Brent crude futures settled up $1.67 at $67.04 a barrel, while U.S. crude futures rose $1.55 to settle at $63.22 a barrel.
Brent and U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures have both risen by about 28% so far in 2021.
U.S. gold futures settled down 0.4% at $1,797.90 an ounce.
(Reporting by Herbert Lash, additional reporting by Elizabeth Howcroft in London; Editing Chizu Nomiyama, Kirsten Donovan and Paul Simao) || Charlie Munger speaks at the Daily Journal Annual Meeting: Legendary investor and polymath Charlie Munger, Berkshire Hathaway's vice-chairman and Warren Buffett's long-time business partner, headlined the Annual Meeting of Shareholders of the Daily Journal Corporation ( DJCO ) in Los Angeles on Wednesday. For nearly two hours, Munger, chairman of the Daily Journal's board, and Jerry Salzman, the company's CEO, fielded shareholder questions about topics ranging from SPACs, Bitcoin, and bubbles to mental models, circles of competency, and moats. The meeting kicked off with a shareholder question about the speculative frenzy in the broader market and the psychological implications of these frenzies. Munger said his best policy is to "ride them out." He also noted that the crowd tends to buy stocks on credit when they see them going up, which he added is "a very dangerous way to invest." Responding to a question about the recent Reddit-fueled GameStop short-squeeze , Munger said it's "the kind of thing that can happen when you get a whole lot of people who are using liquid stock markets to gamble the way they would in betting on racehorses." He added that the "frenzy is fed by people who are getting commissions and other revenues out of this new bunch of gamblers. And of course, when things get extreme, you have things like that short squeeze." As for SPACs, or special purpose acquisition companies, Munger said he thinks "the world would be better off without them," adding that this "crazy speculation in enterprises not even found or picked out yet, is a sign of an irritating bubble." "It's just that the investment banking profession will sell s— as long as s— can be sold," Munger said. While Buffett is the more public and recognizable face of Berkshire Hathaway ( BRK-B , BRK-A ), the iconic conglomerate was built on Munger's blueprint of moving beyond so-called "cigar-butt" investing to "buying wonderful businesses at fair prices." Story continues Thousands of people usually make the pilgrimage to Omaha, Nebraska, to listen to Buffett and Munger during Berkshire Hathaway's annual shareholder meeting. Still, Munger's devoted followers— affectionately nicknamed by him as "groupies" — travel to Los Angeles for the Daily Journal annual meeting, where he holds court as chairman. Like most in-person events, this year’s meeting was held virtually. Shareholders and value-investing enthusiasts also used to make the trip for Pasadena, Calif.-based Wesco Financial Corp. meeting before Berkshire acquired it. While there were only 410 shareholders of record of Daily Journal's common stock as of Dec. 15, according to its annual report, Munger attracts a sizable and engaged audience each year, including non-shareholders, to hear his wisdom and maxims about business, investing , and life. He also talks about the Daily Journal's business. Warren Buffett (L), CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, and vice chairman Charlie Munger attend the 2019 annual shareholders meeting in Omaha, Nebraska, May 3, 2019. (Photo by Johannes EISELE / AFP) (JOHANNES EISELE via Getty Images) The company publishes 10 newspapers, including the Los Angeles Daily Journal and the San Francisco Daily Journal. Journal Technologies provides case management software for courts and other justice agencies. The software business accounted for 71% of its total operating revenues in fiscal 2020, up from 65% of total revenues in 2019, according to its annual report. In the shareholder letter, Munger noted that after many years as a "cash cow," the newspaper business broke even, posting revenue of $14.695 million, down 14% from the prior year. Meanwhile, the "much more important" software business delivered $35.247 million in revenue, up 12% from the year-ago period. "I am very optimistic about the eventual success of the Company's software business, but I expect this to take considerable time. In the Company's newspaper business, my best hope is for it to turn a modest profit each year for many years to come," Munger wrote. As of Sept. 30, the Daily Journal Corporation held $28.96 million in cash and had a stock portfolio valued at $179.37 million. The portfolio includes investments in Bank of America ( BAC ), Wells Fargo ( WFC ), US Bancorp ( USB ), and Posco ( PKX ), according to the most recent 13-F securities filing . The portfolio of five companies includes one based in foreign currency. "This trove of liquid wealth backs up the Company's operating businesses," Munger wrote. "The Company's liquid wealth came from retained newspaper earnings, multiplied by seizing opportunities of a type no longer widely available." Munger added that the stock portfolio's value reached $260 million on Dec. 31, up 45% from the end of September. He noted that "shareholders should not expect any significant appreciation above that level anytime soon." At the meeting, Munger was pressed on why the Daily Journal h as not sold its shares in Wells Fargo while Berkshire Hathway has been cutting it. Munger noted that the prior leadership at Wells Fargo "were not consciously malevolent or thieving," but they had "terrible judgment in having a culture of cross-selling." “You can understand why Warren got disenchanted with Wells Fargo. I think I'm a little more lenient, I expect less out of bankers than he does,” Munger said. In response to a question about new technology disrupting the banking system, Munger s aid he does not think bitcoin is going to end up as the medium of exchange for the world. “It’s too volatile...to serve well as a medium of exchange," he added. In another shareholder question about the Daily Journal putting the cryptocurrency on its balance sheet, he responded: "We will not be following Tesla into bitcoin." Munger, who also sits on the Costco ( COST ) board of directors, said the membership warehouse retailer "has one thing that Amazon ( AMZN ) does not." "People really trust Costco to be delivering enormous values. That is why Costco presents some danger to Amazon — because they've got a better reputation for providing value than practically anybody including Amazon,"Munger said. During the meeting, Munger also revealed that he admires Lee Kuan Yew so much that he keeps a bust of Singapore’s first prime minister at his house. “Lee Kuan Yew had the best record as a nation builder," Munger explained. "He had probably the best grade record that ever existed in the history of the world. He took over a malarial swamp, with no army … And pretty soon, he turned that into this gloriously prosperous place.” Shares of Daily Journal Corporation closed at $404 on Dec. 31, a price "reached amid (1) much speculative frenzy and (2) much forced buying by index funds," Munger wrote. Shares of Daily Journal closed up 1.36%, or $4.70, to end Wednesday at $351. Julia La Roche is a correspondent for Yahoo Finance. Follow her on Twitter . || KuCoin CEO Johnny Lyu on Building Bridges and Innovating at the Forefront of Cryptocurrency: As the CEO of top-ten cryptocurrency exchange KuCoin, Johnny Lyu occupies an enviable position. The company he leads is responsible for safeguarding billions of dollars of customer funds while innovating to stay ahead of the competition. In November 2020, KuCoin suffered a major security breach that saw $281 million of crypto assets stolen. Thankfully, all of the funds were later recovered through a variety of means, ensuring that KuCoin users weren’t left out of pocket. Rather than downplay the incident, Lyu has faced it head on, using the experience as an opportunity to rebuild and restore community trust. Here, the KuCoin CEO reveals the reasoning behind this decision and the dividends it has reaped not only for his company, but for its six million users. Johnny Lyu, KuCoin CEO You’ve been extremely frank about the hack that KuCoin suffered last year, when other exchanges might have tried to put the matter behind them and move on. What were your motivations for highlighting the incident, and how has KuCoin benefited from this decision? As the People’s Exchange, we believe our customers deserve to know the truth. The incident has already happened so we cannot ignore the elephant in the room. Instead of covering it up, our choice was to face it and solve it. And only if we solved it properly could we move on with our community. As an exchange serving 6 million users worldwide, we did what we were supposed to do to handle the incident, protect our users and their funds. We know there are things we did not do perfectly with this incident, but when I look back again today, I see it more as a learning opportunity, which let us find existing problems with KuCoin. As the incident broke out, we were able to respond before it developed and became too difficult to solve. The saying “what does not kill you makes you stronger” resonates with us. I believe that KuCoin today is stronger than we have ever been. Can you elaborate on the security measures you’ve taken to prevent a recurrence, and explain why you’re confident that such an incident couldn’t occur again? In the investigation after the incident, it was noticed that the private key leakage of some of our hot wallets was caused by a complex APT attack which damaged our internal network, allowing the attacker to bypass our security system. We have confirmed that the related vulnerabilities were fixed immediately. Story continues Besides, a number of security measures have been implemented by our wallet team and security team to prevent a recurrence, including but not limited to redeployment of all hot wallets, security system upgrade and network security architecture system upgrade. We have also achieved close cooperation with top security and anti-APT agencies to improve the overall security level, and the results will be reviewed by one of the Big Four accounting firms later this year with a security standard certification. It is worth noting that with the help of our exchange, project and security partners, 84% of the stolen funds have been recovered while the remaining 16% have been covered by KuCoin ourselves. So all users have gotten their tokens back in full as we promised. Source: KuCoin While operating an exchange, security is always our main priority. After recovering from one of the most severe security incidents with all users’ funds secured, we will not fear any security challenges going forward. The security level of KuCoin has been greatly improved, and we’ve also proved that we have the responsibility and capability to protect our users even in the face of challenges. What has the response been from KuCoin’s users to the way you handled the affair, and the measures you took to ensure they weren’t left out of pocket? Do you believe that you have increased trust and restored KuCoin’s reputation? Since the inception of the incident, we have been trying our best to handle it in an open and transparent way. A few YouTube live streams were arranged in which I was there to introduce the latest updates. And we were also updating the progress of service resumption and funds recovery on a daily basis through our official announcements and social media channels. Regarding the response of our users, I was personally quite moved that rather than blaming us, many of our users encouraged and supported us in this very difficult time. It’s also totally understandable that a few users are panicked or impatient, but as they got to know the difficulty of dealing with this kind of incident, and as they saw a growing number of services had resumed and funds been recovered, many of them came to appreciate our quick actions and are even getting more confident in KuCoin. Building trust is a long-term journey and it took us three years to build the strong KuCoin community today. We will continue to build, gain more trust and grow our community. This year we’ve seen some remarkable scenes in the traditional markets, with “the revenge of retail” punishing Wall Street short sellers and the subsequent backlash driving mainstream users to crypto. What are your thoughts on this trend, and do you believe it could create a perfect storm for crypto and defi adoption? The dissatisfaction of retail against Wall Street has been accumulating for a long time and the WSB affair is simply what triggered the outbreak. This is surely an opportunity for crypto as lots of celebrities are now talking about crypto – mostly Bitcoin and Dogecoin – lately, driving lots of new traffic to the crypto space. The attention from outsiders will increase mainstream recognition of crypto but will not in itself improve the intrinsic value of the industry. The value blockchain and crypto can bring to the world still depend on us builders. The good thing is that as a result of the WSB incident, the value of censorship-resistant dApps has become apparent. Take Mirror Protocol, a DeFi protocol that is newly listed on KuCoin, for instance. The protocol allows users to issue and trade US stocks, and many people see Mirror as the decentralized counterpart of Robinhood. As Robinhood stopped users from buying GME and AMC stocks, Mirror decided to launch GME and AMC. If it’s approved, GME and AMC stocks could be issued and traded on this platform. These initiatives have helped Mirror attract lots of attention and users. According to the latest data , 30K of transactions were completed on the platform in 24 hours with a fee of 100,000 UST (a stablecoin that pegged to the US dollar), reaching a total locked value of over $322 million, while the price of MIR tokens reached an all-time high on KuCoin. The rise of decentralized exchanges has given their centralized counterparts food for thought. Do you see CEXs as being in competition with DEXs, or is there scope for both platforms to coexist? And how does the rise of DEXs play into your decision to list defi assets that are native to AMMs and decentralized finance? The growth of DEXs looks promising but I don’t think DEXs will eventually replace CEXs. Rather, they will coexist in the future as they each cater to the needs of a certain group of traders. As the home of crypto gems, KuCoin is happy to list and support all promising blockchain projects; actually many DeFi tokens are pleased to have primary listings on KuCoin even though they have been listed on top DEXs. And we are also working on our decentralized trading solutions as the mission of KuCoin is to be the bridge-builder in the blockchain-based future, connecting global investors and valuable blockchain projects worldwide. One crypto growth area that KuCoin is supporting is NFTs. Do you believe NFTs are the next big growth area in crypto, and if so, why? NFTs are actually not a new concept and can be traced back to 2012. But starting from 2017, significant growth has been seen with the market cap of the NFT industry up 482%, 17%, and 50% in 2018, 2019, and 2020 respectively, according to data from Cointelegraph . The value of NFTs transferred also reached a new high in 2020, topping out at about $250 million. The future growth and prosperity of NFTs is driven by our inner need for ownership. Crypto allows people to be the real owner of their money, and NFTs have the potential to allow people to truly own other types of assets, from property and football tickets to gaming items. KuCoin has been working with a number of NFT projects like LUKSO, DEGO, VIDT and SENSO, and all of them have seen holder growth and adoption increase in 2020. LUKSO, for instance, is dedicated to integrating NFTs with the fashion industry, and their NFTs have been implemented in many events like the Helsinki Fashion Week last year. To further contribute to the NFT industry, and support more promising NFT projects, KuCoin’s NFT exchange will also be launched in the first quarter of 2021. You’ve noted that there are plans to enhance fiat onramps with the addition of support for PayPal. How important do you believe better fiat integration is to onboarding retail users, and are there plans to further augment KuCoin’s existing on- and offramps? From fiat to crypto is still one of the biggest obstacles for crypto adoption. The process is easier in countries where clear regulations have been introduced. KuCoin is offering services to over 200 countries and regions, and we noticed that in many developing countries, lots of investors are willing to embrace crypto while the door is closed to them. For example, our traffic from Bangladesh is on the rise throughout 2020, while before KuCoin became the first exchange to offer peer-to-peer fiat trade service in BDT , crypto traders in Bangladesh could only complete fiat-to-crypto trade in Telegram groups where the admins perform as the intermediary to match the transactions. This is a method with low efficiency and high risk. KuCoin currently offers two major ways to buy crypto: buy with credit card and peer-to-peer fiat trade. We will continue to support more fiats and payment tools, and we also have plans to introduce fiat pairs later this year. Can you elaborate on any of the plans that are in the KuCoin roadmap for this year, such as adding isolated margin trading, leveraged tokens and DEX support? At the product level, KuCoin is going to introduce more services to better cater to the trading needs of both novice and experienced traders. A lite version of the KuCoin app and KuCoin in-app trading bot are more for crypto newbies. And features like isolated margin and leveraged tokens are designed for traders with a more advanced trading strategy. At the asset level, KuCoin has listed over 200 promising projects and we will continue to find the next crypto gems. This will be achieved by our blockchain project research team in multiple continents, and we will also focus more efforts on our native token KCS, making it one of the most precious gems on KuCoin. || Fireblocks Rolls Out Staking Rewards for Eth 2.0, Polkadot and Tezos: Announced Thursday, Fireblocks is partnering with staking infrastructure providers Staked and Blockdaemon to offer hosted proof-of-stake (PoS) services for Ethereum 2.0 and the popular Polkadot (DOT) and Tezos (XTZ) tokens.
Fireblocks, whichraised $30 million in fundingin November last year, uses a technique called multi-party computation (MPC) that protects cryptographic keys by splitting them into pieces, and which the company says is well suited to the dynamic business of blockchain token staking.
“We are launching staking wallets to Fireblocks customers who collectively hold a significant balance of crypto assets,” Fireblocks CEO Michael Shaulov said in an interview. He said that while the majority of Fireblocks’ over 165 clients havebitcoin, “between DOT,XTZandETHwe have over $1 billion of assets” that can be staked.
Related:Some Asian Traders Are Using Polkadot to Predict Bitcoin's Future
The custodian’s clients include some of the large crypto lenders such as Celsius, BlockFi, Salt and Nexo. Fireblocks also provides custody to U.K.-based firms Revolut and B2C2, as well as Coinflex, Galaxy and a lot of smaller crypto hedge funds, Shaulov said.
By participating in blockchain staking, token holders are required to have skin in the game by committing some of their assets on the network to verify transactions. Network validators can earn between 10%-15% yield on those assets, a tempting proposition for financial institutions in the current no-interest climate.
More broadly, participants are betting on the next generation of finance; backing a given economic system isanalogous, in some respects, to the way banks are required to post capital reserves in the traditional financial world today.
Generating and managing various sets of validation and withdrawal keys is not for the layman, but the biggest pain about staking is maintaining constantly available infrastructure to verify transactions. Failure to do so results in a slashing of the validator’s stake.
Related:These DeFi Tokens Have Double-Digit Gains as Bitcoin's Growth Tapers
“For our clients, from an operational or technical standpoint, it’s actually transparent,” said Shaulov. “They don’t need to do anything special. When they sign the delegation message, we select the infrastructure and switch into the optimized nodes.”
In return for maintaining the service, Fireblocks takes a 10% slice of the yield the staker earns.
Shaulov sees the new service as a way of inviting retail investors to get more involved in staking. Celsius and others are retail gateways, he pointed out. “Our customers that are retail-facing are planning to basically act as a gateway and roll out Eth 2 staking to generate the market for retail investors that are long on ETH,” Shaulov said.
Such an invitation to retail involvement could be a step towards a fintech app approach to crypto staking. So, is this a conversation Fireblocks is having with customers like Revolut, for instance, which allows users to buy and hold crypto?
“I think they [Revolut] have a roadmap of things set out ahead that are perhaps less advanced, but they are interested in looking at it,” Shaulov said. “Part of the reason we are releasing it is because of how compelling it is to fintech companies like Revolut and others.”
• Fireblocks Rolls Out Staking Rewards for Eth 2.0, Polkadot and Tezos
• Fireblocks Rolls Out Staking Rewards for Eth 2.0, Polkadot and Tezos || Warren Buffett In Annual Letter Signals More Stock Buybacks Coming This Year, Says Don't 'Bet Against America': Warren Buffett in his annual letter to shareholders offered words of encouragement to a battered country while also signaling that more stock buybacks are to come. Buffett's Annual Letter : The letter from the 90-year-old chief executive officer of Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (NYSE: BRK-A ) (NYSE: BRK-B ) was even more anticipated than usual this year, because his influential voice has largely been silent since his last letter, which came in the very early days of the pandemic. A lot has happened since, from the contentious election and ensuing fallout, to the arrival of retailer investors pushing "stonks," not to mention the meteoric rise of Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC). Buffett's lieutenant, Berkshire Hathaway Vice Chairman Charlie Munger, spoke on Wednesday about some of these issues. He said the trading in stocks such as GameStop Corp. (NYSE: GME ) was tantamount to "betting on racehorses" and cast doubt on the idea that Bitcoin will ever replace regular money as the world's primary medium of exchange. Buffett in his letter did not talk about cryptocurrency or GameStop, but he did touch on the turmoil of the past year, without directly referencing any particular event. He used the stories of companies throughout the country that he has invested in, such as GEICO and Pilot Travel Centers, to deliver a simple, clear message: " Never bet against America." (Italics in original.) "There has been no incubator for unleashing human potential like America. Despite some severe interruptions, our country’s economic progress has been breathtaking," he wrote. "Beyond that, we retain our constitutional aspiration of becoming 'a more perfect union.' Progress on that front has been slow, uneven and often discouraging. We have, however, moved forward and will continue to do so." Earnings, Stock Repurchases : As for the latest numbers on the company's performance, the letter showed Berkshire earned $42.5 billion last year, down 48% from 2019's $81.4 billion. This included an $11 billion loss from a write-down in subsidiary and affiliate businesses, particularly the 2016 purchase of Portland, Oregon-based metal fabricator Precision Castparts. Story continues The company does business in the aerospace industry — not the best one to be in last year. In his letter, Buffett said he overpaid for the company and that last year's "adverse developments" in the industry made that clear. "I was simply too optimistic about PCC’s normalized profit potential," Buffett wrote. The company spent $24.7 billion to repurchase the equivalent of 80,998 "A" shares last year, including $9 billion in the fourth quarter. That is likely to continue: "Berkshire has repurchased more shares since year-end and is likely to further reduce its share count in the future," Buffett wrote. Berkshire also as usual listed its top holdings by market value. They included Apple Inc (NASDAQ: AAPL ), Coca-Cola Co (NYSE: KO ), American Express Company (NYSE: AXP ) and Bank of America Corp (NYSE: BAC ). Filings from Berkshire earlier this month showed the company trimmed its positions in Apple while piling into drug, telecom and oil companies in the latest quarter. Recent Price Action : Berkshire's class B shares ended Friday at $240.51, down for the week at 0.54%. Class A shares were down 0.88% to $364,580. Photo Courtesy Wikimedia Commons. See more from Benzinga Click here for options trades from Benzinga Bitcoin Hits Another All-Time High 30,000 Macs Infected With Newly Detected Form Of Malware, Dubbed 'Silver Sparrow' © 2021 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.
[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
None available.
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Trend: up || Prices: 49631.24, 48378.99, 50538.24, 48561.17, 48927.30, 48912.38, 51206.69, 52246.52, 54824.12, 56008.55
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Analyze the provided historical prices, technical indicators, news, and social media sentiment from the last 60 days. Based on this context, predict the overall trend (up, down, or no change) and the specific daily closing prices for Bitcoin for the next 10 days.
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[Technical Analysis for 2020-06-12]
BTC Price: 9480.84, BTC RSI: 50.60
Gold Price: 1729.30, Gold RSI: 53.68
Oil Price: 36.26, Oil RSI: 57.63
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
MONDAY DEADLINE ALERT: The Schall Law Firm Announces the Filing of a Class Action Lawsuit Against Canaan Inc. and Encourages Investors with Losses in Excess of $100,000 to Contact the Firm: Los Angeles, California--(Newsfile Corp. - April 28, 2020) -The Schall Law Firm, a national shareholder rights litigation firm, announces the filing of a class action lawsuit against Canaan Inc. (NASDAQ: CAN) ("Canaan" or "the Company") for violations of the federal securities laws.
Investors who purchased the Company's securities pursuant and/or traceable to the Company's initial public offering ("IPO") on or about November 20, 2019, are encouraged to contact the firm before May 4, 2020.
If you are a shareholder who suffered a loss,click here to participate.
We also encourage you to contact Brian Schall of the Schall Law Firm, 1880 Century Park East, Suite 404, Los Angeles, CA 90067, at 310-301-3335, to discuss your rights free of charge. You can also reach us through the firm's website atwww.schallfirm.com, or by email atbrian@schallfirm.com.
The class, in this case, has not yet been certified, and until certification occurs, you are not represented by an attorney. If you choose to take no action, you can remain an absent class member.
According to the Complaint, the Company made false and misleading statements to the market. Canaan claimed to engage in "strategic cooperation" which was really just a related-party transaction. The Company was in a weaker financial position than it reported. The Company removed many distributors immediately before the IPO, many of which were of dubious quality. Many of the Company's Chinese customers were not in the Bitcoin industry and were therefore not likely to buy its products again. Based on these facts, the Company's public statements were false and materially misleading throughout the class period. When the market learned the truth about Canaan, investors suffered damages.
Join the caseto recover your losses.
The Schall Law Firm represents investors around the world and specializes in securities class action lawsuits and shareholder rights litigation.
This press release may be considered Attorney Advertising in some jurisdictions under the applicable law and rules of ethics.
CONTACT:
The Schall Law FirmBrian Schall, Esq.,www.schallfirm.comOffice: 310-301-3335info@schallfirm.com
SOURCE:
The Schall Law Firm
To view the source version of this press release, please visithttps://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/55033 || Negative Oil Prices Could Hurt Bitcoin Miners Who Use Flared Gas: The few North American bitcoin miners who’ve built their businesses around fossil-fuel extraction are watching the oil markets with moreexcitementthan fear, they say, as oil prices sink tohistoric lows.
Oil-extraction companies need to reduce gas emissions for environmental reasons. So, instead offlaring off excess gason site, somebitcoinmining firms – likeUpstream Datain Canada,Crusoe Energyin Colorado and DJ Bitwreck in Texas – capture the excess gas to fuel hundreds of bitcoin-mining computers.
The trouble is, if oil market collapse shuts these power sources down then bitcoin miners can’t capture their waste.
Related:Market Wrap: Oil Futures Plunge, Bitcoin Dips and Tether Has a $7B Day
When the price of bitcoin drops dramatically, as it did in March,bitcoin miningcan quickly become unprofitable. Some mining operationsshut downrather than lose money. Only larger, industrial farms can withstand months without profits if thebitcoin priceremains low.
Entrepreneurs need to look for cheap power sources – and that’s where oil-abstraction waste products come in.
In Texas, a bitcoin miner who goes by the alias DJ Bitwreck said he’s building new hardware for capturingflare gas. His team, with four co-founders total, will take another five months to build these devices.
“We’ve utilized roughly 40 kilowatts annually, which has really been our testing and proof-of-concept phase,” said DJ Bitwreck, who’s seeking to add at least 1 megawatt of power from flare gas. “We are looking for sites that would let us come in and put a generator and a shipping-container-size mining hut at the flare site. Most of all, flare gas is a headache and problem for producers, but their problem is our gold mine.”
Related:Bearish or Bullish? What Oil, Defi Hacks and Cash Hoarding Tell Us About Markets
Great American Miningco-founder Marty Bent, already running one such bitcoin mining operation in North Dakota since December 2019, said if the oil companies stop operating “there isn’t any gas byproduct to consume.” On the other hand, though, Bent estimated that on his site alone there are “hundreds” of megawatts of power that could be converted into bitcoin.
Negative oil prices aside, from DJ Bitwreck’s perspective, there’s no point in miners pivoting strategies until after May’sbitcoin halving, which reduces the rewards bitcoin miners can earn.
All of the above-mentioned startups remain moderately profitable and lean, even if the price of bitcoin doesn’t climb in 2020.
Still, it remains to be seen what would happen to all but a few massive bitcoin farms if both oil and bitcoin prices stay low throughout the year.
“We expect the waters to get very choppy but we’re actually excited for it,” DJ Bitwreck said. “That’s why we aren’t buying equipment right now, we’re ideally looking to pick equipment up off other ships that capsize in the choppy waters.”
• Market Wrap: Crypto Mining Stock Hut 8 Jumps on Unusually High Trading Volume
• In Canada They’re ‘Essential,’ In Argentina They’re Shut Down: Bitcoin Miners Reckon With COVID-19 || Bitcoin vs. QE Infinity: The 4 Archetypes of the Halving Debate: Thebitcoin halvingis just two weeks away. While the COVID-19 crisis and the introduction of “QE Infinity” has pushed attention off the momentous event for a while, the discussion is coming back fast and strong. Google searches for thebitcoinhalving already exceeding the 2016 peak, despite almost no mainstream media coverage.
Formore episodesand free early access before our regular 3 p.m. Eastern time releases, subscribe withApple Podcasts,Spotify,Pocketcasts,Google Podcasts,Castbox,Stitcher,RadioPublica,IHeartRadioorRSS.
In a world of QE Infinity, when it comes to the bitcoin halving, are you a speculator, fundamental, miner or symbologist?
Related:Bitcoin News Roundup for April 28, 2020
In this episode, NLW breaks down four archetypes of people within the larger debates around the bitcoin halving:
• Speculators: Those who flock to Twitter to engage in endless rounds of debate around the efficient market hypothesis and whether the halving is priced in or not
• Fundamentals: Those who believe what matters about the halving isn’t the short-term price movement but the fundamental decrease in supply
• Miners: Those who have to actually figure out how to make their business model work in the context of reduced issuance
• Symbologists: Those who are focusing on the significance of bitcoin’s issuance reduction coinciding with QE infinity
See also:Why Money Is Losing Its Meaning, Feat. Jared Dillian
Formore episodesand free early access before our regular 3 p.m. Eastern time releases, subscribe withApple Podcasts,Spotify,Pocketcasts,Google Podcasts,Castbox,Stitcher,RadioPublica,IHeartRadioorRSS.
• First Mover: Two Weeks From Halving, Bitcoin Rally Brings $10K Into View
• Bitcoin News Roundup for April 27, 2020
• CoinDesk Live: 2019’s Most Catastrophic Crypto Caper || Bitcoins correlation to stocks has declined significantly: Bitcoins correlation to stock index S&P 500 has declined significantly, hinting that the two asset classes no longer move in the same direction. The correlation between bitcoin and S&P 500, measured via BTC/USD on Coinbase and S&P 500 futures , has touched a two-month low. The current correlation between the two asset classes is 0.15, which means it is nearly negligible. About a month ago, on April 16, the correlation was moderately positive at 0.53. Source: TradingView, The Block Research A near-zero correlation between two assets indicates that there is no relationship between them or that they do not move in the same direction. Correlation is expressed as a number between +1 and -1. +1 indicates an absolute positive correlation between two assets, meaning they always move together in the same direction. -1 indicates a total negative correlation, meaning two assets always move in opposite directions of each other. Having two low-correlated or uncorrelated assets in a portfolio helps lower overall volatility. © 2020 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice. View comments || Stablecoins Might be The Key to Unlocking the Transactional Value of Cryptocurrencies: When Satoshi Nakamoto wroteBitcoin’s whitepaper, he envisaged “an electronic payment system based on cryptographic proof that allows parties to transact directly with each other without the need for a trusted third party.” Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies have shown the practicality of peer-to-peer transactions; yet, the transactional use of cryptocurrencies remains elusive.
Most of the trades in cryptocurrencies are powered by speculative expectations of profit rather than the transactional use of crypto as an alternative to fiat currencies.
This piece explores the growing interest in stablecoins and how stablecoins could potentially spur an increase in the use of cryptocurrencies as a means of transaction, settling of trades, and the exchange of value.
According to anOctober 2019 survey by Crypto Radar, only 6.2% of Americans currently own Bitcoin, and only about 7.3% of Americans are planning to buy some Bitcoin. In contrast, 64.8% of Americans do not own and do not plan to buy Bitcoin, and the remaining 21.8% of American’s say they’ve never heard about Bitcoin.
Granted, the Crypto Radar study is Bitcoin-specific, but the fact that Bitcoin has a market dominance of 67.7% among cryptocurrencies suggests that what’s true for Bitcoin is most likely true for all other coins.
Below are some of the reasons the transactional and mass-market adoption of crypto haven’t taken off.
[caption id="attachment_833498" align="aligncenter" width="693"]
Hybrix offers an easy to use, open source, 2nd layer solution to implement true interoperability[/caption]
Interoperabilityin cryptocurrencies refers to the ability to share information across different blockchain networks, without restrictions. Blockchains networks and protocols are built in silos differing on ideology, tech stack, and governance, even when they are branded as open-source projects. Blockchains typically operate in silos, and the coins mined on one chain are practically useless on another chain. The lack of interoperability has been a major Achilles heel for the cryptocurrency industry.
The second challenge delaying the transactional use of cryptocurrencies is the wild volatility. The price of crypto tends to swing wildly in response to market news, whale trading, and overall sentiment. For a commodity to be regarded as money, it needs to retain its value over long periods, but a 10% to 20% swing in price during a trading session is considered normal in the cryptocurrency market. The worst part is that the jury is still out on whether Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are correlated with stocks and other traditional assets.
The chart above plots how Bitcoin and other traditional assets have fared since the WHO declared COVID-19 a public health emergency on January 30. From January until May 14, The NASDAQ Composite lost 19.44%, the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 14.22%, and the S&P 500 lost 4.69%. Conversely, Bitcoin was practically flat with a 0.43% decline. Now, to the point of volatility, the cryptocurrency suffered a massive 42% price drop between March 12 and March 13 as seen in the annotated part of the chart.
Atomic swapsis a revolutionary development that could fast-track the transactional use of cryptocurrencies by enabling the exchange of one cryptocurrency for another without going through the intermediary of a crypto exchange.ChainlinkandPolkadotare some of the notable startups working in Atomic swaps.
However, Atomic swaps require a level of technical maturity that the average crypto trader or investor doesn’t possess in the use of Hash Timelock Contracts (HTLC). For people that aren’t technically savvy, swapping a coin for another is too much trouble, and they’ll rather keep their crypto activities to a few legacy coins that they understand.
Hence, it is not surprising that the average crypto trader/investor only has a handful of these coins in their portfolio despite the fact that there are more than 4000 coins in the market.
While popular cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin are too volatile to be a reliable source of value or means of exchange, stablecoins provide a better compromise to enjoy the decentralized properties of crypto without the inherent volatility.
However, stablecoins are not without issues - the most popular ones are privately issued and their legitimacy is still being contested. Also, there’s a lack of interoperability between many cryptocurrencies and stablecoins. In addition, it would be impractical to have a stable for each of all the coins and altcoins in the market. Below are two developments that could drive the transactional use of stablecoins.
Hybrixis a peer-to-peer token protocol designed to be an agnostic 2nd layer platform across multiple blockchains and to facilitate cross-chain transactions and settlement across them without the core complexities of atomic swaps.
Hybrix is designed to leverage the underlying data layer of the blockchain to enable these cross transactions; the blockchains do not need to implement a hard-fork, and there’s no need to wait for everyone to implement atomic-swap on their ledgers.
In the past few months, there has been a marked increase in the trading volume of stablecoins. For instance, according to research byThe Block, in the first quarter of 2020, the transaction volume for stablecoins crossed the $90B mark for the first time ever, to mark an 8% increase from Q4 2019, and to mark a massive 280% increase from Q1 2019.
Source:The Stablecoin Index
More interesting is the fact that stablecoin transactions are surging on the Ethereum blockchain as Tether to Ethereum transactions has jumped more than 75% in the year-to-date period to cross the $4B mark. The surge in transactions is already causing some issues on the Ethereum blockchain, Ethereum 2.0 is still far from becoming a reality, and solutions such as the Hybrix protocol could serve as a bridge to take some of the overloads to Ethereum.
Such a bridge will make it easier for people to conduct cross-chain transactions, reduce the resource load on bloated chains, and facilitate easier cross-platform transactions between ERC-20 tokens and other networks.
The second factor that might drive the transactional use of stablecoins is the growing interest of legacy companies and traditional institutions in launching stablecoins. According toBlockdata’s Stablecoin Report, between 2014 when Tether launched, and the height of the ICO bull run in 2017, only 49 stablecoin projects were announced or launched. However, from 2017 to 2019, about 134 stablecoin projects have been announced.
Two notable stablecoin projects announced during this period are Libra being developed by Facebook, Inc. (NASDAQ:FB), and JPM Coin being developed by JP Morgan Chase & Co, (NYSE:JPM). JPMorganannounced JPM Coin in February 2019to go down in history as the first U.S. bank to create and test a stablecoin. The JPM Coin is pegged to the USD, and it is transferrable and instantaneously redeemable for the equivalent amount of U.S. dollars.
Similarly,Facebook announced its stablecoin,the Libra Coin barely five months after J.P.Morgan’s announcement. Unlike the JPM Coin, which was pegged exclusively against the USD, Facebook’s Libra coin was to be pegged against a basket of currencies including the Euro and Yuan.
Beyond privately-issued stablecoins, theIMF reportsthat there might be potentials in Synthetic Central Bank Digital Currencies “sCBDC”. According to the IMF, such currencies, which are backed by a country’s reserves might be the safest and most liquid digital assets in the market.
An increase in payment gateways and merchant adoption could also drive the transactional use of cryptocurrencies by making it easier for merchants to accept crypto payments. However, given the inherently volatile nature of cryptocurrencies, the most likely scenario is skewed towards stablecoins if transactions are settled in real-time and with low fees.
At a more crucial level, the world will adjust to a new normal after COVID-19, and it would be interesting to see how the cryptocurrency market evolves over the next few years as the global economy goes through a post-COVID-19 recovery.
Disclosure: None. || Bitcoin is up big since the start of coronavirus lockdown: Bitcoin is faring very well during the pandemic, up 94% since March 16, when the U.S. first began widespread school closures and stay-at-home orders. During the same period, the Dow Jones Industrial Average is up 22% and the S&P 500 up 24%.
That’s a very different story for bitcoin than the beginning of March, whencrypto fell precipitously, along with stocks, from negative headlines about coronavirus cases, before U.S. quarantine began. On March 13, bitcoin fell 25% in 24 hours.
The recent surge can’t all be attributed to thethird bitcoin halving on May 11, an event every four years when the reward for mining bitcoins gets cut in half in order to limit the creation of new bitcoin. The price was already on a ride prior to the halving, up 80% between March 16 and May 11. Now it’s up just another 10% since the halving.
Bitcoin flag-wavers see the price action as proof that bitcoin is what they say it is: a store of value, and a hedge against uncertainty. This is certainly a time of uncertainty, with U.S. unemployment spiking amid aglobal pandemic, publicly traded companies withdrawing their 2020 guidance, and theFederal Reserve taking a range of measuresto boost the economy.
Grayscale Investments, a crypto asset management fund owned byDigital Currency Group, says it has seen a spike in crypto investments from existing clients.
“There is now a pretty widely held belief amongst our investors that bitcoin has solidified its place as digital gold,” says Grayscale managing director Michael Sonnenshein. “As things have become increasingly uncertain and we’ve seen levers get pulled by central banks and governments, investors have allocated to bitcoin. When the shelter-in-place began and everything was getting deleveraged, stocks were getting sold, gold getting sold, bitcoin getting sold... now bitcoin has rebounded like crazy. That’s bitcoin demonstrating its resilience as an investment.”
Daily bitcoin trading volume on 10 leading exchanges (including Coinbase and Gemini) has hit an average $2.5 billion per day, the highest trading volume level since July 2018,according to Decrypt.
And there’s additional anecdotal evidence of a general spike in interest: bitcoinshopping rewards app Lollisays it had more new user signups in the first two weeks of May than it’s ever had in two weeks, since launching in 2018; and Google searches for bitcoin have doubled since one year ago.
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Daniel Roberts is an editor-at-large at Yahoo Finance and closely covers bitcoin and blockchain. Follow him on Twitter at @readDanwrite.
Read more:
What the third bitcoin halving means for crypto investors
Bitcoin tumbles along with stocks from coronavirus, questioning 'safe haven' theory
Fed Chair Jay Powell grilled on China's cryptocurrency plans, US response
Facebook-led Libra Association has lost 8 'founding members'
IRS adds specific crypto question to 2019 tax form
Cryptocurrency CEO who paid $4.6M for lunch with Buffett: 'It might be unrealistic'
Exclusive: SEC quietly widens its crackdown on ICOs
Follow Yahoo Finance onTwitter,Facebook,Instagram,Flipboard,LinkedIn,YouTube, andreddit. || DMG Welcomes Today’s Bitcoin Reward Halving Event, Presents New Mining Overview, Hosts Investor Presentation Call, Expands Business Development Activities, and Prepares for New Major Projects: Highlights: With today’s Bitcoin halving, DMG is well prepared for this major economic event and expects to benefit from the changing market environment. DMG releases its newly created mining overview summarizing the Company’s current institutional-grade Bitcoin mining activities for various interested new customers and shareholders. As part of its successful growth strategy, DMG further expands its business development activities and prepares for new major projects. VANCOUVER, British Columbia, May 12, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- DMG Blockchain Solutions Inc. ( DMGI.V ) (DMGGF:OTC US) ( 6AX.F ) (“ DMG ” or the “ Company ”), a diversified blockchain and technology company, is pleased to announce a positive corporate outlook for the next few months. Bitcoin Halving Event Bitcoin's next halving is upon us, and trading volumes indicate an all-time high level of interest in this important event, the third in the short lifespan of the world’s original and most valuable cryptocurrency. In general, DMG expects that the halving will be a bullish catalyst for Bitcoin’s price, which is supported by even stronger macroeconomic catalysts, including unprecedented central bank monetary policies, that may drive Bitcoin’s price in the coming months and years. Dan Reitzik, DMG’s CEO, commented: “One of the reasons Bitcoin was created was to combat increasing inflation, driven by issuing more and more fiat currency. This is the reason ‘halvings’ occur every 4 years, to reduce the supply of new bitcoin created over time, leading to deflation. DMG sees a tremendous upside opportunity for Bitcoin price increases and subsequently for the Company’s, and our clients’ profitability in both the near and long term.” Bitcoin halving events occur every four years when block rewards paid to Bitcoin miners are cut by 50%. The current block reward of 12.5 BTC will be reduced to 6.25 BTC today. Market data suggests market participants may see increased demand in the form of diverted mining resources, in addition to the reduction in new BTC supply after the halving, which might significantly support the Bitcoin price. Story continues Sheldon Bennett, DMG’s COO added: “DMG invested substantial capital in building its state-of-the-art mining facility and its related power infrastructure as well as attracting long term hosting clients. As a consequence, DMG is very well positioned for future growth and our management team remains extremely excited about the prospects DMG has, both as a hosting company and as a software company, focusing on the rapidly growing cryptocurrency vertical market, including software and services.” New Mining Overview Today DMG released a new mining overview about the Company’s successful institutional-grade Bitcoin mining business activities and promising growth prospects which can be accessed at DMG’s website at www.dmgblockchain.com/mining2020 . Highlights of DMG’s new mining overview include: Highly experienced team, with experience in building out more than 100 megawatts at three sites over the past 5 years. Recently commissioned by Bitmain to setup and optimize their largest facility in Texas, USA. Renowned exceptional uptime (>99%) at DMG’s flagship site in British Columbia. Wholly owned 85 megawatt substation enabling access to low-cost alternative energy. Efficient and effective on-site maintenance including Bitmain certified technician. Proprietary mine management software which is also licensed out to other crypto companies for usage. Strong relations with all industry leading hardware manufacturers, including Bitmain, Innosilicon, and MicroBT. Successfully certified 10,000+ cryptocurrency miners for operation under UL/CSA. DMG’s equipment is designed to work with different ranges of input power based on different standards throughout North America. To download and review the full “New Mining Overview” file (PDF), please go to dmgblockchain.com/mining2020 To discuss DMG’s new mining overview with its shareholders, the Company will host an investor presentation for its shareholders on Wednesday, May 20, 2020. DMG’s investor presentation is scheduled to be at 9:00 a.m. PST, and DMG’s CEO Dan Reitzik, COO Sheldon Bennett, and CTO Adrian Glover will provide a more detailed business update. To join the call, please visit DMG’s website at www.dmgblockchain.com , where the Company will publish the required conference link 72 hours before the investor conference call. Please call-in approximately 10 minutes in advance to participate in the live call. Alternatively, individual and institutional investors will have the opportunity to listen to the conference call afterwards by accessing an archived version of the call on the Company’s website. DMG looks forward to everyone’s participation in this conference call, and please call DMG’s John Martin at 888-702-0258 (toll free) with any questions regarding the call. Expansion of Business Development A year and a half ago DMG’s substation was commissioned and its flagship data centre opened. Now with a track record of industry high operating uptime and time for the team to troubleshoot bringing such a large facility on-line, DMG is focusing on expanding its mining and developing more business with third parties. DMG’s core business will continue to be its crypto mining efforts as well as Mining as a Service; however, DMG is also, as announced earlier this year, moving to immersion cooling which is attracting new clients (who are not necessarily focused on crypto assets) as well as additional clients who are early adopters in large scale immersion. Along with immersion, DMG is planning a commercial release of its crypto mining software, which is already under license for a select number of companies testing the software. So far the reviews have been positive and with client input, DMG is adding features before its planned commercial release later this year. Over the last half year DMG has also been consulting to other mining companies on its technology, supply chain and design for crypto facilities. This service is growing and DMG plans to increase this consulting service to include the sale of proprietary equipment that it designs and uses for operations. The Company is already in negotiations with multiple parties on its container solutions for remote areas but is also adding to its sales racking, power channels and cooling systems. To support this expansive growth strategy, DMG entered into a business development agreement with Onyx Capital from Europe, which will be responsible to advise DMG’s management in its global growth initiative and business development efforts. DMG’s CEO Dan Reitzik added: “We are very excited to ramp-up our international business expansion and continue our constant growth, and we are extremely confident that DMG is very well positioned for the post-halving time ahead of us. DMG made a wise decision to have a blended model of self-mining and hosting for third party clients. This focus on attracting large scale hosting clients and expanding and upgrading our self-mining fleet is because successful crypto-mining is a function of creating cost efficiencies, and our mining facility is very well suited for both our self-mining and for large industrial miners. We welcome Onyx as our business development partners and new shareholders.” On March 13, 2020, DMG announced that it had fully implemented its Work from Home (“ WFH ”) initiative to further protect its office employees and the general public, in response to the Covid-19 pandemic. This was successfully implemented and continues to remain in effect. DMG has always allowed its software engineers to work remotely as necessary, and all employees are experienced with the various remote collaboration software tools the Company utilizes daily. DMG’s proprietary mine management software is fully deployed allowing its technicians to remotely monitor the operations such as hash rates, temperature, power consumption, performance, etc. If repairs are needed, staff at the facility are notified of the issue and what is needed to be done for repairs so they can take the necessary action. The data centre is approximately 27,000 square feet and therefore employees have substantial personal space and distancing from one another. DMG has now started to prepare to make this WFH initiative also available and applicable for several forthcoming new projects and further business developments, both domestically and internationally, allowing the Company to continue its growth ultimately unaffected by the global Covid-19 pandemic. About DMG Blockchain Solutions Inc. DMG Blockchain Solutions Inc. is a diversified blockchain and cryptocurrency company that manages, operates and develops end-to-end solutions to monetize the blockchain ecosystem. DMG, intends to be the global leader in industrial scale crypto mine hosting – Mining as a Service (MaaS), crypto mining, blockchain forensics/analytics, and blockchain platform development. For more information on DMG Blockchain Solutions visit: www.dmgblockchain.com On behalf of the Board of Directors, Daniel Reitzik, CEO & Director For further information, please contact: DMG Blockchain Solutions Inc. Investor Relations: John Martin Toll Free: 1-888-702-0258 Email: investors@dmgblockchain.com Web: www.dmgblockchain.com Direct: 778-868-6470 Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Information This news release contains forward-looking information based on current expectations. Statements about the Company’s plans and intentions, other potential transactions, adding additional power capacity, entering into new marketplaces, providing container solutions to clients, expectations from the halving event, price of Bitcoin, acquisition of customers, product development, events, courses of action, and the potential of the Company’s technology and operations, among others, are all forward-looking information. Forward-looking statements consist of statements that are not purely historical, including any statements regarding beliefs, plans, expectations or intentions regarding the future. Such information can generally be identified by the use of forwarding looking wording such as “may”, “expect”, “estimate”, “anticipate”, “intend”, “believe” and “continue” or the negative thereof or similar variations. The reader is cautioned that assumptions used in the preparation of any forward-looking information may prove to be incorrect. Events or circumstances may cause actual results to differ materially from those predicted, as a result of numerous known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors, many of which are beyond the control of the Company, including but not limited to, business, economic and capital market conditions; the ability to manage operating expenses, which may adversely affect the Company’s financial condition; the ability to remain competitive as other better financed competitors develop and release competitive products; regulatory uncertainties; access to equipment; market conditions and the demand and pricing for products; the demand and pricing of bitcoins; security threats, including a loss/theft of DMG’s bitcoins; DMG’s relationships with its customers, distributors and business partners; the inability to add more power to DMG’s facilities; DMG’s ability to successfully define, design and release new products in a timely manner that meet customers’ needs; the ability to attract, retain and motivate qualified personnel; competition in the industry; the impact of technology changes on the products and industry; failure to develop new and innovative products; the ability to successfully maintain and enforce our intellectual property rights and defend third-party claims of infringement of their intellectual property rights; the impact of intellectual property litigation that could materially and adversely affect the business; the ability to manage working capital; and the dependence on key personnel. DMG may not actually achieve its plans, projections, or expectations. Such statements and information are based on numerous assumptions regarding present and future business strategies and the environment in which the Company will operate in the future, including the demand for its products, the ability to successfully develop software, that there will be no regulation or law that will prevent the Company from operating its business, anticipated costs, the ability to achieve goals and the price of bitcoin. Given these risks, uncertainties and assumptions, you should not place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements. The securities of DMG are considered highly speculative due to the nature of DMG’s business. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in forward-looking statements include, failure to obtain regulatory approval, the continued availability of capital and financing, equipment failures, lack of supply of equipment, power and infrastructure, failure to obtain any permits required to operate the business, the impact of technology changes on the industry, competition, security threats including stolen bitcoins from DMG or its customers, consumer sentiment towards DMG’s products, services and blockchain technology generally, failure to develop new and innovative products, litigation, increase in operating costs, increase in equipment and labor costs, failure of counterparties to perform their contractual obligations, government regulations, loss of key employees and consultants, and general economic, market or business conditions. Forward-looking statements contained in this news release are expressly qualified by this cautionary statement. The reader is cautioned not to place undue reliance on any forward-looking information. The forward-looking statements contained in this news release are made as of the date of this news release. Except as required by law, the Company disclaims any intention and assumes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. Additionally, the Company undertakes no obligation to comment on the expectations of, or statements made by third parties in respect of the matters discussed above. Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Service Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this news release. || J.K. Rowling admits regret over recent Bitcoin tweets: Renowned author J.K. Rowling has revealed feelings of regret after foolishly asking questions about Bitcoin on Twitter last Friday. The 54-year-old, who is famous for writing the Harry Potter trilogy, wrote on Friday: “I don’t understand bitcoin. Please explain it to me.” What followed was a stampede of seemingly angry Bitcoin fanatics who were eager to educate Rowling on the benefits of Bitcoin and digital currencies. A number of the top cryptocurrency influencers like Ethereum creator Vitalik Buterin and Blockstream CSO Samson Mow were also quick to reply as they hoped for a cringe-inducing reply from Rowling. Eventually, after Rowling’s tweet attracted almost 10,000 likes and 2,500 retweets, she confessed to regretting the initial question after enraging thousands of people. Rumbled. pic.twitter.com/zAkJy8aqsG — J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) May 16, 2020 “This started as a joke, but now I’m afraid I’ll never be able to log in to Twitter again without someone getting angry I don’t own Bitcoin.” she wrote. “One day you’ll see a wizened old woman in the street, trying to trade a Harry Potter book for a potato. Be kind. She did try to understand.” She then joked: “This is getting silly. I’m not joining the Bitcoin community. It should be perfectly obvious by now that I’ve been trolling Bitcoin in the hope of boosting my significant Ethereum holdings. “This is also a joke.” Throughout the tweet storm the price of Bitcoin remained unsurprisingly stagnant below $10,000, demonstrating that J.K. Rowling’s tweets had no impact of increasing levels of mass adoption among the emerging asset class. For more news, guides and cryptocurrency analysis, click here . || Free Transactions Invite Systemic Attacks on Blockchains, Researchers Find: Markets are taking the U.S. Federal Reserve’s less-than-optimistic economic forecasts quite hard, and that’s leading crypto traders to hit the sell button. Bitcoin (BTC) was trading around $9,258 as of 20:00 UTC (4 p.m. ET), slipping 6.4% over the previous 24 hours. At 00:00 UTC on Thursday (8:00 p.m. Wednesday ET), bitcoin was changing hands around $9,890 on exchanges like Coinbase. By 06:00 (2 a.m. ET), its price began to decline, dipping to as low as $9,049. The price is now well below the 50-day and 10-day moving averages, a bearish technical indicator. Read More: Bitcoin Stuck Below $10K as Stocks Drop Traders are being confronted with a sea of red across almost all assets Thursday. Fed Chair Jerome Powell’s speech on the economy didn’t inspire any optimism about the next few quarters. “The virus and the forceful measures taken to control its spread have induced a sharp decline in economic activity and a surge in job losses,” Powell said in remarks Wednesday. “You can’t print your way out of this,” said Zachary Reece, managing partner of digital asset firm Lotus Investment Strategies Global. “I fear we are taking the opposite approach and will see the downfall of the United States dollar.” Read More: Fed Sees No Inflation Through 2021, but Bitcoiners Are Betting on It Anyway Related: Market Wrap: Stocks’ Carnage Drags Bitcoin Down to $9K Indeed, the U.S. Dollar Index rose 0.4% off its three-month lows Thursday after Powell’s comments. That could signal investors are starting to look at classic safe havens like gold. “I think the general negative sentiment of traditional markets affects bitcoin,’ said Sasha Goldberg, a senior trader for Efficient Frontier Markets, a digital asset quant fund. “We’re now seeing the following events priced in the market – riots in the U.S., the China-U.S. trade war, coronavirus uncertainty – among other events that happened lately.” Bitcoin has increased its correlation to gold in 2020, particularly after March’s crash. The 90-day coefficient is close to 0.35, up from 0 back in January. A coefficient of 1.0 means two assets move in perfect tandem while a coefficient of -1.0 means they move in opposite directions. A coefficient of 0.0 implies that returns on the two assets have no relationship. Gold is one asset trading flat, down by less than a percent at around $1,727 for the day. “In my view gold is the safe haven for old-school investors and bitcoin for more modern-thinking ones,” said Henrik Kugelberg, a Sweden-based over-the-counter cryptocurrency trader. Story continues Cryptocurrency stakeholders have long insisted bitcoin is its own asset class, not tied to any other. However, it seems like it is increasingly operating with the traditional markets, at least for now. Other markets Bitcoin isn’t the only cryptocurrency taking a hit. Digital assets on CoinDesk’s big board are red Thursday. Ether (ETH), the second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, is trading around $230 and slipped 7% in 24 hours as of 20:00 UTC (4:00 p.m. ET). Read More: ‘Whale’ Just Sent $130 in Cryptocurrency With a $2.6M Transaction Fee Weekly Ethereum-based decentralized exchange (DEX) volume is picking up, slowly recovering from March’s coronavirus-induced crash when traders pushed volumes over $400 million for a short time. The biggest cryptocurrency losers on the day include neo (NEO) down 10%, tron (TRX) in the red 10% and iota (IOTA) slipping 9.7%. All price changes were as of 20:00 UTC (4:00 p.m. ET). Read More: Cryptos on Coinbase’s Exploratory List See Prices Jump 17% on Average Oil isdown quite a bit, slipping 7% with a barrel of crude priced at $36 at press time. In Europe, the FTSE 100 index of top companies in Europe fell 4% Thursday as job cuts were announced at several companies . In Asia, the Nikkei 225 index of publicly traded companies in Japan ended trading in the red 2.8% as companies were dragged down on the U.S. Federal Reserve’s outlook. Read More: Bitcoin Pops Past $10K as Fed Says Rates May Stay Near 0% Until 2022 In the U.S. the S&P 500 index fell 5.8%, with major selling in the final hour of trading as coronavirus-induced economic numbers put a damper on the market . U.S. Treasury bonds were mixed Thursday. Yields, which move in the opposite direction as price, were up most on the two-year bond, in the green 18%. Related Stories Bitcoin Stuck Below $10K as Stocks Drop First Mover: Fed Sees No Inflation Through 2021, but Bitcoiners Are Betting on It Anyway View comments || Bitcoin, Ethereum & Litecoin - American Wrap: 4/15/2020: Bitcoin Price Analysis: New Elliott Wave Predictions Put Targets Near 6K Bitcoin has had a tough few sessions this week falling from a high of 7,466 to around 6,750 where the price is today. It had been worse at one stage when the pair was trading at 6,555 and now that level is the support target for the bears. If that wave low does break to the downside then there are some Fibonacci expansion targets to watch. The 261.8% and 38.2% extension confluence pretty close to the 6K area. Often when Fib zones match up with round numbers they can act as a magnet for price. Ethereum Price Analysis: ETH/USD At Risk Of A $100 Return Ethereum price is trading in the red by 0.95% on Wednesday. ETH/USD is moving within a very tight range block, subject to a breakout. The price to move into a definitive trend needs to break down $200 to the upside, or $150 to the downside. Litecoin Price Forecast: LTC/USD Largely At Risk Trading Underneath Bearish Flag Litecoin price is trading in negative territory by 2.30 % in the session on Wednesday. LTC/USD is moving within a narrowing nature, sitting just above critical support at $40. The coming range breakout will likely be trend defining, with risks tilting to the downside. Image sourced from Pixabay See more from Benzinga Bitcoin, Ethereum & Litecoin - American Wrap: 4/14/2020 Bitcoin, Ethereum & Litecoin - American Wrap: 4/13/20 Bitcoin, Ethereum & Litecoin - American Wrap: 4/9/2020 © 2020 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.
[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
None available.
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Trend: up || Prices: 9475.28, 9386.79, 9450.70, 9538.02, 9480.25, 9411.84, 9288.02, 9332.34, 9303.63, 9648.72
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Analyze the provided historical prices, technical indicators, news, and social media sentiment from the last 60 days. Based on this context, predict the overall trend (up, down, or no change) and the specific daily closing prices for Bitcoin for the next 10 days.
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[Technical Analysis for 2015-09-14]
BTC Price: 230.64, BTC RSI: 42.88
Gold Price: 1107.70, Gold RSI: 42.99
Oil Price: 44.00, Oil RSI: 47.26
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
US$160M C&W Investment for Barbados: BRIDGETOWN, BARBADOS--(Marketwired - Jul 16, 2015) - C&W is investing US$160M in Barbados as the Company rolls out its new retail brand Flow on the island as part of its merger with Columbus Communications. Barbados is the first country to launch the newly combined retail brand. Niall Sheehy, Country Manager of the 'new' Flow, revealed a number of significant developments for Barbados.
"What we have today is the product of two legacies working in unison to meet our customers' needs," said Sheehy. Under the new consumer brand Flow, the company has combined the strengths of the former LIME and Flow organisations and is positioning Barbados as the first country in the world with 100% Fibre-to-the-Home (FTTH) broadband connectivity.
The FTTH network will allow the Company to bring new and cutting edge services to its customers. As a start, customers will receive telephone (mobile and landline) video, audio, television and just about any other kind of digital data stream using Flow's comprehensive FTTH broadband connection. Sheehy indicated that the consumers will benefit from bundling of products, new and exciting apps and the ability to access products and services from a variety of platforms, via its network.
Sheehy also outlined other aspects of the company's investments in Barbados as the Company rolls out its new consumer brand. "We have already moved into our new corporate home in Warrens (formerly the Orange Mall) and on August 1, we will officially transition from our Customer Care Centre at SkyMall to a new retail store under the Flow brand.
This new retail outlet will serve as the touch-point for all our products and services of the combined entity," he said. "Customers will still be able to access a full Flow Customer Service Centre at Windsor Lodge (formerly LIME)," added Sheehy. "These changes are part of a wider plan to ensure that our newly combined company meets our stated goal of putting the customer at the heart of what we do."
Sheehy also informed that the company is currently transitioning all of its products and services to the Flow brand. He noted that the transition phase will take some time, during which customers may still see communications using the former LIME and Flow brands.
About Cable & Wireless Communications:
Cable & Wireless Communications Plc (CWC) is a full service communications and entertainment provider, operating in the Caribbean and Latin America. With annual sales of over $2.4 billion, it operates both mobile and fixed networks, supported by submarine and terrestrial optical fibre backhaul capacity. Through the acquisition of Columbus International Inc. on 31 March 2015, CWC now delivers superior high-speed mobile data, broadband and TV/video services. It has leading market positions in Mobile, Fixed Line, Broadband and TV consumer offers.
Through its business division, CWC provides data centre hosting, domestic and international managed network services, and customised IT service solutions, utilising cloud technology to serve business and government customers.
The company also operates a state-of-the-art subsea fibre optic cable network that spans more than 42,000 km -- the most extensive in the region -- as well as 38,000 km of terrestrial fibre providing wholesale and carrier backhaul capacity.
CWC has more than 7,500 employees serving over 6 million customers (Mobile 3.8m; Fixed Line 1.1m; TV 430k and Broadband 650k) as well as over 125k corporate clients across 42 countries. The Company's leading brands include; LIME and Flow in the Caribbean; BTC in The Bahamas; Mas Movil in Panama; C&W Business and C&W Networks. CWC is the market leader in most products offered and territories served. It is a major contributor to local communities through its corporate social responsibility programmes.
Cable & Wireless Communications' shares are quoted on the London Stock Exchange under the ticker CWC. The company is headquartered in London with its operational hub located in Miami, within close proximity to the Caribbean and Latin America. For more information visit:http://www.cwc.com. || Flow to Establish State-of-the-Art Customer Call Centre of Excellence Bringing More Than 300 New Jobs to Jamaica: KINGSTON, JAMAICA--(Marketwired - Aug 31, 2015) - Flow, the newCable & Wireless CommunicationsPlc (CWC) consumer retail brand, today announced plans to establish a new, state-of-the-art Customer Call Centre of Excellence in Kingston, Jamaica and create more than 300 full-time jobs over the next two years. The innovative Customer Call Centre of Excellence is part of the Company's bid to become the leader in service excellence and revolutionise customer experience across the Caribbean.
The Customer Call Centre of Excellence, to be established in the coming months, follows the recent merger with Columbus International Inc and is part of Flow's new compelling plan to provide an enhanced customer experience. This initiative is also consistent with plans laid out by CEO Phil Bentley last year that will see C&W invest US$1.5bn over 3 years to upgrade infrastructure and overhaul service delivery throughout the Caribbean and Latin American region.
"Through investments like these, we are putting the customer at the heart of the business," said Bentley. "We are committed to anticipating their needs at every contact point and to delivering a customer care experience that is unparalleled across the region. Together, with our other existing Call Centre in Trinidad, we will revolutionise customer service in the Caribbean, and be the leader in recruiting the best talent in the region. We want Flow to be a business that everyone in the Caribbean is proud of," said Bentley.
Branded as an innovative Customer Call Centre of Excellence, the facility is being designed to provide customers with multiple touch points including warm and friendly service agents, Email, Virtual Chat, Mobile App and other technology-enabled support systems.Combined with increased service agent efficiencies, state-of-the-art technology tools will improve call routing and reduce call waiting time, making for an overall superior customer experience.
Managing Director, Flow Jamaica, Garry Sinclair is extremely pleased that the new Centre will be located on the island. "It is a testament to the growing confidence of Jamaica as a central hub for investment, the large pool of skilled labour that exists here, and the rapid growth of the ICT sector led by Flow, that we are making this investment here in Kingston." He added, "In addition to the investment in the new Customer Call Centre of Excellence, Flow is also investing in the best mobile and fibre networks across the island to deliver more technologically advanced quad play products, better value, and superior broadband connectivity to exceed our customers' expectations." Sinclair also stated that, "We are excited to recruit the best team on the island for this Centre and we will implement an extensive training programme to deliver an incomparable customer experience."
Responding to the announcement, Hon. Phillip Paulwell, Minister of Science, Technology, Energy and Mining commended Flow's decision to establish the Customer Call Centre of Excellence in Jamaica. "The establishment of Flow's Customer Call Centre of Excellence in Jamaica attests to the tremendous growth potential of the nation's ICT sector and affirms Flow's commitment to development of the local and regional economies. With the commitment to create new jobs, the investment also supports the country's goals to reduce unemployment, builds new skill sets and advances the country's vision to make Jamaica a place of choice to live, work, raise families and do business."
Since 2012, the Jamaican Government has had an ongoing drive to engage the private sector in the 'Jamaica Employ' programme, which seeks to increase prospects for job seekers and to bring critical new jobs to the island. "We love doing business in Jamaica and we are happy to partner with the Government in their various initiatives, including the 'Jamaica Employ' programme," Phil Bentley concluded.
About Cable & Wireless Communications:
Cable & Wireless Communications Plc (CWC) is a full service communications and entertainment provider, operating in the Caribbean and Latin America. With annual sales of over $2.4bn, it operates both mobile and fixed networks, supported by submarine and terrestrial optical fibre backhaul capacity. Through the acquisition of Columbus International Inc. on 31 March 2015, CWC now delivers superior high-speed mobile data, broadband and video services. It has leading market positions in Mobile, Fixed Line, Broadband and Video consumer offers.
Through its business division, CWC provides data centre hosting, domestic and international managed network services, and customised IT service solutions, utilising cloud technology to serve business and government customers.
The company also operates a state-of-the-art subsea fibre optic cable network that spans more than 42,000 km -- the most extensive in the region -- as well as 38,000 km of terrestrial fibre providing wholesale and carrier backhaul capacity.
CWC has more than 7,000 employees serving over 6 million customers (Mobile 3.8m; Fixed Line 1.1m; TV 460k and Broadband 665k) as well as over 125k corporate clients across 42 countries. The Company's leading brands include; LIME and Flow in the Caribbean; BTC in The Bahamas; Mas Movil in Panama; C&W Business and C&W Networks. CWC is the market leader in most products offered and territories served. It is a major contributor to local communities through its corporate social responsibility programmes.
Cable & Wireless Communications' shares are quoted on the London Stock Exchange under the ticker CWC. The company is headquartered in London with its operational hub located in Miami, within close proximity to the Caribbean and Latin America.
For more information please visit:www.cwc.com || Leading Global Bitcoin Adoption, HashingSpace Corporation Uplifts to the OTCQB: US Based Hashingspace Corporation Announced It Has Been Uplifted To A Higher Reporting Status On The OTC Market. Hashingspace Will Now Be Listed As OTCQB: HSHS. Hashingspace Provides Scalable Datacenter and Technology Infrastructure for the Global Adoption of Bitcoin Including Bitcoin Atms and Hosted ASIC Mining
WENATCHEE, WA / ACCESSWIRE / July 29, 2015 /HashingSpace Corporation (HSHS), a company focused on the global adoption of Bitcoin, announced today that it has officially been uplifted to a higher reporting status. HashingSpace will no longer be listed on the Pink Sheets and has been moved to OTCQB status.
HashingSpace Corporation submitted all the mandatory documents and has successfully met all of the initial requirements to receive this upgrade. The upgrade became official on July 23, 2015.
"We are pleased to learn that we have been upgraded to a higher status," stated Terry Taylor, Chief Financial Officer of HashingSpace. "This upgrade reflects on our plan to bring better value to our shareholders. This shows that we are current in our SEC compliance reporting and will undergo an annual verification and certification process. Providing accurate information to our investors is a top priority."
Included in our new OTCQB designation will be real-time level 2 quote display. Quotes can be found atwww.otcmarkets.com.
Weekly OTC Market Reports summarizing the activity in our security will be available.
All company information, including stock trading, filings, and market data related to the company, is reported under the new upgrade, OTCQB: HSHS.
HashingSpace Corporation's business will provide a wide range of services to include:
- HASHHOSTINGServers fully managed and specifically set-up for ASIC MINING- CLOUDHASHCloud mining servers that can be rented with full hashing power- HASHMININGOur own Mining Farm- HASHATMOwner and operator of Bitcoin ATM machines- HASHWALLETBitcoin consumer wallet for bitcoin banking and transactions- HASHPOOLPublic Stratum and P2Pool (Web/IOS/Droid)- HASHTICKERFree Ticker for tracking Bitcoin Value (Screen Saver/Web/IOS/Droid)- HASHVARA wholesaler of Bitcoin servers and Bitcoin ATM machines
About HashingSpace Corporation
HashingSpace Corporation is a Bitcoin ASIC mining company, hosting provider, and service provider of blockchain transactional services. HashingSpace's high density datacenters are designed to meet the demanding power and cooling needs of client hosted Bitcoin mining gear with unparalleled pricing, cooling and green energy. The Corporation is continuing to expand its datacenters to satisfy the shortage of low cost hosting facilities catering to the Bitcoin and blockchain mining and transactional verification services industry specifically.
HashingSpace Corporation manages HashWallet, a Bitcoin wallet; HashPool, a Bitcoin mining pool; and HashATM, the owner and operator of Bitcoin ATM machines. The company is a wholesaler of Bitcoin mining servers and Bitcoin ATM machines. Bitcoin businesses interested in reselling HashingSpace products and services are invited to reach out to HashingSpace Corporation for more information.
HashingSpace Corporation is headquartered in Wenatchee, Washington. For more information, visitwww.hashingspace.com.
Any unreleased services or features referenced in this or other press releases or public statements may not be currently available and may not be delivered on time or at all. Customers who purchase HashingSpace services should make their purchase decisions based upon features currently available. For more information please visithttp://www.hashingspace.comor call 1-855-HASHING (427-4464).
Safe Harbor Statement
This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. These forward-looking statements are based on the current plans and expectations of management and are subject to a number of uncertainties and risks that could significantly affect the Company's current plans and expectations, as well as future results of operations and financial condition. The Company undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.
For more information please visit:http://www.hashingspace.com/
Company Contact:
HashingSpace Corporation5042 Wilshire Blvd. #26900Los Angeles, CA, 90036855 – HASHING (427-4464)
Investor Relations:
Email:ir@hashingspace.com
SOURCE:HashingSpace Corporation || Google vs Apple: Which will be better in 11 years?: Google went public 11 years ago, and early buyers have done alright for themselves. Class A shares have enjoyed a a split-adjusted gain of nearly 1,300 percent since their first close. "Fast Money" traders believe the company's prospects looks just as promising in the 11 years to come. They contended that Google ( GOOGL ) holds more upside than technology giant Apple ( AAPL ) , currently the largest company in the world by market capitalization. "I'd rather go with Google, which has multiple revenue streams and they've also shown to be a much better venture capitalist" through acquisitions, said trader Brian Kelly. Kelly expressed concern about Apple's possible reliance on the iPhone for growth in a "saturated" smartphone market. He noted that Google has branched out through acquisitions like YouTube and internal investments. Trader Karen Finerman-who owns Google personally and Apple through her firm Metropolitan Capital Advisors-also touted the variety of businesses at Google and its "moon shot" projects. The company later this year will set up a new operating structure under a holding company Alphabet, which will house its newer projects like Internet service, health services and self-driving cars. Read More Google's Alphabet move was brilliant Google looks more appealing as it seems "very hard to be replicated," added trader Guy Adami. Trader Tim Seymour-who owns both stocks-also prefers Google, saying it holds a place as "one of the most important companies in the world." Disclosures: Tim Seymour Tim Seymour is long AAPL, T, BAC, DIS, F, GE, GM, GOOGL, INTC, JPM, Tim's firm is long BABA, BIDU, MCD, NKE, NOK, SBUX, YHOO. Brian Kelly Brian Kelly is long BBRY, BTC=; ITB, TAN, TSL, the VIX, TWTR call spread, Euro; he is short AUDJPY, GBPJPY, Yuan. Today he bought Euro. Today he sold US dollar. Today he closed his short position in Yen. Karen Finerman Karen is long BABA, BAC, C, FINL, FL, GOOG, GOOGL, JPM, KORS, M, BABA puts, she is short SPY, Her firm is long ANTM, AAPL, BAC, C, DIS, FBT, FINL, FL, GOOG, GOOGL, GPS, IBB, JPM, KORS, M, SUNE, URI, XBI, KORS call spreads, SUNE call spreads, KORS puts, SUNE puts, her firm is short IWM, SPY, MDY, Karen Finerman is on the board of GrafTech International. Guy Adami Guy Adami is long CELG, EXAS, INTC, Guy Adami's wife, Linda Snow, works at Merck. More From CNBC Top News and Analysis Latest News Video Personal Finance View comments || Organic Food Goes Mainstream: Consumer preferences have shifted significantly over the past few years as more and more people opt for all-natural, healthy food options. Healthy food used to make up just a small isle of little known brands in the supermarket, but the niche has made its way into popular culture and now even big brands are hopping on the organic food bandwagon. Supermarkets Whole Foods Market (NASDAQ: WFM ) is a heavy-hitter when it comes to the natural foods space. The company has grown into a well known brand where health nuts pay a premium for the best ingredients and most natural foods. However, as interest in health foods grew, so did the number of competitors. Other specialty grocers like Sprouts (NASDAQ: SFM ) and Natural Grocers (NYSE: NGVC ) are expanding quickly and looking to increase their slice of the organic pie. New Entrants While new entrants in the organic foods business used to be mom and pop businesses that were working their way up, today's natural foods isle is filled with products backed by big name companies who are shifting their approach in order to attract health-conscious consumers. Tyson Foods (NYSE: TSN ) promised to stop using chicken that had been treated with antibiotics and Kraft Foods (NASDAQ: KRFT ) has removed artificial dyes from its well-known Mac & Cheese in an effort to appeal to the organic-obsessed public. Bigger Not Always Better However, the big brands aren't always able to appeal to health nuts the way smaller brands are. After Kellogg Company (NYSE: K ) acquired the Kashi brand in 2000, the healthy cereal maker went steadily downhill. Customers discovered that Kellogg was using genetically modified ingredients and a social media campaign against the brand ensued. Now, Kellogg is working to restore Kashi's image with innovative new cereals and a new marketing approach, but it is likely to be a rocky road back into consumers' good graces. See more from Benzinga Is NASDAQ Going Green? Cybersecurity Becomes An Even Bigger Problem For U.S. Firms New Dictionary Entries Suggest Bitcoin Is Going Mainstream © 2015 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Caribbean's Next Top Model Returns to the Catwalk With Flow TV Partnership: BRIDGETOWN, BARBADOS--(Marketwired - Jul 16, 2015) - It was a night of exciting news as C&W unveiled its new consumer brand in Barbados and Wendy Fitzwilliam, Miss Universe 1998, announced a mutually beneficial partnership with the 'new' Flow to air the second season of the reality show 'Caribbean's Next Top Model.'
"We're absolutely excited to be working with Flow to bring Caribbean's Next Top Model back for a second season. We are resolute in our desire to showcase brand Caribbean and this partnership makes it possible to build on our first season and bring the show back to our fans in a much more interactive way," said Wendy Fitzwilliam at the launch.
The regionally based reality show is tied to the successful original production -- America's Next Top Model -- owned by CBS International and created by former top model and television producer Tyra Banks and follows the stories of young women seeking to launch a career in the competitive world of modelling.
Fitzwilliam stated, "We know that there are many young women in the Caribbean who have big dreams of success in fashion. The fashion and beauty industries have been impacted by the talent of women with Caribbean roots for quite some time, from history makers such as Grace Jones and Naomi Campbell to relative newcomers such as Barbadian model Lene Hall, the face of Prescriptives by Esteé Lauder and Puerto Rican supermodel Joan Smalls. CNTM," she says "provides an additional opportunity for more Caribbean women to be represented within the international fashion industry. The success of this show will impact more than individuals and models it will also highlight the Caribbean fashion and beauty industries, content development in the Caribbean and more."
John Reid, President of the C&W Consumer Group noted that the partnership was a perfect fit for Flow, now positioned as a Caribbean brand "driven by all that is positive in the Caribbean, the people, the passion, the drive to succeed, innovation and positive vibes." He noted that Flow will also use its quad play technology to ensure that viewers have access across multiple channels so that they can access the programme when they want and how they want. "Flow customers," he explained, "will be able to access Caribbean Next Top Model before other viewers on Flow TV, via the Flow on Demand platform at their convenience. They can even access information about the programme on their smart phones and other mobile devices."
Caribbean's Next Top Model is produced by Wendy Fitzwilliam and her sister Dionyse Fitzwilliam, who is the show's Executive Producer. Casting calls for the second season are currently being held in Barbados, Cayman Islands, Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago. The casting calls are also being facilitated online to make it more accessible for potential participants throughout the region. The first show will be aired in October.
About Cable & Wireless Communications:
Cable & Wireless Communications Plc (CWC) is a full service communications and entertainment provider, operating in the Caribbean and Latin America. With annual sales of over $2.4 billion, it operates both mobile and fixed networks, supported by submarine and terrestrial optical fibre backhaul capacity. Through the acquisition of Columbus International Inc. on 31 March 2015, CWC now delivers superior high-speed mobile data, broadband and TV/video services. It has leading market positions in Mobile, Fixed Line, Broadband and TV consumer offers.
Through its business division, CWC provides data centre hosting, domestic and international managed network services, and customised IT service solutions, utilising cloud technology to serve business and government customers.
The company also operates a state-of-the-art subsea fibre optic cable network that spans more than 42,000 km -- the most extensive in the region -- as well as 38,000 km of terrestrial fibre providing wholesale and carrier backhaul capacity.
CWC has more than 7,500 employees serving over 6 million customers (Mobile 3.8m; Fixed Line 1.1m; TV 430k and Broadband 650k) as well as over 125k corporate clients across 42 countries. The Company's leading brands include; LIME and Flow in the Caribbean; BTC in The Bahamas; Mas Movil in Panama; C&W Business and C&W Networks. CWC is the market leader in most products offered and territories served. It is a major contributor to local communities through its corporate social responsibility programmes.
Cable & Wireless Communications' shares are quoted on the London Stock Exchange under the ticker CWC. The company is headquartered in London with its operational hub located in Miami, within close proximity to the Caribbean and Latin America. For more information visit:http://www.cwc.com. || The most elite students in America have had it with investment banking: (flickr/willbeardphoto)Harvard MBA grads are no longer interested in banking.
Harvard Business School graduates are some of the most sought-after new hires in the world.
They're among the top choices for companies in just about every industry — including Wall Street investment banks.
It turns out, however, many of them are no longer interested in that industry.
Only 4% of the 2015 graduating class said they wanted to work at an investment bank, reportsBloomberg's Jennifer Surane.
Of the 46 students in the top 5% of the class, only one expressed an interest in banking, according to the report.
The report cited data froma member of the graduating MBA class, who blogged about the findings of a class survey he received from the university.
This may not come as a surprise.
Entry-level jobs on Wall Street are notoriously grueling: Young people work 90-hour weeks perfecting pitch books, scrolling through spreadsheets, ormaking presentations.
MBA grads, of course, would typically join banks at the associate or vice-president level. But many of them started out their careers as interns and analysts and may not have shaken the memories.
The Harvard blog's author started out in M&A at Morgan Stanley,according to his bio. Now he's running a tech startup as well as a family healthcare business, Bloomberg reported.
Industry veterans, too, know that banking is no longer as sexy.Ex-Credit Suisse managing director Fred Lanessaid: "The opportunities elsewhere ... are more attractive outside of investment banking."
That doesn't mean that bright Harvard MBA-holders are leaving finance altogether.
Many young financiers, after putting in their time at investment banks, make the jump to the "buyside" — hedge funds or private-equity firms.
The Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday thatmany MBA students are now only interested in becoming activist investorslike Bill Ackman or Carl Icahn.
Ackman's Pershing Square even holds an annual investing competition at Columbia as part of its recruiting efforts.
Ex-Merrill Lynch analyst andFinancial Times writer Sujeet Indap publisheda study on Wednesday on where his banking analyst class from the year 2000 now work.
Over half the class, he found, had taken a break at some point to earn graduate degrees, two-thirds of which were MBAs. More than 40% of the analyst class now work in private equity or in the hedge fund/investment management industry.
Less than 20% still work at investment banks.
NOW WATCH:The 10 trickiest Goldman Sachs interview questions
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• Bitcoin keeps surging, makes another new high for 2015 || Mike Tyson stepping into the bitcoin ring: Mike Tyson is getting into the bitcoin(:BTC=)market, apparently sponsoring an ATM that allows users to convert real-world cash into the digital currency.
Tyson, who was the former heavyweight boxing champion of the world, tweeted on Saturday the link toa websiteadvertising the "Mike Tyson Bitcoin ATM" coming in August of this year.
The site boasts that "Mike Tyson's fastest knock out in the ring was 30 seconds. The Mike Tyson Bitcoin ATM can turn your cash into bitcoin in under 20 seconds."
"I'm very proud to be a part of the Bitcoin revolution," Tyson said in a statement provided by his spokeswoman. "Digital currency is the future and the more I learn about it the more intrigued I become. Digital currency is going to level the playing ground for those that want alternatives for financial freedom."
"No one knows better than I how uncertain the economy can be and at this juncture in my life it is imperative that I am proactive about my financial planning and for me it includes Bitcoin," he added.
Still, tech news siteSiliconAngle reportedthat Tyson himself may have been "suckered into a deal by a fast talker who has promised him millions if he gets involved and lends his name to the enterprise." It cited MikeTysonBitcoin.com's registration to a Peter Klamka, who is connected to Bitcoin Brands-a firm with a paltry $6,780 market cap according to Google Finance.
Speaking to CNBC over the phone, Klamka disputed that account, saying that Bitcoin Brands has nothing to do with his Tyson venture, which operates under the moniker Bitcoin Direct LLC.
This new firm (which Klamka says is a subsidiary of cattle company Conexus Cattle(CNXS)"for financing") seeks to create a whole suite of celebrity bitcoin-related products. He told CNBC that he came to the idea after previously working with celebrity credit cards tied to Kiss, Donald Trump and Hello Kitty.
Read MoreBitcoin's 'war' could threaten its survival
The Tyson-branded bitcoin ATMs, which are slated to launch in two Las Vegas locations in about three weeks, will feature "Mike branding on the software" and will "hopefully have the ability to build a database of Mike's fans that are bitcoin users," Klamka said.
The venture is a 50-50 split between Tyson and Bitcoin Direct, he added.
More From CNBC
• Top News and Analysis
• Latest News Video
• Personal Finance || Bitcoin Focused HashingSpace Corporation Announces New Ticker Symbol "HSHS", Files 8-K, and Completes Reverse Merger: US based HashingSpace Corporation (HSHS) is pleased to announce it has completed a reverse merger, and a ticker change from the old ticker MLSOD to HSHS. HashingSpace provides a wide range of services to the Bitcoin and blockchain communities including hosted ASIC mining and Bitcoin ATM's
WENATCHEE, WA / ACCESSWIRE / July 27, 2015 /HashingSpace Corporation (HSHS), a Bitcoin ASIC mining and hosting company, announced today that it has completed a reverse merger transaction with Milestone International Corporation. HashingSpace completed its 8-K filing with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission. HashingSpace will be traded on the OTC Markets with the symbol HSHS. The reverse merger was completed on July 10, 2015.
HashingSpace Corporation merged with Milestone International Corporation as part of a reverse merger agreement for 120,000,000 shares of common stock, and 600,000 shares of Series A Preferred Stock.
US based HashingSpace Corporation's new ticker symbol (HSHS) reflects the company's growth strategy and brings value to our shareholders. HashingSpace provides hosted Bitcoin ASIC mining, Bitcoin cloud mining solutions, and Bitcoin ATM's, among other essential services, to the Bitcoin ecosystem.
"This transaction enables HashingSpace to fully capitalize on our fast growth as a Bitcoin and blockchain services and hosting operation. The merger we completed helps our company position itself as a leader in the Bitcoin/blockchain services revolution," shared Timothy Roberts, Chief Executive Officer of HashingSpace Corporation. "This is another major step in the implementation of our business plan to become a major provider of crypto currency and transactional verification mining solutions."
"We are pleased to receive approval from FINRA on our name and ticker change. We believe this ticker symbol change will foster a stronger and more recognizable brand for the company. The new symbol more accurately reflects who we are as a company. These changes reflect our expectations for future growth of the company and our desire to provide our shareholders with maximum value. It also helps our investors to see our strategic focus and long-term goals to become an industry leader in the Bitcoin services industry. We will continue to offer new Bitcoin innovations as we further build our brand and robust suite of services."
All company information, including stock trading, filings, and market data related to the company, will be reported under the new ticker symbol, HSHS.
HashingSpace Corporation's business will provide a wide range of services to include:
- HASHHOSTING:Servers fully managed and specifically set-up for ASIC MINING- CLOUDHASH:Cloud mining servers that can be rented with full hashing power- HASHMINING:Our own Mining Farm- HASHATM:Owner and operator of Bitcoin ATM machines- HASHWALLET:Bitcoin consumer wallet for bitcoin banking and transactions- HASHPOOL:Public Stratum and P2Pool (Web/IOS/Droid)- HASHTICKER:Free Ticker for tracking Bitcoin Value (Screen Saver/Web/IOS/Droid)- HASHVAR:A wholesaler of Bitcoin servers and Bitcoin ATM machines
About HashingSpace Corporation
HashingSpace Corporation is a Bitcoin ASIC mining company, hosting provider, and service provider of blockchain transactional services. HashingSpace's high density datacenters are designed to meet the demanding power and cooling needs of client hosted Bitcoin mining gear with unparalleled pricing, cooling and green energy. The Corporation is continuing to expand its datacenters to satisfy the shortage of low cost hosting facilities catering to the Bitcoin and blockchain mining and transactional verification services industry specifically.
HashingSpace Corporation manages HashWallet, a Bitcoin wallet; HashPool, a Bitcoin mining pool; and HashATM, the owner and operator of Bitcoin ATM machines. The company is a wholesaler of Bitcoin mining servers and Bitcoin ATM machines. Bitcoin businesses interested in reselling HashingSpace products and services are invited to reach out to HashingSpace Corporation for more information.
HashingSpace Corporation is headquartered in Wenatchee, Washington. For more information, visitwww.hashingspace.com.
Any unreleased services or features referenced in this or other press releases or public statements may not be currently available and may not be delivered on time or at all. Customers who purchase HashingSpace services should make their purchase decisions based upon features currently available. For more information please visithttp://www.hashingspace.comor call 1-855-HASHING (427-4464).
Safe Harbor Statement
This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. These forward-looking statements are based on the current plans and expectations of management and are subject to a number of uncertainties and risks that could significantly affect the Company's current plans and expectations, as well as future results of operations and financial condition. The Company undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.
For more information please visit:http://www.hashingspace.com/
Company Contact:
HashingSpace Corporation5042 Wilshire Blvd. #26900Los Angeles, CA, 90036855 – HASHING (427-4464)
Investor Relations:
Email:ir@hashingspace.com
SOURCE:HashingSpace Corporation || Phone Carriers Hoping To Profit From New iPhone: With Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL ) expected to unveil its latest iPhone model on Wednesday, many are already beginning to speculate as to how the new handset will be received by customers. However, it isn't just Apple that will benefit from the highly anticipated phone. Carriers like AT&T Inc. (NYSE: ATT ) and Sprint Corp (NYSE: S ) are also expected to receive a boost as customers look to upgrade their phones by switching providers or signing on for a new plan. New Ways To Pay While a new iPhone used to set U.S. customers back by about $200, the new iPhone is expected to be heavily marketed for installment and leasing plans . By offering customers the potential to upgrade their phone without a large initial investment, U.S. carriers are hoping to attract more customers. A price war between companies like AT&T, T-Mobile US Inc (NYSE: TMUS ), Verizon Communications Inc (NYSE: VZ ) and Sprint has made it increasingly difficult for companies to get, and keep customers. Related Link: The iPhone Generates More Revenue Than Google, eBay And Facebook Combined Getting A Phone The new iPhone is expected to be a big hit for companies like Sprint and T-Mobile which are offering leasing plans. For between $22 and $27 per month, customers can lease a new iPhone for two years. The deal means that they can upgrade to the latest and greatest smartphone more often, something that has appealed to many in the rapidly changing tech space. Others like Sprint are calling for customers to switch providers by offering the phone for $200 when signing up for a new contract. All of the U.S.' big name carriers allow users to upgrade to the new phone by paying in monthly installments until the cost of the device has been paid off. Biggest Winners While the big name carriers are all offering some sort of deal that includes a shiny new iPhone, many analysts believe that the biggest winners from the new iPhone release will be Sprint and T-Mobile because they are offering leasing plans. The leasing option is a relatively new offering that Sprint rolled out when the iPhone 6 came out. Story continues The idea of getting a new phone every two years and avoiding a huge initial investment has appealed to U.S. consumers and could become even more popular once the iPhone arrives. See more from Benzinga Apple Aims To Read Your Mind Is Europe The New Home For Bitcoin? iBusiness, iPrograms: Apple Stretches Its Legs © 2015 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.
[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
Current price: 211.72€ $BTCEUR $btc #bitcoin 2015-09-06 00:20:02 CEST || BITSTAMP LAST 267.00$ AVERAGE 271.94$ at 22:08 UTC #Bitcoin #BTCUSD || Bitcoin traded at $288.0 USD on BTC-e at 06:00 PM Pacific Time || LIVE: Profit = $136.19 (1.58 %). BUY B32.65 @ $263.00 (#BTCe). SELL @ $264.84 (#HitBTC) #bitcoin #btc - http://www.projectcoin.org || buysellbitco.in #bitcoin price in INR, Buy : 17632.00 INR Sell : 17081.00 INR. Buy and sell bitcoin in #India using #buysellbitcoin || I attacked Robot-lvl 6, and I've earned a total of 185,00 free satoshis! http://www.robotcoingame.com/?id=1AUnLMJG3zwaXE5JDTjPitQbttT6ZVaPrz … #robotcoingame #Bitcoin #FreeBitcoin || Current price: 278.45$ $BTCUSD $btc #bitcoin 2015-07-20 16:00:04 EDT || Current price: 147.17£ $BTCGBP $btc #bitcoin 2015-08-30 05:00:02 BST || Current price: 203.69€ $BTCEUR $btc #bitcoin 2015-09-01 10:00:04 CEST || Current price: 253.09€ $BTCEUR $btc #bitcoin 2015-08-02 07:00:04 CEST
|
Trend: up || Prices: 230.30, 229.09, 229.81, 232.98, 231.49, 231.21, 227.09, 230.62, 230.28, 234.53
|
Analyze the provided historical prices, technical indicators, news, and social media sentiment from the last 60 days. Based on this context, predict the overall trend (up, down, or no change) and the specific daily closing prices for Bitcoin for the next 10 days.
|
[Technical Analysis for 2021-07-14]
BTC Price: 32822.35, BTC RSI: 43.30
Gold Price: 1824.30, Gold RSI: 55.72
Oil Price: 73.13, Oil RSI: 53.58
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
Investor Deadline Approaching: Kessler Topaz Meltzer & Check, LLP Reminds Investors of Deadline in Securities Fraud Class Action Lawsuit Filed Against Ebang International Holdings Inc. (EBON): RADNOR, Pa., May 26, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The law firm of Kessler Topaz Meltzer & Check, LLP reminds investors that a securities fraud class action lawsuit has been filed in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York against Ebang International Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ: EBON) (“Ebang”) on behalf of those who purchased or acquired Ebang securitiesbetween June 26, 2020 and April 5, 2021, inclusive (the “Class Period”).
Investor Deadline Reminder: Investors who purchased or acquired Ebang securitiesduring the Class Period may,no later than June 7, 2021, seek to be appointed as a lead plaintiff representative of the class. For additional information or to learn how to participate in this litigation please contact Kessler Topaz Meltzer & Check, LLP: James Maro, Esq. (484) 270-1453 or Adrienne Bell, Esq. (484) 270-1435; toll free at (844) 887-9500; via e-mail atinfo@ktmc.com;orclickhttps://www.ktmc.com/ebang-international-class-action-lawsuit?utm_source=PR&utm_medium=Link&utm_campaign=ebang
Ebang is a leading application-specific integrated circuit chip design company and a leading manufacturer of Bitcoin mining machines. The Class Period commences on June 26, 2020, when Ebang filed its prospectus in connection with its initial public offering (the “IPO”). On October 23, 2020, Ebang filed its registration statement on a Form F-1 for an offering of Class A ordinary shares and warrants to purchase Class A ordinary shares. It was subsequently amended on October 26, 2020, November 6, 2020, and November 16, 2020 before Ebang filed a related prospectus on a Form 424b4 on November 20, 2020.
According to the complaint, on April 6, 2021, before the market opened, Hindenburg Research published a report alleging, among other things, that Ebang was directing proceeds from its IPO last year into a “series of opaque deals with insiders and questionable counterparties.” According to the report, Ebang raised $21 million in November 2020, claiming the proceeds would go “primarily for development,” and that instead the funds were directed to repay related-party loans to a relative of Ebang’s Chief Executive Officer, Dong Hu. The report also noted that Ebang’s earlier efforts to go public on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange had failed due to widespread media coverage of a sales inflation scheme with Yindou, a Chinese peer-to-peer online lending platform that defrauded 20,000 retail investors in 2018, with $655 million “vanish[ing] into thin air.” Following this news, Ebang’s share price fell $0.82, or approximately 13%, to close at $5.53 per share on April 6, 2021.
Then, on April 6, 2021, after the market closed, Ebang issued a statement stating that, though it believed the report “contain[ed] many errors, unsupported speculations and inaccurate interpretations of events,” the “Board, together with its Audit Committee, intends to further review and examine the allegations and misinformation therein and will take whatever necessary and appropriate actions may be required to protect the interest of its shareholders.” Following this news, Ebang’s share price fell $0.12, or 2.17%, to close at $5.41 per share on April 7, 2021. The stock price continued to decline over the next trading session by $0.38, or 7%, to close at $5.03 per share on April 8, 2021.
The complaint alleges that, throughout the Class Period, the defendants failed to disclose to investors that: (1) the proceeds from Ebang’s public offerings had been directed to low yield, long term bonds to an underwriter and to related parties rather than used to develop Ebang’s operations; (2) Ebang’s sales were declining, and Ebang had inflated reported sales, including through the sale of defective units; (3) Ebang’s attempts to go public in Hong Kong had failed due to allegations of embezzling investor funds and inflated sales figures; (4) Ebang’s purported cryptocurrency exchange was merely the purchase of an out-of-the-box crypto exchange; and (5) as a result of the foregoing, the defendants’ positive statements about Ebang’s business, operations, and prospects were materially misleading and/or lacked a reasonable basis.
Ebang investors may,no later than June 7, 2021, seek to be appointed as a lead plaintiff representative of the class through Kessler Topaz Meltzer & Check, LLP or other counsel, or may choose to do nothing and remain an absent class member. A lead plaintiff is a representative party who acts on behalf of all class members in directing the litigation. In order to be appointed as a lead plaintiff, the Court must determine that the class member’s claim is typical of the claims of other class members, and that the class member will adequately represent the class. Your ability to share in any recovery is not affected by the decision of whether or not to serve as a lead plaintiff.
Kessler Topaz Meltzer & Check, LLP prosecutes class actions in state and federal courts throughout the country involving securities fraud, breaches of fiduciary duties and other violations of state and federal law. Kessler Topaz Meltzer & Check, LLP is a driving force behind corporate governance reform, and has recovered billions of dollars on behalf of institutional and individual investors from the United States and around the world. The firm represents investors, consumers and whistleblowers (private citizens who report fraudulent practices against the government and share in the recovery of government dollars). The complaint in this action was not filed by Kessler Topaz Meltzer & Check, LLP. For more information about Kessler Topaz Meltzer & Check, LLP please visitwww.ktmc.com.
CONTACT:
Kessler Topaz Meltzer & Check, LLPJames Maro, Jr., Esq.Adrienne Bell, Esq.280 King of Prussia RoadRadnor, PA 19087(844) 887-9500 (toll free)info@ktmc.com || Bitcoin Mining Hashrate Hits New 13-Month Low: The mining hashrate of bitcoin has hit a 13 months low following the increased decline in mining activity in China.
The totalhashrate on the bitcoin networkcurrently sits at 101.9 TH/s. The last time the network saw a hashrate that low was at the beginning of June 2020.
The mining hashrate represents an important security metric for the blockchain. The more hashing power in the network, the more secure its overall resistance to attack is. The estimated hashing rate decline can strongly be attributed to the recent Chinese bans on bitcoin mining.
Recently, China has taken great steps tocurb mining of bitcoinin the country. China has also prohibited financial institutions from using crypto services. Bitcoin miners in China have already shut down mining operations, with the majority of them looking for greener pastures to continue mining bitcoin.
BIT mining has begun moving its operations toKazakhstan. BIT mining was originally based in one of China’s bitcoin mining capitals, Sichuan. However, the company has escalated its efforts by shipping over 320 mining machines to its new location. The company is looking at sending over an additional 2,700 mining rigs before the end of the month.
The move by China has had a devastating effect on the mining industry in the country. Essentially ending the country’s reign on the mining sector.
Bitcoin maximalist and CEO of MicroStrategy, Michael Saylor recentlycommentedon the country’s move, calling it “a trillion-dollar mistake.”
He added, “China had 50% market share of bitcoin and they were generating $10 billion a year, in a business that was growing 100% a year, year-over-year.”
The crackdown in China has not slowed down MicroStrategy’s desire to own more bitcoin, as the company purchased a further 13,005 BTC this week.
BeInCrypto’slatest on-chain analysiscovering the declining hashrate acknowledged that while the hashrate and active addresses have been declining since the recent all-time high of $64,800, the network is still seeing user growth.
Accumulation continues as holders buy more bitcoin, liquidity also appears to be declining, insinuating that there could be a reversal of the downward trend soon. || Bitcoin goes negative for the year: After a rocket ride that saw it more than double in price earlier this year,Bitcoinis back to where it started.
The cryptocurrency went negative for the year early Tuesday as prices continue toplungeamid an ongoing crypto crash. Right around 10:09 a.m. ET, the price of Bitcoin fell to $28,814.75, about $300 below where it started the year. Prices have recovered slightly since reaching that low, but Bitcoin is hovering right at the $30,000 benchmark and, as of 10:54 a.m. ET, is down more than 8% for the day, according toCoindesk.
Tuesday’s dive is a continuation of Monday’s sell-off, as traders worry thatChina’s crackdown on the cryptocurrencycould greatly reduce demand. (The People’s Bank of China ordered major financial institutions in that country to stop facilitating crypto transactions.)
It’s a hard fall for Bitcoin, which topped off at more than $64,000 in mid-April. Last month, it fell 35%, though, and the sell-offhasn’t eased since. Some proponents,like CNBC’s Jim Cramer, have sold off the majority of their portfolios.
“This is not going up because of structural reasons,” Cramer said Monday.
Bitcoin is not the only crypto that’s in free-fall.Ethereumwas down nearly 12% early Tuesday, but is still well above where it started the year. And one-time favorite Dogecoin has been sent to the pound, with prices plummeting nearly 23% to just 17 cents. While that’s still a 3,505% return for people who invested at the start of the year, it’s miles away from the $1 target thatseemed very attainablejust one month ago.
This story was originally featured onFortune.com || Former PayPal Leaders Create International Decentralized Payment Network: ra2studio / Getty Images/iStockphoto Former PayPal leaders and Rubycoins founders Jim Nguyen and Nas Kavian, along with Ripple’s former Director of Business Development Wellington Sculley, have teamed up to create Six Clovers, an international decentralized payment network . See: Will Bitcoin Ever Be Accepted Widely as a Form of Payment? Find: What Is Blockchain Technology? So what does that mean? Six Clovers is a network that can sustain 46,000 peer-to-peer transactions per second and confirm transactions in about 2.5 seconds. The startup is backed by Borderless Capital, BCW Group, Grupo Supervielle and angel investors. The payment network is built on Algorand and “provides a solid foundation to decentralize and scale” their services globally. Banks, merchants and payment providers can use the platform to move and transact in digital currencies across the world, their website states. Businesses will be able to connect to a decentralized financial system to enable faster, cheaper and more secure payments across borders. Six Clovers says its decentralised Rapid payment network will allow organizations to integrate and enable real-time payments using the efficiency and scale of digital currencies. Rapid uses regulated stablecoins, including USDC, to represent fiat-on-chain, and enables the instant transfer of value between sender and receiver, adds Finextra. Real-time payments mean customers get instant access to their deposited funds, which Six Clovers says is a competitive advantage. Decentralized payment networks are systems where the customer and the vendo exchange money without having to trust another third party to keep the network secure and operational. See: How Does Cryptocurrency Work – and Is It Safe? Find: What Is Chainlink and Why Is It Important in the World of Cryptocurrency? These online networks are now possible because of access to the internet and blockchains, which by nature allows for decentralization. Traditionally, a bank could be a third-party for payments and transactions With these newer types of systems, they are responsible for the transaction only, but as Six Clovers states, the funds are available instantly. Story continues To compare, before blockchain technology, the most decentralized payments system that existed was cash. Funds were available immediately, and there was no third-party holding — or tracing — of where the money went. Importantly, with a cash exchange the customer and vendor do not need to trust anyone else to verify the transaction as the exchange rests on a tangible asset. Nguyen told Finextra that their technology will “equip financial institutions, payment providers and merchants with a full-stack, blockchain native payment infrastructure to seamlessly and securely move and transact in digital currencies globally .” More From GOBankingRates Jaw-Dropping Stats About the State of Retirement in America How To Keep Your Financial Planning On Track in 2021 20 Home Renovations That Will Hurt Your Home’s Value 27 Things You Should Never Do With Your Money This article originally appeared on GOBankingRates.com : Former PayPal Leaders Create International Decentralized Payment Network || Are U.S. Airlines Set to Make a Comeback in 2021?: The year 2020 was a challenging one for the U.S. airline industry as the COVID-19 outbreak put travel restrictions in place to curb the spread of the virus. However, the situation has been improving gradually, thanks to the rapid vaccination drive in the country. In fact, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) stated that nearly one in two Americans have received at least one dose of the vaccine while half the citizens above the age of 18 were fully vaccinated as of May 25 morning, as mentioned in a Reuters article. Notably, people are feeling safer to travel now and that has resulted in a bump up in the number of passengers on flights. Interestingly, on May 16, the Transportation Security Administration recorded 1.85 million passengers, as quoted in a Simple Flying article. Moreover, the article stated that this was the first day since the start of the pandemic when over 1.8 million people flew in one day, highlighting the strengthening rebound. Adding to the positive sentiment is also the fact that the CDC has revised its travel guidelines for fully vaccinated people. Markedly, the CDC stated in a report that for traveling, people dont need to get tested or self-quarantined if they are fully vaccinated or if they have recovered from COVID-19 in the past three months. Meanwhile, the International Air Transport Association (IATA) also predicted a rebound this year, at least when it comes to domestic travel. Notably, a report by the IATA stated that domestic markets could recover to 96% of the pre-crisis levels in the second half of 2021, marking an improvement of 48% over 2020. Moreover, IATA expected North American carriers to be best placed to take advantage of the vaccination drive to boost domestic travel in the country. Reflective of these positive developments, U.S. airlines have been ramping up flights to deal with the surging demand for air travel while introducing new travel routes. Notably, American Airlines Group Inc. AAL and JetBlue Airways Corporation JBLU stated that they are adding 24 new routes in eight new cities, as part of their Northeast Alliance partnership, as cited in a New York Post article. Notably, both American Airlines and JetBlue currently carry Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). You can see the complete list of todays Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here . Story continues Moreover, another Simple Flying article mentioned that American Airlines is planning to expand its flight options to Spain, as the country is set to open up on Jun 7, for fully vaccinated visitors. Meanwhile, a PR Newswire article stated that United Airlines Holdings, Inc. UAL is going to add 400 flights to its Julys schedule, compared to June, while it will also resume and add new routes and increase its domestic network by 17%, in comparison to its June schedule. Meanwhile, jet fuel prices, which catapulted from the lows of last year, were seen coming down last week. Such a scenario bodes well for airlines as it might help them in reducing costs. Notably, data from IATA showed that in North America, for the week ended May 21, jet fuel prices dropped 3.1% from the previous week. Bitcoin, Like the Internet Itself, Could Change Everything Blockchain and cryptocurrency have sparked one of the most exciting discussion topics of a generation. Some call it the Internet of Money and predict it could change the way money works forever. If true, it could do to banks what Netflix did to Blockbuster and Amazon did to Sears. Experts agree were still in the early stages of this technology, and as it grows, it will create several investing opportunities. Zacks has just revealed 3 companies that can help investors capitalize on the explosive profit potential of Bitcoin and the other cryptocurrencies with significantly less volatility than buying them directly. See 3 crypto-related stocks now >> Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report JetBlue Airways Corporation (JBLU) : Free Stock Analysis Report United Airlines Holdings Inc (UAL) : Free Stock Analysis Report American Airlines Group Inc. (AAL) : Free Stock Analysis Report To read this article on Zacks.com click here. Zacks Investment Research || How Creator is Making Blockchain-as-a-Service Accessible to Everyone: HANOI, VIETNAM / ACCESSWIRE / July 13, 2021 /2021 has been a pivotal year in the advancement of blockchain and cryptocurrency adoption. While Bitcoin prices have served to keep crypto in the headlines, interest in blockchain technologies is beginning to take off. However, as with every wave of blockchain adoption, technological and user experience barriers continue to plague new users. Setting up even the simplest transaction types on a blockchain requires an understanding of programming and smart contracts.
Blockchain-as-a-service (BaaS) platforms emerged mainly in response to enterprise demand for support in navigating blockchain and all of its attendant issues.
What is BaaS?
BaaS providers operate a managed blockchain platform, supplying all of the infrastructures and often many of the tools needed to build full-fledged decentralized applications (dapps) for different types of users: individuals, merchants, or developers.
Using BaaS alleviates the need for companies to set up their own blockchain applications, allowing them to focus on how blockchain can solve their specific industry problems rather than concerning themselves with the fundamentals of the technology itself. In this sense, BaaS providers can be considered comparable to an enterprise cloud storage provider or a hosting service such as AWS or Azure, which are seldom managed in-house these days.
As a result of the rising interest in blockchain, the BaaS market isgrowing fast, expected to reach nearly $25 billion by 2027, with growth of around 40% CAGR over the coming years. It's hardly surprising when you consider the alternative would be for a firm to hire in a blockchain development team which could cost upwards of tens of thousands of dollars - prohibitively expensive for companies that don't have significant cash reserves.
However, despite the popularity of BaaS, the current landscape still assumes a certain level of technical expertise and complexity. For the average small business owner who's read about the benefits of using blockchain in loyalty programs, or an artist looking to drop their latest album in NFT format to legions of followers, it's not an invitation that's likely to resonate.
That's what makes Creator's business model stand out against the competition.
Introducing Creator
Creatorscales back the technical barriers to blockchain to their absolute limits, offering a BaaS platform designed to appeal to anyone looking for blockchain features with minimal fuss involved.
For instance, let's say a band wants to create an additional revenue stream by selling digital merchandise to fans. Rather than engaging a developer or attempting to learn enough code themselves to create smart contracts, they can simply use Creators No-Code Smart Contract Service. It's designed with an intuitive user interface to make it easy for anyone non-technical to own their secure and standard smart contracts. Any smart contract built using the Creator platform can be integrated to one of many big blockchain networks such as Creator Chain, Ethereum, Binance Smart Chain, KardiaChain, and many other chains in the future.
More importantly, the fact is that blockchain developers are inhigh demand and short supply. Not even development agencies or IT outsourcing companies necessarily have enough personnel with sufficient blockchain skills, or budget for specialized blockchain training, to provide such services.
In addition, the gap in trade financing around the world should be bridged by using blockchain technology, asreportedby the World Economic Forum, which can be addressed by Creator's Low Code DApp. SMEs now can use Creator's Low Code DApp to create their DeFi and payment applications which will bring transparency and accountability, security and traceability, along with cost efficiency.
Two Birds, One Stone
Developers or service providers who are finding increased demand for blockchain-based services and applications can build DApps using Creator platform's Low Code DApp. They don't need to learn any specifics of blockchain programming. In this way, developers could offer a broader range of services to clients. At the same time, in-house IT teams with a general understanding of programming can leverage blockchain without having to hire in or outsource expertise in DApp development.
With Creator's Low Code DApp, developers can significantly reduce the time and cost needed to get their clients up and running with blockchain services. As such, Creator aims to address the challenges of two groups - SMEs planning to integrate blockchain, and IT companies wishing to provide such services to their SME clients.
Creator is also developing a loyalty platform, enabling any enterprise, even a small local business, to set up a blockchain-based loyalty program out of the box. The platform is powered by the native CTR token, which is used to pay transaction and BaaS fees, trade NFTs, and exchange for loyalty points and gifts in the Creator ecosystem.
Creator is backed by VMO Group, one of Vietnam's top 10 IT companies and it already employs teams of experienced developers under the guidance of experts. The project has also caught the attention of established investors in the blockchain sector, gaining backing from players including Master Ventures, Kardia Ventures, Exnetwork, and others. The project will launch the IDO for its CTR token on PAID's Ignition launchpad later in Q3 of 2021.
For more information check out Creator'swebsiteor follow them on social media:
TwitterlFacebooklTelegramlMediumlGithublE-mail
SOURCE:Creator Chain
View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/654596/How-Creator-is-Making-Blockchain-as-a-Service-Accessible-to-Everyone || Following Wednesday’s Crypto Debacle, Coinbase Exec Offers Mea Culpa: Following several crypto exchanges technical debacles Wednesday,Coinbase’s Chief Product Officer Surojit Chatterjee, offered a mea culpa on Thursday, saying in a tweet that the company “experienced unprecedented surge in trading volumes.”
See:Cryptocurrency Glossary: Defining the Terms of the Hot TopicFind:10 Best Cryptocurrencies To Invest in for 2021
Because of a massive Bitcoin selloff due to the price of the crypto crashing, several crypto exchanges including Coinbase, Binance, Gemini and Kraken had technical issues.
“Yesterday was a crazy day! We experienced unprecedented surge in trading volumes. My sincere personal apologies to every customer who faced challenges due to unreliability of our site/apps. We’re doing everything we can to make our system robust and be ready for the next time,” Chatterjee tweeted.
Coinbase, the largest crypto exchange in the U.S. who had a blockbuster IPO in April, had issues most of the day Wednesday, showing an error message on its home page. Its app was also unavailable for trading, according to MarketWatch.
Binance’s CEO Brian Brooks — a former Coinbase exec who took the helm of the rival company in April — told Bloomberg that it was looking to fix its issues in the coming months.
See:How Does Cryptocurrency Work – and Is It Safe?Find:How To Invest In Cryptocurrency: What You Should Know Before Investing
“We have way too many customer support issues on backlog,” Brooks told Bloomberg.
“I know it’s a big deal, I’ve gotten that feedback,” he added. “We’re all over this and you’re going to see a different customer experience very shortly.”
In a surprising twist, rival Robinhood who has suffered several crashes in the past months was up and running all day yesterday, according to The Street.
Bitcoin started Wednesday at $43,000 and dipped to $34,000 at its lowest for the day, according to CoinMarketCap. The crypto has been having a rough couple of weeks, that some investors partly blame onTesla CEO Elon Musk who suggested, in a series of tweets, that the electric car company would be dumping the cryptocurrency. Even after clarifying early this morning that the company had not sold the crypto, the damage was done.
As of this writing, Bitcoin was at $41,000.
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This article originally appeared onGOBankingRates.com:Following Wednesday’s Crypto Debacle, Coinbase Exec Offers Mea Culpa || EUR/USD Daily Forecast – Euro Remains Under Pressure: EUR/USDis currently trying to settle below the support at 1.1900 while the U.S. dollar is moving higher against a broad basket of currencies.
The U.S. Dollar Index is testing the resistance level at 92. In case this test is successful, the U.S. Dollar Index will move towards the next resistance level at 92.15 which will be bearish for EUR/USD.
There are no important economic reportsscheduledto be released in the U.S. and EU today so foreign exchange market traders will focus on general market sentiment.
U.S. dollar continues to gain ground against a broad basket of currencies, and it looks that it is a major short squeeze. Too many traders were bearish on the dollar because of Fed’s dovish stance, and the sudden change in tone caught them by surprise. If this short squeeze continues, EUR/USD will find itself under more pressure.
EUR/USD managed to settle below the support at 1.1925 and is currently trying to settle below the next support level at 1.1900. RSI declined into the oversold territory after the recent sell-off, and the risks of a rebound are increasing.
In case EUR/USD manages to settle below the support at 1.1900, it will get to the test of the next support level which is located at 1.1880. A successful test of the support at 1.1880 will open the way to the test of the next support at 1.1860. If EUR/USD gets below this level, it will head towards the support at 1.1830.
On the upside, the previous support level at 1.1925 will serve as the first resistance level for EUR/USD. In case EUR/USD manages to settle back above this level, it will gain additional upside momentum and head towards the next resistance which is located at 1.1965. A move above the resistance at 1.1965 will push EUR/USD towards the next resistance level at 1.1990.
For a look at all of today’s economic events, check out oureconomic calendar.
Thisarticlewas originally posted on FX Empire
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• Is Bitcoin An Investable Asset Class? Goldman Sachs Analysts Are Divided Over This || 3iQs Bitcoin ETF Rises on First Day of Trading on Nasdaq Dubai: Canadian digital-asset manager 3iQs bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) started trading on Nasdaq Dubai on Wednesday. The shares rose 10%. 3iQ Corp received regulatory clearance for the listing in April. The Bitcoin ETF is trading under the ticker symbol QBTC. It was launched in 2020 and is the first cryptocurrency fund to go public in the Middle East. 3iQ appointed Dubai-based Dalma Capital Management as the syndicate manager to help facilitate the listing and plans to work closely with banks in the United Arab Emirates and other lenders from the region. In April, 3iQ and investment firm CoinShares launched a bitcoin and ether ETF now trading on the Toronto Stock Exchange. Read more: Canadas 4th Ether ETF, From 3iQ and CoinShares, Begins Trading on the TSX Related Stories SEC Delays Decision on Valkyrie Bitcoin ETF Bybit Becomes Latest Crypto Platform to Be Targeted by Canadian Securities Regulator SEC Again Delays VanEck Bitcoin ETF Decision Hut 8 Minings Shares to Be Listed on Nasdaq || High Debt Hurts Hawaiian Holdings (HA), Low Fuel Costs Aid: We have recently updated a report onHawaiian Holdings, Inc.HA.
Like other airlines, Hawaiian Holdings is bearing the brunt of the coronavirus pandemic. Due to declining passenger revenues (down 72.7% in first quarter of 2021), the carrier reported wider-than-expected loss in each of the past four quarters. With waning demand, the company has been operating a very limited schedule since last spring.
Hawaiian Holdings’ total debt to total capital ratio was 0.78 at the end of first-quarter 2021, higher than the previous quarter’s 0.68. Higher debt-to-capitalization ratio indicates that the proportion of debt to finance the company’s assets is increasing and so is the risk of insolvency. Further, cash and cash equivalent balance of $1.91 billion at the end of the quarter was far below its long-term debt level of $1.97 billion.
Meanwhile, low fuel prices will likely help the carrier partly offset the adversities as fuel expenses comprise a major chunk of airline expenditures. With majority of the fleet grounded, gallons of jet fuel consumed declined 53.1% in first-quarter 2021, leading to lower expenses on aircraft fuel (down 57.9% in first-quarter 2021). Low fuel costs supported the company’s bottom line in the March-end quarter.
Hawaiian Holdings currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).
Some better-ranked stocks in the broader Zacks Transportation sector includeLandstar System, Inc. LSTR, Triton International Limited TRTNandHerc Holdings Inc. HRI. Herc Holdings and Landstar sport a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy), while Triton carries a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). You can seethe complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.
Long-term (three to five years) expected earnings per share growth rate for Landstar, Triton and Herc Holdings is projected at 12%, 10% and 42.9%, respectively.
Blockchain and cryptocurrency have sparked one of the most exciting discussion topics of a generation. Some call it the “Internet of Money” and predict it could change the way money works forever. If true, it could do to banks what Netflix did to Blockbuster and Amazon did to Sears. Experts agree we’re still in the early stages of this technology, and as it grows, it will create several investing opportunities.Zacks has just revealed 3 companies that can help investors capitalize on the explosive profit potential of Bitcoin and the other cryptocurrencies with significantly less volatility than buying them directly.See 3 crypto-related stocks now >>
Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days.Click to get this free reportHawaiian Holdings, Inc. (HA) : Free Stock Analysis ReportLandstar System, Inc. (LSTR) : Free Stock Analysis ReportHerc Holdings Inc. (HRI) : Free Stock Analysis ReportTriton International Limited (TRTN) : Free Stock Analysis ReportTo read this article on Zacks.com click here.Zacks Investment Research
[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
None available.
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Trend: up || Prices: 31780.73, 31421.54, 31533.07, 31796.81, 30817.83, 29807.35, 32110.69, 32313.11, 33581.55, 34292.45
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Analyze the provided historical prices, technical indicators, news, and social media sentiment from the last 60 days. Based on this context, predict the overall trend (up, down, or no change) and the specific daily closing prices for Bitcoin for the next 10 days.
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[Technical Analysis]
Not fully available.
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
10 things you need to know today: man on pig (https://pictures.reuters.com/C.aspx?VP3=SearchResult Farmer Zhang Xianping with pig Big Precious during an interview with the media in Zhangjiakou, Hebei province, China. Here is what you need to know. Volkswagen has another emissions scandal . The German automaker announced that an internal investigation had discovered "irregularities in CO2 levels" in as many as 800,000 vehicles. It is unclear whether the irregularities are related to the recently discovered emissions scandal related to nitrogen-oxide testing. " Under the ongoing review of all processes and workflows in connection with diesel engines it was established that the CO2 levels and thus the fuel consumption figures for some models were set too low during the CO2 certification process," Volkswagen said in a statement. "The majority of the vehicles concerned have diesel engines." Tesla is flying high after its latest outlook . Shares of Tesla were up 10% in after-hours trade after the company announced it expected to deliver 17,000 to 19,000 vehicles in the fourth quarter, outpacing the Wall Street consensus. For all of 2015, Tesla said it would deliver 50,000 to 52,000 vehicles, narrowing its range from its previous estimate of 50,000 to 55,000. On the earnings front, the electric-car maker lost $0.58 per share, which was slightly worse than the $0.56 loss that was anticipated. Revenue jumped 33.4% to $1.24 billion, in line with estimates. US auto sales are at the highest level in a decade . The latest Autodata showed US auto sales rose at an annualized pace of 18.24 million in October, the best in a decade. The number easily surpassed the Wall Street consensus of 17.7 million vehicles . Mazda (+35.4%) saw the biggest gains, while General Motors (+16%) and Ford (+13%) posted solid results. BMW USA (-6.6%) was the lone decliner. Honda is dumping Takata airbags . The AFP reports that Takata's largest client, Honda, has severed its relationship with the company after US authorities announced a $200 million fine against the airbag maker. Takata airbags have been linked to eight deaths and even more injuries around the world. "On a global basis, no new Honda and Acura models currently under development will be equipped with a front driver or passenger Takata airbag inflator," Honda said in a statement. Shares of Takata were down as much as 20% in Tokyo. Story continues Iceland raised rates . Iceland's central bank raised its benchmark interest rate 25 basis points to 5.75%. The central bank noted that domestic demand was expected to increase by more than 7% this year and that gross domestic product was forecast to grow at 4.6%. As for inflation, the central bank said: "It is still expected that large pay increases will cause inflation to rise above the target as 2016 progresses and the effects of low global inflation taper off. Inflation will not return to target until 2018." The Icelandic krona is weaker by 0.2% at 128.90 per dollar. European services data was strong . October Services PMI for the eurozone was released, and it showed that every country outpaced expectations except for Germany. Spain saw the biggest month-over-month increase, as its reading climbed from 54.6 in September to 55.9 in October and easily beat the 54.6 that was expected. Germany's number ticked up to 54.5 from 54.1 but missed the 55.2 that economists were expecting. The eurozone as a whole improved to 54.1 from 53.7. The euro is down 0.3% at 1.0935. Bitcoin has gone parabolic . On Tuesday, bitcoin rallied 10% to close just shy of the $400 mark. On Wednesday morning, bitcoin is up another 15% near $454. The digital currency has surged 89% since the beginning of October. Stock markets around the world are higher. China's Shanghai Composite (+4.3%) surged after the People's Bank of China released some dated comments from governor Zhou Xiaochuan. In Europe, Spain's IBEX (+1.2%) leads the gains. S&P 500 futures are higher by 2.75 points at 2,105.75. US economic data is moderate. ADP Employment Change is due out at 8:15 a.m. ET before the trade balance crosses the wires at 8:30 a.m. ET and ISM Services is released at 10 a.m. ET. Crude-oil inventories will be announced at 10:30 a.m. ET. The US 10-year yield is down 1 basis point at 2.20%. Earnings reporting remains heavy. 21st Century Fox, Allergan, CDW, Honda Motor, Michael Kors, and Time Warner highlight the names scheduled to release their quarterly results ahead of the opening bell. Facebook, Marathon Oil, MetLife, Prudential, Qualcomm, Sturm Ruger, and Whole Foods are among the companies reporting after markets close. NOW WATCH: Here's the Bill Cosby joke Eddie Murphy did at the Kennedy Center that everyone's talking about More From Business Insider 10 things you need to know today 10 things you need to know today 10 things you need to know today || Global Arena Holding Sub Explores Secured Blockchain Voting: NEW YORK, NY--(Marketwired - Oct 22, 2015) - Global Arena Holding, Inc. (the "Company") (OTC PINK:GAHC), announced today, that its subsidiary,Global Election Services, Inc. ("GES"), is exploring expansion opportunities offeringsecured blockchain votingapplications developed by Blockchain Technologies Corporation ("BTC").
"We have a sizable, longstanding client list, which speaks volumes to the quality and reputation of our elections services," statedMs. Maralin Falik, President of GES and Chairwoman of the Mediation and Arbitration Division. "Our intended expansion usingsecured blockchain votingplatforms, however inviting it may be, must maintain the surety of a safe and secure voting process -- the caliber of which GES' team is known for.
"We're confident, that if there is any such technology that can support the expansion of GES andadvance ballot elections into a high-tech world, 'the blockchain' is it."
GES, which has been a major contributor to the Company's bottom line, has explored the possibility of expansion through the use ofsecured blockchain votingapplications since the Company began acquisition talks with BTC. Management indicated that growth opportunities are abound for GES, if successfully aligned with BTC, setting the stage for GES to become a leading election management company.
Mr. John Matthews, CEO of the Company, stated, "Ms. Falik has participated in over 7,000 plus elections and processed over 40,000,000 ballots in her 30 plus years of election administration. I believe this affords her some authority to suggest what the future of ballot election services could resemble, with the implementation of the right technology."
"I too support an evolved voting process. Faster. More secure. Accurate. Non-tamperable and foolproof. Most important, 'electronic,' making it convenient and globally accessible. I'm quite positive, there are a many advocates that would agree, if there is any technology that couldadvance ballot elections into a high-tech world, 'the blockchain' is it."
Executive teams at BTC and GES have already begun conceptually augmenting the process of registered mail ballots, in-person registrations, tabulations and internet voting. With an extensive background in government elections and a working knowledge of elections for Labor Unions, Associations, etc., BTC certainly brings strength to GES family.
Ms. Falik concluded, "The possibilities here are truly amazing! We are firmly committed to deliveringsecured blockchain votingapplications, to the election services industry."
For more information on what this news means for the Company, visit:http://wp.me/p6Nf5M-CL
About Global Arena Holding
The Company trades on the OTC Pink Sheets under the ticker symbol GAHC. The Company has been publicly traded since 2011 and holds a number of interests, including Global Elections Services, Inc. and GAHI Acquisition Corp. The Company focuses on acquiring technologies, patents and companies having the ability to leverage the blockchain crypto technology.
For more information visit:http://globalarenaholding.com
Twitter:www.twitter.com/GlobalArenaGAHCFacebook:www.facebook.com/GlobalArenaHoldingGAHCLinkedIn:www.linkedin.com/pub/global-arena-holding/107/86a/a7Google+:http://tinyurl.com/GlobalArenaHolding
Safe Harbor Statement
The Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 provides a "safe harbor" for forward-looking statements. Certain information included in this press release contains statements that are forward-looking, such as statements related to the future anticipated direction of the industry, plans for future expansion, various business development activities, planned or required capital expenditures, future funding sources, anticipated sales growth, and potential contracts. Such forward-looking information involves important risks and uncertainties that could significantly affect anticipated results in the future and, accordingly, such results may differ from those expressed in any forward-looking statements made by, or on behalf of, the company. These risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, those relating to development and expansion activities, dependence on existing management, financing activities, domestic and global economic conditions, and other risks and uncertainties described in the Company's periodic filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. || MarilynJean Interactive (MJMI.QB) Welcomes Top Bitcoin Remittance and ATM Expert to Board of Advisors: HENDERSON, NV / ACCESSWIRE / November 9, 2015 / MarilynJean Interactive ( MJMI ) today announced it has retained Christopher Concepcion to serve on its board of advisors. Mr. Concepcion has an MBA from Stanford University, over 30 years of international corporate expertise at the executive level, wide ranging business relationships in the Philippines and extensive experience in Bitcoin remittance and ATM operations. Mr. Concepcion was born and raised in the Philippines where he earned his undergraduate degree in business at The University of The Philippines in Manila. He then completed an MBA at Stanford University in California. While in the Philippines, Mr. Concepcion held executive positions in companies involved in supply chain management, real estate financing, insurance and communications. He has worked with Filipino remittances for the last 12 years. Mr. Concepcion was also a member of the Capital Markets Development Council that provided public / private business policy advice to the Philippine government. Mr. Concepcion and his family relocated to Canada in 2014. In late 2014, Mr. Concepcion formed Bitcoiniacs Holdings Inc., to acquire the world's first Bitcoin ATM operator. Mr. Concepcion then pivoted the business toward remittances, with a focus on using Bitcoins to allow foreign workers to quickly and inexpensively remit funds to the Philippines. Peter Janosi, MJMI's president said: "We couldn't be more excited to have Mr. Concepcion join our growing team. His expertise and the business direction of his firm match perfectly with 's plans in the remittance space. Mr. Concepcion's firm owns the world's first Bitcoin ATM and the first standalone Bitcoin remittance storefront, both in Vancouver Canada. With his Bitcoin expertise and top level Philippine contacts, we firmly believe Mr. Concepcion will provide invaluable advice and important introductions as we target the multi-billion dollar Philippine remittance market. We look forward to updating our shareholders as we grow this relationship." Story continues About MJMI MJMI is in the business of providing safe and accessible services for the users of Bitcoin and other crypto-currencies. Crypto-currencies are a medium of exchange using cryptography to secure transactions and control the creation of new units. Bitcoin became the first decentralized crypto-currency in 2009. Crypto-currency is produced at a rate which is defined when the system is created and publicly known. By contrast, in centralized banking and economic systems, such as the Federal Reserve System, corporate boards or governments control the supply of currency by printing units or demanding additions to digital banking ledgers. However, neither companies nor governments can produce units of crypto-currency and as such the value of crypto-currencies are completely based on supply and demand, free from any governmental control. Many people believe crypto-currencies, and in particular bitcoin, hold the promise of being the most significant advancement in global finance in modern history. The advent of bitcoin creates a secure, easily accessible and transferable transnational currency that is completely liberated from political influence. MJMI is currently exploring partnerships in several verticals within the crypto-currency space, including the multi-billion dollar remittance market. Management believes that several industries, including both international remittances and online gambling are on the verge of being revolutionized by the use of Bitcoin to effect transactions. MarilynJean Media Interactive is among the first publicly traded companies focused on bitcoin and the crypto-currency space. The company's trading symbol is MJMI.QB. Website: www.marilynjean.com Press Contact: bonnie@marilynjean.com SOURCE: MarilynJean Media Interactive || A star Silicon Valley entrepreneur explains how bitcoin is going to change the world: Wences Casares (RealVision Television) Tech entrepreneur and bitcoin guru Wences Casares saw his family lose their entire wealth three times in Argentina because of hyperinflation, a currency collapse and confiscation. "[There's] more people in the world who need a currency they can trust than the opposite," Casares told Dan Morehead, the ex-head of macro trading at Tiger Management, in a new interview on RealVision Television, a subscription financial news service. Those instances are what ultimately led him to the digital cryptocurrency bitcoin. Casares created Argentina's first internet provider and later sold his online brokerage firm to Banco Santander for $750 million in 2000. He is now a star of the Silicon Valley bitcoin scene, heading Xapo, a company that provides a bitcoin wallet and storage vault. The real "a-ha" moment for bitcoin happened when he was planning a trip with a group of childhood friends back in Argentina. 'I was very skeptical' "We all had to chip in some money. They were all in Argentina except me, I'm here in California. They all got together and gave the cash to one of them. And I was trying to find a way to send money. At the time, PayPal had to stop sending money to Argentina and wire transfers were not working because of the currency control." That's when one of his friends suggested using bitcoin. "I was very skeptical because this particular friend of mine is not particularly tech savvy or financially sophisticated." Mauricio Macri Argentina Argentinian President (REUTERS/Ivan Alvarado) Mauricio Macri was elected president of Argentina in November Casares did some research online and arranged a meeting in a Palo Alto cafe with someone he connected with on Craigslist. He gave the man cash and got some bitcoin in return. He immediately sent the bitcoin to his friend in Argentina. "By the time I made it back to the office my friend had sold it for pesos in Argentina. I was like, 'Wow that's incredible. It's like magic.'" Casares compared the power of bitcoin in the developing world to the cellphone. Story continues "I think it's obvious the cellphone had a lot more impact in developing world than the developed world because most phones in the developing world are cellphones. If it weren't for cellphones the developing world would not be communicating so it really changed the lives of people in emerging markets." That's not to say that cellphones aren't important in the developed world though. Bitcoin will be important there too, Casares said. "It's easier to see how [bitcoin can be] transformative and it can change the lives of people in emerging markets, but it also has an important role to play in the developed world." Watch the teaser below. You can watch the full interview by subscribing to RealVision: NOW WATCH: How a successful investment banker used insider information to bankroll his mistress and child More From Business Insider Coinbase introduces Bitcoin debit card The man everyone thinks is the creator of bitcoin gave a rare speech discussing the history of the technology Microsoft goes big on bitcoin || MarilynJean Interactive (MJMI.QB) Today Announced It Has Entered Into Discussions to Acquire a Share of an Operating Bitcoin Exchange: HENDERSON, NV / ACCESSWIRE / October 30, 2015 / Owning and operating a Bitcoin exchange would allow MarilynJean to seamlessly integrate the currency conversion functions of both its planned remittance and gaming businesses as well as integrate directly with any Bitcoin ATM's the company installs. A Bitcoin exchange is the central component to a fully integrated transaction with an end user that involves both FIAT (traditional currency) and crypto-currency. A Bitcoin exchange works similarly to a stock exchange. A client deposits funds into an account and effects trades pursuant to buy (bid) or sell (ask) orders which the exchange software matches with orders from other users. Because both the buyer and seller must have the funds or Bitcoins in their accounts prior to the transaction being executed, both sides are protected. Users trade directly, as opposed to through brokers, communicating with the exchange through a standard web browser on a computer or mobile device via a secure connection. The exchange operator often takes a small transaction fee on each trade. While MarilynJean intends to trade through multiple exchanges, including major exchanges Bitstamp and Bitfinex, the reduced settlement times that are available as an exchange owner-operator provide significant advantages in international currency conversion and transfer transactions. Peter Janosi, MJMI's president said: "Being able to integrate the key verticals we are targeting, including remittance, gaming and ATMs with our own Bitcoin exchange has the potential to offer tremendous advantages to our company. We intend to trade through multiple exchanges simultaneously to ensure we offer our customers the best rates at the lowest prices. At the same time time, being able to route transactions through a completely integrated system that we monitor and control will allow us to offer even faster transaction processing and better customer service. We are very excited to be in discussions with a potential partner in the exchange space who shares our focus on security and scalability." Story continues About MJMI MJMI is in the business of providing safe and accessible services for the users of Bitcoin and other crypto-currencies. Crypto-currencies are a medium of exchange using cryptography to secure transactions and control the creation of new units. Bitcoin became the first decentralized crypto-currency in 2009. Crypto-currency is produced at a rate which is defined when the system is created and publicly known. By contrast, in centralized banking and economic systems, such as the Federal Reserve System, corporate boards or governments control the supply of currency by printing units or demanding additions to digital banking ledgers. However, neither companies nor governments can produce units of crypto-currency and as such the value of crypto-currencies are completely based on supply and demand, free from any governmental control. Many people believe crypto-currencies, and in particular bitcoin, hold the promise of being the most significant advancement in global finance in modern history. The advent of bitcoin creates a secure, easily accessible and transferable transnational currency that is completely liberated from political influence. MJMI is currently exploring partnerships in several verticals within the crypto-currency space, including the multi-billion dollar remittance market. Management believes that several industries, including both international remittances and online gambling are on the verge of being revolutionized by the use of Bitcoin to effect transactions. MarilynJean Media Interactive is among the first publicly traded companies focused on bitcoin and the crypto-currency space. The company's trading symbol is OCTQB: MJMI. Website: www.marilynjean.com Press Contact: bonnie@mari lynjean.com SOURCE: MarilynJean Media Interactive || 6 Ways Blockchain Could Change The World: Cryptocurrencies like bitcoin have seen a drop in enthusiasm over the past year as more people have become wary toward the currencies.
A spate of high profile scams and illegal transactions that involved bitcoin painted the cryptocurrency as a tool for criminals and an unsafe avenue with which to move money. While bitcoin enthusiasts continue to rework the currency's image in order to gain mainstream approval, others say the coin itself isn't what the world should be focused on.
Blockchain, the ledger-like technology that bitcoin runs on, has instead emerged as one of the most important technological advancements from the past decade. Blockchain's ability to facilitate transactions seamlessly without a third party intermediary has been driving bitcoin's popularity over the past few years.
Related Link:Ben Bernanke Sees Serious Problems With Bitcoin
While the system was developed in order to easily transfer bitcoins from party to party, many believe that supporting a bitcoin market is one of many uses blockchain could have in the future.
Some analysts believe that blockchain could significantly change the way that the financial system operates, overhauling everything from banks to exchanges. Others say the financial space is just the starting point for blockchain; the technology could be applicable to a wide range of industries and activities as it becomes more and more advanced.
Here's a look at 6 ways blockchain may be seen in the future.
1. Banks
One of the first places blockchain is likely to turn up is at banks.
As bitcoin threatened to disrupt the traditional finance system, many big banks created dedicated teams to study the cryptocurrency and experiment with its use. While the majority of banks are still wary of bitcoin itself, many have become increasingly interested in how bitcoin might improve their operations.
So far, the best use-case for blockchain within a bank has been to . At the moment, sending money from one country to another requires a great deal of time and administration, but using blockchain to run those payments could change that. For one, the system would likely make such transactions cheaper by eliminating the need for a middleman. Not only that, but blockchain would also speed up processing, a benefit to both banks and customers.
Related Link:Trading Bitcoin Binary Options
2. Exchanges
Blockchain has also been touted as a viable way to run an exchange. Using a ledger like blockchain would make trade data much more accurate by conducting the trades on a peer-to-peer basis.
Applying this technology to an exchange would cut down on the need for supervisors, a cost-saving measure that would also reduce the instances of human error. Not only that, but a blockchain-run exchange would also speed up transaction times, allowing traders to see real-time results when their trades are placed.
Nasdaq Inc(NASDAQ:NDAQ) has already begun for a blockchain-based exchange; the company has partnered with Chain, a blockchain infrastructure provider, to work on integrating blockchain into the exchange's operations.
While blockchain may be a good way to overhaul U.S. exchanges, many worry about technological problems that might arise, especially after several mishaps delayed trading on U.S. exchanges this year.
3. Legal Contracts
The legal space could also be turned on its head by blockchain, as the ledger has been suggested as a way to facilitate contracts. Dubbed "smart contracts," blockchain-supported contracts would be able to essentially enforce themselves without the need for a third party.
Computer programs would be able to set conditions laid out in a contract and when they were satisfied, the next part of the contract would be released. That means contractual obligations could be easier to enforce, as they would be automated and security surrounding such transactions would be enhanced.
One example would be the ability for a customer to pay for a package at the moment it was delivered.International Business Machines Corp.(NYSE:IBM) has a dedicated research team to investigate the possibility of creating smart contracts. The firm believes that such a system would enhance privacy for participating businesses and ensure that required conditions are met.
4. Politics
This year was the first year that a presidential candidate accepted bitcoin donations for their campaign, but many believe that blockchain will truly revolutionize politics in the years to come.
Voting has always been a hot topic among the U.S. public; each election ends with questions about accuracy and efficiency, as well as calls to reform the system and update the technology used. Blockchain supporters say that the ledger bitcoin runs on could the voting process by making it more secure. In such a voting system, blockchain would store each vote with an encrypted hash.
These encryptions are exceedingly difficult to break and would require a hacker with an impossible amount of computer power in order to change just one vote without being noticed. The Liberal Alliance, a political party in Denmark, has already to run its internal voting system using blockchain, making it the first political group in the world to integrate blockchain into its voting practices.
Related Link:Paris Attacks Weigh On Bitcoin
5. Microtransactions
Companies likeNetflix, Inc.(NASDAQ:NFLX) have revolutionized the way people view content by disrupting traditional cable broadcasters and pushing more people to watch TV and movies online.
However, subscription services like that one may be under fire in the coming years if blockchain is used to facilitate . This type of system would allow users to pay per minute, or per show in a pay-as-you-go manner.
Such payment systems could benefit both customers and content providers, as it gives a more realistic view of what people are actually using. Subscription bundles often result in a great deal of unused services, which customers may be overpaying for. On the flip side, cheaper bundles or less complex bundled options could sway customers away from one subscription service to another, but a pay-as-you-go option allows customers to view and pay for exactly what they want.
5. Tipping
Another way micropayments might enhance online content is through a tipping service. Allowing users to "tip" for particularly entertaining or insightful social media posts or blogs would diminish the need for online advertising and give content creators a new source of income.
Many believe that such a system would improve the quality of online content and help eliminate some of the spam that circulates throughout the Internet. This kind of system would also be facilitated through blockchain, and many believe that a cryptocurrency like bitcoin would make such a tipping scheme possible.
6. Music
The music industry has been alight with debates over whether artists are being fairly compensated for the value of their work. Many believe that big name labels likeSonyare unfairly negotiating royalty fees with music distributors in a way that doesn't deliver that value back to the content creators themselves.
However, with the help of blockchain, some say the music industry could shift to a more artist-driven model in which blockchain makes artists' contracts more transparent, thus eliminating arguments over how royalties are distributed when their label makes a deal with a firm like Spotify.
In 2016, a company called is planning to work together with music companies and artists to see how blockchain-supported infrastructure might improve the way business is conducted within the industry.
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See more from Benzinga
• Can Subscription Services Take Over The Movies As Well?
• Is The Video Subscription Space Saturated?
© 2015 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Bitcoin spikes 70% in a month; nobody knows why: Bitcoin(:BTC=), the world's most popular digital currency, has been on a roll — but no one is really sure why.
After dipping well below $200 in January, bitcoin traded at more than $410 Tuesday afternoon before cutting some of those gains, according to the CoinDesk Bitcoin Price Index. That's about 25 percent higher than the same time last year but well below the historical high of about $1,150.
This upswing, which began about a month ago when bitcoin traded below $240, comes on the heels of a steady stream of good news for the digital asset and its associated ecosystem. But even with recent favorable regulatory rulings, press coverage and business investments, experts in the space are struggling to explain the one-month jump of more than 70 percent.
For comparison, gold(CEC:Commodities Exchange Centre: @GC.1)is down about 5 percent on the year, and slightly negative on the month.
Some have attributed the size of the recent jump toinvestors' fear of missing out (FOMO), while others such as "Fast Money" trader Brian Kelly point to ecosystem headlines like theWinklevoss twins launching their exchangeand the Digital Currency Groupannouncing fundingfrom Bain and MasterCard(MA).
But bitcoin has boasted a steady parade of media highlights and major investments from important financial firms all year, so it's not immediately obvious why this past month would mark a turning point.
Read MoreWhy financial firms are investigating bitcoin tech
Brendan O'Connor, the CEO of bitcoin trading firm Genesis Global Trading, told CNBC he has no easy answers about the price jump. Although he said rumors were flying around the community about international rings of traders teaming up to drive up the exchange rate, O'Connor was unable to confirm anything he'd heard.
For its part, Genesis Global is experiencing a "dramatic increase in activity" from renewed interest in bitcoin as a tradable asset, O'Connor said.
"When the price starts going up, people start coming out of the woodwork," he said. "We're setting new records almost on a daily basis for amount traded and number of transactions."
Read MoreBitcoin to be 6th largest reserve currency by 2030: Research
It should be noted that bitcoin is a relatively illiquid market, so its exchange rate against major world currencies has been historically volatile. Still, O'Connor said volume from the Chinese bitcoin market has been "off the charts," so there may be a genuine upswing in interest from that region.
In fact, Kelly suggested in a Tuesday note that Beijing's tightening of capital controls may have spurred some of the recent price gains.
Additionally, many in the bitcoin community insist that the daily price of the cryptocurrency is not a relevant metric, as it distracts from the world-changing potential of the technology.
Others worry that the cycle of mainstream media coverage on bitcoin's price will recreate a story they've seen before:
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• Personal Finance || Natural Gas At 10-Year Low: One Way To Play Further Downside: Gas is trading at its lowest level since 1999, driven by worries about weak demand. At the New York Mercantile Exchange, the January Nymex price stood around $1.804 per million British thermal units (MMBtu) on Wednesday afternoon. Is there further downside left? If so, how can traders play it? Bull spreads might offer an interesting option. What Are Bull Spreads? Spreads "offer built-in floor and ceiling levels that define the lowest and highest points at which the trade can settle," Nadex . In other words, traders know how much they can gain or lose from the outset, thus limiting the risk. Related Link: Trade Options? Here's How To Get Involved In Bitcoin How To Trade Natural Gas With Bull Spreads In the following example, the underlying natural gas futures market is trading around 1.9 and a trader decides to consider a daily Bull Spread. This trader believes the price of natural gas will fall in the short-term, so he chooses a Daily Bull Spread that looks something like: Natural Gas 1.000-2.000 (2:30PM) . Since this trader believes the natural gas future will be below 1.9 at 2:30 p.m., he chooses to Sell the contact. Thus, he selects two contracts at the bid price of 1.9. "Each pip the price moves is worth $1 per point," Nadex explains. His Maximum Profit and Loss are displayed automatically. His trade's "floor" is 1.000 and his "ceiling" is 2.000. He will then monitor the trade and, when his position expires at 2:30 p.m., the difference between Nadex's calculated expiration value and his opening price of 1.9 will determine his profit or loss. Disclosure: Javier Hasse holds no positions in any of the securities mentioned above. See more from Benzinga Think Energy Has More Downside? Here Are Two Ways To Play It © 2015 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Bitcoin Investor, Taking Things to a New Level: Bitcoin Exchange Offices to Be Opened in 6 Countries: WILMINGTON, DE--(Marketwired - November 01, 2015) -Digital currency markets, especially those of Bitcoin, continue to be surrounded by a lot of hype these days and while some skeptics claim that Bitcoin will always remain the currency of the future, without ever embodying that so much expected future, the tech industry businessmen who take the enthusiast side are putting money down on the table to invest in Bitcoin and the development of the opportunity they see attached.
Miners Center Inc., a Delaware based cryptocurrency trading company, has taken bold action in the direction of digital currency, as they do not only see it being in a sweet spot, but they also believe it will deliver according to Bitcoin believers' expectations in the near future. Since it has been established in 2014, the company has been buying large amounts of Bitcoin, at higher market price, in order to achieve their targeted volumes for what is boldly outlined within their business plan as the next step.
By the end of Q4, Miners Center will have opened ten small Bitcoin exchange offices throughout the globe: three of them in the USA, two in Canada, two in Australia, one in the UK, one in Germany and one in Hungary. Although the company has planned everything in detail, specific information related to the exact location of the exchange offices and their operational means will be revealed at their actual launching, which will be handled by the company with proper PR and marketing exposure.
However, besides the news of taking things further with Bitcoin, Miners Center does state that the rates policy within the physical exchange offices will not bring over-the-market-price revenues to its clients, as the company's actual customers have been accustomed up to this point.
The current 10% higher-than-the-market-price rate for Bitcoin purchase offered by Miners Center via their official web-site (www.minerscenter.com) has taken so far the shape of a different business unit within the company, governed by a targeted volume-buying strategy and both the exclusively buyer orientation and hot offer itself, will be discontinued as soon as the company reaches enough Bitcoin resources to start operating what was intended as their core business in the first place. Miners Center state that they are very close to reaching the desired purchase volumes and such turn is expected in the near future.
The CEO of Miners Center, Emilian Tourey, an enthusiast, true believer and an advocate of the Bitcoin currency claims that he's proud of having seen the opportunity and having invested his money into something he strongly believes will bring both a substantial return of investment and a tremendous personal satisfaction for being among the first who's supported building up an alternative to the current financial system.
"I am not naive, nor am I a dreamer. I am business man and I do see the flaws attached to Bitcoin, together with the security issues and I also hear the skeptics' arguments. However, I also see the need of more and more people for an alternative to what is now the mainstream financial system. Businesses involved with Bitcoin now need to understand that in order to gain exposure to a larger public, we have to make Bitcoin easily understandable and available to a broader audience and in order to do that, we have to use some of the traditional ways, but without pushing them too far and aiming to become the new bankers at the table. This is one of the major challenges I see for Bitcoin to achieve a widespread adoption, together with the legal legitimacy and a fair, non-opposing regulations," states Tourey.
Taking the Bitcoin deal from exclusively online to the physical, traditional exchange office may be indeed considered the cornerstone of creating the alternative system Tourey aims at.
More information about Miners Center Inc. may be found at their official web-site:www.minerscenter.com || Bitcoin is back, JPMorgan and Wells Fargo restrict data: U.S. stocks ( ^GSPC , ^DJI , ^IXIC ) are lower for the second straight day. Is the autumn rally at risk here? Either way the next big catalyst for the market could come as early as 8:30am ET Friday when the October jobs report is released. Get the Latest Market Data and News with the Yahoo Finance App In the meantime, here are some other stories Yahoo Finance is keeping an eye on today. Big banks vs. personal finance websites JPMorgan ( JPM ) and Wells Fargo ( WFC ) seem to be restricting some customer data from flowing to third party websites and apps like Mint.com . The products are used by many to help track their finances. JPMorgan chief Jamie Dimon has made his concerns known, pointing out that these products require customers to hand over a lot of personal information. Bitcoin is making a comeback Bitcoin is making a comeback. The price of the digital currency has surged more than 50% this week, partly fueled by the EU's classification of bitcoin as a currency and not a commodity. Can it avoid another big sell-off? Turning point for streaming music Adele's new single "Hello" has already brought in record sales, with over a million downloads. Now the big question is whether she will release her full album on streaming platforms. With the scheduled debut of her album "25" in two weeks, services including Apple Music ( AAPL ) and Spotify are still waiting to find out if they can play the rest of her new songs.
[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
#RDD / #BTC on the exchanges:
Cryptsy: Error
Bittrex: 0.00000004
Average $1.4E-5 per #reddcoin
07:00:01 || As of 2015-11-11 04:00:00 +0800 YUNBI CNY 1448115 / BTC 1671 / ETH 6696 / BTS 61387K / MUSE 68635K / PLAY 149591K https://yunbi.com || LIVE: Profit = $238.31 (7.64 %). BUY B8.10 @ $410.00 (#VirCurex). SELL @ $414.55 (#Bitfinex) #bitcoin #btc - http://www.projectcoin.org || #RDD / #BTC on the exchanges:
Cryptsy: 0.00000005
Bittrex: 0.00000005
Average $2.2E-5 per #reddcoin
00:30:02 || LIVE: Profit = $33.39 (1.00 %). BUY B10.00 @ $332.10 (#BTCe). SELL @ $334.15 (#HitBTC) #bitcoin #btc - http://www.projectcoin.org || BTCTurk 1033.2 TL BTCe 350.014 $ CampBx $ BitStamp 353.00 $ Cavirtex 487.95 $ CEXIO 358.73 $ Bitcoin.de 337.16 € #Bitcoin #btc || #TrinityCoin #TTY $ 0.000018 (107.75 %) 0.00000004 BTC (100.00 %) via #TrinityCoinBot
#Bitcoin #BTC #AltCoin #Block…pic.twitter.com/kMl7cdDOpX || $437.02 at 06:00 UTC [24h Range: $428.42 - $442.97 Volume: 10309 BTC] via #btcusdpic.twitter.com/65M0ywPAGV || #RDD / #BTC on the exchanges:
Cryptsy: Error
Bittrex: 0.00000004
Average $1.3E-5 per #reddcoin
10:00:02 || In the last 10 mins, there were arb opps spanning 7 exchange pair(s), yielding profits ranging between $0.00 and $112.33 #bitcoin #btc
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Trend: down || Prices: 442.68, 438.64, 436.57, 442.40, 454.98, 455.65, 417.27, 422.82, 422.28, 432.98
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Analyze the provided historical prices, technical indicators, news, and social media sentiment from the last 60 days. Based on this context, predict the overall trend (up, down, or no change) and the specific daily closing prices for Bitcoin for the next 10 days.
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[Technical Analysis for 2017-04-05]
BTC Price: 1124.78, BTC RSI: 54.14
Gold Price: 1245.40, Gold RSI: 55.37
Oil Price: 51.15, Oil RSI: 57.04
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
U.S. regulators reject Bitcoin ETF, digital currency plunges: By Trevor Hunnicutt and Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss
NEW YORK (Reuters) - The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Friday denied a request to list what would have been the first U.S. exchange-traded fund built to track bitcoin, the digital currency.
Investors Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss have been trying for more than three years to convince the SEC to let it bring the Bitcoin ETF to market. CBOE Holdings Inc's <CBOE.O> Bats exchange had applied to list the ETF.
The digital currency's price plunged <BTC=BTSP>, falling as much as 18 percent in trading immediately after the decision before rebounding slightly. It last traded down 7.8 percent to $1,098.
Bitcoin had scaled to a record of nearly $1,300 this month, higher than the price of an ounce of gold, as investors speculated that an ETF holding the digital currency could woo more people into buying the asset.
Bitcoin is a virtual currency that can be used to move money around the world quickly and with relative anonymity, without the need for a central authority, such as a bank or government.
Yet bitcoin presents a new set of risks to investors given its limited adoption, a number of massive cybersecurity breaches affecting bitcoin owners and the lack of consistent treatment of the assets by governments.
"Based on the record before it, the Commission believes that the significant markets for bitcoin are unregulated," the SEC said in a statement. "The commission notes that bitcoin is still in the relatively early stages of its development and that, over time, regulated bitcoin-related markets of significant size may develop."
The regulators have questions and concerns about how the funds would work and whether they could be priced and trade effectively, according to a financial industry source familiar with the SEC's thinking.
"We began this journey almost four years ago, and are determined to see it through," said Tyler Winklevoss, CFO of Digital Asset Services LLC. "We agree with the SEC that regulation and oversight are important to the health of any marketplace and the safety of all investors."
The Winklevoss twins are best known for their feud with Facebook Inc <FB.O> founder Mark Zuckerberg over whether he stole the idea for what became the world's most popular social networking website from them. The former Olympic rowers ultimately settled their legal dispute, which was dramatized in the 2010 film "The Social Network."
Since then they have become major investors in the digital currency, which relies on "mining" computers that validate blocks of transactions by competing to solve mathematical puzzles. The first to solve the puzzle and clear the transaction is rewarded with new bitcoins. Solutions to the puzzle come roughly every 10 minutes.
Advocates of the currency and the technology it relies on to document transactions, blockchain, were dismayed by the ruling.
"How do we develop well-capitalized and regulated markets in the U.S. and Europe if financial innovators aren't allowed to bring products to market that grow domestic demand for digital currencies like bitcoin?" asked Jerry Brito, executive director of Coin Center, an advocacy group.
Spencer Bogart, head of research at Blockchain Capital, said bitcoin's price could fall as much as 20 percent but that its long-term adoption will continue.
A Bats spokeswoman said the exchange is reviewing the SEC's statement and would have no further comment.
There are two other bitcoin ETF applications awaiting a verdict from the SEC. Grayscale Investments LLC's Bitcoin Investment Trust, backed by early bitcoin advocate Barry Silbert and his Digital Currency Group, filed an application last year.
SolidX Partners Inc, a U.S. technology company that provides blockchain services, also filed its ETF application last year.
(Reporting by Trevor Hunnicutt and Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss; Additional reporting by Sarah N. Lynch in Washington and John McCrank in New York; Editing by Sandra Maler and Jennifer Ablan) || Why bitcoin will surge to $25,000: By Yves Lamoureux, president and chief behavioral strategist of macroeconomic research firm Lamoureux & Co. Bitcoin is on a trajectory that will eventually catapult it into bubble territory, with an end target of $25,000 or more. Many of the key ingredients present in past bubbles are now present to create the next one in bitcoin. What makes this possible is the mathematics of finite supply, which we will show you in a chart and is at the core of our argument. One of the reasons people buy gold is to avoid the dilution of fiat money. In other words, gold investors care about keeping their purchasing power. The alternative is an unlimited supply of paper money over time. This is why we are convinced that digital money or cryptocurrencies will eventually find its appeal with hard asset investors — or a rare chance to get in on a venture capital style bet. We fought tooth and nails to get the media to cover gold when it traded at $300. These events work out over cycles measured in decades, which is the amount of time required to convince the majority. Whether tulips, housing or tech stocks, bubbles require public participation. And as blockchain becomes more ubiquitous, it lends credibility to the technology behind bitcoin. We feel that digital currencies, such as bitcoin, have now entered a similar cycle. It will take many years of great returns to remove the current skepticism on digital money. And there will be pressure from governments to regulate it, which in the end, will only lend it more legitimacy. People trade today as they did last year, as they did 100 years ago. The psychology remains the same. Behaviour does not change. Provide the same set of incentives throughout time and the Pavlovian bell rings the same. When I saw this chart, immediately I saw dollar signs. Source: stackexchange.com Over the lifetime of mining bitcoins, the final amount is set to be 21 million coins. Nothing more and nothing less. For the time being, it is way too early to ascribe a final end of the road valuation target to bitcoin, even if we hint at a level. Story continues Prior articles: Why hyperinflation is coming Why the crisis of 2019 begins now How to prepare for the next major selloff in stocks: trader By Yves Lamoureux, January 16, 2017 ©Copyright, Lamoureux & Co. This communication is for information purposes only and should not be regarded as an offer to sell or as a solicitation of an offer to buy any financial product or service.This publication is proprietary and is intended for the use of the subscriber only. All information provided is impersonal and not tailored to the needs of any person, entity or group or persons. Lamoureux & Co. shall not be liable for any claims. || Sony launches phone with world's first 4K HDR screen and superfast download speeds: Sony(Tokyo Stock Exchange: 6758.T-JP)launched a smartphone with the world's first 4K high dynamic range (HDR) screen, improved camera, and the ability to download large files at super-fast speeds, as it looks to stabilise profits in its once-struggling mobile division.
The Xperia XZ Premium was unveiled on Monday at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona and marks Sony's continued bid to play in the premium end of the market against the likes of Apple(NASDAQ: AAPL), Samsung(Korea Stock Exchange: 593-KR)and Huawei.
Key features include:
• The world's first 4K resolution high dynamic range (HDR) screen. This means the resolution is four times better than high definition displays. HDR is a way of making the blacks blacker and whites whiter on screens to create an image with more depth
• Capable of downloading at 1 gigabit per second. This means films can be downloaded in a matter of seconds
• Broadcast-quality camera allowing for super slow motion video at 960 frames per second
• 5.5 inch display
• 19 megapixel rear camera and 13 megapixel front-facing selfie camera
• Mirror finish in a range of colors
The Xperia XZ focuses on Sony's strengths including display technology and camera in a bid to boost profits. Sony has been on a path to stabilize the loss-making smartphone division which finally saw profits in the last two quarters.
Under CEO Kazuo Hirai, Sony has slimmed down its smartphone portfolio and focused on key markets to return to profitability. But this has come at the expense of sales and market share.
Analysts hailed this as another solid device from Sony but said the key features it is marketing are limited. For example, super slow motion video capture requires the user to press the button at the exact moment the action is taking place making it difficult to capture the correct part of a motion. CNBC tested the XZ Premium ahead of MWC. In the demo, a skateboard topped with glitter was used by the skateboarder to perform a jump. CNBC captured the video and it was impressive, but required the capture button to be hit at the right moment.
There is also a very small amount of content that can be viewed on a 4K HDR screen. So far, Netflix(NASDAQ: NFLX)and Amazon(NASDAQ: AMZN)Prime Video, the e-commerce giant's streaming service, have a handful of shows in 4K HDR. Sony said it is working with Amazon to optimize some of its 4K HDR shows for mobile to work on the Xperia XZ Premium.
Daniel Gleeson, an analyst at Ovum, told CNBC by phone ahead of the launch event that the Sony Xperia XZ Premium's key features are limited because people have to buy a subscription service to watch 4K content and the slow motion camera can only capture a tiny snippet of action.
"Those key features leave me wanting more than what they are promising. That's one thing that could lead to a lot of customer disappointment for those who purchase this phones on the basis of those feature," Gleeson said.
The Sony Xperia XZ Premium ships in late Spring with pricing to be announced in local markets.
CORRECTION: This story was updated to show that the Sony Xperia XZ Premium is capable of downloading at 1 gigabit per second.
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• Samsung to Nokia: The hottest gadgets unveiled this week || Bitcoin hits record high above $1,200 on talk of ETF approval: * Graphic: bitcoin price and percentage daily moves http://reut.rs/2lR1Mqk By Jemima Kelly LONDON, Feb 24 (Reuters) - Digital currency bitcoin jumped to a record high above $1,200 on Friday, as investors speculated the first bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) to be issued in the United States is set to receive regulatory approval. Traditional financial players have largely shunned the web-based "crytpocurrency", viewing it as too volatile, complicated and risky, and doubting its inherent value. But bitcoin, invented in 2008, performed better than any other currency in every year since 2010 apart from 2014, when it was the worst-performing currency, and has added almost a quarter to its value so far this year. It soared to as high as $1,200 per bitcoin in early Asian trading on Europe's Bitstamp exchange, before easing to about $1,190. http://reut.rs/2lR1Mqk Bitcoin prices. That put the total value of all bitcoins in circulation -- or the digital currency's "market cap", as it is known -- at close to $20 billion, around the same size as Iceland's economy. Some analysts say regulatory approval of a bitcoin ETF would make the currency relatively attractive to the often more cautious institutional investor market. But despite potentially high returns, low correlations with other currencies and assets, falling volatility and increasing liquidity, there is scant evidence so far that most major players are considering investing in the digital currency. "Bitcoin is just not liquid enough for us to even think about," said Paul Lambert, fund manager and head of currency investment at Insight, in London. "We manage billions and billions of dollars we'd need to be able to go into that market and trade in hundreds of millions of dollars at a time, and my sense is it's not like that." Three ETFs that track the value of bitcoin have been filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for approval. The SEC will decide by March 11 whether to approve one filed almost four years ago by investors Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss. If approved, it would be the first bitcoin ETF issued and regulated by a U.S. entity. (Reporting by Jemima Kelly, graphic by Nigl Stephenson) View comments || Valve Software to Shutter Steam Greenlight Program for Indie Game Developers: Valve Software announced yesterday that it will end the Greenlight program, which allowed community members to support the addition of independent games to the Steam online games marketplace. The move aims at giving developers and publishers "a more direct publishing path" on Steam. Greenlight, which Valve described as part of Steam's gradual transition "from a tightly curated store to a more direct distribution model," gave gamers greater access to independent titles, and Valve says that more than 100 Greenlight titles have sales of $1 million or more. Steam, which debuted 13 years ago, was one of the earliest places where games could be purchased for download, and has arguably remained the most important sales platform for PC games. Get Data Sheet , Fortune 's technology newsletter. Greenlight promised to give smaller developers access to that market, but it has been persistently troubled. As detailed by Kotaku , by relying on users to upvote games they wanted to see on Steam, Valve inadvertently pushed developers to curry public favor, including by giving away free copies of games in exchange for votes. At the same time, Valve's lax internal quality control still meant many Greenlight games were low-quality 'shovelware.' In Kotaku's words, while Greenlight was intended to be the backbone of a symbiotic community, in practice, it "subtly pits users and developers against each other in a relationship that's turned toxic ." In one particularly notorious incident, the developer Digital Homicide became the target of a group of activist Steam users who worked to have its games removed from the service. Digital Homicide filed an $18 million lawsuit against that group, alleging its members had crossed the line between activism and harassment. Steam will not be reverting to its old walled-garden approach. In place of the complex Greenlight voting system, it will begin charging developers a flat fee to have their games listed on Steam. The new system, called "Steam Direct," is projected to go live in Spring of 2017. Steam is weighing how high to set its publishing fee, which they say could be anywhere from $100 to $5,000. While a higher fee would help filter out low-quality games, it would also be a major barrier for many legitimate developers, particularly those outside the U.S. Story continues See original article on Fortune.com More from Fortune.com Google Earth For Virtual Reality Lets You Fly Like Superman Disney Infinity Closing Down For Good in March 2017 Free Virtual Reality Lightsaber Game Coming Monday from Lucasfilm Steam Computer Gaming Network Now Accepting Bitcoin Ikea Embraces Virtual Reality With Virtual Kitchen || The irony of bitcoin and the SEC: On Friday, theSEC deniedaproposal from Cameron and Tyler Winklevossto launch the first regulated bitcoin exchange-traded fund.
The plan was to list shares of the Winklevoss Bitcoin Trust on the Bats Global Exchange under the ticker COIN. The ETF, pegged to the bitcoin price onGemini(their bitcoin exchange site), would offer mainstream investors the chance to hold an asset tied to the value of bitcoin without actually buying bitcoin in the usual way.
The SEC said no—and said it rather harshly. You might say the SEC, with a 38-page letter, rejected friend requests from both the Winklevoss brothers and from bitcoin.
But none of this should have come as any surprise to bitcoin buyers and believers.
In itsdecision, the SEC said that it does not believe the ETF proposal was “consistent with Section 6(b)(5) of the Exchange Act, which requires, among other things, that the rules of a national securities exchange be designed to prevent fraudulent and manipulative acts and practices and to protect investors and the public interest.”
The SEC also did not believe that the Gemini exchange, which launched in 2015, and which the bitcoin ETF would be pegged to, is secure enough: “The Exchange represents that it has entered into a comprehensive surveillance-sharing agreement with the Gemini Exchange with respect to trading of the bitcoin asset underlying the Trust… however, the Commission does not believe this surveillance-sharing agreement to be sufficient, because the Gemini Exchange conducts only a small fraction of the worldwide trading in bitcoin, and because the Gemini Exchange is not a ‘regulated market’ comparable to a national securities exchange or to the futures exchanges that are associated with the underlying assets of the commodity-trust ETPs approved to date.”
Translation: The SEC believes a bitcoin ETF would be too volatile and unsafe to regulate, and, if pegged to Gemini, the price would not necessarily fairly represent an accurate price across all exchanges.
The SEC also pointed to the high risk of bitcoin writ large, beyond just what the Winklevoss brothers had proposed.
“One commenter states that the market for bitcoin, by trade volume, is very shallow,” the SEC decision reads. “This commenter notes that the majority of bitcoin is hoarded by a few owners or is out of circulation. The commenter also notes that ownership concentration is high, with 50 percent of bitcoin in the hands of fewer than 1,000 people, and that this high ownership concentration creates greater market liquidity risk, as large blocks of bitcoin are difficult to sell in a timely and market efficient manner… This commenter also states that several fundamental flaws make bitcoin a dangerous asset class to force into an exchange traded structure, including shallow trade volume, extreme hoarding, low liquidity, hyper price volatility, a global web of unregulated bucket-shop exchanges, high bankruptcy risk, and oversized exposure to trading in countries where there is no regulatory oversight.”
Translation: Due to concentrated ownership of bitcoins, and to shady dealings at bitcoin exchanges, the SEC sees a similar fundamental problem with digital currency itself.
Of course it does.
The entire original appeal of bitcoin, when first introduced in a 2009 white paper by someone using the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto, was its anti-government appeal. Bitcoin is meant to be an unregulated, decentralized, non-fiat currency.
As one DC-based risk-analysis firm, Oxbow Advisory,tweeted: “Don’t ask the fiat to remove the fiat.” (The joke there: don’t expect the government to warm to a currency that undermines it.)
And this is the great irony of recent efforts to bring bitcoin more mainstream, and to obtain various licenses and regulatory approvals: it’s a contradiction of bitcoin’s original, libertarian appeal.
“After reading the response, it really does make sense that they would decline it,” says Brian Hoffman, project lead forOpenBazaar, a peer-to-peer marketplacethat runs on bitcoin. “I think so far their concern has been to be able to control it and understand it, and the nature of the market over time has always been unstable. And another point they brought up around large ownerships being controlled by people that we don’t know who they are, I think that is a pretty big question mark.”
The creator of bitcoin, Satoshi Nakamoto, has yet to be unmasked (many leading voices in bitcoindoubt the reports that it is Australian cybersecurity expert Craig Wright) and theoretically still owns somewhere around one million bitcoins of the 16.2 million supply.
So the SEC doesn’t like thatit doesn’t know who created bitcoin. And if Satoshi were to unload their coins, it would create a huge market event—and in that scenario, the SEC, if it had approved a regulated bitcoin asset, “could be on the hook for questions around customer losses, and that’s something they want to avoid,” says Hoffman. “So it makes sense, from a conservative standpoint, to just stay away from it.”
To be sure, there is some involvement of mainstream financial institutions in bitcoin exchanges.Coinbase, the leading American bitcoin exchange, is backed by BBVA; Crypto Facilities, a new bitcoin derivatives exchange, was launched by a former Goldman Sachs exec and former BNP Paribas exec. And beyond the exchanges, a number of blockchain-as-a-service companies,such as Chain, have amassed big-bank partners.
But banks and financial institutions haveshown less interest in bitcoinas a currency.
You can see bitcoin businesses splitting broadly into two camps. There are those who want it to exist outside of government reach, untouched by regulators, and similarly aren’t excited by banks getting involved in the space; and there are those who feel regulation will bring legitimacy and mainstream usage.
Stefan Thomas, CTO of Ripple (a blockchain partner for banks that also has its own rival cryptocurrency, XRP), is in the latter camp. “I was a contributor to bitcoin early on, I was a bitcoin believer, but over time it just never became more legitimate and serious, and to me, that was the problem.”
The price of bitcoinfell by nearly 20%in the hours after the SEC denial on Friday, then bounced back somewhat. That temporary crash was also ironic, since anyone holding bitcoin as a speculative investment should have anticipated that the SEC would deny the ETF proposal.
As Hoffman of OpenBazaar says, the SEC decision “is only a setback for people that have the mentality that bitcoin is just for holding over time. For me, personally, the thing that’s so fascinating about bitcoin is being able to use it, not just hold it. The price going up is great, but in my eyes that’s just an extra added bonus. An ETF existing doesn’t preclude me from buying or using bitcoin.”
For bitcoin to thrive, it doesn’t necessarily need any mainstream approval or regulation, though such regulation would certainly bring more faith from traditional, cautious investors.
For an example of the divide, look no further than the different regulatory approaches of different exchanges. Two years ago, when the New York Department of Financial Services released the “BitLicense,” its set of regulatory rules that would apply to digital currency transmitters, it had an instantaneous dramatic effect: Coinbase, the leading US site for anyone to buy bitcoin, launched its bitcoin exchange without waiting for a BitLicense;Kraken, a bitcoin exchange that sees most of its trading volume in euros, swiftly halted all operations in New York rather than seek licensing; the Winklevoss brothers, eager to launch their own exchange Gemini, waited until they could obtain proper licensing (not a BitLicense, but a chartered LLC trust license) anddid not launch until that happened.
Watch for the philosophical divide to continue to put stress on bitcoin businesses.
—
Daniel Roberts is a writer at Yahoo Finance, covering technology and sports business. Follow him on Twitter at@readDanwrite.
Read more:
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Why 21.co is the most exciting bitcoin company right now || Bitcoin plunges sharply and suddenly: (A bitcoin sign seen in a window in Toronto.Reuters/Mark Blinch)
Bitcoinplunged by more than $100 in a matter of minutes on Tuesday morning. The cryptocurrency was down about 1.5% at $1,260 a coin just after 6 a.m. ET before tumbling below $1,160 within 30 minutes. As of 1:22 p.m. ET it was down 2.1%, or $27, near $1,249 a coin.
While no headlines can be directly tied to the plunge, about two hours earlier a Bloomberg headline cited a People's Bank of China official as suggesting the recent bitcoin regulation wasn't temporary.
The PBOC recently announced it was cracking down on bitcoin trading, and China's largest bitcoin exchanges have since introduced aflat 0.2% fee on each transactionand announced ablockage of withdrawals.
Tuesday's sell-off could also be tied to nervousness over a coming Securities and Exchange Commission ruling. The SEC is expected to issue a ruling on whether it will approve at least one of thethree proposed bitcoin-focused exchange-traded fundsby a Saturday deadline.
The price of bitcoin has rallied 27% in 2017 after gaining 120% in 2016. Bitcoin has been thetop-performing currencyin each of the past two years.
(Investing.com)
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• Bitcoin climbs to a fresh record high || This New Tactic Might Finally Lure Big Investors to Bitcoin: Bitcoin believers argue the famous crypto-currency would be more stable--and more valuable--if only hedge funds and other institutional investors would get with the program and buy some. But so far, many big fish have stayed away--in part because bitcoin doesn’t provide the financial products and regulatory compliance they require. This could start to change, however, as more companies shape their services for traditional investors that want exposure to bitcoin and other digital currencies. The latest examples comes from San Francisco-based Coinbase, whose GDAX exchange--a trading platform backed by the New York Stock Exchange, venture capitalists like Andreesen Horowitz and others--announced on Monday the launch of margin trading . The new feature, which lets investors leverage their bets on bitcoin by a factor of three, is significant because the ability to trade on margin is widely used when trading traditional assets, and it is something institutional investors expect, according to Coinbase vice president Adam White. A few other U.S. digital currency exchanges, including Kraken, offer margin trading. But White, in an interview with Fortune , says Coinbase’s GDAX (for Global Digital Asset Exchange) is different because it has the state licenses that asset managers want to see before they lay down clients’ money. GDAX expects its combination of margin trading and regulatory compliance will attract hedge funds, high net worth individuals, and market makers like Cantor Fitzgerald. Down the road, White thinks digital currency will also attract investment bank “whales,” and that the likes of and will set up dedicated trading desks for bitcoin like the ones they have for oil, gold, and other types of foreign exchange. “It will be hard to get the first big one. It’s a matter of waiting for the first mover, then the fast followers will come,” White says. Here’s a GIF showing the trading platform in action: Bring on the short sellers? White also says GDAX’s new margin offering is significant because it provides an easy way to short bitcoin, meaning funds will have a way to hedge their positions. (The ability to short sell arises because GDAX supplies the margin purchase in bitcoin, which the investor can immediately sell for dollars and then later repay at a profit if the price drops). Story continues It’s unclear, though, if this will be enough to draw in a new class of traditional investors at a time when bitcoin virtual currencies are still considered by many as exotic assets with a reputation for volatility and scams. The SEC this month dealt a blow to the digital currency industry when it flatly refused to approve a new ETF, which would have let investors buy and sell bitcoin like ordinary shares. Get Data Sheet , Fortune's technology newsletter White, though, downplays the impact decision and points to a surge in trading volumes since the ruling came out on March 13. He says the average worldwide trading volume has jumped 33% across the world, and that GDAX’s daily average has jumped 67%. “I believe the SEC’s decision will increase demand for GDAX and our margin trading feature precisely because the SEC has highlighted the risk of offshore, risky exchanges. GDAX has established itself as a trusted, U.S. based exchange that operates within regulatory requirements and that is why our average daily trading volume has grown 2x relative to the rest of the industry,” White says. Despite his optimism, bitcoin also faces a series of fresh headwinds that include a major IRS investigation , tighter regulation in China, and a squabble among bitcoin developers that could create two versions of the currency. Meanwhile, the latest controversies over bitcoin have proved a boon to competing virtual currencies like Ethereum and Dash, whose share of the digital currency market cap has jumped in recent weeks. The bottom line is bitcoin and other virtual currencies are unlikely to lose their reputation anytime soon as an exciting but unpredictable investment. See original article on Fortune.com More from Fortune.com Why AMD Shares Jumped 7% Software Maker MuleSoft Shares Jump on Public Debut Why Stocks Are Better Than Leprechaun Gold on St. Patrick's Day Snap Inc. Shares Fell Below $20 for the First Time Twitter Will Showcase New Original Content and Streaming Video Soon || 10 things you need to know today: (Members of the European Parliament voting to decide whether to lift the EU parliamentary immunity of French far-right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen after she came under investigation for tweeting pictures of Islamic State violence.Reuters/Yves Herman)
Here is what you need to know.
Janet Yellen speaks.Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen is set to give her economic outlook at the Executives Club of Chicago at 1 p.m. ET. Traders will be listening for clues as to whether the Fed will hike interest rates at the conclusion of its March 14-15 meeting. World Interest Rate Probability data provided by Bloomberg says there's an 88% chance the Fed hikes by 25 basis points at the meeting.
Europe is growing at its fastest pace since 2011.Markit's final February composite reading for the eurozone came in at 56, well ahead of the 54.4 print from January. "Growth of eurozone economic output accelerated to a near six-year record in February," IHS Markit said in a release.
Global manufacturing is making a comeback.Global manufacturers posted their best month in almost six years in February as the JPMorgan-IHS Markit Global Manufacturing Purchasing Managers Index rose by 0.2 points to 52.9, making for the best reading in 69 months.
The dominant part of the UK economy is slowing down.UK services PMI slowed to 53.3 in February, missing the 54.2 that economists were expecting. "The slowdown mainly reflected a softer pace of new business growth, which some respondents linked to more cautious spending among consumers," a release from Markit that accompanied the report said.
Bitcoin is extending its lead over gold.On Thursday, bitcoin climbed above gold for the first time. On Friday, the cryptocurrency trades up 2% at $1,281 a coin while the precious metal is down 0.5% at $1,228 an ounce.
Snap Inc. had a monster debut.Shares of the social-media company shot up 44% in their market debut to close at $24.48 a share, giving Snapchat's parent company a market cap of more than $33 billion. Snap is now bigger than Macy's ($10 billion), Twitter ($11.3 billion), American Airlines ($23.6 billion), and Target ($32.9 billion).
Costco same-store sales miss.The warehouse club retailer reported that same-store sales rose by 3% in its second quarter, missing the 3.2% gain that analysts were forecasting. The company also announced that it planned to raise membership fees as of June 1.
Stock markets around the world are mostly lower.Hong Kong's Hang Seng (-0.7%) trailed in Asia, and Germany's DAX (-0.2%) lags in Europe. The S&P 500 is set to open down 0.1% near 2,380.
Earnings reporting slows.Big Lots and Revlon will release their quarterly results ahead of the opening bell.
US economic data is light.Markit services PMI and ISM Non-Manufacturing will be released at 9:45 a.m. and 10 a.m. ET. The US 10-year yield is higher by 2 basis points at 2.50%.
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• 10 things you need to know today || Big Bitcoin ETF Decision Coming Today, Or Maybe Not: [Editor's note - Update:SEC Rejects Bitcoin ETF]
The much-awaited Securities and Exchange Commission decision on whether to approve or disapprove theWinklevoss Bitcoin ETF (COIN)may not actually come until Monday, March 13.
The deadline to rule on this ETF is officially tomorrow, but there’s a clause in the SEC’s policy that if a deadline falls on a weekend, it’s pushed to the next federal business day, according to Spencer Bogart, managing director and head of research at Blockchain Capital.
One more day of anticipation on whether the bitcoin ETF is a go wouldn’t be a big deal if it weren’t for the fact that the industry seems to be able to talk about little else. In fact, Friday,bitcoin prices raced to a new record high above $1,300in anticipation of a SEC “yes” to this fund.
Here’s why this is such a big deal …
Bitcoin’s Big Moment
The Winklevoss Bitcoin Trust (COIN) would be the first ETF to offer investors everywhere easy, transparent access to this peer-to-peer, unregulated digital currency that has gathered quite a following since the financial crisis of 2008.
That access would be made possible to anyone without the need to create separate accounts with bitcoin exchanges.
To be fair, as Bogart puts it, adoption and use of bitcoins and its network have already been growing rapidly without the help of the ETF wrapper. Still, a bitcoin ETF should accelerate the already-fast-growing footprint of bitcoins.
Why A Bitcoin ETF Matters
“A bitcoin ETF would be a significant catalyst for a few reasons,” Bogart said. “For one, it would open the gates of bitcoin to institutional capital. Among other things, this could have a profound impact on price.”
Most institutional investors have mandates that allow them to only invest in registered securities, and bitcoin isn’t one, he says. But in an ETF, it would fit that bill. If nothing else, having a bitcoin ETF approved would improve “public perception” and help manage some of the regulatory risk many associate with bitcoin’s unregulated status.
“In addition, retail investors would be able to get exposure to bitcoin directly from their brokerage accounts instead of establishing a separate account with a bitcoin exchange,” Bogart added. “The way to think about ETF approval is as a low-probability catalyst that could accelerate bitcoin’s already-rapid adoption growth.”
About COIN
COIN, led by Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss of Facebook fame, was first put in registration more than three years ago.
Designed as a grantor trust, COIN would do in-kind creations and redemptions much like a physical commodity ETF such as theSPDR Gold Trust (GLD), and the fund would use the Winklevoss’ own bitcoin exchange Gemini to set the price.
That comparison to gold has been often touted. In an interview two years ago, the Winklevoss brothers told an audience of advisors thatbitcoins are “better than gold”as a store of value, inflation hedging and access to a still-growing global ecosystem that’s the future of the payments industry.
That’s because the Winklevoss brothers see bitcoin as a commodity more than as a currency. “An investment in the bitcoin ETF is an investment in the future performance of bitcoin and the underlying bitcoin protocol, not an investment in a bitcoin company,” they said in aninterviewin 2014.
Mike Venuto, head of Toroso Investments, argues that, to investors, the bigger picture is that bitcoin is all about global commerce.
In arecent blog, he offered this perspective:
In a recent white paper, Deloitte & Touche described bitcoin as an “Internet of value exchange.” The real value of bitcoin is about the utilization of the infrastructure on which it is based. The more bitcoins are mined, or “hashed,” the more a free encrypted version of the internet is expanded. This self-reinforcing infrastructure that becomes more dependable as more people participate, is called the “blockchain.” It can be used in a way to transfer securities, to create artificial intelligence, secure real estate or art transactions and, potentially, for all kinds of other transactions. Look at bitcoin this way: 20 years ago, the internet democratized access to information, and now the bitcoin blockchain is democratizing access to commerce.
For now, access to bitcoin in an ETF can be found in theARK Web x.0 ETF (ARKW), which has a small allocation to bitcoins obtained through publicly traded shares of Grayscale’s Bitcoin Investment Trust(OTCQX: GBTC). That allocation currently sits around 5% of that portfolio.
But the launch of a strategy such as COIN would be “consequential,” Venuto says.
“In an age where asset allocation is its own asset class, a bitcoin ETF could have a place in many portfolios,” he said. “You can purchase bitcoins today. So, putting bitcoins into an ETF structure is not about making them accessible in a basic sense. It's about making bitcoins more accessible—that is, investable for any investor within a brokerage account.”
Contact Cinthia Murphy atcmurphy@etf.com
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[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
#Bitcoin 0.09%
Ultima: R$ 3681.00 Alta: R$ 3746.04 Baixa: R$ 3650.00
Fonte: Foxbit || Bitcoin trading at 1047.00.
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http://www.ModoBot.com #BTC #Bitcoin || Return 2000% after an hour, Invest 60k Return 1.2 Millions dollar,bitcoin double multiply. http://ow.ly/Csnb3092W80 || The first release candidate for Bitcoin Core 0.14 should be released this weekend. #EventPath $BTC $XBT || $1060.69 at 02:30 UTC [24h Range: $1025.01 - $1065.00 Volume: 5848 BTC] || Try:
https://inthebitcoin.com/s/17cXzgMtDLcw7VcAKn6xmxuUDZoCspNh2r …
#bitcoin #blockchain || #bitcoin #miner AntMiner U1 USB BTC Bitcoin ASIC ant miner 1.6GH/s by Bitmain $51.00 pic.twitter.com/UGrkYW2x6c || #bitcoin #miner 0.002 Bitcoin - BTC Cryptocurrency $4.00 http://ift.tt/2kefAqH pic.twitter.com/ganqqz3Sp8 || #Bitcoin 0.70%
Ultima: R$ 3720.00 Alta: R$ 4050.10 Baixa: R$ 3200.70
Fonte: Foxbit || http://goo.gl/cwa59g Paxful Introduces the Virtual Bitcoin Kiosk https://www.google.com/url?rct=j&sa=t&url=http://finance.yahoo.com/news/paxful-introduces-virtual-bitcoin-kiosk-163000055.html&ct=ga&cd=CAIyGjI5ODdkMDkyNGRlY2QxMTc6Y29tOmVuOlVT&usg=AFQjCNGKv3TdFkJhnbD8JSyWFFNmDsSJug … #Bitcoin
|
Trend: no change || Prices: 1182.68, 1176.90, 1175.95, 1187.87, 1187.13, 1205.01, 1200.37, 1169.28, 1167.54, 1172.52
|
Analyze the provided historical prices, technical indicators, news, and social media sentiment from the last 60 days. Based on this context, predict the overall trend (up, down, or no change) and the specific daily closing prices for Bitcoin for the next 10 days.
|
[Technical Analysis for 2016-04-04]
BTC Price: 421.44, BTC RSI: 54.64
Gold Price: 1218.00, Gold RSI: 46.20
Oil Price: 35.70, Oil RSI: 44.70
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
Digatrade to Include Physical Gold Delivery as Withdrawal Option: VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESSWIRE / March 22, 2016 / BITX FINANCIAL CORP ( BITXF ) and its 100% owned and operated digital asset exchange DIGATRADE ( digatrade.com ) today are pleased to report that an offering of a new method of withdrawing funds in the form of physical gold to our EU clients will be made available. Gold, for centuries has proved to be a timeless and exceedingly valuable source of capital preservation due to its unwavering value. Additionally, gold has always been an efficient hedge against the inflation and currency risks. Bitcoin has been often described as digital gold so we intent to bring bitcoin and gold a bit closer. The Company is in discussions with an internationally recognized precious metals reseller operator with exclusive working relationships with mints based across Europe including Switzerland, The Austrian Mint and the Münze Österreich, the 800 year old Vienna-based mint. Gold prices will be quoted in USD and updated every 5 minutes. After this withdrawal option has been implemented, purchases will be available with USD. Before submitting an order, USD customers' balances must be available. More information will be made available as it materializes. ABOUT DIGATRADE: DIGATRADE is a global digital asset-currency exchange located in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. The Company is owned and operated 100% by Bit-X Financial Corp which is publically listed on the OTC.QB under the trading symbol BITXF. BITXF is a reporting issuer in the Province of British Columbia, Canada with the British Columbia Securities Commission "BCSC" and in the United States with the Securities Exchange Commission "SEC". Digatrade has now become a global platform offering its customers instant card-based transactions worldwide. CORPORATE CONTACT INFORMATION: Brad Moynes, CEO Bit-X Financial Corp DigaTrade.com 838 West Hastings Street, Suite 300 Vancouver, BC V6C-0A6 Canada Tel: +1(604) 200-0071 Fax: +1(604) 200-0072 www.digatrade.com Story continues Media inquiries: press@digatrade.com Forward-Looking Information This press release contains certain "forward-looking information". All statements, other than statements of historical fact, that address activities, events or development that the Company believes, expects or anticipates will or may occur in the future constitute forward-looking information. This forward-looking information reflects the current expectations or beliefs of the company based on information currently available to the Company. Forward-looking information is subject to a number of significant risks and uncertainties and other factors that may cause the actual results of the Company to differ materially from those discussed in the forward-looking information, and even if such actual results are realized or substantially realized, there can be no assurance that they will have the expected consequences to, or effects on the Company. Factors that could cause actual results or events to differ materially from current expectations include, but are not limited to, the possibility of unanticipated costs and expenses. Any forward-looking information speaks only as of the date on which it is made and, except as may be required by applicable securities laws, the company disclaims any intent or obligation to update any forward-looking information whether as a result of new information, future events or results or otherwise. Although the Company believes that the assumptions inherent in the forward-looking information are reasonable, forward-looking information is not a guarantee of future performance and accordingly undue reliance should not be put on such information due to the inherent uncertainty therein. SOURCE: Bit-X Financial Corp || Bitcoin finds room in small funds; large institutions still on sidelines: By Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Digital currency bitcoin has found favor among smaller investors, thanks to the availability of funds designed to invest in it, but remains a niche among the larger investing community.
Investors at some family offices, smaller mutual funds, and traders at hedge funds say bitcoin has helped returns and demonstrated a low correlation with other asset classes.
Hopes that bitcoin would become a broadly used alternative to other currencies helped buoy its price to more than $1,000 in December 2013, when its market capitalization was $13 billion.
But the market cap has retreated since then, to about $6.4 billion as of Thursday.
Early enthusiasts for the crypto-currency were drawn to its revolutionary ideals of transparency and a lack of central or official control. The risks of dealing in bitcoin were laid bare in 2013 when Tokyo-based exchange Mt Gox collapsed after admitting it had lost the equivalent of hundreds of millions of dollars of investor funds.
The currency's earlier ties to gambling and criminal websites did not endear it to traditional investors.
Jeremy Millar, founder and managing partner at Ledger Partners in London, estimated that 50 to 90 percent of bitcoin's current $6.4 billion market cap is held by near-institutional money such as individuals at hedge funds and family offices. That has not changed over the last two years.
He does not have an estimate for institutional investment holdings of bitcoin. But he said they are likely to be insignificant, compared with the smaller investors who have fewer restrictions about fund allocation.
"What is clear though is that over the last two years, bitcoin has emerged from its 'hacktivist' origins to a more institutionalized ecosystem which includes the participation of hedge funds, traders, and professional investors," said Millar.
BITCOIN IN PORTFOLIOS
Funds dedicated to investing in bitcoin are relatively small. The largest is the Pantera Bitcoin Fund, a $160 million hedge fund founded by Dan Morehead, formerly of Tiger Management, available to institutions and individuals who invest $50,000 or more.
According to a Pantera Bitcoin Fund brochure, the fund was launched in July 2013, a period when bitcoin (BTC=BTSP) traded at around $65. On Thursday, it traded at $418.80, a gain of more than 500 percent from July 2013. The firm did not comment on fund performance or its investors.
The majority of the Pantera Fund's investors are family offices and high net worth individuals, said two people familiar with the fund.
The Grayscale Bitcoin Investment Trust, with assets of more than $60 million, is another vehicle for investors. GBTC is backed by bitcoin advocate Barry Silbert and his Digital Currency Group.
It is the only publicly traded U.S. security in the over-the-counter market invested in bitcoin. Volume is thin, with a few thousand shares traded daily, according to Thomson Reuters data.
Antonis Polemitis, managing director at Ledra Capital in New York, a family office specializing in education and technology, said that on average, clients have allocated 1 to 3 percent of their portfolios to bitcoin.
"A lot of people will take that bet with 1 percent of their assets," he said. "A 1 percent loss does not change anyone's life in any way. If it goes up 10 times, then you get to feel very smart."
Some investment managers say having bitcoin in portfolios has helped performance.
ARK Invest, which manages four exchange-traded funds with $240 million in assets, holds GBTC in its $12 million Next Generation Internet ETF and the $7 million ARK Innovation ETF.
Chris Burniske, analyst and blockchain products lead at ARK Invest in New York, said since investing in September 2015, GBTC has contributed 67 basis points to the Next Generation Internet ETF's return and 62 basis points to the ARK Innovation ETF.
For 2015, the Next Generation ETF posted a 15.29 percent return, while the Innovation ETF had 3.76 percent gains.
For Kingsbridge Wealth Management, a multifamily office in Las Vegas with $150 million in assets, GBTC has become a great diversifier because so far it has had a low correlation with other asset classes, said David Dunn, the firm's founder and chief investment officer. The firm has about $1.7 million invested in bitcoin and its underlying technology, the blockchain, Dunn said.
(Editing by David Gaffen and Matthew Lewis) || University of California Berkeley notifies 80,000 of cyber attack: SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Officials at the University of California Berkeley said on Friday that they were alerting 80,000 people, including current and former students, faculty and vendors of a cyber attack on a system that stores social security and bank account numbers.
The news comes just more than a week after a Southern California hospital paid hackers $17,000 in the digital currency Bitcoin to regain control of their computer systems after a so-called "ransomware" attack.
The San Francisco Bay Area university said there was no evidence that attackers actually took any personal information, but that it was still alerting the 80,000 individuals to be on the lookout for misuse of their information.
The school said a hacker or hackers gained access to its financial management software in late December due to a security flaw present when the system is updating. Officials have notified law enforcement, including the FBI, and hired a private computer investigation company.
The university said among the potentially affected are 57,000 current and former students; about 18,800 former and current employees; and 10,300 vendors who work with the school. Those figures come out to about half of the school's current students and two-thirds of its active employees.
Large, high-profile organizations and businesses routinely come under cyber attack, and the school said it frequently identifies similar hacking attempts.
"The security and privacy of the personal information provided to the university is of great importance to us," Paul Rivers, UC Berkeley's chief information security officer, said in a statement. "We regret that this occurred and have taken additional measures to better safeguard that information."
The school said it was providing credit protection service free of charge to those potentially impacted.
(Reporting by Curtis Skinner in San Francisco; Editing by Sharon Bernstein) || Can you Pick the 2016 Election Winners Without TV Analysts? Heres a Better Bet: Watch the video of Can you Pick the 2016 Election Winners Without TV Analysts? Heres a Better Bet on MoneyTalksNews.com. If you want a quick glimpse at whos likeliest to be our next president, dont listen to pollsters and pundits. Follow the money. We dont mean the big bucks of super PACs or even the millions from small-money donors. Were talking about real money people who wager on election outcomes. It turns out that the collective wisdom of bettors has a better record of predicting winners than the talking heads. One place that bettors congregate online is the Iowa Electronic Markets , or the IEM, at the University of Iowa. If you look at polls run during the election, in about 75 percent of the cases, Iowas market prices predict the outcome of elections better than the polls, says Joyce Berg, a University of Iowa accounting professor who oversees the IEM. Frederick Boehmke, University of Iowa political science professor and faculty adviser to the Hawkeye Poll, recently explained why to the Quad City Times newspaper . A poll asks a persons preference, what they want to happen, Boehmke said. People investing in the IEM, however, are trying to make money, so they pick the candidate or party they think will win. They typically set aside personal preferences to make money. Also, a poll is a snapshot at a moment in time, Boehmke said. The market is about who will win in the end. The IEM and another exchange, PredictIt , which is set up in Washington, D.C., under the auspices of Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand, say the predictions work because the wisdom of crowds aggregates the expectations of thousands of bettors who have skin in the game. A now-defunct exchange called Intrade in 2012 predicted the electoral outcome in 49 of the 50 states. People who put up real money are more likely to consider all the available information than people who just offer their opinions, says Money Talks News financial expert Stacy Johnson. Story continues That information could include economic and business conditions, stock market performance, inflation and employment rates as well as other factors that could sway voters moods. Once invested in the outcome, bettors follow campaigns closely. As on a stock exchange and similar to fantasy sports leagues, bettors can make or lose money buying and selling their shares in the outcomes in which they invested. You can get in on the action. How it works In exchanges, bettors actually are traders who buy and sell real-money contracts based on their beliefs about yes or no election outcomes. Unlike a casino sports book, the exchange does not set odds. The prices reflect the probabilities of various candidate winning a given political race. PredictIt explains it this way: You make predictions on future events by buying shares in an outcome, Yes or No. Each outcome has a probability between 1 and 99 percent, which is converted into U.S. cents. For example, Trader A thinks an event has at least a 60 percent chance of taking place so she offers 60 cents for a Yes share. PredictIt matches her offer with that of Trader B, who is willing to pay 40 cents for a No share. Each trader now owns a share in the market for this event on opposite sides.
If an event does take place, all Yes shares are redeemed at $1. Shares in No become worthless. If the event does not take place before the market closes, traders holding shares in No will be paid $1, while Yes shares will be worthless. At the IEM, you can open an account for $5 to $200. If you just want to look, check whos leading the popular bets. Popular bets For the moment, according to the exchanges and other betting venues, the odds-on favorite is Hillary Clinton. That doesnt mean bettors favor Hillarys politics over those of Bernie Sanders, her rival for the Democratic nomination, or Republican front-runner Donald Trump. It just means they bet she wins. The likelihood of a Trump presidency, according to bettors, is less than 20 percent. Both the IEM and PredictIt offer markets in who will be the GOP and Democratic presidential nominees. IEM has a market in which party will win the 2016 election as well as one in which you can bet on how the parties will share the popular vote. As of March 11, it was Democrats, about 55 percent, leading Republicans, 45 percent. The IEM also has a market on who will control Congress (Republican House, Democratic Senate is leading). PredictIt also has bets on upcoming party primaries, including Ohio (Kasich beating Trump, Clinton beating Sanders) and Illinois (Trump trouncing Cruz, Clinton trouncing Sanders) as well as topics such as whether the GOP will have a brokered convention (No is beating Yes) and will Marco Rubio drop out by March 18 (Yes is beating No). More sites at which to garner predictions Election Betting Odds : Run by Fox Business reporter John Stossel and his producer, Maxim Lott, Election Betting Odds features odds derived from an exchange, Betfair.com , which does not accept American traders due to regulations. It recently showed Clinton with a 64 percent probability of winning the White House and Trump with a 19 percent chance. FiveThirtyEight : This site is run by Nate Silver, known for calling the results in 49 out of 50 states in 2008 and all 50 states in 2012, FiveThirtyEight is predicting outcomes from primaries and caucuses based on data from polls and endorsements. PredictWise: Run by David Rothschild, an economist at Microsoft Research in New York City, PredictWise aggregates data on politics as well as sports, finance and entertainment. The site says it is does not favor gambling. It does indicate the Democratic nominee has a 69 percent chance of winning the White House compared with the Republican candidates 31 percent chance of winning. It also predicts Clinton will be the Democratic nominee by a better than 9-1 ratio over Sanders, and that Trump has a 76 percent probability of winning the GOP nomination. Pinnacle Sports : At the Curacao-licensed online betting site, Clinton has the best odds. Paddy Power : An online gambling site that mainly features sports, Paddy Power takes bets (not from the United States) on U.S. politics , too. It has Clinton as favored to win; Trump has the second-best odds. Predictious : Established after the demise of Intrade, Ireland-based Predictious exchange allows you to buy and sell contracts using Bitcoins, the virtual currency. Despite all these predictions, they could be dead wrong, Johnson points out. Ahead of the March 1 Super Tuesday elections, PredictIt bettors and PredictWise said Trump would win 10 of 11 states and would lose only to Ted Cruz in Cruzs home state, Texas. Cruz did win in Texas, but he also took Oklahoma and Alaska while Rubio won Minnesota; Trump won in seven states: Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Massachusetts, Tennessee, Vermont and Virginia. So, while you might want to get a handle on the odds for your favorite candidate and bettors can help in the voting booth, you need to weigh that with your political convictions. You need to do your own research, pick your own candidate and then back that candidate with your vote, no matter what gamblers, polls or pundits say, he said. If you were betting on the election, where would you put your money? Does that pick line up with your politics? Share with us in comments below or on our Facebook page . This article was originally published on MoneyTalksNews.com as 'Can you Pick the 2016 Election Winners Without TV Analysts? Heres a Better Bet' . More from Money Talks News A Way to Master Income Taxes at Last and Save Money 7 Ways Donald Trump is Destroying His Brand and 4 Ways Hes Improving It Could These 12 Weird Tax Deductions Save You Money? || Soda and cigarettes? Momentum trades: Amid a wild year for stocks, "Fast Money" traders debated the merits of two names that have ticked higher despite volatility. Shares of Philip Morris International (NYSE: PM) and Coca-Cola (NYSE: KO) have climbed more than 3 and 1 percent on the year, respectively. The gains compare to a loss of nearly 6 percent for the S&P 500 (INDEX: .SPX) . Investors are "starved for yield" during a down year, and Coke may look appealing to some because of its dividend, trader Tim Seymour argued. He noted that a wider strategy change may also drive momentum for the stock. Coke shares ticked slightly higher Wednesday, closing at $43.49. If the stock breaks above $45 per share, it would make a stronger trade than at its current level, contended trader Guy Adami. For investors seeking dividends, Philip Morris also offers appeal, argued trader Brian Kelly. He said the company's dividend appears "safe," and the stock "held up very well" amid a downturn this year. Disclosures: Tim Seymour Tim Seymour is long AAPL, BAC, DO, F, FCX, GM, GOOGL, INTC, JCP, NKE, SINA, T, TWTR, VZ, XOM. Tim's firm is long BABA, BIDU, KO, MCD, PEP, SAVE, SBUX, VALE, WMT,YHOO, short HYG, IWM. Brian Kelly Brian Kelly is long BBRY, Bitcoin, GLD, SLV, TLT, US Dollar; he is short Aussie Dollar, British Pound, CS, DB, Euro, EWH, Hong Kong Dollar, UBS, SPY, Yuan. Karen Finerman Karen is long BAC, C, FL, GOOG, GOOGL, JPM, LYV, KORS, M, SEDG, SPY calls, URI, she is short SPY. Her firm is long ANTM, AAPL, BAC, C, C calls, FINL, FL, GOOG, GOOGL, JPM, KORS, LYV, M, MOH, NRF, PLCE, URI, her firm is short IWM, MDY, SPY. Karen Finerman is on the board of GrafTech International. Guy Adami Guy Adami is long CELG, EXAS, GDX, INTC, Guy Adami's wife, Linda Snow, works at Merck. More From CNBC Top News and Analysis Latest News Video Personal Finance || For Mac Users, The Security Bubble Has Burst: Apple's Mac operating systems are known for their resistance to malware, viruses, hackers and ransomware, which is one reason many people opt for Mac computers.
Still, they're not invincible, and as a security company recently reported, Mac users should be aware of potential threats. Researchers atPalo Alto Networksreported finding "the first fully functional ransomware seen on the OS X platform," according to a March 6 post on their site.
What Is Ransomware?
Ransomware is what it sounds like: Cyber criminals infiltrate your computer and hold it (or more specifically, its data) hostage. They demand you pay them if you ever want your files back. They often want payment in digital currency like Bitcoin, because these transactions are difficult to trace — and it's a hassle for the victim to acquire and transfer.
Apple did not immediately respond to request for comment on the reported attack. However, Palo Alto said in its blog post that, after it reported the occurrence to Apple, the Mac maker shut down the infiltration and updated its anti-virus system.
How to Protect Yourself
Ransomware attacks can be particularly stressful for consumers if the stolen data includes personal information, work data or irreplaceable files (think photos). Not only is this a case to back up your hard drive, it's also a reminder that you may want to install anti-virus software or malware protection on your computer, no matter how secure you think it is.
Guarding your personal information is no joke. Losing your sensitive information to a criminal puts you at risk foridentity theft. It can take a lot of time and money to recover from identity theft, not to mention the credit damage you might suffer. On top of that, if someone gets access to your Social Security number, the risk of fraud never goes away, because the Social Security Administration rarely changes numbers.
Protecting your devices goes hand-in-hand with habits like reviewing your financial accounts for unauthorized activity andmonitoring your creditforsigns of fraud. (You can see afree summary of your credit report, updated each month,on Credit.com.)
Taking steps to prevent cyberattacks is important, but so is having a plan for how to deal with one if it happens. Ideally, such planning will make the incident less stressful and less costly. You can report cyber crime to the Federal Bureau of Investigation and gohere to learn what to do if you are a victim of identity theft.
More from Credit.com
• How to Use Credit Monitoring to Protect Your Child's Identity
• Does Credit Repair Work? Can Credit Repair Companies Help?
• What Is a FICO Score? || Bitcoin finds room in small funds; large institutions still on sidelines: By Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss
NEW YORK, March 18 (Reuters) - Digital currency bitcoin has found favor among smaller investors, thanks to the availability of funds designed to invest in it, but remains a niche among the larger investing community.
Investors at some family offices, smaller mutual funds, and traders at hedge funds say bitcoin has helped returns and demonstrated a low correlation with other asset classes.
Hopes that bitcoin would become a broadly used alternative to other currencies helped buoy its price to more than $1,000 in December 2013, when its market capitalization was $13 billion.
But the market cap has retreated since then, to about $6.4 billion as of Thursday.
Early enthusiasts for the crypto-currency were drawn to its revolutionary ideals of transparency and a lack of central or official control. The risks of dealing in bitcoin were laid bare in 2013 when Tokyo-based exchange Mt Gox collapsed after admitting it had lost the equivalent of hundreds of millions of dollars of investor funds.
The currency's earlier ties to gambling and criminal websites did not endear it to traditional investors.
Jeremy Millar, founder and managing partner at Ledger Partners in London, estimated that 50 to 90 percent of bitcoin's current $6.4 billion market cap is held by near-institutional money such as individuals at hedge funds and family offices. That has not changed over the last two years.
He does not have an estimate for institutional investment holdings of bitcoin. But he said they are likely to be insignificant, compared with the smaller investors who have fewer restrictions about fund allocation.
"What is clear though is that over the last two years, bitcoin has emerged from its 'hacktivist' origins to a more institutionalized ecosystem which includes the participation of hedge funds, traders, and professional investors," said Millar.
BITCOIN IN PORTFOLIOS
Funds dedicated to investing in bitcoin are relatively small. The largest is the Pantera Bitcoin Fund, a $160 million hedge fund founded by Dan Morehead, formerly of Tiger Management, available to institutions and individuals who invest $50,000 or more.
According to a Pantera Bitcoin Fund brochure, the fund was launched in July 2013, a period when bitcoin traded at around $65. On Thursday, it traded at $418.80, a gain of more than 500 percent from July 2013. The firm did not comment on fund performance or its investors.
The majority of the Pantera Fund's investors are family offices and high net worth individuals, said two people familiar with the fund.
The Grayscale Bitcoin Investment Trust, with assets of more than $60 million, is another vehicle for investors. GBTC is backed by bitcoin advocate Barry Silbert and his Digital Currency Group.
It is the only publicly traded U.S. security in the over-the-counter market invested in bitcoin. Volume is thin, with a few thousand shares traded daily, according to Thomson Reuters data.
Antonis Polemitis, managing director at Ledra Capital in New York, a family office specializing in education and technology, said that on average, clients have allocated 1 to 3 percent of their portfolios to bitcoin.
"A lot of people will take that bet with 1 percent of their assets," he said. "A 1 percent loss does not change anyone's life in any way. If it goes up 10 times, then you get to feel very smart."
Some investment managers say having bitcoin in portfolios has helped performance.
ARK Invest, which manages four exchange-traded funds with $240 million in assets, holds GBTC in its $12 million Next Generation Internet ETF and the $7 million ARK Innovation ETF.
Chris Burniske, analyst and blockchain products lead at ARK Invest in New York, said since investing in September 2015, GBTC has contributed 67 basis points to the Next Generation Internet ETF's return and 62 basis points to the ARK Innovation ETF.
For 2015, the Next Generation ETF posted a 15.29 percent return, while the Innovation ETF had 3.76 percent gains.
For Kingsbridge Wealth Management, a multifamily office in Las Vegas with $150 million in assets, GBTC has become a great diversifier because so far it has had a low correlation with other asset classes, said David Dunn, the firm's founder and chief investment officer. The firm has about $1.7 million invested in bitcoin and its underlying technology, the blockchain, Dunn said.
(Editing by David Gaffen and Matthew Lewis) || Oil drives Wall St. higher; most & least favorite stocks; Amazon clothing line: Stocks ( ^DJI , ^GSPC , ^IXIC ) are continuing their rally, boosted by higher oil prices ( CLH16.NYM) following comments from Iran about limiting oil production. Keith Bliss of Cuttone & Co. joins us live from the floor of the New York Stock Exchange to discuss the markets. Yahoo Finance's Alexis Christoforous talks about that and some of the other big stories of the day with Yahoo Finance Editor-in-Chief Andy Serwer and Yahoo Finance's Dan Roberts. Stocks you love, stocks you hate Love 'em or hate 'em? The latest filings from the Securities Exchange Commission are showing which stocks are being bought and sold by the largest investors. So far, the 13F filings are showing some of the leaders to be The Blackstone Group ( BX ), Visa ( V ), Amazon ( AMZN ), Google ( GOOGL ) and LinkedIn ( LNKD ). Pulling up the rear, we have Coca-Cola ( KO ), IBM ( IBM ), Apple ( AAPL ), Microsoft ( MSFT ), and ExxonMobil ( XOM ). Who will be the new leaders in 2016? Bitcoin push Virtual currency fans get no respect! Well, apparently that's how they feel, so Bitcoin believers are turning to a non-profit advocacy group to help lift some of the shroud of mystery surrounding cryptocurrency. Will it succeed, disrupt, or fail? Amazon clothes Would you buy your clothes from ... Amazon ( AMZN )? The online retail powerhouse hopes so. Fashion news site WWD reports the company is increasing hiring for Amazon Fashion Private Label, suggesting the line is getting closer to launch. || Digatrade Executes Joint-Venture with BitCarats: Exclusive Digital Asset Development & Exchange Listing Agreement
VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESSWIRE / February 10, 2016 /BITX FINANCIAL CORP (BITXF) and its 100% owned and operated digital asset-currency exchange DIGATRADE(TM) (digatrade.com) today announced the execution of an exclusive asset-backed digital currency development and platform exchange listing agreement with BitCarats Capital Inc. Under terms of the agreement Digatrade, along with BitCarats Capital, will develop Caratscoin, the world's first diamond-backed digital-asset powered by blockchain.
“Caratscoin will be the first asset-backed digital currency listed on the trading platform, an innovation that will include additional asset-backed crypto-currencies in the future," stated Brad Moynes, CEO of Digatrade. In collaboration with BitCarats Capital and financial technology partners (ANX Technologies), Caratscoin will be powered by secure blockchain technology - the world's first paired with Bitcoin as well as direct purchase via Digatrade multi-fiat currency order-book including US dollars and Euros via Visa & MasterCard, along with eCheck and Interac within Canada.
A fully integrated, custom multi-signature Caratscoin digital wallet will be developed as a comprehensive solution, not only creating the Caratscoin, but adding value through features such as industry leading security architecture and encryption algorithms. Caratscoin owners issue the coin only if all authorized parties are present, the first to use this unique service which is unprecedented in the market. This system is most secure, as no one person has the only authority to issue the coin, considering the Caratscoin is designed to significantly increase in value in direct correlation to the appreciation in value of physical diamonds held in the company vault.
BitCarats Capital CEO & Founder Colin Ferguson stated, "Carats Diamond Investment, which will provide the distinctive collection of diamonds to back BitCarats, has more than 30 years' experience in the diamond business and is the nation's first direct distributor from the world famous Argyle Diamond Mine in Western Australia. We house the country's leading collection of Natural Fancy Coloured diamonds, featuring trending colours such as red, vivid blues and champagnes." Ferguson continued, "Caratscoin will not only provide a new virtual asset-class and store of value, but also offer our investors instant payment, prepaid debit cards and the ability to transfer an asset between end users instantly, at a low cost and on a decentralized network."Caratscoin will be backed by a pool of certified, Natural Fancy Coloured diamonds, primarily featuring red, vivid blue, and champagne colours. Each diamond is certified by the Geological Institute of America, the world's leading diamond educational resource, and home to the most advanced laboratories. The diamonds are insured by Lloyd's of London and stored at a private vault at The World Trade Center, 999 Canada Place, one of the most secure buildings in Vancouver, Canada. Founded and led by BitCarats CEO Colin Ferguson, Carats Diamond Investment (carats.com) is committed to exceptional diamond education, quality and customer service, and was recently recognized by the Better Business Bureau (BBB) when Carats was awarded with their highest rating of A+ since joining the BBB 16 years ago.
More information regarding this exciting new venture will be made available as it materializes.
ABOUT DIGATRADE:
DIGATRADE is a global digital asset-currency exchange located in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. The Company is owned and operated 100% by Bit-X Financial Corp which is publically listed on the OTC.QB under the trading symbol BITXF. BITXF is a reporting issuer in the Province of British Columbia, Canada with the British Columbia Securities Commission "BCSC" and in the United States with the Securities Exchange Commission "SEC". Digatrade has now become a global platform offering its customers instant card-based transactions worldwide.
CORPORATE CONTACT INFORMATION:
Brad Moynes, CEOBit-X Financial CorpDigaTrade.com838 West Hastings Street, Suite 300Vancouver, BC V6C-0A6CanadaTel: +1(604) 200-0071Fax: +1(604) 200-0072www.digatrade.com
Media inquiries:press@digatrade.com
Forward-Looking Information
This press release contains certain "forward-looking information". All statements, other than statements of historical fact, that address activities, events or development that the Company believes, expects or anticipates will or may occur in the future constitute forward-looking information. This forward-looking information reflects the current expectations or beliefs of the company based on information currently available to the Company. Forward-looking information is subject to a number of significant risks and uncertainties and other factors that may cause the actual results of the Company to differ materially from those discussed in the forward-looking information, and even if such actual results are realized or substantially realized, there can be no assurance that they will have the expected consequences to, or effects on the Company. Factors that could cause actual results or events to differ materially from current expectations include, but are not limited to, the possibility of unanticipated costs and expenses. Any forward-looking information speaks only as of the date on which it is made and, except as may be required by applicable securities laws, the company disclaims any intent or obligation to update any forward-looking information whether as a result of new information, future events or results or otherwise. Although the Company believes that the assumptions inherent in the forward-looking information are reasonable, forward-looking information is not a guarantee of future performance and accordingly undue reliance should not be put on such information due to the inherent uncertainty therein.
SOURCE:Bit-X Financial Corp || Your first trade for Friday: The " Fast Money " traders delivered their final trades of the day. Tim Seymour was a seller of the iShares MSCI Emerging Markets ETF (NYSE Arca: EEM) . Steve Grasso was a seller of Freeport-McMoRan ( FCX ) . Brian Kelly was a buyer of the iShares Silver Trust (NYSE Arca: SLV) . Guy Adami was a buyer of Coca-Cola ( KO ) for the second day in a row. Trader disclosure: On March 10, 2016, the following stocks and commodities mentioned or intended to be mentioned on CNBC's "Fast Money" were owned by the "Fast Money" traders: Guy Adami is long CELG, EXAS, GDX, INTC, Guy Adami's wife, Linda Snow, works at Merck. Brian Kelly is long BBRY, Bitcoin, GLD, GLD puts, SH, SLV, TLT, US Dollar, UUP, Yen; he is short Aussie Dollar, BLK, British Pound, CS, DB, Euro, EWH, FRC, Hong Kong Dollar, UBS, SPY, Yuan, 5-Year Note Futures. Steve Grasso is long AAPL, BA, CC, DD, DIS, DECK, EVGN, KBH, MJNA, MU, OLN, PFE, PHM, T, TWTR, GDX sold BAC firm is long OXY, BP, CVX, RIG, FCX kids own EFA, EFG, EWJ, IJR, SPY. Tim Seymour is long AAPL, AVP, BAC, BBRY, DO, F, FCX, GM, GOOGL, INTC, JCP, NKE, SINA, T, TWTR, VZ, XOM. Tim's firm is long BABA, BIDU, CLF, KO, MCD, PEP, PF, SAVE, SBUX, VALE, WMT,YHOO, short HYG, IWM. More From CNBC Top News and Analysis Latest News Video Personal Finance
[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
LIVE: Profit = $36.24 (2.66 %). BUY B3.58 @ $380.00 (#VirCurex). SELL @ $388.56 (#HitBTC) #bitcoin #btc - http://www.projectcoin.org || Russian Narcotics Claim Bitcoin has Doubled-Up Drug Trades: Bitcoin has often been referr... http://bit.ly/21s3Zro #Bitcoin #Blockchain || Bleutrade price DCR/BTC: 0.00489101, Bittrex price DCR/BTC: 0.00499005 || #$ 0.000034 (-3.04 %) 0.00000009 BTC (-0.00 %) #Nyancoin #NYAN via #NyanCoinBot
#Bitcoin #BTC #AltCoin #BlockChain …pic.twitter.com/eNoDzTj7UD || Liquid Bitcoin || Does Bitcoin Pose a Threat to China's Economic Security: An expert examines the relations... http://cur.lv/vwksa #Gold #Bitcoin #News || Liquid Bitcoin || Liquid Bitcoin || ‘Moralists’, the Latest Extortionists to Begin Using Bitcoin
https://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/moralists-the-latest-extortionists-to-begin-using-bitcoin/ … #Bitcoin... http://fb.me/2rh7njde7 || #boxing - #TerenceCrawford vs #HenryLundy is starting. 1.434 #Bitcoin Matched - https://www.betbtc.co/events/crawford-v-lundy-44354 …
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Trend: no change || Prices: 424.03, 423.41, 422.74, 420.35, 419.41, 421.56, 422.48, 425.19, 423.73, 424.28
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Analyze the provided historical prices, technical indicators, news, and social media sentiment from the last 60 days. Based on this context, predict the overall trend (up, down, or no change) and the specific daily closing prices for Bitcoin for the next 10 days.
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[Technical Analysis for 2015-07-01]
BTC Price: 258.62, BTC RSI: 65.95
Gold Price: 1169.00, Gold RSI: 41.93
Oil Price: 56.96, Oil RSI: 40.92
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
Bitcoin Direct LLC, Subsidiary of Conexus, Places Order for Additional 6 Automated Bitcoin Machines: NEW YORK, NY--(Marketwired - May 26, 2015) - Conexus Cattle Corp. ( OTC PINK : CNXS ) announced today their subsidiary, Bitcoin Direct LLC, a Nevada limited liability company ("Bitcoin" or the "Company"), has placed an order for 6 additional A utomated B itcoin M achines (ABMs). The ABMs, which provide consumers with the ability to instantaneously purchase bitcoins through their mobile devices, will be installed in key North American metropolitan markets. The Company currently has installations serving the major metropolitan centers of New York City and Montreal and anticipates placing the new ABMs in metropolitan areas that lack access to ABMs. Additional sites are presently being reviewed in the New York metropolitan area. ABMs present a major solution for bitcoin users. An ABM allows consumers to exchange cash and bitcoins without the need for a human to facilitate the transaction. In addition, the Company plans to offer a full range of bitcoin transaction solutions to a wide variety of industries including remittance and gaming, among others. Conrad Huss, President of Conexus, commented: "We look forward to building out the Company's North American presence and opening up markets that are either underserved or completely lacking access to an ABM. Consumer demand has created the need for additional ABMs and we are eager to install our system into highly select, profitable market areas. As the AMBs are installed, we look forward to updating all stakeholders on the Company's progress and growth." About Bitcoin Direct LLC Bitcoin Direct LLC provides bitcoin transaction solutions for consumers. Bitcoin's initial focus is aimed at installing and servicing its ABMs (Automated Bitcoin Machines) in multiple locations. The ABMs provide consumers with the ability to instantaneously purchase bitcoins through their mobile devices. Currently, the Company has installations serving the major metropolitan centers of New York City and Montreal. Safe Harbor This press release may contain forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. The forward-looking statements are based on current expectations, estimates and projections made by management. The Company intends for the forward-looking statements to be covered by the safe harbor provisions for forward-looking statements. Words such as "anticipates," "expects," "intends," "plans," "believes," "seeks," "estimates," or variations of such words are intended to identify such forward-looking statements. The forward-looking statements contained in this press release include statements regarding the elimination of debt, positioning the Company for growth and the vote of confidence in the growth plans. All forward-looking statements in this press release are made as of the date of this press release, and the Company assumes no obligation to update these forward-looking statements other than as required by law. The forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those set forth or implied by any forward-looking statements and include the Company's ability to complete its intended growth plans in a timely manner and the other factors discussed in Current Reports on Form 8-K. Copies of these filings are available at www.sec.gov || Bit-X Financial Corp (BITXF) Provides Update on Launch of Bitcoin Exchange: "GO LIVE JUNE 2015"
VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESSWIRE / May 21, 2015 /Bit-X Financial Corp.(BITXF), a crypto-currency exchange and internet financial services company, today announced that the test environment for the bitcoin exchange is progressing well and on track to go-live in June 2015.
Users can now pre-register on the company's website atwww.bitxfin.com. "We are very excited to launch our platform as the global interest and recognition of bitcoin rises within the established financial communities," stated Brad Moynes, President of Bit-X Financial. "Our Go Live Date is fast approaching and being able to provide our users an on-ramp advantage will boost awareness to our platform."
As previously announced, in April, Bit-X Financial Corp. executed an Exclusive Bitcoin Exchange and Services Agreement with Hong Kong based ANX for the North American market. The proprietary ANX trading and matching engine has been pioneered from the ground up, leveraging the skills of experienced developers with respected and long standing careers working for low latency software development firms. It is designed to manage high volume, high throughput, and low latency trading and was modeled on the same LMAX pattern now also leveraged by the world's largest Investment Banks.
This investment banking grade trading platform has a simple and user friendly UI for users to buy and sell all major crypto currencies. It also features one consolidated shared order book for blended multi-currency settlement in addition to real time FX pricing and risk management.
The order engine delivers pre-scan indicative pricing and users can choose to either fix the quantity of Bitcoins or fix the price paid for every order. Lock in a guaranteed execution or alternatively lock in the ultimate price you're prepared to pay for your order; the choice remains yours. And this all relies on an order engine that achieves low latency performance along with the reliability of an exchange that has been verified in supporting millions of daily transactions.
ABOUT BIT-X:
Bit-X Financial Corp is a Vancouver; British Columbia based Company listed on the OTC.QB under the trading symbol BITXF. Bit-X Financial Corp has executed an exclusive North American crypto-currency exchange development and services agreement with Hong Kong based ANXPRO. BITXF for is a reporting issuer in the Province of British Columbia, Canada with the British Columbia Securities Commission "BCSC" and in the United States with the Securities Exchange Commission "SEC."
CORPORATE CONTACT INFORMATION:
Bit-X Financial Corp838 West Hastings Street, Suite 300Vancouver, BC V6C-0A6CanadaTel: +1(604) 200-0071Fax: +1(604) 200-0072www.bitxfin.com
Media inquiries:
Bit-X Financial Corppress@bitxfin.com
SOURCE:Bit-X Financial Corp || Bitcoin comes to America: Now, with regulated exchange: itBit has become America’s first national regulatory-compliant BitCoin exchange. On Thursday, the exchange received approval from New York State regulators to form a trust. It can now accept customers from anywhere in the U.S. Charles “Chad” Cascarilla, CEO of itBit, tells Yahoo Finance’s Aaron Task in the video above that the approval is a big deal because he believes customers can now feel more comfortable with the virtual currency. “We’re regulated. We hold regulatory capital,” he says. “We have regulatory exams and we have someone who is doing oversight of the exchange and can make customers feel as if there is someone else who is looking over what we are doing and making sure customers are in good shape,” he explains. itBit was originally headquartered in Singapore but moved its main operations to New York last year. “We have spent a lot of time here in the last three years, building our exchange, really making sure that we could test everything that we are doing.” itBit has been operating outside the United States for the last 16 months. On the move to the U.S. and New York state approval, Cascarilla says, “The approach we have taken is, ‘Let’s ask for permission. Let’s not ask for forgiveness.’” The approval as a trust supersedes the exchange as solely a form of money transmission as has been the case with other Bitcoin exchanges because, Cascarilla says, it's now “organized under New York banking law. This is a very sophisticated way of being regulated… It’s a totally different licensing and regulatory regime.” Bitcoin has had a rough go lately. The virtual currency fell more than 60% in 2014, and saw the bankruptcy of one of its biggest exchanges, Mt. Gox, after its computer system was hacked. 2015 didn't start much better in terms of price, which at one point was more than 80% below its 2013 high. “Mt. Gox was totally unregulated. They were operating as best they could at the time,” says Cascarilla. “And again bitcoin is still in its early stages. And inevitably, in its early stages, you have some pitfalls and hiccups,” he says. Story continues But now interest in the virtual currency may be gaining momentum. Last month, Goldman Sachs ( GS ) and Chinese investment firm, IDG Capital Partners, invested $50 million in Circle Internet Financial, a start-up that uses Bitcoin technology to allow customers to digitally store and transfer money. Earlier this year, the New York Stock Exchange invested in Coinbase, a Bitcoin trading platform. And in January, the Winklevoss twins launched another exchange called Gemini. Get the Latest Market Data and News with the Yahoo Finance App Cascarilla hopes itBit will lead the way because its new regulatory status will allow more sophisticated customers to use the exchange. itBit has hired a chief compliance officer from eBay ( EBAY ). And it boasts board members like former FDIC Chair Sheila Bair, former U.S. Senator Bill Bradley and former Financial Accounting Standards Board Director Robert Herz. As for funding, Cascarilla says itBit recently raised $25 million in capital, for a total of $32 million to date. “We have more capital than any other exchange in the Bitcoin world and that’s an important item for soundness and safety as well,” he says. More from Yahoo Finance Some unhappy news about Medicare and Social Security How your financial adviser may be ripping you off Nobel prize-winner Stiglitz: Three steps to solve income inequality || Are Data Centers Worsening California's Drought?: In California, water has become scarce and residents have begun cutting back on their usage in order to conserve the resource and end a four-year drought. However, while most look to shorter showers and strategic plant watering in order to cut down on waste, another industry has been under the microscope for its water usage —data centers.
Environmentally Unfriendly
With San Francisco being home to several large tech names, California has a large population of massive data centers. The facilities have been criticized in the past for their energy usage, but now the centers are being forced to take a look at their cooling systems, which require a substantial amount of water.
Related Link:California's Drought Turns Traders Attention To Water Plays
Major Drain
In order to keep rooms full of servers from overheating, many data centers use cooling towers that take water in, use it to cool the air and expel it. In this way, data centers are a major contributor to California's drought, as they rid the state of its water supply through evaporation. The facilities require a great deal of water to maintain the cooling systems as well; Utah's NSA Data Center uses up to 1.7 million gallons of water per day to keep its servers cool.
New Designs
Now that water usage has become a concern, many tech companies are rethinking their cooling systems in order to make their operations more sustainable in times of drought.Google Inc(NASDAQ:GOOG) (NASDAQ:GOOGL) has explored using non-potable water in its cooling process, whileFacebook Inc(NASDAQ:FB) has tried using a system that cools outside air using a water mist, which requires much less water than traditional cooling.
Image Credit: Public Domain
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© 2015 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Meet 'Dope' Breakout Shameik Moore, Who Went From YouTube Tween to Rising Star: The Sundance Film Festival favorite Dope hits theaters on Friday, and, if all goes according to plan, Americans will soon be living in Meaks World. Directed by Rick Famuyiwa ( Brown Sugar , The Wood ), Dope features 20-year-old newcomer Shameik Moore as Malcolm, a 90s hip hop-obsessed geek who hopes to escape from his rough Los Angeles neighborhood and attend Harvard. Its an unlikely jump for Malcolm, given the obstacles on the long uphill road from his humble childhood home, and in that way, Moore can certainly relate: A native of Atlanta with no real Hollywood connections, he decided to become a professional dancer once he saw the 2004 hit You Got Served , and began plotting a singing career after seeing Chris Brown in concert when he was 13 years old. All these interviews Im doing this is the kind of stuff that I was dreaming about doing when I was younger, Moore told Yahoo Movies from a hotel in L.A., where he was preparing to go on Jimmy Kimmel Live . I was praying for people to want to write about me. I wanted people to hear my music, I wanted to perform, I wanted to be on billboards. Moore belongs to the first social media generation, made up of kids who lied about their ages to join Facebook in the late aughts, when no one younger than a high school freshman could register. Young stars have been taught to establish their personal brand from day one, and once Moore began training at the We Entertain arts complex in Atlanta, he came up with Meaks World, which was a combination of a mantra, mission statement, and trademark to tie together his various creative endeavors. Meaks World is the world I created when I was 12, when I got into the industry, he said. I said, I have to do it myself. Its not going to be given to me. It has to be Meaks World. He wasnt an overnight success, but he worked hard at building a small fan base mostly via YouTube. His channel still hosts videos that stretch back six years, with everything from episodes of a webcam show called Meaks World to breakdance performances to direct appeals to Hollywood directors, like the one below: Story continues From that point in early middle school, Meaks World was built slowly, with a foundation made of mostly music video appearances and small roles in films like Joyful Noise and The Watsons Go to Birmingham . Then Famuyiwa , whod been struggling to cast the Malcolm role , noticed Moore while watching audition tapes several years ago, and flew him to L.A. for an in-person tryout. It didnt go very well, at least in their initial meeting. I got really nervous, Moore remembers. For like 98 percent of my life, Im not nervous. But as soon as Im nervous, I start shaking or something, and I lose my cool. Still, Moore says he didnt realize how badly he wilted in the spotlight until his agents called to tell him that Famuyiwa was willing to give him one more chance. Obviously, Moore nailed it the second time around, putting the rare case of nerves behind him and grabbing the part of the ambitious, conscientious, and very well-dressed Malcolm. Watch the trailer for Dope: Moore plays Malcolm as a vulnerable, but ultimately resourceful kid destined for greater things. The character who quotes N.W.A. lyrics and plays in a punk band uses his blend of street smarts and geeky know-how to unload a stash of drugs, aided by his two best friends, played by Transparents Kiersey Clemons and The Grand Budapest Hotels Tony Revolori. Theres also a girl, of course: A local (Zoë Kravitz) whom Moore tutors and eventually tries to win over. Its a nuanced role in a film that puts a fresh spin on the classic gotta get out of here coming-of-age film a 21st century Risky Business or Saturday Night Fever set in South Central. The teens deal with Bitcoin and Instagram , ogle old vinyl records and tap into the Dark Web, making Dope an earnest adventure inside a maze of zeitgeist. Its a film that takes a fresh look at a world largely written off by Hollywood, even though its just miles down the road. Dope will no doubt be Moores breakout turn, and hes long prepared for this wave of publicity. In the grand tradition of hip-hop culture, Moore has worked on establishing a sort of brand name that combines his ambition and self-regard; as he often mentions on Twitter , hed love to be known as #KingSAM. Its a hashtag monicker that he hopes becomes the catch-all identity for all of his artistic pursuits each letter in his initials carries its own meaning; the M for Moore also suggests he always leaves the audience wanting more. Why brand himself so early? Its to take control of the narrative, Moore says, before someone else can begin to write it. It makes sense from a business standpoint, as its unlikely that the news media would be quite as invested in his careers success as Moore is himself. He talks about being grateful and staying humble quite often, so he doesnt lack self-awareness. He just also knows that in an increasingly crowded media sphere with countless young social media stars and performers obsessing over their brands and follower count, he has to be overly proactive. Dope , Moore hopes, will also help launch his music career. To coincide with the films release, Moore, who worked with producer Pharrell and co-star A$AP Rocky during the films production, is dropping some new music of his own. Its not a mixtape or EP; I call it a soundtrack, he says, explaining that the tracks will be about his upbringing and life in Georgia. Its called 30058 his childhood zip code and will be available on his website . And hes got a full album that he plans to release next spring, soon after the release of The Get Down , the Netflix series on which hes currently working. While Dope s Malcolm was obsessed with 90s hip hop, the Netflix show, which is being made by Baz Luhrmann, focuses on the birth of hip hop in the 70s South Bronx. Moore gets to rap, sing and b-boy dance, and this time, he plays the bad boy, he says, teasing a very different look from his breakout role. Moore seems to have a solid game-plan, thanks in part to all the years he spent preparing to capitalize on the opportunities he hustled so hard to secure. He certainly doesnt lack for confidence, but also knows his journey to turning Hollywood into Meaks World has really only gotten started. I cant assume that people see me the way I see myself, Moore offered. I have to show them. But I cant do it in a way where its too much, where its rude. I feel like when youre a king, you lead. And I just see myself as a king, or as something more than just a regular human being. Watch Forest Whitaker talk about Dope: || Euro Reverses Gains As ECB Proves It Means Business: This week, comments from the European Central Bank helped reverse some of the euro's recent gains, something many say is responsible for the region's improved economic performance. The bank has been injecting cash into the struggling eurozone economy for months now, but rhetoric from the region's central bankers suggested that the bank is planning to up its involvement in the coming weeks. Front-Loading On Monday evening, ECB board member Benoit Coeure remarked that the bank is planning to front-load its bond purchases in May and June in anticipation of a summer lull in July and August. In doing this, Coeure said, the bank will be able to maintain its monthly bond purchase average of €60 billion even as most Europeans head out for holiday and markets quiet down. Related Link: Europe Tries To Avoid Cumbersome Laws With New Initiative Going Above And Beyond Coeure's remarks were followed by French Central Banker Christian Noyer's comments that the bank would consider stepping up its involvement to boost inflation if necessary. Noyer reassured investors that the bank would extend its bond-buying program beyond September 2016 if need be, something that further devalued the euro and gave European equity markets a boost. Why Now? Most believe that the timing of the ECB's comments was no accident. The euro's recent recovery could stall the bloc's forward progress, as the currency's decline has helped make eurozone exports more appealing abroad. Additionally, increasing bond purchases in May and June could help offset some of the panic that would ensue if Greece is unable to meet its loan payment deadlines. While most expect the nation to reach a deal with its creditors soon, some analysts say the ECB could be preparing a safety net for markets in the case of a default. Image Credit: Public Domain See more from Benzinga Can Wal-Mart Take On Amazon? AT&T Bets On Connected Cars Bitcoin-Based Security Makes Its Way To Stockholm Exchange © 2015 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. View comments || Getting mobile with Bitcoin: This article, Getting mobile with Bitcoin , originally appeared on TechRepublic.com . If you haven't heard of Bitcoin, you might be living on another planet. It's a cryptographic-based currency which isn't actually printed or minted but exists solely in electronic (digital) form. The advantages to Bitcoin are that it is internationally-based (no currency exchange or other fees) and used, it is not subject to laws or regulation from one individual entity, and it can purchase goods or services from businesses and fellow consumers. Bitcoins can be converted into any local currency via exchange rates (at the time of this writing one bitcoin is worth $237.47 in U.S. dollars). You can even generate your own bitcoins through a process called "mining" whereby special high-speed computer systems run software to verify a set of bitcoin transactions (known as a "blockchain"). The more work these systems contribute to this effort, the more bitcoins can be earned (however there is a finite number of bitcoins that the world can generate; approximately 21 million). Bitcoins are generally stored in and utilized by an application or mobile wallet. Two such examples are Bitcoin Wallet for Android and Bither for iOS , either of which can be used to obtain, use, sell and track Bitcoins: figurea.jpg Image: Google Play The concept of Bitcoin Wallet is the same as any other mobile payment system; Bitcoins are accessed via a centralized account (not actually stored on the device per se, meaning your device isn't required nor must be powered up for someone to send you Bitcoins). The app is just a front end to manage the Bitcoins. As it enters its sixth year of existence, the Bitcoin has rolled forward with steady momentum and its popularity continues to grow. As is usually the case with technological advancements, new possibilities are also arising for those savvy enough to stay ahead of the curve. Entire industries are springing up around Bitcoin and one such example involves a merger between two companies called The Bitcoin Shop and Spondoolies-Tech. Story continues The Bitcoin Shop (aka "BTCS") provides Bitcoin (and other digital currency) transaction verification services. It's goal is to build a universal platform for digital currency to provide a single point of access for users to engage in their ecosystem. Consequently, BTCS is investing $1.5m in a transaction verification server manufacturer named Spondoolies-Tech Ltd (aka "Spondoolies"). The motivation behind the merger is to "create the world's first publicly traded company to produce Bitcoin transaction verification equipment and deploy Bitcoin mining resources." I spoke with Charles Allen, CEO of BTCS to find out more about Bitcoin and the details of the BTCS-Spondoolies merger. Scott Matteson: "How do Bitcoin mobile apps work (specifically via Bitcoin Shop's context)?" Charles Allen: "Bitcoin Shop ("BTCS") does not currently have a mobile app. However many digital companies offer iPhone and Android compatible apps most of which are bitcoin wallets or price feeds." SM: "What is the advantage of Bitcoin over traditional currency?" CA: "There are many advantages of Bitcoin compared to fiat currency. Below are some key differentiators: Highly divisible compared to fiat currencies Globally transferable - e.g. in the current system, money can be sent around the world in a matter of days via wires but this is costly for small transactions and slow in today's age. With bitcoin, for example, one can send their bitcoins from anywhere (e.g., from the Japan to the U.S.) instantly for free. Scarce - the supply of bitcoin is predetermined so inflation is factored in. Not government issued - with fiat currencies in a fractional reserve system there is a real risk that a country will make poor decisions over time and devalue their currency." SM: "What security controls are in place to protect customers and vendors/suppliers/businesses (ties into the transaction verification equipment)?" CA: "Apart from sourcing servers and building our data center, customers / suppliers / vendors are not directly involved in the BTCS' operations so I'm not sure the question is relevant to our transaction verification services operations." SM: "Can you elaborate on what to expect from the Bitcoin Shop/Spondoolies merger?" CA: "The digital currency ecosystem is similar to the Internet in 1995, i.e. very few companies are generating revenue. As a combined company, we plan to build a fully integrated transaction verification services business, which will be our revenue and profit engine (similar to Google with advertising) as we explore and develop other blockchain technologies. Spondoolies recently announced 2014 revenue of $28 million, and we believe our fully integrated mining efforts should allow us as combined company to continue to grow revenue and earnings and capture additional margin. Further BTCS has an 83,000 square foot facility to expand mining operations into." SM: "What is the future of Bitcoin?" CA: "Bitcoin - and more importantly blockchain technologies - have the ability to fundamentally change the world in the same way the Internet did. The 'genie is out of the bottle' and it is likely not going away." SM: "Why are hackers/ransomware/cyber-criminals so interested in being paid in Bitcoin?" CA: "Bitcoin is essentially digital cash, and once you have it, you own it. The downside is that every transaction is recorded on the blockchain, so identities can be associated to public addresses, meaning owners of stolen bitcoins can be found. In the long run, bitcoin is a poor means for cybercrime, as there is a public ledger of who owns what." SM: "Can you elaborate a bit more on how BTCS performs transaction verification services?" CA: "Please watch video #1 and video #2 for the best details. BTCS runs ASIC servers (see video #1) in a repurposed 83,000 square foot manufacturing facility in NC - see video #3 (it is now filled with servers, so we are working on an updated video). 93% of our equipment is currently manufactured by Spondoolies." SM: "Can you also elaborate on the Spondoolies server product and how they are specifically tailored towards transaction verifications?" CA: "Currently we do not manufacture ASIC servers. Spondoolies is one of only 4-5 companies that manufacture ASICS servers. There are many companies that run data centers with ASIC servers but very few that manufacture them. The big competitors to Spondoolies are Bitmain, Bitfury, and KNC Miner. However, all of these companies are involved in the design, manufacturing and deployment of ASIC servers. Pre-merger, BTCS is engaged in the deployment of ASIC servers and not the design and manufacturing of them, while Spondoolies is engaged in the design and manufacturing of ASIC servers and not the deployment. As a merged entity, we will be fully integrated similar to Bitmain, Bitfury, and KNC Miner and be able to capture the margin on both sides. To put this in perspective, Spondoolies achieved $28m in revenue in 2014 and many of their customers have had a tremendous return on investment (depending on when they started and their cost structure)." SM: "Can you walk me (briefly) through how a transaction involving Bitcoin via BTCS will work at present? Same question for after the merger (if different)?" CA: "The transaction verification services process is not a business-to-consumer endeavor. We simply maintain the network and are rewarded by the network for doing so. Consumers / users of bitcoin never directly engage with us." SM: "Can you tell me a little more about blockchain technology and how it applies to BTCS? CA: "Bitcoin is based on blockchain technology ( see video #2). Many technologies are being built upon Bitcoin's blockchain and we are a participant in securing the blockchain through our transaction verification services business (or often referred to as mining). In our opinion, this is the core of the technology as well as the cash cow in the business. Many bitcoin companies are "pre-revenue" and will be for years to come. To draw a parallel, Google's cash cow is advertising, hence, they have yet to pollute the elegant and simplistic search interface. Yet they experiment with all sorts of other technologies many of which fail i.e. Glass, Answers, iGoogle, etc. and some that succeed i.e. Maps, Android etc. We believe as a merged company, fully integrated mining / transaction services will be our cash cow which catapults our business to the next level and allows us to venture into other Hopefully you've found this discussion engaging and it has helped advance your understanding of the Bitcoin environment. I'd like to thank Mr. Allen for the time he spent on the topic with me. See also: 5 Bitcoin and finance startups to watch from DEMO 2014 Pay with Bitcoin: 10 of the most interesting places to spend it 10 things you should know about Bitcoin and digital currencies 10 mobile payment systems you need to know || Big banks spending even more than VCs on future of finance: Financial technology startups are hot, red hot. The group raised almost $3 billion in the first quarter, according to CB Insights. And over the past 12 months, investors have poured almost $14 billion into 824 financings in the sector -- that's more deals than companies in sexier areas like cybersecurity and home automation completed.The fintech upstarts are challenging the status quo in seemingly every aspect of the financial markets, from banking and bill paying to asset management and payments processing. They're even venturing beyond the current system into areas like digital currency Bitcoin and equity crowdfunding.But the big banks aren't standing still. The establishment plans to spend $16.6 billion on its own set of digital initiatives this year,according to a report from IDC. So-called digital transformation spending still makes up less than one-quarter of all retail bank IT spending but is growing at about three times the rate of overall spending, IDC says.
Big banks still have nearly all the customers -- as well as their cash -- right now, but the economy is changing quickly in ways that benefit the upstarts. Increasingly, online and mobile consumers don't have the same preferences that they used to. Only 23% of U.S. adults still use physical branches as their primary means of banking, while 51% prefer online or mobile, according to a recent survey sponsored by Bank of America (BAC). And while only 5% have made mobile payments with their phone, another 29% say they are interested.
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The many upstarts are also able to focus on improving discrete parts of the banking experience. CB Insights counts 20 different significant companies trying to crack the payments and billings niche, 16 in personal finance and almost two dozen in lending.In many areas, the big banks may be dismissing the threat of upstarts along the lines of the classic disruption theory outlined by Harvard Professor Clayton Christensen in his book "The Innovator's Dilemma." The startup firms frequently offer limited services or primarily target customers big banks see as unprofitable. Bank execs feel safe ignoring the new competitors while they focus on retaining their current customers. But eventually, as technology improves and customer needs change, the startups become appealing to an ever-increasing portion of the market. And some bank efforts,like Barclays' new $50 wristband for making mobile payments, seem more than a little misguided.Banks trying to catch upOthers are off to a good start, at least. Bank America claims 31 million of its customers are active online banking users and 17 million on mobile apps. Most big banks are trying to speed up change, whether by investing in improved mobile apps, better online service or even by buying whole companies. Of the 211 upstarts that "exited" the venture capital world last year, only nine made it to the stock market on their own via IPOs. The select group of winners include online lender LendingCLub (LC) and bill paying facilitator Yodlee (YDLE). The rest were acquired, frequently by the large financial institutions that dominate the current market.For example,Simpleset out to revolutionize online banking without a physical presence -- it was bought by Spanish bank BBVA (BBVA) last year for just $117 million.And that highlights another major challenge for the startups.Simple found the current capital and regulatory requirements too steepto continue on its own. The problems Uber has experienced with taxi regulators around the globe are nothing compared to the costly and forbidding array of rules and regulations facing new financial firms.The wild card is whether the biggest tech companies, such as Google (GOOGL) or Apple (AAPL), decide to jump into fintech. Those behemoths almost certainly have the resources and talent to navigate the regulatory thicket and Google's venture capital arm has already made numerous fintech investments. But the tech giants may not see a need to get involved more directly, at least not yet.With the big banks and the upstarts spending like crazy to innovate, it won't be easy to figure out who's going to prevail. But with better services and cooler apps emerging almost daily, customers should be winners either way. || New York regulator issues final virtual currency rules: By Karen Freifeld and Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss NEW YORK (Reuters) - New York state issued on Wednesday extensive new rules for companies that operate in virtual currencies such as bitcoin but did little to accommodate complaints that overly tight regulation could hamper the nascent industry. The new rules, the first by a state, create comprehensive guidelines for regulating digital currency firms, according to the state's Department of Financial Services, which developed the regulations. It means that digital currency companies operating in New York state that hold customer funds and exchange virtual currencies for dollars or other currencies are required to apply for what is known as a state "BitLicense." "There is a basic bargain that when a financial company is entrusted with safeguarding customer funds and receives a license from the state to do so, it accepts the need for heightened regulatory scrutiny to help ensure that a consumer's money does not just disappear into a black hole," Benjamin Lawsky, superintendent of the New York state regulator, said in a speech Wednesday at the BITS Emerging Payments Forum in Washington. The "BitLicense" rules include consumer protection, anti-money laundering and cybersecurity protections. The regulations come as digital currencies have drawn criticism for attracting drug dealers and other criminal elements, while failing to safeguarding consumer funds. Last year, bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox collapsed after it claimed to have lost $500 million worth of customer bitcoins after being hacked. Overall, industry participants said New York's new rules are still problematic but nonetheless an improvement over the original proposals laid out in July and revised in December. Digital currency companies are required to obtain prior approval for material changes to their products or business models, such as wallet firms offering exchange services. They would also need approval for new controlling investors. Story continues But they would not need approval from the state for every round of venture capital funding or standard software updates. "We have no interest in micro-managing minor app updates. We're not Apple," said Lawsky. Companies that want both a BitLicense and a money transmitter license can work with the state regulator to have a "one-stop" application submission to cover the requirements for both. Jerry Brito, executive director of non-profit research group Coin Center, called the final regulations "far from perfect," specifically citing what he said were vague state-level anti-money laundering obligations that go beyond federal regulations. He said the group was working with other states "to ensure they do not repeat the mistakes made here." The rules do not apply to software developers, individual users, customer loyalty programs, gift cards, currency miners, or merchants accepting bitcoin as payment. Lawsky, meanwhile, has come under fire from the bitcoin community for issuing the rules shortly after announcing he was leaving the agency to set up a consulting company that will advise companies on financial matters that could possibly include digital currencies. The most prominent virtual currency now is bitcoin, often used as an investment or to pay for goods and services online. Bitcoin prices have been steady of late, at $225.77 on the BitStamp platform on Wednesday. The price rose as high as $1,123 in December 2013. "I think (the rules) are going to increase the costs to entry for businesses," said New York attorney Reuben Grinberg, who specializes in virtual currency. "But I think it's going to give consumers greater peace of mind and will end up promoting investment in this area much more so than it hurts." (Reporting by Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss and Karen Freifeld; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Steve Orlofsky) || New York regulator issues final virtual currency rules: By Karen Freifeld and Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss NEW YORK (Reuters) - New York state issued on Wednesday extensive new rules for companies that operate in virtual currencies such as bitcoin but did little to accommodate complaints that overly tight regulation could hamper the nascent industry. The new rules, the first by a state, create comprehensive guidelines for regulating digital currency firms, according to the state's Department of Financial Services, which developed the regulations. It means that digital currency companies operating in New York state that hold customer funds and exchange virtual currencies for dollars or other currencies are required to apply for what is known as a state "BitLicense." "There is a basic bargain that when a financial company is entrusted with safeguarding customer funds and receives a licence from the state to do so, it accepts the need for heightened regulatory scrutiny to help ensure that a consumer's money does not just disappear into a black hole," Benjamin Lawsky, superintendent of the New York state regulator, said in a speech Wednesday at the BITS Emerging Payments Forum in Washington. The "BitLicense" rules include consumer protection, anti-money laundering and cybersecurity protections. The regulations come as digital currencies have drawn criticism for attracting drug dealers and other criminal elements, whilst failing to safeguarding consumer funds. Last year, bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox collapsed after it claimed to have lost $500 million worth of customer bitcoins after being hacked. Overall, industry participants said New York's new rules are still problematic but nonetheless an improvement over the original proposals laid out in July and revised in December. Digital currency companies are required to obtain prior approval for material changes to their products or business models, such as wallet firms offering exchange services. They would also need approval for new controlling investors. But they would not need approval from the state for every round of venture capital funding or standard software updates. "We have no interest in micro-managing minor app updates. We're not Apple," said Lawsky. Companies that want both a BitLicense and a money transmitter licence can work with the state regulator to have a "one-stop" application submission to cover the requirements for both. Jerry Brito, executive director of non-profit research group Coin Centre, called the final regulations "far from perfect," specifically citing what he said were vague state-level anti-money laundering obligations that go beyond federal regulations. He said the group was working with other states "to ensure they do not repeat the mistakes made here." The rules do not apply to software developers, individual users, customer loyalty programmes, gift cards, currency miners, or merchants accepting bitcoin as payment. Lawsky, meanwhile, has come under fire from the bitcoin community for issuing the rules shortly after announcing he was leaving the agency to set up a consulting company that will advise companies on financial matters that could possibly include digital currencies. The most prominent virtual currency now is bitcoin, often used as an investment or to pay for goods and services online. Bitcoin prices have been steady of late, at $225.77 on the BitStamp platform on Wednesday. The price rose as high as $1,123 in December 2013. "I think (the rules) are going to increase the costs to entry for businesses," said New York attorney Reuben Grinberg, who specialises in virtual currency. "But I think it's going to give consumers greater peace of mind and will end up promoting investment in this area much more so than it hurts." (Reporting by Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss and Karen Freifeld; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Steve Orlofsky)
[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
Current price: 150.11£ $BTCGBP $btc #bitcoin 2015-05-14 18:00:14 BST || Current price: 238.92$ $BTCUSD $btc #bitcoin 2015-05-12 02:00:02 EDT || In the last 10 mins, there were arb opps spanning 17 exchange pair(s), yielding profits ranging between $0.00 and $625.90 #bitcoin #btc || In the last 10 mins, there were arb opps spanning 17 exchange pair(s), yielding profits ranging between $0.00 and $895.94 #bitcoin #btc || In the last 10 mins, there were arb opps spanning 24 exchange pair(s), yielding profits ranging between $0.00 and $899.88 #bitcoin #btc || buysellbitco.in #bitcoin price in INR, Buy : 15266.00 INR Sell : 14771.00 INR. Buy and sell bitcoin in #India using #buysellbitcoin || 1 #BTC (#Bitcoin) quotes:
$221.82/$221.88 #Bitstamp
$225.00/$225.29 #BTCe
⇢$3.12/$3.47
$224.09/$224.12 #Coinbase
⇢$2.21/$2.30 || Current price: 204.71€ $BTCEUR $btc #bitcoin 2015-06-04 07:00:04 CEST || In the last 10 mins, there were arb opps spanning 19 exchange pair(s), yielding profits ranging between $0.00 and $1,340.77 #bitcoin #btc || In the last 10 mins, there were arb opps spanning 18 exchange pair(s), yielding profits ranging between $0.00 and $1,263.51 #bitcoin #btc
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Trend: up || Prices: 255.41, 256.34, 260.89, 271.91, 269.03, 266.21, 270.79, 269.23, 284.89, 293.11
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Analyze the provided historical prices, technical indicators, news, and social media sentiment from the last 60 days. Based on this context, predict the overall trend (up, down, or no change) and the specific daily closing prices for Bitcoin for the next 10 days.
|
[Technical Analysis]
Not fully available.
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
U.K. Cops Arrest 6 Teens Linked to Sony, Microsoft Cyber-Attacks: British law-enforcement officials have arrested six male teenagers suspected of being members of the Lizard Squad hacking crew that disabled Sony s PlayStation Network and Microsoft s Xbox Live last year. The U.K.s National Crime Agency, the equivalent to the U.S.s Federal Bureau of Investigation, said the suspects used a tool to launch distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks to cripple online servers of gaming companies as well as e-retailers, a national British newspaper and a school. The NCA did not identify the targeted companies but reports said the arrests are related to several attacks on the PlayStation and Xbox networks last year . Amazon also was among the sites attacked by the group, Bloomberg reported . The NCAs Operation Vivarium tracked down individuals who bought Lizard Stresser, software for launching DDoS attacks that flood servers with bogus data, using payment services such as Bitcoin to remain anonymous. The suspects detained for questioning this week are all between the ages of 15 and 18. This multiagency operation illustrates the commitment of the NCA and its partners to pursuing people who think they can criminally disrupt important public services or legitimate businesses, Tony Adams, head of investigations for the NCAs National Cyber Crime Unit, said in announcing the arrests Friday. Adams added, One of our key priorities is to engage with those on the fringes of cyber criminality, to help them understand the consequences of cyber crime and how they can channel their abilities into productive and lucrative legitimate careers. Earlier this year, the NCA arrested two other British teens suspected of using Lizard Stresser. In addition, the agency said, officials are investigating approximately 50 addresses linked to individuals registered on the Lizard Stresser website but who are currently not believed to have carried out any attacks. The NCAs arrests this week are unrelated to the devastating hack on Sony Pictures systems last November , which resulted in a massive breach of internal studio documents and leaks of several films to piracy networks . U.S. officials have accused the North Korean regime of facilitating that attack. Story continues Related stories Amazon to Launch Prime Instant Video in Japan, Taking on Netflix Maria Bello to Co-Star Opposite Billy Bob Thornton in Amazon's Legal Drama 'Trial' TV Review: 'Hand of God' Get more from Variety and Variety411 : Follow us on Twitter , Facebook , Newsletter || Buying the dip? Consider these 5 stocks: Amid increased market volatility, investors looking for value should keep their eyes on five stocks trading at a discount, CNBC's "Fast Money" pros said.
Microsoft(NASDAQ: MSFT)has traded between $40 and $50 a share over the last year. "I think you probably buy it at $40 and sell it at $50," Dan Nathan said.
"There's been a premium built in to Microsoft over the last year since Nadella took over," he said. Nathan noted that there's a lot to be optimistic about, but urged investors to be mindful that it is tied to the turbulent PC market.
Tim Seymour said he sees upside potential in the aerospace products manufacture United Technologies(NYSE: UTX). "Granted China could get worse... but I think these guys are turning the ship after what was a selloff that was even kind of pre-China," he said.
But if you really want to know when the China-driven selloff is over, keep an eye on Apple(NASDAQ: AAPL).
Once investors start pilling in on Apple, it means they "fundamentally believe that maybe iPhones are going to surprise," to the upside because everyone has factored in that China, where the iPhone gets most of its profit from, is really hitting a wall, Steve Grasso said.
"Maybe they will surprise us. Maybe it's not the watch, maybe it's Apple T.V. as people are suspecting. ... But if the story has fundamentally changed than you just gotta sell Apple and I don't think we're there yet," he added.
Brian Kelly is betting on Goldman Sachs(NYSE: GS)to weather the current market storm because "they are gonna be the ones to benefit from this market volatility. "On this list, Goldman Sachs is the way to do it, at least, for the next couple of months," he said.
Cisco(NASDAQ: CSCO)is a Dow stock that you buy at a discount, while it's near 52-week lows, Brian Kelly said.
"Here is a Dow stock that trades at 10.5 times next year's expected earnings [with a] 3.25 percent dividend yield [and] half that market cap is in cash here," Kelly said, citing the company's recent management changes as additional tailwinds.
Disclosures:
Tim Seymour
Tim Seymour is long AAPL, T, BAC, DIS, F, GE, GM, GOOGL, INTC, JPM, TWTR, Tim's firm is long BABA, BIDU, MCD, NKE, NOK, SBUX, YHOO.
Dan Nathan
Dan is long QQQ Oct put spread, XBI sept put spread, TWTR, PG.
Brian Kelly
Brian Kelly is long BBRY, TWTR calls, Bitcoin, U.S. Dollar; he is short British Pound, Euro, Ruble, Yen, Yuan, US Treasurys.
Steve Grasso
Steve is long AAPL, BA, BAC, CC, DD, DIS, DECK, EVGN, FIT, KBH, MJNA, MU, PFE, PHM, T, TWTR, GDX, firm is long BP, COP, CVX, FCX, OXY, RIG, AMZN, MAT His kids own EFA, EFG, EWJ, IJR, SPY.
More From CNBC
• Top News and Analysis
• Latest News Video
• Personal Finance || May the force be with you: 2 Star Wars trades: Disney's(NYSE: DIS)stock may have had a rough time recently, but "Fast Money" traders see an opportunity.
Trader Guy Adami said that with the stock down more than 20 percent in the last couple of weeks, the valuation is reasonable. He also has faith the CEOBob Igerwill "figure it out."
"I understand the problems they are having on the cable sides of things, but I also think he's one of the best managers out there. You've got to give him the benefit of the doubt. If the market stabilizes in any way, it goes to $110," he said on Friday.
Trader Steve Grasso is long Disney. "I do believe it's going to work its way up and I do believe they [Disney] are the king of content."
He also said that Netflix(NASDAQ: NFLX)too could benefit from its deal with Disney. "The Netflix deal with Disney kicks in 2016, so they're going to get Star Wars, Marvel and superheroes. There's a lot of content that is going to save both stocks," he said.
Read MoreWhy it might not be time to dump Disney shares
Trader Brian Kelley said that Disney is a place to buy when the market gets stronger. "You have a great risk-to-reward ratio. You could get it up to $115. Disney is where you look when the market starts to rip," he said.
Disclosures:
STEVE GRASSO
Steve is long AAPL, BA, BAC, CC, DD, DIS, DECK, EVGN, FIT, KBH, MJNA, MU, PFE, PHM, T, TWTR, GDX, firm is long MAT, MCD His kids own EFA, EFG, EWJ, IJR, SPY.
BRIAN KELLY
Brian Kelly is long BBRY, TWTR calls, Bitcoin, U.S. Dollar; he is short British Pound, Euro, Ruble, Yen, Yuan, US Treasuries.
GUY ADAMI
Guy Adami is long CELG, EXAS, INTC, Guy Adami's wife, Linda Snow, works at Merck.
More From CNBC
• Top News and Analysis
• Latest News Video
• Personal Finance || Louis C.K. Embraces Bitcoin: Comedian Louis C.K. has joined the fast-expanding number of merchants who now accept bitcoin as a payment method by making it possible for fans to download his comedy shows and pay using the cryptocurrency. His decision to incorporate bitcoin on his website underscored the digital currency's growing presence in the entertainment industry, which many believe will ultimately help lead to mainstream adoption. Bitcoin Integration On Louis C.K.'s website, fans can download the comedian's albums and recordings and pay anywhere between $1 and $85. In order to give his supporters another way to pay, Louis C.K. partnered with payment processor BitPay to allow bitcoin supporters to use their mobile wallets. The new option is also beneficial to Louis C.K. who is able to avoid the high transaction fees charged by other processors like PayPal Holdings Inc (NASDAQ: PYPL ). Related Link: Could Mike Tyson Become The New Face For Bitcoin? Positive Reception So far, his decision to incorporate bitcoin has received a positive reaction from fans. It appears that some of Louis C.K.'s supporters are a part of the bitcoin community, and have already begun using the new payment option to purchase the comedian's recordings. A Boost This is not the first time that bitcoin has been a hot topic in the entertainment space. Earlier this summer a new film called "Dope" announced that movie goers could purchase their tickets using the cryptocurrency. The film also incorporated bitcoin into its plot, giving digital currencies more exposure. Many believe that the adoption of bitcoin in the entertainment industry is essential to the cryptocurrency's mainstream adoption. Not only will it bring attention to the currency, but it may help to undo some of the negative publicity that bitcoin has received in past years after hacking attacks and scams made it out to be a tool for criminals. Image credit: Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff , Flickr See more from Benzinga Is Medical Marijuana Effective? What's Happening To Media Stocks? Japan Says Bitcoin Can't Be Owned © 2015 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Organic Food Goes Mainstream: Consumer preferences have shifted significantly over the past few years as more and more people opt for all-natural, healthy food options. Healthy food used to make up just a small isle of little known brands in the supermarket, but the niche has made its way into popular culture and now even big brands are hopping on the organic food bandwagon. Supermarkets Whole Foods Market (NASDAQ: WFM ) is a heavy-hitter when it comes to the natural foods space. The company has grown into a well known brand where health nuts pay a premium for the best ingredients and most natural foods. However, as interest in health foods grew, so did the number of competitors. Other specialty grocers like Sprouts (NASDAQ: SFM ) and Natural Grocers (NYSE: NGVC ) are expanding quickly and looking to increase their slice of the organic pie. New Entrants While new entrants in the organic foods business used to be mom and pop businesses that were working their way up, today's natural foods isle is filled with products backed by big name companies who are shifting their approach in order to attract health-conscious consumers. Tyson Foods (NYSE: TSN ) promised to stop using chicken that had been treated with antibiotics and Kraft Foods (NASDAQ: KRFT ) has removed artificial dyes from its well-known Mac & Cheese in an effort to appeal to the organic-obsessed public. Bigger Not Always Better However, the big brands aren't always able to appeal to health nuts the way smaller brands are. After Kellogg Company (NYSE: K ) acquired the Kashi brand in 2000, the healthy cereal maker went steadily downhill. Customers discovered that Kellogg was using genetically modified ingredients and a social media campaign against the brand ensued. Now, Kellogg is working to restore Kashi's image with innovative new cereals and a new marketing approach, but it is likely to be a rocky road back into consumers' good graces. See more from Benzinga Is NASDAQ Going Green? Cybersecurity Becomes An Even Bigger Problem For U.S. Firms New Dictionary Entries Suggest Bitcoin Is Going Mainstream © 2015 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || ACKMAN: The US government is perpetrating 'the most illegal act of scale' with Fannie and Freddie: Bill Ackman (Screenshot) Bill Ackman, founder of Pershing Square Capital. Hedge fund titan Bill Ackman, founder of $19 billion Pershing Square Capital Management, slammed the US government Tuesday night for keeping all the profits from mortgage guarantors Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Ackman called it "the most illegal act of scale" he has ever seen the US government do. Ackman spoke Tuesday evening during a panel at Columbia University for the launch of Bethany McLean's new book "Shaky Ground ." McLean and former Fannie Mae CEO Frank Raines were also panelists. Ackman, however, did most of the talking. During the financial crisis, Fannie and Freddie needed massive bailouts and were taken over by the government. It has been seven years since the financial crisis and the companies are still in a state of conservatorship. Today, the government- sponsored enterprises make billions in profits, all of which goes directly to the Treasury. Ackman, the largest shareholder of Fannie and Freddie , and other investors are suing the US government for taking property for public use without just compensation. He said: "And there is no way they will not be allowed to stand, from a legal point of view. And the reason for that is if the US government can step in and take 100% of profits of a corporation forever, then we are in a Stalinist state and no private property is safe and take your money out of every financial institution, put it into gold or Bitcoin and just get the hell out because we're done , maybe the clothes on your back, but other than that nothing is safe." A stands outside Fannie Mae headquarters in Washington February 21, 2014. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque (Thomson Reuters) In Ackman's view, Fannie and Freddie are vital to the US economy. Right now, he said, the biggest threat to the US middle class is rising rental rates. "If you don't own a home, and you're a member of the middle class, you have a problem," he said. "This is the biggest threat to the middle-class livelihood is that your cost of living, the roof over your head is not fixed, it's floating." Story continues Ackman said Fannie and Freddie were set up to make middle-class housing more accessible. Together, they have enabled widespread availability and affordability with the 30-year, fixed-rate, prepayable mortgage a system that has been in place for 45 years. Ackman said he's optimistic about the future of Fannie and Freddie. He has said before that with the right reforms they could be worth a lot more. He has given the GSEs a price target ranging between $23 and $47 , which is well above the current $2 range. Watch the full panel below: More From Business Insider Bill Ackman is eyeing another huge and potentially controversial deal Some of Wall Street's biggest hedge fund names are racing to rescue their year BILL ACKMAN: Stocks are pretty cheap right now || Will The New York Times Piece Damage Amazon?: On August 15, the New York Times published anarticleslamming e-commerce giantAmazon.com, Inc.(NASDAQ:AMZN) for its unforgiving corporate culture. The piece describes in with anecdotal stories how employees are pushed to their limits in an environment that thrives on tension and inspires fear.
The piece gained traction on social media and many customers said it was enough to stop them from using the service in the future. However, shares of Amazon are up 72.46 percent year-to-date, leading many to wonder just how much damage the article will do.
Bezos Strikes Back
Following the release of the article, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos sent outa staff memoin which he asked employees to contact him directly if they'd received the kind of treatment the New York Times had described. He maintained that Amazon's culture is very different from what was depicted and said he was shocked by the stories told. Other current Amazon employees took to the Internet in defense of Amazon, saying that the descriptions were inaccurate and that the company has been misrepresented.
Related Link:Amazon's Quarter Was A 'Full-On Crusher'
Solid Performance
While the article may have temporarily tarnished Amazon's glow, the company's solid Q2 performance is likely to overshadow complaints about management from an investors' perspective. In July, the company released strong Q2 sales and impressive financials which suggest that Amazon is on an upward trajectory.
From a money-making point of view, the article has done little hurt the retail giant's appeal.
Public Perception
In the social media age, public perception is a huge part of a company's success.SeaWorld Entertainment Inc. (NYSE:SEAS) lost a huge volume of customers after being slammed in the media for its treatment of orcas and Amazon similarly runs the risk of being known as a cruel company that treats its workers poorly, something that could deter shoppers from using the site.
However, so far the fallout from the article appears to be minimal, with most expecting more outrageous comments from the 2016 Presidential hopefuls to redirect the public's attention in the coming days.
See more from Benzinga
• What's Happening To Media Stocks?
• Bitcoin Rewards Gain Popularity
• Bitcoin, Marijuana And Drones: Meet Trees
© 2015 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Cannabis Sativa Inc and THC Farmaceuticals’ Subsidiary, Terpene Research Labs (TRL) to Produce Terpenes Based on CBDS’ Patent Pending Strain: MESQUITE, NV / ACCESSWIRE / September 18, 2015 /Cannabis Sativa Inc (CBDS) and THC Farmaceuticals, Inc (CBDG) announced today that they have entered into an agreement for TRL to develop for CBDS terpene based products from CBDS' patent pending stain of Cannabis known as "CTA."
As part of the agreement CBDG shall pay CBDS 10,000,000 hempcoins for the non-exclusive right to sell products TRL produces from the CTA strain plus a 5% cash royalty. CBDG will pay 35% royalty to CBDS on all fees or other gross revenues it receives from licensing products for others to produce products using CTA genetics.
CBDS shall retain the right to sell the same products under its "Hi" brand (or such other of its brands in its sole discretion) and will pay a 5% royalty to TRL for all products sold using the terpene products developed by TRL.
CBDS shall pay a royalty at the rate of 35% of gross revenue to CBDG for all terpene products developed by TRL and licensed by CBDS to other parties.
CBDS also transfers to CBDG all rights to the CTA products developed by TRL for distribution outside of North America.
CBDS granted CBDG a 3 year option to acquire all of the CTA plant and patent rights outside of North America for an additional 10,000,000 hempcoins. The option begins to run from the time that the first hempcoins are delivered to CBDS. Should this option be exercised, CBDG will then pay a royalty of 3% of gross revenues received from with respect to products produced by or for CBDG or any of its affiliates and 20% on all royalties it receives.
The US Commodity Futures Trading Commission ruled yesterday that "[t]he definition of acommodity[being] broad... Bitcoin and other virtual currencies are encompassed in the definition and properly defined as commodities," the agency has turned our newest earned asset into a commodity.
About Terpenes;Terpenes (/ˈtɜrpiːn/) are a large and diverse class of organic compounds, produced by a variety of plants.
About Hempcoin: Hempcoins (HMP) is a litecoin type crypo-commodity that can be mined and is backed by shares of $RMTN. See:http://www.hempcoin.com.
About CBDS:Cannabis Sativa, Inc. is in the business of branding and licensing via its 'hi' intellectual properties. The Company also offers the Wild Earth Naturals line of CBD Water and cosmetic products which are designed to use organic and natural ingredients, including CBD and hemp seed oil. The Company is engaged through its subsidiaries, Kush and Hi Brands International, Inc., in the research, development and licensing of specialized natural cannabis products, including cannabis formulas, edibles, topicals, strains, recipes and delivery systems.
This press release contains "forward-looking statements." Although the forward-looking statements in this release reflect the good faith judgment of management, forward-looking statements are inherently subject to known and unknown risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to be materially different from those discussed in these forward-looking statements. Readers are urged to carefully review and consider the various disclosures made by us in our reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including the risk factors that attempt to advise interested parties of the risks that may affect our business, financial condition, results of operation and cash flows. If one or more of these risks or uncertainties materialize, or if the underlying assumptions prove incorrect, our actual results may vary materially from those expected or projected. Readers are urged not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date of this release. We assume no obligation to update any forward-looking statements in order to reflect any event or circumstance that may arise after the date of this release.
Contact Information:
Investor RelationsMesquite, NV 89027702-345-4074
http://www.cbds.com
SOURCE:Cannabis Sativa, Inc. || Leading Global Bitcoin Adoption, HashingSpace Corporation Uplifts to the OTCQB: US Based Hashingspace Corporation Announced It Has Been Uplifted To A Higher Reporting Status On The OTC Market. Hashingspace Will Now Be Listed As OTCQB: HSHS. Hashingspace Provides Scalable Datacenter and Technology Infrastructure for the Global Adoption of Bitcoin Including Bitcoin Atms and Hosted ASIC Mining WENATCHEE, WA / ACCESSWIRE / July 29, 2015 / HashingSpace Corporation ( HSHS ), a company focused on the global adoption of Bitcoin, announced today that it has officially been uplifted to a higher reporting status. HashingSpace will no longer be listed on the Pink Sheets and has been moved to OTCQB status. HashingSpace Corporation submitted all the mandatory documents and has successfully met all of the initial requirements to receive this upgrade. The upgrade became official on July 23, 2015. "We are pleased to learn that we have been upgraded to a higher status," stated Terry Taylor, Chief Financial Officer of HashingSpace. "This upgrade reflects on our plan to bring better value to our shareholders. This shows that we are current in our SEC compliance reporting and will undergo an annual verification and certification process. Providing accurate information to our investors is a top priority." Included in our new OTCQB designation will be real-time level 2 quote display. Quotes can be found at www.otcmarkets.com . Weekly OTC Market Reports summarizing the activity in our security will be available. All company information, including stock trading, filings, and market data related to the company, is reported under the new upgrade, OTCQB: HSHS. HashingSpace Corporation's business will provide a wide range of services to include: - HASHHOSTING Servers fully managed and specifically set-up for ASIC MINING - CLOUDHASH Cloud mining servers that can be rented with full hashing power - HASHMINING Our own Mining Farm - HASHATM Owner and operator of Bitcoin ATM machines - HASHWALLET Bitcoin consumer wallet for bitcoin banking and transactions - HASHPOOL Public Stratum and P2Pool (Web/IOS/Droid) - HASHTICKER Free Ticker for tracking Bitcoin Value (Screen Saver/Web/IOS/Droid) - HASHVAR A wholesaler of Bitcoin servers and Bitcoin ATM machines Story continues About HashingSpace Corporation HashingSpace Corporation is a Bitcoin ASIC mining company, hosting provider, and service provider of blockchain transactional services. HashingSpace's high density datacenters are designed to meet the demanding power and cooling needs of client hosted Bitcoin mining gear with unparalleled pricing, cooling and green energy. The Corporation is continuing to expand its datacenters to satisfy the shortage of low cost hosting facilities catering to the Bitcoin and blockchain mining and transactional verification services industry specifically. HashingSpace Corporation manages HashWallet, a Bitcoin wallet; HashPool, a Bitcoin mining pool; and HashATM, the owner and operator of Bitcoin ATM machines. The company is a wholesaler of Bitcoin mining servers and Bitcoin ATM machines. Bitcoin businesses interested in reselling HashingSpace products and services are invited to reach out to HashingSpace Corporation for more information. HashingSpace Corporation is headquartered in Wenatchee, Washington. For more information, visit www.hashingspace.com . Any unreleased services or features referenced in this or other press releases or public statements may not be currently available and may not be delivered on time or at all. Customers who purchase HashingSpace services should make their purchase decisions based upon features currently available. For more information please visit http://www.hashingspace.com or call 1-855-HASHING (427-4464). Safe Harbor Statement This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. These forward-looking statements are based on the current plans and expectations of management and are subject to a number of uncertainties and risks that could significantly affect the Company's current plans and expectations, as well as future results of operations and financial condition. The Company undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. For more information please visit: http://www.hashingspace.com/ Company Contact: HashingSpace Corporation 5042 Wilshire Blvd. #26900 Los Angeles, CA, 90036 855 – HASHING (427-4464) Investor Relations: Email: ir@hashingspace.com SOURCE: HashingSpace Corporation || BTCS Completes Name Change and Launches New Website: ARLINGTON, VA--(Marketwired - Jul 28, 2015) - BTCS Inc. ( OTCQB : BTCS ) ("BTCS" or the "Company"), formerly known as Bitcoin Shop, Inc., a blockchain technology focused company which secures the blockchain through its transaction verification services business, recently filed to change its name. The name change should be reflected in the coming weeks once it is processed by FINRA. "While our Company was initially focused solely on the digital currency space, we have since evolved our operations to position ourselves to be a leader in the much larger blockchain technology arena," stated Charles Allen, Chief Executive Officer of BTCS. "This refined strategic focus represents an exciting market opportunity, and changing our name to reflect this broader focus was an important step in our evolution." As Jemima Kelly of Reuters recently reported, "The data that can be secured by the blockchain is not restricted to bitcoin transactions. Any two parties could use it to exchange other information, including stock deals, legal contracts and property records, within minutes and with no need for a third party to verify it. Backers say it could cut out the middleman and help fight corruption, as the process by which the data is secured makes it virtually impossible to tamper with." The Company also unveiled its new corporate website ( www.btcs.com ) on Tuesday. The new site includes additionalinformation about the importance of blockchain technology and its disruptive application across a diverse array of industries. About BTCS: The blockchain is a decentralized public ledger and has the ability to fundamentally impact, on a global basis, all industries that rely on or utilize record keeping and require trust. BTCS secures the blockchain through its rapidly growing transaction verification services business and plans to build a broader ecosystem to capitalize on opportunities in this fast growing industry. BTCS continues to evaluate and build additional blockchain technology consumer solutions. BTCS also actively partners and integrates with strategic digital currency and blockchain technology companies who provide products or services that are complementary to its business strategy. For more information visit: www.btcs.com Forward-Looking Statements: Certain statements in this press release, including those related to an anticipated merger, constitute "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the federal securities laws. Words such as "may," "might," "will," "should," "believe," "expect," "anticipate," "estimate," "continue," "predict," "forecast," "project," "plan," "intend" or similar expressions, or statements regarding intent, belief, or current expectations, are forward-looking statements. While the Company believes these forward-looking statements are reasonable, undue reliance should not be placed on any such forward-looking statements, which are based on information available to us on the date of this release. These forward-looking statements are based upon current estimates and assumptions and are subject to various risks and uncertainties, including without limitation those set forth in the Company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, not limited to Risk Factors relating to its digital currency business contained therein. Thus, actual results could be materially different. The Company expressly disclaims any obligation to update or alter statements whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by law.
[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
In the last hour, 10 people won 1.00 BTC playing Bitcoin lottery at http://10xbtc.com , the easiest BTC lottery, 160BTC Jackpot || BTC-E LAST 281.00$ AVERAGE 279.37$ at 20:15 UTC #Bitcoin #BTCUSD || Bitcoin traded at $256.99 USD on BTC-e at 02:00 AM Pacific Time || #Bitcoin last trade
@bitstamp $206.70
@bitfinex $206.00
@coinbase $207.90
Set #crypto #price #alerts at http://AlertCo.in || #RDD / #BTC on the exchanges:
Cryptsy: 0.00000004
Bittrex: 0.00000004
Average $9.0E-6 per #reddcoin
18:00:02 || LIVE: Profit = $124.59 (0.17 %). BUY B313.96 @ $227.55 (#BTCe). SELL @ $229.00 (#Bitfinex) #bitcoin #btc - http://www.projectcoin.org || Current price: 232.09$ $BTCUSD $btc #bitcoin 2015-09-13 10:00:09 EDT || One Bitcoin now worth $250.24@bitstamp. High $256.99. Low $247.00. Market Cap $ 0.000 Billion #bitcoin pic.twitter.com/tZT6ckHMqV || Current price: 285.22$ $BTCUSD $btc #bitcoin 2015-08-04 23:00:02 EDT || In the last 10 mins, there were arb opps spanning 21 exchange pair(s), yielding profits ranging between $0.00 and $1,396.44 #bitcoin #btc
|
Trend: up || Prices: 231.21, 227.09, 230.62, 230.28, 234.53, 235.14, 234.34, 232.76, 239.14, 236.69
|
Analyze the provided historical prices, technical indicators, news, and social media sentiment from the last 60 days. Based on this context, predict the overall trend (up, down, or no change) and the specific daily closing prices for Bitcoin for the next 10 days.
|
[Technical Analysis for 2017-06-13]
BTC Price: 2717.02, BTC RSI: 60.95
Gold Price: 1265.80, Gold RSI: 51.53
Oil Price: 46.46, Oil RSI: 40.62
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
Your first trade for Tuesday, June 13: The " Fast Money " traders gave their final trades of the day. Pete Najarian is a buyer of Micron (MU (NASDAQ: MU) ). Karen Finerman is a buyer of General Electric (GE (NYSE: GE) ). Dan Nathan is a seller of the Financial Select Sector SPDR ETF (XLF) (NYSE Arca: XLF) . Guy Adami is a buyer of Advanced Micro Devices (AMD (NASDAQ: AMD) ). Trader disclosure: On June 12, 2017 the following stocks and commodities mentioned or intended to be mentioned on CNBC's "Fast Money" were owned by the "Fast Money" traders: Pete Najarian is long calls AVGO, BAC, BUD, C, CENX, CHK, CPN, CRM, CSX, EOG, ETE, FEYE, FSLR, GS, KMI, LNG, LULU, MDLZ, MT, MU, NBL, NBR, ORCL, RF, TECK, UNP, WLL, XLF. Pete Najarian is long stock AAP, AAPL, BAC, DIS, DLTR, FSLR, GILD, GIS, GE, GM, IBM, K, KMX, KO, KORS, KSU, LEN, LUX, MRK, MSFT, PEP, PFE, RL, UNP, V, WDC, WFT. Karen is long AAL, BAC, BAC short calls, Bitcoin and other digital currencies, C, DAL, EEM, EPI, EWW, DVYE, FB, FL, GLMP, GLNG, GM, GOGO, GOOG, GOOGL, JPM, LYV, KORS, KORS calls, KORS puts, MA, SEDG, SPY puts, TACO, WIFI, WFM. Her firm is long ANTM, BAC calls, C, C calls, FB, FL, GOOG, GOOGL, GLNG, GMLP, JPM, JPM calls, KORS puts, LYV, PLCE, SPY puts, SPY put spreads, WIFI, UAL, her firm is short IWM, MDY. Dan Nathan is short SPY, long June XLV, XLI and XRT puts, long XLF September puts Guy Adami is long CELG, EXAS, GDX, INTC, Guy Adami's wife, Linda Snow, works at Merck. More From CNBC 5 tech trades for tomorrow morning The happy loser: In poker and in trading, a big loss can be a big win Your first trade for Friday, June 9 || Bitcoin: Is It a Bubble or a Strong Buy?: Bitcoin, the worlds most popular cryptocurrency, has soared more than 100% in the last two months. The once-mysterious investment is now being taken very seriously by Wall Street, and many are starting to wonder whether a bitcoin bubble is about to burst. Last week, bitcoin hit an all-time high, only to suddenly drop nearly 20% over the next two days. Just today, bitcoin moved about 5% higher. For those familiar with the digital currency, these types of swings are no surpriseit is the nature of the cryptocurrency beast (also read: Explaining Bitcoin and Crypto Currency). But some are more hesitant to write these sharp moves off as minor blimps. Take Bloomberg s Cory Johnson, for example. Speaking about the recent price action on bitcoin, Johnson warned about the speculative nature of the currencys valuation. While the long term value of bitcoin may be in the eye of the beholder, the volatility is really in the eye of the speculator, Johnson said. Johnson also pointed out that, like the finite resource of golf, part of bitcoins current appeal is that it is designed to eventually run out. Bitcoin production is supposed to be capped at 21 million, and there are already more 16 million bitcoins in circulation. However, as more and more people attempt to mine new bitcoins, the process becomes more difficult. Bitcoin is not expected to hit its cap until 2140. Of course, some are far more bullish on bitcoin. In fact, Saxo Bank analyst Kay Van-Petersen, who accurately predicted that bitcoin would hit $2,000 this year, recently said that the cryptocurrency could be worth a staggering $100,000 in ten years. Investors will almost certainly not find that kind of return anywhere else. Want more stock market analysis from this author? Make sure to follow @Ryan_McQueeney on Twitter! More Stock News: 8 Companies Verge on Apple-Like Run Did you miss Apple's 9X stock explosion after they launched their iPhone in 2007? Now 2017 looks to be a pivotal year to get in on another emerging technology expected to rock the market. Demand could soar from almost nothing to $42 billion by 2025. Reports suggest it could save 10 million lives per decade, which could in turn save $200 billion in U.S. healthcare costs. A bonus Zacks Special Report names this breakthrough and the 8 best stocks to exploit it. Like Apple in 2007, these companies are already strong and coiling for potential mega-gains. Click to see them right now >> Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report To read this article on Zacks.com click here. Zacks Investment Research || Fretting over savings, Mrs Watanabe turns to bitcoin: By Minami Funakoshi and Joyce Lee TOKYO/SEOUL (Reuters) - Long the preserve of geeky enthusiasts, bitcoin is going mainstream in Asia, attracting Mrs Watanabe - the metaphorical Japanese housewife investor - South Korean retirees and thousands of others trying to escape rock-bottom savings rates by investing in the cryptocurrency. Asia's moms and pops, already regular investors in stock and futures markets, have been dazzled by bitcoin's 100 percent surge so far this year. In comparison, the broader Asian stocks benchmark has gained 17 percent over the same period. Even after a tumble from last week's record $2,779.08 high, bitcoin rose more than 60 percent in May alone - driven higher in part by investors in Japan and South Korea stepping in as China cooled after a central bank crackdown earlier this year. (For a graphic on bitcoin economy click http://tmsnrt.rs/2skLZ3c) Over the last two weeks, and encouraged by Japan's recognition of bitcoin as legal tender in April, exchanges say interest has jumped from the two countries. Bitcoin trades at a premium in both, due to tough money-laundering rules that make it hard for people to move bitcoin in and out. "After I first heard about the bitcoin scheme, I was so excited I couldn't sleep. It's like buying a dream," said Mutsuko Higo, a 55-year-old Japanese social insurance and labor consultant who bought around 200,000 yen ($1800) worth of bitcoin in March to supplement her retirement savings. "Everyone says we can't rely on Japanese pensions anymore," she said. "This worries me, so I started bitcoins." Asia has proved fertile ground for bitcoin due to the region's thriving retail investment culture, where swapping investment tips is already common. China, Japan and South Korea are home to several of the world's busiest cryptocurrency exchanges, according to a ranking by CoinMarketCap. "Right now, it's a form of speculation, like stocks," said Park Hyo-jin, a 27-year-old South Korean who owns around 3 million won ($2,700) of bitcoin. "I don't think anybody in South Korea buys bitcoin to use it." The risks, though, are rising too. Bitcoin is largely unregulated across Asia, while rules governing bitcoin exchanges can be patchy. In Hong Kong, bitcoin exchanges operate under money service operator licenses - like money changers - while in South Korea they are regulated similar to online shopping malls, trading physical goods. Often there are no rules on investor protection. BITCOIN WHEN YOU DIE Park and Higo were drawn into bitcoin by friends. Others are attracted through seminars, social media groups and blogs penned by amateur investors. Noboru Hanaki, a 27-year-old Japanese web marketer and bitcoin investor, said his personal finance blog gets around 30,000 page views each month. The most popular post is an explanation of bitcoin, he said, noting that when the bitcoin price surged last month, readership of the article doubled. Rachel Poole, a Hong Kong-based kindergarten teacher, said she read about bitcoin in the press, and bought five bitcoins in March for around HK$40,000 ($5,100) after studying blogs on the topic. She kept four as an investment and has made HK$12,000 tax-free trading the fifth after classes. "I wish I'd done it earlier," she said. Not everyone's making money. The bitcoin frenzy has spawned scams, with police in South Korea last month uncovering a $55 million cryptocurrency pyramid scheme that sucked in thousands of homemakers, workers and self-employed businessmen seduced by slick marketing and promises of wealth. Seminars in Tokyo, Seoul and Hong Kong promote similar multi-level marketing schemes that require investors to pay an upfront membership fee of as much as $9,000. Members are encouraged to promote the cryptocurrency and bring in new members in return for some bitcoins and other benefits. One such Tokyo scheme offered members-only shopping websites that accept bitcoin, 24-hour assistance for car and computer problems, and bitcoin-based gifts when a member gets married, has a baby - or even dies, according to marketing materials seen by Reuters. Leonhard Weese, president of the Bitcoin Association of Hong Kong and a bitcoin investor, warned amateur investors against speculating in the digital currency. "Trading carries huge risk: there is no investor protection and plenty of market manipulation and insider trading. Some of the exchanges cannot be trusted in my opinion." Some larger exchanges have voluntarily adopted security measures and compensation guarantees, according to their websites, although there are dozens of smaller platforms operating more or less unchecked. In South Korea, the Financial Services Commission (FSC) has set up a task force to explore regulating cryptocurrencies, but it has not set a timeline for publishing its conclusions, an official there said. In Japan - where memories are still fresh of the spectacular 2014 collapse of Mt. Gox, the world's biggest bitcoin exchange at the time - the Financial Services Agency (FSA) said it supervises bitcoin exchanges, but not traders or investors. "The government is not guaranteeing the value of cryptocurrencies. We are asking for bitcoin exchanges to fully explain the risk of sharp price moves," an FSA official said. Some professional investors say bitcoin can be a useful hedge to help diversify a portfolio, but investors should be cautious. "This is an extremely volatile and innovative asset class," said Pietro Ventani, managing director of APP Advisers, an asset allocation strategy firm. (Reporting by Minami Funakoshi in Tokyo and Joyce Lee in Seoul, with additional reporting by Michelle Price in Hong Kong and Yoshiyuki Osada, Takahiko Wada and Hideyuki Sano in Tokyo; Writing by Michelle Price; Editing by Clara Ferreira-Marques and Ian Geoghegan) || There's $29.4 billion in cryptocurrencies — here's which ones people are using the most: Bitcoin became the firstdecentralized cryptocurrency back in 2009, and ever since interest in digital currencies has exploded. According to CoinMarketCap.com, there are796 cryptocurrencies currently trading around the world, with a combined market cap of $29,374,919,176. Of those, only 10 have a market cap of $100 million or more. Check them out:
(Business Insider/Mike Nudelman, data from CoinMarketCap.com)
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• Report says North Korea stole bitcoin from South Korea for years || Wall Street firms are betting that the technology behind bitcoin could help them cut jobs: (A Bitcoin sign is seen in a window in Toronto.Reuters/Mark Blinch)
Wall Street is convinced thatblockchainis set to radically transform the world of finance. But exactly how and when that transformation will transpire is uncertain.
Blockchain, which gained notoriety as the technology behind the cryptocurrency bitcoin,is thought to have the potential to improve numerous businesses including banking, payments, and the capital markets.
Cognizant, a US-based digital consulting firm, recentlysurveyed over 1,500 executives from over 570 financial services firmson their respective strategies for integrating the technology into their infrastructure. According to the firm, there are a few things financial execs are certain about when it comes to the future of blockchain: blockchain is important, it will save them money, and it will lead to job losses.
"The vast majority of respondents (90%) said their firms has identified or is the process of identifying functions or processes that can be automated with blockchain," the report said.
And 3/4 of those surveyed said they believe blockchain will enable them to automate at least 2.5% of their workforce. For large financial firms with tens of thousands of employees that could be hundreds of jobs.
And this would be on top of automation that has already taken place.
According to the report, Cognizant helped a US commercial bank useEthereum, a blockchain-based platform,to transfer deeds between buyers and sellers without the need of a middle-man.
Wall Streeters, you have been warned.
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• 'Psychologically scarred' millennials are killing dozens of industries — and it's their parents' fault || AMD rallies as cryptocurrency miners snap up graphics chips: By Noel Randewich
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Shares of Advanced Micro Devices surged nearly 9 percent on Tuesday boosted by strong demand for its chips from cryptocurrency miners, leaving short sellers at a loss for the year.
A rally in cryptocurrency Ethereum has boosted demand for graphics chips used by people to "mine" it and other digital currencies, with some of AMD's processors sold out on Amazon.com and other retail websites.
Mining for cryptocurrency involves using networks of computers to validate transactions and prevent counterfeit by solving complex mathematical problems. New currency is generated as a reward to the computer operators.
The emergence of Bitcoin in 2009 made cryptocurrency mining popular. Recent rallies in the price of Bitcoin and newer digital currency Ethereum have rekindled interest.
Ethereum miners spending as little as $2,000 to build mining computers using graphics processing units, or GPUs, from AMD or its rival Nvidia could break even within three or four months, estimated RBC analyst Mitch Steves in a note to clients on Tuesday.
"We think economics suggests that GPUs continue to be sold out," Steves wrote. "We think GPU demand will remain robust as long as the return is under (about) one year."
As of Monday, AMD short sellers had been up about $15 million for 2017. But Tuesday’s share surge left them at a loss of $125 million on paper for the year, according to S3 Partners, a financial analytics firm.
That follows losses of over $700 million for AMD short sellers last year, when the stock tripled.
The stock last traded up 7.3 percent at $12.06.
"There are going to be a lot of traders saying, 'This is the last straw. I'm out,'" said Ihor Dusaniwsky, S3's managing director of research.
AMD spokesman Drew Prairie acknowledged that interest from cryptocurrency miners was contributing to demand for the company's chips, but he stressed that game enthusiasts are the core market.
JPMorgan Chase, Microsoft Corp, Intel Corp and more than two dozen other companies have teamed up to develop standards to make it easier for enterprises to use technology related to Ethereum.
Adding to support for AMD's stock, Apple on Monday refreshed its lineup of Mac personal computers, including upgraded graphics chips from AMD. || Flow Customers Get Behind the Scenes Look At TV Production as CTI's "Me On My TV" Reality Show Comes to Flow 1: MIAMI, FL--(Marketwired - May 12, 2017) - Flow Caribbean viewers will get a chance to go behind the scenes of the CaribbeanTales Incubator Program (CTI) and see what it takes to bring a TV production to life, as " Me On My TV " reality show comes to Flow's new regional network Flow 1 starting on May 17. The newest product of Flow's partnership with CaribbeanTales, Me On My TV chronicles the journey of ten (10) teams of Caribbean and Caribbean Diaspora filmmakers who come together to compete for the opportunity of a lifetime: the chance to create an original Caribbean-based TV series for Caribbean screens . In Me on My TV , the 10 teams -- selected from hundreds of applicants for the CTI, which Flow sponsors -- embark on five action-packed creative days in Toronto. Under the guidance of 12 international mentors, they pitch their TV series concepts to a room full of television industry executives at the largest film event in North America: The Toronto International Film Festival. In eight episodes viewers get to share in the tears and laughter, camaraderie and resolve, as each filmmaker works for the chance to bring their show to Caribbean TVs -- but only three will come out on top. "It's been a pleasure to work alongside CaribbeanTales and continue to deliver Caribbean-focused content to our Flow TV viewers across the region," said John Reid, CEO of Cable and Wireless , operator of Flow. "This series in particular is significant because it brings audiences closer to Caribbean filmmakers, letting them witness the creative process and glimpse what goes on during those inspiring CTI sessions in Toronto. Flow believes in providing original, high-quality Caribbean content to our audiences and supporting our region's filmmakers -- Me On My TV achieves both." CaribbeanTales Incubator founder and CEO Frances-Anne Solomon says, "Having this TV series released in the lead up to launching pilots for three original TV series is a dream come true. When we started the CaribbeanTales Incubator, this is what we envisioned: the opportunity for Caribbean audiences to watch Caribbean content designed, produced, and marketed for, by and about them." Story continues Multiple-award winning Martiniquan filmmaker Alain Bidard says of his experience with CTI, "It was a life-changing experience for me. I think differently, I understand the industry and I am not lost anymore. Thank you to both Flow and CaribbeanTales for the invaluable opportunity." Me On My TV's executive producer is Christopher Laird and the directors are Lisa Rideout and Marvin Raftopoluos. Viewers can tune in to Flow 1 on May 17 to find out what new shows are going to hit their TVs later this year. About C&W Communications C&W is a full service communications and entertainment provider and delivers market-leading video, broadband, telephony and mobile services to consumers in 18 countries. Through its business 2 division, C&W provides data center hosting, domestic and international managed network services, and customized IT service solutions, utilizing cloud technology to serve business and government customers. C&W also operates a state-of-the-art submarine fiber network -- the most extensive in the region. Learn more at http://www.cwc.com/ , or follow C&W on LinkedIn , Facebook or Twitter . About Liberty Global Liberty Global is the world's largest international TV and broadband company, with operations in more than 30 countries across Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean. We invest in the infrastructure that empowers our customers to make the most of the digital revolution. Our scale and commitment to innovation enable us to develop market-leading products delivered through next generation networks that connect our 25 million customers who subscribe to over 50 million television, broadband internet and telephony services. We also serve over 10 million mobile subscribers and offer WiFi service across 6 million access points. Liberty Global's businesses are comprised of two stocks: the Liberty Global Group ( NASDAQ : LBTYA ) ( NASDAQ : LBTYB ) and ( NASDAQ : LBTYK ) for our European operations, and the LiLAC Group ( NASDAQ : LILA ) and ( NASDAQ : LILAK ) ( OTC PINK : LILAB ), which consists of our operations in Latin America and the Caribbean. The Liberty Global Group operates in 11 European countries under the consumer brands Virgin Media, Unitymedia, Telenet and UPC. The Liberty Global Group also owns 50% of VodafoneZiggo, a Dutch joint venture, which has 4 million customers, 10 million fixed-line subscribers and 5 million mobile subscribers. The LiLAC Group operates in over 20 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean under the consumer brands VTR, Flow, Liberty, Más Móvil and BTC. In addition, the LiLAC Group operates a sub-sea fiber network throughout the region in over 30 markets. For more information, please visit www.libertyglobal.com || Today's Research Reports on Stocks to Watch: Advanced Micro Devices and Intel: NEW YORK, NY / ACCESSWIRE / June 13, 2017 /U.S. markets dipped Monday as the Tech sector's sell-off continued for the second consecutive session. The Dow Jones Industrial Average declined 0.17 percent to close at 21,235.67, while the S&P 500 Index fell 0.10 percent to close at 2,429.39. In comparison, the Nasdaq Composite Index fell 0.52 percent to close at 6,175.46. The Tech sector's sell off was triggered last Friday after Goldman Sachs warned of a "valuation air pocket" for major tech stocks such as Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft and Facebook, who have all made major contributions to the market's record rally.
"This outperformance, driven by secular growth and the death of the reflation narrative, has created positioning extremes, factor crowding and difficult-to-decipher risk narratives," said Robert Boroujerdi, an analyst at Goldman Sachs, in a note.
RDI Initiates Coverage on:
Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.https://ub.rdinvesting.com/news/?ticker=AMD
Intel Corp.https://ub.rdinvesting.com/news/?ticker=INTC
Advanced Micro Devices' shares declined 1.55 percent to close at $12.09 a share on Monday. The stock traded between $11.27 and $12.35 on volume of 125.78 million shares traded. On Monday, Goldman Sachs' analyst Toshiya Hari reiterated a "sell" rating and price target of $10.60 on Advanced Micro Devices. Shares of Advanced Micro Devices have gained approximately 6.61 percent year-to-date.
"AMD shares appreciated 13% last week on numerous media reports (CNBC, Bloomberg) highlighting a surge in GPU demand from cryptocurrency (i.e., Ethereum, Bitcoin) miners," Hari wrote in the note to clients.
"According to our checks, the RX 570 and RX 580 graphics cards are sold out at numerous retail websites including NewEgg and Microcenter. While this dynamic may provide near-term upside to fundamentals, we believe it is unlikely to become a sustainable driver of EPS," he added.
Access RDI'sAdvanced Micro Devices Research Report at:https://ub.rdinvesting.com/news/?ticker=AMD
Intel's shares gained 0.06 percent to close at $35.73 a share on Monday. The stock traded between $35.41 and $36.01 on volume of 28.49 million shares traded. On June 12th, the company announced the timing of the release of the new Intel Core X-series processor family. The 4- to 10-core processors will be available for pre-order beginning on June 19 and will start shipping to consumers the following week. The 12-core Intel Core i9-7920X X-series processor is expected to begin shipping in August, followed by commencement of shipping of the Intel Core i9-7940X X-series processor, Intel Core i9-7960X X-series processor and 18-core Intel Core i9-7980X Extreme Edition processor in October. Shares of Intel have fallen approximately 1.49 percent year-to-date.
Access RDI'sIntel Research Report at:https://ub.rdinvesting.com/news/?ticker=INTC
Our Actionable Research on Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMD) and Intel Corp. (NASDAQ:INTC) be downloaded free of charge at Research Driven Investing.
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SOURCE:RDInvesting.com || Google co-founder Sergey Brin is reportedly building a gigantic $100 million blimp: Google co-founder Sergey Brin is spending $100 million to $150 million to build a blimp that will be the world's biggest aircraft when it's finished, according to The Guardian . The blimp, as first reported by Bloomberg , is under construction at a giant hangar in the NASA Ames airfield near Google headquarters in Mountain View, California. Google signed a 60-year lease for $1.1 billion in 2014, through a subsidiary called Planetary Ventures, and is working with engineer Alan Weston, who is employed by a company known as LTA ("lighter than air") Research and Exploration. The company, controlled by Brin's family, was listed in Google's 2017 proxy as a lessor of part of the Ames hangar. The blimp will be almost 656 feet (200 meters) long, The Guardian reports, and will go on humanitarian missions to remote locations as well as serving as an "air yacht" for Brin and his family. Read the full Guardian report here. More From CNBC Bitcoin is outperforming major assets but hedge funds are still staying away Lyft ditches pink mustache ornament in favor of a useful piece of hardware Bitcoin correction sees nearly $4 billion wiped off value of the cryptocurrency || Big-name apps for Apple Watch seem to be disappearing: On Monday,AppleInsidernoted that the latest updates for the Google (GOOGL,GOOG) Maps, eBay (EBAY), Amazon (AMZN), and Target (TGT) apps were missing one element they used to have: companion apps for the Apple Watch.
Google later tweeted that it intends to bring the Apple Watch app back at some point. But the larger question remains: What’s going on?
Are these changes a canary in the coal mine, indicating waning interest in developing for the Apple Watch? In the last year, theUp bands ceased production,thePebble Watch is no more, andFitbit laid off 6% of its staff; maybe the world just isn’t as excited about wearables as the industry had hoped.
Or is this just a temporary hiccup that means nothing? “The fact that these high-profile removals have gone largely unnoticed could be a sign that the apps simply were not widely used,” says the AppleInsider story.
On Tuesday, during Apple’s financial conference call, CEO Tim Cook said that Apple Watch sales have nearly doubled since last year (“in six of our 10 top markets,” whatever that means). Yet the company still doesn’t disclose how many Watches it has sold. You still see few Apple Watches on wrists outside of the early-adopter and techie crowd, you still have to take the thing off to charge it every night, and (as a result) it still can’t track your sleep, as the latest Fitbits do with astonishing accuracy.
So which is it? A sign of impending doom, or a minor wobble in the timeline that means very little?
Tune in five years from now to find out!
More from David Pogue:
Inside the World’s Greatest Scavenger Hunt: Part I
Inside the World’s Greatest Scavenger Hunt: Part 2
Inside the World’s Greatest Scavenger Hunt, Part 3
The David Pogue Review: Windows 10 Creators Update
Now I get it: Bitcoin
David Pogue tested 47 pill-reminder apps to find the best one
David Pogue’s search for the world’s best air-travel app
The little-known iPhone feature that lets blind people see with their fingers
David Pogue, tech columnist for Yahoo Finance, welcomes nontoxic comments in the comments section below. On the web, he’sdavidpogue.com. On Twitter, he’s@pogue. On email, he’s poguester@yahoo.com. You canread all his articles here, or you can sign up toget his columns by email.
[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
One Bitcoin now worth $1539.00@bitstamp. High $1539.80. Low $1445.14. Market Cap $25.099 Billion #bitcoin || #Monacoin 14.4円↑[Zaif] -円↓[もなとれ]
#NEM #XEM 8.22円↓[Zaif]
#Bitcoin 175,705円↓[Zaif]
05/06 01:00
口座開設はこちらで！ https://goo.gl/31dyoO || Paymium
1BTC = 1 970,00 € #bitcoin #paymiumpic.twitter.com/M5BWrWm4dM || Bitcoin Re: The Slimcoin thread |t Proof of Burn currency | Help to test v0.4.1 http://bit.ly/1jBi4hY http://ohiobitcoin.com/buybitcoin #bitcoin || こんばんは。今夜も22:00から4200k(http://ameblo.jp/4200k/ )とBTC-R(http://blog.goo.ne.jp/t-photo )どちらも二題ずつ更新です。おヒマでしたら後ほどお越しください。 || $1566.99 at 21:30 UTC [24h Range: $1495.00 - $1578.97 Volume: 8661 BTC] || CREAMcoin is based on Cream protocol which is based on Bitcoin open source code https://t.co/i97TZLqpo7 || $1330.00 at 14:45 UTC [24h Range: $1315.68 - $1342.80 Volume: 3076 BTC] || Today's Bitcoin Price 2347.00 USD via Chain || Considering Bitcoin trading at $1458.00 as we speak, if you invested $10,000 in BTC in 2010, that would now be worth…https://lnkd.in/dGY-xNK
|
Trend: up || Prices: 2506.37, 2464.58, 2518.56, 2655.88, 2548.29, 2589.60, 2721.79, 2689.10, 2705.41, 2744.91
|
Analyze the provided historical prices, technical indicators, news, and social media sentiment from the last 60 days. Based on this context, predict the overall trend (up, down, or no change) and the specific daily closing prices for Bitcoin for the next 10 days.
|
[Technical Analysis for 2021-06-11]
BTC Price: 37334.40, BTC RSI: 45.32
Gold Price: 1877.40, Gold RSI: 54.70
Oil Price: 70.91, Oil RSI: 69.24
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
Twitter Spaces will be available for the web, including accessibility features: On Wednesday evening, Twitter announced thatSpaces-- its Clubhouse competitor -- will start rolling out for use on the web. Earlier this month, Twitter Spaces became available for any user withmore than 600 followerson the iOS or Android apps, and around the same time, Clubhouse finally released itslong-awaited Android app. Still, Clubhouse has yet to debut on the web, marking a success for Twitter in the race to corner the live social audio market.
Even Instagram is positioning itself as a Clubhouse competitor, allowing users to “go live”with the ability to mutetheir audio and video. How will each app differentiate itself? Twitter CFO Ned Segal attempted to address this at JP Morgan’s 49th Annual Technology, Media, & Communications conference this week.
“Twitter is where you go to find out what’s happening in the world and what people are talking about,” said Segal. “So when you come to Twitter, and you look at your home Timeline and you see a Space, it’s gonna perhaps be people who you don’t know but who are talking about a topic that’s incredibly relevant to you. It could be Bitcoin, it could be the aftershock from the Grammys, it could be that they’re talking about the NFL Draft.”
Twitter’sfocus areasfor the web version of Spaces include a UI that adapts to the user’s screen size and reminders for scheduled Spaces. Before joining a space, Twitter will display a preview that shows who is in a Space, and a description of the topic being discussed. Users will also be able to have a Space open on the right side of their screen while still scrolling through their Timeline.
Image Credits:Twitter
Most crucially, this update lists accessibility and transcriptions as a focus area. For an audio-only platform, live transcriptions are necessary for Deaf and hard-of-hearing people to join in on the conversation. In screenshots Twitter shared of the new features, we can see how live captions will appear in Spaces. As for how accurate these transcriptions will be, the jury's still out.
Twitter fieldedwell-deserved criticismlast year when it failed to include captioning on its audio tweet feature. Inan apology tweet, Twitter Support wrote, “Accessibility should not be an afterthought.” By September, Twitter launchedtwo accessibility teams.
Still, accessibility has often been treated as an afterthought throughout the rise of live audio. Clubhouse does not yet support live captioning.
Clubhouse UX teardown: A closer look at homepage curation, follow hooks and other features || Gundlach: There are reasons to be worried about inflation: Billionaire bond investor Jeffrey Gundlach, the founder and CEO of $135 billion DoubleLine Capital, sees reasons to be concerned about inflation.
"It feels to me like the market started worrying about [inflation] a little bit this week," Gundlach said, later adding it "was the biggest miss on CPI in many years, and maybe even in my whole career."
On Wednesday,the Bureau of Labor Statistics reportedthat the Consumer Price Index (CPI) jumped 0.8% in April, well ahead of economists' expectations. Excluding food and energy, core inflation rose 0.9% last month, the largest monthly increase since 1982.
On a year over year basis, headline consumer prices surged by faster-than-expected 4.2% in April, the largest gain since September 2008.
Gundlach said DoubleLine Capital's model suggests inflation "is probably going to go higher in the next couple of months" and might peak in July.
"If we keep going higher from there, then I think people are going to be seriously worried because the concept of transitory has everything to do with what they call the base effects," Gundlach said. "It's almost like a Mount Whitney is right next to Death Valley for a reason. The hole in the ground — the dirt has to go somewhere. Inflation got so low that it was a natural rebound."
The investor proceeded to call CPI "kind of a false construct," pointing out, for example, that owners equivalent rent, used to calculate shelter inflation, is up 2% in the last 12 months, but the median home price is up 17%.
"So, if you would replace owners equivalent rent with home prices, the inflation rate actually would have been 8%, year over year," Gundlach said. "So there's reasons really to be worried about inflation."
In recent months, Federal Reserve officials havetaken a "transitory" view on inflation.
"I think the Fed is most content when the inflation rate is higher than the bond yields, all the way across the yield curve, which they've managed to accomplish," he said. "So they're trying to make people not scared about inflation by calling it 'transitory.' But how do they know? How does anybody know whether it's transitory or not given the unusual circumstances that we're in?"
Gundlach later observed that Fed officials using the same talking points "starts to sound like some of the mainstream media where every single guest from either the tribe on the right or the tribe on the left has the same talking point."
"So you wonder if it's just a brainwashing mechanism the Fed's trying to get investors into on this transitory stuff," he questioned.
Gundlach said he'll "get worried if the inflation remains elevated through the summer" and bond yields start to test the Fed's resolve.
"They say there's no limit to their quantitative easing, and stuff like this. We'll see. Because if the rates go up, the few buyers that there are for treasuries — foreigners have been selling for years, domestics have been gently declining in their ownership — all you got is the Fed."
Combined with the elevated debt and deficit levels in the U.S., if inflation remains high, it's "going to be a really big problem."
Gundlach warns this could affect financial markets broadly.
"If you can't absorb those bonds and the yields are allowed to rise, well, that's going to be really problematic for [the] valuation the stock market, which is depending on zero short-term interest rates and suppressed long-term interest rates, via quantitative easing," he said.
Julia La Roche is a correspondent for Yahoo Finance. Follow her onTwitter.
• Gundlach: There are reasons to be worried about inflation
• Gundlach: Bitcoin, crypto 'poster child' of speculative 'funny money' market
• Gundlach: Stimulus checks are opening the door to universal basic income || 7 ETFs Up At Least 5% Last Week: Wall Street was muted last week with the S&P 500 gaining 0.02% but the Dow Jones (down 0.5%), the Nasdaq Composite (down 0.4%) and the Russell 2000 (down 0.2%) showing a downtrend. President Biden is reportedly on the way to hike the capital gain tax rate in the near term. This probably gave way to some profit-booking while reflationary cues increased benchmark U.S. treasury bond yields last week from 1.58% (at the start of week) to 1.65% (at the end of the week). Overall, earnings came in upbeat with the big tech earnings overwhelming investors completely. Against this backdrop, below we highlight a few ETFs that added more than 5% last week. Breakwave Dry Bulk Shipping ETF BDRY Up 18.1% This fund continues to be a top-performer for past few weeks. The fund seeks to provide investors with exposure to the daily change in the price of dry bulk freight futures. The pickup in global economic growth has supported the dry bulk shipping rates. Gradually rising demand across all vessel categories has mainly aided the area and the related fund. iPatha.B Nickel Subindex TR ETN JJN Up 7.9% Upbeat economic growth has boosted industrial metals lately. Plus, concerns on Russian nickel supply due to the mine accident in Norilsk has also pushed nickel prices higher. Advisorshares Pure US Cannabis ETF MSOS Up 7.5% The fund provides exposure to exchange-listed companies that are active in the cannabis industry. The segment has been hot in Bidens presidency. In a move toward the legalization of marijuana at the federal level, on Apr 19, the U.S. House of Representatives okayed legislation that would allow banks to provide services to cannabis companies in states where it is legal. So far, 36 states have legalized medical cannabis while 17 have states given the green signal for adult use (read: Cannabis ETFs to Surge on Banking Bill Approval in House). Vaneck Vectors Digital Transformation ETF DAPP Up 6.3% The underlying MVIS Global Digital Assets Equity Index looks to give investors a means of tracking the overall performance of the global digital asset segment. With digitization taking control of all activities globally, the fund has every reason to outperform. This is especially true given the rising coronavirus cases and the need for social distancing and digitization. Story continues Northshore Global Uranium Mining ETF URNM Up 6.3% Uranium miners got a boost from improving supply/demand dynamics as well as push for more clean energy projects. Additionally, most of the stocks are undervalued, making them a bargain hunt for investors. Dynamic Energy Exploration & Production Invesco PXE Up 6.2% The reopening of the U.S. economy and the countrys upbeat economic growth have made the energy sector a winner thanks to bullish demand outlook. The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and its allies, a group known as OPEC+, maintained its plans last week for a gradual easing of oil production curbs from May to July. Transformational Data Sharing Amplify ETF BLOK Up 5.8% Bitcoin prices hit a two-week high last week, after breaking the technical barrier. Trading in the largest digital asset has been choppy in recent weeks on overvaluation and regulatory concerns. However, last week, digital asset wrote a kind of rebound story. BLOK, which holds stocks related to the blockchain technology, probably gained from the move. Want key ETF info delivered straight to your inbox? Zacks free Fund Newsletter will brief you on top news and analysis, as well as top-performing ETFs, each week. Get it free >> Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report IPATHBB-NICKL (JJN): ETF Research Reports INVS-DYN ENRG (PXE): ETF Research Reports AMP-TFR DAT SHR (BLOK): ETF Research Reports BRKWAVE-DBS ETF (BDRY): ETF Research Reports NOSH-GL URNM MG (URNM): ETF Research Reports ADVS-PUR US CAN (MSOS): ETF Research Reports VE-V DIG TRANS (DAPP): ETF Research Reports To read this article on Zacks.com click here. Zacks Investment Research Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report || Bottlepay: Payment app gives users power to transfer currency and bitcoin using Twitter: Global payments startupBottlepay, a Venmo-like app for cryptocurrencies, launched in Europe on Tuesday, allowing users on the continent to make fee-free transactions in euro and bitcoin (BTC-USD).
The company, which is backed by Alan Howard, the billionaire co-founder of hedge fund Brevan Howard, and is powered by the Lightning Network, is the first platform to enable users to send and receive euros instantly via Twitter.
A single tweet — for example ‘@bottlepay send @recipient €10’ — will instantly send the command to move the specified quantity of euro from one user’s account to another.
The company, which launched in the UK earlier this year, also enables people to buy bitcoin in the same way. Using the first ever Twitter (TWTR) trade bot, users can tweet @bottlepay buy €10 of BTC, and it will convert that amount of euros into the cryptocurrency within your account.
Users in the UK are able to send and receive sterling and bitcoin, and funds sent from Britain to Europe can be set to automatically convert to EUR or BTC, and vice versa.
People can buy bitcoin, spend it (including withdrawals from crypto ATMs and online merchants), or store it in the app like a wallet. The app also allows customers to monitor the live market price of the cryptocurrency.
The company said it wants to “revolutionise the way billions of people transact across the world”, as its process significantly reduces merchant charges and transfer fees associated with digital payments.
Watch: What is bitcoin?
Bottlepay users can transact with as little as a penny, or send funds where the recipients will receive 100% of the payment.
The company added that in the coming weeks, the service will also be available on Reddit, Telegram, Discord and Twitch.
Bottlepay, which is part of the UK Financial Conduct Authority's (FCA) Innovation Hub, gained over 20,000 users for a beta version of the app with no marketing, after being rated as the number one Crunchbase Bitcoin start-up globally.
“Bottlepay is attempting to rewrite the rules when it comes to cross-border transactions. Half a billion people across the UK and Europe can now make cost-effective, instant payments to each other with a payments app that’s built on top of the bitcoin network,” Pete Cheyne, founder of Bottlepay, said.
“Until now, it has been difficult to understand the utility of bitcoin other than it being a store of value. By launching in Europe, we are demonstrating the power of bitcoin as an open-source monetary system. We have created a payment rail that can process cross border payments immediately, at a low cost. It’s a much-needed update on the clunky, outdated payment systems available up until now, and a leap towards better financial inclusion for everyone.”
Read more:Bitcoin, dogecoin recover some losses after Chinese regulation worries
Earlier this year Bottlepay raised £11m ($15.5m) in seed funding from backers including Howard, whose firm manages around $13bn (£9bn) on behalf of clients. The startup said money also came from "present and former Goldman Sachs (GS) partners" but declined to name them. Bottlepay, which was founded in 2019, was valued at £51m in the deal.
The launch comes as a number of institutional investors and large corporations invest into bitcoin.
PayPal (PYPL) said last year it would allow customers to handle the token through its platform and Mastercard (MA)followed suit in February.BNY Mellon, America's oldest bank, said it too wouldhandle bitcoin on behalf of clients.
Square (SQ)invested $50m into the cryptocurrencylast October and wealth manager Ruffer put some of its £21bn ($29bn) in assets into bitcoin last November.
Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies have been rocked recently by news of a crackdown in China. The country is testing its own digital currency, which could lead to ramped up regulation on crypto.
Watch: What are the risks of investing in cryptocurrency? || Will You Pay to Use Social Media? Twitter Launches Twitter Blue, its First Subscription Service: Social media companies mostly make their money from adverts. However, Twitter wants to change the game by launching a subscription service, and it is targeting over 300 million users over the coming years. Twitter launches Twitter Blue Leading social media company Twitter has launched Twitter Blue, its first subscription service. The company announced earlier today that the service is designed for power users willing to pay a monthly fee to gain access to exclusive features. According to the company , the service is currently available to users in Canada and Australia. Twitter charges $3.49 (Canada) and $4.49 (Australia) in local currencies per month. However, it didn’t reveal when the service would be available to US users. Per the announcement, the Twitter Blue service will come with an Undo Tweet feature, allowing users to set a customizable timer of up to 30 seconds to reverse a tweet if the user needs to fix it before tweeting again. Although users requested an edit feature, the Undo Tweet feature works differently. The feature allows subscribers to preview the nature of their tweets and adjust them before publishing. Twitter added that the service contains other features such as a reader mode, bookmark folders, customize the Twitter app icons on mobile phones, dedicated customer support, and access to color themes for the app. The company’s stock price went up by 1.3% during the pre-market trading session. The rally has continued, as investors positively welcomed this latest development. TWTR/USD chart. Source: FXEMPIRE Will users pay to use social media? At the start of the year, Twitter set the goal of reaching 315 million monetizable daily active users before the end of 2023. It also wants to double its annual revenue to $7.5 billion by that time as Twitter makes generates of its money via advertising. Traditionally, social media companies like Twitter and Facebook make most of their money from advertising. In fact, advertising currently makes up 86% of Twitter’s revenue. However, the social media company is looking to diversify its revenue source. Story continues A large percentage of the people who use social media platforms use them for free. Hence, the idea of paying to enjoy special features such as the Undo Tweet might take a while for users to catch on to. The market is still new, and it might take a while before people decide if they will pay for social media services or not. This article was originally posted on FX Empire More From FXEMPIRE: EUR/USD Mid-Session Technical Analysis for June 3, 2021 Gold Price Prediction – Prices Drop on Strong Dollar Gains BlackRock, Inc: Big Money Is Buying This Stock Bitcoin Still Waiting For Better Buy Signal Gold Price Forecast – Gold Markets Get Hammered with Fed Fears Silver Price Daily Forecast – Strong Dollar Pushed Silver Below $27.50 || Nucor (NUE) Gains on Strong Demand, Higher Steel Prices: We issued an updated research report on Nucor Corporation NUE on May 26. Nucor, which is among the prominent players in the steel space along with United States Steel Corporation X, Steel Dynamics, Inc. STLD and ArcelorMittal MT, is benefiting from strength in the non-residential construction market and a strong recovery in the automotive market. Strong customer demand has led to a rebound in the automotive market. The company is also seeing improved conditions in heavy equipment, agriculture and renewable energy markets. Higher demand is supporting its shipments. Nucor should also gain from considerable market opportunities from its strategic investments in its most significant growth projects. Nucor is also benefiting from a rally in steel prices. Higher average selling prices drove its sales and bottom line in the first quarter. Its average sales price climbed 25% year over year in the quarter. Nucor, in its first-quarter call, said that it expects second-quarter earnings to be the highest quarterly earnings in its history, exceeding the record-level set in the first quarter. Earnings are expected to be mainly driven by higher pricing and margins in the steel mills segment. Notably, U.S. steel prices have staged a strong recovery and hit record levels after plunging to pandemic-led multi-year lows in August 2020. The rebound has been driven by rising demand (especially in automotive and construction), supply shortages and higher raw material costs. The benchmark hot-rolled coil (HRC) prices started to recover in September 2020 on U.S. steel mills’ back-to-back price hike actions, tight supply and surging end-market demand, especially in automotive. Prices are shooting higher since then and surged to levels not seen in more than a decade. As such, higher domestic steel prices should act as a catalyst for Nucor’s steel mills unit. Bitcoin, Like the Internet Itself, Could Change Everything Blockchain and cryptocurrency have sparked one of the most exciting discussion topics of a generation. Some call it the “Internet of Money” and predict it could change the way money works forever. If true, it could do to banks what Netflix did to Blockbuster and Amazon did to Sears. Experts agree we’re still in the early stages of this technology, and as it grows, it will create several investing opportunities. Zacks has just revealed 3 companies that can help investors capitalize on the explosive profit potential of Bitcoin and the other cryptocurrencies with significantly less volatility than buying them directly. See 3 crypto-related stocks now >> Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report United States Steel Corporation (X) : Free Stock Analysis Report Steel Dynamics, Inc. (STLD) : Free Stock Analysis Report ArcelorMittal (MT) : Free Stock Analysis Report Nucor Corporation (NUE) : Free Stock Analysis Report To read this article on Zacks.com click here. Zacks Investment Research || XTZ Aims for New Highs, After Reclaiming Crucial Level: The tezos (XTZ) price has bounced at an important support area and began an upward movement.
XTZ is expected to continue increasing and eventually reach a new all-time high price.
XTZ reached an all-time high price of $7.75 on April 16. It has been moving downwards since then. Despite the drop, it has bounced above the $4.40 long-term support area. As long as the token is trading above this level, we can consider the trend bullish.
Furthermore, technical indicators are also bullish. The MACD & Stochastic oscillator are both moving upwards. In addition, while the RSI is decreasing, it has generated considerable hidden bullish divergence. This is a strong sign of trend continuation.
Therefore, XTZ is expected to continue increasing towards new highs.
Cryptocurrency trader@damskotradesstated that XTZ willsurprise many people.If the hidden bullish divergence outlined transpire, it could indeed move towards a new all-time high.
The daily chart supports the readings from the weekly one. The RSI, Stochastic Oscillator, and MACD are all increasing, a sign of a bullish trend.
Furthermore, the movement since the beginning of Feb. shows a completedrunning flat correction. If so, XTZ would be expected to break out upwards with strength.
Currently, it is facing resistance at the 0.618 Fib retracement level at $6.30. Afterwards, the next resistance levels are found at the all-time high of $6.86 and then $9.91, the1.61 external Fib retracement.
The XTZ/BTC chart is also bullish.
Previously, the 9,000 satoshi area had held as support since late 2018. The token fell thrice to this level, before initiating very significant upward movement.
While it fell below it in December 2020, the price has moved above it since. This is a strong bullish sign that often leads to an upward movement. Technical indicators also support this possibility.
If so, the next closest resistance level is found all the way at 25,916 satoshis.
To conclude, XTZ/USD is expected to gradually increase towards a new all-time high.
XTZ/BTC is expected to increase towards the 0.618 Fib retracement resistance at 25,916 satoshis.
For BeInCrypto’s latestbitcoin(BTC) analysis,click here. || Bitcoin Suffers Biggest Pullback This Year, Drops to 3.5-Month Low Near $42K: Bitcoin fell to a three-month low on Monday, confirming the biggest price pullback of the current bull run.
The top cryptocurrency printed a low of $42,212 during the Asian hours, a level not seen since Feb. 8, marking a 35% drop from the record high of $64,880 reached on April 14, according to CoinDesk 20 data.
The bitcoin (BTC)pricehas seen four corrections from new price highs so far this year, out of which the latest 35% retreat is the biggest.
Related:Market Wrap: Elon Taketh Away – Bitcoin Continues Fall as Options Traders Pile Into Puts
Chart analystshad warnedof a pullback to $42,000 before a resumption of the broader bull run.
“When combining fundamentals such as positive net inflows of bitcoin to exchanges, mixed with the previously mentioned technicals of lower high and lower low, we can ignore what large egos and influencers say, and see that a pullback was bound to happen,” Justin Chu,senior trader at the regulated digital asset investment manager Wave Financial, said in an email.
Centralized exchanges registered a net bitcoin inflow of over 35,000 BTC in the past five days, as noted by IntoTheBlock on Twitter. Investors typically move coins to exchanges when they intend to liquidate their holdings.
The first leg of the latest correction, represented by the drop from $64,000 to $47,000 in the second half of April,shook outexcess bullish leverage from the derivatives market, opening the doors for a more sustained move higher.
Related:DarkSide Hackers’ Bitcoin Stash Tracked
While the price bounced early this month, the momentum stalled near $60,000, with investors turning their focus to ethereum and other alternative cryptocurrencies.
The second leg lower began on May 12, with prices falling by 12% to sub-$50,000 on the back of dour mood in traditional markets and electric auto company Tesla’s decision to suspend payments in bitcoin.
The selling pressure strengthened over the weekend, with some investors speculating Tesla may be selling its bitcoin holdings. The company sold 10% of its stash in the first quarter, having purchased$1.5 billion worth of coins in February.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk attempted to calm market nerves early Monday with a Twitter announcement, saying the company hasn’t sold its bitcoin holdings. The declaration appeared to put a floor under the sell-off, and prices briefly traded back up to around around $45,000.
But as of press time, the rebound had lost steam, with bitcoin falling back to $42,544, close to the day’s lows.
In traditional markets, a drop of 20% or more from highs is said to confirm a bearish shift in the broader trend. However, the conventional bear market definition does not hold ground in cryptocurrencies, where pullbacks of 30% or more are pretty normal during a bull run.
Analysts remain confident the pullback would recharge engines for a more robust rally.
“After the weekend FUD fest and s–t fighting, let’s get back to the important stuff. BTFD,” Raoul Pal, CEO and co-founder of Real Vision Group,tweeted.“BTC is forming a wedge most likely … perfectly normal correction and healthy.” A wedge, in this case, is a bullish pattern in price charts.
However, a V-shaped recovery may not happen due to renewed fears the U.S. Federal Reserve will unwind easy monetary policy sooner than expected to control high inflation.
“On a more material note, we think last week’s high inflation print might have seriously knocked the wind out of exuberant markets for a while,” Singapore-based QCP Capital noted in its Telegram channel. “We are very cautious of a gap toward $35K level. Especially if this triggers a widespread deleveraging cycle.”
• Musk Learns the Hard Way: Crypto Doesn’t Need a Savior
• Crypto Funds Hit by Redemptions as Investors Retreat From Bitcoin || Cryptocurrency Jargon: A Guide for the Crypto-Curious: dulezidar / Getty Images Personal finance can be confusing and investing in stocks can be intimidating for the uninitiated. Trying to understand buy points, dollar-cost averaging, cup and handle patterns of stock prices and other elements of stock marketing investing — not to mention the various indices that reveal market trends — often requires a lot of study or guidance from an expert . See: How Does Cryptocurrency Work – and Is It Safe? Find: Breaking Down the Basics: Cryptocurrency And then cryptocurrency investing storms onto the scene with a language all its own, largely driven by retail stock investors, millennials and social media. Some of the jargon applies to stocks, as well, as it was borrowed from meme-stock investors and bandied heartily on the Reddit sub-thread /WallStreetBets during the GameStop stock frenzy. Here’s your guide to crypto jargon, so that whether you choose to invest or not, you’ll know what Elon Musk means when he pumps his fist to the sky on “Saturday Night Live” and declares, “To the moon!” Diamond hands – When a crypto or stock investor has “diamond hands” it means they will hold onto their coins or shares even as the value drops. On March 19, amidst Bitcoin plummeting from over $45,500 per coin to under $40,000, Tesla TechnoKing Elon Musk tweeted “Tesla has” with emoji for “diamond” and “hands.” He credited the statement to Tesla’s “Master of Coin.” Paper hands – On the other hand, someone with paper hands may sell stock or coin too early, losing out on unrealized profits. The analogy comes from poker, where someone may “fold,” or exit the game, if they believe they aren’t going to win. HODL – Pronounced Ha-dill (rhymes with model), HODL means someone who doesn’t intend to sell their crypto or stock. The term originated in a Bitcoin forum in 2013 when someone misspelled the word “hold,” declaring “I AM HODLING.” The word also applies to meme-stocks. Whale — A whale describes someone who holds a large percentage of a specific crypto. Investopedia writes that the top 20% of bitcoin holders own more than 80% of bitcoin. When these companies choose to sell coin, it can affect the market more than the singular actions of most investors. Surprisingly, Tesla is just on the cusp of being considered a whale, and the electric vehicle manufacturer doesn’t even own the most shares of any publicly held company, according to Fortune. It seems to be Musk’s tweets alone that move crypto value. Story continues See: 4 Best Places To Buy and Sell Cryptocurrency Find: 10 Cheap Cryptocurrencies To Check Out To the Moon – It’s difficult to trace the origins of the phrase “to the moon,” but the meaning is self-explanatory. Just as landing astronauts on the moon in 1969 (and even today…) was a questionable proposition with high stakes for success, a stock or crypto that goes “to the moon” just means its price will rise to make investors untold profits. When Lambo – Similar to “To the Moon,” Lambo (short for the luxury car Lambhorghini) comes up when investors ask when a cryptocurrency will be highly profitable for investors, allowing them to cash it in for their dream car. Mooning – When a stock or crypto is declared to be “mooning,” experts believe it has hit its peak. Of course, those who HODL could get caught losing money if they decide to sell in the future, but those who sell at the high point could “land a Lambo on the moon.” Bagholder – If crypto or a meme-stock goes in the opposite direction, though, anyone left holding after the sell point is considered a “bagholder,” standing to lose money should they sell their assets. See: Elon Musk Asks: Should Tesla Accept Dogecoin? How Much Would You Need? Find: How To Invest In Cryptocurrency: What You Should Know Before Investing Pump and dump – Pump and dump refers to investors who try to illegally drive up the value of a stock or crypto only to sell when it reaches a high point. Previously relegated to small cap stocks, which are easy to manipulate, investors have begun doing it with crypto, too. Buy the dip – When a stock expected to rise suddenly drops in price, some investors advise people to “buy the dip.” Wednesday’s crypto crash led to a flurry of “buy the dip” memes. The Musk Effect – This newly coined phrase describes billionaire Elon Musk’s ability to move the market with a single tweet , as he did Wednesday implying that Tesla would not sell its stake in Bitcoin, which helped the cryptocurrency regain some earlier losses. More From GOBankingRates Housing Breaks That Are Available to Military Members and Their Families Everything You Need To Know About Taxes This Year 4 Tips for Saving Money While in the Military How To Keep Your Financial Planning On Track in 2021 This article originally appeared on GOBankingRates.com : Cryptocurrency Jargon: A Guide for the Crypto-Curious || MORNING BID-Yuan bulls steal the show: May 31 - A look at the day ahead from Danilo Masoni.
With London and Wall Street closed for holiday action on markets will most likely remain confined to Asia.
The yuan in fact was the big mover overnight with the bulls pushing its value against a trade-weighted basket of currencies to a 5-year high and adding further pressure on exporters in the world's No.2 economy.
That spurred fresh verbal intervention by local policymakers as data showed China's factory activity growth may have peaked.
Joining those cautioning against excessive speculation was the former foreign exchange regulator Guan Tao who spoke of rising signs of "cyclical herding" in the forex market. Against the dollar the yuan hit a fresh 3-year high before paring all gains for the day.
Trade in other currencies was relatively quiet with short bets against the dollar hitting a 2-1/2 month high. In equities, Asian shares gained but stayed within recent ranges and in Europe, indexes were set for a mild pull back after last week's record close. Benchmark bond yields too didn't look eager to break new ground with even volatile Bitcoin seemingly lifeless.
The quiet mood was reflection of the festivities but also of investors sitting on the sidelines before an action packed week for U.S. data ending with much-awaited U.S. May payrolls data on Friday. After April's shock, another disappointment could put to rest, for the summer, any lingering concerns the Fed could pull the taper lever on its massive stimulus earlier than expected.
Finally, gold prices tested four month highs, supported by concerns in global inflation, revived last Friday by a stronger than expected rise in U.S. consumer price for April. Inflation watchers will also keep an eye on German CPI data due later on.
Key developments that should provide more direction to markets on Monday:
* China's factory activity grows at slightly slower pace as raw materials costs rise
* Japan's April factory output rises on capital goods demand
* Riksbank Governor Stefan Ingves
* German preliminary CPI
* OECD Economic Outlook 2021
* Emerging markets: central bank meetings in Israel and Ghana
(Reporting by Danilo Masoni)
[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
None available.
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Trend: down || Prices: 35552.52, 39097.86, 40218.48, 40406.27, 38347.06, 38053.50, 35787.25, 35615.87, 35698.30, 31676.69
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Analyze the provided historical prices, technical indicators, news, and social media sentiment from the last 60 days. Based on this context, predict the overall trend (up, down, or no change) and the specific daily closing prices for Bitcoin for the next 10 days.
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[Technical Analysis for 2019-02-07]
BTC Price: 3399.47, BTC RSI: 36.07
Gold Price: 1309.40, Gold RSI: 63.90
Oil Price: 52.64, Oil RSI: 50.57
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
Better Buy: Alibaba vs. Amazon: It has been a great run for owners of both Alibaba Group Holding (NYSE: BABA) and Amazon.com (NASDAQ: AMZN) over the last few years. Both stocks have put up impressive numbers and rewarded shareholders, though Amazon stock has done better, with a 150% return since the start of 2016 compared with a 90% return for Alibaba. While their operations have many similarities, an ocean separates the two e-commerce and tech platforms in more ways than one. Though the future looks bright for both, one is a better buy right now. The e-commerce front Alibaba and Amazon both have sprawling e-commerce empires in their core markets (China and the U.S., respectively) and are racing to expand internationally. While Alibaba is the smaller operation (trailing 12-month revenues were $42.4 billion using an exchange rate of 0.14 Chinese renminbi to U.S. dollars as of this writing), its e-commerce business is also far more profitable than Amazon's: Metric (12 months ended Sept. 30, 2018) Alibaba Amazon E-commerce revenue $42.4 billion $197.6 billion E-commerce operating income $10.9 billion $4.3 billion Data source: Alibaba and Amazon. Alibaba results converted from Chinese renminbi using an exchange rate of 0.14 to U.S. dollars on December 14, 2018. E-commerce revenue for Amazon includes online and physical stores, third-party seller services, subscription services, and advertising. For Alibaba the figure includes the company's core commerce, digital media and entertainment, and innovation initiatives. Both companies are investing in new segments like online subscription services (think streaming music and video) that are still losing money but represent fast-growing businesses that could pay off down the road. While Alibaba holds the advantage in overall e-commerce profitability , Amazon's value-added initiatives are growing faster. Alibaba's media and entertainment grew 24% year over year in the last quarter, compared to Amazon's 52% growth in subscription services. Amazon is also quickly expanding its advertising business , which is tied to its online marketplace. The segment expanded 122% in the last quarter and is now responsible for most of the profit growth in Amazon's e-commerce operations. Thus, while Alibaba currently holds the lead in e-commerce from a profitability standpoint, its U.S. rival is narrowing the gap. Story continues The future of computing Over the last few years, Amazon Web Services (AWS) has received a lot of attention, and rightfully so. The fast-growing segment was an early mover in the cloud computing industry, and as such has a considerable lead over the competition. It has also been the primary driver of Amazon's profitable growth. Alibaba is a more recent entrant, generating $2.6 billion in cloud sales over the last year (at current exchange rates). Metric (12 months ended Sept. 30, 2018 Alibaba Amazon Cloud computing revenue $2.6 billion $23.3 billion Cloud computing operating income (loss) ($738 million) $6.5 billion Data source: Alibaba and Amazon. Alibaba results converted from Chinese renminbi using an exchange rate of 0.14 to U.S. dollars on December 14, 2018. AWS grew 46% year over year at last report, compared with 90% growth for Alibaba's cloud computing segment. However, with AWS a huge profit driver and Alibaba still running at a loss, Amazon wins the cloud computing battle. A man entering his credit card info into a tablet to make a clothing purchase. Image source: Getty Images. Which is the better buy right now? Riding momentum from growth in the digital economy, Alibaba and Amazon both look like buys for the long haul. Alibaba currently has a better e-commerce business from a profitability standpoint, but Amazon is closing the gap with new initiatives like its advertising segment. On the other hand, Amazon holds the lead in the cloud computing industry, a status that may be difficult for competitors to change. Nevertheless, Alibaba is by far the better value at the moment. Its overall revenue is growing faster (up 41% in the last year to Amazon's 24%), and it's investing heavily to grow its business. That heavy rate of investment diminishes free cash flow -- a metric that has more than doubled for Amazon over the last year -- but Alibaba is nevertheless trading at a big discount to its American counterpart after a drubbing for Chinese stocks in 2018. BABA Free Cash Flow (TTM) Chart Data by YCharts . With a price-to-free-cash-flow ratio of just 19.3 to Amazon's lofty 60.7, Alibaba looks like the better value at the moment -- though both companies likely make sense for investors who want to participate in the growth of the digital economy. More From The Motley Fool 3 Growth Stocks at Deep-Value Prices 5 Expected Social Security Changes in 2018 6 Years Later, 6 Charts That Show How Far Apple, Inc. Has Come Since Steve Jobs' Passing 10 Best Stocks to Buy Today The $16,122 Social Security Bonus You Cannot Afford to Miss Bitcoin's Biggest Competitor Isn't Ethereum -- It's This John Mackey, CEO of Whole Foods Market, an Amazon subsidiary, is a member of The Motley Fool’s board of directors. Nicholas Rossolillo and his clients own shares of Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Amazon. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy . || Mycelium Joins The Foundation for Interwallet Operability: According to a press release and the Foundation for Interwallet Operability website, Mycelium is the latest addition to the the foundations membership. Other members are currently: ShapeShift, Coinomi, KeepKey , BRD, and Edge. The majority of these are wallets, but ShapeShift, as readers are probably aware, is an exchange which allows users to instantly shift between cryptocurrencies. It used to require no account but in more recent days user accounts have become a requirement. FIO Introduces Human Readable Addressing The Foundation for Interwallet Operability is a standard body of sorts and it governs the FIO Protocol, a protocol that will provide an enhanced layer of usability features for existing and future wallets and exchanges. Its goal is to increase blockchain adoption and the userbase of cryptocurrencies generally by encouraging ease-of-use of lack of friction in wallet and exchange designs. The FIO protocol is being developed by Dapix. What it will enable is essentially universal addresses across wallets and exchanges which support the protocol. So two users with different wallets that both support the FIO protocol will be able to send assets between each other simply using FIO addresses. The addresses will be human readable, meaning you essentially use your real name as a means of receiving cryptocurrency, if you like. When users register a FIO address, they are issued a FIO private key, which means it can be transferred between wallets. Just as users who control private keys of cryptocurrencies own those cryptos, users who control the private keys of their identity in the FIO system will own their identity. This means that basic security protocols will need to be followed by users in order to ensure security. The addressing system is just one of the features that FIO will make possible. Erik Voorhees , CEO and founder of ShapeShift , has tweeted about FIO, calling it a glimpse of the future. A little glimpse of the future of crypto payments. FIO live alpha demo. Decentralized & cross-blockchain. Builders keep building through the market bloodshed. https://t.co/tfAEea8Xy5 And FIO website here: https://t.co/WSRnQvDMX9 @joinFIO #bitcoin #ethereum #blockchain Erik Voorhees (@ErikVoorhees) November 28, 2018 FIO Demonstrated on BRD for iOS Here is the video he talked about in his Tweet, in which member wallet BRD integrated the protocol: Story continues According to a press release from Mycelium in Denver, Founder Alexander Kuzmi said: Joining FIO and supporting the FIO Protocol makes complete sense because we believe it will be an important milestone in the wider adoption of cryptocurrencies. We look forward to working with the founding members in helping to ensure this project is as successful as possible. The success of the protocol will depend on the wallets which support it. Coinbase, for example, has not joined the Foundation as of yet. If it were to join, it would mean the addition of millions of users. However, Coinomi and Mycellium have a combined total of more than a million downloads in the Google Play store alone. Coinomi has support for dozens of cryptocurrencies, while Mycelium is strictly a Bitcoin wallet. Both are among the more popular mobile wallets. Featured image from Shutterstock. The post Mycelium Joins The Foundation for Interwallet Operability appeared first on CCN . || Fed Chairman Powell says he is 'very worried' about growing amount of U.S. debt: Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell is "very worried" about the ballooning amount of United States debt.
The Fed raised its benchmark overnight lending rate four times in 2018 as a part of its goals of maximizing employment and keeping prices in check. Powell and his colleagues have cited months of strong labor statistics and healthy GDP numbers while hiking rates.
However, tepid inflation and concerns surrounding the longevity of the current economic expansion have prompted backlash from some market participants. Fears that policymakers may be elevating borrowing costs at too quick a pace contributed to a broad stock sell-off in the fourth quarter of 2018, with both the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500 posting their worst Decembers since the Great Depression.
Recent commentary from central bank members suggests that Fed members may be heeding those concerns. Minutes from the central bank's December meeting showed some members hesitant to hike the federal funds rate , citing the lack of inflationary pressure.
Officials agreed that "some further gradual increases" in the benchmark funds rate would be appropriate, though the low-inflationary backdrop means the Fed can "afford to be patient about further policy firming."
Powell has also underscored the Fed's dependence on economic data when making future decisions on whether to hike interest rates or adjust the rate at which it reduces its balance sheet.
— This is breaking news. Please check back for updates.
More From CNBC
• Government shutdown could have bigger impact on economy
• Stocks rise for a fifth day, but gains capped on concern about earnings
• Bitcoin stumbles below $4,000, reversing weekend gains || Bitcoin And Ethereum Daily Price Forecast – Bitcoin Stable Above $3400 Over High Activity In Venezuela: There is no visible change in the crypto market scenario today as lull scenario continues for third consecutive session post-weekend. It can be said that crypto bulls are in a state of slumber in the current market as bulls have failed to capitalize on news-driven momentum that could have facilitated a solid breakthrough in price action. Following multiple attempts to breach psychological support levels Bitcoin and legacy cryptocurrencies have managed to establish stable support slightly above the 2018 year lows where price action seems to have flat-lined. However crypto market continues to experience some level of positive price action every now and then as blockchain tech and Bitcoin & other legacy cryptocurrencies are seemingly finding more popular real-world adaptations with each passing day.
While cryptocurrencies are decentralized by nature when compared to fiat currencies which are backed by respective economies, increasing popularity and improved acceptance and application of digital currencies in the real world is now beginning to provide some level of fundamental support. This support is helping major crypto coins in the market build a solid foundation near current price levels as investors await trigger that could favor a positive price rally. Bitcoin price action is for now controlled by a high level of activity in the Venezuelan market. Headlines suggest that Venezuelan citizens are opting to convert fiat to Bitcoin in order to shield themselves from the impact of an ongoing political crisis on the country’s economy.
Further, the country is also regulating activity surrounding Bitcoin & other digital currencies which is providing strong support to crypto market preventing further declines. As of writing this article, BTC/USD pair is trading at $3436 up by 0.20% on the day while ETH/USD pair is trading a $106.52 down by 0.35% on the day. Sentiment surrounding Ethereum is at new lows as headlines suggested thatanother security vulnerability has been foundjust when commotion surrounding Constantinople upgrade delay owing to security issues died down. However, the company which identified said vulnerability has reportedly managed to resolve same and asked it clients who use said node to also upgrade immediately to prevent from being hacked.
Thisarticlewas originally posted on FX Empire
• Natural Gas Price Forecast – natural gas markets bounced slightly on Tuesday
• Gold Price Forecast – Gold markets continue to grind
• USD/JPY Fundamental Daily Forecast – Flat Trade Ahead of Trump’s State of the Union Speech
• Traditional Banking Presses down Blockchain Prospects
• S&P 500 Price Forecast – stock markets continue to show resiliency
• USD/JPY Price Forecast – US dollar falls from major level || Prolonged Government Shutdown Hangs Over Wall Street; How Will This Affect Crypto?: The debate over President Trump’s border wall has unveiled new partisan dysfunction in Washington as the United States on Saturday faced its third government shutdown in a year. The partial shutdown, which risks extending into the holidays, presents fresh headaches for Wall Street following the worst weekly selloff in a decade. For cryptocurrency investors, the power of holding non-correlated assets could become apparent in the near future. For more context behind the latest developments on Wall Street and in crypto-land, read Hacked.com’s Week in Review . US Government Grinds to a Halt A Senate impasse over the funding of President Trump’s $5.7 billion border wall triggered a partial government shutdown on Saturday, with both parties blaming each other for the lack of resolve. President Trump has referred to it as a “Democrat shutdown” that “could be a long stay,” referring to a prolonged interruption of federal government functions. Democrats, meanwhile, accused Trump of throwing another “temper tantrum.” Trump, who has put his Christmas holiday on hold, tweeted Saturday morning that his administration was negotiating with Democrats over a new budget deal that includes the “desperately needed Border Security” wall. I am in the White House, working hard. News reports concerning the Shutdown and Syria are mostly FAKE. We are negotiating with the Democrats on desperately needed Border Security (Gangs, Drugs, Human Trafficking & more) but it could be a long stay. On Syria, we were originally… — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 22, 2018 Funding for the wall was approved on Thursday in the House of Representatives but was struck down in the Senate by a united Democrat front. Investors on Edge The impasse couldn’t have come at a worse time for stock traders, who have seen their yearly gains wither away in the last three months. Stocks are now trading at their lowest level in 16 months, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average recording its worst weekly slide in a decade. On Friday, the Nasdaq Composite Index fell to the bears for the first time since 2009, a dramatic role reversal from the tech-induced bull market that characterized the post-crisis era. Story continues Signs of a looming government shutdown Friday wreaked havoc on Wall Street, and a prolonged impasse could have adverse effects on what’s left of the bull market for the S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average. Investors’ collective angst is well documented by the CBOE VIX, which tracks expected volatility over the next 30 days. The so-called “fear index” settled above 30 on Friday for the first time since February and is on track for a yearly gain of 173%. Influence over Crypto The possibility of an extended government shutdown could impact the cryptocurrency market both directly and indirectly. For starters, it threatens to further delay the proposed launch of Bakkt , Intercontinental Exchange’s forthcoming crypto trading platform. Bakkt still requires key approvals from the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), a federal body that is affected by the Senate impasse. As it currently stands, Bakkt is unlikely to get the approvals needed to launch by the proposed date of Jan. 24. Although the initial delay is unrelated to the government shutdown, a failure to agree on a new budget will certainly affect the CFTC’s timeline. Once launched, Bakkt could have a dramatic influence on bitcoin futures. Read more . In terms of indirect consequences, politically-inspired volatility on Wall Street could play into the hands of bitcoin and other digital currencies that have previously enjoyed safe-haven status among investors. Cryptos may have struggled to demonstrate their utility as spending instruments, but until now have been an excellent store of value. The value of safe-haven investments in the current climate is demonstrated by gold ‘s recent six-month peak. That being said, the key selling point here is whether you believe bitcoin has reached bottom or, at the very least, is approaching the final stage of the bear market. Or it could be that bitcoin continues to establish itself as a non-correlated asset that trades independently of broader market moves. We’ve spotted some elements of correlation recently, but otherwise, bitcoin is generally not closely influenced by stocks, monetary policy, and economic data (it is influenced by FUD/FOMO, but we don’t watch the economic calendar to play BTC). In any case, a prolonged bear market in stocks, should it materialize, could finally test the hypotheses of bitcoin’s most ardent backers: that it is a superior store of value , better suited for periods of volatility and destined to compete with fiat on a global scale. Featured Image from Shutterstock Looking beyond crypto? Visit Hacked.com for the latest market analysis. The post Prolonged Government Shutdown Hangs Over Wall Street; How Will This Affect Crypto? appeared first on CCN . || Donald Trump Hires Prominent Bitcoin Supporter Mick Mulvaney to White House Staff: U.S. President Donald Trump has hired the prominent Bitcoin supporter Mick Mulvaney to be his new White House Chief of Staff.
Donald Trump is one of the most polarizing people on Planet Earth and whether you love him or hate him, it is beneficial for the crypto industry to have a major Bitcoin advocate whispering sweet nothings into the ear of the American President.
Although Donald Trump might not top a list of the humblest people on the planet, he most definitely loves making money. Trump’s appointment of Mulvaney to the White House is a massive boon for crypto-fanatics.
Mick Mulvaneyis a crypto supporter and fan. When he was working at the House of Representatives, Mulvaney, who is a South Carolina Republican, was one of the people who worked towards creating the Blockchain Caucus, which is a group of lawmakers that write and create new laws for emerging technologies such as cryptocurrency.
Donald Trump was upbeat when taking tohis Twitter accountto welcome Mulvaney and congratulate him on being named as Acting White House Chief of Staff:
Mick Mulvaney has knowledge of the inner-workings of blockchain and crypto in general. He helped theBlockchain Caucusto draft two new legislative acts that support the growth and evolution of the blockchain industry. The proposals were drafted to help increase the growth and support of blockchain innovation.
The House Resolution 1108 was proposed to increase research in blockchain technology to show Congress how to take a sensible regulatory approach to the industry’s newest technological innovations.
House Resolution 7002 was a proposal to amend the E-SIGN Act that was to “confirm the applicability of blockchain to electronic records, electronic signatures and smart contracts.”
To give you an idea of Mulvaney’s feelings towards Bitcoin, here is a statement he made at the time of helping to create the Blockchain Caucus:
“Blockchain technology has the potential to revolutionize the financial services industry, the U.S. economy and the delivery of government services, and I am proud to be involved with this initiative.”
Although U.S. President Donald Trump rightfully gets criticism from all quarters for some of his decisions, especially in terms of immigration and foreign policy, when it comes to emerging blockchain technology, he seems quite open to its potential.
The appointment of Mick Mulvaney to the White House by Donald Trump is a positive move for crypto-fans and aficionados alike.
Featured image fromFlickr.
The postDonald Trump Hires Prominent Bitcoin Supporter Mick Mulvaney to White House Staffappeared first onCCN. || Corrected: Analysis - As bitcoin trading shifts shape, big money stays away: (Corrects spelling of first name to Erik (not Eric) in paragraph 21) By Tom Wilson LONDON (Reuters) - Bitcoin's value has plunged by three-quarters this year, sending the original and biggest cryptocurrency back to levels not seen before its bubble. And price isn't the only aspect of trading that has changed. The retail investors behind bitcoin's dizzying ascent to a record of nearly $20,000 last December have fled, leaving the early adopters and crypto-related firms that traditionally dominated digital coin trading driving exchange volumes. And while bigger investors from proprietary traders to hedge funds are growing more active, mainstream financial firms have stayed away from cryptocurrencies, even as market infrastructure seen as key to their entry begins to be built. The shifting shape of digital coin trading, depicted by industry data and interviews with exchanges and companies, suggests bitcoin is struggling to evolve from a speculative asset favoured by relatively niche investors to an investment choice in the same league as stocks or bonds. Such an institutional breakthrough is seen as key to the sector's future, promising to help fund the development of cryptocurrencies and spread their real-world use for purposes like payments and money transfers. Monthly cryptocurrency trading volumes at major exchanges reached $235.8 billion in November, a threefold rise from the early stages of the bitcoin bubble in September 2017 but still down nearly half from their peak a year ago, data from industry website CryptoCompare shows. In the same period, volumes at major retail-focused exchanges such as U.S.-based Coinbase and Poloniex, owned by Goldman Sachs-backed Circle, shrank 22 percent and 74 percent respectively. Japan's bitFlyer has also suffered, with volumes down 47 percent last month. As retail punters fade away, volumes have soared at exchanges such as Bitfinex that are favoured by bigger investors. That's down to growing activity by a mixture of cryptocurrency miners and startups with big holdings, plus prop traders, hedge funds and wealthy individuals and families, say industry insiders. Story continues Bitfinex trading volumes climbed 38 percent in November, which the firm attributes to traditional investors with roots in high-frequency trading opening accounts since March. "You've got the larger exchanges picking up the slack and making gains of market share, with retail exchanges stepping back," said CryptoCompare's Charlie Hayter. "That's the real shift -- the (cryptocurrency) mining companies looking to pay their electricity bills using the exchanges that operate with larger players, and newer entrants trying to gain some form of exposure." Asked about the figures, Coinbase said trading in the crypto sector was growing. Poloniex said the data reflected moves in the wider market. BitFlyer declined to comment. CryptoCompare's data covers most of the biggest exchanges, with the company adding new exchanges to its database when their volumes hit significant levels. Bitcoin was trading on Friday at 15-month lows around $3,400. INSTITUTIONAL INERTIA Cryptocurrency markets are hard to accurately gauge, given the lack of centralised data and opacity of major venues such as over-the-counter trading, said to account for up to 50 percent of the overall market. Likewise, there are few ways to accurately break down the profile of investors in the crypto market. But exchanges and industry figures interviewed by Reuters said institutional investors such as asset managers, pension funds and investment banks remain largely absent from bitcoin trading, even as the shape of the market changes. Most worry about the lack of clarity over regulation, as well as frequent security breaches at exchanges and the perceived absence of fundamental value of the assets. That reluctance has remained even as strides are made in how to securely trade and store cryptocurrencies, notably by Fidelity Investments, and as a number of small jurisdictions like Gibraltar and Malta look to licence crypto companies. Clearer regulation will lend a stamp of legitimacy to cryptocurrency companies and weed out sub-standard players, say analysts, and may ease institutional investors' worries about compliance. "Some individuals at banks and financial firms want to step in, but can't decide how to explain it to senior management," said Erik Wilgenhof Plante, chief compliance officer at BeQuant, an exchange that serves around 600 mostly non-retail clients. One big hurdle is the lack of examples of blockchain, which underpins bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, living up to its billing as a technology that could revolutionise sectors from finance to real estate. Circle's Chief Marketing Officer Marieke Flament said the focus on bitcoin often obscures advances being made in other areas of cryptocurrencies. She cited the startup's own "stablecoin" digital currency, which is pegged one-to-one with the dollar and could appeal to institutional investors. "There is still a lot of focus on bitcoin," said Flament. "That is really missing the depth of the stuff that's happening." But despite the work by startups and major firms, developers and exchanges, top-tier mainstream investors have stayed away. "You have seen some landmark decisions by Fidelity to actively engage in the cryptocurrency space," said Danny Masters, chairman of digital asset manager CoinShares. "But nothing is actually active." (Reporting by Tom Wilson; Editing by Catherine Evans) || Noah Pay: how to make crypto a competitive advantage for business: Microsoft, Expedia, Subway and other big players started to receive cryptocurrency payments several years ago. Thousands of merchants worldwide followed their example. More than 260K Japanese companies from drugstores to fast food restaurants decided to add Bitcoin to their payment options. How can ordinary merchants benefit from accepting crypto payments? Top benefits of cryptocurrency for merchants By including crypto in the payment methods, merchants gain the following benefits: Low commissions Bank commissions are a huge burden for the companies. Vendors receiving credit card payments have to pay fees of nearly 25 cents for every operation, plus up to 4% of the deal total. Since crypto settlements remove any intermediaries, the transaction costs significantly reduce up to 1%. Instantaneous transactions In case of a payment via credit and debit cards, the vendor receives money on his account 3 and more days later. This is due to the fact that several agents participate in the process. On the contrary, cryptocurrency transfers are much faster thanks to blockchain. Although Bitcoin transactions are considered rather slow, it takes only 60 minutes to complete the process. Thats nothing compared to several days. Borderless payments Entering international markets means to deal with difficult and expensive exchanging processes. On the other hand, cryptocurrency transactions know no geographic borders, thus helping merchants to raise sales. For example, a small electronics retailer managed to sell USD 300 thousand worth of goods to almost 40 countries by accepting digital coins. Those sellers that expand the payment methods with cryptocurrencies will be able to attract new clients and boost their profits. Overstock sold $124,000 in goods via bitcoin just in the 21 hours since it began accepting Bitcoin in 2014. Why businesses are still reluctant to start dealing with virtual money? Because there are too few really good and functional crypto wallets, PoS terminals, payment applications, and gateways that help companies receive and process crypto payments. Nevertheless, there are a few pearls in the market. Story continues Paving the way towards mass crypto adoption Several path breakers have already developed and brought their crypto payment solutions to the market. One of such front runners, a Canada-based software developer Shopify , presented its payment gateway which allows merchants to accept cryptocurrencies as payment for goods and services. At the present time, its the most popular e-commerce platform counting 1000+ of merchants. A London-based service SpectroCoin was launched in 2013. It supports payments in Bitcoin and altcoins such as Ether, NEM, and others. The company issues prepaid SpectroCoin cards that are accepted at 25 million stores and can be used in more than 30 million ATM operators all over the world. Although most applications originated from the western countries until today, Asia also enters the market. The Noah Project brought its own solution to the table. This fintech venture is currently building an ecosystem fully powered by blockchain and its own token Noah Coin. The Noah ecosystem will be integrated into several industries: tourism (Noah Resort), real estate (Noah City), and finance (remittances). The project team has already launched a crypto application for customers Noah Wallet. Now, they have introduced the payment app for merchants and their clients Noah Pay . It can be installed on smartphones, tablets, and other devices. Noah Pay allows buyers to acquire any goods and services from sneakers to accommodation while vendors will be able to quickly receive payments and smoothly process them. Clients will be able to pay with Noah Coins at first. In the future the range of accepted cryptocurrencies will be expanded. The Asian region accounts for over 52% of all mobile payments worldwide, which makes it the perfect ecosystem for real-world cryptocurrency adoption to spread. Besides, Asia is the recognized fintech hub with Japan and Singapore on the front line of the blockchain industry. This fact allows Noah team to believe that their crypto payment solution will be in high demand among the community. It seems vendors are getting closer than ever to customers especially to those who prefer spending cryptos. With all the payment options available today, businesses will be able to enter the digital space fully armed and ready to keep up with the market. Being the first to accept crypto payments will give merchants the advantage over their competitors. This article was originally posted on FX Empire More From FXEMPIRE: Bitcoin And Ethereum Daily Price Forecast ETH Hard Fork Delay Results in Range Bound Price Action AUD/USD Forex Technical Analysis January 16, 2019 Forecast GBP/USD Price Forecast British pound chops on Wednesday Natural Gas Price Prediction Prices Whipsaw but Trend is Higher EUR/USD Price Forecast Euro continues to drift Gold Price Prediction Prices Consolidate Ahead of No Confidence Vote || Watch: Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey Pumps Bitcoin on Joe Rogan’s Podcast: jack dorsey bitcoin joe rogan Joe Rogan may have landed his biggest guest yet on his popular podcast, the Joe Rogan Experience: Jack Dorsey, the founder and CEO of Twitter and Square and an avowed Bitcoin bull. Joe Rogan Experience #1236 – Jack Dorsey In a wide-ranging two hour interview published Saturday, Jack addressed a number of topics, including questions about Twitter censorship, doxxing, “SmirkGate,” Donald Trump, Alex Jones, the nature of tech giants, the future of the Internet, and Bitcoin. Here’s what Jack had to say: Read the full story on CCN.com . || AUD/USD Forex Technical Analysis January 28, 2019 Forecast: The Australian Dollar is drifting higher early Monday. With Australia on bank holiday, most of the heavy lifting is being provided by a weaker U.S. Dollar. The greenback is being pressured ahead of Wednesdays U.S. Federal Open Market Committee meeting on January 29-30. The FOMC is widely expected to leave rates unchanged. At 0352 GMT, the AUD/USD is trading .7200, up 0.0022 or +0.30%. Daily AUD/USD Daily Technical Analysis The main trend is down according to the daily swing chart, however, momentum is trending higher. A trade through .7236 will change the main trend to up. A move through .7076 will signal a resumption of the downtrend. The main range is .7394 to .6764. Its retracement zone is .7153 to .7079. Trading on the strong side of this zone is helping to support the developing upside bias. Traders should consider the retracement zone support. The short-term range is .6764 to .7236. If .7076 fails as support then look for a test of its retracement zone at .7000 to .6944. Daily Technical Forecast Based on the current price at .7200, the direction of the AUD/USD the rest of the session is likely to be determined by trader reaction to the downtrending Gann angle at .7204. Bullish Scenario Taking out and sustaining a rally over .7204 will indicate the presence of buyers. This could trigger a surge into .7236, followed by another main top at .7247. This price is a potential trigger point for an acceleration to the upside with the next target angle coming in at .7299. This is the last potential resistance angle before the .7394 main top. Bearish Scenario The inability to overcome or a sustained move under .7204 will signal the return of sellers. This could trigger a pullback into the main Fibonacci level at .7153, followed by an uptrending Gann angle at .7104. The Gann angle is important to the structure of the chart pattern. It stopped the selling on January 25. This article was originally posted on FX Empire More From FXEMPIRE: Bitcoin The Bears Take the Week, But It Could Have Been Worse Interview with Brian Cheong, the President and the Founder of TTC Protocol Gold Price Futures (GC) Technical Analysis January 28, 2019 Forecast NEMs XEM Technical Analysis Price Support in Play 28/01/19 Bitcoin Cash ABC, Litecoin and Ripple Daily Analysis 28/01/19 Oil Price Fundamental Daily Forecast Jump in U.S. Rig Count Returns Supply Concerns to Forefront
[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
Maybe just a BTC ticker with the TD sequential in the bottom corner of my right eye... || You can only audit warehoused #Bitcoin reserves provided brokerage transparency as even exchanges wallets addresses are not disclosed. Explain to me how one can audit non blockchain paper on paper derivatives of derivatives with no trusless way to audit sir... pic.twitter.com/pfY1EBfFk8 || 仮想通貨で借金まみれの奴とかいるの？wwwwwwww $BTC http://investment-news.site/?p=20616 pic.twitter.com/lfYmPjSVEQ || So this game looks like someone recreated Hello Neighbor with free assets and made Hitler the neighbor, but doesn't mention that in the description...
Also I think you can mine ingame bitcoin for money to buy spy tools? pic.twitter.com/ZfhJIrn0kF || Fewcoins' daily digest for Monday January 21, 2019 https://fewcoins.io/coins
#fewcoins_index #bitcoin #ethereum #eos #litecoin #digest #ripple #hodl #ico #token #btcusd #ethusd #bitcoinpricepic.twitter.com/YYJ4Sh2yaH || 出来るトレーニーは飲んでいる
オプチマム・プロテインが最大50%OFFも(^^)
爆発的な筋肥大でライバルに差を付けろ✦
https://iherb.co/55ab5XLZ
#オプチマム #プロテインpic.twitter.com/0q5tKQf6o6 || スイスのプライベートバンク、新しいBTCとBCHのウォレットを導入 http://bit.ly/2FHMO0b $BTC $ETH $BCC $BCH $XRP $ADA || BTC hasn't lived through a recession. Call me after it has || Ethereum、ハードフォークは二月末https://btcnews.jp/19qc3ffr22682/ || #Bitcoin $3,599.32 v #BitcoinCash $256.63 (BTC/BCH 14.0), Avg Transaction fee for #Bitcoin ~$0.25 v #BitcoinCash ~$0.01 - 2019/01/24 04:00JST
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Trend: no change || Prices: 3666.78, 3671.20, 3690.19, 3648.43, 3653.53, 3632.07, 3616.88, 3620.81, 3629.79, 3673.84
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Analyze the provided historical prices, technical indicators, news, and social media sentiment from the last 60 days. Based on this context, predict the overall trend (up, down, or no change) and the specific daily closing prices for Bitcoin for the next 10 days.
|
[Technical Analysis]
Not fully available.
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
Bitcoin’s 3% Price Rise Neutralizes Bearish Setup: • Bitcoin has again bounced up from $7,800 support, neutralizing the immediate bearish setup.
• A break above $8,820 is needed to invalidate the lower-highs setup and confirm a bull reversal.
• A bullish close, if confirmed, would open the doors for $9,320 (Aug. 29 low).
Bitcoin’s price bounce has shed some of the recent bearish pressure, but there’s still a way to go before a bullish reversal is confirmed.
After hitting $8,314 on Sunday, the top cryptocurrency by market value is now trading around $8,200 on Bitstamp, representing a 3 percent gain on a 24-hour basis.
BTC was operating onslippery groundslast week with the Chaikin money flow index, used to gauge buying and selling pressure,reportingthe strongest bearish bias in eight months.
Related:Researchers Uncover Bitcoin ‘Attack’ That Could Slow or Stop Lightning Payments
The downside, however, was restricted near $7,800 on Friday and prices bounced back above $8,000 over the weekend.
The latest bounce from that level is the fifth since Sept. 26 and indicates seller exhaustion. The immediate bearish case, therefore, stands neutralized. Other key indicators like the relative strength index are also reporting early signs of a bullish reversal.
That said, BTC is yet to invalidate the most basic of all bearish technical indicators, a lower high, lower low, as seen below.
Related:Looming Death Cross Suggests Bitcoin May Be Nearing Price Bottom
BTC fell 3.69 percent on Oct. 11, marking a failure above the 200-day moving average (MA) and establishing a bearish lower high at $8,820. A bearish lower high is essentially a shallow bounce that usually ends up recharging engines for a drop below recent lows.
The latest bearish lower high failed to challenge the low of $7,714 created on Sept. 30, a sign the sellers have run out of steam.
A bullish reversal, however, would be confirmed only if BTC prints a higher high above the Oct. 11 high of $8,820.
So, with prices currently around $8,200, a bearish-to-bullish trend change is still $600 away.
BTC rose above $8,100 on Sunday, confirming an inverse head-and-shoulders breakout (bullish reversal pattern) on the hourly chart (above left). The breakout was backed by an uptick in trading volumes and looks to have legs.
Further, the falling channel breakout seen on the 4-hour chart indicates the path of least resistance is to the higher side.
Hence, a rally to the bearish lower high of $8,820 cannot be ruled out.
On the downside, $7,800 is the level to beat for the bears. A UTC close below that level will likely be followed by a slide to $7,200–$7,000, assuggested bythe bearish weekly chart indicators.
Disclosure: The author holds no cryptocurrency assets at the time of writing.
Bitcoinimage via Shutterstock; charts byTrading View
• Binance Hikes Leverage to 125x for Launch of Bitcoin-Tether Futures
• Bitcoin Price May Test $7,750 as Selling Pressure Grows || Why is Bitcoin’s price crashing?: At the time of writing, the price of Bitcoin (BTC) is sliding dangerously down a slippery slope. BTC has dropped close to 20% in value since last week, causing more than $100 million worth of Bitcoin long positions to be liquidated on derivatives exchange BitMEX. So why is Bitcoin’s price falling so dramatically? By diving deeper into Bitcoin’s hash rate behaviour and taking a look at trends over the last year, I will look to answer questions such as: Has interest in Bitcoin dipped? Who has been buying BTC? Is Bitcoin’s hash rate linked to price? What is the long-term expectation for BTC? Interest in Bitcoin First, let’s take a look at the level of interest in BTC over the past year. The graph above (courtesy of Google Trends) shows the total number of people searching for Bitcoin on Google this year. We can clearly see that general Google searches peaked in July – coincidentally around the time Bitcoin reached its yearly high of $14,000. This trend matches the trend seen during the late 2017 crypto bull run. Peak interest in Bitcoin from the general population was unsurprisingly when BTC hit $20,000. How is general interest at the time of writing? It’s near yearly lows – a sign the market has been consolidating for the past few months. So who has been buying Bitcoin over the last year? Is it retail investors, institutions, individuals, or Bitcoin whales? Recent Bitcoin buyers One of the most important drivers for price appreciation, as discussed here , is the number of buyers being higher than the number of sellers. That seems pretty obvious, right? However, to achieve this outcome, we need large Bitcoin holders to feed the market as price rises. Therefore, one of the key metrics to look into is the number of Bitcoin addresses holding large sums of Bitcoin. At current prices, 1,000 BTC represents about $7,000,000. The graph above (courtesy of GlassNode ) shows that from late 2018 to today, about 600 addresses with over 1,000 BTC were created – or funded to be precise. Story continues Essentially, the amount of addresses with over 1,000 BTC more than doubled. Should we assume institutional investors and VCs are betting heavily on the king of cryptocurrencies? I suspect so. Miners, hash rate, and price behaviour To fully understand this graph (courtesy of Bitinfocharts ), we need to take into account what it represents. Hash rate shows how much electricity is being consumed by miners on average. This metric usually tells us if more miners are coming into the market or if the hardware is improving. From early 2019 up to last month, Bitcoin’s hash rate had been appreciating. Since no new game-changing ASIC miners (that I know of) have been released, what the above shows is that more people have been mining Bitcoin (or that more hardware has been added to the network). Essentially, money has poured into Bitcoin mining during 2019. However, price has not continued to appreciate. What we are seeing now is a minor capitulation of less profitable miners who cannot sustain operations at such low prices. When these miners sell, price tends to drop, destroying long-term bets and leading to further downwards pressure. Bitcoin’s hash rate is already down over 20% from its yearly high. Is the long-term price expectation that gloomy? Or will BTC rise from the ashes? Long-term price expectations Some people panicking about this -17% week. It's just normal #bitcoin behavior. Note we are still up 2x YTD. And yes, S2F model is just fine, nothing out of the ordinary. https://t.co/eTL0ITnn27 pic.twitter.com/iPAkYGAA4d — PlanB (@100trillionUSD) November 22, 2019 If you follow PlanB, one of my favourite cryptocurrency analysts and TA experts, you should already know about his stock-to-flow (SF) price model. In case you don’t, check out this article here . Essentially, Bitcoin has been following the SF model trend since 2011. Although there are a few shortcomings, the model takes into account Bitcoin’s halvings and the available supply to calculate an average price over time. What the SF model shows is that price has never substantially dropped after a halving. As such, I personally expect Bitcoin to be way over $10,000 by next year. Until then, safe trades! Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are the author’s only. This article isn’t financial advice or promotional material; it represents my personal opinion and should not be attributed to Coin Rivet. The post Why is Bitcoin’s price crashing? appeared first on Coin Rivet . || Bitcoin Cash ABC, Litecoin and Ripple Daily Analysis 16/10/19: Bitcoin Cash ABC Finds Support Bitcoin Cash ABC fell by 3.21% on Tuesday. Reversing a 1.90% rise from Monday, Bitcoin Cash ABC ended the day at $220.88. A relatively bullish start to the day saw Bitcoin Cash ABC strike an early morning intraday high $228.93. Falling short of the first major resistance level at $230.63, Bitcoin Cash ABC slid to a late morning low $222.68. Bitcoin Cash ABC fell through the first major support level at $223.84 before recovering to $226 levels. A late afternoon sell-off did the damage, however, with Bitcoin Cash ABC sliding to an intraday low $217.71. Bitcoin Cash ABC fell back through the first major support level and through the second major support level at $220.16. Finding support from the broader market late on, Bitcoin Cash ABC recovered to $220 levels to limit the days losses. At the time of writing, Bitcoin Cash ABC was up by 1.41% to $224.00. A bullish start to the day saw Bitcoin Cash ABC rise from an early morning low $222.13 to a high $225.33. Bitcoin Cash ABC left the major support and resistance levels untested early on. For the day ahead, Bitcoin Cash ABC would need to steer clear of sub-$223 levels to support a move back through to $225 levels. Support from the broader market would be needed, however, for Bitcoin Cash ABC to take a run at the first major resistance level at $227.3. Barring a broad-based crypto rally, the first major resistance level would likely cap any upside on the day. Failure to steer clear of sub-$223 levels could see Bitcoin Cash ABC test the first major support level at $216.08. Barring a broad-based crypto sell-off, however, Bitcoin Cash ABC should steer clear of sub-$216 levels. Litecoin Back at $54 Levels Litecoin slid by 4.08% on Tuesday. Reversing a 0.71% gain from Monday with interest, Litecoin ended the day at $54.56. Tracking the broader market, Litecoin struck an early morning intraday high $57.42 before hitting reverse. Coming up against the first major resistance level at $57.46, Litecoin slid to a late morning intraday low $53.45. Story continues Litecoin fell through the major support levels before recovering to $55 levels. Litecoin broke back through the third major support level at $54.15 and second major support level at $55.45. A broad-based crypto sell-off in the late afternoon, however, saw Litecoin slide back to $53 levels before finding support. Litecoin fell back through the second and third major support levels before recovery to $54 levels late in the day. At the time of writing, Litecoin was up by 0.71% to $54.95. A relatively bullish start to the day saw Litecoin rise from an early morning low $54.55 to a high $55.13. Litecoin left the major support and resistance levels untested early on. For the day ahead, a move through to $55.20 levels would support a run at the first major resistance level at $56.84. Litecoin would need the support of the broader market, however, to break through to $57 levels. Barring a broad-based crypto rebound, Litecoin would likely come up short of Tuesdays high $57.42. Failure to move through to $55.20 levels could see Litecoin spend another day in the red. A fall through to Tuesdays low $53.45 would bring the first major support level at $52.87 into play before any recovery. Ripples XRP Recovers to $0.29 Levels Ripples XRP fell by 3.14% on Tuesday. Partially reversing a 7.3% rally from Monday, Ripples XRP ended the day at $0.28882. A relatively bullish start to the day saw Ripples XRP strike an early morning intraday high $0.30 before hitting reverse. Falling short of the first major resistance level at $0.3058, Ripples XRP slid to a late afternoon intraday low $0.28316. Ripples XRP fell through the first major support level at $0.2837 before finding support from the broader market. Off the back of the late support, Ripples XRP broke back through the first major support level limit the loss on the day. At the time of writing, Ripples XRP was up by 1.1% to $0.2920. Tracking the broader market, Ripples XRP rose from an early morning low $0.28872 to a high $0.29261. Ripples XRP left the major support and resistance levels untested early on. For the day ahead, Ripples XRP would need to hold onto $0.29 levels to support a day in the green. Support from the broader market would be needed, however, for Ripples XRP to break through the first major resistance level at $0.2982. Barring a broad-based crypto rally, the first major resistance level and Tuesdays high $0.30 would likely limit any upside. Failure to hold onto $0.29 levels could see Ripples XRP hit reverse. A fall through the morning low $0.28872 would bring the first major support level at $0.2813 into play. Barring a crypto meltdown, however, Ripples XRP should steer clear of sub-$0.28 levels on the day. Please let us know what you think in the comments below Thanks, Bob This article was originally posted on FX Empire More From FXEMPIRE: USD/JPY Price Forecast US Dollar Continues To Pressure Japanese Yen GBP/USD Price Forecast British Pound Continues To Bounce Around Brexit and Economic Data Put the GBP and USD in Focus Global Equity Markets Roar European Equities: Brexit, Earnings and Economic Data in Focus Gold Price Forecast Gold Markets Continue To Test Wedge || Ethereum loses yesterdays gains, drops to $174: Things were looking good for Ethereum , until they werent. The cryptocurrency is down nearly 2 percent on the day, losing all of its gains over the past 24 hours. ETH hodlers are likely none too pleased. Throughout October, the currency has been trading sidewaysincurring small spikes in price, only to falter against newfound resistance levels and drop back to previous positions. Ethereums price peaked this month at around $194 , though now it appears to be in danger of hitting the $170 mark againa price point that it hasnt seen in about 12 days. According to data from CoinMarketCap , trading volume for Ethereum has been relatively mixed throughout October, but has dropped somewhat within the past day. The highest trading volume for Ethereum this month was recorded on October 10. During that time, volume spiked beyond the $8 billion mark. At the time, Ethereum gained roughly three percent in its overall price, and was trading for just shy of $190. Now, as the trading volume has gone down a little, the price is falling back towards the $170 resistance level. Of course, it isnt just Ethereum thats having a rough day. Its been a red trading day for most of the market, with Bitcoin once again breaking below $8,000. Bitcoin Cash, meanwhile, is heading down toward the $211 per coin mark, while Litecoin is trading at $52. || Geopolitics, FOMC Meeting Minutes and Canadian Inflation in Focus: It was a busier day on theeconomic calendarthrough the Asian session this morning.
Key stats included October trade data out of Japan early in the session.
Later in the morning, the PBoC also delivered its November loan prime rates decision.
On the geopolitical risk front, a unanimous Senate vote on Tuesday in support of HK led to a warning of retaliation from China.
With the chances of a phase 1 trade agreement hanging in the balance, the latest U.S move may add further pressure on Beijing to hold back.
The trade deficit jumped from a ¥124.8bn deficit to a $17.3bn surplus in October. Economists had forecast a surplus of ¥301bn, however…
According to figures released by theMinistry of Finance,
• Year-on-year, exports fell by 9.2% in October, following a 5.2% decline in September.Within the Asian region, exports to China fell by 10.3%, by 9.4% to HK and by 23.1% to R. Korea.To the U.S, exports slid by 11.4%, with exports to Germany tumbling by 19.4%.
• Imports fell by 14.8%, year-on-year, following a 1.5% decline in September.From the Asian region, imports fell by 14.0% and by 15.6% from North America.Imports from Western Europe saw a more modest 10.7% decline
The Japanese Yen moved from $108.478 to $108.457 upon the release of the figures. At the time of writing, theJapanese Yenwas up by 0.10% to ¥108.43 against the U.S Dollar.
The PBoC cut prime loan rates this morning.
• The 5-year loan prime rate was cut from 4.85% to 4.80%, with the 1-year prime rate cut from 4.20% to 4.15%.
The Aussie Dollar moved from $0.68109 to $0.68169 on the decision. At the time of writing, theAussie Dollarwas down by 0.18% to $0.6816.
At the time of writing, theKiwi Dollarwas down by 0.19% to $0.6419.
It’s yet another quiet day ahead on theeconomic calendar. German wholesale inflation figures for October are due out in the early part of the day.
After a quiet start to the week, the EUR will be more sensitive to the numbers. Any moves, however, will likely be short-lived at best.
Outside of the numbers, expect chatter from Beijing and the U.S and from the UK politics to also influence.
While the EUR may prefer Britain to remain within the EU, an orderly departure is the next best thing…
At the time of writing, theEURwas down by 0.05% to $1.1072.
It’s another quiet day ahead on thedatafront. Key stats are limited to 3rdquarter labor productivity figures.
Following disappointing claimant count and wage growth figures last week, today’s stats are unlikely to move the dial.
UK politics is going to remain the key driver all the way through to 12thDecember. A pullback on Tuesday and early this morning came in response to Corbyn’s better than expected performance in the 1stleadership debate.
At the time of writing, thePoundwas down by 0.15% to $1.2907
It’s a quiet day on theeconomic calendar. There are no material stats due out of the U.S to provide the Greenback with direction.
As the week progresses, updates from the U.S – China trade talks will have a greater influence on the Greenback.
On the monetary policy front, the FOMC meeting minutes due out late in the day shouldn’t have a material impact on the Dollar.
Powell’s testimony last week will have been considered more current, with economic indicators largely in line with the FED’s plan to hold.
TheDollar Spot Indexwas up by 0.05% to 97.901 at the time of writing.
It’s a busier day on theeconomic calendar. October inflation figures are due out of Canada later today.
With stats having been on the lighter side at the start of the week, expect Loonie sensitivity to the numbers.
A softening in inflationary pressure would raise the prospects of a BoC rate cut.
TheLooniewas down by 0.11% to C$1.3282, against the U.S Dollar, at the time of writing.
Thisarticlewas originally posted on FX Empire
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• Bitcoin Cash – ABC, Litecoin and Ripple Daily Analysis – 20/11/19 || U.S. Dollar Index Futures (DX) Technical Analysis Weekly Chart Strengthens Over 97.140, Weakens Under 96.630: The U.S. Dollar closed lower against a basket of currencies last week as traders lightened up their long positions in reaction to Fed activity and increasing optimism over a partial trade between the United States and China. The Fed cut its benchmark interest rate 25 basis points as widely expected, while signaling it would be pausing further easing. Fed Chair Jerome Powell also added policymakers would not be raising rates unless inflation rose substantially. With inflation coming in at 1.4% and the Fed having a target of 2.0%, it looks as if rates will be low for a while. This could dampen demand for the dollar. Furthermore, China said it was pleased with the progress being made at the trade talks. This news encouraged investors to liquidate long dollar positions placed as hedges against a weakening global economy. Last week, December U.S. Dollar Index futures settled at 97.041, down 0.558 or -0.57%. Weekly December U.S. Dollar Index Weekly Technical Analysis The main trend is down according to the weekly swing chart. The trend turned down two weeks ago when sellers took out the previous main bottom at 96.960. The prior week, buyers formed a potentially bullish closing price reversal bottom. This was confirmed just barely last week because of weak buying. The market is in no position to change the main trend to up. A trade through 97.800 will indicate the return of buyers. A move through 96.885 will negate the closing price reversal bottom and signal a resumption of the downtrend. The short-term range is 99.305 to 96.885. Its retracement zone at 98.095 to 98.380 is the nearest upside target area and resistance. The intermediate range is 94.975 to 99.305. Its retracement zone at 97.140 to 96.630 is potential support. Buyers are trying to build a support base inside this zone. The main range is 93.31 to 99.305. Its retracement zone at 96.310 to 95.600 is the primary downside target. Buyers are likely to come in on a test of this zone. It is also controlling the longer-term direction of the market. Story continues An uptrending Gann angle at 96.000 passes through this zone this week, making it a valid downside target. Weekly Technical Forecast Based on last weeks price action and the close at 97.041, the direction of the December U.S. Dollar Index this week is likely to be determined by trader reaction to the intermediate 50% level at 97.140. Bullish Scenario A sustained move over 97.140 will indicate the presence of buyers. If this move creates enough upside momentum, we could see a test of last weeks high at 97.800. Taking out this high could trigger a further rally into a potential resistance cluster at 98.055 to 98.095. Bearish Scenario A sustained move under 97.140 will signal the presence of sellers. The first target is 96.885, followed closely by the major 50% level at 96.310. The selling pressure will start to increase under 96.310 with potential targets the uptrending Gann angle at 96.000 and the main Fibonacci level at 95.600. This article was originally posted on FX Empire More From FXEMPIRE: GBP/JPY Consolidation Could Provide a Bullish Breakout XAU/USD Ascending Wedge Favors Bull Break to $1525 Bitcoin Cash ABC, Litecoin and Ripple Daily Analysis 04/11/19 Economic Data and the UK Parliament Put the GBP, EUR and USD in Focus USD/JPY Fundamental Daily Forecast Underpinned as US, China Near Completion of Phase One Trade Deal NZD/USD Forex Technical Analysis Weekly Chart Strengthens Over .6471, Weakens Under .6404 || The Evolution of Artificial Intelligence Could Continue Boosting “ARK” ETF: This article was originally published on ETFTrends.com. As artificial intelligence (AI) continues to become a transformational technology that is only evolving as time passes, it can only get better, which is good news for boosting the ARK Innovation ETF ( ARKK ) , which is up 12.67% year-to-date. “Computers, intelligent machine, and robots seem like the workforce of the future. And as more and more jobs are replaced by technology, people will have less work to do and ultimately will be sustained by payments from the government,” said Elon Musk, the cofounder and CEO of Tesla. The ultimate goal for AI is to mimic a human’s functions as closely as possible. Per an article in Venture Beat, “The ultimate goal of AI was always to find out if we could get machines to think like a human, with the understanding that machines should be able handle the analysis of huge data sets far more quickly and effectively than humans ever could. Today, forms of AI have proven to be effective as powerful neural networks and deep learning tools took over the heavy lifting for data processing. Now insights into complex business problems, as well as correlations that would take a human weeks or months to pinpoint (or never be recognized at all), can be delivered in just seconds.” The technology could come sooner than we think, but there are still obstacles moving forward. “But the challenge with that is these neural nets, or traditional means of doing data science, have limitations in that they can only tell you the ‘what,'” said Yonatan Hagos, chief product officer at Beyond Limits.. “They look at the data and tell you what’s going on, but what they can’t do is tell you is why it’s happening. For that, you need to add symbolic AI.” Another ETF to consider is the the AI-Powered International Equity ETF ( AIIQ ) . Under the hood, the fund runs on the EquBot Model: a proprietary algorithm with the use of IBM’s Watson. The model analyzes and compares a multitude of data points and international companies on a daily basis to find and optimize portfolio exposures. Story continues AI continues to disrupt the investment management space, prompting many asset managers and investors to rethink the way they invest, research and develop portfolio construction methodologies. EquBot recognized this need for advancement and broke the mold by pioneering a new method combining AI with ETFs. Whether society is ready for it or not, robotics, AI, machine learning, or any other type of disruptive technology will be the next wave of innovation. For investors who missed out on the bull market run of FAANG (Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix, Google) stocks, they can look to capitalize on disruptive tech options in 2019 and beyond that. For more market trends, visit ETF Trends . POPULAR ARTICLES AND RESOURCES FROM ETFTRENDS.COM SPY ETF Quote VOO ETF Quote QQQ ETF Quote VTI ETF Quote JNUG ETF Quote Top 34 Gold ETFs Top 34 Oil ETFs Top 57 Financials ETFs Liquid Strategies Presents Overlay Shares’ New Equity ETF Suite Schwab Eliminates ETF, Stock and Options Commissions European Stock ETF Could Offer Investors A Chance To Invest And Hedge Currencies Bitcoin, Cryptocurrencies Tumble Over Past Week 3 ETFs to Look Into for the 5G Revolution READ MORE AT ETFTRENDS.COM > || Monarch Wallet Becomes First Live Decentralized Mobile Recurring Payments App: High fees and chargebacks are a thing of the past! Monarch Wallet now allows businesses, creators and others to easily accept cryptocurrencies on custom or recurring bases while reducing fees to as low as 0.5% per transaction and eliminates chargebacks RENO, NV / ACCESSWIRE / November 7, 2019 / Monarch ( https://monarchwallet.com/ ), the decentralized wallet and suite of crypto services, today announced the launch of their mobile decentralized recurring crypto payments being live inside of the Monarch Wallet on Android and will soon be live on iOS . This new wallet integration allows businesses, creators, charities and other entities to accept custom or recurring crypto payments, crowdfund to easily collect donations and other types of payments, with fees well below the standard rate for current payment platforms. At launch, the new MonarchPay integration offers the easiest way to accept custom or recurring cryptocurrency payments, solicit creative and cause-based crowdfunding, all without the "premium" fees that can reach upwards of 12-50% on services like Patreon and Twitch. Monarch has set a new standard in the payments industry, with a 1% fee across all possible crypto payment options and soon just a 0.5% fee when using their Monarch Utility Token. Patreon currently charges between 5 and 12 percent of income earned per month on its platform, while Twitch fees go up to 50 percent. Monarch offers benefits to any entities that wish to use crypto for recurring payments, whether those entities are businesses, creators, charities or others, without the need for much technical expertise. Among the prime benefits for Monarch users, other than those low processing fees is the "no chargebacks" freedom inherent to crypto technology and increased transparency. All of this can also be easily managed from just one place, the Monarch Wallet-whether it's a business managing all of their plans and users subscribed to each plan, to the individual who manages their subscriptions. Story continues "With our new app integration, we are applying the power of the blockchain to stem one of the payments industry's most onerous problems: processing fees," said Robert Beadles, President of Monarch. "Beyond that very real and tangible double-digit percentage revenue users won't have to pay back to a payment processor, Monarch offers greater transparency than currently available in the payments industry." Since first launching in 2018, Monarch has become a one-stop-shop for more than 315,000 users, bringing together the best blockchain services into one application for consumers, merchants, and partners. Monarch eliminates the need for multiple applications and improves security with a single wallet, delivering every service needed to buy, sell, trade, and manage digital assets. Monarch is advised by Roger Ver, Bitcoin Foundation Founder and Bitcoin.com CEO; Eric Ly, Co-Founder of LinkedIn; David Zimbeck, lead developer at BitBay and creator of the first smart contracts; Damon Nam, Founder of CoinVest, and many of the most influential names in the blockchain industry. Monarch has acquired a broker-dealer license and is awaiting SEC and FINRA approval. ABOUT MONARCH Monarch offers mobile and desktop apps, a decentralized wallet and exchange, a portfolio tracker, and universal KYC integration. Monarch supports more than 3,000 cryptocurrencies. It allows qualified users to buy cryptocurrency with a bank or credit card, earn up to 8.1% APR interest on select cryptocurrency holdings, and switch between hot and cold wallets, all while maintaining their own private keys and seed. Contact Info: Name: William Lince Email: Send Email Organization: Monarch Blockchain Corporation Address: 401 Ryland St. STE 200-A, Reno, Nevada 89502, United States Phone: +1-209-625-9816 Website: https://monarchwallet.com/ SOURCE: Monarch Blockchain Corporation View source version on accesswire.com: https://www.accesswire.com/565805/Monarch-Wallet-Becomes-First-Live-Decentralized-Mobile-Recurring-Payments-App || QuadrigaCX Founder’s Widow Will Cough Up $9 Million to Repay Users: Jennifer Robertson, the widow of QuadrigaCX founder Gerald Cotten, is transferring nearly $9 million ($12 million CAD) in assets to EY Canada, the bankruptcy trustee for the now-defunct crypto exchange.
Robertson announced the movein a statementon Monday, saying since her husband’s death late last year, she had “made every effort” to assist in the recovery of QuadrigaCX’s assets.
The exchange folded earlier this year, after Robertson and other Quadriga-affiliated entities realized they did not have access to the company’s cold wallets, and therefore could not access any of the crypto assets the exchange held. (A subsequent investigation by EYraised doubts as to whether the exchange actually held any customer funds at the time of Cotten’s death.)
Related:4 Agencies Are Investigating Crypto Exchange QuadrigaCX
In the statement sent to CoinDesk through a lawyer, Robertson said:
“I have now entered into a voluntary settlement agreement where the vast majority of my assets and all of the Estate’s assets are being returned to QCX to benefit the Affected Users. These assets originally came from QCX at the direction of Gerry.”
The settlement is pending approval from a judge.
According to a new report by EY Canada, Robertson will be turning over all assets except for roughly $162,700 in personal assets, which include cash, her retirement savings, a 2015 Jeep, some jewelry, personal furnishings, clothing and some outstanding shares of Quadriga and affiliated entities.
Related:A Big Four Audit Firm Lost $1 Million In Bitcoin. Victims Are Losing Patience
Aprevious reportestimated the total value of Cotten’s estate to include roughly $9 million ($12 million CAD) in assets, including luxury vehicles and more than a dozen properties in Nova Scotia.
EY said in Monday’s report that it intends to liquidate these assets for Quadriga’s stakeholders, including the users who lost funds when the exchange collapsed.
Monday’s report noted that a settlement allowed the parties to avoid legal fees that would be incurred by litigation. Further, as part of the settlement, Robertson will no longer receive any payments under a previous court order.
Robertson added that she had “no direct knowledge” of how Quadriga operated and was unaware that Cotten had commingled client and corporate funds, as EY later found.
“Specifically, I was not aware of nor participated in Gerry’s trading activities, nor his appropriation of the Affected User’s funds,” she said in Monday’s statement.
Monday’s report further added that Robertson suggested a settlement offer after the auditor published its previous report in June 2019.
Robertson will provide a sworn statement detailing the assets she still owns or owned by the estate over the past five years as part of the settlement, and the agreement may be voided if she fails to disclose any of said assets.
In a public post on Telegram, Miller Thomson lawyer Asim Iqbal, the court-appointed representative counsel for the exchange’s users, said the law firm will not provide additional comment.
Gerald Cotten, late CEO of QuadrigaCX, circa 2015, image via Decentral
• QuadrigaCX Judge Approves $1.6 Million in Expenses for EY, Law Firms
• QuadrigaCX CEO Set Up Fake Crypto Exchange Accounts With Customer Funds || Bitcoin Cash sees slight gains, but signs point to further bearish days ahead: The ebbs and flows of thecryptomarket press on, as many of the top-20 cryptocurrencies by market cap are seeing green today, according to data fromMessari.
Bitcoin, for example, crossed the $8,200 temporarily, reaching the $8,204 per coin mark—a small increase of just 0.5 percent.Ethereumis currently trading at around $177 per token, nearly $5 per ETH increase from where it stood just 24 hours ago. XRP, meanwhile, remains more or less steady at around 25 cents per coin.
Bitcoin Cash(BCH), Bitcoin’s “little brother,” if you will, is currently trading at around the $223 mark, an increase of just more than 2 percent over the last day. While this is good news for BCH holders, the currency lost quite a bit in value thanks to last week’s bloodbath. At that time, Bitcoin Cashwas selling formore than $300 per coin.
Meanwhile, technical charts suggest that Bitcoin Cash remains vulnerable tofurther bearish activity, according toFXStreet. The crypto is currently moving through a “bearish pennant structure,” though this could be the good news for day traders, as pennant structures can sometimessignify short-term results.
The coin has nevertheless struggled to find support above the $250 per coin line, so if you’re into reading the tea leaves, it could be a while longer before Bitcoin Cash regains the losses incurred over the last week.
[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
BTC/USD | $BTCUSD | $BTC $USD
BTC/USD Short-term TA
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#Crypto #Cryptocurrency #Bitcoin #BTC #btc || @jimmysong You're very wrong! Let me ask why do you HODL BTC? Anyway there are more $alts changing the world than BTC || $BTC Somewhere somehow this is a bull flag on someone's feed 🤷♂️ https://t.co/2yCWX04EP1 || @DesiCryptoHodlr https://t.co/gblzHlRFhB || Block Number: 597,234
Time: 9/30/2019, 8:24:04 AM UTC
Miner: Unknown
Transactions: 2,835
Block Value: 6,137.16 BTC
Size: 1,207,043 bytes
Total Supply: 17,965,425
(85.54964% BTC issued)
Price: $7919.65 || Sunil Gavaskar Speaks On Match-Fixing In Cricket, Says Greed..
@Bitcoinincoins - @InvestCrypForex - CricketNDTV - Twitter - News - Noticias - Bitcoin - CryptoCurrency - Forex https://t.co/PG1e08jgpX || Please send 0.05 BTC to the Bitcoin address 12xkMCYq8f8w5GJvYnNkJrqCMtYdjRzKLi.
bitcoin://12xkMCYq8f8w5GJvYnNkJrqCMtYdjRzKLi?amount=0.05 https://t.co/cBlDOUKAou || Btc help !
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Trend: down || Prices: 7761.24, 7569.63, 7424.29, 7321.99, 7320.15, 7252.03, 7448.31, 7547.00, 7556.24, 7564.35
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Analyze the provided historical prices, technical indicators, news, and social media sentiment from the last 60 days. Based on this context, predict the overall trend (up, down, or no change) and the specific daily closing prices for Bitcoin for the next 10 days.
|
[Technical Analysis for 2019-10-21]
BTC Price: 8243.72, BTC RSI: 42.88
Gold Price: 1482.40, Gold RSI: 44.99
Oil Price: 53.31, Oil RSI: 44.42
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
Ransomware attacks targeting local infrastructure, new research shows: Ransomware attacks fleecing victims of thousands of dollars’ worth of fiat and cryptocurrency grew “more focused and sophisticated” in the second and third quarters of 2019, research from cybersecurity firm Emsisoft has shown. Ransomware infects and freezes computers, forcing users to pay a fee to free them up. Whereas attackers used to primarily target small-time “retail” users, they are increasingly targeting large businesses and government infrastructure, according to an Emseisoft report published Tuesday. “The ransomware threat is extremely high,” Emsecurity CTO Fabian Wosar, who analyzed reports from over 230,000 victims, told Decrypt . While Wosar doubts there will be another attack on the scale of WannaCry , the ransomware assault that ground global IT infrastructure to a halt in 2016, he notes that “bad actors are relying less on the spray-and-pray tactics of the past and instead launching high-impact attacks on governments and companies.” Among the most deadly exploits discovered were “STOP,” “Ryuk” and “Sodinokibi.” STOP, which affected some 76,000 users and accounts for 56 percent of the total attacks, hides in file-torrenting software, which lets people download paid content for free. It then encrypts files and “instructs the victims to pay a ransom of $490 worth of Bitcoin in exchange for decryptor software and a private decryption key,” according to Emsisoft. “After 72 hours, the ransom demand doubles to $980.” Sodinokibi, meanwhile, accounts for only 4.5 percent of attacks, but was involved in several high profile attacks, “including a coordinated mass attack on multiple Texas local governments,” according to Emsisoft. The exploit, which propagates itself through “affiliates” and is able to evade complex security measures, reportedly affected twenty-two government entities, crippling payment processors and government printing devices. Similarly damaging against local infrastructure was Ryuk, operated by the hacker collective “Grim Spider,” which spreads itself using spam email campaigns. A Ryuk attack on the city of Riviera Beach, Florida, forced the local government to cough up $600,000 to decrypt the frozen files. Story continues Ransomware up, crypto-jacking down As ransomware attacks intensify, other forms of exploit are on the wane, said Wosar. ( Recent research somewhat corroborates this.) For instance, crypto-jacking—whereby hackers hijack victims’ computational power to mine cryptocurrency, often resulting in meltdown —isn’t profitable at the moment, because its effectiveness relies on rising crypto prices. “U nless the mining is more profitable than the ransom, these attacks happen less frequently,” said Wosar. “And that’s the case at this point in time.” But ransomware attacks remain a threat, he said. “For businesses and public entities, it’s very much a case of prepare now or pay later.” || Overstock shares surge after CEO Patrick Byrne quits: By Noel Randewich (Reuters) - Overstock.com's stock surged 9% on Thursday after Chief Executive Officer Patrick Byrne resigned, saying distraction and fallout related to his involvement in a Federal Bureau of Investigation Russian espionage probe made it difficult for him to lead the online retailer. His resignation follows a drop of over 30% in Overstock's shares over two days earlier this month, with investors rattled after Byrne claimed in a statement that he had secretly been involved with the FBI, starting in 2015. The stock briefly surged 15% after the resignation announcement. "While I believe that I did what was necessary for the good of the country, for the good of the firm, I am in the sad position of having to sever ties with Overstock, both as CEO and board member," Byrne said in a resignation letter addressed to shareholders on Thursday. "It has been an honor to serve you through thick and thin, threats grand and arcane, for the past 20 years." In a letter to investors on Aug. 11, Byrne confirmed a report by Fox News contributor Sara Carter on her website that he had a personal relationship with Maria Butina, a convicted Russian agent currently in a U.S. prison. Butina admitted to conspiring with a Russian official to infiltrate a gun rights group and influence U.S. conservative activists and Republicans. In Byrne's Aug. 11 letter, which referred to the "deep state," he said that starting in 2015 he assisted federal law enforcement officials, whom he called "the Men in Black." He said he was involved in probes "about political espionage conducted against Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump." A libertarian with a doctorate in philosophy from Stanford University, Byrne for over a decade has publicly battled short sellers targeting his company as it competes against larger rivals, including Amazon.com Inc and eBay Inc. He is known for making brash and freewheeling comments. Story continues On Thursday, he lauded the remaining Overstock executive team with pop culture references, calling the chief marketing officer "Commander Data," after a Star Trek character. He said another executive called an artificial intelligence system "Skynet," after the Terminator movie series. In a separate statement, Overstock said it appointed company veteran Jonathan Johnson as interim CEO. Overstock is currently more targeted by short sellers than 99% of U.S. companies, according to Refinitiv. Total short bets against Overstock stand at $267 million, equivalent to almost 50% of its float, according to S3 Partners, a financial analytics firm. Byrne is also a vocal proponent of blockchain technology and cryptocurrency. In May, he lashed out at investors who questioned the motivation behind his sale of about 15% of his Overstock shares, saying he had to supplement his $100,000 a year salary and vowing never to "give such an explanation again." The stock has fallen more than 70% from record highs in January 2018, when Overstock was benefiting from Byrne's plan to launch a digital token, and from hype around Bitcoin. "On any normal day, my presence is not conducive to strategic discussions regarding our retail business. I believe that going forward my presence will definitely not be conducive to such strategic discussions," Byrne wrote in his resignation letter. (Reporting by Arjun Panchadar in Bengaluru; Editing by Shounak Dasgupta and Richard Chang) || EUR/USD Forex Technical Analysis – Trade Through 1.0959 Confirms Closing Price Reversal Bottom: The Euro fell to a more than two-year low against the U.S. Dollar on Friday as a weak growth outlook weighed on the single currency. However, a drop in Treasury yields late in the session drove the greenback lower, triggering a short-covering rally into the close. Some traders attributed the recovery to a successful test of technical support levels. On Friday, the EUR/USD settled at 1.0942, up 0.0021 or +0.20%. According to some reports, the early selling was fueled by quarter-end rebalancing flows, which boosted demand for the greenback. Daily EUR/USD Daily Swing Chart Technical Analysis The main trend is down according to the daily swing chart, however, Friday’s closing price reversal bottom may be signaling a short-term shift in sentiment, but not a short-term change in trend. A trade through 1.0959 will confirm the closing price reversal bottom. This could trigger a two to three day counter-trend rally. A move through 1.0905 will negate the closing price reversal bottom and signal a resumption of the downtrend. The short-term range is 1.1110 to 1.0905. Its retracement zone at 1.1007 to 1.1032 is the first upside target. Since the main trend is down, sellers could come in on a test of this zone. Daily Swing Chart Technical Forecast Based on Friday’s closing price reversal bottom and the close at 1.0942, the direction of the EUR/USD is likely to be determined by trader reaction to 1.0959. Bearish Scenario The inability to take out 1.0959 will indicate the return of sellers. This could trigger a retest of 1.0905. If this level fails as support then look for a potential acceleration to the downside with the May 11, 2017 main bottom at 1.0838 the next major downside target. Bullish Scenario Taking out 1.0959 will confirm the closing price reversal bottom. If this creates enough upside momentum then look for a minimum two to three day rally. The primary upside target is 1.1007 to 1.1032. Since the main trend is down, sellers are likely to come in on a test of 1.1007 to 1.1032. They are going to try to form a secondary lower top, which could trigger the start of the next leg down. Story continues This article was originally posted on FX Empire More From FXEMPIRE: The Week Ahead – Geopolitics and a Particularly Busy Economic Calendar in Focus EUR/USD Forex Technical Analysis – Trade Through 1.0959 Confirms Closing Price Reversal Bottom Crude Oil Price Update – Daily Chart Indicates Strength Over $57.19, Weakness Under $55.60 Bitcoin Cash – ABC, Litecoin and Ripple Daily Analysis – 28/09/19 Bitcoin Cash – ABC, Litecoin and Ripple Daily Analysis – 29/09/19 AUD/USD and NZD/USD Fundamental Weekly Forecast – RBA Could Cut Benchmark Rate from 1.00% to 0.75%. || The Crypto Top 20 – Who Looks Good?: The Landscape It’s been quite a year for the crypto markets. While some managed to forge ahead, it has been a mixed story for the top 20. Market volatility returned through the first 8 months of the year, following a lull in 2018 that saw many of the major cryptos flat-line. What has been evident throughout this year is the investor’s continued lack of interest in platform success and advancement. Granted some of the new entries into the top 20 can be attributed to success stories, but these have come at a price for others that have seen increased adoption in the real world. Looking at the lie of the land, the top 20 can really be classified into a number of sectors… Alternative to fiat money Joining Bitcoin as an alternative to fiat money are Bitcoin Cash ABC, Bitcoin Cash SV, Litecoin, EOS, Monero’s XRM, DASH, and Iota. For now, the Bitcoin clan and Litecoin continue to garner the greatest amount of interest, not just from investors, but also from those looking to shun fiat money. The alternatives, however, may need to be considered as the real world continues its metamorphosis into the digital world. Monero’s XMR found strong support through the summer to hit a current year high $120 in June before pulling back. While up by 73% year-to-date, Monero’s XMR was down by 833% from a Dec-2017 all-time high $469.5. For the current year, Monero’s XMR was down by 34% from its current year high $120 struck back in June. As a Bitcoin competitor, Monero’s XMR has found strong support from the fact that remitters and receivers and amounts are concealed. One downside to this functionality would be any change in the regulatory landscape that makes disclosure mandatory. Since chatter from governments has abated, there is room for growth. It goes without saying that Bitcoin is also an attractive option. While transaction times continue to question its survival, next year’s halving event should be enough to deliver for longer-term holders who can ride out the volatility. Story continues For opportunity investors, Bitcoin is down by just 48.8% from its all-time high $19,891 and by 26% from its current year high $13,764. That makes Monero’s XMR an even more enticing alternative… Smart Contracts Another popular sector in the top 20, with the following coins involved in servicing smart contracts: Cardano’s ADA, Chainlink, Ethereum, Ethereum Classic, NEO, and Tezos. While Ethereum continues to hold onto the number 2 spot by market cap, a drying ICO market has limited any major upside. That leaves coins focused solely on delivering an alternative to fund ICOs on the back foot for now. Regulatory uncertainty has continued to leave the ICO market baron relatively to late 2017 and early 2018. While greater adoption and the need for smart contracts increases, a rebound in the ICO market is likely to be the key to Ethereum and its competitors’ futures. While the cryptos have found support through the current year, there’s been a marked pullback from June highs. For the current year, Chainlink (“LINK”) and Tezos (“XTZ”) have outgunned the pack, with gains of 644% and 151% respectively. While seeing sizeable gains year-to-date, the pair is down by 56% and by 91% from their all-time highs. The pullback does suggest some significant upside should market conditions improve. Support would need to come from the news wires, however. Looking across to Ethereum and Ethereum Classic, the pair are down by 48.7% and by 26.9% from their current year highs. Both are down by more than 80% from their all-time highs. The ICO market and prospective ICO volumes would need to materially rise, however, for Ethereum to have a chance at returning to the dizzying heights of $1,420 struck in early 2018. For now, the inclusion of the newer coins on more established platforms would be the play. Payment Platform Amongst the top 10, payment platforms form a small proportion of the total crypto market cap. Ripple and Stellar have been the long-established pair, with the Ripple team having made solid progress in delivering a global payment platform system. In spite of the adoption, the pair have struggled through the current year, bucking the trend amongst the broader market. Year-to-date, Ripple’s XRP and Stellar’s Lumen were down by 25.4% and 40.2% and by 91.8% and 85.5% from their all-time highs. Ripple’s XRP has seen its price tumble following news of a lawsuit against Ripple on whether it should be classified as a security. Adding to the volatility was news of a large release of tokens into the crypto market. For those looking for an investment opportunity, Ripple’s XRP looks to have legs and survivor bias in the crypto world. That is assuming of course that it can settle the legal disputes that are currently pinning back prices. Looking at functionality alone, transaction speeds and low fees make Ripple’s XRP an attraction option at current levels. Just this week, Ripple was reported to have had over 100 transactions per second, up from 10 transactions per second back in January. The Ripple platform has the ability to handle 1,500 transactions per second. The ever increasing adoption of the Ripple platform can only be a good thing. Relative newcomer, Tron’s TRX has also struggled year-to-date, falling by 8.3%. While down by 56.9% from its current year high, Tron’s TRX has coughed up 98.3% since its all-time high. A continued rise in transactions suggests a possible turnaround for the team at Tron. Negative chatter about the Tron team has led to the downside. And finally, Crypto Exchanges With just Binance Coin and UNUS SED LEO to choose from, Binance Coin would certainly be the head-turner. While both are down by 40% from their current year highs, Binance Coin is up a whopping 304% year-to-date. The upside came, not only from its status as one of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges, by volume, but also on its progress at eating into Ethereum’s ICO market share. A continued rise in exchange volumes would certainly be a boon for Binance Coin. LEO could garner some attention though, but for different reasons. UNUS SED LEO is an exchange token that was launched earlier this year. iFinex launched LEO to plug an $850m hole in Bitfinex. The hole resulted from a government seizure of Crypto Capital assets. iFinex has been clear that they will use the funds, if recovered, to repurchase and burn the LEO tokens. There is some uncertainty over whether iFinex will be able to recoup its $850m. Any hint of imminent success and expect LEO prices to go through the roof… There are a lot of websites comparing the best crypto exchanges, some of them stand out due to being there first, like Coinmarketcap , some cover a large variety of exchanges like FXEmpire.com and some have an innovative design like Cryptimi. Risk & Reward As is the case with any of the cryptocurrencies, a balanced risk and reward strategy is advised. There is significant volatility in the market place. While the majors are well below their all-time highs, the threat of heightened government oversight and material shift in the regulatory landscape remains. Some cryptos are likely to be affected more than others. For instance, the pending SEC decisions on the Bitcoin ETFs could go in favor of Bitcoin and drive demand. For Bitcoin, there is also next year’s halving event to factor in. SEC approvals ahead of the predicted 24 th May 202 halving event would be quite a boon for Bitcoin holders. Protecting the downside is key, however, for those not in it for the long haul. Monitoring volumes and the news wires are key for any investor holding a cryptocurrency or token. There remains an unpredictability to the crypto market that delivers the volumes and sizeable gains and losses. The news wires certainly contribute to the swings. In Summary Adoption and listing on global exchanges continue to be the key drivers for the broader market. There are a number of scenarios, however, that would favor some of the top 20 more than others. Bitcoin, UNUS SED LEO, Ripple’s XRP and Binance Coin certainly stand out. For those looking to go beyond the top 20, exchanges listings is the play. This article was originally posted on FX Empire More From FXEMPIRE: U.S. Dollar Index Futures (DX) Technical Analysis – Driven Higher by Increased Demand for Higher-Yielding Assets The Crypto Top 20 – Who Looks Good? Soybeans Extend Gains, Wheat Down but Signaling a Bullish Recovery Dollar Edges Higher Following Q2 US GDP Release The U.S. Market Rebounds, China Soothes Trade Fears, Recession Fears Linger GBP/USD Price Forecast – British pound continues to consolidate || At Devcon, Bitcoin Developer Amir Taaki Foresees a ‘DarkTech Renaissance’: Nobody in the cryptocurrency space is thinking big enough.
That was the message from bitcoin developer and formerKurdish YPGmilitia member Amir Taaki at Devcon 5, the annual ethereum developer conference hosted this year in Osaka, Japan.
“I hear people talking about decentralized derivatives and mortgages,” Taaki said to an enraptured audience of hundreds on Friday. “Why are we not thinking about how to create dark finance tools we can leverage against government bonds?”
Related:‘Members’ of OpenLibra Disavow Project Days After Its Devcon Unveiling
“We can crash national economies,” he said, adding:
“You see the crypto nouveau riche buying yachts and lambos [but] no one is thinking about what we can do on a big scale.”
For Taaki, who spent 2015 to 2018in war-torn Syriafighting terrorist group ISIS, deploying cryptocurrencies on a national and even international scale has been top of mind.
“[In Syria,] I was in charge of technology projects for a region of about 5 million people. This was a great opportunity to deploy crypto on a massive scale … but most people weren’t interested,” Taaki said.
Related:Draper-Backed Startup Launches .Crypto Domains on Ethereum
Taaki recounted approaching both ethereum creator Vitalik Buterin and Parity Technologies founder Gavin Wood for financial support.
Buterin’s response to Taaki’s ask of a $25,000 donation to fund his Syrian initiatives was ambiguous, according to Taaki. Taaki said Wood suggested he apply for funding through an official grants program.
Viewing the grants process as cumbersome and “bureaucratic,” Taaki seemed to take personal offense at the responses and called out the two on the Devcon stage for having “low social intelligence.”
Both Buterin and Wood were contacted to confirm this story though neither has responded as of press time. We will update the piece if we hear back.
“It’s hard to get donations from people to support something that’s strategically important to cryptocurrencies as a whole,” Taaki said, adding:
“It’s a problem that everything now is built off of personality and celebrity culture. … This is going to destroy our effectiveness as a movement.”
Taaki’s words resonated with many at the conference.
“I think he tries to keep the dream real,” said Santiago Siri, founder of Democracy Earth, a Y Combinator-backed nonprofit building digital governance technology. “I’m legitimately inspired by the values he stands for in this industry.”
Echoing that sentiment, Ann Brody, a Ph.D. student studying ethereum at McGill Universitytweeted:
“We need philosophical education to build a new system to serve the greater good via blockchain. We need to reinvent the hacker image. Thank you Amir.”
To Siri, the biggest takeaway from Taaki’s talk was the need to refocus on “how to become a superpower.” That is, how to advance cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology into becoming a force worth reckoning with.
“It can really be a rival to the internet in our civilization,” Siri told CoinDesk in an interview following Taaki’s talk. “It’s clearly not just a cultural change. It can also be a profound institutional change to our political order.”
But to do this, the industry needs to embrace its political side, according to Siri, and think more globally.
Siri highlighted initiatives such as the recently announced1 Million Devsproject as a welcome step in the right direction.
Announced at Devcon by ethereum co-founder Joseph Lubin (who also heads ethereum venture studio ConsenSys), the 1 Million Devs project seeks to educate traditional web developers about the promise of blockchain technology.
Education, Taaki agrees, is key.
“It can’t just be education about the technology. It also has to also be a philosophical education,” Taaki said, adding:
“There needs to be a change on a big scale for cryptocurrency to realize its big potential. … We have to train not just hackers, but leaders.”
Amir Taaki speaks at Devcon 5, image by Christine Kim for CoinDesk
• Australia’s Gold Mint Is Backing a Crypto Token Based on Ethereum
• Why French Lender SocGen Issued a $110 Million Ethereum Bond to Itself || Venezuelan Migrants Are Using Bitcoin for Remittances, But Theres a Catch: In 2018, Deimer González packed his college diploma, clothes and a mobile wallet with 1.5 BTC in savings and left Venezuela. What unfolded throughout 2019 offers a microcosm for Venezuelan bitcoin users around the world. As a mechanical engineer from Caracas, formerly employed by Venezuelas state-owned oil and natural gas company (PDVSA), González told CoinDesk that those very same savings allowed him to support his parents as he started to build a new life in Buenos Aires, Argentina. I was always able to send money back thanks to my savings, sparing my wages in pesos, he said. Related: Venezuelas Maduro Mandates Petro Use in Funding of Housing Project With an estimated $3.7 billion in remittances sent in 2019, money from abroad is an increasingly large source of income for Venezuelan families. As such, bitcoin and cryptocurrencies have assumed a larger role in facilitating cross-border transactions. Additionally, migrants are using crypto during the relocation process itself, since its often hard for jobless immigrants to access financial services in their new countries. Such is the case with Wolfang Barrios, a trader from Caracas who told CoinDesk about his experience arriving in Chile without savings in the local currency. Said Barrios: I didnt have a stable job, enough money or a bank account. I could send the remittances only using crypto. Related: Mastercard, R3 to Develop Blockchain Cross-Border Payments Platform Plus, supporting a family in Venezuela isnt easy, even with dollars. In May, Venezuelan economist Luis Oliveros placed the cost of living in the country as high as $900 a month for a family of five, with a basic food basket costing roughly $300 a month. For context, the minimum wage in Venezuela is currently equivalent to $15 a month , though economists suspect this rate wont last long. In Gonzálezs case, neither his prior $5 monthly wage as a PDVSA worker nor his bitcoin remittances alone offer enough to support his family. Story continues Now I send $50 [worth of bitcoin] and its still nothing, he said, adding that both his parents currently must work to sustain themselves, without further plans to move out of Venezuela. The remittance business Perhaps because of all these challenges, crypto-remittance businesses could start to bloom in Venezuela. One such entrepreneur, who asked to be identified only by his first name Jesús, works for the Peru-Venezuela remittance platform Local Remesas. We receive between $200,000 and $300,000 a month, he said, explaining how the platform currently trades pesos for bitcoin, to be later exchanged for bolivares in Venezuela. As it turns out, niche fiat-to-crypto payment processing is a lucrative business in Venezuela. According to Perus Migrations and Immigrations Police, the country is the second choice for Venezuelan immigrants, with over 865,000 arrivals to date. Even Nicolás Maduros government recently launched its own remittances platform , which uses the blockchain-based Petro (PTR). As for Jesús, he said the trick to exchanging at the best rate is to use direct contacts: LocalBitcoins is about 3 percent more expensive than using my own contacts. Heres the catch However, for many of these bitcoin users, crypto payments are merely a last resort. A daily inflation rate of 3 percent and the constant devaluation of the bolivar has made the exchange of bitcoin very useful for those living in Venezuela. But elsewhere in Latin America, some bitcoin users prefer to use fiat as soon as the situation is tenable. Mariluna De La Concha, a Venezuelan crypto advocate living in México, told CoinDesk that she sent remittances in crypto to her family from 2016 until early 2019. Now she only sends pesos to her mother. Its not convenient to exchange crypto, she said. In Venezuela it has good value due to inflation, but its very expensive for me from here. Her choice to use those expensive-but-compliant exchange platforms was also a matter of safety. Cases of fraud have been reported anonymously in Venezuelan private chats, where American bank accounts of Venezuelan users get reported and blocked after a transaction. An anonymous source told CoinDesk theres even the suspicion that exchange platforms transactions are being tracked by government police to extort bitcoin users. For González, the mechanical engineer who fled in 2018, the situation has prompted him to switch to sending more fiat currency back home. Said González: Im more of a [bitcoin] holder now. Venezuelan Bolivar image via Shutterstock Related Stories Venezuelan Pharmacy Chain to Accept Cryptocurrency Payments PundiXs Crypto Cash Registers Will Be Installed in 49 Retail Stores Across Venezuela || Energy Sector ETFs Rally as New Saudi Minister Maintains Production Cuts: This article was originally published on ETFTrends.com. While the rest of the market was stuck in sideways action, energy sector-related exchange traded funds led the charge Monday on rising oil prices in response to Saudi Arabia energy minister's confirmation that there will be no major change to the kingdom's oil policy. Among the best performing non-leveraged ETFs of Monday, the SPDR Oil & Gas Equipment & Services ETF ( XES ) surged 5.4%, VanEck Vectors Oil Service ETF ( OIH ) jumped 5.6% and iShares U.S. Oil Equipment & Services ETF ( IEZ ) increased 5.0%. Meanwhile, the broader Energy Select Sector SPDR ( XLE ) , the largest equity-based energy exchange traded fund, gained 1.7%. The new Saudi energy minister, Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman, confirmed market expectations that there will be no changes in the countrys oil policy, committing to the current output cuts as a way to stabilize prices, Reuters reports. The move is bullish for oil prices, Phil Flynn, an analyst at Price Futures Group, said in a note. Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman is known as an oil production cutter. He has been instrumental in securing production cuts in the past. Saudi Arabias main policy won't change Prince Abdulaziz said Saudi Arabias main policy would not change and it will maintain the global deal to cut oil production by 1.2 million barrels per day. The oil carter has been cutting production in an attempt to ease a global oil glut that has pressured crude prices. He also added that the so-called OPEC+ alliance between OPEC and non-member countries like Russia will continue their partnership for a long time. I expect no deviation from Saudi policy. If anything, maybe more of a push in the direction of getting inventories down and getting the market into shape for the (Aramco) IPO, Robert Ryan, Chief Energy Strategist at BCA research, told Reuters. Related: Oil Prices Jump on Third Straight Week of Inventory Declines Oil prices also found support from data on rising oil imports in China over August. Shipments to the world's biggest importer increased 3% from July and nearly 10% higher over the first eight months of 2019 year-over-year. Story continues For more information on the energy sector, visit our energy category . POPULAR ARTICLES AND RESOURCES FROM ETFTRENDS.COM SPY ETF Quote VOO ETF Quote QQQ ETF Quote VTI ETF Quote JNUG ETF Quote Top 34 Gold ETFs Top 34 Oil ETFs Top 57 Financials ETFs Heated Tobacco May Replace Vaping Amidst Consumer Issues VanEck And SolidX Take First Steps For Bitcoin-Related ETF Approvals Could Inverse ETFs Thrive In September? Social Media Stock SNAP Gets An Upgrade Gold, Precious Metals ETFs Surge on Geopolitical Uncertainty READ MORE AT ETFTRENDS.COM > || Ex-CFTC Chair ‘Crypto Dad’ Giancarlo Joins Digital Chamber Trade Group: “Crypto Dad” just can’t stay away. Former Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) chairman J. Christopher Giancarlo has joined the advisory board to the Chamber of Digital Commerce , a trade group focused on blockchain and crypto policy in the U.S. Giancarlo helmed the CFTC for two years, following a three-year stint as a commissioner with the agency. Under his watch, the CFTC allowed the first bitcoin futures products to enter the space. Related: Derivatives Drama: The Unintended Consequences of Crypto Regulation Most famously, Giancarlo told the U.S. Senate Banking Committee that, in his view, “‘ do no harm ‘ is the right overarching approach” for the blockchain space. His recommended approach earned him the nickname “Crypto Dad” from the community, a moniker he has embraced . In a statement Tuesday, he said “the Chamber is at the epicenter of this emerging field of technology that can only be described as a movement,” adding: “I’m looking forward to joining this group of advisory board leaders, from many fields and areas of expertise, whom are already working to promote the adoption of this transformative technology. It is my hope that together we can streamline and modernize the regulatory environment and encourage further blockchain innovation.” Perianne Boring, the Chamber’s founder and president, said in a statement that Giancarlo would add his “substantial knowledge” to the group’s board, citing his experience with the financial markets and his past efforts in “encouraging advancements in technology.” Related: Senior CFTC Official Who Set Bitcoin Futures Policy Is Leaving: Report “We are entering a new phase of blockchain advocacy,” she told CoinDesk. “As the world’s leaders are convening to discuss the future of the international financial and monetary system, crypto and blockchain are increasingly playing a key role in these discussions. Chris Giancarlo’s valuable expertise will be critical as we continue to move the industry forward.” The Chamber, founded in 2014 , recently celebrated its fifth birthday by inviting its members to meet with members of Congress and Congressional staffers to educate lawmakers about the potential uses and benefits of the technology. In February, the group called on the U.S. government to develop a national framework for blockchain and cryptocurrency legislation. The U.S. risks falling behind other nations if it does not, Boring has said in the past. Since leaving the CFTC, Giancarlo has also joined the board of directors to the American Financial Exchange, an electronic interbank lending system. Story continues Christopher Giancarlo photo by Nikhilesh De for CoinDesk Related Stories The CFTC Fintech Chief Who Oversaw Early Blockchain Trials Is Leaving What Happened: Why the First Physical Bitcoin Futures Haven’t Launched View comments || Sinochem unit discussing blockchain platform with Shell, Macquarie - sources: By Chen Aizhu
SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Sinochem Energy Technology Co Ltd, a subsidiary of state oil and chemicals firm Sinochem Group, is in talks with Royal Dutch Shell and Macquarie Group to build an energy blockchain platform, three Beijing-based industry sources said.
Shell and Macquarie entered a memorandum of understanding in July to explore building a blockchain platform for crude oil, one of the Sinochem unit's incubator projects with growth potential, said one of the sources who has direct knowledge of the matter.
Under the MOU, companies also agreed to study the possibility of investing in the firm itself.
Shell and Macquarie both declined to comment. Sinochem's press office did not respond to a request for comment.
The digital platform, named Gateway, is valued by Sinochem Energy Technology at 100 million yuan ($14.10 million), the source said.
If discussions come to fruition, it could bolster the prospects of the Sinochem technology unit which has floundered since its launch two years ago with heavy spending but little revenue
"Sinochem group has set an internal deadline for the technology firm to bring in strategic investors by the end of September, or the latest October, because the firm is in deep loss," said the source.
The technology firm was created in August 2017 with a registered capital of 1 billion yuan to aid a planned $2 billion partial privatisation of Sinochem's traditional energy business which was shelved late last year due to poor market reception.
Sinochem has ploughed in over 600 million yuan into Sinochem Energy Technology, which has cut its staff by half from its peak of 1,000 workers, said the first source and a separate industry official with knowledge of the matter.
Gateway will use blockchain, the computer and cryptological technology behind the cryptocurrency Bitcoin, to reduce trade and settlement inefficiencies, improve transparency and reduce the risk of fraud.
Sinochem Technology is emulating Vakt, the world's first active digital platform for energy trading. That was created by a consortium including oil majors BP, Shell, Norway's Equinor, and trading houses Mercuria Energy Group, Koch Supply and Trading and Gunvor.
Separately, at the group level, Sinochem is also engaging PetroChina Co and COSCO Shipping Energy Transportation Co Ltd, a unit of COSCO Shipping, for investing in Gateway, the sources said.
($1 = 7.0928 Chinese yuan renminbi)
(Additional reporting by Paulina Duran in Sydney; editing by Christian Schmollinger) || Bitcoin Cash ABC, Litecoin and Ripple Daily Analysis 16/09/19: Bitcoin Cash ABC Holds onto $300 Bitcoin Cash ABC fell by 0.88% on Sunday. Partially reversing a 2.15% rise from Saturday, Bitcoin Cash ABC ended the week down 0.88% at $302.3. A bullish start to the day saw Bitcoin Cash ABC rise to an early morning intraday high $307 before easing back. Falling short of the first major resistance level at $308.79, Bitcoin Cash ABC eased back to a mid-day low $302.49. Steering clear of the major support levels, Bitcoin Cash ABC recovered to $306 levels before sliding back to a late intraday low $302.0. In spite of the pullback, Bitcoin Cash ABC steered clear of sub-$300 levels and the first major support level at $297.03. At the time of writing, Bitcoin Cash ABC was up by 0.93% to $305.12. A bullish start to the day saw Bitcoin Cash ABC rise from an early morning low $303.33 to a high $305.12. Bitcoin Cash ABC left the major support and resistance levels untested early on. For the day ahead, Bitcoin Cash ABC would need to steer clear of sub-$304 levels to support another run at the first major resistance level at $305.53. Bitcoin Cash ABC would need the support of the broader market, however, to take a run at Sundays high $307. Barring an extended rally, Bitcoin Cash ABC would likely come up short of the second major resistance level at $308.77. Failure to steer clear of sub-$304 levels could see Bitcoin Cash ABC test the first major support level at $300.53 before any recovery. Barring a crypto meltdown, Bitcoin Cash ABC should steer clear of the second major support level at $298.77. Litecoin Makes a Move Litecoin fell by 0.71% on Sunday. Partially reversing a 2.2% decline from Saturday, Litecoin ended the week down 0.44% at $70.14. A bullish start to the day saw Litecoin strike an early morning intraday high $71.47 before pulling back. Falling short of the first major resistance level at $71.95, Litecoin fell to an early afternoon intraday low $69.71. Steering clear of the first major support level at $68.80, Litecoin recovered to $70 levels late on to limit the downside on the day. Story continues At the time of writing, Litecoin was up by 2.65% to $72.0. A particularly bullish start to the day saw Litecoin rally from an early morning low $70.08 to a high $72.06. Litecoin broke through the first major resistance level at $71.17 to come within range of the second major resistance level at $72.20. For the day ahead, holding above the first major resistance level would bring the second major resistance level back into play. Litecoin would need the support of the broader market, however, to break out from the second major resistance level at $72.2. In the event of an extended crypto rally, the third major resistance level at $73.96 would likely come into play. Failure to hold above the first major resistance level could see Litecoin give up the morning gains. A fall through to $70.40 levels would bring the first major support level at $69.41 into play. Barring a crypto meltdown, Litecoin should steer clear of sub-$69 support levels on the day. Ripples XRP Finds Support Ripples XRP fell by 0.56% on Sunday. Partially reversing a 2.34% gain from Saturday, Ripples XRP ended the week down 0.63% at $0.26114. A mixed start to the day saw Ripples XRP fall to an early morning low $0.26181 before striking a late morning intraday high $0.2650. Falling short of the first major resistance level at $0.2675, Ripples XRP slid to a late afternoon intraday low $0.25915. In spite of the pullback, Ripples XRP steered clear of the first major support level at $0.2561. Finding support from the broader market, Ripples XRP moved back through to $0.26 levels late on. At the time of writing, Ripples XRP was up by 1.01% to $0.26378. Tracking the broader market, Ripples XRP rose from an early morning low $0.26099 to a high $0.2640. Steering clear of the major support levels, Ripples XRP came within range of the first major resistance level at $0.2644. For the day ahead, a breakthrough the first major resistance level would give Ripples XRP a run at the second major resistance level at $0.2676. Ripples XRP would need the support of the broader market, however, to break out from Sundays high $0.2650. Barring an extended rally, the first major resistance level, and Sundays high would likely cap any upside. Failure to break through the first major resistance level could see Ripples XRP come under pressure. A fall through the morning low $0.26099 would bring the first major support level at $0.2585 into play. Barring a crypto meltdown, Ripples XRP should steer clear of the second major support level at $0.2559. Please let us know what you think in the comments below Thanks, Bob This article was originally posted on FX Empire More From FXEMPIRE: Crude Called $5 to $10 Higher After Drones Attack Saudi Crude Facilities The Yen and Loonie Rally, with Boris Johnson and the GBP in Focus Later EOS & Ethereum Daily Tech Analysis 16/09/19 U.S Mortgage Rates Rise as Geopolitical Risk Abates Crude Oil Price Update Inside Major Retracement Zone at $59.29 to $62.64 as Investors Await Repair Updates NZD/USD Forex Technical Analysis Trader Reaction to .6357 .6336 Will Determine Near-Term Direction
[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
If I was to sell @OPENDIME s one by one, would you buy them and at what price? || https://t.co/rhZxn4e6UA is for sale on @flippa! https://t.co/xf0bHPMitU #flippa #crypto #bitcoin #btc #ltc #altcoins #sale #website #onlinebusiness #business #makemoneyonline #makemoney #money #etc #ethereum #turnkeybusiness #fintech #cryptocurrency #cryptocurrencies #digital || Liquidated 💥 long on BTC/F0:USTF0 0.57011546 @ 10065 (entry 10470) | 230.76 lost | Executed || The latest The Bitcoin Daily! https://t.co/Lqs6Lg6y33 Thanks to @TriacontaEN @alexandresaiz #october1st #cryptocurrencies || @Rhythmtrader Paying to keep your money, #bitcoin does not do this instead. || I like .@morningjoe because it's ethical pontifications with commercials for super-unethical sponsors like Deal Dash and bitcoin investments. || system maintenance. || Cryptocurrency exchange https://t.co/syuYgEQ6zJ added #Cardano #ADA Users of the platform are now able to trade: ADA/BTC ADA/USD ADA/ETH || We hit our goal for the @t3mpoz coaching giveaway! Starting it now, winner will be drawn at the daily close today (#bitcoin daily, not US market close). Good luck! https://t.co/Fze1Jdov5e #xbt || Bitcoin hodl club
Total Members : 13
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|
Trend: up || Prices: 8078.20, 7514.67, 7493.49, 8660.70, 9244.97, 9551.71, 9256.15, 9427.69, 9205.73, 9199.58
|
Analyze the provided historical prices, technical indicators, news, and social media sentiment from the last 60 days. Based on this context, predict the overall trend (up, down, or no change) and the specific daily closing prices for Bitcoin for the next 10 days.
|
[Technical Analysis]
Not fully available.
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
Bitcoin Cash – ABC, Litecoin and Ripple Daily Analysis – 01/10/19: Bitcoin Cash ABC rallied by 3.6% on Monday. Reversing a 3.56% slide from Sunday, Bitcoin Cash ABC ended the month down by 19.07% at $225.63.
A bearish start to the day saw Bitcoin Cash ABC slide to an early morning intraday low $212.37.
Steering clear of the first major support level at $211.72, Bitcoin Cash ABC rallied to a late afternoon intraday high $230.43.
Bitcoin Cash ABC broke through the first major resistance level at $225.83 before a late fall back to sub-$230 to limit the upside on the day.
At the time of writing, Bitcoin Cash ABC was up by 0.18% to $226.03. Through the early morning, Bitcoin Cash ABC rose to a morning high $226.03 to buck the trend early on.
Bitcoin Cash ABC left the major support and resistance levels untested.
For the day ahead, Bitcoin Cash ABC would need to steer clear of sub-$223 levels to support another bullish day ahead.
A move back through Monday’s high $230.43 would bring the first major resistance level at $233.25 into play.
Support from the broader market would be needed, however, for Bitcoin Cash ABC to break out from $230.
Barring a broad-based crypto rally, resistance at $230 would likely pin Bitcoin Cash ABC back in the day.
Failure to steer clear of sub-$223 levels could see Bitcoin Cash ABC test the first major support level at $215.19.
Barring a crypto meltdown, however, Bitcoin Cash ABC should steer clear of sub-$210 support levels on the day.
Litecoin rallied by 4.06% on Monday. Reversing a 2.92% slide from Sunday, Litecoin ended the month down 12.81% at $56.09.
Bearish through the early hours, Litecoin slid to an early morning intraday low $52.51 before finding support.
Steering clear of the first major support level at $52.17, Litecoin rallied to a late afternoon intraday high $56.45.
Litecoin broke through the first major resistance level at $55.65 before falling back to $55.1 levels.
A bullish end to the day, however, saw Litecoin break back through and hold above the first major resistance level.
At the time of writing, Litecoin was down by 0.91% to $55.58. A bearish start to the day saw Litecoin fall from an early morning high $56.2 to a low $55.42.
Litecoin left the major support and resistance levels untested early.
For the day ahead, a move back through to $56 levels would bring the first major resistance level at $57.52 into play.
Litecoin would need the support of the broader market, however, to break out from Monday’s high $56.45.
Barring a broad-based crypto rebound, we would expect resistance at $56 to pin Litecoin back on the day.
Failure to move back through to $56 levels could see Litecoin fall deeper into the red. A fall through to $54 levels would bring the first major support level at $53.58 into play before any recovery.
Barring a crypto meltdown, however, Litecoin should steer clear of sub-$52 support levels on the day.
Ripple’s XRP rallied by 7.08% on Monday. Reversing a 0.81% decline from Sunday, Ripple’s XRP ended the month down 0.14% at $0.25826.
Tracking the broader market, Ripple’s XRP slid to an early morning intraday low $0.2362 before making its move.
Finding support at the first major support level at $0.2361, Ripple’s XRP rallied to a mid-day intraday high $0.2630.
Ripple’s XRP broke through the day’s major resistance levels before falling back to an afternoon low $0.25125.
The afternoon pullback saw Ripple’s XRP fall back through the third major resistance level at $0.2573.
Whilst avoiding a fall back through to $0.24 levels, the third major resistance level pinned Ripple’s XRP back at the day end.
At the time of writing, Ripple’s XRP was down by 0.57% to $0.25678. A mixed start to the day saw Ripple’s XRP fall from an early morning high $0.25842 to a low $0.25391 before finding support.
Ripple’s XRP left the major support and resistance levels untested early on.
For the day ahead, Ripple’s XRP would need to move back through to $0.26 levels to support a run at the first major resistance level at $0.2688.
Ripple’s XRP would need support from the broader market, however, to break through Monday’s high $0.2630.
Barring another broad-based crypto rally, Monday’s high $0.2630 would likely cap the upside on the day.
Failure to move back through to $0.26 levels could see Ripple’s XRP struggle through the day.
A fall through to $0.2520 levels would bring the first major support level at $0.2420 into play before any recovery.
Barring an extended sell-off through the day, Ripple’s XRP should steer clear of sub-$0.23 support levels.
Please let us know what you think in the comments below
Thanks, Bob
Thisarticlewas originally posted on FX Empire
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• US Stock Market Overview – Stocks Rise, Finishing the Month up 2%, Utilities Drive Gains || Brazil and South America lead the way on LocalBitcoins: Mass cryptocurrency adoption can only take place if regular people feel it is safe, easy, and beneficial to join the space. Without a shift in mentality, I doubt institutional investors alone will be able to drive worldwide adoption. Much like what happened with computers or the internet, without people to create valuable network effects like art, content, trading, advertising, and so on there is little chance cryptocurrency prices will explode. Therefore, we should praise countries leading the way in cryptocurrency adoption. Over the course of 2019, South America has seen a huge boost in cryptocurrency adoption, with Brazil particularly seeing a substantial rise in crypto users. Crypto adoption on the rise in South America The rise of cryptocurrency adoption in South America can be seen quite clearly with the growing number of users on prominent P2P Bitcoin trading website LocalBitcoins. LocalBitcoins yearly volume by region, courtesy of UsefulTulips Looking at the world chart above, we can easily see which region was most responsible for bringing positive volume to the cryptocurrency space over the past year. South America is showing a 15% rise in volume traded on LocalBitcoins much higher than anywhere else on the globe. This means unlike North America, Europe, Asia, or Oceania, South American populations in countries like Brazil, Argentina, and Venezuela have been pumping way more money in than out. In fact, theres plenty of additional evidence that South and Central America have been buying into Bitcoin much more than any other region. LocalBitcoins yearly volume by region, courtesy of UsefulTulips Even though the graph above suggests Europe is the region where most people are acquiring Bitcoin, by comparing how much money went in to crypto vs how much came out, we clearly reach the conclusion that thats not entirely true. South America has a positive balance of over $200 million, while Europe remains flat. In addition, all other regions have shown negative trends over the past year, since more people are converting Bitcoin into USD than the other way around. Will South America be the next crypto-hub? Earlier this week, Coin Rivet reported on how Brazilian courts are chasing down alleged Bitcoin pyramid scams. Coin Rivet has also recently reported on how the Brazilian central bank and regulators are keen on more people using crypto, simply because additional taxes can be collected. Even though people may think corruption is a major hurdle and bottleneck for adoption, I argue crypto will help change this behaviour. For one, it requires people to have low time preferences. Secondly, after people learn not your keys, not your Bitcoin, theyll transfer their Bitcoin into their own private wallets. Story continues Bitcoin will empower people as it gives anyone a tool to independently be their own bank and settlement provider. As fiat currencies lose purchasing power against Bitcoin, more and more people will hodl as much as possible. LocalBitcoins historical volume by region, courtesy of UsefulTulips Looking at the chart above, it seems the path to adoption has been laid out. How will government-backed fiat currencies compete with Bitcoin? I personally dont think governments will try to compete with BTC in the long term. As peoples preferred method of transferring value shifts towards hard-money and enhanced security technology, I argue governments will ride the trend by accepting Bitcoin, using it as a standard and even promoting the use of Bitcoin among populations. Why would you try to compete with a digital asset that empowers your population with minimal effort? Instead, well see better policies around the use of cryptocurrency, much like Brazil has been pushing for recently . The post Brazil and South America lead the way on LocalBitcoins appeared first on Coin Rivet . View comments || Bitcoin holds ground after China voices support for blockchain: By Tom Wilson
LONDON (Reuters) - Bitcoin held ground on Monday near a one-month high scaled over the weekend after China's president Xi Jinping said the world's second biggest economy should accelerate the development of blockchain technology.
Blockchain, a digital ledger that forms the backbone of many cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin, should be the core for innovation in China, Xi said on Thursday.
Bitcoin <BTC=BTSP> surged 24% between Friday and Saturday after Xi's comments, touching $10,350 in its biggest two-day jump since the height of its retail-driven bubble in December 2017. Other major cryptocurrencies including ethereum <ETH=BTSP> and Ripple's XRP <XRP=BTSP> also soared.
In early London trading, bitcoin - the largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization - was down 1.6% at $9,403.
Cryptocurrency exchanges are banned in China, though trading is popular on over-the-counter venues, and Chinese buyers account for major volumes on platforms elsewhere, market players say.
"The positive comments from the Chinese leader will continue to support the broader crypto prices to maintain at current levels, as China remains a major player when it comes to global crypto trading," said Andy Cheung, head of operations of OKEx, a Malta-based exchange popular among Chinese, in an email.
China-based Google searches for bitcoin and blockchain also spiked after Xi's comments, suggesting that the remarks had piqued intense interest in cryptocurrencies.
"There have definitely been more conversations since the weekend," said Anthony Wong of Hong Kong-based crypto investment firm Orichal Partners.
Bitcoin has slumped in recent months as politicians and regulators across the world have criticized Facebook's planned Libra cryptocurrency. It had lost a third since it touched its highest this year in June on hopes that Libra would hasten the mainstream acceptance of virtual coins.
(Reporting by Tom Wilson; Editing by Alison Williams) || Malware uses Bitcoin blockchain to target victims: Cybersecurity firm TrendMicro has discovered a piece of malware that scans the Bitcoinblockchainfor secret instructions that allow the infected computer to be controlled remotely.
Glupteba, firstdiscoveredin 2011 by WeLiveSecurity, is a piece of malware that can be used to hijack someone’s computer in order to steal information or be used to carry out denial of service attacks (where thousands of computers are used to put strain on a website or network causing it to crash). It’s also been used to mineMonero, according to TrendMicro.
The bug hides inside adverts or links that unsuspecting users click on—a practice known as malvertising—and then downloads itself on to the user’s machine. Once there, it then connects to the hacker’s chosen server giving them access to the infected computer. But every now and again, that connection gets disrupted, typically because it gets caught by anti-virus software, which blocks it from connecting it to the server. But more recently Glupteba has mutated, and now uses theBitcoinblockchain to reconnect to the hackers’ server without anti-virus software noticing.
According to TrendMicro, the hacker makes a Bitcoin transaction with a piece of encoded data hidden within one of its functions. Inside the encoded message contains the address for its server—giving the virus a new server location. All the virus has to do is scan the Bitcoin blockchain, identify the transaction and decode the hidden message. Then it can continue doing its evil deeds.
While this isn’t the fault of the Bitcoin blockchain, it’s not the first time it has been used as a way of sharing secret, and frequentlyillegalinformation. || Craig Wright, Shmeg Wright: An argument why Bitcoin SV is the most undervalued asset: [Recently, we were hanging out in a crypto-friendly co-working space in San Francisco,Node, and met a guy named Zach Resnick. A jazz musician and former professional poker player, Resnick is also founder and CEO of flight concierge serviceEasyPoint.me.When we heard that Resnick also happened to be managing director ofNew Economy Fund—which is a major investor in BSV—we couldn't help but ask him whether the recent legaltravailsinvolving BSV frontman Craig Wright had caused him to change his mind. Not at all! Resnick said, and proceeded to lay out a bullish argument for the bitcoin fork's future. It was interesting enough that we asked him to turn it into a piece, which, rendered below, is co-written by the Fund's head of research,Dave Mullen-Muhr. Note: We're publishing this piece because we think the argument is worth airing in light of recent events; it is in no way an endorsement of the views of the authors. ]
If someone were to pay you $10,000 inBTC or BSVat today’s prices to be transferred to your ownership ten years from today, in which asset would you request payment?
From our reading of these technologies and the current landscape, the wise answer here is obvious: BSV.
So why does the market disagree?
This may sound surprising, especially in light of therecent ruling againstCraig Wright in his ongoing case againstIra Kleiman. But, this is precisely why the above heuristic is so important. Why would an intelligent investor care about Wright’s legal history and personal fortune?
What an investor should care about are the fundamentals of the technologies. If one is truly an investor, and not simply a speculator, they ought to broaden their time horizon beyond the purview of 2019 legal battles and Twitter drama. Allowing oneself to become easily distracted by these personalities can only muddle one’s sensemaking. An investor in Amazon equity ought not primarily concern himself with the details of the personal legal history of Jeff Bezos nor the precise terms of his divorce settlement.
So, leaving the Craig Wright saga aside, why would the savvy investorobviouslychoose BSV over BTC?
Incentives.
A paramount incentive to consider is that of the miners. Every four years the amount of BTC mined per block halves, ultimately asymptoting at zero; from 50 to 25 to today’s 12.5 and so on, with the next “halving” coming in May 2020 to bring the BTC block reward down to 6.25 BTC. As the block reward continues to approach zero, miners will depend on transaction fees to pay for energy costs. In BTC, the answer is to make end users pay more. Will ever-increasing fees in the range of (conservatively) $50 to $100 per transaction lead the bitcoin network towards global adoption? Ten years from now, the block reward will be a measly 1.5625 BTC/block, or 12.5% of the current payout. Yikes!
BTC proponent’s only hope is that the asset’s price will continue to double to counteract the halvings in block reward payout. But how long is this exponential growth realistically sustainable?
The looming threat of diminishing miner profitability isn’t some pie-in-the-sky theory thought up by BTC haters. Peter Todd, one of the most influential Bitcoin core developers, recognizes it too. In a perplexingly non-time-sensitive response to this inevitable problem, Todd has begun floating the idea that famously deflationary bitcoin may need some permanent inflation.
Oh well...ten years is far away! His suggestion to disregard bitcoin’s last remaining selling point with its absolute scarcity of 21 million coins might sound crazy today, but Todd correctly identifies that if BTC doesn’t ultimately remove this keystone it “will die.” BTC bulls predict tough times ahead!
Rather than roll the dice and hope that a solution to this catastrophe is found later, BSV is proactively scaling-up the block size and keeping transaction fees low.
That allows developers to build novel ways for users to utilize the blockchain. The approach aims to rebalance miner revenueawayfrom the block rewards andtowardaggregated, but still minuscule, transaction fees. If successful, in ten years when the block reward is at 1.5625 BSV/block, the miners may hardly notice.
BSV also has superior incentives with its emphasis on legal compliance.
Remaining compliant is a lower cost customer-acquisition strategy than antagonizing governments. The near future of BTC’s roadmap, including its prophesied layer-two messiah, the Lightning Network, is actively shifting bitcoin from a pseudonymous system toward an anonymous system.
Anonymous payment networks do not make for a technology that large-scale enterprise and governments will incorporate. Instead, a future anonymous bitcoin would be openly antagonistic to virtually every large (non black/grey market) enterprise and government on Earth. The BTC developers aren’t naively stumbling into this scenario, they are actively provoking it with the assumption that node decentralization will produce a Hydra that governments cannot kill.
BSV, to the contrary, is proactively considering legal compliance at every step. Its proponents want a system that is not subject to political whims of developers and allows both enterprise and governments to make use of its public, immutable, payments and data ledger. Facilitating enterprise adoption is key, both for shifting the mining reward toward transaction revenue and also adding network stakeholders, thus diminishing the likelihood that governments will make network participation illegal.
Ten years from now will BTC be a high-fee payment network for wealthy criminals? Will BSV be a low-fee universal payment and data network with enterprise facilitated, simple UI for the common man?
Neither of these futures depend on Craig Wright’s current popularity or the outcome in a Florida courtroom. In ten years' time, this will likely be all but forgotten by the average investor.
Scaling and attracting entrepreneurs
What these outcomes do depend on is the aims of the respective technologies and their ability to scale and attract more adoption.
For BTC to become a government-resistant, store of value, it will need to attract sufficient capital to counteract its disappearing block reward, while simultaneously removing its primary selling point to early investors. All while defying effective government regulation.
For BSV to become successful it needs to continue to scale and professionalize so that entrepreneurs are attracted to build useful and attractive applications for end-users and governments. That will keep mining profitable in the long run.
While CSW’s legal odyssey distracts most, BSV’s promising fundamentals make it a strong candidate for a speculative buy in the near term. The long term potential of BSV as a future-oriented and robust version of the technology originally promised in BTC makes it a no-brainer for a fundamental buy for the long term, and a necessary hedge for any BTC holder.
If you are, or have been, excited about the promise of bitcoin, you may want todig deeper into BSV, regardless of how CSW fares in this legal case or the next.
This piece was co-written by Zach Resnick, a Managing Partner at theNew Economy Fundand Dave Mullen-Muhr, the fund's head of research. Caveat emptor: Please note that the Fund'slargest position is in BSV. The authors of this piece are not financial advisors and this is not financial advice. Do not invest in speculative assets with money you cannot afford to lose. || Fed Minutes: Members Saw Increased Downside Risks to Economy: A quick read of the Fed minutes from its September meeting showed that some Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) members expressed concern that the financial markets may be expecting more rate cuts than the central bank will deliver.
At its September 17-18 monetary policy meeting, the FOMC approved a quarter-point rate cut, putting the overnight funds rate in a target range of 1.75% to 2%.
The minutes also showed sharp divisions among members about the future path of policy, along with some worry that a market clamoring for easier monetary might be getting ahead of itself. The minutes said that “a few participants” at the September meeting said prices in futures markets “were currently suggesting greater provision of accommodation at coming meetings than they saw as appropriate.”
As of Wednesday’s close, traders were pricing a 93.5% chance of a rate cut at the end of October, following cuts in July and September. The financial markets are also predicting more reductions in 2020.
Because of the potential misunderstanding, “it might become necessary for the Committee to see a better alignment of market expectations regarding the policy rate path with policymakers’ own expectations for that path,” the minutes said.
At its September meeting, Federal Reserve officials began debating how far their current interest-rate cutting campaign should extend, even as they agreed to lower rates in response to growing risks to the U.S. economy.
“Participants generally judged that downside risks to the outlook for economic activity had increased somewhat since their July meeting, particularly those stemming from trade policy uncertainty and conditions abroad.”
Several policymakers wanted the FOMC’s statement to signal the limits of the policy easing that Chairman Jerome Powell characterized in July as a “mid-cycle adjustment.”
“Several participants suggested that the committee’s post-meeting statement should provide more clarity about when the recalibration of the level of the policy rate in response to trade uncertainty would likely come to an end,” the minutes said.
At its last policy meeting, members repeatedly expressed concerns about the impact tariffs were having on business activity. They said that while they saw U.S. growth as generally solid, the forecast risks “were tilted to the downside.”
Several members also noted that statistical models designed to gauge the probability of a recession over the medium term had increased notably in recent months.
“Important factors in that assessment were that international trade tensions and foreign economic developments seemed more likely to move in directions that could have significant negative effects on the U.S. economy than to resolve more favorably than assumed,” the minutes said.
“In addition, softness in business investment and manufacturing so far this year was seen as pointing to the possibility of a more substantial slowing in economic growth than the staff projected. The risks to the inflation projection were also viewed as having a downward skew, in part because of the downside risks to the forecast for economic activity,” the summary continued.
Officials also pointed out that “a clearer picture of protracted weakness in investment spending, manufacturing production, and exports had emerged” and members were also watching the yield curve inversion, a reliable indicator that a recession is ahead.
Thisarticlewas originally posted on FX Empire
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• Bitcoin Cash – ABC, Litecoin and Ripple Daily Analysis – 10/10/19 || What is a blockchain phone? A look at 7 current and upcoming crypto handsets: HTC's announcement of itsnew Exodus S1 blockchain phoneoffered a potentially compelling smartphone for crypto fans to consider. But it's not the company's first such phone, nor is it the only phone of its kind on the market. In fact, the blockchain smartphone niche keeps expanding.
So what exactly is a blockchain phone? Each device varies in terms of tech and capabilities, but they're all designed to put a stronger emphasis on blockchain, crypto, and decentralized applications than your average iPhone or Android handset. The most common feature is enhanced security to protect your cryptocurrency and private keys, while some let you run a full bitcoin node, or even mine crypto from your mobile device.
Blockchain phones are available at a wide variety of price points, but as with anything, you get what you pay for with smartphones—so as all-round devices, the cheaper models won't be anywhere near as capable as the expensive flagship phones are.
Here's a closer look at the HTC Exodus S1 and six other blockchain-centric smartphones vying for your hard-mined crypto.
The latest blockchain phone to hit the market seeks to hit a sweet spot between price and functionality, landing at around $250 depending on currency. Granted, it's a pretty low-end handset, with a 720p display at 5.7", a meager Qualcomm Snapdragon 435 chip onboard, and a 13-megapixel main camera that we'd bet isn't going to deliver sensational snaps.
But for the price, theHTC Exodus 1Skeeps the core functionality of its pricier predecessor, including the Zion Vault and its Trusted Execution Environment (TEE). The TEE activates when signing transactions and temporarily isolates the operating system to protect your data, plus there's a social key recovery feature for letting trusted contacts come together to help you if you lose a key. Plus, you can keep a full Bitcoin node stored on a large-capacity microSD card.
The Exodus 1S is a significantly pared-down version of HTC's original blockchain phone, theExodus 1. It's a much more appealing device overall, with a super-crisp Quad HD+ display at 6", a 2018 flagship-level Snapdragon 845 chip with ample power, a dual-camera setup on the back, and a larger 3,500mAh battery pack to keep things rolling along.
As mentioned, the Zion Vault and Trusted Execution Environment are key parts of the Exodus experience, plus it has access to dozens of dapps via the Opera Dapp store. Curiously, unlike the Exodus 1S, the pricier Exodus 1 can't run a full Bitcoin node as of this writing, although HTC plans to roll out that feature. At $699, it's a full-blooded flagship phone that is priced accordingly.
Samsung's flagship smartphone is easily the most impressiveoveralldevice on this list.The Samsung Galaxy S10has an incredible screen, top-end Android processing power, a sharp triple-camera setup, and a sleek and stylish design. It's one of the best smartphones you can buy right now, and then on top of that, it also offers a robust crypto currency wallet and solid selection of dapps.
The $899 Galaxy S10 didn't launch with Bitcoin support earlier this year, but it has been added since—and you can also wield Ethereum, LEO Token, Chainlink, USD Coin, and dozens more. Meanwhile, the dapp lineup includes games, social media, and finance apps, among others. The Galaxy S10 has its own Trusted Execution Environment, as well, thanks to the Snapdragon 855 processor within.
You might know theKlaytnPhoneby a different name: the Samsung Galaxy Note 10. Samsung's large, stylus-driven smartphone is also available in the company's native South Korea as the KlaytnPhone, a special edition blockchain version releasedin partnership with Kakao.
Kakao is the country's largest mobile services platform, and the KlaytnPhone uses the company's KLAY token. The KlaytnPhone bundles in a handful of blockchain-powered apps and is certainly branded accordingly—but again, this one is only sold in South Korea.
TheSirin Labs Finneylooks like no other smartphone we've seen—and it acts like nothing else, too. The sloping design and atypical angles are certainly distinctive, but the biggest differentiator is initially hidden. It's a cold storage wallet that is a separate chunk of hardware from the core handset, and it slides upward when you need to make a transaction.
Why slide? Because it activates your wallet and reveals a second "Safe Screen" that shows your critical data. It's a one-of-a-kind, although the $999 price point means that you'll have to make a sizable investment to secure this unique handset.
The original Pundi XPhone prototype had a more common design, but the upcomingBlok on Blok(BOB) version is anything but typical. It's a blockchain phone, of course, but it's also a modular phone—which means that you can snap together various attachments. It has latches and dials; it's absolutely wild.
The Snapdragon 660 processor is decidedly mid-range, and even Pundi X suggests that it's a more ideal second phone than a primary one. The Function X platform is an interesting one—Pundi X calls it "backwards compatible" with Android, and you can switch between the two as needed. However, the company says you won't need a central service provider to make calls and access the internet. Very interesting.
TheElectroneum M1is the lowest of the low-end blockchain phones—but it's only $80. That meager sum gets you a functional Android smartphone that doesn’t have any crypto-specific hardware, instead coming pre-loaded with Electroneum’s app (also available forAndroid smartphonesandiPhone). The app lets users tie into ETN's cloud mining service, earning up to $3 per month of the cryptocurrency, which can then be usedto purchase everyday items, including mobile phone top-ups.
The M1’s primarily aimed at users in developing countries, working in conjunction with Electroneum’s soon-to-be-launchedAnyTasksplatform to provide them with a means of accessing the global digital economy.
As an everyday smartphone, the M1 struggles to compete with higher-spec devices—but then, that’s not really what it’s intended for. However, if you're looking for a cheap way to explore mobile mining with a dedicated device, the Electroneum M1 might be a way in. || Crypto Convergence: From Decentralization to Direct Listings: Noelle Acheson is a veteran of company analysis and CoinDesk’s Director of Research. The opinions expressed in this article are the author’s own. The following article originally appeared in Institutional Crypto by CoinDesk, a weekly newsletter focused on institutional investment in crypto assets. Sign up for free here . Ever since U.S. Securities and Exchange (SEC) commissioner William Hinman said last year that a digital asset could start out a security but cease to be one when it was “sufficiently decentralized,” token issuers and investors have been eager for a quantification of what that means. The recent SEC action halting the distribution of Telegram’s TON blockchain tokens may finally have shed light on that – just not in the way we expected. The end result could be a new type of token financing that mirrors an emerging trend seen in traditional markets. Decentralize everything In a speech given in June of 2018 , SEC Commissioner Hinman sought to answer the question: “Can a digital asset that was originally offered in a securities offering ever be later sold in a manner that does not constitute an offering of a security?” In his opinion, the answer was yes. Bitcoin, he explained, “appears to have been decentralized for some time,” and “over time, there may be other sufficiently decentralized networks and systems where regulating the tokens or coins that function on them as securities may not be required.” He used a variant of the word “decentralized” seven times. This use of the word “decentralized” in a regulatory context has worried industry observers. In February of this year, Angela Walch published a compelling paper which highlights the complexity of elevating such an abstract concept to the realm of legal definition. She points out that the term covers both logistical distribution of the nodes and the procedural distribution of governance – and that quantifying either is extremely difficult and somewhat meaningless. Systems, especially decentralized ones, tend to be fluid over time. Story continues It’s almost as if regulators read her paper and sent around a memo because since then, the word has been largely absent from official communications. Not quite Last year, messaging platform Telegram funded the construction of its TON blockchain with a private placement which guaranteed future allocation of Gram tokens, which of course would be decentralized enough to not need to go through a securities registration. The SEC was not convinced. In early October, it filed an injunction against Telegram and a subsidiary to halt the token issuance. The official statement appears to focus on the for-profit intentions of the issuers and original investors, not on the nature of the token itself. Interestingly enough, the word “decentralized” is only mentioned four times in a 31-page document – twice in quotes extracted from the TON marketing materials, and twice as evidence that the issuers never intended for the investors to hold onto and use the tokens: “Indeed, by definition, the TON Blockchain can only become truly decentralized (as contemplated and promoted in the Offering Documents) if Grams holders other than the original Grams purchasers actually stake Grams… Stated differently, if the original Grams purchasers alone all immediately staked their holdings, the TON Blockchain would be centralized rather than decentralized and, therefore, subject to misuse and majority attacks.” [original emphasis] This relative absence of decentralization discussion should not have been a surprise. In March of this year, SEC Chairman Jay Clayton confirmed Commissioner Hinman’s opinion that a digital asset could cease to be a security, depending on the network conditions. While he repeated much of the same phrasing, there was one important difference: he did not use the word “decentralized.” Not once. And earlier this month, the Chairman of the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) officially declared that , in his view, ether was not a security. He didn’t use the word “decentralized,” either. Straight to the source Token issuers that were hoping their digital asset would escape securities requirements through “decentralization” are almost certainly in for a disappointment, as the Telegram action and recent statements show that _intent_ is more of a barometer. SEC Chairman Jay Clayton basically said as much when last year he declared that “every ICO I’ve seen is a security.” Rather than fight this, the sector could embrace the emerging clarity and work with regulators to smooth registration requirements. The current Reg A+ registration process, chosen by some projects as a path to broader and more liquid token distribution than the less onerous but more restrictive Reg D, is slow and expensive. Regulators do adapt with the times – often late, and usually at an excruciatingly slow pace. But that is largely due to structural limitations, not a lack of interest in the potential contribution to the economy of an innovative yet sound financing funnel. Even working within current rules, a new type of distribution method could emerge. As an example of what this could look like, we need look no further than an emerging trend in traditional finance: direct listings. In a direct listing, existing shareholders of a private company release all or some of their holdings for public sale on a designated exchange, at considerably less expense than a traditional IPO. Spotify, the first company to come to market via this method , estimates that it saved about $30 million in bankers’ fees. Imagine that Telegram had registered its Gram tokens as securities and distributed them to initial investors, employees and developers. In a direct listing, existing token holders could sell them on a designated exchange without restriction. While not cheap, it would most likely cost less in time and money than extensive litigation; and costs could come down in line with increasing demand and standardization. It is clear that the legacy IPO market is ripe for innovation, as its stubbornly high costs in spite of waning demand shows. Yet traditional finance moves slowly, and so far only one other high-profile company – Slack – has chosen the direct listing route. Yet Wall Street, no doubt sensing change in the air, seems to be getting behind this evolution. Both Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs have organized direct listings events , the first of their kind, in Silicon Valley this month. A gesture from the SEC and lawmakers in smoothing the direct listing process for token issuers would give a welcome dose of clarity to a sector eager for direction. Crypto finance moves relatively quickly, and a burst of token listing activity would attract attention from traditional players. Investment bankers could end up taking a leaf out of crypto’s playbook, and push for smoother listing regulations on traditional exchanges that encourage participation while protecting investors, thus breathing life back into new public listings. Finance overall would benefit from the emergence of new token-based business models, less reliance on private equity and debt, and more fluid capital markets. We could also start to see a convergence of the new and the old as boundaries and participants start to overlap – then we will definitely be able to say that the crypto ecosystem is reaching a new level of maturity. Gumball machine image via Shutterstock || Online Lender SoFi to Launch Bitcoin and Ethereum Trading Next Week: Online lender SoFi announced its crypto trading platform will go live next Tuesday.
Bitcoin, ethereum and litecoin will be the first digital assets available to trade on its SoFi Invest platform, CEO Anthony Noto toldFortunein an interview published on Wednesday.
With the new platform, SoFi joins a number of digital-first trading firms – including eToro and Robinhood – to enter the crypto market.
Related:Coinbase Considers Listing Telegram, Polkadot Cryptocurrencies Among Others
Noto said cryptocurrency trading option has been long-requested by his firm’s clients. The firm targets millennial investors through its student loan consolidation service.
Coinbase was tapped to provide the firm’s crypto liquidity, as previouslyannouncedin February. The partnership will also allow SoFi customers to track crypto price movements.
The firm states it hopes to become registered in all 50 states within a few months, noting that trading will not be available in New York or New Jersey at launch.
Business miniaturephoto via Shutterstock
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• Coinbase Study Says 56% of Top 50 Universities Have Crypto Classes || Crypto Exchange Binance Awarded ISO Security Accreditation: Binance, the top cryptocurrency exchange by trading volume, says it’s been awarded an information security accreditation after meeting standards set out by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). To meed the internationally recognized ISO/IEC 27001 standard, Binance said, it was audited by Norway based DNV GL, an international accredited registrar and classification society, and the United Kingdom Accreditation Service, a national accreditation body that evaluates firms on a variety of standards. The accreditation makes Binance the “first company in the cryptocurrency industry to be verified by DNV and UKAS,” the firm claimed in an email sent to CoinDesk Tuesday. Related: Bitcoin Lightning Network Specs Pass First ‘Formal’ Security Test For the audits, Binance was examined on 114 criteria across 14 categories, including security policy, asset management, operational security and information systems. Binance CEO Changpeng “CZ” Zhao said in the announcement: “Obtaining the ISO certification is one significant aspect of our security commitment to the industry and our community. We will continue to advance our investment and endeavours in improving cyber security defense.” The accreditation will likely help reassure users after the exchange was hacked for $40.7 million in bitcoin this May. Related: ‘Panda’ Crypto Malware Group Has Nabbed $100K in Monero Since 2018 CZ said at the time that the breach saw malicious actors access user API keys, two-factor authentication codes and “potentially other info,” to access its sytems and withdraw the cryptocurrency. Binance also recently had an apparent leak of up to 60,000 users’ know-your-customer verification data, though it pointed a finger at a third-party service provider at the time. CZ image courtesy Binance Related Stories Binance to Add Fiat-to-Crypto OTC Trading in a Month, Co-Founder Says Binance Is Pitching Its Stablecoin as a Government-Friendly Libra Competitor
[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
XRP đang chiếm hơn 50% tất cả các giao dịch tiền điện tử trong 24 giờ qua https://t.co/bzGHFwHz7O qua @Tôi Yêu Bitcoin || Revenue Operations Analyst - Johnson Service Group ( Mountain View, CA, USA ) - [ ➡ https://t.co/RyO71lolLZ ] #Agile #Scrum #Agile #Kanban #ProjectMangement #jobs #Hiring #Careers #Cryptocurrency #Blockchain #BTC https://t.co/vAd8c1RtlQ || New episode from "The Bitcoin Podcast Network": The Bitcoin Podcast #278: Benny Giang -- Cheeze Wizards https://t.co/PU7Nlvzl9q || @BestVideosviral https://t.co/rOp0OZWFLh || @PeterSchiff Peter! Your a bitcoin hater but I love you anyway so many other good ideas and strong defiance of institutional destruction! Stop chilling your gold however it’s annoying || Gita Gopinath, economista jefa del FMI: “El crecimiento ec..
@Bitcoinincoins - @InvestCrypForex - el_pais - Twitter - News - Noticias - Bitcoin - CryptoCurrency - Forex https://t.co/pv5RfVQVSy || https://t.co/vVRKHO8Mgk Looking Grim, Bitcoin Lingers Above $8,000 Mark
Sunday, Sept. 27 — All of the top-20 cryptocurrencies by market cap continue to struggle following the sudden nosedive on Tuesday, Sept. 24.
[Source: cointelegraph] ✩✩✩✩
https://t.co/NlIdOXqfug || https://t.co/IYmXBHtVST #bitcoin #Startups #tokyo #iot #avcj #baltimore #cryptocurrency #honolulu #mexico #austin #seattle #blockchain #entrepreneurs #detroit #icoalert #ethereum #perth #chille #atlanta #technews #chicago #adelaide #softbank #stlouis #brazil #saltlakecity #omaha || Concierge - Kent Services ( New York, NY, USA ) - [ 📋 More Info https://t.co/BQwqkQXpvn ] #tech #jobs #Hiring #Careers #NewYork #NY #Cryptocurrency #Blockchain #BTC #BitCoin #ETH #crypto https://t.co/tZCYvGTAKw || 今日の予定
BTC見守る
バックトレード(煮詰まりに注目)
御堂組
月足、週足同時に確定したので来週の注目銘柄選定、値動きを数パターン予想
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Trend: down || Prices: 9235.35, 9412.61, 9342.53, 9360.88, 9267.56, 8804.88, 8813.58, 9055.53, 8757.79, 8815.66
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Analyze the provided historical prices, technical indicators, news, and social media sentiment from the last 60 days. Based on this context, predict the overall trend (up, down, or no change) and the specific daily closing prices for Bitcoin for the next 10 days.
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[Technical Analysis for 2022-09-30]
BTC Price: 19431.79, BTC RSI: 46.41
Gold Price: 1662.40, Gold RSI: 42.29
Oil Price: 79.49, Oil RSI: 39.13
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
Federal Reserve to Act 'Forthrightly, Strongly' Until Inflation 'Job Is Done,' Powell Says: U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell made his urgent message strong and clear about the central bank's mission to quickly bring down inflation. "It is very much our view, and my view, that we need to act now, forthrightly, strongly, as we have been doing," Powell said during a question and answer session at the Washington, D.C.-based Cato Institute. His remarks were made Thursday, the same day the European Central Bank (ECB) hiked its benchmark interest rate by 75 basis points – the largest such move in its history. Amid all the news, bitcoin ( BTC ) remains near multi-year lows, currently trading at $19,200. In the U.S. “the clock is ticking” on inflation, forcing the Fed to act quickly, Powell said. The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), the Fed's rate-setting body, next meets Sept. 20-21 and – following a string of hawkish remarks over the past couple of weeks – is widely expected to lift its benchmark Fed funds rate by another 75 basis points. “The longer inflation remains well above target, the greater the risk the public does begin to see higher inflation as the norm,” Powell said. As with his speech at the Fed’s annual economic symposium in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, last week, Powell took note of the “several failed attempts” by the 1970s Fed to cool inflation. Then-Chairman Paul Volcker finally took action to push for a rise in interest rates to extreme levels, thus pushing the U.S. into a difficult recession. Powell said it’s his hope today’s Fed can calm inflation without causing that kind of social cost. Similar to remarks on Wednesday by Fed Vice Chair Lael Brainard , Powell stressed that restoring price stability will take time and cause some pain to the labor market and to households. It’s important, he said, not to claim victory over prices too soon. “History cautions strongly against prematurely loosening policy,” said Powell. “I can assure you that my colleagues and I are strongly committed to this project and we will keep at it until the job is done.” Story continues While most of the questions asked by Cato President Peter Goettler focused on monetary policymaking, Goettler also challenged the Fed chair on cryptocurrency issues, specifically stablecoins. Read more: Crypto Doesn't Need More Guidance, SEC Chair Gensler Says Powell appeared to take a dim view of unbacked crypto assets, noting they’re not a great store of value and the public has little interest in using them for payments. As for stablecoins, Powell stressed the need for proper regulation if these are to have the properties of money such as clarity, transparency and full reserves. “I don't think you want to take money and make it into just another consumer product where sometimes it fails and sometimes it's good,” he said. Powell’s comments on crypto were closely in line with remarks made Wednesday by Fed Vice Chair for Supervision Michael Barr in which he stressed the importance of greater regulatory oversight for crypto activities. Read more: Fed Vice Chair Brainard Calls for Crypto-Specific Regulations, Notes Stablecoin Risks || US Inflation Data Could Test Bitcoin’s Rally: The U.S. consumer price index report is expected to show slower inflation in August, which is one of the reasons why the price of bitcoin (BTC) has been rising since Friday.
But the new data could show that while price pressures are cooling, they are still too hot for Federal Reserve officials to ease off on tightening monetary policy.
“August inflation gauges will likely be very soft, but that won’t change the bottom line," economists at Bloombergwrote. "The ‘totality’ of the data that Fed Chair Jerome Powell will follow shows few signs of cooling in the economy, and perhaps even some acceleration.”
The latest CPI report will be released by the Labor Department on Tuesday at 8:30 a.m. ET (12:30 p.m. coordinated universal time). According to a survey by FactSet, the CPI in August was probably up 8.1% over the past 12 months. That pace would represent the second straight monthly decline, down from 8.5% in July and a four-decade high of 9.1% in June.
The expectation is that prices for gasoline, airfares, hotels and used cars were down last month, while food prices were up. The Federal Reserve's target is 2% annually.
Bitcoin gained 15% over the weekend in a rally that started after the European Central Bank raised interest rates by 75 basis points, or a 0.75 percentage point, the largest increase in ECB history.
In addition, Chicago Federal Reserve President Charles EvanssaidThursday that the U.S. Federal Reserve will likely move ahead with an aggressive rate hike on Sept. 22 even if the latest CPI number shows cooling price pressure Still, he said the Fed might not have to push rates above 3.5% “that soon,” implying that the Fed could take a more dovish stance in the future. Thefederal funds rateis now between 2.25% and 2.5%.
Bitcoin (BTC), the largest crypto asset by market capitalization, was trading at $22,153 at press time, its highest price since mid-August.
“It may take some time for inflation to return back to the Fed’s target, but even a moderation from the current torrid pace should be very good for overall consumer sentiment,” said Brendan Murphy, head of global fixed Income, North America, at Insight Investment.
“The Fed has spent most of 2022 coming to grips with the implications of higher prices and committing to tighten monetary policy as much as needed to ensure those price increases return to target. This means higher rates and tighter financial conditions until inflation is under control,” Murphy said.
A report by the International Monetary Fund showed that the U.S. unemployment rate, now at 3.7%, may need to go as high as 7.5% in order for inflation to slow to the central bank’s target of 2%,Reutersreported.
Even though the Fed is convinced that a “soft landing” is still possible, the research concluded that "a painful and prolonged increase in unemployment" is inevitable to tame inflation.
From a technical standpoint, the recent rally in bitcoin might not last very long.
“BTC technicals continue to look bearish in the short term,” David Duong, head of institutional investment at crypto exchange Coinbase wrote in a report. “A further rally may be capped from here.” || Immutable Holdings Announces Recap of Recent Events: Founder and CEO of Immutable Holdings, Jordan Fried, Speaks at Elevate Festival, Rebelcon 2022, and Vision/22, and Hosts First NFT.com Event on Twitter Spaces
TORONTO, Sept. 29, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Immutable Holdings Inc. (NEO: HOLD) (“Immutable Holdings” or the “Company”), a publicly-traded blockchain holding company, is pleased to share some of its recent activities as the Company continues on its mission to increase awareness, access, and adoption of digital assets.
Founder and CEO, Jordan Fried spoke at the 2022 Elevate Festival in Toronto last week. Founded in 2021, Elevate produces one of the leading tech festivals globally, with this year’s gathering focused on innovation for artists and other content creators. Also speaking were tennis champion and entrepreneur Serena William, Metaverse artist and Techism founder Kristina Kim, and renowned venture capitalist Vinod Kholsa.
Fried also spoke at Market Rebellion’s Rebelcon 2022, a live trading boot camp held in Dallas. Fried’s keynote “The Ultimate Guide to NFTs” educated the audience on Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) and their many potential applications. Other keynote speakers at the event included Managing Partner and Head of Research at Fundstrat Global Advisors, Thomas J. Lee, Managing Partner of Requisite Capital Management, Bryn Talkington, and CNBC anchor Brian Sullivan.
This week, Fried spoke at Vision/22, a finance conference in Toronto sponsored by National Bank Independent Network (NBIN), a division of National Bank of Canada, and featuring leading independent wealth management firms. Fried’s presentation covered the new products, businesses, and asset classes emerging with decentralized technologies.
Inaugural NFT.com Twitter Spaces
On September 22, NFT.com held its firstTwitter Spaces event, which featured both Fried and Chief Product Officer, Don Thibeau. The event provided an opportunity for the team to update the broader NFT community about NFT.com and the platform’s progress on releasing features into beta testing.
“I am honored to have been invited to these events alongside some of the best minds in the financial world,” said Jordan Fried, “the whole team enjoyed connecting directly with our users in the Twitter Spaces event.” It was “a great opportunity to discuss the significance of NFTs, provide insights into the future of the digital asset ecosystem, and highlight NFT.com and Immutable Holdings,” he added.
About Immutable Holdings Inc.
Immutable Holdings Inc. (NEO: HOLD), is on a mission to democratize access to Web3 and blockchain-based products and services. Founded by Jordan Fried, a founding team member of multibillion dollar Hedera Hashgraph network, Immutable Holdings already boasts tens of millions under management and a portfolio of businesses and brands built on the blockchain ecosystem, including NFT.com, Immutable Asset Management, and 1-800-Bitcoin. For further information regarding Immutable Holdings, visithttps://immutableholdings.com/and see the Company’s disclosure documents on SEDAR atwww.sedar.com.
For media inquiries and further information, contact:
Billy Baxter, Head of Corporate Development & Operations
Email:info@immutableholdings.com
CAUTIONARY NOTE REGARDING FORWARD-LOOKING INFORMATION:
This news release contains certain statements which constitute forward-looking statements or information under applicable Canadian securities laws. Such forward-looking statements are subject to numerous known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors, some of which are beyond the Company’s control, which could cause actual results or events to differ materially from those stated, anticipated or implied in the forward-looking statements. These risks and uncertainties include, without limitation, changes to applicable laws or the regulatory sphere in which the Company operates, general economic and capital markets conditions, stock market volatility and the other risks disclosed in the Company's annual information form and other disclosure documents available on the Company's profile at www.sedar.com. The foregoing is not an exhaustive list of factors that may affect the Company’s forward-looking statements. Other risks and uncertainties not presently known to the Company and/or not specifically referenced herein could also cause actual results or events to differ materially from those expressed in its forward-looking statements.
Although the Company believes that the forward-looking statements in this news release are reasonable, they are based on factors and assumptions, based on currently available information, concerning future events, which may prove to be inaccurate. As such, readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on the forward-looking statements, as no assurance can be provided as to future plans, operations, results, levels of activity or achievements. The forward-looking statements contained in this news release are made as of the date of this news release and, except as required by applicable law, the Company does not undertake any obligation to publicly update or to revise any of the forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. || Markets: Ethereum, Ethereum Classic lead crypto gains as Bitcoin posts modest gains: Ethereum and Ethereum Classic headlined the day’s top gainers among the crypto top 100 while Bitcoin traded sideways during early Friday morning trading in Asia. The total crypto market was up 1.3% to US$1.04 trillion while U.S. investors remain shaky as they await guidance on possible interest rate rises from the Federal Reserve.
See related article:Markets: Bitcoin, Ether bounce back; XRP climbs, Ether Classic jumps, Ankr gains on staking
• Ethereum Classic, the original blockchain from which the Ethereum mainnet is forked, rose 5% to US$37.10 ahead of “the Merge” where Ethereum will ditch the proof-of-work consensus mechanism for proof-of-stake.
• The “Bellatrix” upgrade, thefinal step before the Merge, is scheduled to activate on Sept. 6, followed by the Ethereum mainnet merge between Sept. 10 – 20, according to arecent blog postfrom the Ethereum foundation.
• Bitcoin gained 0.8% in the last 24 hours to trade at US$21,578 at 8 a.m. in Hong Kong, while Ether jumped 2.3% to US$1,695, according todata from CoinMarketCap.
• Metaverse token hopeful Shiba Inu rose 6.6% to US$0.00001392, while its memecoin contemporary Dogecoin was up just 1.6% to US$0.069. Cardano’s ADA was up 1.4% to US$0.46, as Solana and XRP both rose less than 1%.
• U.S. investors will be closely watching Fed Chairman Jerome Powell’s keynote speech at the central bank’s annual economic symposium in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, at 10 a.m. Eastern Time (10 p.m. Hong Kong) on Friday, for an indication of how the Fed may adjust interest rates amid high inflation.
• U.S. equities traded up on Thursday; the Dow Jones finished up 1%, the S&P 500 closed up 1.4% and the Nasdaq Composite Index ended trading up 1.67%.
See related article:Ethereum finalizes start date for Bellatrix upgrade || Musk Subpoenas Ex-Twitter CEO Dorsey in Battle Over Buyout: (Bloomberg) -- Elon Musk subpoenaed Jack Dorsey, co-founder of Twitter Inc. and his longtime friend, in his defense against the social media company’s lawsuit to make him complete his proposed $44 billion buyout.
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Dorsey, who stepped down as Twitter’s chief executive officer last year, has been an energetic booster of Musk’s bid for the company, tweeting in April that Musk was the “singular solution I trust” to take over.
The subpoena follows a pair filed Friday for Kayvon Beykpour, former head of consumer product at Twitter, and Bruce Falck, formerly in charge of revenue product. The billionaire is rapidly marshaling documents and data to show that Twitter understated how much of its customer base is made up of spam and robot accounts.
Read More: Twitter Must Give Musk Data, Documents From Ex-Product Head
Since the world’s richest person retreated from the purchase, dozens of people, banks and funds have been subpoenaed by both sides in the legal fight playing out in Delaware. The push to gather information and interview important figures in the deal comes ahead of an expedited schedule for the trial, slated to begin Oct. 17 and last five days.
Musk’s decision to subpoena Dorsey, who served two stints as CEO, is an interesting one given the duo’s history. The two executives, both big Bitcoin supporters, have been friendly for years. Dorsey has praised Musk, describing him as a favorite influential tweeter, and invited him to Twitter to discuss product ideas.
In a Rolling Stone interview in early 2019, Dorsey said he “loved” Musk and what he was trying to do with Tesla Inc. and SpaceX. Musk even appeared at Twitter’s companywide retreat in early 2020 to speak with employees by videochat -- during which he complained about Twitter’s bot problem.
Read More: All the Banks, Billionaires and VCs Sucked Into Twitter v. Musk
More recently, the two have advocated for making Twitter’s software and content moderation decisions more transparent. After Musk became Twitter’s largest shareholder in late March, Dorsey was the first person at the company he called, according to a regulatory filing. Dorsey, who was still a Twitter director at the time, later encouraged Musk to join the board and spoke glowingly of him after the board agreed to sell Musk the company.
Earlier this month, the Tesla CEO accused Twitter of hiding the names of workers specifically responsible for evaluating the proportion of spam and robot accounts. Musk argues the company has failed to show that they make up fewer than 5% of its active users, as it has said in regulatory filings.
Twitter says it’s all a show to justify walking away from the deal.
Dorsey and Musk have their differences. Under Dorsey, Twitter permanently banned former president Donald Trump after the Capitol riot, although Dorsey delegated most of the moderation decisions to his legal deputy and later publicly questioned the ban. Musk has said he opposes “permanent bans” and would bring Trump back if he buys Twitter, although he hasn’t articulated a comprehensive content policy philosophy.
Dorsey stepped down as Twitter CEO to focus on Block Inc., his payments processing company.
Read More: Musk Says Twitter Is Hounding Him Over Every Chat About Buyout
Beykpour, the former head of consumer product, was the top product executive at Twitter for years before he was unexpectedly dismissed by new chief executive officer Parag Agrawal. It was his team that was most directly responsible for expanding Twitter’s user base -- and it is the quality of that base Musk has questioned in seeking to escape from the acquisition.
Beykpour joined Twitter in 2015 when the company acquired his live video app, Periscope, and quickly climbed the ranks under Dorsey. He was pushing Twitter into new product areas, like live audio spaces and newsletters, before he was ousted.
The departures of Beykpour and Falck reflected Twitter’s state of limbo while it awaited a new owner, a state now intensified by the litigation. Meanwhile a hiring freeze and other cost-cutting efforts have left some employees unsure of whether the projects or teams they are working on will be prioritized under new leadership.
The case is Twitter v. Musk, 22-0613, Delaware Chancery Court (Wilmington).
Read More
• What If Musk Is Ordered to Do Twitter Deal and He Just Says No?
• Musk Seeks Dismissal of Twitter Investor Suit as ‘Hypothetical’
(Adds details, quotes and context starting in fifth paragraph.)
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©2022 Bloomberg L.P. || El Salvador’s Bitcoin Bond Delays Continue; Investor Interest Wanes: Report: El Salvador’s so-called Volcano Bond offering continues to face delays from a lack of investor interest and a legislative holdup, according to areport in Fortune.
President Najib Bukele announced plans to raise $1 billion via bonds backed by bitcoin (BTC) in November, shortly after El Salvador became the first country in the world to adopt bitcoin as legal tender. The offering was initially supposed to launch in early 2022, but it has faced delays, at least in part, thanks to plunging bitcoin prices.
El Salvador's Congress also must pass legislation necessary for issuance of the bond, though President Bukele's New Ideas party has a comfortable majority in the legislature. Speaking with Fortune, Bitfinex and Tether Chief Technology Officer Paolo Ardoino – who has worked closely with El Salvador on the bitcoin project – said government officials have told him to expect passage in September.
Should that happen, said Ardoino, he would expect another two to three months as enough time to have the Volcano Bond rolled out, suggesting the sale could come before the end of 2022.
El Salvador’s government did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
In February, El Salvador Finance Minister Alejandro Zelayasaidthat the bond issue would take place between March 15 and March 20, butweeks later blamedthe war between Ukraine and Russia for delaying the process. “We have the tools almost finished, but the international context will tell us,” he said at the time.
From last September to date, El Salvador hasacquired2,301 bitcoins for roughly $103.9 million, according to announcements compiled from Bukele. Those bitcoin are worth about $45 million currently. The most recent buy occurred on July 30, when the country purchased 80 coins at a price of $19,000 each.
Read more:Bitcoin City: El Salvador’s Dreams for Utopia on Hold || 3 Cryptos to Buy for a Black Swan Market Crash: By definition, investors cannot prepare for a black swan event. Black swan events are those which have both extremely negative consequences and are essentially impossible to predict., such as a black swan market crash At the same time, investors should consider that the possibility of an extremely negative event is arguably as high as it’s ever been. The economy teeters on the brink of recession. Economists are arguing whether we are currently in a recession following two consecutive quarters of GDP contraction . Inflation reached 8.5% in July . And while that was an improvement from the 9.1% rate in June, it hardly indicates stability. InvestorPlace - Stock Market News, Stock Advice & Trading Tips Credit card debt is rising at rates that haven’t been seen in decades . And on and on. So, it really does feel that a black swan event could occur, crashing the stock market. Although crypto prices are trending more in line with stocks as time goes on, there’s a chance that if that happens cryptocurrency could survive relatively unscathed making these cryptos more attractive. With that all in mind, here are the three cryptos to buy if there’s a black swan market crash: Ticker Cryptocurrency Price SOL-USD Solana $36.91 ETH-USD Ethereum $1,699.95 DOGE-USD Dogecoin $0.07 Solana (SOL-USD) Solana logo on phone screen stock image. SOL-USD, Solana price predictions Source: sdx15 / Shutterstock.com Solana ( SOL-USD ) remains a strong network after becoming popular over the last year. Which cryptocurrencies could survive a black swan event that crashes the stock market is a matter of conjecture. But it makes sense that investors should look for projects with a lot of overall strength and strong prospects. That accurately describes Solana, a project noted for its massive growth in 2021. In fact, Solana’s price went from $1.80 at the beginning of the year to $170 by its end. The massive 9,360% increase certainly made many people a lot of money very quickly. But more importantly, it has kept Solana relevant even as crypto tanked in 2022. Story continues It currently trades for around $38. But the point is that Solana is well-established and it is unlikely to run to zero outside of a self-inflicted downfall a-la Terra ( LUNA-USD ). Nobody is currently intimating that Solana has problems of that nature. Rather, the news is mostly positive with reports indicating it now has more than 1,900 block-producing nodes , nearly 1,700 of which are run independently. Ethereum (ETH-USD) A concept image of a virtual coin based on the Ethereum logo. Source: Filippo Ronca Cavalcanti / Shutterstock.com Ethereum ( ETH-USD ) is the second most valuable cryptocurrency, with a market capitalization of $229.4 billion. It is second only to Bitcoin ( BTC-USD ) and its $454.5 billion market capitalization. So, it makes sense that in the event of a stock market crashing black swan event it would fare well. The logic here is that when the traditional financial markets truly crash, the alternative cryptocurrency market will emerge as a bulwark against true chaos. Investors may be scratching their heads at that notion as they have seen crypto prices decline alongside stock prices this year. And it’s true, they’re becoming more tightly bound. But I’m implying that crypto will disentangle from the stock market in a full-on stock market crash. And that would mean that Ethereum should see massive capital inflows given its size and position. There’s also reason to buy it more immediately as its merge from a proof-of-work network to a proof-of-stake network is set to occur on Sept. 15. This merge should provide quick gains for those willing to take a bit of risk. Dogecoin (DOGE-USD) A concept image of Dogecoin (DOGE) with the Shiba Inu and text on a gold token. Source: Shutterstock Investors should consider buying Dogecoin ( DOGE-USD ) in anticipation of a black swan event for somewhat different reasons than either Solana or Ethereum. Dogecoin is clearly on the speculative side of crypto assets whereas Solana and Ethereum are much more established. The logic for buying DOGE is that a stock market crash will again trigger a spike in interest in the non-traditional financial markets should the traditional market fail. Speculative capital will flood into Dogecoin as it is a proven entity among inexpensive crypto assets. It isn’t hard to imagine speculative market makers quickly pumping capital into Dogecoin in such a scenario. Dogecoin’s 10X movement in early 2021 inherently makes it attractive for speculative investors. If nothing else, take solace in the fact that Mark Cuban recently stated that he believes Dogecoin has greater potential application than Cardano ( ADA-USD ). His opinion alone has the kind of force that makes markets and can net investors quick gains. On the date of publication, Alex Sirois did not have (either directly or indirectly) any positions in the securities mentioned in this article. The opinions expressed in this article are those of the writer, subject to the InvestorPlace.com Publishing Guidelines . Alex Sirois is a freelance contributor to InvestorPlace whose personal stock investing style is focused on long-term, buy-and-hold, wealth-building stock picks.Having worked in several industries from e-commerce to translation to education and utilizing his MBA from George Washington University, he brings a diverse set of skills through which he filters his writing. More From InvestorPlace Buy This $5 Stock BEFORE This Apple Project Goes Live The Best $1 Investment You Can Make Today Early Bitcoin Millionaire Reveals His Next Big Crypto Trade “On Air” It doesn’t matter if you have $500 or $5 million. Do this now. The post 3 Cryptos to Buy for a Black Swan Market Crash appeared first on InvestorPlace . || Bitcoin, Ether fall in broad crypto pull back; memecoins reverse gains: Bitcoin and Ether continued their weekly slide, while all other top 10 cryptocurrencies by market capitalization fell in Friday morning trading in Asia. The worlds number one cryptocurrency fell below US$23,000 for the first time in over a week. Investors remain tentative about macroeconomic trends inflation and interest rates in the U.S. and a slowing economy in China. See related article: Markets: Bitcoin, Ether fall; Solana, DOGE extend their declines Fast facts Bitcoin fell 1.4% in the past 24 hours to trade at US$22,992 as of 8:30 a.m. in Hong Kong. Ether was changing hands at US$1,821, down 0.4%, according to data from CoinMarketCap . Bitcoin has dropped more than 4% over the past 7 days, while Ether is down 3% in the same period. Dogecoin, the memecoin that sits in the last spot in CoinMarketCaps top 10, fell 7.1% to US$0.074. Less than US$1 billion in capitalization now separates Dogecoin and Polkadot in slot 11, so they may soon be swapping places, though Polkadot was down 4.5% to US$7.9 in early Asia trading. Another memecoin, Shiba Inu, fell 9.2% to US$0.0000134. Even though we might think of it as a joke [memecoins are] such a great tool for capturing peoples imagination, Igneus Terrenus, head of communications at Singapore-based crypto exchange Bybit, told Forkast in an interview , adding that capital investment then follows. U.S. equities markets were largely little changed. The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed up less than 0.1% while the S&P 500 Index and the Nasdaq Composite Index both added 0.2% in Thursday trading. The release of the Federal Open Market Committee July meeting minutes this week indicates the U.S. Federal Reserve looks set to raise interest rates again at its next meeting in September, not a good omen for equity investors and by extension crypto markets. The minutes showed the Fed remains focused on taming inflation and rate hikes are the main tool in its bag. Chinas poor economic outlook is also causing concern for investors as the worlds second-largest economy has seen a slump in its real estate market and industrial output. Chinese Premier Li Keqiang met with top officials earlier in the week and urged them to support local businesses. See related article: Chandler Guo tells why he is the man who would hard fork Ethereum || First Mover Americas: Macro Retakes Front Seat, Pushing Bitcoin Down Below $21K: • Price Point:Bitcoin trades in line with U.S. equities, briefly dropping to levels below $21,000 on Monday morning. Some analysts are still optimistic for the wider market, which might give the cryptocurrency some momentum. Other analysts see BTC and ETH remaining choppy in the short term.
• Market Moves:Bitcoin fell over 10% last week, its biggest drop in two months. Analysts say the price slide has put bears in control ahead of the U.S. Federal Reserve's annual economic symposium in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, on Friday.
• Chart of the Day:Ether-bitcoin volatility spread widens.
This article originally appeared inFirst Mover, CoinDesk’s daily newsletter putting the latest moves in crypto markets in context.Subscribe to get it in your inbox every day.
It looks like macroeconomics has retaken the front seat as inflation fears caused jitters in the market on Monday. Bitcoin (BTC) dipped to levels below $21,000 at around 09:30 am GMT, with a sharp sell-off following the previous week’s surge.
U.S. equity futures retreated along with Europeanstocksas traders arepessimisticabout the prospect of furtherinterest-ratehikes. Although most investors think sentiment is looking fragile, Tom Lee, head of research at Fundstrat, said in a morning note to investors that he expects markets to rally.
“While there remains a lot of uncertainty regarding macro, we think underlying inflationary pressures are easing, which in turn means [the U.S. Federal Reserve] has less work to do,” wrote Lee. “This is not necessarily the consensus view. But it is a view increasingly transmitted in the bond market.”
Ether (ETH), the second-largest cryptocurrency by market value, has dropped to $1,500, down 17% over the last seven days. Ether reached levels near $2,000 last week on the back of optimism ahead of the Ethereum blockchain’s upcomingMergebut has since been hit as crypto’s correlation with equities strengthened.
Short term, ether and bitcoin will trade in choppy territory with a negative bias, according to Matthew Dibb, co-founder of Stack Funds.
Dibb expects the crypto market to stabilize heading into September.
“Longer term, the Merge is still a bullish event, similar to the lag that BTC experiences post everyhalving.”
In the news, more than50 people gatheredin Amsterdam's Dam Square on Saturday to protest the arrest of blockchain developer Alexey Pertsev, who was arrested Aug. 10 on suspicion of involvement in the Tornado Cash protocol that wassanctioned earlier this monthby U.S. authorities.
And Morgan Stanley said in areporton Friday that tightening in the crypto market has paused. While the market cap of stablecoins, an indicator of crypto liquidity, has stopped falling, demand for leverage has yet to start recovering.
There are no gainers in CoinDesk 20 today.
[{"Asset": "Solana", "Ticker": "SOL", "Returns": "\u22124.7%", "DACS Sector": "Smart Contract Platform"}, {"Asset": "Loopring", "Ticker": "LRC", "Returns": "\u22124.4%", "DACS Sector": "Smart Contract Platform"}, {"Asset": "Dogecoin", "Ticker": "DOGE", "Returns": "\u22124.3%", "DACS Sector": "Currency"}]
Bitcoin's 10% Weekly Drop Puts Bears in Control Ahead of Jackson Hole Symposium
By Omkar Godbole
Bitcoin (BTC) fell over 10% last week, its biggest drop in two months. Analysts say the price slide has put bears in control ahead of the U.S. Federal Reserve's annual economic symposium in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, on Friday.
The biggest cryptocurrencywas soldas the Fed's July meeting minutes actively pushed back against hopes of liquidity easing in 2023.Chatter aboutJump Crypto selling ether spurred profit taking in the native token of Ethereum's blockchain.
Bitcoin's drop has broken technical charts and revived the bearish trend, according observers.
"Last week's slide has put the bears in the driver's seat. The market will take a while to reverse and would need good news," trader and analyst Alex Kruger told CoinDesk, adding that Fed Chair Jerome Powell is unlikely to offer good news later this week.
According to David Duong, head of institutional research at Coinbase, bitcoin's daily technical chart has flipped bearish and the cryptocurrency could continue to lose ground in the short term.
"BTC will likely retest support at $20,830 and $19,230 over the coming few weeks," Duong noted in the weekly markets commentary, adding that traders will be closely watching Powell's comments at the Jackson Hole symposium.
After last week'sFed minutes, there seems to be a consensus in the market that Powell will skew on the hawkish side during the Jackson Hole Economic Symposium. The annual gathering, sponsored by the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, hosts central bankers, finance ministers, academics and financial market participants.
"Powell will likely try to take a more measured approach in Wyoming and emphasize that the tightening cycle isn't over yet," Duong noted. The Fed's monetary tightening has roiled the cryptocurrency market this year.
Michael Kramer, the founder of Mott Capital Management, wrote in a weekly markets update, "I would expect that Powell lays out quite clearly that the pace of future rate hikes may slow but that they have much further to climb and are likely to remain high for some time."
The Fed said in July that it would be appropriate to slow tightening at some point, triggering a relief rally in risk assets. However, according to Dan Peng, VP at Singapore-based digital asset management platform Metalpha, monetary policy operates with a lag. So, the central bank will likely stick to its hawkish script at least for some time.
The effect of higher interest rates on inflation will be evident in about six months. Peng said. "It is still too early to put in more calls for bitcoin at this time."
Read the full storyhere.
Ether-Bitcoin Volatility Spread Widens
By Omkar Godbole
• The spread between ether and bitcoin implied volatilities determined by options expiring on Sept. 30 has widened to over 30 percentage points, the highest since June 2021, according to data tracked by Genesis Volatility.
• It means two things: First, traders expect ether to see more volatility than bitcoin in the next five weeks or so, as the Ethereum Merge, the long-pending technological update, is likely to happen sometime in mid-September. Second, ether options are now too expensive relative to bitcoin options. Implied volatility has positive impact on option prices.
• The spread will tank if the merge proves to be a non-event.
• "Some traders are positioning themselves for a mean-reversion [in the spread], selling ETH against buying BTC long," options analytics platform Genesis Volatility said in a report last week.
• South Korea Plans to Tax Crypto Airdrop Recipients, Digital Times Reports:The government said crypto airdrops count as gifts under tax legislation.
• Morgan Stanley Says Tightening in the Crypto Market Has Paused:While the market cap of stablecoins, an indicator of crypto liquidity, has stopped falling, demand for leverage has yet to start recovering, the bank said.
• Bitcoin's 10% Weekly Drop Puts Bears in Control Ahead of Jackson Hole Symposium:Powell will skew on the hawkish side at Jackson Hole, analysts said.
• Ronin Hackers Converted Some Stolen Ether to Bitcoin: SlowMist Researcher:The exploiters converted their ill-gotten gains initially to ether and then to bitcoin before using sanctioned mixers to mask their identities.
• Australia to Use 'Token Mapping' as Framework for Crypto Regulation:Australian Treasurer Jim Chalmers says the aim is to keep up with developments and protect consumers. || Jax.Network celebrates its 4th anniversary: DUBAI, United Arab Emirates, Sept. 02, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) --Jax.Network, a blockchain project building an energy-standard monetary system, is glad to enter the fifth year of its development. Throughout its four years of existence, Jax.Network has managed to design and launch a number of unique products and services and doesn’t plan to lose momentum.
Started up with a mission to solve the famous Scalability Trilemma, Jax.Network went far and beyond and built not only a truly scalable, decentralized, and secure network but an entire technological infrastructure for an energy-standard monetary system. Furthermore, it brings a stablecoin (JAX) to the Bitcoin ecosystem improving its scalability and stability. To support this ecosystem, Jax.Network built a variety of products and services, including but not limited to aDeFi platform,yield farming initiative, anddecentralized wallets.
The blockchain company plans to surprise the community with more ambitious releases in the years to come. At the moment, the Jax.Network team is focused on increasing the hashrate power of its mining pool, which was launched earlier this year.JaxPoolis the first mining pool to offer negative fees on Bitcoin mining.
“I’m proud to be the founder of such an innovative enterprise that is set to become a game-changer in the global crypto and blockchain industry. We spent more than three years on research and development of the protocol and key products, so even the bear market shouldn’t stop us from entering the top 100 coins by market capitalization,” Vinod Manoharan, Founder of Jax.Network commented on the occasion.
About Jax.Network
Jax.Networkprovides the technological infrastructure for a decentralized energy-standard monetary system. The Jax.Network blockchain is anchored to the Bitcoin network and issues two digital currencies JAX and JXN. JAX is a stablecoin pegged to the energy spent on mining, while JXN is an asset coin representing the value of the whole network. The Jax.Network team aims at making these coins a universal standard for the quantification of economic value. Established in 2018, the company united professionals from all over the world to build a blockchain network based on the Proof-of-Work consensus mechanism and pure state sharding as a scaling solution.
CONTACT: CONTACT Viktoriya Nechyporuk, Marketing Communications Lead COMPANY Jax.Network PHONE +380 67 657 0029 EMAIL viktoriya@jax.net WEB https://jax.network
[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
None available.
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Trend: no change || Prices: 19312.10, 19044.11, 19623.58, 20336.84, 20160.72, 19955.44, 19546.85, 19416.57, 19446.43, 19141.48
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Analyze the provided historical prices, technical indicators, news, and social media sentiment from the last 60 days. Based on this context, predict the overall trend (up, down, or no change) and the specific daily closing prices for Bitcoin for the next 10 days.
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[Technical Analysis for 2018-04-27]
BTC Price: 8987.05, BTC RSI: 57.17
Gold Price: 1320.30, Gold RSI: 44.04
Oil Price: 68.10, Oil RSI: 61.43
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
Bright Spots Emerging in Solar Despite Falling Installations: Last year, for the first time this decade, the solar industry installed fewer megawatts than it did in the year before. According to GTM Research , 10,608 MW of solar power generation was installed in 2017 -- enough to power 1.74 million homes -- but down significantly from 15,128 MW in 2016. The decline was driven by a number of factors from national policy to company-specific challenges, some of which may impact the industry for the next few years. But there are already some bright spots emerging that solar investors will want to keep an eye on. Solar installations in the U.S. from 2010 to 2017. Image source: GTM Research . 2016's record was tough to beat You can see in the chart above that the outlier in the long-term solar installation trendline is 2016, not 2017. That was in large part because 2016 was originally going to be the final year of the solar investment tax credit (ITC), a subsidy that allows project owners to get a 30% tax credit based on an installations' value. It's a subsidy the industry relies on to make solar projects economical, so when it was set to expire there was a rush to build solar projects. The ITC subsidy was extended late in 2015 , but that didn't stop installations from falling off a cliff in 2017. Large solar projects take years of planning, so the extension was too late to slow the rush of projects being built to hit the old 2016 deadline. In short, there was a (well-planned) mad rush to build utility-scale solar projects in the U.S. in 2016, and 2017 was a natural retreat from that surge. That explains the utility-scale solar decline you see above, which accounts for most of the decline year over year. But residential and commercial solar could be bright spots, and as investors, that's where I think there are some interesting opportunities. Solar installations from the air. Image source: Getty Images. Residential solar was down, but not everywhere Residential solar installations took a step backward in 2017, declining by 16% to 2,227 MW. It was the first time this decade that residential solar installations had fallen, but digging into the numbers the decline isn't all that surprising. The biggest drop in installations came in California, which accounted for half of the decline. The state is ending traditional net metering for rooftop solar (where solar customers would only pay for the net energy they use) and moving to time-of-use (TOU) rates, which are less favorable to solar homeowners. For example, rates are generally lower mid-day when the sun is out and higher in the evening when the sun is going down. The effect is lower compensation for the electricity sent to the grid, making it harder to justify rooftop solar. But that's not the only reason residential solar declined. Story continues In 2016, it became clear that the most interested customers had already bought in, so sales and marketing costs were starting to rise to unsustainable levels. The three biggest residential solar installers in the country -- Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) , Sunrun (NASDAQ: RUN) , and Vivint Solar (NYSE: VSLR) -- all talked about focusing more on profitability and potentially foregoing growth for profits. That's exactly what we saw in 2017. Tesla took the biggest step backward, installing just 87 MW of solar in the fourth quarter of 2017 , down 57% from its peak in Q2 2016. Tesla is lowering sales costs by eliminating most of its traditional door-to-door sales teams, but it's also just shrinking its solar ambitions. You can't grow a solar company by shrinking staff, which is exactly what Tesla is doing. Vivint Solar's installations fell 17.3% to 183.8 MW in 2017 as the company contracted the number of markets it served and focused on higher-value customers. The strategy appears to be working with revenue up 98% in 2017 to $268.0 million and gross profit swinging from a $38.8 million loss in 2016 to a $37.7 million profit in 2017. Sometimes smaller is better in solar energy. Interestingly, Sunrun was the one growth story among installers, increasing deployments by 15% to 323.3 MW in 2017 and taking over the top market share position from Tesla. Sunrun benefited from Tesla and Vivint Solar shrinking, allowing it to leverage its network of third-party installers to grow. Sunrun builds some of the solar systems it counts as deployments but doesn't install all of them. Rather it offers financing and design tools to regional installers who were eager to grow their businesses in 2017. That's where the company's growth came from. In residential solar, there are some bright spots despite the decline in installations in 2017. Vivint Solar is making more money than it did a year ago and Sunrun is growing on the back of regional installers it partners with. Amid the industry's decline, these two companies look like they're building winning strategies. Commercial solar actually grew Utility and residential solar had a tough time in 2017, but one segment that had a great year is commercial solar. These are solar installations on rooftops of warehouses, big-box retailers, or even small community solar developments that may be near your neighborhood. According to GTM Research, commercial solar installations jumped 28% in 2017 to 2,147 MW and with corporate interest in renewable energy growing, I see no sign of the momentum slowing down. The one company to watch in commercial solar is SunPower (NASDAQ: SPWR) , who holds the #1 market share position and offers a flexible set of solutions for customers from rooftop solar to carports and ground mounted solutions. SunPower doesn't break out U.S.-only commercial sales, but globally it sold 426 MW of commercial solar products in 2017, bigger than both Sunrun and Vivint Solar's residential businesses. The challenge is that gross margin for the year was just 9.7% in the commercial segment, well below management's target of mid-teen margins. If SunPower can increase profitability on its #1 market share position in commercial solar this could be a great business long-term, but it has yet to live up to its financial promise. What to expect in 2018 While 2017 was a down year for solar, the pipeline is filling back up with big projects. GTM Research says the contracted pipeline of utility-scale solar projects is 16,883 MW with another 26,700 MW announced and pre-contract. Those won't all be built this year, but growth should return to the large-scale solar industry in time. On a company level we're seeing evidence that momentum is returning to the utility market. First Solar , which only serves the utility-scale market, shipped just 2.7 GW of solar panels in 2017, but it booked 7.7 GW of future sales, indicating that growth will return to utility-scale solar in coming years. Where I think investors should expect the best company performance in 2018 is residential and commercial solar. Vivint Solar and Sunrun are increasing margins and taking market share in residential solar, which is a positive sign for their businesses long-term. Growth isn't the metric I would look for to define success this year, but I would look at gross margins and even net income improvement as signs these companies are on solid footing in residential solar. SunPower is a complex company that produces utility-scale solutions and offers residential products, but where it has the most potential is providing solar to businesses and governments around the world. If it can expand commercial segment gross margins into the mid-teens and continue to ride the wave of growth in commercial solar installations it could allow the company to put massive losses the last two years behind it and return to profitability. If that happens, the company's stock could be a big winner for investors. More From The Motley Fool 3 Growth Stocks at Deep-Value Prices 5 Expected Social Security Changes in 2018 6 Years Later, 6 Charts That Show How Far Apple, Inc. Has Come Since Steve Jobs' Passing 10 Best Stocks to Buy Today The $16,122 Social Security Bonus You Cannot Afford to Miss Bitcoin's Biggest Competitor Isn't Ethereum -- It's This Travis Hoium owns shares of First Solar and SunPower. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Tesla. The Motley Fool owns shares of Verisk Analytics. The Motley Fool recommends First Solar. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy . || Better Buy: Freeport-McMoRan Inc. vs. Alcoa Corporation: Freeport-McMoRan Inc.(NYSE: FCX)andAlcoa Corporation(NYSE: AA)entered 2017 having made large changes to their businesses. As a result, both companies started off 2018 with stronger businesses and a brighter outlook. However, one of these metals companies still has some lingering baggage to deal with, and that gives the other stock the edge here.
Before getting too deep into Freeport's and Alcoa's businesses, it's important to remember that Freeport is a copper and gold miner while Alcoa is an aluminum company. If you are looking for copper and gold exposure, don't buy Alcoa stock, and if you want aluminum exposure, don't buy Freeport stock. With that out of the way, it's time to look at the solid improvements each company made in 2017.
Image source: Getty Images
Thebig change for Alcoawas its separation from specialty parts makerArconic(NYSE: ARNC)in late 2016. Effectively, 2017 was the aluminum company's first year as a stand-alone entityfocused almost exclusively on the commodity side of the aluminum value chain. Andit was a good year.
Alcoa's top line advanced 25% in 2017, driven largely by higher aluminum and alumina prices. AdjustedEBITDAmore than doubled, going from roughly $1.1 billion in 2016 to $2.35 billion last year. Cash on the balance sheet increased from $853 million to $1.35 billion even while long-term debt fell slightly from $1.42 billion to $1.39 billion. The aluminum giant was able to cut costs, too, taking selling, general, and administrative expenses down 20% through the year.
Freeport-McMoRan's big change was effectively jettisoningthe oil business it bought just before energy prices started to plummetin mid-2014. That ill-timed acquisition saddled the company with heavy debts and a struggling new business. Havingrefocused on its copper and gold mining assets, 2017 was something of a fresh start for Freeport. And it got off on the right foot performance-wise.
FCXdata byYCharts.
The miner's top line advanced 10% in 2017,helped along by rising copper and gold prices. Net income from continuing operations went from a loss of $2.96 per share in 2016 to a gain of $1.21 in 2017. The improvement, however, was really on thebalance sheet, where Freeport was able to reduce its net debt by 18% last year to roughly $13.1 billion. That number was roughly $20 billion after the debt-funded oil acquisition in 2014. Not a bad showing at all.
Looking forward, the performances of Alcoa and Freeport are tied to their respective commodity markets. If you are researching either company, you have to keep that in mind, because falling commodity prices can be a major headwind for both stocks. However, Freeport has one additional problem that deserves very close attention: One of its largest assets,the Grasberg Minein Indonesia, is in a state of flux.
Although it's a complex issue,the Indonesian government effectively wants to get more financial benefit from the Grasberg Minethan it has been. Since achieving that end requires that Freeport give up its controlling stake in the mine, which accounts for around 30% of its copper reserves and virtually all of its gold reserves, Freeport isn't too pleased with the idea. The two sides have been in discussions for over a year on an equitable outcome. Although a broad framework was reached in the middle of 2017, hammering out the details has proven difficult.
Grasberg is a giant asset in Freeport's portfolio. Image source: Freeport-McMoRan Inc.
Until the Grasberg issue is resolved, there's a huge amount of uncertainty surrounding Freeport's business. Alcoa doesn't face a similar headwind. In fact, Alcoa is looking at generally rising long-term demand for the light and strong metal it supplies to the world. Although I wouldn't rush in to buy either name right now after their impressive 2017 runs, I would err on the side of caution and pick Alcoa if I were in a buying mood with this pair. I wouldn't want to worry about the very material Grasberg issue.
Financial results at Alcoa and Freeport McMoRan will depend on the prices of the commodities they sell, and that will likely have a similar impact on their stocks. However, looking at the position each is in today, Freeport is dealing with a notable problem in Indonesia that could prove a huge headwind to its financial results if negotiations don't go well. Alcoa simply doesn't have that same kind of uncertainty hanging over it. Both companies have performed relatively well over the last year or so, but most investors would be better off staying away from the risks posed by the uncertainty at one of Freeport McMoRan's biggest mines.
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Reuben Gregg Brewerhas no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has adisclosure policy. || Why Did Sears Holdings Corp. Shares Gain 10% in March?: Sears Holdings(NASDAQ: SHLD)has a lot in common withThe X-Files. Some people want to believe, even when common sense and most evidence suggests they shouldn't.
Investors were happy that Sears Holdings reported a profit of $182 million in the fourth quarter. They should be because the retail chain, which owns both Sears and Kmart, has rarely managed a profitable quarter over the last five years.
In fact, the only times the company has been profitable werewhen the profit came fromsomething other than ongoing operations. That's what happened here: Sears Holdings didn't really make money in Q4. In fact, revenue fell from $6.1 billion in the year-ago quarter to $4.4 billion.
In addition, total comparable-store sales fell by 15.6% in the fourth quarter. Sears' comparable-store sales declined by 18.1% while Kmart's dropped by 12.2%.
Sears Holdings saw a major drop in comparable-store sales in Q4. Image source: Sears Holdings.
Sears Holdings reported its $182 million Q4 profit because of a noncash tax benefit of approximately $470 million related to tax reform. Without that benefit, the company would have lost money in the quarter.
Despite the nature of its profit, investors rewarded the company for showing one at all. Shares closed February at $2.24 and climbed to $2.67 at the end of March, a 10% gain, according to data provided byS&P Global Market Intelligence.
For Sears Holdings to succeed it has to actually make money. There are few signs that will happen, but its CEO Edward S. Lampert remains eternally optimistic.
"We made progress in 2017, with a return to positive Adjusted EBITDA and another quarter of year-over-year improvement in our financial results," he said in the Q4 earnings release. "In addition, we entered important partnerships, such as our agreement to sell Kenmore appliances and related services through Amazon, that broaden the reach of our brands."
That's a positive spin, but it doesn't make up for falling sales. Sears and Kmart simply don't have enough customers. At some point, it's impossible to remain an ongoing concern if you can't fix that.
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Daniel B. Klinehas no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has adisclosure policy. || Why Chesapeake Energy Corporation's Stock Slumped 18.5% in February: What happened Shares of Chesapeake Energy Corporation (NYSE: CHK) tumbled last month, falling nearly 19% even though the company posted better-than-expected fourth-quarter results and production guidance for 2018. So what Chesapeake Energy sold off after unveiling its fourth-quarter production update in early February, hitting its lowest level in two years after posting production volumes that came in below expectations. That poor report prompted an analyst from Credit Suisse to cut the bank's production forecast for Chesapeake in both 2018 and 2019 while maintaining its underperform rating and $3 price target on the natural gas stock. A natural gas field during winter at sunset. Investors gave Chesapeake a chilly reception last month. Image source: Getty Images. That said, Chesapeake Energy would go on to report surprisingly strong fourth-quarter results a few weeks later, pulling in $314 million, or $0.30 per share, of adjusted net income, which beat the consensus estimate by $0.06 per share. The company achieved that aim by cutting costs and benefiting from higher oil and gas prices. Meanwhile, the company said that production would rise 1% to 5% this year even though it expects to cut capital spending by 12%, which was above its prior view that output would be flat with 2017. This news sent Chesapeake Energy's stock rocketing. However, not all analysts thought Chesapeake's results justified a big rally, with Bernstein, for example, saying it could "not rule out a short squeeze " as the catalyst for the surge. Further, it noted that Chesapeake plans to sell another $500 million in assets this year, which will take away earnings, not create value for investors. Now what While Chesapeake Energy's fourth-quarter results and 2018 view came in ahead of expectations, the company still has a long road to recovery ahead of it. The biggest obstacle remains the nearly $10 billion of debt on its balance sheet, which hasn't budged from the end of 2016. While the company plans to sell some more assets to chip away at its debt pile this year, it's well behind the top natural gas stocks , which all boast stronger balance sheets and enhanced growth prospects. Story continues More From The Motley Fool 3 Growth Stocks at Deep-Value Prices 5 Expected Social Security Changes in 2018 6 Years Later, 6 Charts That Show How Far Apple, Inc. Has Come Since Steve Jobs' Passing 10 Best Stocks to Buy Today The $16,122 Social Security Bonus You Cannot Afford to Miss Bitcoin's Biggest Competitor Isn't Ethereum -- It's This Matthew DiLallo has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy . || How the Bitcoin Bubble Is Mirroring the Dot-Com One, Only Happening 15 Times Faster: If the rise and fall of Bitcoin seems familiar, wants to assure you that it is, though you saw things play out a lot slower originally.
The investment firm, in a note, said the cryptocurrency’s price chart islargely mirroringthat of the Nasdaq composite index during the dot-com bubble. Only this time, things are moving 15 times faster than they did in the mid-90s and early 2000s.
How similar are things, exactly? Since its creation, Bitcoin has seen fourbear waves, where prices have dropped 45-50%, typicallyreboundingan average of 47% afterward. Nasdaq, starting in 2000, had five of those waves, averaging 44% declines, followed by 40% rebounds.
Trading volume patterns are also eerily similar.
Of course, as any broker will tell you, past performance is not indicative of future behavior. And while Nasdaq has rallied nicely from its low in 2002 (increasing six-fold), that’s no guaranteeBitcoinwill do the same.
But try telling that to crypto enthusiasts.
See original article on Fortune.com
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• Congress Wants to Use Blockchain Tech to Make the Government 'More Efficient' || This 1 Factor Is a Bigger Deal to Solar Energy Than Rising Tariffs: Tariffs are the hottest topic in renewable energy right now, whether it's thesolar tariffs announced earlier this yearor the steel and aluminum tariffs announced last week. Tariffs are a direct cost increase for the industry, and an avoidable one at that, so it's natural that the media and companies themselves have strong opinions on them.
But a bigger threat to renewable energy companies and investors is what's happening at the Federal Reserve. Interest rates are on the rise, which will raise the cost of energy for every solar project across the U.S., making it harder for the industry to compete against fossil fuels. If the solar industry has a bad 2018, it may not be tariffs that are to blame.
Image source: Getty Images.
The table below shows the potential impact of solar tariffs on solar projects of different sizes. I've assumed that tariffs will increase the cost of solar panels by 10 cents using a 30% tariff ona conservative $0.35 per watt market price of a commodity panel. Given higher costs in the U.S. and the fact that there's not enough capacity to exploit the 2.5 GW of cell imports excluded from the tariff, it's likely most panels installed will be imported (in excess of 70% based on existing capacity) and pay the tariff for the foreseeable future and all panels will be priced as such.
[{"Size of Solar Project": "Utility", "Cost per Watt Pre-Tariffs": "$1.00", "Cost per Watt Post-Tariffs": "$1.10", "Implied Impact of Tariffs": "10%"}, {"Size of Solar Project": "Commercial", "Cost per Watt Pre-Tariffs": "$2.00", "Cost per Watt Post-Tariffs": "$2.10", "Implied Impact of Tariffs": "5%"}, {"Size of Solar Project": "Residential", "Cost per Watt Pre-Tariffs": "$3.00", "Cost per Watt Post-Tariffs": "$3.10", "Implied Impact of Tariffs": "3.3%"}]
Data source: Based on industry pricing.
You can see that the biggest impact is on large solar systems, where a small increase in costs can drive overall costs up 10%. But smaller rooftop systems would experience only a small impact from tariffs.
Installation costs are an important piece of the solar puzzle, but the cost of electricity a utility or other customer will pay depends on discounting long-term energy production to generate the cost per kWh we all pay for electricity. If financing costs are flat, the cost impact for electricity sales from projects above would be directly in line with the increases you see above. Think of it like a mortgage -- a 10% increase in the purchase price of a home means a 10% rise in monthly mortgage payments if everything else is equal.
Ultimately, it's this price of electricity that matters for solar projects long term, and solar developers will bid based on their cost of construction and the rate at which they have to discount cash flow to get an implied price of electricity. The higher the interest rate they're discounting, the higher price at which electricity has to be sold on a per-kWh basis for projects to make money. If we use the mortgage example again, a home with a 4% interest rate mortgage will be much cheaper per month than the same price home with a 5% interest rate. But how much do rates impact the cost of electricity?
In the table below, I've built some examples to show how interest rates impact the price of electricity from solar projects. I've assumed that all projects will generate consistent cash flow for 30 years and have a $0 value at the end of that period. Cost of construction is the same as the pre-tariff figures I used above, and to make numbers simple I've eliminated operating expenses from the calculation. I've also assumed that each watt installed will generate 2,000 watt-hours of electricity per year.
[{"Type of Solar Project": "Utility", "Cost per kWh at 6% Discount Rate": "3.63 cents", "Cost per kWh at 8% Discount Rate": "4.44 cents", "Implied Impact of 2% Increase in Interest Rates": "22%"}, {"Type of Solar Project": "Commercial", "Cost per kWh at 6% Discount Rate": "7.26 cents", "Cost per kWh at 8% Discount Rate": "8.89 cents", "Implied Impact of 2% Increase in Interest Rates": "22%"}, {"Type of Solar Project": "Residential", "Cost per kWh at 6% Discount Rate": "10.9 cents", "Cost per kWh at 8% Discount Rate": "13.3 cents", "Implied Impact of 2% Increase in Interest Rates": "22%"}]
Calculations by the author.
A200-basis-pointincrease in interest rates would have a far bigger impact on all solar projects than the tariffs put on solar cell and panel imports by the Trump administration. What's scary for investors is that a rate increase isn't hypothetical at all.
You can see in the chart below that interest rates are already pushing higher. The 10-year Treasury yield is up about 150 basis points since summer 2016 and could push higher if the Federal Reserve continues raising rates.
10 Year Treasury Ratedata byYCharts.
Any increase in rates is going to hit the entire solar value chain, and it's not going to have a positive effect.
SunPower(NASDAQ: SPWR)has been most vocal against solar tariffs because it'll pay the highest tariffs for its high-end imported solar panels. But higher interest rates could hurt the financing of solar projects more than tariffs themselves.
First Solar(NASDAQ: FSLR)andCanadian Solar(NASDAQ: CSIQ)are the two other manufacturers who have large solar project development businesses that will be impacted by higher rates. First Solar, in particular, could be hurt because it was seen as the one winner from Trump's solar tariffs. But with a 1 GW annual solar development pipeline, it has a lot riding on developing and selling solar projects profitably, which depends on rates staying low.
The two other companies who won't like to see rising rates areSunrun(NASDAQ: RUN)andVivint Solar(NYSE: VSLR), who finance their residential solar power systems by selling long-term cash flow for upfront cash. Sunrun is particularly dependent on financing, and if investors aren't willing to pay the same as they once did for cash flow,the company could end up upside down on projectsor be forced to raise prices on consumers.
No matter how you look at it, rising interest rates are bad for solar companies -- and they're potentially a much bigger deal than solar tariffs will ever be.
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Travis Hoiumowns shares of First Solar and SunPower. The Motley Fool recommends First Solar. The Motley Fool has adisclosure policy. || Forget Kinder Morgan, Inc.: Here Are 2 Better Dividend Stocks: Kinder Morgan, Inc.(NYSE: KMI)is one of the largest midstream companies in North America, and it has major dividend plans between 2018 and 2020.By the end of that period, it expects to increase its dividend from $0.50 per share per year (in 2017) to $1.25.That's huge dividend growth in a short period of time. But don't get too enamored by that news; the dividend will still be lower than it was before the midstream oil and gas company's 75% dividend cut in 2016. If you're looking for dividend income in the midstream space, take a look at longtime dividend payersONEOK, Inc.(NYSE: OKE)andMagellan Midstream Partners, L.P.(NYSE: MMP)instead.
Kinder Morgan's dividend growth rate over the next couple of years will be nothing short of incredible. But that's coming off of an artificially low base following its large dividend cut. ONEOK, which has increased its dividend for 16 consecutive years, is calling for dividend growth of around 10% a year through 2021. Sure, Kinder Morgan's dividend growth rate will be higher, but 10% is roughly three timesthe historical rate of inflation growth. Investors will be well rewarded for owning this 5.3%-yielding midstream company.
Image source: Getty Images.
Backing that dividend growth plan are a largely fee-based business and the company's growth projects. It has roughly $4 billion worth of projects expected to come online by the end of 2020, almost all of which have customers lined up and long-term contracts backing them, so ONEOK isn't risking shareholder money on speculative expansion.
The midstream company is also looking to keep its leverage in check over this span. That's a notable issue, because a key cause of Kinder's dividend cut was the company's heavy reliance on debt financing. ONEOK has already made a lot of progress there, lowering its debt toEBITDAfigure from over 6 times to around 4.8 times. The goal is to get that down to around 4 times. For reference, Kinder Morgan's debt-to-EBITDA ratio is currently at around 6.4 times -- an improvement from the over 9 times it was when it was forced to cut its dividend, but still much higher than ONEOK's.
Material dividend growth plans built on concrete capital investment projects, lower leverage, and 16 years of consecutive dividend hikesmake ONEOK a better choice than Kinder in my book.
Magellan Midstream Partners, meanwhile, has been lowering its distribution growth projections. On the surface, that sounds like a bad thing, but it really isn't when you get beneath the numbers.
In 2017, Magellan was projecting distribution growth of around 8% a year through 2020, but it has now pulled that back to a range of 5% to 8%. The big change is in the partnership's coverage ratio goals. Previously it was expecting coverage to fall to around 1.1 times, which would have provided ample protection for the distribution. However,investors have been increasingly focused on the safety of distributions, and Magellan heard that. It is now planning on maintaining coverage of 1.2 times through this period.
That shift toward distribution safety isn't out of line for this partnership, which is among the most conservative midstream players. Its debt to EBITDA ratio is roughly 3.4 times today -- easily among the lowest levels in the industry. That said, maintaining distribution coverage at 1.2 times will lead to more debt. But management is expecting debt to EBITDA to top out at around 4 times, which will still leave it at the low end of the industry average.
OKE Financial Debt to EBITDA (TTM)data byYCharts.
The company's distribution growth plans, meanwhile, are backed by projected capital spending of $1.3 billion between 2018 and 2019. There's another $500 million on the drawing board that could get added to that total, as well. And at this point, Magellan either has customers lined up to back that spending, or it is expanding facilities where demand clearly indicates a need for more capacity. These, however, are conservative estimates from a company that, as noted above,tends to err on the side of caution.
Magellan has increased its distribution every single quarter since coming public in 2001 -- roughly 18 years. Although the rate of growth is set to slow over the next couple of years, that'sbecause it is focusing on distribution safety. For conservative investors, Magellan's largely fee-based business, 6% yield, long history of rewarding investors, and relatively low risk profile should easily put it ahead of Kinder Morgan.
Kinder Morgan is not a bad company, but the current round of dividend hikes can't be viewed in isolation since they really stem back to a dividend cut largely caused by its heavy use of leverage. That cut was a huge blow to investortrust in management that shouldn't be taken lightly. Its leverage, meanwhile, is still toward the high end compared to its peers. This helps to partially explain why Kinder is trading at a discount to ONEOK and Magellan.
Despite a relatively low stock price, when you look at a risk/reward trade-off, most dividend growth investors will be better off with less-leveraged ONEOK. This midstream player is calling for material 10% dividend hikes that willextendits already impressive streak of annual increases. Or, for those who are even more conservative, there's Magellan, which has heard investor concerns and is focusing on ensuring its distribution is well covered, even if that means it only grows distributions at around 5% a year.
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Reuben Gregg Brewerhas no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Kinder Morgan and ONEOK. The Motley Fool recommends Magellan Midstream Partners. The Motley Fool has adisclosure policy. || This Brand-New High-Yield Stock Sees High-Octane Growth Ahead: Last year, big oil giant BP (NYSE: BP) joined a growing number of peers by creating a master limited partnership to extract more value out of its midstream assets. That entity, aptly named BP Midstream Partners LP (NYSE: BPMP) , completed its IPO last October and recently reported results for the first time as a public company. The report shows that BP laid a solid foundation for its MLP, which positions it to grow its high-yielding payout at a fast pace over the next few years. Drilling down into the plan BP initially seeded BP Midstream Partners with stakes in several onshore and offshore pipelines that transport crude oil, refined products, and natural gas. The most important is BP2, which, while only 12 miles long, carries 475,000 barrels of oil per day from a third-party storage terminal to BP's Whiting refinery. Not only is it crucial to that refinery, but the wholly owned asset accounts for 41.8% of BP Midstream's cash flow. Another vital one is the 163-mile Mars pipeline, which moves oil from platforms in the Gulf of Mexico to the Louisiana Offshore Oil Port. BP Midstream owns a 28.5% interest in this line, which supplies it with 29.2% of its cash flow, while Royal Dutch Shell (NYSE: RDS-A) (NYSE: RDS-B) and its MLP Shell Midstream Partners (NYSE: SHLX) own the other 71.5%. A sheet of money being printed. This dividend stock is hot off the presses. Image source: Getty Images. These assets tend to produce very steady cash flow. Last quarter, they supplied BP Midstream with $23.3 million in cash, which was enough money to cover the company's first distribution to investors by a comfortable 1.2 times. Meanwhile, the company anticipates that the cash flow from those assets should support the current payout level -- which equates to about a 6% yield -- with the same healthy coverage ratio going forward. A look at what's coming down the pipeline There's enough embedded organic growth within BP Midstream's existing portfolio to support 5% to 6% distribution growth through 2020. BP's goal, though, is to grow that payout at an even faster pace by dropping down additional assets to its MLP. The companies believe these transactions could deliver annual distribution growth in the mid-teens. Story continues BP plans on completing at least one drop-down transaction with its MLP each year, with the first one likely coming in the second half of 2018. The company has an extensive portfolio of drop-down candidates, including additional pipelines, storage terminals, docks, and a whole host of other midstream assets. That strategy is a carbon copy of the one Shell used to grow its MLP since creating it in 2014. The companies completed their first drop down deal about a year after Shell Midstream's IPO, which included the purchase of additional stakes in two pipelines for $448 million. Shell Midstream has gone on to complete several other drop-down transactions, as well as some third-party acquisitions, which have fueled a big increase in earnings and cash flow, enabling the company to grow its distribution to investors by 100% since the initial payment. The company still has plenty of growth left in the tank because Shell has several drop-down eligible assets remaining, giving Shell Midstream the confidence that it can increase its distribution another 20% in 2018 . Given the outcome of Shell's strategy, BP is hoping that by following this blueprint, its MLP will be just as successful. An exciting time to consider jumping aboard With only one quarter in the books, BP Midstream Partners is just starting out on its journey. While the next few months might be slow, the company sees high-octane growth up ahead. That's why investors seeking income growth might want to take a closer look at this brand-new income option. More From The Motley Fool 3 Growth Stocks at Deep-Value Prices 5 Expected Social Security Changes in 2018 6 Years Later, 6 Charts That Show How Far Apple, Inc. Has Come Since Steve Jobs' Passing 10 Best Stocks to Buy Today The $16,122 Social Security Bonus You Cannot Afford to Miss Bitcoin's Biggest Competitor Isn't Ethereum -- It's This Matthew DiLallo has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy . || EUR/USD Mid-Session Technical Analysis for March 9, 2018: TheEUR/USDis trading lower shortly after the U.S. Labor Department reported Friday that the economy added 313,000 jobs in February, blowing away expectations, while the unemployment rate remained at 4.1 percent. Traders had been expecting non-farm payroll growth of 200,000 and the unemployment rate to decline one-tenth of a percent to 4 percent. Average Hourly Earnings were a disappointing 0.1%.
The main trend is down according to the daily swing chart. The recent five day rally may have changed momentum, but that move was stopped by yesterday’s closing price reversal top.
A trade through 1.2446 will negate the closing price reversal top and change the main trend to up. A move through 1.2153 will signal a resumption of the downtrend.
The main range is 1.2555 to 1.2153. Its retracement zone at 1.2354 to 1.2401 is new resistance. This zone is also controlling the longer-term tone of the EUR/USD.
The short-term range is 1.2153 to 1.2446. Its retracement zone at 1.2300 to 1.2265 is currently being tested. This zone is controlling the short-term tone of the market. Aggressive counter-trend buyers may step in to try to form a secondary higher bottom. Trend traders are going to try to drive the Forex pair through this zone.
The longer-term retracement zone at 1.2235 to 1.2160 is the major support. Another major support level is the 50% level at 1.2166. The best support cluster is 1.2166 to 1.2160.
Based on the early trade, the direction of the EUR/USD the rest of the session is likely to be determined by trader reaction to an uptrending Gann angle at 1.2273.
A sustained move over 1.2273 will indicate buyers are returning. This could drive the Forex pair into 1.2300. Overtaking this level could trigger an acceleration into a steep downtrending Gann angle at 1.2126.
A sustained move under 1.2273 will signal the presence of sellers. This is followed by 1.2265. This is the trigger point for an acceleration into 1.2235 then the uptrending Gann angle at 1.2213.
Thisarticlewas originally posted on FX Empire
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• Oil Price Fundamental Daily Forecast – Gains May Be Limited by Concerns Over Surging U.S. Production || If Cryptocurrencies Are to Be Taken Seriously, This Is What Needs to Happen: Last year was a true coming-out party for the cryptocurrency market. After virtual currencies began the year with a combined market cap of less than $18 billion, their aggregate value soared almost $600 billion by year's end to $613 billion. That's a gain of more than 3,300%, and it's probably the greatest single year for an asset class that we'll ever see. However, the current year hasn't brought the same jubilation for cryptocurrency investors. In fact, virtual currencies at one point shed 67% of their value, from peak to trough, in a matter of weeks. Some would suggest that this was simple profit-taking, and to some extent they may very well be correct. But the recent downdraft in digital currencies, which has been ongoing now for more than two months, may represent a loss of trust among retail investors that these virtual currencies and blockchain projects can deliver on their promises. Blockchain is the digital, distributed, and decentralized ledger that underlies most cryptocurrencies and is responsible for logging all transaction data without the need for a bank. What needs to happen for Wall Street, investors, and even worldwide governments to take cryptocurrencies seriously? Let's take a look. A judge's gavel surrounded by binary code. Image source: Getty Images. Regulation! Regulation! Regulation! Though you might shudder at the thought of regulation in the crypto market, it's perhaps the one factor in the near term that could restore faith in virtual currencies. You see, quite a few investors bought into the early cryptocurrency craze on the notion of perceived anonymity. In other words, their transactions weren't being routed through traditional banking networks, and they didn't have to link their name to their virtual currency accounts. However, this anonymity and Wild West-nature of the crypto market is precisely why a number of investors today believe this to be nothing more than a passing fad. Regulation could change that. Story continues To begin with, regulation itself provides validation. The more worldwide governments tighten cryptocurrency controls, the more virtual currencies become a burgeoning asset class. For example, South Korea announced in January that it would no longer allow investors to add funds to crypto exchanges from a domestically linked bank account unless they provided their name and other identifying information. South Korean regulators aren't trying to shut down digital currency markets so much as help validate their existence. We've also witnessed a step up in regulation from social media networks that've recently put their collective foots down on crypto and initial coin offering ads. Facebook (NASDAQ: FB) in January, Alphabet 's Google by June, and, as rumored, Twitter are all saying goodbye to cryptocurrency-related advertisements. Rob Leathern, Facebook's product management director, had this to say in January : "We've created a new policy that prohibits ads that promote financial products and services that are frequently associated with misleading or deceptive promotional practices, such as binary options, initial coin offerings, and cryptocurrency." On the surface, the actions taken by these social media titans seem harmful, as it'll substantially reduce daily impressions, which could slow or reverse money inflow into the cryptocurrency market. But it'll ultimately help form a foundation where investors become more informed, and allow information to be disseminated in an orderly fashion, rather than through mass-advertising, where claims can be difficult to validate. Regulation is a good thing, and it's a necessary step if cryptocurrencies are to be taken seriously. Binary code and blockchain nodes surrounding a digital outline of the continents. Image source: Getty Images. Real-world application Next, the cryptocurrency market needs to move past the proof-of-concept conundrum . Over the past two years, we've seen a countless number of blockchain partnerships between digital currencies and brand-name businesses, while medium-of-exchange coins like bitcoin and Litecoin have been signing up plenty of new merchants. But in many of these instances, these projects being undertaken are small in scope and lack anything that resembles real-world scalability. If cryptocurrencies are to be trusted, we're going to need to see blockchain projects and virtual coin usage move beyond simple proof-of-concept testing and into real-world applications. For instance, in November, the IOTA Foundation announced the beta launch of its Data Marketplace, which is a blockchain-based network that would allow companies to sell or share unused data. Considering most business data goes unused, this revolutionary blockchain idea was viewed as a possible game-changer -- even in its beta version. It also had over three dozen brand-name participants that were offering feedback during this beta period. However, as IOTA's market cap increased, the number of users on its network did as well, bogging things down for a period of time and slowing processing times to a crawl . In other words, when scaled, the IOTA network ran into some major hurdles. In a broader sense, blockchain technology is caught in a vicious Catch-22 . On one hand, it's demonstrated success in numerous small-scale and pilot projects. Nevertheless, businesses haven't been willing to replace their existing networks and use blockchain in a scaled scenario. The reason? A lack of real-world testing and proven scalability. Yet this scalability and real-world testing can't be proved if no businesses step forward to give this technology a chance. In addition, blockchain isn't a true fit for all industries, even in its non-currency form, and the cost to integrate or replace an existing network with blockchain could be enormous. But if we're to see cryptocurrencies and blockchain gain acceptance, we're going to need to see real-world applications of this technology. Messy stacks of physical gold coins in front of a bar chart. Image source: Getty Images. Crypto-consolidation Last, but not least, we'd need to see some serious consolidation in the cryptocurrency space, which, according to my Foolish colleague Matt Frankel, now tops 1,650 investable digital currencies . I know what you might be thinking: "But there are thousands of publicly traded stocks, and the stock market seems to be operating efficiently." While that's true, you have to keep in mind that the stock market is regulated , and the virtual currency market mostly isn't. A majority of virtual currencies that have undertaken an initial coin offering haven't raised enough capital to be viable over the long term, and a number of others lack any regular trading volume. Understand that the consolidation could take a few forms. It could mean removing the ability to invest in delisting cryptocurrencies that failed to raise adequate money during an initial coin offering, or it may even involve actual consolidation of blockchain projects. Either way, investors and enterprises need a consolidated crypto market to be able to properly analyze digital currencies for future investment. When the cryptocurrency market is narrowed down to viable coins, tightly regulated, and is accepted by enterprises, then, and only then, will it be taken seriously. More From The Motley Fool 16 Cryptocurrency Facts You Should Know Experts Warned – The Crypto ‘Bloodbath’ is Here How to Buy Bitcoin Suzanne Frey, an executive at Alphabet, is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors. Sean Williams has no position in any of the stocks or cryptocurrencies mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Alphabet (A shares), Alphabet (C shares), Facebook, and Twitter, but has no position in any cryptocurrencies mentioned. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy .
[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
My 90/10 rule ends up getting me more $ETH than I anticipate. Fiat in goes 90% Bitcoin and 10% Ethereum. I generally hodl no $BTC at all times except when flipping trades. || これからBitCoin を使ってお金を稼ぎたいという方！！
BitCoinniにはヴォレットというビットコイン専用の口座が必要です。
まず初心者が最初に初めて間違いのないのはこのヴォレットです。
https://coincheck.com/?c=uLFRsgAQwCk || The 1 Bitcoin Show- BTC is not about fitting in, MoneroV, Ethereum, Puerto Rico pic.twitter.com/uWGtSmWrCw || BTC Price: 10762.04$,
BTC Today High : 10893.76$,
BTC All Time High : 19903.44$
ETH Price: 811.00$ #bitcoin #BTC $BTC #ETH $ETH #cryptopic.twitter.com/9xZTe08lSw || Who Is Buying Bitcoin And Cryptocurrencies? http://www.sutekhscrypto.com/who-is-buying-bitcoin-and-cryptocurrencies/ … || OMG I have made 0.7 BTC just in ONE day $MYB check here —> https://goo.gl/wEQzRY
$MAG $PEPE $CND $TIO $BCX $OCT $AMB $MUSIC $GEO $DENT $AAC $POE $ICON $DCR $MYB $DGD $ZEPH $AIDOC 30.00$ $BLITZ $JINN
rEKHG2faQKDznFfShQKs5F3B || There is nothing that Bitcoin can do which Ethereum can't. - Fred Ehrsam
€50 starting capital, click here to register ==> http://bit.ly/2hsMmFk
#USITECH #FOREX #CRYPTOCURRENCY #CRYPTOCURRENCIES #CRYPTO #BITCOIN #DigitalCurrencypic.twitter.com/TY2UbaMOVz || Banks are scared of Bitcoin.... || Botnet is most widespread and occurs commonly in today‘s cyber att http://bit.ly/1GHH6RI #Cybersecurity #Bitcoin pic.twitter.com/XGuCOcgcCV || New post (Bitcoin Price News - Why Is BTC Falling Today? Will Bitcoin Crash Below $7K - Clif High Forecasts) has been published on Crypto Ventures - http://cryptoventures.io/2018/04/06/bitcoin-price-news-why-is-btc-falling-today-will-bitcoin-crash-below-7k-clif-high-forecasts/ …pic.twitter.com/4MuP2vvCsp
|
Trend: no change || Prices: 9348.48, 9419.08, 9240.55, 9119.01, 9235.92, 9743.86, 9700.76, 9858.15, 9654.80, 9373.01
|
Analyze the provided historical prices, technical indicators, news, and social media sentiment from the last 60 days. Based on this context, predict the overall trend (up, down, or no change) and the specific daily closing prices for Bitcoin for the next 10 days.
|
[Technical Analysis for 2019-09-17]
BTC Price: 10241.27, BTC RSI: 47.88
Gold Price: 1505.10, Gold RSI: 52.33
Oil Price: 59.34, Oil RSI: 56.84
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
Bitcoin Price Indicator May Signal Next Leg Higher: History looks to be repeating itself in the bitcoin market, as a key indicators bullish turn could mark the beginning of the next meteoric price rally. The worlds most valuable cryptocurrencys price action seen over the last eight months is very similar to the moves seen in 2015, according to Bitstamp data. For instance, the bitcoin bear market ended near $3,100 in mid-December 2018 and prices built a base below $4,000 in the following three months before breaking into a bull market on April 2. Notably, the bear market drop ran out of steam two months before the 50- and 10-week moving averages confirmed a bearish crossover (in February 2019). Related: Bitcoin Eyes Move to $10,950 Hurdle After Price Breakout Further, the new bull market began two months following the confirmation of the bearish crossover. That is hardly surprising as bearish crossovers of long duration MAs are big-time lagging indicators and often mark bear market bottoms. Whats more interesting is that the previous bear market (2014) had also run out of steam in the run-up to the bearish crossover and the confirmation of the crossover was followed by a bullish breakout, as seen in the chart below. Weekly chart The bear market, which began at the end of 2013, ran out of steam at lows near $150 in January 2015. The 50- and 100-week MAs produced a bearish cross in April and a bullish reversal was confirmed at the end of October 2015. Related: History Favors the Bulls as Bitcoin Price Trades Sideways at $10K Note that the bull market had stalled around $450 following a quick rise from $320 to $500 in November. The cryptocurrency resumed the bull market in the last week of May 2016 after prices rose 18 percent and the 50- and 100-week MAs produced a bullish crossover. More importantly, BTC went on to hit fresh record highs above $1,200 in February 2017. As of now, BTC is trading around $10,300, having rallied from $4,000 to $13,880 in the second quarter. Essentially, the bull market has stalled in the last few weeks. Story continues With history repeating itself, there is a strong reason to believe that the bullish crossover of the 50- and 100-week MAs, if and when, confirmed, could mark the beginning of a meteoric rise well above $20,000. Currently, the 50- and 100-week MAs are located at $6,556 and $7,668, respectively. Disclosure: The author holds no cryptocurrency assets at the time of writing. Bitcoin image via Shutterstock; charts by Trading View Related Stories Bear Trap? Bitcoin Price Dips Below $10K on Low Volumes New Data Gives Unprecedented Insight Into How Iranians Use Bitcoin || Thai crypto exchange Bitcoin Co. shutting down abruptly after 5 years of service: Bitcoin Co. Ltd. (BX.in.th), one of Thailand’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges, today abruptly announced that it is shutting down later this month.
The exchangesaidit wants to focus on “other business opportunities,” without giving any specific details. BX.in.th will disable all deposits after Sept. 6 and stop trading services after Sept. 30.
Customers, therefore, have been asked to withdraw any funds held at the exchange into their own bank accounts or digital wallets before Nov. 1.
Bitcoin Co. Ltd. further said that it will not be seeking to get a Digital Asset Exchange license from Thailand's securities regulator, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), for the next year.“We thank our loyal customers for using our BX.in.th services over the past 5 years [...] Please note that all fund[s] are completely safe and all customers will receive 100% of their funds returned to them,” the exchange concluded.BX.in.th's recent 24-hour volume was valued at over $10 million, the majority in bitcoin,accordingto data provider CoinMarketCap. || Bitcoin: Extreme Fear or Extreme Opportunity?: Decrease of the price occurs at the background of growth of trade volumes. The effect of the soon-to-be launch of Bakkt waned, and now the tug-of-war game is back, which is typical for the recent time. In case of bear pressure below the lows of mid-August by $9.5K, the participants of the crypto market will hear a very alarming call, as the next significant level of support is only around $6,200, where the 200-day average passes. The Bitcoin dominance index is close to 69%. However, the cryptocurrency market is flooded with illiquid cryptocurrency projects. The CoinMarketCap list includes almost 2,500 cryptocurrencies. If all illiquid coins and stablecoins are excluded, the Bitcoins market share can go well beyond 90%. The fear and greed index of Bitcoin has fallen to 5, which corresponds to the designation extreme fear levels. Judging by the index, it may mean the prospect of a sharp decline, which causes panic on the one side of the crypto market and creates the opportunity to buy at a discount for another. At the moment the market is really selling, but the decline in Bitcoin is not as dramatic as the index shows. While participants are witnessing the fluctuations of Bitcoin, Tether team considers creating another stablecoin on the basis of the Chinese yuan so popular became this direction. Against the background of the trade war with the U.S., the actions of the Chinese government, the unrest in Hong Kong, Chinese traders increasingly prefer a stable cryptocurrency for transactions, while at the moment they have the opportunity to exchange USDT to fiat currency at home. It is likely that this scheme is already under control of the Chinese government. This article was written by FxPro This article was originally posted on FX Empire More From FXEMPIRE: Central Banks: The Markets Life Buoy Gold Price Forecast Gold markets pull back only to find more buyers S&P 500 Price Forecast Stock markets pulled back slightly on Thursday Global Equities Back to Key Levels USD/JPY Price Forecast US dollar continues to press resistance above Silver Price Forecast Silver markets continue to find buyers on dips || EOS & Ethereum Daily Tech Analysis –11/09/19: EOS slid by 2.49% on Tuesday. Reversing a 2.39% gain from Monday, EOS ended the day at $3.7826.
A bullish start to the day saw EOS rise to an early morning intraday high $3.9233 before hitting reverse.
Falling short of the first major resistance level at $4.0233, EOS slid to an early evening intraday low $36.629.
The reversal saw EOS fall through the first major support level at $3.6797. EOS found late support from the broader market to limit the downside on the day.
In spite of the last week’s gains and a bullish start to the week, the extended bearish trend formed back at April 2018’s swing hi $23.03, remained firmly intact. EOS continued to fall short of the 23.6% FIB of $6.62 following a pullback from $8.65 levels in late June.
For the current week, EOS was up by 5.82%.
At the time of writing, EOS was down by 0.79% to $3.7527. A relatively bullish start to the day saw EOS rise to an early morning high $3.8227 before falling to a low $3.7168.
EOS left the major support and resistance levels untested early on.
EOS would need to move through to $3.79 levels to bring the first major resistance level at $3.9163 into play.
EOS would need the support of the broader market, however, to break out from this morning’s high $3.8227.
Barring an extended crypto rally through the day, the first major resistance level and Tuesday’s high $3.9233 would likely limit any upside on the day.
Failure to move through to $3.79 levels could see EOS slide deeper into the red.
A fall back through the morning low $3.7168 to sub-$3.7 levels would bring the first major support level at $3.6559 into play.
Barring a crypto meltdown, EOS should steer clear of sub-$3.6 levels on the day.
Major Support Level: $3.6559
Major Resistance Level: $3.9163
23.6% FIB Retracement Level: $6.62
38% FIB Retracement Level: $9.76
62% FIB Retracement Level: $14.82
Ethereum fell by 0.55% on Tuesday. Following on from a 0.51% decline on Monday, Ethereum ended the day at $179.64.
A particularly bullish start to the day saw Ethereum rally to an early morning intraday high $184.55.
Falling short of the first major resistance level at $185.72, Ethereum slid to an early evening intraday low $176.6.
Despite the extended sell-off through the day, Ethereum steered clear of the first major support level at $175.83.
Finding support late on, Ethereum moved back through to $179 levels to cut the deficit on the day.
The extended bearish trend, formed at late April 2018’s swing hi $828.97, remained firmly intact. A reversal from June’s current year high $364.49 back through the 23.6% FIB of $257 reaffirmed the extended bearish trend.
At the time of writing, Ethereum was up by 0.07% to $179.76. Another bullish start to the day saw Ethereum rise to an early morning high $182.49 before falling to a low $179.08.
Ethereum left the major support and resistance levels untested early on.
Ethereum would need to move back through to $180 levels to support another run at the first major resistance level at $183.93.
Support from the broader market would be needed, however, for Ethereum to break out from the morning high $182.49.
Barring a broad-based crypto rebound, Ethereum would likely come up short of $184 levels struck on Tuesday.
In the event of an extended crypto rally, the second major resistance level at $188.21 could come into play before any pullback.
Failure to move back through to $180 levels could see Ethereum slide back into the red.
A fall through the morning low $179.08 to $178 levels would bring the first major support level at $175.98 into play
Barring a crypto meltdown, however, Ethereum should steer clear of sub-$175 support levels on the day.
Major Support Level: $175.98
Major Resistance Level: $183.93
23.6% FIB Retracement Level: $257
38.2% FIB Retracement Level: $367
62% FIB Retracement Level: $543
Please let us know what you think in the comments below.
Thanks, Bob
Thisarticlewas originally posted on FX Empire
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• One Less War Hawk || ARK Industrial ETF Morphing Into Autonomous Tech, Robotics ETF: This article was originally published on ETFTrends.com. The ARK Industrial Innovation ETF ( ARKQ ) , an actively managed exchange traded sponsored by ARK Investment Management, is changing its name to ARK Autonomous Technology & Robotics ETF. Currently, ARKQ captures the converging industrial and technology sectors, capitalizing from autonomous vehicles, robotics, 3D printing, and energy storage technologies. Over the years, the $172 million fund has become known for impressive performances as well as being one of the ARK ETFs with large exposure to Tesla Inc. A filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) indicates the fund officially changed its name on Thursday, Sept. 5 . Currently, in seeking to achieve the Funds investment objective of long-term growth of capital, the Fund invests under normal circumstances primarily (at least 80% of its assets) in domestic and foreign equity securities of companies that are relevant to the Funds investment theme of industrial innovation, according to the filing. Changing Things Up ARKQ's investment objective change could bring more exposure to the fast-growing and highly lucrative robotics market. Robotics and artificial intelligence are making machines smarter and more capable than ever before, allowing robots to take on increasingly sophisticated tasks for faster and more accurate production. Several sub-groups of artificial intelligence and robotics spaces could be major drivers of the themes returns in the coming years, including industrial robots. Scores of academic studies and industry-level data point suggest the world is becoming increasingly automated and that robotics applications are developing at a fevered pitch, according to Nasdaq . For BOTZ, one driver is increased demand for robots. If that isnt realized, the investment thesis is weakened. Fortunately, demand is quite robust. Related: Tesla Making Moves In China Say Analysts Several of ARK's other actively managed ETFs focus on rapidly growing, disruptive investment niches and those funds have long delivered stellar returns. Story continues Autonomous technology and robotics companies are companies that ARK Investment Management LLC believes are expected to focus on and benefit from the development of new products or services, technological improvements and advancements in scientific research related to, among other things, disruptive innovation automation and manufacturing ('automation transformation companies'), transportation, energy ('energy transformation companies'), artificial intelligence ('artificial intelligence companies') and materials, according to the filing. For more investing ideas, visit ETFtrends.com . POPULAR ARTICLES AND RESOURCES FROM ETFTRENDS.COM SPY ETF Quote VOO ETF Quote QQQ ETF Quote VTI ETF Quote JNUG ETF Quote Top 34 Gold ETFs Top 34 Oil ETFs Top 57 Financials ETFs Heated Tobacco May Replace Vaping Amidst Consumer Issues VanEck And SolidX Take First Steps For Bitcoin-Related ETF Approvals Could Inverse ETFs Thrive In September? Social Media Stock SNAP Gets An Upgrade Gold, Precious Metals ETFs Surge on Geopolitical Uncertainty READ MORE AT ETFTRENDS.COM > || White House Advisory Says Cryptocurrencies Used for Fentanyl Purchases: The White House issued two advisories on drug purchases in the U.S. Wednesday, using the communications to make specific references to the role of cryptocurrencies in such transactions. The advisories, addressed to both financial institutions and digital payment platforms , state that “convertible virtual currencies,” particularly bitcoin , bitcoin cash , ethereum and monero, can be and have been used for illicit substance purchases on the clear, deep, and dark nets. The advisory defines convertible virtual currencies as monies that are easily liquidated into stable fiat currencies such as the dollar. Related: Dark Web Drug Dealer to Forfeit Millions in Illicit Crypto Earnings Specifically noted is the drug fentanyl, a Schedule II controlled substance whose illicit cousin enters the U.S. through Mexico or China, per the advisories. According to the Drug Enforcement Agency , fentanyl is 80 to 100 times stronger than morphine. “An analysis of sensitive financial data indicates that domestic illicit drug manufacturers, dealers, and consumers use online payment platforms or [convertible virtual currency] to purchase precursor chemicals or completely synthesized narcotics primarily sourced from China,” the advisory states. The White House issued the financial advisory with other government agencies as a part of a broader cooperative effort “to end the fentanyl epidemic.” As such, methods of payment were studied, including virtual currencies. Related: Three UK Men Busted Over Bitcoin-Based Drug Ring The July 2017 takedown of dark market AlphaBay by U.S. officials is given as an example of past interaction between virtual currencies and illicit substances. Included in the report is authority methods of tracking and discovery payments for illicit substances using CVC’s such as wallet and IP addresses along with transaction hashes. Earlier today, the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) blacklisted three Chinese nationals for money laundering and drug smuggling laws. Story continues Drugs image via CoinDesk archives Related Stories Dark Web Drug Dealer to Hand Over Bitcoin Millions After Plea Deal New York State Sees First Conviction for Crypto Money Laundering || Tether releases new stablecoin pegged to Chinese yuan: Tether, the controversial stablecoin issuer behind USDT, today announced the launch of a newstablecointhat will be backed by offshore Chinese yuan (CNH).
The stablecoin, CNHT, will be pegged to the yuan on run on the Ethereum blockchainas an ERC-20 token, according to a statement from the company. Tether can now receive wire transfers of CNH attether.to, which, in theory, increases its ability to facilitate “the digital use of fiat currencies.” The Tether platform also supports the U.S. dollar (USDT) and the euro (EURT).
Launched in 2014, Tether remains the primary stablecoin on the market, but has more recently faced competitors in USD Coin (USDC), Anchor and other similar tokens. As a fiat-pegged stablecoin, Tether is supposedly backed by traditional fiat currency held in reserves, which sets it apart from other forms of digital currency such asBitcoin,Ethereumand Ripple’s XRP.
This claim, however, has been repeatedly challenged, and is central to theongoing legal battlethat Tether’s parent company, iFinex, faces in New York. The New York State Attorney General filed a lawsuit against iFinex in April alleging that the company committed fraud and violated securities laws when its crypto exchange, Bitfinex, raided Tether reserves to cover the loss of $850 million to a shady Panama-based, payment processor calledCrypto Capital.
Even before the lawsuit, however, allegations arose that Tether was being used to manipulate the price of Bitcoin. Areport issuedby University of Texas Finance Professor John Griffin in mid-2018 claimed to demonstrate how the stablecoin was used to do precisely that during Bitcoin’s meteoric rise in December 2017.
But even with the eyes of U.S. regulators firmly on Tether’s business practices, the company evidently has no concern with entering a new market in China. || BTCC founder Bobby Lee launches crypto wallet startup Ballet: Cryptocurrency entrepreneur Bobby Lee. Photo: Bobby Lee The founder of China’s first bitcoin exchange has returned to the market with a new startup, Ballet, that builds bitcoin wallets. Bobby Lee told Yahoo Finance UK that Ballet’s new credit card-sized wallets will “allow normal people, regular people access to cryptocurrency.” Ballet’s first wallet, called REAL, has no electronic parts. It means the wallet, which stores electronic keys, can not be hacked. The wallet acts as a store for the private key that cryptocurrency owners must use to unlock their online wallets, a little like a key to a safe deposit box. “It’s like cash,” Lee, a former Walmart executive, said. “Once you load it with bitcoin, litecoin, ethereum, this device has everything it needs to access the funds. “It can be used as a gift to give someone or you can just store it in safe deposit box and hide it somewhere at home. This is completely offline, there’s no hacking risk.” READ MORE: Domino’s Pizza France giving away €100K in bitcoin Prior to Ballet, Lee founded and ran BTCC, China’s first cryptocurrency exchange. The startup grew rapidly but was forced to stop operating in China when Beijing banned crypto exchanges in 2017. Lee sold BTCC for an undisclosed sum in early 2018. He said the business was sold for eight figures, adding it was “a good number we were all very happy with.” “I spent most of last year giving speeches, travelling, taking some vacation, spending time with family — just enjoying life having made some money off of my last startup,” he said. A mock-up of Ballet's REAL cryptocurrency wallet. Photo: Ballet Lee said he was inspired to return to the crypto market after spotting a gap in the market. “There are a lot of people who come to me and say: Bobby, will you help me store my bitcoin for me?” READ MORE: Bitcoins worth $1 billion just moved to an unknown wallet Ballet has raised around $5m in seed funding from Lee’s friends and family, as well as Silicon Valley venture capital fund Ribbit Capital. Ribbit was an early backer of Coinbase and other fintech businesses like Revolut . Story continues Ballet, which is headquartered in Las Vegas, will beginning shipping REAL wallets to beta testers in the next few weeks before a wider roll-out in October. The products will sell for $35 but initially retail at a promotional price of $29. The price of bitcoin peaked at $20,000 around the time Lee was selling BTCC. It has since crashed, taking the rest of the cryptocurrency market. Bitcoin has traded around the $10,000 mark since late July. “People get dissuaded or get doom and gloom after the big rise to $20,000 in 2017 and then the crashing down,” Lee said. “We are in one of many, many cycles to come. Any cycle will take us to higher and higher heights. I’m quite confident sitting on my bitcoin investment that in a very short amount of time we’ll exceed $20,000 and go to $50,000, $100,000, even $200,000. He added: “When I say a short time, I don’t mean minutes or hours, I mean maybe months, if not a few years.” ———— Oscar Williams-Grut covers banking, fintech, and finance for Yahoo Finance UK. Follow him on Twitter at @OscarWGrut . Read more: Monzo blamed as big banks take £1.6bn brand hit Goldman Sachs: Recession risk raised to 30% — but US stocks aren't done Theresa May's top Brexit negotiator to join Goldman Sachs Universities get £1.5m mental health boost from Goldman Sachs Lloyds latest to be surprised by PPI deadline with £1.8bn claims surge || Chargers Star Russell Okung Is Pumping Bitcoin at NFL Training Camp: Russell Okung is prepping his team for theNFLseason the best way he knows: by talking about bitcoin. The two-time pro-bowler tweeted out today that the first conversation of the San Diego Chargers training camp revolved around the flagship cryptocurrency.
The tweet kicked off an active thread that inspired some crypto mainstays to chime in. Anthony Pompliano, the co-founder of Morgan Creek Digital andincessant crypto bull, responded with fire emojis.
Gemini, the cryptocurrency exchange owned by the Winklevoss Twins, responded with a moonshot emoji.
Read the full story on CCN.com. || China’s Inner Mongolia to Shutter ‘Illegal’ Bitcoin Miners by October: China’s Inner Mongolia autonomous region is carrying out an inspection to eliminate “illegal” bitcoin mining operations by October, a government spokesman told CoinDesk, confirming a local report.
The official document detailing the inspection plan was leaked to Chinese media which published photos of the decree from the Inner Mongolian regional authority.
“The inspection is directed by the central government, rather than a standalone plan initiated by the local government,” according to an industry executive involved in the planning process.
“The move reflects the nationwide phase-out plan on the bitcoin mining,” the source added. The government’s proposed plan in April, pending final approval, is to drive out the digital currency mining industry from China.
According to the 10-page document, data centers that provide facilities for bitcoin miners and unregistered bitcoin mining businesses will be closed.
The local authorities leading the raids will target any bitcoin mining operation that tries to get preferential electricity prices and tax breaks by pretending to be a sanctioned user, such as a big data company or cloud computing host.
Existing bitcoin mining businesses that pass the inspection will be categorized as “limited companies” that should pay the official electricity rate and not negotiate with power stations directly. They would still be expected to shut down their mining operating in the near future.
The region-wide inspection is being rolled out in two phases.
The municipalities are carrying out the inspections from Sept. 3 to Sept. 25 and then.reporting their findings to the regional government, which will form a team to investigate the findings from each jurisdiction from Oct. 10 to Oct. 20..
Inner Mongolia, in northern China, is among the most suitable areas to operate bitcoin mining businesses thanks to its cheap electricity supply, low land prices, cold weather and a small population.
Such conditions help miners by reducing their biggest cost – electricity – cooling equipment more quickly and avoiding densely populated areas that would be bothered by noisy operating machines. Bitmain, one of the largest bitcoin mining companies, has had operations in the region.
China started to crackdown on bitcoin mining operations before the draft proposal in April by the National Development and Reform Commission, the primary government agency for economic planning.
The NDRC’s positionindicatedthat the mining industry should be phased out of China as it does not fit in the future economic development plan of the country. Trading and possessing cryptocurrencies is illegal in China as part of broader currency controls, but crypto use is prevalent on theblack market.
Image via Shutterstock
[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
New! Fight 4 Family Huge $3+ Epc! (proof On Aff Page)
@1jl4com - Familia - Twitter - News - Noticias - Bitcoin - CryptoCurrency - Forex https://t.co/kW83DYTtkP || It is extremely hard to see the truth when you rule the World. You're just too busy. || #computerart : #bitcoin #blockchain 's
LAST Block, Height : 594357
[ See more on https://t.co/p7nE81m7aK ] https://t.co/rXlc1TyJtv || Continuation of the story of data leakage from Binance: the exchange was blackmailed at 300 BTC and after the refusal they started to publish user data. According to Changpeng Zhao, CEO of the site, information merged into the network is irrelevant. || TOPYEKÜN YANLIŞ GRAFİKLER PAYLAŞMIŞ..
İnsanlar YANACAK..
#DOLAR
#DolarTL
#bist100
#usdtry
#Belensay 2012
#doge #dogeusd
#btc #btcusd
YTD || Hurry! 15.11% triangular arbitrage considering volume in #XMR via #Binance in INR currency. If you buy #XMR in #BTC market from #CoinDCX and convert it to #SKY in #Binance and sell it on #BitBns. || I won’t lie, I’m getting chopped TF up on shorter frames for $BTC.
My longer frame positions are doing solid.
But yeah algos in this 300 point range has been death. 😖 || Is Ebay Gearing Up To Support Bitcoin? Mainstream Adoption On the Way!
https://t.co/eFoyF5URcI https://t.co/3yazCuXhMP || BitMEX $BTC Whale:
$3,000,000 worth of #Bitcoin sold at $11,906.9 08:33:26 2019/08/09
| 💰💰💰💰💰💰💰💰💰💰 "Wait for the bounce, then short the corn" || #arianagrandeisoverparty #ArianaIsOverParty #bitcoin #fancyvideogotdeletedparty #WeLoveYouChanyeol #appreciationforzendaya #NationalChickenWingDay #NationalLipstickDay #mondaythoughts #loveIslandfinal #HungryForLoveIsland #OITNB #FortniteWorldCup https://t.co/2LYZZ0Un1F
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Trend: down || Prices: 10198.25, 10266.42, 10181.64, 10019.72, 10070.39, 9729.32, 8620.57, 8486.99, 8118.97, 8251.85
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Analyze the provided historical prices, technical indicators, news, and social media sentiment from the last 60 days. Based on this context, predict the overall trend (up, down, or no change) and the specific daily closing prices for Bitcoin for the next 10 days.
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[Technical Analysis for 2021-10-27]
BTC Price: 58482.39, BTC RSI: 52.36
Gold Price: 1797.90, Gold RSI: 57.47
Oil Price: 82.66, Oil RSI: 63.72
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
Should You Buy the ProShares Bitcoin Strategy ETF (BITO)?: Concept art of Bitcoin Getty Images The ProShares Bitcoin Strategy ETF ( BITO , $43.28) is officially a blockbuster. Cryptocurrency proponents scored one of their largest badges of legitimacy recently when the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) allowed ProShares' new Bitcoin futures exchange-traded fund (ETF) to launch. That staunched a roughly eight-year stretch of failures – starting with the Winklevoss Twins' filing in 2013 – to get a cryptocurrency ETF not tied to equities approved by U.S. regulators. SEE MORE 13 Bitcoin ETFs and Cryptocurrency Funds You Should Know BITO hit the exchanges on Oct. 19 to roaring demand, gobbling up $570 million in assets under management on its first day of trading. By the end of Day 2, ProShares' product toppled the billion-dollar mark and closed with $1.1 billion in AUM. That's a chunk of history: As Bloomberg Senior ETF Analyst Eric Balchunas points out, BITO eclipsed the SPDR Gold Shares ( GLD ) as the quickest ETF to pile up $1 billion in assets. But should you throw your money into that $1.1 billion pool? We'll help you make that decision. Let's delve into what this Bitcoin futures ETF does, as well as what the pros like about it – and what they don't. A Bit on BITO The ProShares Bitcoin Strategy ETF invests in cash-settled, front-month Bitcoin futures. ("Front-month" just refers to the contracts that will mature the soonest.) When those contracts mature, the ETF will buy up contracts for the next month. ProShares collects 0.95% in fees, or $95 on a $10,000 investment, for providing you with that access. Sign up for Kiplinger's FREE Closing Bell e-letter: Our daily look at the stock market's most important headlines, and what moves investors should make. And … well, that's about it. BITO delivers a straightforward strategy that doesn't need much explaining. What does require some conversation, though, is what kind of Bitcoin exposure you're getting – and what BITO means for cryptocurrency broadly. The Pros of BITO and Bitcoin Futures ETFs The launch of the ProShares Bitcoin Strategy ETF was widely celebrated across the crypto world, largely because it's the latest major instance of cryptocurrency being taken seriously by traditional financial markets. SEE MORE PODCAST: Bitcoin Explained with Tyrone Ross Piper Sandler analysts Richard Repetto and Patrick Moley call it "another step in the walk towards greater 'crypto legitimacy' … as it brings more credibility and attention to the crypto space as a whole and will likely lead to higher volumes across the industry over time." Story continues Repetto and Moley note that they've spoken with many management teams in recent months who have expressed interest in cryptocurrency offerings, but would like to see more regulatory clarity before taking action. "We think that the tacit approval of a bitcoin futures ETF is a step toward providing that clarity for many," the analysts add. In addition to opening the floodgates for money managers and advisers, BITO and other Bitcoin futures ETFs also could be a stepping stone for retail investors who have thus far neglected crypto as an asset class. "ETFs offering crypto exposure can open the door to a whole new wave of crypto-curious investors," says Lindsey Bell, chief investment strategist for Ally Invest. "Crypto has been exciting for a while, but some have been hesitant to buy in because of the lack of transparency. Others have been skeptical about the mechanics of buying and selling pure coins." Bitcoin futures ETFs, however, allow investors that are more comfortable with traditional vehicles such as brokerage accounts and IRAs to gain crypto exposure without having to hold or exchange the actual cryptocurrencies, she says. There are other things to like about BITO and the ability to invest in crypto via ETFs: More liquidity in futures markets. "The futures markets offer deep liquidity with significantly more volume than the crypto markets," Repetto and Moley say. "For example, the Bitcoin futures market yesterday saw $62B in total volume, compared to $37B in Bitcoin's spot market trading volumes." Lower fees. "Investing in crypto has notoriously been an expensive process because of high fees and transaction costs. Bitcoin futures ETFs could offer a relatively low-fee solution," Bell says. BITO specifically is a huge step down in expenses from the most popular Bitcoin fund, the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust ( GBTC ), which charges 2.0% annually, or more than twice BITO's fee. (Just note that GBTC attempts to track spot prices, which is a different type of exposure than Bitcoin futures.) A door for institutional investors. Piper Sandler's analysts add that they "suspect many institutional investors are precluded from purchasing and holding spot crypto in their portfolios" – but they likely don't have rules prohibiting them from holding Bitcoin futures ETFs. The Cons of BITO and Bitcoin Futures ETFs If you want the "purest" form of exposure out of an ETF, you want to buy a fund that holds the underlying asset. SEE MORE Why Are Bitcoin Prices So Volatile? Want to invest in the S&P 500 Index? Buy an ETF that "tracks" the index by holding all of the index's underlying stocks at the same weights they carry in the index. Want to invest in gold? Buy an ETF that simply holds physical gold. Futures simply aren't the same thing. They're contracts that allow someone to buy or sell an asset at a predetermined price at a predetermined date. So futures are really more of a gauge of what people think the price of something could be in the future – but it's not the price itself. (Those looking to learn more about Bitcoin futures themselves should check out Lara Crigger's interview with ProShares Head of Investment Strategy Simeon Hyman .) "It's a well-known fact in the ETF industry that futures-based funds do not provide returns that directly track the underlying asset," says Dave Abner, global head of business development at crypto exchange Gemini. Take oil, for instance. The United States Oil Fund ( USO ), the largest U.S.-traded oil ETF, primarily invests in near-term West Texas Intermediate crude oil futures contracts. At times, it has tracked the price of oil somewhat faithfully. At other times, it hasn't at all. WTI/USO chart YCharts Two big reasons why futures-based ETFs can go astray: Contango: "Bitcoin futures have largely existed in a state of contango, in which the price of futures contracts increase as you move out in time, so these ETFs will likely have to sell out of expiring futures at a lower price and buy into new futures contracts at a higher price," explains Ally Invest's Bell. Cost of carry: "While the spot price of bitcoin is determined by supply and demand, futures prices are based on prevailing spot price plus the cost of carry before delivery," says Piper Sandler's Repetto and Moley. "The cost of carry can be a positive or negative and can fluctuate due to changes in supply and demand, stemming from anticipated announcements to pricing in possible future events." Also worth noting is that while ProShares' BITO currently offers a cost-effective option compared to existing funds (as well as many ways to directly invest in crypto), it very well could be undercut by competitors rolling out new products over the next few months. "In total, there are nine bitcoin futures-based ETFs being reviewed by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), all with potential launch dates during the fourth quarter of 2021 including from large asset managers like ARK, Invesco, and VanEck and lesser-known ETF firms like Bitwise and Valkerie," Todd Rosenbluth, head of ETF and mutual fund research at independent analysis firm CFRA, in an Oct. 18 note. (Note: Invesco has since pulled its filing.) "While the first ETF of any investment style is likely to gain a liquidity advantage, we expect there to be fee competition as more products begin trading." Bottom Line ProShares' Bitcoin Strategy ETF's initial popularity and its historical significance are beyond question. Despite its flaws, Rosenbluth calls BITO "a milestone for the ETF industry." He's hardly alone in his view. But an investment in BITO has to be made with your eyes wide open. This ETF might come close to tracking Bitcoin prices, but there is ample risk it might not. There's also the very real concern that the market could soon be flooded with products providing the same service for less. In other words: If you want pure Bitcoin exposure, you're still best off getting a digital wallet and buying the cryptocurrency directly. That said, in the absence of an ETF that holds "physical" Bitcoin – something that might be a ways off – BITO is one of the purest forms of crypto exposure you can get if you prefer to invest using a traditional brokerage account. SEE MORE 8 Biggest Cryptocurrencies to Watch Right Now You may also like Your Guide to Roth Conversions The 25 Cheapest U.S. Cities to Live In 4 Big Retirement Blunders (and How to Avoid Them) View comments || Is Invesco Global Clean Energy ETF (PBD) a Strong ETF Right Now?: Designed to provide broad exposure to the Alternative Energy ETFs category of the market, the Invesco Global Clean Energy ETF (PBD) is a smart beta exchange traded fund launched on 06/13/2007. What Are Smart Beta ETFs? Products that are based on market cap weighted indexes, which are strategies designed to reflect a specific market segment or the market as a whole, have traditionally dominated the ETF industry. Because market cap weighted indexes provide a low-cost, convenient, and transparent way of replicating market returns, they work well for investors who believe in market efficiency. On the other hand, some investors who believe that it is possible to beat the market by superior stock selection opt to invest in another class of funds that track non-cap weighted strategies--popularly known as smart beta. Non-cap weighted indexes try to choose stocks that have a better chance of risk-return performance, which is based on specific fundamental characteristics, or a mix of other such characteristics. While this space offers a number of choices to investors, including simplest equal-weighting, fundamental weighting and volatility/momentum based weighting methodologies, not all these strategies have been able to deliver superior results. Fund Sponsor & Index The fund is sponsored by Invesco. It has amassed assets over $414.77 million, making it one of the average sized ETFs in the Alternative Energy ETFs. PBD, before fees and expenses, seeks to match the performance of the WilderHill New Energy Global Innovation Index. This Index is an index comprised primarily of companies whose technologies focus on the generation and use of cleaner energy, conservation and efficiency & the advancement of renewable energy in general, as determined by WilderHill New Energy Finance, LLC.The New Energy Global Index is mainly comprised of companies in wind, solar, biofuels, hydro, wave & tidal, geothermal. Cost & Other Expenses Investors should also pay attention to an ETF's expense ratio. Lower cost products will produce better results than those with a higher cost, assuming all other metrics remain the same. Story continues Annual operating expenses for this ETF are 0.75%, making it one of the most expensive products in the space. PBD's 12-month trailing dividend yield is 0.53%. Sector Exposure and Top Holdings Even though ETFs offer diversified exposure that minimizes single stock risk, investors should also look at the actual holdings inside the fund. Luckily, most ETFs are very transparent products that disclose their holdings on a daily basis. Looking at individual holdings, Solarpack Corp Tecnologica Sa (SPK) accounts for about 1.07% of total assets, followed by Jinkosolar Holding Co Ltd Adr (JKS) and Sunrun Inc (RUN). The top 10 holdings account for about 9.78% of total assets under management. Performance and Risk Year-to-date, the Invesco Global Clean Energy ETF has lost about -16.16% so far, and is up about 46.74% over the last 12 months (as of 09/10/2021). PBD has traded between $20.08 and $40.71 in this past 52-week period. The fund has a beta of 1.21 and standard deviation of 31.47% for the trailing three-year period, which makes PBD a high risk choice in this particular space. With about 141 holdings, it effectively diversifies company-specific risk. Alternatives Invesco Global Clean Energy ETF is a reasonable option for investors seeking to outperform the Alternative Energy ETFs segment of the market. However, there are other ETFs in the space which investors could consider. IShares ESG Aware MSCI EM ETF (ESGE) tracks MSCI Emerging Markets ESG Focus Index and the iShares ESG Aware MSCI USA ETF (ESGU) tracks MSCI USA ESG Focus Index. IShares ESG Aware MSCI EM ETF has $7.08 billion in assets, iShares ESG Aware MSCI USA ETF has $22.30 billion. ESGE has an expense ratio of 0.25% and ESGU charges 0.15%. Investors looking for cheaper and lower-risk options should consider traditional market cap weighted ETFs that aim to match the returns of the Alternative Energy ETFs. Bottom Line To learn more about this product and other ETFs, screen for products that match your investment objectives and read articles on latest developments in the ETF investing universe, please visit Zacks ETF Center . Bitcoin, Like the Internet Itself, Could Change Everything Blockchain and cryptocurrency has sparked one of the most exciting discussion topics of a generation. Some call it the “Internet of Money” and predict it could change the way money works forever. If true, it could do to banks what Netflix did to Blockbuster and Amazon did to Sears. Experts agree we’re still in the early stages of this technology, and as it grows, it will create several investing opportunities. Zacks’ has just revealed 3 companies that can help investors capitalize on the explosive profit potential of Bitcoin and the other cryptocurrencies with significantly less volatility than buying them directly. See 3 crypto-related stocks now >> Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report Invesco Global Clean Energy ETF (PBD): ETF Research Reports JinkoSolar Holding Company Limited (JKS): Free Stock Analysis Report Sunrun Inc. (RUN): Free Stock Analysis Report iShares ESG Aware MSCI EM ETF (ESGE): ETF Research Reports iShares ESG Aware MSCI USA ETF (ESGU): ETF Research Reports SPK Acquisition Corp. (SPK): Get Free Report To read this article on Zacks.com click here. || Crypto Stocks: Why RIOT, MARA, COIN and BTBT Are Falling Today: Crypto stocks aren’t doing so hot today and it’s all thanks to recent news out of China. a bitcoin concept coin sitting on wires representing crypto stocks. Source: biggunsband / Shutterstock.com The country is cracking down even harder on crypto with new bans from regulators . That includes China’s central bank banning all crypto transactions. Other regulators in the country are also putting in place news restrictions that stop the mining of crypto in China. China choosing to ban anything to do with crypto is a major blow to the space and easily explains why some stocks are falling today. After all, the world’s second-largest economy just brought down a hammer on the crypto market. InvestorPlace - Stock Market News, Stock Advice & Trading Tips Investors that want more details about the China crypto ban can find it here. Due to this, several crypto stocks are dropping hard today. Let’s jump into those below! 7 High-Yield Dividend Stocks That Will Please Any Income Lover Crypto Stocks Falling Riot Blockchain (NASDAQ: RIOT ) stock starts us off with shares taking an almost 7% beating as of this writing. Marathon Digital (NASDAQ: MARA ) shares are up next with an almost 7% decline as of Friday morning. Coinbase Global (NASDAQ: COIN ) stock also isn’t taking today’s news well with shares dipping more than 2%. Bit Digital (NASDAQ: BTBT ) is also feeling the heat from China’s ban with shares decreasing roughly 5% this morning. It will also come as no surprise to traders that cryptos themselves are also falling today considering the China ban. You can find out more about that by following this link ! Investors that want more of the latest crypto news will want to stick around. We’ve got all the most recent crypto coverage that traders need to know about. A few examples of it include the latest news for Ethereum (CCC: ETH-USD ), Bitcoin (CCC: BTC-USD ), and Litecoin (CCC: LTC-USD ). You can get all of those details by checking out the links below! More Recent Crypto News Ethereum Holders Face Some Hard Questions Ahead In Unpredictable Market If Bitcoin Really Is Digital Gold, Then $500,000 Is the Next Stop Litecoin Is an Interesting Crypto With a Huge Upside Story continues On the date of publication, William White did not have (either directly or indirectly) any positions in the securities mentioned in this article. The opinions expressed in this article are those of the writer, subject to the InvestorPlace.com Publishing Guidelines . More From InvestorPlace Stock Prodigy Who Found NIO at $2… Says Buy THIS Now Analyst Who Found Microsoft at $0.38 Names #1 Pick for the AI Boom America’s #1 EV Stock Still Flying Under the Radar The post Crypto Stocks: Why RIOT, MARA, COIN and BTBT Are Falling Today appeared first on InvestorPlace . || Oil Traders Ignore Signs Of A Sluggish Economy: The price of crude oil remained steady at the start of the fourth trading session of the week, holding gains from the previous session as reports showed that China’s economy shrank even more than expected, growing at just 4.9% in the third quarter, as the country faced a power shortage, COVID19 restrictions, a crackdown on a range of companies, and a real estate debt crisis. Brent crude futures rose nearly a percent on Wednesday, trading over $85 barrel. The December West Texas Intermediate crude futures price increased by 0.4% to $83.79 per barrel. November WTI crude, which expired on Wednesday, settled 1% higher than it reached earlier in the session. It appears that speculators are boosting oil prices by ignoring signs of an economy slowing around the world. Although supply forecasts are not yet bearish, the black gold may experience a pullback soon due to its bearish outlook. The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) said Wednesday that crude oil stocks decreased by 431,000 barrels to 426.5 million barrels during the week ended Oct. 15. Analysts had expected a 1.9-million-barrel rise. At the Cushing, Oklahoma delivery hub, U.S. oil inventories fell to their lowest level since October 2018, indicating that market conditions are still tight. Despite the summer COVID flare-ups in the U.S. and Asia, demand for crude oil has rebounded, but supply has lagged behind demand. From the end of August until the end of September, Hurricane Ida severely limited the U.S oil supply from the Gulf of Mexico. Shell’s platform will remain offline until the end of 2021, so supply won’t fully recover until early next year. As a result, OPEC+ continues to keep the market tight, adding just 400,000 barrels per day to its supply each month While the U.S. and other oil-consuming nations have called for higher oil prices to be brought down, and the energy crisis has pushed utilities to turn to oil-fuelled power generation amid record-high natural gas prices, the demand for oil products has increased. Story continues This article was originally posted on FX Empire More From FXEMPIRE: AUD/USD and NZD/USD Fundamental Daily Forecast – Rally Stalls on Profit-Taking after Sixteen Session Run EUR/USD Daily Forecast – Resistance At 1.1660 Stays Strong MicroStrategy Shares Rise as Bitcoin Bet Pays Off GBP/USD Daily Forecast – U.S. Dollar Attempts To Rebound Against British Pound U.S. Dollar Index (DX) Futures Technical Analysis – Due for Reversal Bottom; Could Stengthen Over 93.580 USD/CAD Exchange Rate Prediction – The USD/CAD Drops but is Oversold || SHAREHOLDER ALERT: Pomerantz Law Firm Reminds Shareholders with Losses on their Investment in Coinbase Global, Inc., of Class Action Lawsuit and Upcoming Deadline – COIN: NEW YORK, Aug. 31, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Pomerantz LLP announces that a class action lawsuit has been filed against Coinbase Global, Inc. (“Coinbase” or the “Company”) (NASDAQ: COIN) and certain of its officers. The class action, filed in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California, and docketed under 21-cv-06049, is on behalf of a class consisting of all persons and entities other than Defendants that purchased or otherwise acquired Coinbase Class A common stock pursuant and/or traceable to the Company’s registration statement and prospectus (collectively, the “Offering Materials”) for the resale of up to 114,850,769 shares of its Class A common stock, whereby Coinbase began trading as a public company on or around April 14, 2021 (the “Offering”). Plaintiff pursues claims against the Defendants under the Securities Act of 1933.
If you are a shareholder who purchased or otherwise acquired Coinbase Class A common stock pursuant and/or traceable to the Company’s registration statement and prospectus, you have until September 20, 2021 to ask the Court to appoint you as Lead Plaintiff for the class. A copy of the Complaint can be obtained atwww.pomerantzlaw.com. To discuss this action, contact Robert S. Willoughby atnewaction@pomlaw.comor 888.476.6529 (or 888.4-POMLAW), toll-free, Ext. 7980. Those who inquire by e-mail are encouraged to include their mailing address, telephone number, and the number of shares purchased.
[Click here for information about joining the class action]
Coinbase “powers the cryptoeconomy,” offering a “trusted platform” for sending and receiving Bitcoin and other digital assets built using blockchain technology to approximately 43 million retail users, 7,000 institutions, and 115,000 ecosystem partners in over 100 countries.
On April 14, 2021, Coinbase filed its prospectus on Form 424B4 with the Securities and Exchange Commission, which forms part of the Registration Statement. The Company registered for the resale of up to 114,850,769 shares of its Class A common stock by registered shareholders. According to the Registration Statement, the resale of the Company’s stock was not underwritten by any investment bank and the registered stockholders would purportedly elect whether or not to sell their shares. Such sales, if any, would be brokerage transactions on the Nasdaq Global Select Market, and Coinbase would purportedly not receive any proceeds from the sale of shares of Class A common stock by the registered stockholders. Thus, Coinbase’s operations, including its liquidity and capital resources, would continue to be financed with cash flow from operating activities and net proceeds from the sale of convertible preferred stock. As of December 31, 2020, Coinbase had cash and cash equivalents of $1.1 billion, exclusive of restricted cash and customer custodial funds.
The complaint alleges that, the Offering Materials were false and misleading and omitted to state that, at the time of the Offering: (1) the Company required a sizeable cash injection; (2) the Company’s platform was susceptible to service-level disruptions, which were increasingly likely to occur as the Company scaled its services to a larger user base; and (3) as a result of the foregoing, Defendants’ positive statements about the Company’s business, operations, and prospects, were materially misleading and/or lacked a reasonable basis.
Only a month later, the high-flying promise of Coinbase came to a screaming halt, as Coinbase conceded the need to raise capital and revealed performance issues that prevented users’ ability to trade cryptocurrencies. On May 17, 2021, Coinbase announced its plans to raise about $1.25 billion via a convertible bond sale. Then, on May 19, 2021, Coinbase revealed technical problems, including “delays . . . due to network congestion” effecting those who want to get their money out.
On this news, the Company’s share price fell $23.44 per share, nearly 10% over two consecutive trading sessions, to close at $224.80 per share on May 19, 2021, thereby injuring investors.
By the commencement of this action, Coinbase stock traded as low as $208.00 per share, a significant decline from its April 14, 2021 opening price of $381.00 per share.
Pomerantz LLP, with offices in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Paris, and Tel Aviv, is acknowledged as one of the premier firms in the areas of corporate, securities, and antitrust class litigation. Founded by the late Abraham L. Pomerantz, known as the dean of the class action bar, Pomerantz pioneered the field of securities class actions. Today, more than 85 years later, Pomerantz continues in the tradition he established, fighting for the rights of the victims of securities fraud, breaches of fiduciary duty, and corporate misconduct. The Firm has recovered numerous multimillion-dollar damages awards on behalf of class members. Seewww.pomlaw.com.
CONTACT:Robert S. WilloughbyPomerantz LLPrswilloughby@pomlaw.com888-476-6529 ext. 7980 || Bitcoin's all-time high rise reignites $100,000 speculation: Bitcoin (BTC-USD) bulls are shooting for the moon, with growing speculation that it could soar as high as $100,000 (£72,437) after reaching fresh records on Wednesday.
The world’s largest cryptocurrency closed at a record of $65,996, which was slightly down from its intraday peak of $66,976. This passed its previous record of $64,889, which it hit in April earlier this year.
It came after the launch of the first US Bitcoin futures exchange-traded fund (ETF), which first listed the day prior.
The ProShares Bitcoin Strategy ETF (BITO) tracks CME bitcoin futures, or contracts speculating on the future price of Bitcoin, rather than the crypto itself. More than 24 million shares of the fund changed hands, making it the second-busiest EFT debut ever.
Bitcoin has surged in recent weeks, and is currently up almost 50% this month alone, its strongest monthly performance so far this year.
“Should the bullish momentum continue, it isn’t out of the realm of possibility to hit $80,000,” Leah Wald, chief executive at Valkyrie Investments, toldBloomberg.
“I think $100,000 this year is a bit optimistic, but anything is possible and it wouldn’t surprise me if we somehow pushed that far north.”
However, some strategists, who decode bitcoin’s potential moves based on technical analysis of charts, have already projected $100,000-plus targets.
Naeem Aslam, chief market analyst at Ava Trade, said: “This is only the beginning, as investors know the true value of bitcoin is much higher than this. Given the price momentum we are seeing on the back of bitcoin’s ETF, we believe that bitcoin can easily go all the way to $100,000 by the end of this year."
Meanwhile, Fundstrat Global Advisors’s Tom Lee said the Bitcoin ETF could attract inflows worth as much as $50bn in the fund’s first year, meaning that the coin itself could hit $168,000.
But some analysts have questioned whether the all-time high will trigger a sell-off, as seen previously.
Nigel Green, chief executive and founder of DeVere Group, said “long-term holders typically buy in a bear market and sell in a bull run... as such, we can expect to see some long-term holders now cashing in some bitcoin with a view to accumulating more later.”
Read more:The hottest new crypto trend: What is the Tungsten Cube?
AJ Bell financial analyst Danni Hewson said: “Bitcoin is back in gravity-defying mode... the question is whether bitcoin can make these gains stick after falling sharply from a previous peak earlier in the year.”
Last year, bitcoin gained more than 300% as the coronavirus pandemic raged on and hit multiple sectors around the world.
However, this year it has faced battles of its own, coming up against regulatory concerns in China and the US. At one point the coin slipped below $30,000.
According to new research byForex Suggest, bitcoin is projected to be the fifth strongest performing asset by 2024, with an estimated market value of over $5tn thanks to its 103.5% average annual growth rate.
This means it would surpass long-standing giants including Microsoft (MSFT), Amazon (AMZN) and Google (GOOG) by over $1tn.
Watch: What are the risks of investing in cryptocurrency? || Sweden’s banking chief dismisses Bitcoin as ‘stamp trading’: Stefan Ingves, the governor of Sweden’s central bank, has given Bitcoin the short shrift. Speaking at a banking conference in Stockholm, Ingves said that “private money usually collapses sooner or later”. He added that, although it was possible to get rich by trading in Bitcoin, it was comparable to “trading in stamps”. Ingves – governor of Sveriges Riksbank – also recently stated that Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies were unlikely to escape regulatory oversight as their popularity grows. Wael Makarem, senior market strategist at Swedish trading broker Exness, believes the Scandinavian nation largely viewed cryptocurrency’s volatility with trepidation. “Investors are cautious about the current fluctuations in Bitcoin and Ethereum, especially as these benchmarks failed to trim earlier losses, which is usually considered a sign of weakness in the crypto market,” he said. “On the other hand, the headlines from EU regulators coming closer to implementing new regulations for cryptocurrencies, new anti-money laundering rules and tax reporting requirements adds downside pressure.” Makarem added that he also thinks investors were afraid of tough rules and regulations that could limit the adoption or use of digital assets. Europe still suspicious of crypto Ingves’s comments are generally in line with what other central bankers have said about cryptocurrencies. In February, Gabriel Makhlouf – governor of the Central Bank of Ireland – said Bitcoin investors should be prepared to lose all their money. “Personally, I wouldn’t put my money into it, but clearly, some people think it’s a good bet,” he said. “People put money into tulips because they thought it was an investment.” Also, in May, Bank of England governor Andrew Bailey commented that cryptocurrencies had no intrinsic value and could crash to zero. READ MORE: Tether receives remaining 550 million bitfinex loan payment || Silver Price Daily Forecast Silver Tries To Rebound As Demand For Safe-Haven Assets Increases: Support At $22.10 Stays Strong Silver is currently trying to settle back above $22.30 while U.S. dollar is gaining some ground against a broad basket of currencies. The U.S. Dollar Index has recently made an attempt to settle above the resistance at 93.40 but failed to develop sufficient upside momentum and pulled back towards 93.30. In case the U.S. Dollar Index gets above 93.40, it will head towards yearly highs near 93.75 which will be bearish for silver and gold price today. Meanwhile, gold continues its attempts to settle back above $1750. Today, gold benefits from increased demand for safe-haven assets amid global market sell-off . Treasury yields have moved lower as traders rushed to buy U.S. government bonds, providing additional support to gold. In case gold manages to settle above $1750, it will move towards the resistance level at $1775 which will be bullish for silver. Gold/silver ratio managed to settle above 78.50 and is moving towards the 79 level. Gold/silver ratio gained strong upside momentum, and RSI moved into the overbought territory. However, there is plenty of room to gain additional upside momentum in case the right catalysts emerge. If gold/silver ratio gets to the test of the 79 level, silver will find itself under more pressure. Technical Analysis Silver tried to settle below the support level at $22.10 but lost momentum and moved back above $22.30. If silver settles above this level, it will move towards the resistance at $22.60. A successful test of the resistance at $22.60 will push silver towards the next resistance level which is located at $22.90. If silver gets above $22.90, it will head towards the resistance at $23.20. On the support side, silver needs to get back below $22.30 to have a chance to develop downside momentum in the near term. The next support level for silver is located near the recent lows at $22.10. A move below $22.10 will open the way to the test of the support at $21.90. If silver manages to settle below this level, it will head towards the support at $21.65. Story continues For a look at all of todays economic events, check out our economic calendar . This article was originally posted on FX Empire More From FXEMPIRE: S&P 500 Update: Anticipated Correction Unfolding. Low-4000s on Tap as Expected Gold Price Forecast Gold Continue to Look at $1750 as Support Silver Price Forecast Silver Markets Bounce From $22 Natural Gas Price Fundamental Daily Forecast Weaker on Forecasts Calling for Lower Cooling Demand Bitcoin Price Follows Stocks, Buckles Under Pressure Gold Price Prediction Prices Experience Dead-Cat Bounce || Daily Gold News: Tuesday, Aug. 31 – Gold Going Sideways Despite Rallying Stock Market: The gold futures contract lost 0.40% on Monday, as it fluctuated following its Friday’s run-up of 1.4%. Recently, the market broke above the recent local high of around $1,812 following a dovish speech from the Fed Chair Jerome Powell at the Jackson Hole Symposium. On Wednesday and Thursday the market retreated below $1,800 level again, but it was just a short-term weakness. This morning the yellow metal is trading along yesterday’s daily low, as we can see on the daily chart (the chart includes today’s intraday data): Today gold is 0.1% higher, as it is still trading above the $1,820 price level. What about the other precious metals? Silver is 0.2% higher, platinum is 0.2% lower and palladium is 0.4% lower. So precious metals’ prices are mixed this morning. Yesterday’s Pending Home Sales release has been at -1.8% vs. the expectations of +0.5%. Today we will get the CB Consumer Confidence release at 10:00 a.m., among others. The markets will be waiting for Friday’s monthly jobs data announcement. Below you will find our Gold, Silver, and Mining Stocks economic news schedule for the next two trading days: Tuesday, August 31 8:30 a.m. Canada – GDP m/m 9:00 a.m. U.S. – HPI m/m, S&P/CS Composite-20 HPI y/y 9:45 a.m. U.S. – Chicago PMI 10:00 a.m. U.S. – CB Consumer Confidence 9:30 p.m. Australia – GDP q/q 9:45 p.m. China – Caixin Manufacturing PMI Wednesday, September 1 3:55 a.m. Eurozone – German Final Manufacturing PMI 8:15 a.m. U.S. – ADP Non-Farm Employment Change 9:45 a.m. U.S. – Final Manufacturing PMI 10:00 a.m. U.S. – ISM Manufacturing PMI , Construction Spending m/m, ISM Manufacturing Prices 12:00 p.m. U.S. – FOMC Member Bostic Speech All Day – OPEC Meetings, OPEC-JMMC Meetings For a look at all of today’s economic events, check out our economic calendar . Paul Rejczak Stock Selection Strategist Sunshine Profits: Analysis. Care. Profits. * * * * * Disclaimer All essays, research and information found above represent analyses and opinions of Paul Rejczak and Sunshine Profits’ associates only. As such, it may prove wrong and be a subject to change without notice. Opinions and analyses were based on data available to authors of respective essays at the time of writing. Although the information provided above is based on careful research and sources that are believed to be accurate, Paul Rejczak and his associates do not guarantee the accuracy or thoroughness of the data or information reported. The opinions published above are neither an offer nor a recommendation to purchase or sell any securities. Mr. Rejczak is not a Registered Securities Advisor. By reading Paul Rejczak’s reports you fully agree that he will not be held responsible or liable for any decisions you make regarding any information provided in these reports. Investing, trading and speculation in any financial markets may involve high risk of loss. Paul Rejczak, Sunshine Profits’ employees and affiliates as well as members of their families may have a short or long position in any securities, including those mentioned in any of the reports or essays, and may make additional purchases and/or sales of those securities without notice. Story continues This article was originally posted on FX Empire More From FXEMPIRE: S&P 500 Price Forecast – Stock Markets Continue to Grind Higher Bitcoin Futures Trading Ramps Up as FTX US Scoops Up LedgerX Silver Price Forecast – Silver Markets Struggling With $24 Oil Price Fundamental Daily Forecast – Increased OPEC+ Supply, China Recovery Slowdown Weighing on Prices The United States Will Become The Next Turf For Bitcoin Miners. Genesis Digital Acquires 20k BTC Miners Zoom’s Stock Price Plunges As CFO Discusses Concerns Over Businesses Reopening || Kraken discovers Bitcoin ATMs can be easily hacked: Even though Bitcoin ATMs offer a convenient way for consumers to purchase cryptocurrencies, Kraken Security Labs claims that ease of use can sometimes come at the expense of security. Kraken uncovered multiple hardware and software vulnerabilities in a commonly used cryptocurrency ATM: The General Bytes BATMtwo (GBBATM2). Multiple attack vectors were found through the default administrative QR code, the Android operating software, the ATM management system and even the hardware case of the machine. Krakens crew discovered that numerous ATMs are built on the same default admin QR code, whicha llows anyone with this QR code to walk up to an ATM and jeopardise it. Most of the BATM ATMs are located in the United States and Canada, with a combined figure tallying in at around 5,300, while Europe has around 824 ATMs installed. Now Kraken Security Labs wants to create awareness for users around potential security flaws and alert the ATM producers so they can fix these problems. Kraken Security Labs reported all problems and suspicions to General Bytes on April 20, 2021, they released patches to their backend system (CAS) and alerted their customers, but full fixes for some of the issues may still require hardware revisions. Never let anyone steer you towards Bitcoin ATM Bitcoin ATM scams happen pretty often nowadays. In July this year, in Berkeley, California, two women lost a total of $15,000. Both women received a phone call from a person claiming to be a public safety officer in the city and were told that they had arrest warrants out for them on serious charges including tax evasion and money laundering. The two women were then instructed to stay on the phone, go to the bank, take all the money from their bank accounts and transfer it via Bitcoin ATMs. In one case, the victim transferred 10,000 dollars to the fraudsters, whereas in the other case, 5,000 dollars were transferred. In Winnipeg, Canada, when criminals tacked up a printed notice to a Bitcoin ATM, claiming that the machine was undergoing maintenance while a new software upgrade was being installed. Story continues As a result, users were advised to deposit the coins they bought not in their own wallets, but rather use a QR code provided on the paper. Of course, if any user sends the crypto to that account associated with the QR code, he loses Bitcoin. Of Winnipegs 20 Bitcoin ATMs, police found posters on two of them, but no victims came forward. The main problem is that it is really difficult to trace the money. Internet security company Malwarebytes warned about a new trend of petrol station Bitcoin ATM scams in which threat actors would post fake jobs listings to dupe applicants into money laundering. The company warned: If youre dealing with QR codes in public, on ads or posters, check that they havent been tampered with (look for stickers with a new QR code placed over an original). And if anyone tries to steer you towards a Bitcoin ATM, move swiftly in the opposite direction.
[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
None available.
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Trend: up || Prices: 60622.14, 62227.96, 61888.83, 61318.96, 61004.41, 63226.40, 62970.05, 61452.23, 61125.68, 61527.48
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Analyze the provided historical prices, technical indicators, news, and social media sentiment from the last 60 days. Based on this context, predict the overall trend (up, down, or no change) and the specific daily closing prices for Bitcoin for the next 10 days.
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[Technical Analysis for 2019-12-24]
BTC Price: 7322.53, BTC RSI: 48.28
Gold Price: 1499.10, Gold RSI: 64.70
Oil Price: 61.11, Oil RSI: 63.89
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
Bitcoin is a tool for criminals, slams legendary computer scientist: The scientist behind the worlds most popular computer programming language says he regrets that his greatest work was used to build Bitcoin, before labelling the cryptocurrency as a tool for criminals. Danish computing legend Bjarne Stroustrup invented the C++ language 34 years ago. Since 1985, it has remained the most commonly used global code and is integral to almost every digital system in the world. Now, however, Stroustrup has revealed his biggest regret over the last four decades is that his work went on to become the code upon which Bitcoin was based. When you build a tool, you do not know how it is going to be used, he lamented. Im very happy and proud of some of the things C++ is being used for and there are some other things I wish people wouldnt do. Bitcoin mining is my favourite example it uses as much energy as Switzerland and mostly serves criminals. The 68-year-old currently a managing director at Morgan Stanley in New York has spoken before about his disdain for cryptocurrency, but this is the first time he has expressed remorse over his code being associated with BTC. Regrets Speaking on the popular Lex Fridman podcast , the University of Cambridge Churchill College graduate enthused over the great achievements made with computer science, but he turned his guns on Bitcoin while discussing regrets as he highlighted his deep concern for environmental issues and criminality. Half of all Bitcoin transactions have, according to a handful of studies, links to criminal activity in some form or other. It has also been suggested that almost a quarter of BTC users are also involved in illegal activity to the tune of $72 billion a year. Bitcoin also attracts criticism for its negative environmental impact, using up a mind-boggling seven gigawatts of electricity a year and accounting for 0.21% of the worlds supplies. Three things Bitcoin miners should know By Pedro Febrero November 13, 2019 The post Bitcoin is a tool for criminals, slams legendary computer scientist appeared first on Coin Rivet . || What is HEX and why should Bitcoin holders care?: One of the more notable upcoming projects in the crypto space I’ve been particularly looking forward to is HEX, developed by early Bitcoin adopter Richard Heart. Although I do not agree with all of the project’s assumptions, I personally believe it’ll be a pretty cool experiment at least. Please remember, as usual, that this is not financial advisement, and I’m not suggesting that any crypto-enthusiasts out there should put money into HEX. The aim of this article is simply to explain what the project is, how it works, and why Bitcoin hodlers should care. Essentially, if you hold Bitcoin in your personal wallet, such as an Electrum, Trezor, or Ledger, you can mint your own HEX. The cost? Signing a Bitcoin transaction. What is HEX? To put it in simple terms, according to Richard Heart, HEX tokens are essentially time deposits made over the Ethereum network. If Bitcoin can replace digital gold, perhaps HEX could indeed replace digital time deposits. If you’re looking to better understand time deposits, please read this post here . According to Investopedia, “A time deposit is an interest-bearing bank deposit account that has a specified date of maturity, such as a certificate of deposit (CD). “The deposited funds must remain in the account for the fixed term to receive the stated interest rate. Time deposits are an alternative to the standard savings account, and will usually pay a higher rate of interest.” Essentially, you lock up your HEX for a fixed period (a minimum of about one year) to receive a share of the remaining tokens in the pool. I’ll discuss how tokens are allocated later, but let me underline why HEX is trying to break into the time deposits market. As you can read on the HEX website: “CDs are worth more than gold, credit card companies, and cash. CDs pay higher interest than savings accounts, requiring money be deposited for a fixed time. Banks profit on poor customer service, early withdrawal fees, and auto-renewing you at worse rates.” Story continues How does HEX work? HEX is an ERC-20 token. This means that HEX tokens are essentially smart contracts built over the Ethereum network. Richard claims HEX had to be built on Ethereum because the protocol is better and safer than BTC – something I completely disagree with. I love Ethereum, but not because it’s safer or better than Bitcoin. It helps people deploy new ideas instantly – that’s the value proposition. Perhaps in time Ethereum will become as secure as BTC, although I highly doubt it since scalability requires some trade-offs (like decentralisation or security). Nonetheless, that is not the point of this article. I agree HEX had to be built on Ethereum, but for different reasons like flexibility and the ability to run extra functionality. The only point of HEX is to give Bitcoin (and Ethereum hodlers as well) the chance to make extra gains. Simple stuff. How to get HEX There are currently two ways to get HEX. The first is free and just requires you to hold Bitcoin prior to the Bitcoin blockchain snapshot, taking place Monday December 2 2019. You’ll need to sign a transaction proving you are the owner of the private keys for your addresses. According to the website, there are five easy steps: Install MetaMask on your browser. Go to the ‘Claim’ tool on wallet.hex.win. Open your BTC wallet and sign the statement given to you by the Claim tool. Paste the signature into the Claim page. Click ‘Submit’. The second way is to send ETH to the “adoption amplifier” – a smart contract that converts ETH to HEX on a daily basis. You can also use referral links (Richard is the master of referrals) in order to increase your staking by 20%. Understanding HEX’s price appreciation To fully understand if HEX could have value, we need to take a few steps back to understand how tokens gain value in the first place. In my opinion, anything can gain value as long as there is enough demand. Demand, or people looking to buy, is what drives price up. If people are properly incentivised to lock up their HEX for the longest period of time, I would argue network effects may emerge. For instance, when HEX is taken out of the staking pool, the amount of HEX/ETH in the last withdrawal will be set as the price for anyone looking to purchase HEX through the adoption amplifier. Will HEX be as valuable as Richard believes? Perhaps. It depends on the number of people who adopt HEX, as speculation and network effects are what drive price appreciation in most cases. However, you should always do your own research around new projects. Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are the author’s only. This article isn’t financial advice or promotional material; it represents my personal opinion and should not be attributed to Coin Rivet. The post What is HEX and why should Bitcoin holders care? appeared first on Coin Rivet . || Bakkt to launch consumer app in first half of 2020; will test product with Starbucks: Bitcoin derivatives provider Bakkt plans to launch a cryptocurrency consumer app and merchant portal in the first half of 2020, the firm announced in ablog poston Monday.
In the blog post, Bakkt chief product officer Mike Blandina states, "we’ll be launching a consumer app to make it easy for consumers to discover and unlock the value of digital assets, as well as ways in which they can transact or track them. Merchants gain access to a broader set of customers with expanded spending power."
Blandina also adds that Bakkt plans on testing its consumer app and merchant portal with Starbucks, its first launch partner.
Earlier this year, The Blockreportedthat Starbucks was receiving a generous equity deal as part of its partnership with Bakkt. Sources suggested that Bakkt's equity share was disproportionately high, given that it did not make a cash investment. || Bitcoin price holds steady following crypto markets' rally: Following what can only be described as adramatic recoveryfor the cryptocurrency markets, the vast majority of cryptocurrencies have managed to hold their recent gains and are now in the green on the 7-day time frame.
As it stands, Bitcoin (BTC) is among the best performers this week, after gaining over 13% in the last 7 days. At time of going to press, it stands at $9257.07. Meanwhile, Ethereum (ETH) has increased by 6.2% over the past week, Bitcoin Cash (BCH) gained over 23%, Litecoin (LTC) climbed by more than 10% and XRP gained 1.6%.
Beyond this, much of the market is now experiencing slight further gains today, with 16 of the top 25 cryptocurrencies in the green. Among these, Bitcoin SV (BSV) and NEO are capturing the majority of the gains.
NEO stands out as an outlier in today's predominantly green market. The cryptocurrency has now climbed to $11.32, up from $9.06 at the close of play yesterday, an increase of more than 24% in the past day. Bitcoin SV, on the other hand, has captured gains of nearly 5%, climbing back up to $142.51.
One factor behind NEO's recent surge could be Chinese President Xi Jinping'sannouncementFriday endorsing blockchain technology, in which he argued that building on blockchain will bring economic and social value to China. NEO, asmart contractplatform that's known as "the Chinese Ethereum", has focused onregulatory compliance. With the Chinese government introducingnew cryptography lawsin January 2020, NEO could be well-placed to take advantage of the country's newfound enthusiasm for blockchain.
If so, today's gains could be just the tip of the iceberg for NEO. || Crypto whale moves 44,000 Bitcoin for $0.32 fee: A Bitcoin whale has transferred a whopping 44,000 BTC for a measly fee of just $0.32. When making cross-border payments with traditional fiat currencies, payment processors often charge absurd fees depending on the amount transferred. Digital currencies seek to remedy this by offering drastically cheaper fees, though it is also common to see some cryptocurrency exchanges charging high fees to cover costs and facilitate the buying and storing of coins. However, one cunning crypto whale has managed to transfer almost $300 million worth of Bitcoin while paying only a microscopic fee. The investor sent 44,000 Bitcoin from one unknown wallet to another unknown wallet and was only charged $0.32 for the entire transaction. The whale’s activity can be monitored on Blokchain.com’s block explorer, which shows how the entire sum was sent in a single transaction for the obscenely low fee of 0.00004551 BTC. Back in May, Coin Rivet reported that transaction congestion on the Bitcoin network had soared to an 11-month high. At the time, the average fee for a transaction was roughly $2.50 – up by $0.75 from earlier in the same month. The average transaction fee is currently approximately 0.000069 BTC according to bitinfocharts – or around $0.45 at the time of writing. This figure is also calculated against the average transaction of 3.39 Bitcoin. This shows that despite the whale moving an astronomically large sum, they have still only been charged a tiny fee. Interested in reading more about transaction fee movement? Discover more about why the Bitcoin network was heavily congested back in the summer. The post Crypto whale moves 44,000 Bitcoin for $0.32 fee appeared first on Coin Rivet . || Square Stock Is Likely to Surge Higher: Square(NYSE:SQ) stock has been moving sideways in the last few months as markets have become concerned about the stock’s valuation.
Source: Jonathan Weiss / Shutterstock.com
Square stock does trade at an expensive forward price earnings ratio of 66. However, I still believe that SQ stock will likely climb much higher after a period of consolidation. The company’s top-line growth has decelerated on a relative basis, but it still remains healthy.
Further, SQ has enough growth triggers to justify a premium valuation for SQ stock.
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One of the positive catalysts of SQ stock is the company’s Cash App. In Q3, Cash App generated total revenue of $307 million and gross profit of $123 million.
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Excluding Bitcoin revenue, the app’s total revenue was $159 million and its gross profit was $121 million. In other words, Cash App had a healthy gross profit margin of 76%. Moreover, the app’s revenue jumped 115% YoY, leaving it well-positioned to be a game-changer for SQ.
If Cash App’s revenue continues to increase at a 100% clip, it will generate revenue of $1.1 billion to $1.2 billion in 2020. If its gross margin stays at similar levels, its annualized gross profit in 2020 is likely to be $800 million to $900 million.
It is worth noting that in Q2, Cash App wasdownloaded more than any other finance app in the United States. If that trend continues , its 100% year-over-year top-line growth will also be sustainable.
For the first nine months of 2019, Square reported YoY revenue growth of 43.7%. For the same period,its EBITDA, excluding certain items, jumped 70.3%. If Sqaure’s EBITDA growth stays over 50% and its cash flows stay robust, the high forward price-earnings ratio of SQ stock will be justified.
As of September 2019, Square reported cash and cash equivalents of $1.8 billion. With robust cash reserves and growing cash flows, SQ is well-positioned for innovation-driven expansion.
In 2019, SQ has reported revenue of $166.6 million from international markets. SQ’s overseas revenue is on track to jump 51.5% in 2019.
Besides its core market of the United States, SQ has operations in Canada, Japan, Australia, and the United Kingdom. With the peer-to-peer payments market gaining traction globally, SQ has significant growth opportunities overseas in the coming years.
Square’s acquisition of Weebly in 2018 should help SQ expand overseas. Approximately 40% of Weebly’s users are overseas. Since SQ processespayments for Weebly’swebsites, the company’s global exposure has increased.
In Q3, SQ also launched its Square Terminal in Australia, Canada, and the United Kingdom. As a result, it would not be surprising if its revenue from international markets continues to increase 40%-50% YoY. Over the long-term, the impact of its overseas businesses on its overall top line will be meaningful.
SQ has also applied for a banking license.
If SQ obtains such a license in the next 12-24 months, SQ stock would have yet another positive catalyst.
There are several reasons to be bullish on SQ stock. Consequently, the current period of consolidation by Square stock is a good buying opportunity.
As of this writing, Faisal Humayun did not hold a position in any of the aforementioned securities.
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The postSquare Stock Is Likely to Surge Higherappeared first onInvestorPlace. || Bitcoin’s Weekly Chart May See Golden Cross for First Time in 3.5 Years: • Bitcoin’s short-term 50-period moving average is edging closer toward the longer-term 100-period moving average on the weekly chart, hinting at a potential bullish “golden cross” formation for the first time in 3.5 years.
• In the shorter term, however, total weekly volume has fallen period-to-period as indecision continues to grip the market.
• Price action is caught between the 100-day and 200-day moving averages (MAs). The next major move either way is likely to determine trend bias going forward, if a firm close above or below those averages is confirmed.
Bitcoin (BTC) looks on track to produce a bullish long-term signal not seen in 3.5 years.
The 50-period and the 100-period MAs have edged closer together on the weekly chart after BTC rebounded from $7,293 to $10,350 on Oct. 26, according to Bitstamp data.
A cross of the 50-period MA moving up above the slower 100-period MA, known as a golden cross, generally hints at a strong shift in a trend and can act as confirmation of a bullish bias for the long-term view.
Related:Bitcoin Price Risks Drop Below $9K if Bulls Can’t Muster Rally Soon
The last time that bull cross occurred on the weekly chart was way back in May 2016, when the price of BTC started rising from $438 to near $20,000 in December 2017 – a 4,800 percent increase. If the MA’s continue to converge as currently, the cross looks likely in late December or early 2020, but it’s still too early for a precise call.
There is inherent risk involved with making such comparisons from previous years, as market conditions have changed significantly. Yet there is merit for seeking additional confirmation in the long-term trend, since BTC’s miner reward halving in May 2020 is likely to stir up a bunch of market activity as the supply-cutting event approaches.
Total weekly volume has shrunk from two weeks ago, an indication of market indecision on a fairly stagnant price, while the RSI is barely trending bullish above 52.7 (neutral being 50).
Related:Square’s Cash App Now Charging Fees for Bitcoin Purchases
However, should the two lines converge and then cross bullish, that would be a strong indication that the 2019 reversal rally has legs. With a strong fundamental event for BTC occurring right around the corner, it’s important to take note of the bullish signals on larger time frames.
More immediately, the daily chart suggests market equilibrium, as prices have been largely stuck within a $650 range for nearly two weeks.
BTC’s price action has been caught between the 100-day and 200-day MAs for 12 days.
Generally speaking, when prices are above the 200-day MA, the long-term trend can be considered bullish. Conversely, if prices are beneath the 100-day MA then that is an indication of mid-term (30-60 day) bearish conditions.
The current scenario highlights the indecisive sentiment felt across the market. A repeated failure to close above the 100-day MA could open up doors to $8,800 in the immediate short-term, as previouslydiscussed.
Indecision will continue until a firm close above $9,573 (100-day MA) or below $9,180 (200-day MA) occurs with conviction, until then, continued sideways ranging can be expected.
Disclosure:The author holds no cryptocurrency assets at the time of writing.
Bitcoinimage via Shutterstock; charts byTradingView
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• Ether on Lightning Is the Latest Bridge Crossing Crypto’s Great Divide || Stats and Opinion Polls Put the EUR and the GBP in Focus: Earlier in the Day: It was a relatively busy day on the economic calendar through the Asian session this morning. The Aussie Dollar was in action again, with trade and retail sales figures released in the early part of the day. On the geopolitical front, the markets also responded to Trump’s comments that suggested a phase 1 trade agreement was in sight… For the Aussie Dollar Retail sales were flat in October, coming up short of a forecasted 0.3% rise. In September, retail sales had risen by 0.2%. According to the ABS , Clothing, footwear and personal accessory sales (-0.8%), department stores (-0.8%), and household goods (-0.2%) saw declines. Cafes, restaurants and takeaway food services (+0.4%) and food retailing (+0.1%) offset the declines. Australia’s trade surplus narrowed from A$7.18bn to A$4.502bn in October. Economists had forecast a surplus of A$6.10bn. According to the ABS , Goods and services credits fell by A$2,205m (5%) to A$40,750m. Non-rural goods exports fell by A$1,710m (6%), with non-monetary gold exports sliding by A$666m (25%). The exports of rural goods rose by A$114m (3%), while the net exports of goods under merchanting surged by A$14m (93%). Services credits rose by A$45m (1%). Goods and services debits rose by A$140m to A$36,248m in October. Consumption goods imports rose by A$334m (4%), with intermediate and other merchandise goods imports rising by A$256m (2%). The imports of non-monetary gold slid by A$258m (-35%), with the import of capital goods falling by A$152m (-2%). Service debits fell A$40m. The Aussie Dollar moved from $0.68519 to $0.68359 upon release of the figures. At the time of writing, the Aussie Dollar down by 0.10% to $0.6842. Elsewhere At the time of writing, the Japanese Yen was down by 0.02% to ¥108.88 against the U.S Dollar, while the Kiwi Dollar was up by 0.15% to $0.6539. The Day Ahead: For the EUR It’s a relatively busy day ahead on the economic calendar . Key stats include German factory orders figures for October ahead of the European open. Later in the morning, the Eurozone’s finalized 3 rd quarter GDP numbers and October retail sales figures will also be in focus. Story continues Barring deviation from 2 nd estimates, we would expect factory order and retail sales figures to have the greatest impact. The Eurozone economy continues to rely on consumer spending, making today’s figures all the more important. Outside of the stats, with a week to go before the UK General Election, influence on the EUR will likely continue to rise. The EUR should show little response to the polls, however, should the Tories continue to stay out ahead. Any chatter on trade would also need monitoring throughout the day. At the time of writing, the EUR was up by 0.04% to $1.1082. For the Pound It’s a quiet day on the data front. There are no material stats due out of the UK to provide the Pound with direction. The lack of stats will leave the Pound in the hands of the opinion polls and election predictions, as the 7-day countdown begins. At the time of writing, the Pound was up by 0.06% to $1.3112. Across the Pond It’s a relatively busy day on the economic calendar . October trade data and factory order figures are due out, along with the weekly jobless claims numbers. Barring any material jump in the initial jobless claims, we would expect the factory order numbers to have the greatest influence. On the trade front, any widening of the trade deficit could spur Trump into Twitter action later in the day. At the time of writing, the Dollar Spot Index was down 0.07% at 97.581. For the Loonie It’s a busy day on the economic calendar , with October trade data and November Ivey PMI due out of Canada later today. Expect the Loonie to react to any disappointing numbers that contradict the BoC’s outlook on the economy… The Loonie was up by 0.08% to C$1.3190, against the U.S Dollar, at the time of writing. This article was originally posted on FX Empire More From FXEMPIRE: AUD/USD Forex Technical Analysis – Trader Reaction to .6842 Will Determine Direction on Thursday Bitcoin Cash – ABC, Litecoin and Ripple Daily Analysis – 05/12/19 Ethereum and Stellar’s Lumen Daily Tech Analysis – 05/12/19 Natural Gas Price Prediction – Prices Form Inside Day ahead of Inventory Report USD/CAD – Canadian Dollar Gains Ground as BoC Cautiously Optimistic Gold Price Futures (GC) Technical Analysis – Key Support Area $1477.30 to $1472.90 || Peer-to-peer Bitcoin marketplace Paxful now services 3 million wallets: Despite a bearish few months in the crypto markets, peer-to-peer Bitcoin marketplace Paxful is experiencing impressive growth. With a marketplace full of speculators, it’s refreshing to see that the fundamental mechanics behind Bitcoin’s existence are working. The Bitcoin blockchain’s hash rate is higher than it’s ever been, and countries like Nigeria and Ghana are learning about peer-to-peer finance and entrepreneurship. Paxful has seen a 65% increase in trading in the last year As well as reaching the 3 million milestone for Bitcoin wallets (800,000 of those have come over the last 12 months), Paxful has also seen a 65% increase in trading. That translates into some 15 million trades across the platform. Countries in which the company is seeing the most impressive results include Kenya, India, Ghana, Nigeria, and the USA. When you consider that there are only around 42 million blockchain wallets in total, Paxful’s market share is all the more significant. It may not be as well known as LocalBitcoins , but Paxful also provides people with a simple way of purchasing Bitcoins through its preferred payment method – which includes cash delivered to your door. The company also actively fosters entrepreneurship and financial inclusion. Paxful’s mission is to provide users with a simple and secure platform for trading Bitcoin. The company aims to allow the underbanked and unbanked to be financially included through peer-to-peer finance without the need for middlemen or financial institutions. Peer-to-peer Bitcoin finance is on the rise Despite an increasingly hard stance on cryptocurrency in India, this is a market in which Paxful is seeing additional growth. During the first week of October, Paxful saw $40 million in India and $30 million in trading volume in Kenya. This is due, the company believes, to its ongoing efforts to build a community focused on educating about peer-to-peer finance. It’s also capturing a slice of the remittance market here – India holds the top position in remittances globally at a massive $80 billion. Story continues Paxful removes many of the barriers to accessing finance. People now have the ability to transact with one another from anywhere in the world on a secure platform. The platform does not require users to have a bank account in order to use it. However, it does require them to undergo KYC and upload their identity documents if their trades reach a certain volume. CEO and co-founder of Paxful Ray Youssef commented: “It’s an exciting time in the cryptocurrency industry, and even more so for peer-to-peer trading. In fact, we just conducted a study which stated that more than half of Millennial and Generation Z respondents are interested in peer-to-peer trading as opposed to simply owning crypto or purchasing on exchanges. This further signals the importance of an interconnected, peer-to-peer economy. We’re thrilled to be able to say this statistic has proved itself even more valid due to Paxful’s steady growth.” The post Peer-to-peer Bitcoin marketplace Paxful now services 3 million wallets appeared first on Coin Rivet . || Bitcoin price springs to life, trading above $7,100: Bitcoin hodlers may get some holiday cheer yet. The number one cryptocurrency by market cap is now trading above $7,100 per coin, with the price of bitcoin having increased by nearly 4% in the last 12 hours. This represents a significant market shift compared to yesterday, when BTC hit a low of roughly $6,637. Its current price marks a jump of roughly $500. The coins volatile price movements continue, however, as Bitcoin hit a high of around $7,400 last night--a near 10 percent spike--before heading back down to its current trading position. Prior, Bitcoin dropped below the $7,000 price line earlier this week and proceeded to drag its feet over the next two days. Reasons for the crash vary, but according to blockchain tracking firm Chainalysis, some of the blame could be cast at the sell-offs surrounding PlusToken, an alleged Chinese Ponzi scheme that may have cheated investors out as much as $3 billion. Not everyone is buying the explanation, however, and Chainalysis itself admitted that it couldnt definitively say one way or the other in its report. Meanwhile, the rest of the market is in similarly uncertain shape: Ethereum is currently trading for $126 per token, a drop of about 5 percent, and Ripple continues its descent as well, now trading at $0.188 per coin.
[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
11/19 18:40 現在のビットコインの価格
BTC/JPY ask: 884,770 / bid: 884,305
・sp: 465 ・ps: -0.037% || MercadoBitcoin(BTC) => R$37199 | BlockChain(BTC) => R$36106 | MercadoBitcoin(LTC) => R$260 #bitcoin #litecoin || https://t.co/BnJ6oXuaow #memphis #detroit #paris #money #southafrica #honolulu #saintpaul #FinTech #ICOs #startup #technews #kualalumpur #chille #entrepreneurship #minneapolis #Moscow #sanjose #privateequity #money #bitcoin #london #portland #china #pittsburgh #asia #india #iot || The latest The Blockchain Innovation Switzerland Daily! https://t.co/ZoZLDVUXMm #blockchain #bitcoin || @vinarmani If that is the case then why are *all* the new fiat coins on Ethereum and not bitcoin?! || Ahoj! 🇸🇰Did you know that Bratislava, the capital of #Slovakia, is the only capital that borders two countries (Austria and Hungary)? 🗺
#fintech #zerofeecrypto #zerofees #debitcard #HOLD #bitcoin #ethereum #Litecoin #cryptocurrency $BTC https://t.co/pXrApgBjUD || Bitcoin Just Hit $1 Billion in All-Time Transaction Fees // THE milestone is reached! 💪 #bitcoin #cryptocurrency #CryptoNews https://t.co/6K9rjTFLx2 || honestly investing in Bitcoin was the best thing I ever did, such a life changer!!!! || OPENINGS AVAILABLE | ENTRY LEVEL | CLIENT ACCOUNT ASSISTANT - THE CURV. - [ 📋 More Info https://t.co/n3heb1xUuf ] #Devops #jobs #Hiring #Careers #Bronx #NY #Cryptocurrency #Blockchain #BTC #BitCoin #ETH #crypto https://t.co/TTyDglJ04B || 9% or higher of respondants from 4 of the 5 BRICS nations have used or own #Crypto. The "western" world (and majority of wealth) is less than 7% and clearly still restricted by regulation. First mover advantage? https://t.co/1LdlWIyWWz
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Trend: no change || Prices: 7275.16, 7238.97, 7290.09, 7317.99, 7422.65, 7293.00, 7193.60, 7200.17, 6985.47, 7344.88
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Analyze the provided historical prices, technical indicators, news, and social media sentiment from the last 60 days. Based on this context, predict the overall trend (up, down, or no change) and the specific daily closing prices for Bitcoin for the next 10 days.
|
[Technical Analysis]
Not fully available.
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
Bitcoin surges past $1,900 for the first time: (Markets Insider)
Bitcoinis at it again. Overnight, the cryptocurrency topped $1,900 for the first time. It is now trading up by 2.3% at $1,938.81 a coin.
Friday's gains have bitcoin up by about 102% since March 27. The cryptocurrency has gained in 23 of the past 26 sessions.
The rally has seemingly been sparked by news out of Japan at the beginning of April that bitcoin is now considered alegal payment methodin the country. Along the way, Ulmart, Russia's largest online retailer, said it wouldbegin accepting bitcoineven though Russia said it wouldn't explore the cryptocurrency until 2018.
The gains also seem to be boosted by speculation the US Securities and Exchange Commission could overturn itsruling on the Winklevoss twins' bitcoin exchange-traded fund. The SEC was accepting public comment on its decision until Monday, but it hasn't announced whether it will overturn its rejection of the ETF.
Bitcoin has gained 105% this year. Except for 2014, it has been the top-performing currency every year since 2010.
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• This is the work bag professional women everywhere have been looking for || Bitcoin shoots past $1,800 for the first time: Bitcoin Bitcoin is trading at another record high on Thursday. The cryptocurrency is up 4.59% at $1853.55 a coin after Ulmart, Russia's largest online retailer, said it would begin accepting bitcoin, Cryptocoin News says. The announcement from Ulmart comes despite Russia's central bank saying it would wait until 2018 to consider allowing the use of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. At the beginning of April, Japan's regulators announced bitcoin is now a legal payment method in the country. Bitcoin's has gained in 18 of the past 20 sesssions, a streak that has added nearly 60% to the cryptocurrency's price. It began the run trading at about $1,170 a coin. Bitcoin has shrugged off China restricting trade , the SEC's rejection of two bitcoin ETFs, and threats from developers to create a " hard fork " that would split the cryptocurrency in two, on its way to a gain of more than 95% so far this year. It has been the top performing currency every year since 2010, aside from 2014. Traders are currently on the lookout for the US Securities and Exchange Commission's ruling on whether it will reverse its decision to reject the Winklevoss twins' exchange-traded fund . Back in March, the SEC rejected two bitcoin ETFs, saying it "is disapproving this proposed rule change because it does not find the proposal to be consistent with Section 6(b)(5) of the Exchange Act, which requires, among other things, that the rules of a national securities exchange be designed to prevent fraudulent and manipulative acts and practices and to protect investors and the public interest." The SEC will accept public comment on its previous decision until May 15. More From Business Insider Bitcoin soars past $1,700 for the first time 42 TV shows that have been canceled People are so excited about this wallet that its become the biggest one in Kickstarter history || Fred Wilson throws a little cold water on bitcoin enthusiasts: For all the excitement around digital currency technology in New York this week, venture capitalist Fred Wilson said it will probably take much longer for bitcoin (Exchange: BTC=) to go mainstream. "I've been trying to transact with bitcoin and a lot of cryptocurrencies for a long time. It's not that rewarding to do, honestly," Wilson, managing partner at Union Square Ventures, said Thursday at the Token Summit. "It will probably be a long time before people understand what a blockchain currency is," he said. Hundreds of developers, start-up founders and digital currency investors packed a New York University lecture hall for the all-day conference, which focused on how bitcoin's underlying blockchain technology and digital currencies, or tokens, could change the way business operates. "I do think some digital currency will end up being the reserve currency of the world. I see a path where that's going to happen," Brian Armstrong, CEO of the Coinbase exchange for buying and selling digital currencies, said at the conference. Coinbase said Thursday it suffered outages due to "unprecedented traffic and trading," according to Reuters. The week was a big one for bitcoin, especially in the financial center of New York. The Token Summit followed a two-and-a-half-day digital currency conference called Consensus, both held in Manhattan. Bitcoin prices climbed all week and skyrocketed to all-time highs above $2,700 on Thursday, raising some concerns of euphoria, similar to 1999 prior to the dotcom bubble. Wilson compared the state of blockchain innovation to the early- to mid-1990s, when the internet's infrastructure was just being built. He pointed out that the only major consumer internet businesses at the time were Yahoo (NASDAQ: YHOO) , eBay (NASDAQ: EBAY) and Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) . Google (NASDAQ: GOOGL) came later, and Facebook (NASDAQ: FB) , Uber, Airbnb and SoundCloud only emerged in the last 15 years, after the tech bubble's collapse in 2000, Wilson pointed out. Story continues That doesn't give bitcoin the all clear. Rather, it's more likely that the currency and blockchain are still in an early phase, before overspeculation and before widespread adoption. "I think there's a ways more we could go before the whole thing could come undone in a massive way," Wilson said, noting investors also need to be wary of scams, fraudulent use and challenges in technological development. That said, the longer-term view is more positive. "By the end of this decade," he said, "we should start to see native blockchain applications receiving massive adoption." Watch: Bit risks to bitcoin rally More From CNBC Markets will be watching economic data and whether Amazon can break $1,000 Market highs don't feel 'solid,' expect some profit-taking next week: Trader Bitcoin 'nerds' give way to Wall Street suits at digital currency conference || BIT Moving to Bitcoin Blockchain as BITCF to Unify Trading Between Markets; OTC Markets Removes Caveat Emptor Symbol From its Publication of Quotes on BITCF: VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESSWIRE / June 15, 2017 /FIRST BITCOIN CAPITAL CORP. (OTC PINK: BITCF) ("Company," "we," "us," or "our") would like to announce that the most prolific cryptographic creator of tokens on the Bitcoin Blockchain has resolved to move the ownership of its common shares now trading in the cryptocurrency markets onto the Bitcoin Blockchain and simultaneously reduce authorized shares from 21 billion back to 500,000,000. The reduction in authorized capital ofFirst Bitcoin Capital Corp. does not reduce the number of shares currently issued and outstanding.
Crypto shareholders will be given two options; either to keep their mined shares or convert those shares to the new blockchain.
Those that convert to the new blockchain will own shares of BITCF, however, those that do not elect to move to the new blockchain will continue to hold BIT, which will then become a simple cryptocurrency with no relationship to the shares of company other than sharing the first portion of its name, "First Bitcoin."
The transference of shares from BIT, on its unique, existing blockchain, to BITCF on theBitcoinBlockchain will be conducted through BIT's primary crypto-exchange,C-CEX.com, and will be automatic for all those who are holding their BIT at C-CEX. The new BITCF Crypto shares will then trade as BITCF so that it will be easier for the markets to understand that the crypto and traditional shares include the same rights, title, and interest.
Those who wish to continue to trade BIT as a mere cryptocurrency will be allowed to do so via BIT's secondary exchange, Livecoin, but must remove their BIT from C-CEX on the deadline to be set soon. Deposits and withdraws will be allowed atC-CEXuntil the movement to the new blockchain has been implemented. The company plans to implement this blockchain move within two weeks.
The company has determined that moving to theBitcoin Blockchainmakes the management of issuing shares more efficient and less expensive so that there is no mining cost to the company or its shareholders in the form of dilution. It is a safer system and allows for issuing new shares in the future instead of pre-mining to reserve shares in the treasury, as was done mining BIT.
This move also creates a new asset for the coffers of BITCF so that all pre-mined 20 billion BIT will soon be available for liquidity, dividends, mergers, and acquisitions without any further dilution to BITCF, which heretofore was caused by daily mining of BIT. BITCF riding on the rails of Bitcoin using the Omni Layer Protocol will allow BITCF to easily pay dividends in the form of its other Omni layered coins such as ALT, XBU, XB, GARY, HILL, BURN, WEED, PRES, TESLA, etc., as well as the more popular MAID, OMNI, Tether (USTD), should we accumulate or acquire more of same.
Reduction in Authorized Capital
In preparing to move the small percentage of company shares held by miners from our own blockchain to the Bitcoin Blockchain the company resolved today to reduce authorized capital from 21,000,000,000 to 500,000,000 shares which will become effective upon completing this move within the next two weeks.
OTC Market's Skull and Bones Designation
After the company's SEC counsel provided and opined on the required disclosures to OTC Markets, the caveat emptor was removed so that the company has returned to its former status of a current alternative reporting company.
About the Company
First Bitcoin Capital Corp is engaged in developing digital currencies, proprietary Blockchain technologies, and the digital currency exchange -www.CoinQX.com. We see this step as a tremendous opportunity to create further shareholder value by leveraging management's experience in developing and managing complex Blockchain technologies, developing new types of digital assets. Being the first publicly-traded cryptocurrency and blockchain-centered company (with shares both traded in the US OTC Markets as [BITCF] and as [BIT] in crypto exchanges), we want to provide our shareholders with diversified exposure to digital cryptocurrencies and blockchain technologies. At this time, the Company owns and operates more than the following digital assets under development:
www.CoinQX.comcryptocurrency exchange, registered with FINCEN.www.altcoinmarketcap.commarket capitalization for all cryptocurrencies with up and down voting by altcoin communities.www.strain.IDcannabis strains genetic information depository on decentralized Blockchain.www.iCoiNEWS.comreal time cryptocurrency and Bitcoin news site.www.BITminer.ccproviding mining pool management services.www.2016coin.orgonline daily election coverage and home page for $PRES, $HILL, $GARY& $BURN - commemorative presidential election coins.www.bitcannpay.comOpen Loop merchant services for dispensaries.
List of most Omni protocol coins issued on the Bitcoin Blockchain and owned by the Company:http://omnichest.info/lookupadd.aspx?address=1FwADyEvdvaLNxjN1v3q6tNJCgHEBuABrS
Second Omni wallet owned by CoinQX reflecting our airline mileage tokens issued:http://omnichest.info/lookupadd.aspx?address=1VuF26AgLyQ4tBoGzYTWRqtDG9zCB7QXe
Forward-Looking Statements
Certain statements contained in this press release may constitute "forward-looking statements." Forward-looking statements provide current expectations of future events based on certain assumptions and include any statement that does not directly relate to any historical or current fact. Actual results may differ materially from those indicated by such forward-looking statements as a result of various important factors as may be disclosed in company's filings. In addition to these factors, actual future performance, outcomes, and results may differ materially because of more general factors including (without limitation) general industry and market conditions and growth rates, economic conditions, and governmental and public policy changes. The forward-looking statements included in this press release represent the Company's views as of the date of this press release and these views could change. However, while the Company may elect to update these forward-looking statements at some point in the future, the Company specifically disclaims any obligation to do so. These forward-looking statements should not be relied upon as representing the Company's views as of any date subsequent to the date of the press release. Such forward-looking statements are risks that are detailed in the Company's filings, which are on file atwww.OTCMarkets.com.
Contact us via:info@bitcoincapitalcorp.comor visithttp://www.bitcoincapitalcorp.com.
SOURCE:First Bitcoin Capital Corp. || Tech Giants Can’t Do Much to Fight Terrorism: Facebook, , Twitter, and YouTube announced Monday that they are joining forces in a Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism. This consortium will pool technology, research, and counterterrorism tactics including "counter-speech," which tries to prevent terrorist recruitment and incitement.
This certainly is good news, but the scope of the task should not be underestimated. Between mid-2015 and early 2016, Twitter shut down 125,000 terrorist accounts. Keep in mind that those were just the ones that could be identified as terrorist-related (mostly affiliated with the Islamic State). Twitter noted that "there is no 'magic algorithm'for identifying terrorist content on the Internet, so global online platforms are forced to make challenging judgment calls based on very limited information and guidance." Further, the same users could quickly open new accounts.
For most of us, these four companies constitute the Internet universe that we venture into for our personal use. But beyond this level of the Internet are zones where terrorist groups do their most serious business.
Those whom we might call "top-level terrorists"--among them the leaders of Islamic State (IS) and Al Qaeda and their subsidiaries--survive because they are quick to adapt to changes in the physical and virtual battlespace. For some of their online communication, this has meant moving from the easily accessible "surface web" to the "deep web" and then on to its deepest part, the "dark web." This is where one can find drugs, pornography, weapons, and other contraband. The dark web is out of reach of the most common search engines, such as , and is difficult for hackers to penetrate. IS warehouses its propaganda videos and other material on dark sites, and has raised and transferred money using the dark web's currency of choice, Bitcoin.
Similarly, IS has relied on Telegram, one of the encrypted communication tools that provides enhanced security for texts and other messaging, to relay instructions to its supporters, such as how to find a particular dark web address. In 2015, Telegram began featuring "channels" for specialized content, which IS promptly started using. During one month in 2016,700 new IS-related channels were opened. One such channel was "Mujahideen Secrets," which provided indoctrination and information for prospective "lone wolf" terrorists.
Another challenge the Global Internet Forum faces is in its effort to produce counter-messaging that is effective in offsetting terrorist recruitment and fundraising. IS has been particularly successful in making the case that Islam is under siege by the West, and that the poverty and discrimination many Muslims encounter justify violent action. The harsh exigencies of life in suburbs of Paris and Brussels have more power to convince than do even the most rational pleas to renounce violence. Since the 9/11 attacks, the U.S. government has tried various counter-messaging themes and formats, but it remains unclear how successful these efforts have been. Until terrorism prevention campaigns address issues such as jobs and housing, terrorist groups will find plenty of recruits.
The tech giants must recognize the difficulty of establishing credibility (especially because they are American businesses) if they are to undermine the likes of Islamic State. The roots of terrorism run deeper than weak appeals for peace.
Philip Seib is a professor at the University of California's Annenberg School. His book,As Terrorism Evolves, will be published in October.
See original article on Fortune.com
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• Theresa May Can't Just Blame the Internet for Terrorism || $Weed Coin Crowdsale ICO Launched In Exchange For $Gary Coin On Bitcoin Blockchain: VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESSWIRE / June 9, 2017 /FIRST BITCOIN CAPITAL CORP. (OTC PINK: BITCF) ("Company", "We", "Us" or "Our") launched its second Initial Coin Offering (ICO).
The Company foresaw and announced a major shift coming that would overnight witness the emergences of altcoins surpassing Bitcoin in overall market cap which prediction quickly came to pass.
In order to capitalize on the pending shift, the Company wasted no time in launching its first ICO choosing a name to capture the maximum exposure to this emerging trend calling it "Altcoin" bearing the symbol "ALT." In conjunction with its first ICO (also sometimes known as ITO for Initial Token Offering), the company launched in betawww.AltCoinMarketCap.comas a new, potential income source that allows up and down voting on all cryptocurrencies and has already launchedwww.AltCoinMarketCap.infoas a secondary website where quotes can be compared against hundreds of crypto and fiat currency combinations.
Many of the Crypto Coin speculators that acquired ALT using Tether (USDT) as the medium of exchange in that ICO have already banked substantial profits when selling in the secondary market. Early participants that automatically received approximately 1.25 ALT for each USDT sent to the company’s Omni wallet either already resold for profits as much as 1000% or are enjoying paper profits of similar magnitude.
The purpose of our second ICO, the coin named WEED, is to provide a new cryptocurrency as a tool for the bourgeoning cannabis industries to have an alternative payment option to offer their clients. While several similarly named currencies have emerged, such as POTCOIN, we believe that WEED will soon supersede its competition in popularity.
In order to purchase and support WEED anyone that sends 1 President Johnson coin ($GARY) to the Company's Omni Layer Bitcoin Wallet will receive 1 WEED coin into their Omni Wallet via 1FwADyEvdvaLNxjN1v3q6tNJCgHEBuABrS
In order to insure receipt of the WEED coin upon transferring GARY to the company's address, be sure to use your own personal Omni Wallet address and not an exchange provided wallet as they may not be prepared to credit those WEED tokens to the sender's account. Upon 6 confirmations, the WEED coins will safely arrive in your personal Omni Wallet. This process is fully automated and requires no manual processing by the issuer of WEED.
In order to participate, kindly see further details at:https://www.omniwallet.org/assets/details/191
There is an early bird bonus of 20% which reduces to 15% the second week, 10% the third week, 5% the fourth and final week, when the ICO closes. A bonus of 5% of all coins sold will belong to The Company while the 95% will be held by the public. It is rare to find an ICO that doesn't amass a greater percentage to the issuers and organizers.
Management expects to have WEED coin listed on several exchanges in the immediate future, including its subsidiary, COINQX.com so that those unable to send GARY to acquire WEED may also participate and so that secondary trading may ensue.
WEED coin utilizes the same Bitcoin Blockchain, Omni protocols as our recently launched ALTCOIN (ALT), which is now trading on 4 exchanges under the symbol ALT on OmniDEX, CoinQX , Cryptopia, and C-CEX exchange.
We chose President (GARY) Johnson coin as a medium of exchange for speculators to acquire WEED since it is named after the highest government official to first call for legalization and enjoys a large market cap, trades on 3 exchanges, OMNIDEX, COINQX and C-CEX which also temporarily gives GARY (another coin that we issued) an additional new usage value.
"WEED commemorates the global legalization of marijuana and is the next paradigm of money for all things cannabis" and additional information about it will be made available in the future viahttp://weedcurrency.com
About the Company
First Bitcoin Capital Corp is engaged in developing digital currencies, proprietary Blockchain technologies, and the digital currency exchange- www.CoinQX.com. We see this step as a tremendous opportunity to create further shareholder value by leveraging management's experience in developing and managing complex Blockchain technologies, developing new types of digital assets. Being the first publicly-traded cryptocurrency and blockchain-centered company (with shares both traded in the US OTC Markets as [BITCF] and as [BIT] in crypto exchanges) we want to provide our shareholders with diversified exposure to digital cryptocurrencies and blockchain technologies. At this time the Company owns and operates more than the following digital assets under development:
www.CoinQX.comcryptocurrency exchange, registered with FINCEN.
www.strain.IDcannabis strains genetic information depository on decentralized Blockchain
www.iCoiNEWS.comreal time cryptocurrency and bitcoin news site.
www.BITminer.ccproviding mining pool management services.
www.2016coin.orgonline daily election coverage and home page for $PRES, $HILL, $GARY& $BURN -commemorative presidential election coins.
www.bitcannpay.comOpen Loop merchant services for dispensaries.
List of most Omni protocol coins issued on the Bitcoin Blockchain and owned by the Company:http://omnichest.info/lookupadd.aspx?address=1FwADyEvdvaLNxjN1v3q6tNJCgHEBuABrS
Second Omni wallet owned by CoinQX reflecting our airline mileage tokens issued:http://omnichest.info/lookupadd.aspx?address=1VuF26AgLyQ4tBoGzYTWRqtDG9zCB7QXe
Forward-Looking Statements
Certain statements contained in this press release may constitute "forward-looking statements." Forward-looking statements provide current expectations of future events based on certain assumptions and include any statement that does not directly relate to any historical or current fact. Actual results may differ materially from those indicated by such forward-looking statements as a result of various important factors as may be disclosed in company's filings. In addition to these factors, actual future performance, outcomes, and results may differ materially because of more general factors including (without limitation) general industry and market conditions and growth rates, economic conditions, and governmental and public policy changes. The forward-looking statements included in this press release represent the Company's views as of the date of this press release and these views could change. However, while the Company may elect to update these forward-looking statements at some point in the future, the Company specifically disclaims any obligation to do so. These forward-looking statements should not be relied upon as representing the Company's views as of any date subsequent to the date of the press release. Such forward-looking statements are risks that are detailed in the Company's filings, which are on file atwww.OTCMarkets.com.Contact us via:info@bitcoincapitalcorp.comor visithttp://www.bitcoincapitalcorp.com
SOURCE:First Bitcoin Capital Corp. || Canadian miners, casinos hit by hacker eyeing new targets -FireEye: By Alastair Sharp
TORONTO, June 16 (Reuters) - The same hacker targeting Canadian casinos and mining companies for extortion since 2013 is planning more attacks, researchers at cyber security company FireEye Inc said in a report on Friday.
FireEye said it believes that a single hacker or hacking group that it dubbed FIN10 is behind the breaches due to similarities in method: how they broke into corporate systems, stealing gigabytes of sensitive data and demanding ransom paid in Bitcoin, and publicizing the stolen information by alerting bloggers.
While FireEye declined to identify victims by name, the methods described in their report echoed those used in attacks on Goldcorp, the world's third-biggest gold miner by market value, smaller operator Detour Gold, and the Casino Rama Resort.
FireEye said FIN10's degree of operational success makes more campaigns "highly probable" and that it had evidence suggesting the group had targeted additional victims.
FireEye said FIN10 used the moniker Angels_of_Truth at least once, claiming to attack in retaliation for Canadian sanctions against Russia. More often, it borrowed the name Tesla Team from a group of Serbian hacktivists.
FireEye believes FIN10 was flying 'false flags' with those names, with no backing from a nation-state or affiliation with organized criminals.
Angels_of_Truth was the name used by hackers who contacted a databreaches.net blogger between April and June 2015 claiming credit in Russian and English for the Detour intrusion.
The same blogger, alerted to a breach at Goldcorp in April 2016, published details on the Daily Dot website before Goldcorp acknowledged the compromise.
The Vancouver-based miner has since modified its IT processes, increased network security protocols, and worked to educate its staff about cyber risks, a spokeswoman said.
After that breach, a mining industry group formed a network to share information on cyber threats. At least six members, including Teck Resources Ltd, will take the project live next month.
FIN10 is still in contact with some victims and more targets may "become aware of the threat in the coming weeks or months," said Charles Carmakal, vice president at FireEye's Mandiant unit.
Detour Gold did not respond to requests for comment. Nor did Casino Rama, which said in November that sensitive customer, employee and vendor data had been stolen. Some was reportedly later posted online, and they now face a class action lawsuit over the breach. (Additional reporting by Jim Finkle; Editing by Tom Brown) || Bitcoin bulls runs wild as cryptocurrency surges above $3000: Bitcoin(Exchange: BTC=-USS)traded above $3,000 for the first time on Sunday, continuing this year's massive surge and helped by increased demand from Asia-based investors.
After trading in a range for the last week, bitcoin climbed to an all-time high Sunday of $3,012.05, according to CoinDesk.
On Chinese exchanges such as BTCC, the currency traded about $40 to $60 above that price. Last week, several major Chinese bitcoin exchanges allowed customers to resume withdrawals of the cryptocurrency, after haltingwithdrawals in early February amid scrutinyfrom the People's Bank of China.
Source: CoinDesk
The digital currency has had a stellar year, rising by more than 200 percent and easily outperforming stock market benchmarks like the S&P 500(INDEX: .SPX)Index and the Nasdaq composite(NASDAQ: .IXIC)in 2017. The cryptocurrency has now more than tripled in value since trading at $968 on Dec. 31, and has gained nearly 30 percent in June alone.
Bitcoin in 2017
Source: CoinDesk
Brian Kelly, CEO and founder of BKCM and a CNBC contributor, told CNBC this week that the cryptocurrency was "in the first years of what is likely to be a multi-year bull market. Of course there will be corrections and even crashes along the way, but bitcoin is here to stay."
A contributing factor to bitcoin's recent surge is growing demand from Asia. In addition to the China factor, Japanese interest has risen ever since the government approved bitcoin as a legal payment method in April.
Investors also plowed more money into the currency after Minneapolis Federal Reserve President Neel Kashkari commented on the blockchain technology behind bitcoin, saying it "has more potential than bitcoin itself."
—CNBC's Fred Imbert contributed to this report.
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• Big tech stocks likely to be under pressure again after Apple shares downgraded
• A tech investor heads home to run for Congress in rural California || Bitcoin just soared to a new $1,600 high — but the first investor in Snapchat thinks it could hit $500,000 by 2030: (Jeremy Liew.Getty)
Bitcoin has been thetop-performing currencyin the world in six of the past seven years, climbing from zero to a new high value of about $1,600.
But the cryptocurrency isn't anywhere close to its potential, according to Jeremy Liew,the first investor in Snapchat, and Peter Smith, the CEO and cofounder of Blockchain.
In a presentation sent to Business Insider, the duo laid out their case for bitcoin exploding to $500,000 by 2030.
Their argument is based on increased interest in bitcoin, thanks to:
Remittance transfers, or electronic money transfers to foreign countries, havealmost doubledover the past 15 years to 0.76% of gross world product, data from the World Bank shows.
"Expats sending money home have found in bitcoin an inexpensive alternative, and we assume that the percentage of bitcoin-based remittances will sharply increase with greater bitcoin awareness," the two said.
Liew and Smith said increased political uncertainty in the UK, US, and developing nations would help elevate the level of interest in bitcoin.
"We believe bitcoin awareness, high liquidity, ease of transport, and continued market outperformance as geopolitical risks mount will make bitcoin a strong contender for investment at a consumer and investor level," the two said.
Liew and Smith said the percentage of noncash transactions would climb from 15% to 30% in the next 10 years as the world becomes more connected through smartphones.
The global smartphone penetration rate is 63%, and the total number of smartphone users is expected to increase by 1 billion by 2020. The GSMA, a trade body that represents the interests of mobile operators worldwide, says90% of these userswill come from developing countries.
This would make it possible for nearly everyone to have a bank in their pocket, and that should provide a boost for bitcoin as well. Liew and Smith say bitcoin could account for 50% of all noncash transactions.
Here are the basic model drivers Liew and Smith used:
1. A bitcoin price of $1,000 in 2017.
2. Network users will grow by a factor of 61 from now until 2030."Put another way, we need a population of bitcoin users around a quarter of the Chinese population (or 5% of the global population) in 2030 to see bitcoin at $500k," Liew and Smith told Business Insider.Bitcoin's user network grew from 120,000 users in 2013 to 6.5 million users in 2017, or by a factor of about 54, and this could be just the beginning. Growth of that magnitude would mean 400 million users in 2030.
3. The average value of bitcoin held per user will hit $25,000."As institutional investor cash in bitcoin, sophisticated investors trading bitcoin, and bitcoin-based ETFs proliferate, we think the average bitcoin value held will increase to around $25k per Bitcoin holder," Liew and Smith said. Currently, with bitcoin's market cap of $16.4 billion, each of its 6.5 million users holds $2,515 worth of bitcoin on average.
4. Bitcoin's 2030 market cap is decided by the number of bitcoin holders multiplied by the average bitcoin value held.
5. Bitcoin's 2030 supply will be about 20 million.
6. Bitcoin's 2030 price and user count will total $500,000 and 400 million, respectively.The price was found by taking the $10 trillion market cap and dividing it by the fixed supply of 20 million bitcoin.
But a lot could go wrong, too. News surrounding bitcoin has been rather negative as of late.
China, which is responsible fornearly 100% of tradingin bitcoin, has beencracking downon trading. The three biggest exchanges recently announced a 0.2% fee on all transactions andblocked withdrawalsfrom trading accounts.
The US Securities and Exchange Commission also rejected two bitcoin exchange-traded funds and will rule on another one in the future. It's not expected to be approved.
However, Smith says bitcoin is still in its early stages.
"The SEC's ruling wasn't a surprise to us," he told Business Insider. He said that "getting that sort of approval" could take a long time.
"In the meantime, bitcoin is already simple to buy and hold, and as the asset continues to mature, we'll continue to see an increase in the development and deployment of surrounding products," he said.
(Markets Insider)
And while bitcoin hasn't been granted regulatory approval in the US, it is catching on elsewhere. On April 1, the cryptocurrency became alegal payment method in Japan.
Another threat to its future is developers who are threatening to set up a "hard fork," or alternative marketplace for bitcoin. This would result in the split of into bitcoin and bitcoin unlimited. However, Smith isn't worried.
"Bitcoin has strong economic incentives to prevent this," he said. "If the last two years of healthy contention and debate lead to a conclusion, it's that bitcoin is incredibly resilient and stable. In fact, the bitcoin blockchain has operated for seven-plus years with no downtime, a feat no other back-end system operating at this scale can claim."
But the cryptocurrency sees violent price swings uncommon among the more traditional currencies. Bitcoin rallied 20% in the first week of 2017 before crashing 35% on word that China was cracking down on trading.
The cryptocurrency has regained those losses and is trading up about 67% so far this year.
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• The price of Bitcoin just hit an all new high — here's how easy it is to buy your first one
• Bitcoin is closing in on $1,500
• Bitcoin busts out to an all-time high above $1,400 || TECH STOCKS FALL: Here's what you need to know: (Flickr/Alpha)
US stocks and bonds fell on Thursday, a day after the Federal Reserve's decision toraise interest ratesand maintain its outlook for one more hike this year. The tech-heavy Nasdaq led declines among the major indexes.
Here's the scoreboard:
• Dow:21,359.90, -14.66, (-0.07%)
• S&P 500:2,432.46, -5.46, (-0.22%)
• Nasdaq:6,165.50, -29.39, (-0.47%)
• 10-year yield:2.162%, +0.024
1. Snap sank to its initial offering price of $17 for the first timeand closed exactly there. Many of the banks that underwrote the company's popular IPO have become bearish on the stock.
2. Bitcoin had its biggest drop in more than two years.The cryptocurrency fell by as much as 12.9%, to $2,161 a coin, its lowest since the beginning of June.
3. Nestle is thinking about selling its roughly $900 million-a-year US candy business. The world's largest packaged foods maker said on Thursday it would "explore strategic options," including a possible sale, amid a consumer shift towards healthier foods.
4. Nike said it would cut 2% of its global workforce and discontinue a quarter of its shoe styles as competition mounts. Nike shares fell 3%.
5. Alphabet fell after a rare downgrade.In a research note published Thursday, Canaccord said a lot of Alphabet's growth in mobile search and YouTube "will be hard to repeat."
6. Initial jobless claims, which count people who applied for unemployment insurance for the first time, last week fell more than expected by 8,000 to 237,000, according to the Labor Department.
Additionally:
A predictor with a perfect track record on the American economy is moving closer to signaling a recession
Don't expect the market's hottest stocks to cool down any time soon
Super-rich millennials are defying the way their parents have been investing for decades
Janet Yellen is starting to warm to a policy the Fed once regarded as radical
The Fed's 4th rate hike could challenge a popular assumption investors make about stocks
LARRY SUMMERS: 'The Fed is not credible with the markets'
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[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
1 #BTC (#Bitcoin) quotes:
$2407.01/$2407.82 #Bitstamp
$2355.38/$2360.00 #BTCe
⇢$-52.44/$-47.01
$2397.96/$2426.48 #Coinbase
⇢$-9.86/$19.47 || #Bitcoin $2344.00; @Chain || #BITCOIN ahora:
$2,468.38 USD
€2,200.57 EUR
$45,962.26 MXN
@Bitso $47,180.00 MXN
@Volabit $48,106.20 MXNpic.twitter.com/0S7UALbYQx || 世界最大のアルトコイン取引所は「Poloniex」
しかし、ワシントンで規制がかかってきており日本も
注意が必要です。 || $LDOGE Price
Yobit: 0.00000005 BTC | $0.00
Vol: 33,225,673 LDOGE | 1 BTC
Low: 0.00000004 | High: 0.00000006 || A Tidal Wave of Bitcoin could be headed YOUR way. See how i Did it... http://bit.ly/2qtVMWZ pic.twitter.com/TtNhQ1gYgN || in next year the 1 bitcoin = 10000$? — Steemit http://fb.me/xgcsQdYL || #bitcoin #miner BRAND NEW BITMAIN ANTMINER S9 BITCOIN MINER 13.5 TH/S & APW3-1600 PSU $1300.00 http://ift.tt/2rmC7sJ pic.twitter.com/dc0ANfAFwq || Rather than describe bitcoin as an 'investment' you can also think of it as an 'insurance policy' http://ift.tt/2tsbfUT #reddit #bitcoin || Comment on Курс Bitcoin: анализ, прогноз, обсуждение | Bit•Новости by еch72 http://ow.ly/aPH450cbdiw
|
Trend: down || Prices: 2564.06, 2601.64, 2601.99, 2608.56, 2518.66, 2571.34, 2518.44, 2372.56, 2337.79, 2398.84
|
Analyze the provided historical prices, technical indicators, news, and social media sentiment from the last 60 days. Based on this context, predict the overall trend (up, down, or no change) and the specific daily closing prices for Bitcoin for the next 10 days.
|
[Technical Analysis]
Not fully available.
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
Bitcoins Price Is Just $300 Away From a Short-Term Bear Reversal: View Bitcoin is on the defensive, having closed below $8,000 last week. The price has also established a bearish lower high at $8,135. A short-term bullish-to-bearish trend change, however, would be confirmed if the price drops below $7,432 (June 4 low), establishing a lower low. With the weekly chart reporting a bearish candlestick pattern, a UTC close below $7,432 looks likely. The daily relative strength indexs move above the falling trendline would revive the short-term bullish outlook. Bitcoins (BTC) bulls need to keep prices above key support at $7,432 to avert a short-term bearish reversal. At the current price of $7,685 (as per Bitstamp), the leading cryptocurrency by market value is down 15 percent from the May 30 high of $9,097 the highest level since the same month in 2018 The double-digit price drop has spurred fears of a trend reversal. After all, prices have found acceptance below the crucial 30-day price average. Further, key technical indicators are flashing signs of bullish exhaustion. Why Academics Love Bitcoin and Crypto Even so, it is still too early to call a bearish reversal as BTC is yet to confirm the most basic of all bearish chart patterns, a paired lower high and lower low. A lower high has been established, though, with the bounce from the June 4 low of $7,432 topping out at $8,135 on June 7. Therefore, the immediate outlook is neutral and a bearish reversal would only be confirmed if BTC drops below $7,432 to print that lower low. With the price currently trading at $7,730, the short-term bullish-to-bearish trend change is less than $300 away. Daily chart I Started the Silk Road Wikipedia Page (Because Bitcoin) The lower high created by BTCs shallow bounce from the June 4 low of $7,432 looks to be the right shoulder of a head-and-shoulders bearish reversal pattern. A UTC close below $7,432 would activate twin bearish cues: a lower high/lower low and a head-and-shoulders (H&S) breakdown. The H&S breakdown, if confirmed, would create room for a drop to $5,800 (target as per the measured move method). On the way lower, BTC may find support at the 50-day MA, currently at $7,000. Story continues With the relative strength index (RSI) reporting a bearish divergence, a close below $7,432 looks likely. Weekly chart BTC fell 12.6 percent last week and closed Sunday (UTC time) well below $8,000, validating the bullish exhaustion signaled by the previous weeks doji candle. Essentially, the doji candle and the bearish follow-through indicate the period of indecision or exhaustion in the market place has ended with the bears victorious. The risks, therefore, are skewed to the downside. Disclosure: The author holds no cryptocurrency assets at the time of writing. Bitcoin image via CoinDesk archives; charts by Trading View Related Stories May Was Best Month for CME Bitcoin Futures Volume Since 2017 Bitcoin Price Eyes Stronger Recovery Rally After Bounce to $8K || US Lawmakers Question Terrorist Use of Facebook Cryptocurrency: Members of the U.S. House of Representatives questioned Financial Crime Enforcement Network (FinCEN) director Kenneth Blanco about Facebook’s planned cryptocurrency Thursday.
Representatives Emanuel Cleaver, II (D-MO), Trey Hollingsworth (R-IN), Bill Foster (D-IL) and French Hill (R-AR) held a briefing with members of the House Financial Services Committee, discussing the Libra project with Blanco, who heads upFinCEN, the U.S. Treasury Department’s anti-money-laundering wing.
The briefing was held as part of a broader look at how machine learning and artificial intelligence can limit illicit money laundering and related activities.
Related:ShapeShift Founder Says Crypto Exchange Service Will Support Libra
Cleaver’s concern seems to stem from Facebook’s alleged role in improperly storing user data and spreading misinformation over the past few years, according to a press release.
“We’ve seen the significant damage that foreign adversaries and bad actors have wrought on our democracy through Facebook’s platform, and that was simply through messaging and advertising,” he said in a statement, adding:
“Before we allow such a giant corporation to begin processing millions to billions of financial transactions, we have to study these issues and ensure we have the tools and guardrails in place to deter terrorists, extremists, and/or enemies from utilizing such a platform to do harm to our nation.”
While the release did not reveal what Blanco’s views on Libra are, or whether or how FinCEN intends to oversee the project, it did say that Cleaver’s questions focused on Libra and Calibra, a new Facebook subsidiary that will develop digital wallets and other services for the cryptocurrency.
Related:Facebook Seeks Wallet Engineers as Blockchain Job Openings Top 30
Calibra registered as a money services business with FinCEN earlier this year.
Broadly, “nefarious actors” are finding new ways to conduct illicit financial activities, Cleaver said in the statement, citing cryptocurrencies and other new marketplaces as tools these actors can adapt.
“Now that we’re seeing a giant corporation like Facebook—which has already shown an inability to identify and impede these kinds of actors at an acceptable level—creating its own virtual currency called Libra, it cannot be understated the importance of Congress and financial transmitters to be proactive in utilizing the newest and most powerful technologies to ensure the financial system is not being used improperly,” he added.
He went on to say that the briefing participants “had a fruitful discussion” on how the U.S. can take steps to prevent misuse.
Thursday’s briefing comes amid wide bipartisan backlash to Facebook’s cryptocurrency plan, which was formally unveiled last week.
The fullHouse Financial Services Committeeis scheduled to hold a hearing on Libra next month, a day after theSenate Banking Committeeholds its own.
Other regulators worldwide are examining the cryptocurrency, with the G7convening a task forceto investigate its implications.
Cleaver has long been concerned with potentially illegal activities conducted with cryptocurrencies. According to the release, he has called on the Bitcoin Foundation and the Chamber of Digital Commerce to find ways of preventing extremist groups from using cryptocurrencies.
He has also called on FinCEN toinvestigate the space, after U.S. special counsel Robert Mueller found that Russian intelligence officialsused bitcoin to fund activitiesinterfering with the 2016 presidential election.
Image via Shutterstock
• Singapore’s Central Bank Wants More Information on Facebook’s Libra Crypto
• Buried in Facebook’s Libra White Paper, a Digital Identity Bombshell || Bitcoin, Ethereum, Ripple, Bitcoin Cash, Litecoin, EOS, Binance Coin, Stellar, Cardano, TRON: Price Analysis May 29: The views and opinions expressed here are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Cointelegraph. Every investment and trading move involves risk, you should conduct your own research when making a decision.
Market data is provided by theHitBTCexchange.
The chief commercial officer of cryptocurrency payments processor BitPay believes that Bitcoin will only risehigher, led by business interest and real use cases for cryptocurrencies around the world. Contrary to this opinion, a report by the United States think tank, the Congressional Research Service,claimsthat cryptocurrencies are being used for investment purposes and not as money.
Jens Weidmann, president of Germany’scentral bankand chairman of the board of the Bank for International Settlements warned that adoption of digital currencies coulddestabilizethe financial system during a crisis.
A recentsurveyshows that 94% of the 150 university endowments had some kind of exposure in crypto-related projects. Another interesting observation was that 49% of the respondents said that allocation to crypto investments by endowments, in general, is likely to increase over the next 12 months. But how should individual traders approach the crypto markets now? Let us analyze the charts and find out.
Bitcoin (BTC) dipped to the breakout level of $8,496.53 and held it. This is a bullish sign as it shows buying on every minor dip. Now, the bulls will attempt to propel the cryptocurrency above the minor resistance at $8,904.92. If successful, a rally to $10,000 is probable. The moving averages are trending up and the RSI is in the overbought zone. This shows that the bulls are in command. The short-term traders can attempt a quick trade by buying at $8,950 with a stop loss of $8,400. However, as the risk is high, use only 30% of the usual position size. Also, keep trailing the stops higher as the price moves up as this is only a speculative trade.
TheBTC/USDpair will lose momentum if it struggles to sustain above $8,904.92 and plunges below $8,496.53. A deeper correction is likely if the 20-day EMA cracks. If the pair plummets below the support zone of $7,413.46–$6,933.90, it will signal that the bears are back in action.
Ethereum (ETH) has been consolidating between $260–$280 for the past two days. This shows that the bulls are not yet booking profits as they expect a further rise. Both the moving averages are sloping higher and the RSI is in the overbought zone. This suggests that the bulls are firmly in the driver’s seat.
TheETH/USDpair will now attempt to scale above the overhead resistance of $290.92. If successful, it can then challenge the $300–$322 resistance zone. We expect the rally to hit a barrier in the zone and either enter a minor correction or a consolidation. As the profit potential is low, we are not suggesting a trade in it. The momentum will weaken if the bears sink the price below the 20-day EMA. A deeper correction can be expected if the support at $225.39 gives way.
Ripple (XRP) is facing profit booking at $0.45. However, the positive point is that it has not given up much ground. This increases the probability of a breakout above the $0.45–$0.47919 resistance zone. The 20-day EMA is turning up and the RSI is in the positive zone. This shows that the bulls are in command.
A breakout of the overhead resistance zone can propel theXRP/USDpair to $0.60. But if the bulls fail to scale above the resistance zone, the pair might remain range-bound between $0.35660 and $0.45 for a few days. A breakdown of the range will signal a deeper correction. Traders can trail the stop loss on thelongpositions to $0.35.
Bitcoin Cash (BCH) continues to trade above the 20-day EMA and below the resistance line of the ascending channel. Both the moving averages are trending up and the RSI is in the positive territory. This suggests that the bulls have the upper hand.
The bulls will now try to break out of the resistance line of the channel. If successful, theBCH/USDpair is likely to pick up momentum and rally to $638.99. We might suggest a trade if the price sustains above the channel. Right now, we do not find any reliable trade setup with a good risk to reward ratio.
Our bullish view will be invalidated if the pair turns down from the overhead resistance and breaks down of the 20-day EMA. In such a case, it can drop to the 50-day SMA.
Litecoin (LTC) is in an uptrend. Both the moving averages are sloping up and the RSI is close to the overbought zone. This suggests that the bulls have the advantage. However, the negative divergence on the RSI is a red flag that warrants caution.
If theLTC/USDpair rises above the $121.9018–$127.6180 resistance zone, it can move up to its target objective of $158.91. However, if the pair turns down from the overhead resistance, it can dip towards the 20-day EMA, which is likely to provide support. If this support breaks down, the fall can extend to $91.
Traders can watch the movement of the cryptocurrency close to $121.9018. If it struggles to move above it, 50% of thelongpositions can be squared off and the stops on the rest can be raised to $90.
EOSbroke out of the ascending channel on May 27 and has successfully held the retest of the breakout level today. This is a positive sign. If the bulls push the price and sustain above $8.2728, a rally to $9 and above it to $9.60 is probable. Traders with a high-risk appetite can attempt this trade with a stop loss of $7.50. Considering the risk involved, we suggest keeping the position size about 30% of usual.
On the other hand, if the bears sink theEOS/USDpair back into the ascending channel, it will indicate profit booking at higher levels. The momentum will weaken further if the pair dips below the critical support of $6.8299. If that happens, it might continue to trade inside the ascending channel.
The trend in Binance Coin (BNB) is up. The pullback from the highs found support close to the 20-day EMA. This shows that buyers are keen to get into the cryptocurrency on dips. Both the moving averages are trending up and the RSI is close to the overbought zone. This shows that the bulls have the upper hand.
TheBNB/USDpair will again attempt to reach its target objective of $40 and above it $46.1645899. However, the up move will face selling at the resistance line.
If the pair reverses direction from the resistance line, it can again fall to the 20-day EMA. A breakdown of this support will indicate a loss of momentum. The next support to watch on the downside is the 50-day SMA, below which the bears will gain the upper hand.
Stellar (XLM) is facing selling pressure at the overhead resistance of $0.14861760. A breakout and close (UTC time frame) above this level will complete an inverse head and shoulders pattern, which is a bullish sign. The target objective of the reversal pattern is $0.22466773. We retain the buy recommendation given in thepreviousanalysis.
If the bulls fail to scale the overhead resistance, theXLM/USDpair might consolidate between $0.11507853 and $0.147620 for the next few days. A breakdown of this range will indicate weakness and can result in a fall to the right shoulder.
The 20-day EMA is gradually moving up and the RSI is in positive territory. This suggests that bulls have a minor advantage.
Cardano (ADA) has been trading close to the overhead resistance of $0.094256 for the past three days. A consolidation near the resistance is a positive sign as it shows that the bulls are not in a hurry to book profits. However, any action should only be initiated after a breakout and close (UTC time frame) above the resistance level. Traders can initiate the trade as suggested in ourearlieranalysis.
The 20-day EMA is gradually sloping up and the RSI is in the positive territory. This suggests that the bulls have the upper hand. But if the bulls fail to breakout of the overhead resistance, theADA/USDpair might remain range bound between $0.0731 and $0.094256 for a few days. A breakdown of this range can plunge the pair to the next support of $0.057898.
Tron (TRX) scaled the resistance at $0.03575668 on May 27 but faced selling just above $0.037. However, the positive point is that the bulls are buying the shallow dips and are unwilling to wait for a deeper correction to own the cryptocurrency. The 20-day EMA has turned up and the RSI is in positive territory. This suggests that the buyers have the upper hand.
The first target objective on the upside is $0.040 and above it, we expect the rally to hit $0.050. Depending on the performance at $0.040, we might suggest to book profits on the partiallongpositions and trail the stops on the rest.
Our bullish view will be invalidated if theTRX/USDpair reverses direction from the current levels and plummets below the support of $0.02815521. We will watch for a couple of days and then revise the stop loss. For now, the stops can be maintained at $0.025.
Market data is provided by theHitBTCexchange. Charts for analysis are provided byTradingView.
• Bitcoin, Ethereum, Ripple, Bitcoin Cash, Litecoin, EOS, Binance Coin, Stellar, Cardano, TRON: Price Analysis May 27
• Bitcoin, Ethereum, Ripple, Bitcoin Cash, EOS, Litecoin, Binance Coin, Stellar, Cardano, TRON: Price Analysis May 24
• Bitcoin, Ethereum, Ripple, Bitcoin Cash, EOS, Litecoin, Binance Coin, Stellar, Cardano, TRON: Price Analysis May 20
• Bitcoin, Ethereum, Ripple, Bitcoin Cash, Litecoin, EOS, Binance Coin, Stellar, Cardano, TRON: Price Analysis May 17 || 3 Killer Reasons Bitcoin Price Will Smash $30,000 Before 2020: Fund Manager: ByCCN: Bitcoin price will hit $30,000 by the end of 2019, according to Kenetic Capital co-founder Jihan Chu. In an interview withBloomberg, he points to three bullish factors including the upcoming bitcoin halving, the disappointment of tech IPOs, and the likes of Facebook and Fidelity embracing crypto.
Chu’s $30k price target comes as bitcointeases the $9,000 markand ticks over a $150 billion market cap.
“Ten years out from the bitcoin story, and we are starting to see the story become a reality. and what people are really seeing now is that cryptocurrency is not going away” – Jihan Chu.
Chu says big companies will drive the next phase of bitcoin adoption. Facebook recently announced its “Globalcoin” project while JP Morgan revealed its own JPMCoin to settle payments.Fidelityhas launched institutional crypto custody.
“You don’t have to take my word for it. It’s Facebook, it’s Jamie Dimon, it’s Rakuten, it’s Fidelity. All are getting in the space either in building the infrastructure or providing services. That’s going to drive mining share and adoption.”
Read the full story on CCN.com. || What Will It Take to Regulate Crypto Exchanges?: Konstantinos Stylianou is an assistant professor at the University of Leeds School of Law, and a visiting scientist at the Brown University Department of Computer Science.
Shortly afterBitcoin SVwas delisted fromBinance, CoinDesk advisor Michael Casey published aninsightful op-eddiscussing whether the delisting amounted to censorship (it doesn’t), whether exchanges should be held to high standards of neutrality (they should) and whether regulation is necessary to achieve this result (it is).
The idea is that because major exchanges play such a crucial role in the industry (Casey claims that “[t]hey are the cryptocurrency industry) they should not be allowed to arbitrarily discriminate between crypto assets — rather they should be regulated to operate as neutral platforms.
Crypto Exchange Binance Confirms Margin Trading Coming ‘Soon’: Report
But ask any regulation expert and they will tell you that, absent Goldilocks conditions (hold that thought), neutrality is neither the natural state of markets, nor the natural instinct of regulators.
If that’s the case, regulation of the kind that would have saved Bitcoin SV and of the kind Casey advocates for – while possible – might not quite be around the corner.
That neutrality is not the natural state of markets, we’ve known for a while.
It is hard to notice when there is an abundance of choice and people get what they want, but when there is too little of something, the owner of that bottleneck resource often becomes partial and does not treat everyone the same.
Binance CEO CZ Is Suing VC Giant Sequoia for Reputational Damages
When the first telephone networks were rolled out, they suppressed devices and services from competitors and even arbitrarily refused call service. Microsoft saw Netscape as a threat and sabotaged it. Apple and AT&T similarlyblocked Skypein the early days of the iPhone. There are countless other examples of platforms disfavoring complements or customers.
Were regulators called in to save the day in all these cases? They were indeed. Telephone networks were designated ascommon carriers, which came with the obligation to provide non-discriminatory service; Microsoft wasforced by antitrust regulatorsto abandon the practices that squeezed Netscape out of the market; and Apple and AT&T dropped their restrictions against Skype after the Federal Communications Commissionthreatened themwith net neutrality action.
It may seem that regulation came to the rescue whenever necessary to restore neutrality. But the truth is that despite occasional corrections, neutrality still remains the exception in the market and in regulatory action.
Part of the reason is that the law actually acknowledges that non-neutrality is not all that bad. The ability to deviate from uniform practice is what allows companies to differentiate themselves in the market. Not all grocery stores carry the same products, neither do they all place them in the exact same shelf, and this helps consumers and producers address diversified needs.
Even extreme differentiation, like exclusive agreements that make a business proposition unique in the market, can be good. For example, Nintendo’sexclusive console agreementshelped bootstrap an entire industry by tying popular games to Nintendo’s consoles thereby increasing competition.
It is not that this kind of discriminatory practices have no downsides. Far from it. But it is also a standard assumption in modern market-driven economies is thatregulation distorts markets too, and therefore, the enactment of rules requires proof that, left alone, the market would perform demonstrably worse.
To decide whether Binance, or any exchange for that matter, should be neutral and not discriminate against crypto assets (be it cryptocurrencies, crypto derivatives or other), regulators would consider a number of factors.
PowerThe most decisive factor to regulate is sustained monopoly power or dominance in the market.
Regulators usually impose neutrality on platforms because users and/or complements (read: cryptocurrencies) can’t or realistically won’t turn to alternative platforms, which would allow the dominant platform to exploit them.
If Binance were a monopoly exchange, then delisting a cryptocurrency would result in driving it out of the market. Or, if the cost of switching from Binance to another exchange was prohibitively high, then, similarly, Binance users and listed cryptocurrencies would be trapped by Binance’s choices.
But neither of those conditions are true here. There arenumerous exchangeson which Bitcoin SV can be traded, and signing up with Binance does not preclude users from trading on other exchanges too. In other words, both Bitcoin SV and users multi-home.
In that sense, Bitcoin SV is not in the same position as companies listed on NYSE or Nasdaq, because by and large, companies are listed on only one exchange, and delisting them would mean that they cease to be publicly traded.
Harm and market distortionRegardless of power, would decisions such as Binance’s delisting of Bitcoin SV undermine important public interest goals such as market stability and efficiency, consumer and investor protection, and capital formation?
Regulation is more likely if the problematic conduct threatens harm to public interest goals, is frequent, and has long-lasting effects without second-best alternatives being able to contain them.
At the moment, the picture is still fluid. For one thing, regulators still grapple with the question of whether crypto assets even form part of financial markets. If they do not, then there would be no legal basis to subject exchanges to financial regulation.
Assuming that they do, the frequency of the problematic conduct matters too. Crypto delisting isnot unheard ofbut it is not exactly common either. There is no exact formula to calculate a threshold. In the case of network neutrality rules, fewer than five instances were enough to set the regulatory process in motion, whereas for privacy, numerous and repeated instances by tech giants have not resulted in regulation yet.
We also don’t know the extent of the harm of delisting. When the trading of conventional securities is suspended, they effectivelydisappear from the market, perhaps permanently. On the other hand, despite Bitcoin SV’s delisting from Binance, it still traded on anotherseven exchanges.
To be sure, Bitcoin SV’s price suffered significantly upon the announcement of the delisting on April 15 (from $73 on April 14 to $55 on April 15), and the effects to its medium-long term liquidity and reputation are yet to be accounted for (likely bleak).
This, in turn, can have severe consequences for investors’ financial situation.
But regulation is concerned with broad effects, not individual actors. The key lies less in the fate of Bitcoin SV specifically, and more in the effect of the practice of delisting in the overall stability of the market. It is a very different situation if delisting is regarded as a normal business practice whose risk is acceptably assumed by investors, and if delisting is regarded as serving no other purpose but to manipulate the market or to defraud investors. Only the latter could invite regulation.
Information inadequaciesThe market can only work efficiently if all parties are sufficiently well informed to evaluate their options.
If investors had perfect information, then their reactions to Bitcoin SV’s delisting would reflect their up-to-date assessment, and there would be no need for regulation to protect them from anything. Any price, reputation and liquidity fluctuations would correspond to investors’ full and accurate beliefs and manipulation by Binance would be impossible.
This is clearly not the case here or in any other market. Perfect information is one of the most unrealistic assumptions of neoclassical economics in modern economies.
But the obvious solution to information inadequacies is more information and more transparency, not neutrality. The difference is that transparency enables actors to make a (presumably better) choice, whereas neutrality is a choice itself: it mandates a specific treatment (i.e. non-discrimination).
Regulators would normally want to start with the least onerous measure (transparency). If it is not effective, they can escalate to neutrality. If still ineffective, they may even dictate the rules of listing and delisting themselves.
Unequal bargaining power and anticompetitive conduct
The main idea behind non-regulated competitive markets is that actors behave well because market forces discipline them. If, however, the competitive forces exercised by competitors (other exchanges), complements (cryptoassets) or customers (investors) are weak, market players (exchanges) are unconstrained to act in ways that harm others.
Think about how much more difficult it would be for an exchange todelist Bitcoinwith its much higher market capitalization, velocity and liquiditycompared to Bitcoin SV.
Evidently, Bitcoin is more valuable to exchanges and therefore the constraints around how exchanges treat it are tighter. In reality, the majority of cryptocurrencies are nowhere near as important as Bitcoin, and the fact that they are not backed by unified institutional actors further diminishes their bargaining power.
Large investors could have a similar constraining effect, since exchanges would not want to lose investors who can generate large volumes.
For this to work it would mean that cryptocurrency ownership is concentrated in large investors (there is evidence in that direction, for example42 percent of Bitcoin is owned by the top 0.01 of addresses), but also that these investors are actually active and that churn is high or at least plausible.
The factors listed above leave out one important aspect of regulation: the fact that, ultimately, it is a political game, not an academic exercise. If politics favor regulation then that’s the most likely outcome regardless of how the factors listed above weigh in. We even have a fancy name for it:New Institutionalism.
As a function of the executive branch, regulation is subject to political pressure and revolves around interest groups. Nascent immature markets, such as that of cryptoassets, are usually captured by the interests of the existing regulatory authority and those of the public.
They are captured by the existing authority (in the US, this is the SEC) because they are already in the game and by extending their reach they justify their existence. Widened reach and heightened activity entitles them to more funding and higher rating. Just look at how everyone speaks of the European Commission as the globalantitrustandprivacyenforcer after having gone after Google and the like.
Nascent markets are also more likely to be regulated in the name of the public interest both because people are generally more vulnerable in new market contexts, and because industry interests have not developed lobbying capacity yet. This leaves the field clear to side with the public which is generally seen as the weaker side.
A few industry associations are already present in blockchain markets (EEA,PTDL,ISDA) but none seems to represent the collective interests of exchanges. On the contrary, regulatory interest and grassroots support for crypto assets seem stronger.
In the end, it is usually not a question of whether a market segment will be regulated or not; rather a question of how it will be regulated.
Coin in vicevia Shutterstock
• Coinbase Now Lets Merchants Accept Payments in USDC Stablecoin
• Collapsed Cryptopia Founder Wants You to Put Funds on His New Exchange || Short the CNH?: Those who speculate and short the yuan will for sure suffer heavy loss. said Xiao Yuanqi, the spokesman for Chinas Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission (CBIRC). Besides, Mr. Yuanqi declared that higher US tariffs even if they reach the maximum level, will have a very limited impact on the Chinese economy and will affect American one about same. A top financial regulatory official and a vice information technology minister confirmed that the effect of US sanctions is under control. A former deputy commerce minister assumed that Chinese firms will be able to survive the sudden escalation of the trade tensions without problems. The government keeps encouraging the nation while the economic data continues worsening and trade talks are at a dead end. Such provocative comments make investors take thought about the future of the Chinese yuan. Should investors believe these words or the facts say the opposite? On May 17, the USD/CNH pair was near the critical high of 7.0 but it turned around and moved down. As a result, a logical question appeared: for how long the pair will stick below critical 7.0? We all remember that in the past Chinese authorities indicated that level as a floor. This month, both the offshore and onshore Chinese yuan are among the worst performing Asian currencies. At the beginning of May, Mr. Trump raised levies on Chinese goods despite rumors of the possible agreement between the US and Chine. A further escalation of the trade war and worsening of the Chinese economic data dont leave hope for the CNH. Are there possibilities of the 7.0 breakthrough? Last time USD/CNH was above 7.0 in 2008. After that, the Chinese currency managed to stay quite steady. However, the Sino-US trade war has been leading the currency to a precipice. A breakthrough is possible as there are no doubts that trade tensions will not end in the near future causing a following slowdown in the Chinese economy. We all have already seen that the Chinese government is not scared to sacrifice the domestic currency due to prevent further economic depreciation. As a result, the country may let the Chinese yuan fall below the crucial level. Story continues However, such a fall may lead to negative consequences. Usually, a weak currency is good in the case of slowing economic growth. The Chinese economy has already represented a great economic slowdown. However, this time, the weak currency may cause another reaction from investors. Devaluation of the currency or other easing measures such as selling of US Treasuries may cause fears of further problems in the country. As a result, foreign investors may not want to invest in China. Why the government may keep the currency below the critical level? A breakthrough beyond 7.0 of the USD/CNH pair may make the US accused China of the cheap currency. Furthermore, stable yuan will attract long-term foreign investments that will support its further growth. Moreover, we should remember the price-in effect. A negative impact of trade tensions is not a surprise not only for China but also for the rest of the world. As a result, economies are already prepared for that. It will allow Beijing to hold the domestic currency at appropriate levels. Technical setup On May 17, USD/CNH reached 6.9491 and rebounded. Up to now, it has been trading below the support at 6.9098. A break below this level will give a chance to the Chinese currency. In this case, we can see a further decline towards 6.8680. If trade tensions increase, we may see a weakness of the CNH. Bulls will try to push the pair towards the critical level of 7.0. Before that, we will consider previous supports as resistances. Also to reach 7.0, the pair needs to overcome the previous high at 6.9491. Next resistances will lie at 6.9580 and 6.9800. To conclude, we can say that the Chinese currency will definitely stay under pressure. The current recovery is short-termed. Trade tensions and the slowing economic growth are factors that will keep affecting the currency. The 7.0 level will remain the critical point. A break above it will mean a great devaluation of the Chinese yuan that will significantly worsen the economic situation. 100% Deposit Bonus Double Your Profit! This article was originally posted on FX Empire More From FXEMPIRE: U.S. Dollar Index Futures (DX) Technical Analysis May 29, 2019 Forecast All in on the Fixed Income Juggernaut Bitcoin Cash ABC, Litecoin and Ripple Daily Analysis 29/05/19 Dax, Bitcoin And Oil. What Do They Have In Common? GBP/USD Daily Forecast Brexit Chaos Continuing to Grapple Cable AUD/USD Forex Technical Analysis May 29, 2019 Forecast || SEC-Registered Clearing House Brings Crypto Trading to 5 Million Clients: American financial clearing and execution company Apex Clearing and its crypto investment subsidiary Apex Crypto have launched a new trading platform for broker-dealers and financial advisors to help their clients trade crypto more effectively. According to a June 27 press release announcing the new broker-integrated Apex Crypto platform, equity investors will be able to seamlessly open and fund new crypto trading accounts “within minutes” — rather than the purported weeks it would usually take clients to do so. Founded in 2012, Apex Clearing is an SEC-registered and FINRA member digital wealth management firm owned by American financial services company PEAK6 Investments LLC. As of today, over 5 million current Apex Clearing clients can thus access the Apex Crypto platform, which supports trading of four major cryptocurrencies: bitcoin (BTC), bitcoin cash (BCH), ether (ETH), and litecoin (LTC). The press release places a strong emphasis on the new platform’s apparently high throughput and scalability, claiming that Apex’s systems enable the opening of tens of thousands of accounts within a single day, allowing traders to take advantage of surges in crypto trading volumes. The platform leverages technology jointly provided by Apex Crypto and U.S.-based online discount broker-dealer and Apex Clearing client SogoTrade Inc. Initially, Apex Crypto is being released for investors across 40 U.S. states and the District of Columbia — with additional states expected in future once regulatory approval has been sealed. In a statement, Apex Clearing CEO has said that the clearinghouse seeks to “fundamentally change” the way investors and enterprises think about their finances, proposing that: "Our integration with Apex Crypto helps financial firms give their clients a streamlined way to invest in a wider variety of asset classes in a way that feels part of – not separate from – the rest of their investment portfolio." Story continues As Cointelegraph has previously reported , Apex Clearing first confirmed it planned to launch its Apex Crypto subsidiary last September, stating that the move was spurred by the continued surge in demand for crypto-based investment options. Related Articles: Steve Forbes Tells Zuckerberg: Use Gold to Back Libra, Call It the ‘Mark’ Santander Loses Appeal Against Brazilian Crypto Exchange, Fine Upheld Maple Leaf Capital: Recent Bitfinex IEO Ampleforth Token is Not Stable Coinbase Releases Key Findings on Crypto Awareness and Adoption in US || Facebook Cryptocurrency Chief Says Libra Is Not a Threat to Bitcoin: ByCCN Markets: Facebook confirmed that its newcryptocurrency Libraisn’t designed to kill or compete with bitcoin. David Marcus, the man leading Facebook’s crypto efforts, said Libra and bitcoin can co-exist with differing use cases and that’s he a big fan of BTC.
In a tweet yesterday, he explained that Libra is designed to be a stable payment system. On the other hand, Bitcoin, he believes, is a store of value or a non-correlated asset, playing into the ‘digital gold’ narrative.
“Many want to pit Libra vs. Bitcoin. In my mind these two are not in the same category. BTC is a decorrelated (investment) asset. Libra is designed to be a stable medium-of-exchange. I have been, and remain a fan of BTC, but for very different purposes.”
Marcus, who was former president at PayPal, claims Libra is a better digital cash and payment system, while bitcoin is a long-term investment vehicle.
Read the full story on CCN.com. || South Korean Post Teams Up With Crypto Exchange to Apply Blockchain: South Koreas national postal service Korea Post is planning to apply blockchain technology to its billing system, local news agency News1 Korea reports on June 5. The initiative is a collaboration between the South Korean government and local private companies including cryptocurrency exchange Coinplug and global IT company NHN . According to the report, South Korean authorities will grant project participants 800 million won ($677,000) in order to support the initiative. Operating under the authority of the Ministry of Science and ICT, the Korea Post will build a blockchain-powered payment method incorporated in its postal service, using the blockchain expertise of Coinplug and NHN's payment technology. The pilot project will reportedly launch in the city of Naju , which received the title of "Innovative City" and has attracted a number of public offices to move from Seoul . The postal service is also considering to apply blockchain technology to overseas remittances, the report notes. Coinplug is a South Korea-based cryptocurrency exchange that was founded in June 2013. The exchange offers bitcoin ( BTC ) exchange and wallet services, as well as a bitcoin prepaid card okBitcard. The exchange was reportedly set up by South Korean and Silicon Valley engineers, and targets the Korean and Asian market. Recently, the South Korean Ministry of Science and ICT announced that the agency will conduct a follow-up study on blockchain regulations. Entitled Blockchain Regulation Improvement Study Group, the study intends to find out how regulations can be improved in order to embrace the benefits of the technology and to bring it to mass adoption. Related Articles: Marshall Islands Form Dedicated Fund to Support Implementation of Its National Crypto Top South Korean Utility to Co-Develop Blockchain System for Renewable Energy Certificates Brazilian State-Owned Bank Funds Documentary via Its Own Ethereum-Based Token US Congressmen Urge Presidential Economic Advisor to Hold Blockchain Forum || Bitcoin Price Back Above $11,000 as Dip 'Consistent' With Parabolic Bull Run: Bitcoin (BTC) corrected as low as $10,380 before rebounding above $11,000 on June 27 as commentators remain highly bullish about the market’s potential.
Market visualization courtesy ofCoin360
Data from Coin360 showed the bitcoin price dipping down from recent highs of $13,800 in a pullback many had anticipated.
BTC/USD gained rapidly throughout this week and last, adding thousands of dollars over several days before resistance at $14,000 finally checked the speed of the growth.
Estimates had said the pair could goas high as $16,000before reversing, with Cointelegraphreportingon Thursday that breaking the $13,800 barrier could now prove significant.
At press time, BTC/USD traded around $11,280. According to an increasing number of analysts, the losses seen over the past 24 hours are not only healthy, but reflect previous patterns of price behavior.
Bitcoin 7-day price chart. Source:Coin360
“A 20%-30% pullback would not be surprising and very consistent with bitcoin’s recent bull-market pullbacks,” Robert Sluymer, managing director and technical strategist at Fundstrat Global Advisors, said in a note to clients quoted by ratings agencyWeiss Ratings.
Crypto investor and trader Josh Rager went further, suggesting the roughly 20% dip this week could form a new, less volatile pattern for bitcoin.
“18% pullback might be the new 30% pullback we're expecting,” he summarized onTwitter, comparing this year to the last bull market’s top in December 2017.
Weiss was more bearish, arguing a more intense reversal was still to come.
Altcoinsmeanwhile continued to lick their wounds after bitcoin’s downward trend saw most tokens hemorrhage value.
A look at the top twenty cryptocurrencies by market cap sees leader ethereum (ETH) back below $300 on 6.4% daily losses after rising as high as $350.
Ether 7-day price chart. Source:Coin360
Most others behaved similarly, with tron (TRX) and bitcoin cash (BCH) the worst performers on 10.5% losses.
• Bitcoin Breaks $200 Billion Market Cap For the First Time in 17 Months
• Bitcoin Holds $9,100 Support While Top 20 Coins Trade Sideways
• Bitcoin Hover Over $11,800 as Top Cryptos See Gains
• Price Analysis 28/06: BTC, ETH, XRP, BCH, LTC, EOS, BNB, BSV, ADA, TRX
[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
Ethereum [ETH] v. Tron [TRX] Price Analysis: ETH in a bear hug while TRX struggles to keep pace with the bull https://t.co/NySGK9d4u3 #crypto #cryptocurrency #blockchain #ethereum #btc #bitcoinmining #bitcoins #litecoin || $IOST - IOST / BTC 1D - Internet of services looks good here - will buy here. Looks ready to move up. RSI and MACD have plenty of room. SL just below. $IOSTBTC #Internetofservices https://t.co/RQCrSVmNyS || Crypto is my job and I take lots of time to investigate various projects. This project is the most top-drawer in my rating. #Shato || Current Top 3 Dapps by VolumeLastWeek
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|
Trend: down || Prices: 12285.96, 12573.81, 12156.51, 11358.66, 11815.99, 11392.38, 10256.06, 10895.09, 9477.64, 9693.80
|
Analyze the provided historical prices, technical indicators, news, and social media sentiment from the last 60 days. Based on this context, predict the overall trend (up, down, or no change) and the specific daily closing prices for Bitcoin for the next 10 days.
|
[Technical Analysis]
Not fully available.
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
BTC, ETH, XRP, WAVES, SXP, DOGE, ZEN —Technical Analysis for May 4: Bitcoin (BTC) was rejected by the $56,000 resistance area.
Ethereum (ETH) and Swipe (SXP) reached new all-time high prices on May 3.
XRP (XRP) has broken out from a descending resistance line.
Waves (WAVES) has been increasing rapidly over the past ten days, and has reached a potential reversal area.
Horizen (ZEN) has been decreasing since creating adouble toppattern on April 27.
Dogecoin (DOGE) reached a new all-time high price on May 4.
BTC had been following an ascending support line beginning on April 26. Itcontinued increasingalongside this line, until it reached a high of $56,000 on May 3. The high was made right at the 0.618 Fib retracement level, when measuring the previous downward movement.
Afterwards, BTC broke down and has been decreasing since. So far, it has bounced at the 0.382 Fib retracement support at $54,400. The next support area is found at $53,000, which is both the 0.5 Fib retracement support level and a horizontal support area.
BTC is expected to find support at one of these two levels and create a higher low. Afterwards, the upward movement is likely to continue.
ETH has been increasing at a rapid pace since Feb. 28, when it reached a low of $1,468. On May 3, it reached a new all-time high price of $3,454.
The high was made right at the 1:1 Fib projection of waves 1-3 (white). If wave five extends, the next resistance would be found at $4,561.
Technical indicators are still bullish, as evidenced by the bullish cross in theStochastic Oscillator.
XRP has been moving upwards since April 23. Shortly afterwards, it broke out from a descending resistance line. It continued moving upwards all the way to $1.63, before decreasing.
Currently, it is attempting to find support and create a higher low at either the 0.382 or 0.5 Fib retracement levels. They are found at $1.36 and $1.27, respectively.
Afterwards, it is likely to increaseall the way to $2.70.
WAVES has been moving upwards rapidly since April 23. The increase further accelerated on May 3 and May 4, leading to a new all-time high price of $41.8 on the latter.
The closest resistance areas are found at $44 and $54, the 3.61 and 4.61 external Fib retracements, respectively.
SXP has been moving upwards since April 23. The increase continued until May 3, when it reached a new all-time high price of $5.87 on May 3.
However, the price has been moving downwards since. It is approaching two support levels, found at $4.66 and $4.28. They are created by the 0.5 & 0.618 Fib retracement support levels, respectively. The latter is also a horizontal support area.
After reaching them, SXP is expected to increase wellinto double digits.
ZEN has been moving downwards since April 27, when it reached a high of $138.98 and created a double top pattern.
So far, it has managed to reach a low of $107.55.
Technical indicators have turned bearish. Both the MACD & RSI have generated bearish divergence. In addition, the Stochastic Oscillator has made a bearish cross.
It is possible that ZEN is in the C wave of an A-B-C corrective structure, which could take it back to the $85 support area.
DOGE has beenmoving upwardssince April 23. On May 4, it managed to reach a new all-time high price of $0.495.
Technical indicators are still bullish, supporting the continuation of the upward movement.
The next resistance area is found at $6.26. This is the 1.61 external Fib retracement of the most recent drop.
For BeInCrypto’s latestbitcoin(BTC) analysis,click here. || It’s Electric: EV Stocks Could Pop in 2021: Those who follow electric vehicle stocks in the market, or simply keep tabs on billionaire Elon Musk’s companies, probably rememberwhen Tesla stock began to climb in August 2020 preceding a five-to-one split on Aug. 11. Shares continued to increase by 81% through late August of last year and have been hovering in the $700s post-split into 2021.
Find Out:Tesla Will Soon Accept Bitcoin As PaymentCheck Out:5 Electric Car Stocks To Watch
But Wedbush analyst Daniel Ives believes there’s more to EV stocks than Tesla. “I think right now it’s a big enough ocean for more than one boat,” he told CNBC’s Street Signs Europe.
The tech analyst predicted the EV industry will reach $5 trillion by the end of the decade, CNBC writes. That’s an ambitious projection, as Allied Market Research valued the global EV market at $162.34 billion in 2019, with a market projection of $802.81 billion by 2027. However, given that Tesla’s valuation now sits at $689.59 billion, Ives’ numbers could be on the money, so to speak.
With President Joe Biden’s emphasis on slowing or reversing climate change, the U.S. may see more incentives for the development and purchase of EVs and other sustainable technology. Biden has mentioned consumer tax credits to support the sale of EVs, as well as investments in the infrastructure required to support fleets of EVs on the streets, including a $400 billion investment that would support, among other things, the installation of 500,000 new EV charging outlets by the end of 2030, CNBC reports.
Other major players in the game include Chinese manufacturer NIO, Workhorse Group, and conventional internal combustion vehicle manufacturers who have developed or are developing electric vehicles, including General Motors.
Learn More:The True Cost of Going ElectricRead Next:5 Questions To Ask Before Buying an Electric Vehicle
Goldman analysts also pointed to EV battery makers as companies to watch in the coming year, CNBC reports.
In addition to predicting that EV stocks could rise 40% to 50% this year, Ives is also bullish on Bitcoin.He told CNBC that he thinks 3% to 5% of U.S. corporations could follow Tesla to invest in Bitcoin or other crypto within the next year to 18 months.
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This article originally appeared onGOBankingRates.com:It’s Electric: EV Stocks Could Pop in 2021 || CryptoCurrencyWire Partners With Bitcoin Events as the Official NewsWire for the DeFi Conference 2021: NEW YORK, May 10, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- via InvestorWire - -CryptoCurrencyWire(“CCW”), one of 50+ brands forming part of the InvestorBrandNetwork (“IBN”), is proud to announce its collaboration with Bitcoin Events as the official newswire for theDeFi Conference 2021. Designed to focus on global DeFi and NFT adoption, as well as related challenges, compliance and regulations, the DeFi Conference 2021 will take place on August 5, 2021 in an entirely virtual format.
The advent of blockchain-based decentralized finance (DeFi) has led to the widespread disruption of a variety of industries over the past few years. DeFi Conference 2021 will seek to bring together a collection of entrepreneurs, liquidity providers, academics, investors, economists, regulators, and other interested parties to learn from, and network with individuals within the decentralized finance industry, whilst seeking to explore the current opportunities and challenges inherent within the space.
Set to host over 2,500 attendees from over 80+ countries, this year’s conference will feature keynote addresses from over 35 global thought leaders and innovators within the decentralized finance space, across two separate tracks delving deeper into DeFi and non-fungible tokens (NFT’s), respectively.
Attendees will learn from real-world case studies about organizations who have built DeFi services, products, and platforms, gain an understanding on how to develop strategies into successful DeFi implementation and discover how DeFi can assist in enabling greater financial inclusion across wide swathes of the global economy.
IBN and CCW will work in conjunction with one another to leverage their extensive array of corporate communications solutions to increase recognition for conference participants who are seeking to enhance visibility before investors, journalists, consumers, and the public. Effective brand awareness strategies offered by CCW will include a wire-grade press release to announce the event, two full-length articles with amplified article syndication across CCW’s 5,000+ strategic distribution partners as well as featuring the event on its dedicated events page along with a site-wide banner on the CCW website.
“We are delighted to be working with the Bitcoin Events team once again in the capacity of official newswire for the upcoming DeFi Conference 2021,” said Jonathan Keim, Director of Communications for CryptoCurrencyWire. “This partnership is a highlight for CCW, and we are excited to once again have the opportunity to highlight the decentralized finance sector, a sector which we believe will continue to gain increased prominence over the coming years.”
In addition to CryptoCurrencyWire’s widespread dissemination of articles and press releases, InvestorBrandNetwork is set to provide social media coverage of the virtual event. Collectively among its50+ investor-oriented brands, the network now has more than 2 million likes and followers across avariety of platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.
“We are pleased to continue our partnership with the CryptoCurrencyWire team, who will be serving as the DeFi Conference’s official newswire,” said Sonya Kuhnel, Founder of Bitcoin Events. “With their expansive syndication network of more than 5,000 media outlets and sustained coverage through a strong social media presence, we’re confident that CryptoCurrencyWire will play a key role in helping us reach a wider audience and provide invaluable exposure to our sponsors, presenters and exhibitors.”
To find out more and register, visit the event’s official website atwww.http://bitcoinevents.co.za/defi-conference-2021/
About Bitcoin Events
Bitcoin Events was founded by Sonya Kuhnel and Theo Sauls in 2014. They are both early adopters of bitcoin and are extremely passionate about the future of cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology. Sonya and Theo saw a need to educate and inform people about the opportunities offered by digital currencies and blockchain technology. In 2015, Bitcoin Events started the Blockchain Africa Conferences to address this need. To date, Bitcoin Events have hosted seven highly successfulBlockchain Africa Conferencesin Cape Town and Johannesburg, and most recently online. Bitcoin Events is also host of the annualCrypto FestandDeFi Conferences.
Over 10,000 attendees from over 165 countries have attended the events over the years.
About CryptoCurrencyWire (CCW)CryptoCurrencyWire is a financial news and content distribution company that provides (1) access to a network of wire services viaInvestorWireto reach all target markets, industries and demographics in the most effective manner possible, (2) article and editorial syndication to 5,000+ news outlets (3), enhanced press release services to ensure maximum impact, (4) social media distribution via the InvestorBrandNetwork (IBN) to nearly 2 million followers, (5) a full array of corporate communications solutions, and (6) a total news coverage solution withCCW Prime. As a multifaceted organization with an extensive team of contributing journalists and writers, CCW is uniquely positioned to best serve private and public companies that desire to reach a wide audience of investors, consumers, journalists and the general public. By cutting through the overload of information in today’s market, CCW brings its clients unparalleled visibility, recognition and brand awareness.
CryptoCurrencyNewsWire is where news, content and information converge via crypto.
For more information, please visithttps://www.CryptoCurrencyWire.com.
Please see full terms of use and disclaimers on the CryptoCurrencyWire website applicable to all content provided by CCW, wherever published or re-published:https://www.cryptocurrencywire.com/disclaimer/
Corporate Communications Contact:CryptoCurrencyWire (CCW)New York, New Yorkwww.CryptoCurrencyWire.com212.418.1217 OfficeEditor@CryptoCurrencyWire.com || Exec of Chinese Blockchain Firm Allegedly Misappropriated $45M in State-Owned Bitcoin: Report: A 27-year-old executive of blockchain firm Beosin has reportedly been accused of misappropriating $45 million worth of state-owned bitcoins by Chinese authorities.
According to a report by local media outletTencent Newson Thursday, Chief Marketing Officer Gao Ziyang allegedly attempted to short the state’sbitcoinlast year.
The funds were in the company’s care after police had seized them in a separate incident. Beosin was charged with holding and converting the bitcoin to fiat on behalf of the Chinese treasury where Gao had access.
Related:Bitcoin Dominance at 2-Year Low as XRP, Binance's BNB Rally
Rather than sell the funds, it is alleged the executive tried to short the seized bitcoin in August using excessive leverage. At the time, bitcoin was trading between $10,500 and $12,500 before rising to new heights above $20,000 four months later. The erroneous short position ended up liquidating approximately 300 million yuan (US$45.7 million) worth of bitcoin.
The court file released only the last name of the suspect. The company has denied Gao’s involvement in the case and has not confirmed his detainment, according to the report. However, the company’s CMO can not be reached and his name has been removed from the company’s official website after the report.
• Exec of Chinese Blockchain Firm Allegedly Misappropriated $45M in State-Owned Bitcoin: Report
• Exec of Chinese Blockchain Firm Allegedly Misappropriated $45M in State-Owned Bitcoin: Report
• Exec of Chinese Blockchain Firm Allegedly Misappropriated $45M in State-Owned Bitcoin: Report || Im Obsessed: Paris Hilton on NFTs, Empowering Female Creators and the Future of Art: When Paris Hilton goes to sleep, she dreams about non-fungible tokens. Actual dreams. Literal dreams. She dreams about NFT projects, NFT artists, even NFT metaverses. NFTs have literally taken over my entire mind and soul, she tells me. Im obsessed. Its all I think about. Ive never been so excited about something in my life because I really see this as the future. Im just so obsessed with it that I actually have dreams about it every single night. Lets back up. To those just tuning in, it might seem Hilton has a sudden, or even suspicious, passion for NFTs the latest celebrity to hop on the (lucrative) bandwagon. The reality? Shes been here all along. We just didnt notice. Ive been into crypto forever, she tells me in our hour-long call, explaining that her interest was sparked by a dinner she had with some Ethereum founders back in 2016 . Over four years ago. This was before the 2017 hype cycle. This was before most people had heard of Vitalik Buterin. Hilton says she invested in both bitcoin and ether in 2016, back when BTC was valued below $1,000 (today its over $60K) and ETH below $10 (today its over $2,000). Thats hot. Related: Coinbase CEO Sold $291.8M in Shares on Opening Day Now, finally, Hilton is letting her Crypto Flag fly. On National Pet Day she introduced her two newest adorable pets Crypto Hilton and Ether Reum, with Ether sharing a last name with both the blockchain protocol and her fiancé, Carter Reum. Their names are an ode to my passion and love for #NFTs, she tweeted . She created an NFT-focused Instagram account. She added laser eyes to her Twitter avatar the bitcoin bulls symbol of solidarity. This earned her a salute from bitcoin maximalist Michael Saylor: Welcome to the team, Paris Hilton. Story continues Its hard to overstate her championing of NFTs. If some kind of AI algorithm analyzed the current Twitter feed of Paris Hilton and didnt know her face, name, or reputation it would conclude that shes a regular crypto junkie or even an NFT fan-girl. This is seriously the cutest and most soothing thing to look at and listen to! Love this piece by @Friendswithyou @Diplo, she gushed the other day. She tweets out love to @fewocious, the 18-year-old NFT artist prodigy. She banters with Pak, nudging Sothebys to speculate about a collaboration. Shes a regular at Clubhouse NFT, she does NFT Discords and she explores digital art galleries. And shes quickly winning over skeptics. She came in and she started talking to everybody, says CryptoYuna, a longtime crypto artist. Yuna was amazed Hilton not only followed her on Twitter but engaged in DMs and seemed genuinely curious about her work. I think shes changed everybodys perception of her in the space, says Yuna, who even made her an honorary Graffiti Queen, in recognition of her support for female NFT artists. (Yuna adds that some other celebrities, in contrast, just dipped into the NFT space to make a quick buck.) I think shes done a damn good job, says another NFT artist, Josie Bellini. Shes going on podcasts. Shes learning. Thats cool to me. She quickly gained the respect of one of the spaces most influential collectors, Whale Shark , who is now both her friend and NFT sherpa. Related: NBA Top Shot Firm Dapper Labs Raising Funds at $7.5B+ Valuation: Report This weekend (April 17), Paris Hilton is launching her first NFT drop on Nifty Gateway, for which she has collaborated with Blake Kathryn, an acclaimed digital artist. (The Verge once described Kathryns 3D dreamscapes as having the power to transport viewers to another world one of rich color palettes, glossy androids, and a neon-hued alternate reality.) But she spends more time promoting other NFT artists than her own drop, constantly shining the spotlight (and 16.9 million Twitter followers) on emerging NFT artists. Hilton wants to bring NFTs to the masses and she has the clout to do it, or at least make a noble effort. I see myself as a public figure with a large platform who can shepherd this technology into the mainstream, she says. And I do this to help empower people, especially creators, to uplift voices, especially females, and eventually change the world for the better. Shes done her homework. In a recent post on ParisHilton.com , she wrote an NFT explainer thats about as lucid as any in the space, noting that NFTs are democratizing art, changing the fashion industry, enabling the metaverse (a low-key passion of hers for years) and letting creators directly engage with fans. Its an excellent NFT primer. In short, she gets it. (The only downside: In crushing personal news, this means that Paris Hilton is not only a better DJ, socialite, influencer, business person and fashion icon than me, but also a better writer of NFT explainers. Truly crushing.) If all this looks out of character, maybe its because we never truly understood her actual character. Ive always been an undercover nerd, she tells me. She even gave us clues of this before but we ignored them, distracted by her reputation and the pink bubbles. Im obsessed with gadgets, she told W magazine back in 2017. I could do VR [virtual reality] for hours; its so sick. When you put it on, its like youre in another world. And when you take it off, its weird to be back in reality. Her enthusiasm for NFTs seems to be the latest chapter, or perhaps the culmination, of her journey to show her true colors. In September, in her documentary This is Paris, she revealed that since the early 2000s she was playing a character as a survival mechanism from earlier trauma, suffered in a Utah boarding school. When I look around my life, its like a cartoon, she says towards the end of the documentary, in a wrenching moment of vulnerability. Ive created this fantasy world cartoon. She has now stepped out of that cartoon, shes comfortable showing her substance and this new world of hers is one filled with NFTs. The truth is that Paris Hilton is often ahead of the times. Ive long argued that she invented the selfie. (Full disclosure: We met a few years ago and had a good laugh over her selfie innovation.) Some call her the original influencer . She invented the social media star . So why shouldnt she be at the forefront of NFTs, which are all about media and innovation? There are even some parallels between the arc of Paris Hilton and the arc of NFTs. Hilton, of course, was originally known as famous for being famous. Bitcoin and NFTs, in a sense, have value because people think they have value. And the more people learn about both Paris and crypto, they tend to shed those earlier (and misinformed) impressions, open their minds and appreciate the underlying substance. Maybe Paris Hilton is even, sort of
the perfect NFT ambassador? At the start of her documentary, in a recording studio, Paris does a few takes of saying, This is Paris. She says it again: This is Paris Hilton. A third time: This is Paris Hilton. A fourth, a fifth. Each time her voice is different. One of her takes is coquettish, one is sexy, one is serious. Its a good scene. It shows her range, her self-awareness and it hints at a complexity weve missed all along. So in the spirit of that opener
This
Is
Crypto Paris. Okay, the obvious question: so howd you get into NFTs? Paris Hilton: Well, Ive always aimed to be an innovator. So last year I was approached to do an NFT for a good cause, so I immediately said yes. Cryptograph said [it was] doing a charity initiative, and I could basically draw whatever I wanted on an iPad. And I chose to draw my kitten, Munchkin. And now I heard that it won the NFT Charity Award. Its exciting to have done that back in March 2020 and now NFTs are what everyone is talking about. Ive always loved being a first at things. It makes me proud. Whats funny is the Munchkin NFT sold for around $17,000, which seemed crazy at the time but now, given recent NFT price tags in the millions, it feels like a bargain, right? Yeah, I cant even imagine what its worth now. That first NFT seemed like a fun experiment, for a good cause. But you werent deep into NFTs back then. What changed? After I released my digital painting, I realized the power of this technology and how it could empower and inspire people, especially creators. Then I decided that I really wanted to learn, to be a student of the game. I started speaking with industry leaders, joining Clubhouse chats. I feel like NFTs are really a natural extension of what Ive always been about expressing myself boldly, with color and style, but now in a new medium that has the potential to change the world. I realized how it bridges my interests in fashion, visual art, empowering voices and pushing boundaries in media and technology. So I decided it was an important space to learn about and Ive been studying it ever since. Ive been obsessed. When you say change the world, what do you mean specifically? Like I wrote in my article in parishilton.com , I think NFTs are the future because it gives power back to the creators. And they make it much easier, and less intimidating, for the everyday collector. Its going to disrupt traditional spaces in art, music and collectibles. I love that with NFTs and the rise of digital art, talented creators have a greater likelihood of being discovered, because it gets rid of the gatekeepers, whether its the art gallery or record label. It gives the creator better economics. Were definitely living in the golden age of the creator, so I cant wait to see what the future holds. Golden age of the creator. Nice. This is really the future, and all the power is now in the creators hands. Even after something sells, creators are still going to be able to profit off that [through royalties programmed into the blockchain], which is amazing for artists because the whole idea of starving artist shouldnt be the case. And I feel like NFTs are going to be the end of that. Which is amazing, because artists are people who bring so much beauty to life. Especially digital artists they didnt get the respect they deserved, and now they finally are. And I see this type of art as the future. When everything is going digital, why not art? Now people are doing digital art shows, and art galleries, in metaverses like Decentraland. Its really cool. And with Art Basel coming up, its going to be very exciting to see all the digital art thats coming out. Today, I actually just ordered some display frames where you can put digital art up in your home, which I think is so cool. Oh wow, digital art in your real-life home? Very cool. Yeah, I feel like its The Jetsons. When I was little I loved that cartoon and now I kind of feel The Jetsons vibes. Amazing. Now I want one of those frames. Ill send it to you. Its really cool. Youve talked before about the power of NFTs for democratizing art. Can you elaborate a bit? For so long its always been about the art galleries. Not everyone can get into the art gallery, and not everyone could get into Art Basel. Now its just a whole new world where anybody with talent can make it through. Thats how I describe it to people, but I hope when they read this article theyll understand more. You and me both! So when I spoke with Whale Shark , he told me that youve really done your homework and were committed to understanding the nuance of NFTs. Howd you get up to speed? Whale Shark has been my mentor, and hes just so brilliant and so kind. Were on WhatsApp on a daily basis and then we do Zooms every weekend. Ive learned so much from him and also doing Zooms with people like Kim Dotcom, Josh Frazier, and Matthew Liu, who are the founders of Origin Protocol, and the RTFKT Studio guys and the CryptoMotors guys. And Tim Kang, the illustrator, who came over to my house last weekend. Hes just amazing and Im excited with what hes doing. Ive really become close with all of these people in the space. So I learn more every single day, and have really just spent the past couple of months sitting back and listening and learning all there is to learn, and just being fascinated by this whole new world where the possibilities are endless. And whenever I do something, I want to do it right. I always believe that the best way to do that is to lean in and learn a ton about it and then just be a student of the game. Its clear you take engaging with the NFT community seriously and are often following NFT artists on Twitter, even if they dont have a platform or very many followers. What has this been like for you? I love this community. Ive met so many interesting, kind, creative and cool people. And, yeah, just like you said, I dont care about followers. There [are] some people Im following now that have, like, eight followers. Its not about followers to me at all. Its just about the person. Ive never used Twitter so much in my life. [Laughs.] And now its the platform Im using most that and Clubhouse because the whole community is on there. Who are some of the artists youre into? Some of my favorite artists are Blake Kathryn [her NFT collaborator], of course, Pak, FEWOCiOUS, RTFKT Studios, Pranksy, Beeple, 3lau, Steve Aoki, Grimes, Josie Bellini, Josh Pierce, Marius Sperlich, Brendan Dawes, FriendsWithYou, Tom Yoo, and many, many more. You and Pak seem to be tweeting a bunch, and Sothebys even teased a collaboration? I think Pak is just this mysterious OG, legend, genius, and what hes doing right now with Sothebys and Nifty Gateway is revolutionary. And, yes, we have been talking, so maybe youll be seeing a collaboration in the future, which would be epic. But those are just some of my favorites, and Im loving it. I wish that I could have them all over to my house because theyre so cool. Maybe I will one day, too. Ive always been an undercover nerd, so I feel like Im with my people, finally. I have a sense that youve been into tech for longer than people realize . Ive always been obsessed with technology. Ive always been a tomboy as well, and Ive always loved video games. When I did my movie, The American Meme, which we shot back in, like, 2016 or 2017, I was already creating this whole virtual reality where people could come and watch me DJ, and be in basically a metaverse and be able to wear what they want and bring their friends and dancing and talking. Thats what everyone is doing right now [in the metaverse]. Its crazy to see that people are actually doing what I said years ago. What do you see people doing in the metaverse? What excites you about it? People could do anything in there. Going to a club to go dancing, or going to an art gallery, or playing sports, or going on a virtual date, or listening to a concert where a DJ is performing with people from all around the world dancing and everyone can have their own type of avatar and show their NFT art and wear their NFT fashion. Im excited about it. Like, I love what RTFKT Studios is doing, where they just did the virtual sneaker launch and it sold for $3 million. So I could see other brands coming in. I think thatd be so cool, to have a digital Chanel purse and different dresses. I could see a lot of amazing collaborations between artists and these huge name brands. That would be incredible. Like, I love what FEWOCiOUS is doing. I think hes so cute and sweet. And we just recently became friends, and I found a tweet that he wrote me back in, like, 2018 or something, that I tweeted out the other day. We were both laughing about it. But, yeah, I think a lot of these huge designers are going to want to collab with these artists, and do digital products. Youre kind of perfectly positioned to make that work, right? Have you started putting together deals and partnerships with fashion brands? Yeah, I have 19 product lines myself. I just released my 29th fragrance. I make shoes and clothing and handbags and sunglasses and basically every type of product you can imagine. So for those type of products Ill be doing Paris Hilton products, but it would also be fun to do collaborations with other designers. Super smart to get in on the ground floor. So, since you said earlier that youve always been this closet nerd
Undercover nerd! Undercover nerd, thank you! [Both laugh.] Are you having fun now revealing this side of you to the world? Definitely. It feels amazing to finally be able to be myself, because for so long in my career I had to play a character. I built this character on this kind of
bubblehead blonde, acting like I didnt know anything and just playing into that dumb blonde stereotype, which was never me at all. It was kind of this show that I created because I had been through so many traumatic experiences that it was kind of something that I felt protected by. But then after doing my documentary, This Is Paris, and being vulnerable and talking about so many things that have happened, I now feel that I can be my true self. And part of that self is the undercover nerd in me. And Im proud to show that Im actually smart and I do know whats going on. And it makes me feel proud that people are starting to see that and to realize that, and that Im finally getting the credit that I deserve. What can you tell us about how you prepared for your upcoming NFT drop? Its with Blake Kathryn, who is amazing. Ive been a fan of hers for a very long time. I loved her work, so Im excited to just be collaborating with her. And I want to empower female artists, so that was a huge drive as well. Whats the collaboration process like? I think a lot of people dont realize just how involved and hands-on I am. I first started with just looking at her work, and then I created four mood boards to show her my vision. And from there we started our collaboration process and I put that on parishilton.com so anyone can go check that out. We worked really closely together, doing Zooms every few days. Were both LA-based, so she was able to come over to my house here in [Los Angeles], and we got to work together face to face. Today, like, two hours ago, I got the final pieces and they are incredible. Im so proud of this collaboration. Its everything Ive dreamed of and more. And each piece really has a personal story to it that relates to my life. I think its amazing that my fans and whoever wants to collect these are really going to have a piece of me. When I spoke with Whale Shark, he talked about the importance of good NFTs being smart about leveraging the technology and possibilities for innovation, as opposed to just lazily using a 2D image. How did you think about that during the process? To make sure you werent just taking a photo of your elbow and saying, Heres my elbow! Yeah, I know what you mean. I definitely didnt want to just do that. I think thats very lazy when people do something like that, and thats just not what this is about. Im doing this because I really love to empower creators and I really want to bring this mainstream. And Ive worked so hard. Ive built an empire myself. This is not about money for me. Like, Im good either way. So, for me, that is something thats super important. For every drop, thats how it has to be. I want the bar to be raised and for people to know that you need high-quality work. It cant just be a photo of yourself, which Ive seen some people do. And that just doesnt work. What do you see as your role in the NFT space? I see myself as a public figure with a large platform who can shepherd this technology into the mainstream. And I do this to help empower people, especially creators, to uplift voices, especially females, and eventually change the world for the better. How do you see NFT empowering female creators? In the next couple of days, Im going to be announcing something specifically to empower female creators and give back to the community. Its important to encourage and empower more women to join this movement. Im hoping to lead by example, as Ive always been a strong female in male-dominated industries like business and DJ-ing. So I try to pave the way for others, and I think with NFTs its leveling the playing field for both the creators and collectors. Its going to open the door to more female creators. Its just going to make it easier for people when they have talent to come in. And the best creators are going to get the recognition they deserve, especially with there being no more gatekeepers. Its going to be a whole new world, and its amazing to see so many females in the space right now. Of course there are skeptics out there who might roll their eyes and say, This is just another celebrity trying for a cash grab. And with you, it might even be a double-whammy of skepticism, as people are both skeptical about NFTs and maybe also about you, personally especially if they only know the old character. How do you deal with that skepticism? If I was worried about all the skeptics over the course of my life I wouldnt be anywhere. I consider myself to be gentle, shy and reserved, but Im also a very strong woman. So after so many years Ive built such a thick skin. I always just ignore the haters. I dont care what they say. I focus, I do my homework, I run my media machine and the results speak for themselves. So Im not worried about skeptics at all because something Ive always loved to do is prove people wrong. Lets talk a little bitcoin before we wrap up. It must be said, you have the best Laser Eyes on the internet. Youve won that award, and its not really up for debate. [Laughs] Thank you. So what got you into bitcoin? Well, I actually had dinner with the founders of Ethereum back in 2016. And since that dinner I was fascinated, and I invested in ethereum and bitcoin and other digital currencies because I just saw them as the future. I just think it makes so much sense. Everything is going digital so currencies are as well. And also my fiancé [Carter Reum] has his VC firm, M13. And they invest in the space. Theyre investors in technologies like Lighting Labs. So were always just comparing notes and talking about it. And now that Im immersing myself in NFTs Im just paying even more attention to all of it. But Ive been involved in the crypto world since 2016, so its been a while. Wait, Paris, did I hear you right, that you invested in both ethereum and bitcoin in 2016 ? Yes. Incredible. Well, the jokes on them. Im the real OG. I can only imagine your price point
Yeah, I got in at a really good time. Just like me, always being a pioneer and getting in early. But, yeah, I think its just amazing. Its proven to be a technology that has longevity, and I feel the same way about NFTs that I do cryptocurrencies. Okay, so heres a theory of mine. And bear with me for a second. It almost seems like theres an analogy with you and NFTs. Because at first you were dismissed in many ways because of the character you played, and maybe not taken as seriously as you should have been. But obviously you have substance beneath that, which people learn over time. And then take NFTs. When people first hear about NFTs theyre, like, this isnt real, this is silly. But then the more people learn about NFTs theyre, like, Wait. Theres some legit, industry-changing, maybe world-changing tech and ideas here. Its almost like youre the perfect ambassador for NFTs because youve personally undergone this same journey of being initially dismissed and then people realizing, Oh, theres substance. Yeah, I can agree with that. [Laughs.] I can really relate to NFTs. Thats a really funny analogy but its actually very true. Anything else you want to add? NFTs have literally taken over my entire mind and soul. Im obsessed. Its all I think about. Ive never been so excited about something in my life because I really see this as the future. Im just so obsessed with it that I actually have dreams about it every single night. You literally dream about NFTs? Like, WhaleShark is in my dreams as his avatar. All these different characters are in my dreams. Im in an NFT world and metaverses. Its so weird how its taken over my whole mind because I used to have severe nightmares from having post-traumatic stress disorder from, you know, all the abuse that I went through at those schools when I was a teenager. So now to have these beautiful dreams of this metaverse and this future and this art its just so amazing and healing for me. Art heals people. It heals me. It always has. And ever since I was a little girl, Ive been an artist. And especially with what Ive [gone] through, art has been so healing and my pieces in my NiftyGateway drop are very healing, and have to do with what I went through. Theyre very personal. This has taken over my whole mind and my dreams, and I love it. Im happy for you. Thanks for your time, Paris. Ive enjoyed this. I had so much fun talking, and I look forward to speaking again soon. Interview has been condensed and lightly edited for clarity. Related Stories Im Obsessed: Paris Hilton on NFTs, Empowering Female Creators and the Future of Art Im Obsessed: Paris Hilton on NFTs, Empowering Female Creators and the Future of Art || Kava Announces It Enables Institutional Bitcoin Holders to Get over 45% APR: SAN FRANCISCO, CA / ACCESSWIRE / April 8, 2021 /Kava announces today that it enables institutions to earn +45% APR on Bitcoin holdings without counterparty risk. The Kava base-layer infrastructure has been optimized. Kava Labs released the Kava 5 upgrade to the public including its borrow-side functionality.
In Brief
1. Kava brings a 45% APR to institutional Bitcoin holders
2. This high APR has no counterparty risk
3. Institutional-level DeFi is now widely accessible
Bitcoin and others have enabled users to take control of funds removing the need for banks and middlemen. Now users can custody their digital assets, store value, and make payments without the fees.
However, with great power comes great responsibility. The old centralized way is being a recipient - you get your checking and savings accounts, but you can't custody your assets.
Institutional investors have been paying increasing attention to Bitcoin in recent months. The growing number of publicly traded companies having a Bitcoin treasury is just one such indicator. Kava's recent protocol upgrade lets these companies take out loans on their assets.
Institutional Investors Flock To Bitcoin
The past twelve months have been intriguing as far as Bitcoin is concerned. Besides the price hype, the big news is how more institutional investors seek exposure to the world's leading cryptocurrency. Rather than spending money on futures contracts, these companies purchase Bitcoin as part of theirTreasury. Several companies have been outspoken about these purchases, including MicroStrategy, Tesla, and Meitu.
To some, this approach may seem risky. Bitcoin remains a volatile asset that can undergo wild price fluctuations. However, every company creating a Bitcoin Treasury over the past few months is currently in profit. Though uncertain, this approach is working out for Bitcoin holders.
Now that these institutional players are invested in Bitcoin, one has to wonder what comes next. Will they sell when the price is at the next all-time high, or keep adding more BTC to their Treasury? Figuring out this "retention" angle will prove necessary if this industry is to keep on growing globally. The market is looking for a strategy to "HODL" harder and money markets are one solution for these institutions.
Institutional-Grade Borrowing
Sophisticated institutions are using their current Bitcoin holdings as collateral for loans. As part of theKava5upgrade, the HARD Protocol received an update to Version 2 fully competing the whitepaper of the project. This upgrade provides borrowing with variable interest rates and HARD token distribution to suppliers and borrowers alike.
Assuming companies like Tesla want to put their BTC to work, they can do so through the Kava lending app and the HARD Protocol app. Any financial institution can earn 45% on their current BTC holdings without counterparty risk. As Tesla owns $1.5 billion worth of Bitcoin - or an estimated 48,000 BTC - they can earn up to 21,600 BTC with a 12 month lock-up period. Kava provides a significant passive income stream that institutions can explore by turning their Bitcoin into a cash-flowing asset.
The option of lending and borrowing is an increasingly popular aspect of decentralized finance. To date, Bitcoin's role in DeFi remains minimal, as few protocols support the world's leading currency in its native form. More often than not, users need to convert their holdings to a tokenized or wrapped version and spend money to do so. Protocols that support Bitcoin natively can benefit from the growing interest in cryptocurrencies by institutional investors.
Convincing the institutions that hold Bitcoin to explore DeFi options will be a tall order. Although a 45% return with no counterparty risk is appealing, it remains unclear how many companies prefer this option because the risk with DeFi is there's no counterparty to sue when things go wrong.
Closing Thoughts
As more Bitcoin-oriented DeFi solutions come to market, the landscape will grow more competitive and compelling. Catering to institutional-grade players is the next order of business, as big money is pouring into Bitcoin.
Keeping that momentum going will require compelling options, either through decentralized finance or otherwise. The coming months may prove crucial in this regard, as these institutional players may not sit around for too long.
"As more enterprises and financial institutions adopt bitcoin and crypto currencies, the more valuable the Kava DeFi platform will become as it enables this new wave of financially minded users with a way to finally put their assets to work and make Bitcoin and other crypto into a cash flowing asset on their balance sheets." - Brian Kerr, CEO of Kava Labs
About Kava
Kava Labs is focused on democratizing financial services and making them openly accessible to anyone, anywhere in the world. In 2019 Kava Labs built the Kava blockchain, a foundational platform designed to provide the most safe, secure, and reliable experience for accessing Decentralized Financial (DeFi) apps and services. Today that platform manages over $1B in assets on behalf of users and is growing rapidly.
HARD Protocol is the world's first multi-chain money market for cryptocurrencies enabling users to borrow, lend, and earn interest on the assets. HARD Protocol is built on the Kava platform leveraging its safe, secure, and reliable DeFi infrastructure to deliver its money market product globally to anyone, anywhere.
HARD Protocol is the world's first multi-chain money market for cryptocurrencies enabling users to borrow, lend, and earn interest on the assets. HARD Protocol is built on the Kava platform leveraging its safe, secure, and reliable DeFi infrastructure to deliver its money market product globally to anyone, anywhere.
More details about HARD Protocol can be found athttps://www.kava.io/hard-protocol
Media Contact:
Company: Kava LabsContact: Sarah AustinE-Mail:Sarah@kava.ioWebsite:https://www.kava.io/
SOURCE:Kava Labs
View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/639527/Kava-Announces-It-Enables-Institutional-Bitcoin-Holders-to-Get-over-45-APR || Daily Crunch: Meet Disney Imagineering's new robot: We get up close with a robotic Groot, SpaceX has a successful astronaut launch and cryptocurrency prices tumble. This is your Daily Crunch for April 23, 2021. The big story: Meet Disney Imagineering's new robot Disney Imagineering's Project Kiwi represents a real robotics milestone — a free-walking robot that seems to fully capture the personality of the original character. In this case, the original is Groot, the beloved tree character from "Guardians of the Galaxy." I'm not just saying that based on the demo video, either. Matthew Panzarino has seen Project Kiwi in person and reports: The pint-sized character has accurately rendered textures on its face, hands and feet. It’s dressed in a distressed red flight suit that you may remember from the films. And its eyes are expressive as it looks at me and waves. This is the moment, the one that Disney Imagineers and park goers alike have been waiting decades to realize. Startups, funding and venture capital SpaceX successfully launches astronauts with a re-used Dragon spacecraft for the first time — This was SpaceX’s second official astronaut delivery mission for NASA. Hyundai invests in teleoperations startup Ottopia as part of $9M round — Ottopia’s first product is a universal teleoperation platform that allows a human operator to monitor and control any type of vehicle from thousands of miles away. Introvoke raises $2.7M to power online events that can be embedded anywhere — While there’s been plenty of attention and money lavished on virtual event platforms over the past year, Introvoke co-founder and CEO Oana Manolache predicted that we’re only at the beginning of a “third wave of digital transformation.” Advice and analysis from Extra Crunch 2021 should be a banner year for biotech startups that make smart choices early — Be wise when managing legal risk and choosing investors. After going public, once-hot startups are riding a valuation roller coaster — A short meditation on value. Story continues Should you give an anchor investor a stake in your fund’s management company? — A GP stake investor brings significant advantages and disadvantages. (Extra Crunch is our membership program, which helps founders and startup teams get ahead. You can sign up here .) Everything else Crypto market takes a dive with Bitcoin leading the way — Cryptocurrency prices continued to tumble today, with Bitcoin leading the charge. India restricts American Express from adding new customers for violating data storage rules — In a statement, the Reserve Bank of India said existing customers of either of the two card companies (American Express and Diners Club) will not be impacted by the new order, which goes into effect May 1. Just one week left to save $100 on TC Early Stage 2021: Marketing & Fundraising — Get ready to join your community of early-inning startup founders for a two-day bootcamp July 8-9. The Daily Crunch is TechCrunch's roundup of our biggest and most important stories. If you'd like to get this delivered to your inbox every day at around 3pm Pacific, you can subscribe here . || Commercial Metals' (CMC) Q2 Earnings Top Estimates, Up Y/Y: Commercial Metals Company CMC reported second-quarter fiscal 2021 (ended Feb 28, 2021) adjusted earnings per share of 66 cents, beating the Zacks Consensus Estimate of 61 cents. The figure increased 24.5% year on year. Including one-time items, the company recorded a net income of 54 cents per share in the fiscal second quarter compared with the prior-year quarter’s 53 cents. Net sales for the reported quarter came in at $1,462 million compared with the year-ago quarter’s $1,341 million. The reported figure, however, missed the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $1,516 million. Cost of goods sold in the quarter was up 9.3% year over year to $1,228 million. Gross profit was up 7.8% year over year to $234 million during this period. Core EBITDA was a record $171 million in the fiscal second quarter, reflecting year-over-year growth of 18%. The company achieved stable steel products metal margins, despite rapidly rising scrap costs. Commercial Metals Company Price, Consensus and EPS Surprise Commercial Metals Company price-consensus-eps-surprise-chart | Commercial Metals Company Quote Segment Performance The North America segment generated net sales of $1,257 million in the fiscal second quarter compared with the $1,161 million recorded in the prior-year quarter. The segment registered adjusted EBITDA of $172 million compared with the prior-year quarter’s $153 million. The Europe segment’s revenues came in at $202 million, marking year-over-year growth of 12.2%. Adjusted EBITDA was $16 million in the fiscal second quarter compared with the year-ago quarter’s $13 million. Financials Commercial Metals reported cash and cash equivalents of $367 million at the end of fiscal second quarter compared with $542 million recorded at the end of fiscal 2020. The company’s long-term debt came in at $1,011 million at the end of the fiscal second quarter compared with $1,065 million as of Aug 31, 2020. Cash generated from operating activities was $1,203 million during the six months period ended Feb 28, 2021, compared with the $253 million during the six months period ended Feb 29, 2020. On Mar 17, the company’s board announced a quarterly dividend of 12 cents per share. This dividend will be paid out on Apr 14 to shareholders of record as of Mar 31, 2021. Story continues Outlook Commercial Metals continues to gain from ongoing network optimization efforts and the ramp up of its third rolling line in Poland this summer. The company believes that the finished steel volumes for North America and Europe operations will follow strong seasonal trends in third-quarter fiscal 2021 due to the start of the spring and summer construction seasons. Steel shipments and downstream products in North America will likely be supported by the company’s solid construction backlog. Steel products are also benefiting from elevated spending on residential construction, continued recovery in the manufacturing sector and strong highway infrastructure activities. Given the increasing demand from construction and industrial end markets, volumes in Europe are anticipated to remain healthy. Management anticipates scrap margins on steel products in North America and Europe to increase sequentially after the realization of price adjustments made during the fiscal second quarter. Price Performance Commercial Metals’ shares have appreciated 119.8% over the past year compared with the industry’s growth of 186.8%. Zacks Rank & Other Stocks to Consider Commercial Metals currently carries a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here. Other top-ranked stocks in the basic materials space include Impala Platinum Holdings Limited IMPUY, Fortescue Metals Group Limited FSUGY and Ashland Global Holdings Inc. ASH, all sporting a Zacks Rank #1, at present. Impala Platinum has an expected earnings growth rate of 195.9% for the current fiscal year. The company’s shares have surged 84% in the past year. Fortescue has a projected earnings growth rate of 84.3% for the current fiscal year. The company’s shares have soared 182% in a year’s time. Ashland has an estimated earnings growth rate of 83.9% for the current fiscal year. The company’s shares have appreciated 109.2% over the past year. Bitcoin, Like the Internet Itself, Could Change Everything Blockchain and cryptocurrency has sparked one of the most exciting discussion topics of a generation. Some call it the “Internet of Money” and predict it could change the way money works forever. If true, it could do to banks what Netflix did to Blockbuster and Amazon did to Sears. Experts agree we’re still in the early stages of this technology, and as it grows, it will create several investing opportunities. Zacks’ has just revealed 3 companies that can help investors capitalize on the explosive profit potential of Bitcoin and the other cryptocurrencies with significantly less volatility than buying them directly. See 3 crypto-related stocks now >> Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report Ashland Global Holdings Inc. (ASH) : Free Stock Analysis Report Impala Platinum Holdings Ltd. (IMPUY) : Free Stock Analysis Report Fortescue Metals Group Ltd. (FSUGY) : Free Stock Analysis Report To read this article on Zacks.com click here. Zacks Investment Research || The Future of Money Is Unbundled: Money performs three social functions simultaneously. First, it is an asset, a vehicle forstoring value, empowering savings. Second, money is currency, a medium toexchange value,enabling consumption. And third, money acts as aunit of account(e.g. credits and debits), a way to keep track.
For as long as anyone can remember, those three roles have been bundled together. The development of crypto markets and financial technology, however, are unbundling those functions, creating new instruments that perform a single role rather than all three simultaneously. In turn, that alleviates trade-offs faced by money-issuers, expanding the possibilities for monetary policy.
To illuminate the unbundling process, let’s look at three recent case studies with key lessons for central bankers who are exploring digital currencies: 1) Bitcoin’s hard fork; 2) China’s DCEP experiments; and 3) the evolution of DeFi on the Ethereum network.
Related:Crypto Long & Short: The Pattern in Bitcoin's Volatility
Bitcoin’s evolution resulting in the 2017 “hard fork” of the network illustrates this unbundling. The term crypto-“currency” is a misnomer applied to Bitcoin, whose architecture and governance make it better suited to store value rather than exchange it. With a fixed token supply, and released in declining quantities on a fixed schedule, Bitcoin creates incentives to hoard tokens. The resulting artificial scarcity makes the token price highly volatile.
Volatility is undesirable in a currency (and unit of account), and as a result, the adoption of Bitcoin as a means of payment has been slow. Scarcity, however,isan attractive feature in an asset and indeed most interest in Bitcoin is speculative with new demand from private investors, including retail, institutional asset managers and hedge funds.
Thus, Bitcoin-as-currency suffered from what technologists call poorproduct/market fit. The misalignment between the design of the architecture and the targeted application created conflicts among Bitcoin constituencies. Some members of the network sought to increase token supply or to raise the block size limit, making Bitcoin better suited for exchange purposes but at the cost of undermining Bitcoin’s role as an asset. No compromise was reached, and so a breakaway sub-network “hard forked” by duplicating the blockchain to create “Bitcoin Cash.”
Related:Buterin, Srinivasan Donate to COVID Relief Fund for India 'Shaken' by Second Wave
Central bankers might recognize the trade-off driving that conflict as the same one surmised inBagehot’s Dictum. Because money performs multiple functions, issuers trade off satisfying demand for exchanging value with demand for storing value. This feature of money in a simple macroeconomic model generates business cycle fluctuations, asrising uncertainty gives people the incentive to hoard cash.
But where central banks rely on Bagehot’s rule of thumb, the Bitcoin network devised an alternative technical solution byunbundlingmoney’s dual functions. Thehard forkcreated a second, entirely different token targeting the more specific role of money (exchanging value) demanded by a more narrowly defined user base.
That highlights a key lesson technology founders and venture capitalists have known for some time. The design of the token must bealigned to the purpose of the instrument. Product/market fit comes from a deep understanding of user perspectives, and many rely on “design thinking” to drive innovation with that principle in mind.
Further, the experience demonstrates the expanded policy possibilities created by emerging technologies. Freed from the constraints of the physical cash world, central bankers have a wider range of options to pursue their objectives, including, but not limited to, deeply negative interest rates.
Some instruments even target specific liquidity motives; for exampleRipplesatisfies a preference forinternational liquidityby relying on a design that sacrifices decentralization to instantly transfer and settle cross-country balances at scale. Similarly,Z-cashleverages a decentralized architecture alongsidezero-knowledge proofsto target aprivacy motive.The design maximizes user privacy without sacrificing market transparency, helping to alleviate the trade-off between the two objectives.
Combining emerging technologies in novel ways may enable the creation of additional new unbundled varieties ofmore targetedmoney to better satisfy divergent constituencies with varying demands, possibly alleviating the trade-off Bagehot identified several hundred years ago.
No country is as advanced in developing central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) as China is. One of the leading innovators globally, China has been researching “digital yuan” since 2014, and the People’s Bank of China (PBoC) is committed to deploying a digital currency nationally. It recently completed an experiment in the southern city of Shenzhen of the “Digital Currency Electronic Payment” (DCEP) mechanism, a stablecoin backed 1:1 with fiat Chinese yuan (CNY).
In one of the largest trials of its kind, residents applied to participate in a lottery administered by theShenzhen local government. Selected participants were issued “red packets” of e-CNY deposits, which could be accessed by opening an e-wallet through the official Digital Renminbi app.
To ensure consumers used the tokens, and in doing so tested the new infrastructure supporting DCEP, the PBoC set special conditions on the trial: The digital currency paid no interest, it could not be transferred to a bank account to be saved, and it couldn’t be given to another person. The cash could be spent only at designated retailers for a limited period. Thus, consumers faced strong incentives to spend the money before it expired, as the balances carried an implied negative interest rate. And indeed, spend they did, with about 95% of the money issued ultimately used to buy goods and services during the test.
The design of the experiment is (perhaps accidentally) very close to proposals fromSilvio Gesell, a German entrepreneur whom the late economist John Maynard Keynes called an“unduly neglected prophet.”Gesell argued for a variety of unbundled money that could not be saved, but rather could only be spent (e.g. a medium of exchange, but not a store of value). As an incetive, Gesell suggested money should decay and expire, just as the e-CNY did in the Shenzhen trial.
Gesell’s controversial ideas have re-emerged among leading central bankers globally in recent years as they search for new policy tools at, or even below,the zero-bound on interest rates. Emerging innovations are helping to make them a reality again nearly a century after they were first attempted.
China’s proof-of-concept, therefore, demonstrates that high-powered varieties of decaying digital currency are technically feasible, an important international milestone. Innovative varieties of money may give central banks greater firepower to stimulate growth, employment and inflation. The experiment also highlights that hypothesized financial stability risks, such as disruptions to existing payments mechanisms, are manageable, opening the door to further trials globally and rapidly accelerating innovation.
One sector demonstrating rapid innovation is the development of smart contracts and programmable finance, incubated on the decentralizedEthereumblockchain. Smart contracts encode in software the terms of a paper contract, which are automatically executed depending on certain conditions.
These automated,programmable credits and debits perform a range of functions, from simple expressions like expiry dates or numerical thresholds, to more complex programs with multiple triggers like those in loan agreements. Innovation taking place in the open and transparent Ethereum community is therefore generatingpositive knowledge spilloversfor policymakers.
A host of new applications are proliferating within this network, broadly under the umbrella term “decentralized finance,” or DeFi. For instance, decentralized exchanges (DEXs), where users can trade tokens directly with one another without a trusted intermediary, are seeing user adoption. Lending platforms that encourage loaning and borrowing of digital assets have also grown in popularity.
The applicationCompoundeven sets interest rates algorithmically to balance supply and demand for funds, in a fascinating test case for monetary policymakers. Because these programs are open source, they can be used as building blocks and combined to create entirely new applications.
For example, smart contracts could be linked to macroeconomic shocks like recessions, financial events such as bank runs, or policy measures including tax changes to automatically provide liquidity relief to distressed firms and households. Or they might be linked to one another, creating a controlled chain reaction to propagate liquidity injections at specified velocities.
Importantly, because the overall structure is observable and can be known prior to events, smart contracts might provide visibility into how financial instability cascades through the system. Deploying smart money could help central banks achieve their objectives.
This Ethereum ecosystem offers a real-world test of the competitiveness of central bank instruments relative to private digital ones. The good news is that, by an overwhelming margin, Ethereum participants prefer (at the moment) to denominate transactions in U.S. dollars. As soon as private entrepreneurs issued digital tokens backed 1:1 by U.S. dollars, their instruments became the most popular in the network and the primary unit of account in DeFi applications.
The experience demonstrates the importance of ecosystems in stimulating innovation. A core driver of Ethereum’s success so far has been the wide range of developers, engineers, economists, traders, financiers, borrowers and investors who contribute to the platform. Large firms frequently invest in ecosystem strategies to boost the transfer of knowledge from beyond their borders, before incorporating new insights into their business models.
These ecosystem models help organizations stay abreast of the latest ideas, enabling faster experimentation and subsequent deployment of emerging technologies. Central banks should consider building their own fintech ecosystems to encourage innovation, as indeed some already do with regulatory “sandbox” approaches.
Across crypto platforms, a primary stated motivation is reducing rent-seeking by “middle men” in mainstream financial markets. From the LIBOR (London Interbank Offered Rate) scandal, to Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi scheme, to the Panama Papers and associated money laundering and tax evasion, the list of proven, visible, demonstrable rent-seeking behavior in the financial sector continues to grow. The public has obviously taken note. It is that loss of trust that probably represents the greatest threat to monetary sovereignty, not any single technology, community or platform.
Disruption from fintech is now unbundling money, stripping out each role by creating powerful new instruments targeting a more precisely defined user base. New designs might enhance the implementation of monetary policymaking by alleviating fundamental trade-offs. Bitcoin emerged, in part, in response to quantitative easing and perceived inflation risks after central banks sacrificed long-run price stability objectives in order to uphold economic activity and the financial system in the short run. The ability to target highly specific constituencies with distinct user needs indicates the revolution is not so much in money itself, but perhaps rather in monetary policy.
For illustration’s sake, imagine a world in which all savings (e.g. future consumption) is denominated in Bitcoin, and all spending (e.g. current consumption) is denominated in Bitcoin Cash. Such a world is obviously a fantasy, as neither instrument satisfies the diverse needs of their constituencies at large.
But in this imaginary world, one must cross the market to convert savings into spending and vice versa. As such, the exchange rate between Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash represents a freely floating interest rate. If such a dual-token strategy was adopted by central banks, state-issued money could be priced rather than fiat.
Will central banks bring such a future forward? Only time, and the limits to their imagination, will tell.
• The Future of Money Is Unbundled
• The Future of Money Is Unbundled || Global Government and Industrial/Financial Blockchain Market 2021-2027: IBM, ConsenSys, and Microsoft are Driving Blockchain as their Clients Transition to Cloud Services: Dublin, May 10, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The "Government and Industrial/Financial Blockchain: Market Shares, Strategy, and Forecasts, Worldwide, 2021 to 2027" report from Wintergreen Research, Inc has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering. A $4.47 million market worldwide in 2020, it is anticipated to grow rapidly to $83.3 billion in 2027 as central banks figure out how to use blockchain in their digital currency initiatives. Worldwide markets are poised to achieve continuing growth as blockchain proves its value by managing digital transactions in real time across national boundaries, encouraging collaborative business efforts. Lowering transaction management costs is a key benefit. Blockchain can be implemented in an IBM mainframe that is already a core technology for virtually every bank. Blockchain updates the security in transaction processing, implementing end to end encryption. Government blockchain is used to implement Web 3.0. the ability ot transfer money as easily as people send an email. The question becomes, what does Web 3.0 look like? It looks like a distributed ledger system providing immediate currency exchange worldwide that mimics how the Internet is used to exchange e-mail. Web 3.0 features enhanced security added to a real time digital economic process. The government blockchain market does not include what has been the biggest use of blockchain - to hide the money of criminals and terrorists - perform money laundering. After an inauspicious beginning, government blockchain has moved to digital currency, government blockchain is on the cusp of phenomenal growth, ready to reach $83 billion worldwide by 2027 as it creates new digital economic infrastructure. ConsenSys acquired Quorum, the blockchain platform belonging to JPMorgan in a move that will solidify an ongoing relationship between the JPMC and ConsenSys. The-Quorum-blockchain is a premier transaction management system, settling $5 trillion in transactions per day. Story continues The government blockchain market moves into rapid growth mode as the digital economy takes hold. As the banks and finance industry move into the modern age of real time transaction processing, blockchain is a core enabling technology for central banks. This market segment previously has been held back in part by the outdated aspects of the mainframe computing technology. IBM Blockchain and others are spurred by more modern ways to manage global transactions across national borders from IBM, Microsoft, and Accenture. Blockchain is a type of distributed ledger system providing enhanced security to the real time digital economic process. Blockchain is comprised of blocks of digitally recorded data. The global market for blockchain at $4.47 billion in 2020 is anticipated to reach $83 billion in 2027. IBM, ConsenSys, and Microsoft are driving blockchain as their clients are making the transition to cloud services. Accenture has measurable market share as well. Key Topics: Distributed Ledger Web 3.0 Blockchain Cryptocurrency Digital Economy Central Bank Transactions Digital Transactions Digital Currency Data Center Infrastructure Enterprise Application Industry Trends Enterprise Application Market Financial Ledger Internet Financial Architecture Transactions in Real Time Enhanced Security Collaborative Business Across National Boundaries Key Topics Covered: 1. Government Blockchain: Stable Value Currency Market Description and Market Dynamics 1.1 Government Blockchain Market Description and Market Dynamics 1.1.1 Blockchain and Cyber Attacks 1.1.2 Central Banks Seek to Master Stable Value Digital Currency 1.1.3 Digital Virtual Currencies Goal: Stable-Coins that Have a Consistent Value 1.2 Blockchains: Cryptographically Secured Distributed Ledgers 1.2.1 Central Bank Currencies: Wholesale and Retail 1.2.2 Advantages of Central Bank Digital Currency 1.2.3 Blockchain Companies Initial Coin Offerings - ICOs 1.2.4 Transfer of Social Trust: From Institutions to Systems Using Well-Tested Computer Code 1.3 Central Banks Exploring Creation of Digital Currency Issued by Government -Accepted as a Method of Payment 1.3.1 Fed System as It Exists Now 1.3.2 Digital Currency Approach Uses Blockchain To Verify and Track Transactions 1.3.3 Individuals Would Hold Accounts Directly at The Central Bank 1.3.4 Sovereign Digital Currencies 1.3.5 Digital Currencies as Payment Methods 1.3.6 Enterprises to Speed Up Digital Transformation 1.3.7 Role of Central Banks in Digital Currency Interoperability 2. Government Blockchain Stable Value Digital Currency: Market Shares and Forecasts 2.1 Government Blockchain Stable Value Digital Currency Market Driving Forces 2.1.1 Replacing Client Server Data Center Architecture with Blockchain Brings New Digital Efficiencies 2.1.2 Blockchain Leverages Artificial Intelligence (AI) 2.1.3 Governments Use Blockchain Distributed Ledgers to Achieve Business and Fiscal Transparency 2.2 Government Blockchain Market Shares 2.2.1 Blockchain Market Shares, Dollars, Worldwide, 2020 2.2.2 IBM and Microsoft 2.2.3 IBM Blockchain 2.2.4 IBM Implements AI Support for Blockchain 2.2.5 IBM Blockchain Decentralized Ledger in Supply Chains 2.2.6 IBM Blockchain Decentralized Ledger in Medical Industry 2.3 Government and Industrial/Finance Blockchain Market Forecasts 2.4 Blockchain Market Forecasts: Banking, Finance, and Insurance, Healthcare, Cybercurrency, Supply Chain, and Internet of Things (IoT) 2.4.1 Rapid Adoption of Technology 2.5 Government and Financial Blockchain Applications 2.5.1 BFSI: Blockchain Impact on Stock Market 2.5.2 Blockchain for Healthcare 2.5.3 Blockchain for Contracts and the Legal Industry 2.5.4 Blockchain for Supply Chain 2.5.5 Blockchain for Internet of Things 2.5.6 SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son Sees 1 Trillion Devices for Internet of Things 2.6 Blockchain Pricing 2.6.1 Microsoft Blockchain Pricing 2.7 Central Bank Digital Currency Blockchain Regional Market Segments 2.7.1 US 2.7.2 Covid-19 Pandemic Toll on US Communities 2.7.3 US Fed Exploring the Use of Innovative Technologies to Enhance Payments Efficiency 2.7.4 Japan Central Bank Digital Currency 2.7.5 Europe 2.7.6 Bank of China 2.7.7 China Opens Its Financial System to The World 2.7.8 China Ending Anonymity of Virtual Accounts to Cryptocurrency Exchanges 2.7.9 Korean Blockchain Association 2.7.10 UK 3. Government and Industrial/Financial Blockchain Central Bank and Vendor Activities 3.1 Government and Central Bank Planning for Digital Coins and Tokens 3.2 Boston Fed Looking at 30 to 40 Blockchain Networks for Digital Dollar 3.2.1 US Fed and Digital Currency 3.3 EU and Digital Currency 3.3.1 Sweden's Central Bank, Riksbank 3.3.2 Germany and Italy 3.3.3 Bank of Spain 3.4 China's Retail Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) 4. Blockchain Research and Technology 4.1 On a Blockchain, a Node Replicates Data for All Nodes 4.2 Blockchain Electricity Usage - Moving to Asynchronous Process 4.3 Accenture Patent Tied To "Editable Blockchain" 4.4 Digital Currency Models 4.4.1 Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs) 4.5 Facebook Libra - Diem Association 5. Blockchain Company Profiles 5.1 360 Blockchain Inc 5.2 Accenture 5.2.1 Accenture Blockchain Culture of Innovation 5.2.2 Accenture Blockchain Solutions 5.2.3 Accenture Blockchain Partnerships 5.2.4 Accenture Alliance with Digital Asset Seeks to Fundamentally Change the Way Companies Verify and Settle Transactions 5.2.5 Accenture Digital Asset Partners 5.2.6 Accenture Revenue 5.3 Abra 5.4 Amazon 5.4.1 Amazon Blockchain Partners 5.4.2 Amazon Blockchain Partner Solutions 5.4.3 Amazon Sawtooth 5.4.4 Amazon (AMZN) Integrating Blockchain Technology into Its Networks 5.4.5 Amazon Blockchain Deloitte 5.4.6 Amazon Web Services 5.4.7 Amazon Blockchain for Bitcoin 5.5 Axoni 5.5.1 Comments from Axoni Users as to Reliability of Equity Swap 5.6 BitFury Group 5.6.1 Richard Branson Digital Currency Summit on Private Caribbean Island 5.6.2 Bitfury Group Blockchain Analytics 5.6.3 Bitfury Group Lightning Network 5.7 Binance Exchange 5.8 Blockchains 5.8.1 Slock.It 5.8.2 Slock.it Builds Next-Generation Sharing Platform 5.8.3 Slock.It Addresses Global Market for Sharing 5.9 BlockCypher 5.9.1 BlockCypher Payment Forwarding 5.10 BTL Group 5.10.1 BTL Blockchain Platform, Interbit For Energy Trading. 5.10.2 BTL Group Blockchain Based Cross-Border Settlement Solution 5.11 BMW 5.12 Chain 5.12.1 Chain and Changetip Participate with The Nasdaq-Created Blockchain System Linq 5.12.2 Chain Partners 5.13 ConsenSys 5.13.1 ConsenSys/Quorum 5.13.2 Quorum 5.14 Corda R3 5.15 Deloitte 5.16 Digital Asset Holdings 5.17 Eris Industries 5.18 Ethereum 5.18.1 Ethereum/Advanced Micro Devices' (AMD) 5.18.2 Ethereum Blockchain CryptoKitties 5.18.3 Problem of Ethereum's High Fees 5.19 EzyRemit 5.20 Facebook 5.21 Fidelity Investments 5.21.1 Fidelity Size 5.22 Global Arena Holding 5.23 Goldman Sachs 5.24 Government Blockchain Association (GBA) 5.25 Hitachi 5.26 HIVE Blockchain Technologies 5.27 IBM Blockchain 5.27.1 IBM Blockchain Platform Optimized for Deployment on Red Hat OpenShift 5.27.2 IBM Cross Border Payments 5.27.3 IBM Batavia 5.27.4 IBM Internet of Things 5.27.5 IBM Supply Chain Tracking 5.27.6 IBM Blockchain in the Supply Chain 5.27.7 Use Cases for IBM IoT and Blockchain 5.27.8 IBM Revenue 5.27.9 IBM Datacenter Blockchain 5.28 Intel 5.29 JP Morgan Chase 5.29.1 JPMorgan Chase Quorum Blockchain Technology 5.30 Kube MQ 5.31 Lenovo 5.31.1 Lenovo Revenue 5.32 Luno 5.33 Microsoft Blockchain 5.33.1 Microsoft Azure Supply Chain Track and Trace 5.33.2 Microsoft Strengthening Blockchain Partnerships 5.33.3 Microsoft Revenue 5.33.4 Microsoft Covid-19 5.34 MIT Digital Currency Initiative 5.35 NEO Open Source Blockchain 5.36 OnChain Public Platform Project in Conjunction with NEO 5.37 Oracle 5.38 Overstock 5.39 PokitDok 5.40 Provenance 5.41 R3 5.41.1 Blockchain Startup R3 CEV Attracts $107M From BofA, HSBC, Intel and Others 5.41.2 JPMorgan Chase & Co Quit the R3 Initiative 5.41.3 R3 Corda 5.42 Ripple 5.42.1 Ripple XRP Digital Asset for Payments 5.42.2 Ripple Labs a Global Leader in Distributed Ledger Technology 5.42.3 Ripple XRP The Digital Asset 5.42.4 Ripple Product Manager from JP Morgan Chase 5.42.5 Ripple Board of Directors, Susan Athey Has Strong Ties to Microsoft 5.43 SAP 5.44 Scorechain 5.45 Samsung Nexledger 5.46 TATA Consultancy Services 5.46.1 TCS Integrated Blockchain Solution 5.46.2 TCS Risk Information Management Solution 5.47 TON 5.48 Visa 5.49 Wishknish 5.49.1 Wishknish Authentication For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/1dg8d0 CONTACT: CONTACT: ResearchAndMarkets.com Laura Wood, Senior Press Manager press@researchandmarkets.com For E.S.T Office Hours Call 1-917-300-0470 For U.S./CAN Toll Free Call 1-800-526-8630 For GMT Office Hours Call +353-1-416-8900
[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
None available.
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Trend: down || Prices: 46456.06, 43537.51, 42909.40, 37002.44, 40782.74, 37304.69, 37536.63, 34770.58, 38705.98, 38402.22
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Analyze the provided historical prices, technical indicators, news, and social media sentiment from the last 60 days. Based on this context, predict the overall trend (up, down, or no change) and the specific daily closing prices for Bitcoin for the next 10 days.
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[Technical Analysis for 2016-12-01]
BTC Price: 756.77, BTC RSI: 64.52
Gold Price: 1166.90, Gold RSI: 23.69
Oil Price: 51.06, Oil RSI: 62.70
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
First Bitcoin Capital Solves Medical Cannabis Dispensary Cash Dilemma Via INNOVATIVE Merchant Credit Card Services: VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESSWIRE / October 27, 2016 / FIRST BITCOIN CAPITAL CORP. ( BITCF ), a leading bitcoin and cryptocurrency developer, specializing in both blockchain and online merchant payment solutions for medical marijuana dispensaries and other high-risk merchant accounts and services, today announced the signing of a merchant account processing agent agreement with a credit card processor for the states of California and Oregon. Under the agreement, BITCF will provide a full suite of financial services for the medical marijuana industry: merchant processing and POS solutions through its alliance network, a fully compliant, user friendly solution to accept Credit and Debit Cards through traditional Merchant Card Processing networks. We intend to add more states as additional legal opinions are provided by our credit card processor provider’s counsel. First Bitcoin is also developing a system that will enable dispensaries to accept Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies as a form of legal payment. Stater of California has already enacted legislation that makes Bitcoin and similar digital currencies legal tender. BITCF has developed specific programs to meet the unique needs of the medical cannabis industry. Offering merchant services at competitive rates for businesses operating legally under state law of California and Oregon, the company can now provide financial services not typically available from conventional banks. While legalization of marijuana in many forms – and in many states – garnered over $5 billion dollars in 2016, the sums are expected to grow for 2017. More innovative and unique products are being created, and the stigma that once surrounded cannabis is slowly fading. These changes are helping the medical cannabis industry to prosper now that federal policies allow dispensaries to sell, grow, or possess cannabis while compliant with state laws. BITCF will only provide these services where federal policies allow our business model to proceed for dispensaries that are fully compliant with state and country laws, rules and regulations. Story continues Should your dispensary be interested in these services please contact us by email: info@bitcoincapitalcorp.com According to our merchant processor: Our processor introduces the first completely sanctioned credit card solution for the Marijuana Industry. Unlike most merchant accounts that are currently being used by many dispensaries, our processor Acquirers approve, accept and fully acknowledge their engagement with State licensed legal Marihuana Dispensaries. Our processor is an "IaaS". Infrastructure as a Service ("IaaS") and provider of an innovative array of synergistic services that include, advertising, affiliate marketing, consortium of vendors in various markets including the high risk sector and payment processing into a seamless comprehensive solution. Their mission is to utilize IaaS to provide protection and enhanced privacy for online consumers as well as all participating contractual Partners within their Network. Our processor employs a proprietary method of transacting on behalf of their Partners. Our processor also manages the customer database with its Partners and offers consumer protection services for their registered Users. They also operate through clearance and settlement systems that admit only BSA-regulated financial institutions. Our processor is also fully PCI compliant. About the company: First Bitcoin Capital is engaged in developing digital currencies, proprietary Blockchain technologies, and the digital currency exchange- www.CoinQX.com We see this step as a tremendous opportunity to create further shareholder value by leveraging management's experience in developing and managing complex Blockchain technologies, developing new type of digital assets. "Being first publicly-traded cryptocurrency and blockchain-centered company we want to provide our shareholders with diversified exposure to digital cryptocurrencies and blockchain technologies." At this time Company owns and operates the following digital assets. www.BITCoinCapitalcorp.com company website. www.CoinQX.com Company operated Cryptocurrency Exchange, registered with FINCEN. www.iCoiNEWS.com real time cryptocurrency and bitcoin news site www.BITminer.cc company provides mining pool management services. www.2016coin.org online daily election coverage and home page for $PRES, $HILL and $GARY coins Forward-Looking Statements Certain statements contained in this press release may constitute "forward-looking statements." Forward-looking statements provide current expectations of future events based on certain assumptions and include any statement that does not directly relate to any historical or current fact. Actual results may differ materially from those indicated by such forward-looking statements as a result of various important factors as may be disclosed in company's filings. In addition to these factors, actual future performance, outcomes, and results may differ materially because of more general factors including (without limitation) general industry and market conditions and growth rates, economic conditions, and governmental and public policy changes. The forward-looking statements included in this press release represent the Company's views as of the date of this press release and these views could change. However, while the Company may elect to update these forward-looking statements at some point in the future, the Company specifically disclaims any obligation to do so. These forward-looking statements should not be relied upon as representing the Company's views as of any date subsequent to the date of the press release .Such forward-looking statements are risks that are detailed in the Company's filings, which are on file at www.OTCMarkets.com . SOURCE: First Bitcoin Capital Corp. || UFOMiners Boasts High-Quality Miners with Competitive Prices: LAS VEGAS, NV / ACCESSWIRE / November 10, 2016 /UFOMiners LLC is striving to keep ahead of the competition. Providing first-in-classBitcoin and Litecoinmining hardware, this young company not only guarantees high-quality products, but it also promises affordable pricing, mix-and-match consumer-friendly promotions and free international shipping.
UFOMiners focuses on three main areas: developing crypto hardware, creating blockchain-based technologies and delivering remote access service. The company's product offering now includes four powerful, cost-effectivecryptocurrency miners, each with optimal hashing speeds specifically designed for Bitcoin and Litecoin mining. All hardware goes through rigorous testing before it reaches the client and comes with a 5-year warranty.
What sets the company apart, is its growing team of experts and its philosophy of offering high-performance technologies at low costs. "We're a rapidly growing team of specialists who is extremely passionate about what we do. Our primary mission is to make high-techcryptocurrency miningavailable to a wide range of clients and offer them innovative solutions that are profitable," a spokesperson for UFOMiners explains. UFOMiners is a group of young and ambitious enthusiasts with top-notch experience in hardware development, computer programming, engineering and management. Having in-house experts allows the company to produce key hardware components on site, which eliminates third-party expenditures.
With a recent launch of a promotional deal, UFOMiners demonstrates its commitment to making high-quality cryptocurrency mining economical and readily available. "Our new promotional offer allows customers to mix and match units, according to theirBitcoinor Litecoin preferences. As long as they buy three miners in one purchase, they'll receive a fourth one for free, no matter what the combination," say a company spokesman. To save their customers, even more, money, UFOMiners is also covering the shipping costs, international destination included. Customers can conveniently order on the company website.
Company Profile
UFOMiners was founded in 2014 by XX. It all began with a vision to develop hardware equipment for mining scrypt cryptocurrencies, a project that later expanded to the development of Bitcoin miner. This Las Vegas-based firm is now a rapidly growing provider of cryptocurrency mining hardware and blockchain-based technologies.
For more information visit:www.ufominers.com
SOURCE:UFOMiners || C&W Business Launches Hosted Collaboration Solution (HCS) on Demand at Cisco Live!: CANCUN, MEXICO--(Marketwired - Nov 7, 2016) -Cisco Live! --C&W Business, part ofC&W Communications(C&W), one of the largest full service communications and entertainment providers in the Caribbean and Latin America region, now owned byLiberty Global(LiLAC Group), is excited to announce the launch ofHosted Collaboration Solution (HCS) on Demand,a managed Unified Collaboration Service, atCisco Live!. Cisco Live is one of the main IT conferences in the Latin America region and is expected to draw more than 5,500 customers, experts and partners from different business segments and levels. Cisco Live! will be held from November 7-10 in Cancun, Mexico and C&W Business will be present atbooth #506showcasing live demos of its next-generation platform, HCS on Demand.
The launch of HCS on Demand, powered by Cisco, is a managed unified collaboration platform that will enable customers in 24 countries across the Caribbean and Latin America to leverage a full suite of IP-enabled collaboration tools. HCS on Demand will be hosted by C&W Business at their data centers and be delivered to customers over the Company's world-class, SIP-enabled fiber IP (terrestrial and submarine) and fault-tolerant network. This network encompasses over 42,000 kilometers (26,000 miles) of fiber across the Caribbean and Latin America and is the only MEF CE 2.0 certified network across the region, allowing C&W Business to deliver highly secure and reliable data, voice and video services efficiently to its customers.
"C&W Business HCS on Demand helps accelerate customers' day-to-day business processes, helping achieve better and faster business outcomes across the region. Customers won't have to worry about burdening their IT staff with the effort to deploy and operate their own PBX or UCC platform. Customers will only pay for what they need, with no upfront costs, making unified communications more affordable and the costs more predictable in a fixed monthly service charge per user," said Daniel Peiretti, SVP Product Development and Management, C&W Business. "Our HCS on Demand solution is secure, offers strong SLA's, and is supported by a business-class infrastructure with a certified team that uses a simplified deployment model. We will have customers up and running in no time, from anywhere, anytime and from any device," added Peiretti.
As a Cisco Master Managed Service Provider, C&W Business utilizes its highly secure and connected fabric of datacenters to deliver the most comprehensive, integrated solutions for clients. This crucial element enables clients to have a single point of contact, avoiding the challenge of managing multiple vendors. In addition, business applications and unified communication applications are hosted in the same datacenter significantly reducing latency and enhancing data security.
C&W Business HCS on Demand will offer customers:
• Voice and video communications, mobility, messaging, presence, web and video conferencing, and contact center.
• Access to cloud-based resources in a fast and easy way so customers can get up and running faster than with traditional models.
• Predictable per-user monthly costs without having to incur upfront capital expenditure investments.
• Ability to easily ramp up or down to address seasonal needs.
• Deployment of different license types to individuals across work groups or departments as required.
• Elimination of the costs and problems of equipment maintenance and software upgrades.
• Customers most likely to benefit from this solution are those with a need for enhanced remote worker integration, mobility, cost reduction, reduced travel cost, simplified user experience, accelerated decision making, improved customer service and better work-life balance for its employees.
In addition, existing Cisco collaboration customers can migrate their "on premises" solution into this cloud and maintain their investment in licensing.
Cisco Live! is the premier IT conference in Latin America -- which gathers customers, experts and partners from different industries, segments, and countries. Cisco Live! is held annually in four cities worldwide: Las Vegas, Berlin, Melbourne and Cancun. Learn more at#CiscoLiveLA
Visit C&W Business at Cisco Live!C&W Business will be an exhibitor atbooth #506duringCisco Live!,at the Moon Palace Golf & Spa Resort Cancun, Mexico. To learn about our technology-driven solutions that offer unique Cisco collaboration technologies using hosted and managed models. Meet our technology experts and join us for demo presentations on our solutions onNovember 9 from 10:30 am - 12:30 pmand onNovember 10 from 12:30 - 2:00 pmin the Cisco Powered booth.
NOTES TO EDITORSC&W Business To Offer Cisco Collaboration As A Service Over Its MPLS Networks
About C&W CommunicationsC&W is a full service communications and entertainment provider and delivers market-leading video, broadband, telephony and mobile services to consumers in 18 countries. Through its business division, C&W provides data center hosting, domestic and international managed network services, and customized IT service solutions, utilizing cloud technology to serve business and government customers.
C&W also operates a state-of-the-art submarine fiber network -- the most extensive in the region.
Learn more atwww.cwc.com, or follow C&W onLinkedIn,FacebookorTwitter.
About Liberty GlobalLiberty Global is the world's largest international TV and broadband company, with operations in more than 30 countries across Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean. We invest in the infrastructure that empowers our customers to make the most of the digital revolution. Our scale and commitment to innovation enables us to develop market-leading products delivered through next-generation networks that connect our 29 million customers who subscribe to over 60 million television, broadband internet and telephony services. We also serve 10 million mobile subscribers and offer WiFi service across seven million access points.
Liberty Global's businesses are comprised of two stocks: the Liberty Global Group (NASDAQ:LBTYA) (NASDAQ:LBTYB) (NASDAQ:LBTYK) for our European operations, and the LiLAC Group (NASDAQ:LILA) and (NASDAQ:LILAK) (OTC PINK:LILAB), which consists of our operations in Latin America and the Caribbean.
The Liberty Global Group operates in 12 European countries under the consumer brands Virgin Media, Ziggo, Unitymedia, Telenet and UPC. The LiLAC Group operates in over 20 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean under the consumer brands VTR, Flow, Liberty, Mas Movil and BTC. In addition, the LiLAC Group operates a subsea fiber network throughout the region in over 30 markets. || Bill Gross of Janus warns financial markets have become 'a Vegas casino': By Jennifer Ablan
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Global central bank policy makers have turned world financial markets into a casino, thanks to their unprecedented monetary policies, bond investor Bill Gross of Janus Capital Group (JNS.N) warned on Tuesday.
“Our financial markets have become a Vegas/Macau/Monte Carlo casino, wagering that an unlimited supply of credit generated by central banks can successfully reflate global economies and reinvigorate nominal GDP growth to lower but acceptable norms in today's highly levered world,” Gross said in his latest Investment Outlook titled “Doubling Down.”
Gross, who oversees the $1.5 billion Janus Global Unconstrained Bond Fund, recommended Bitcoin and gold for investors who are looking for places to preserve capital.
"At some point investors – leery and indeed weary of receiving negative or near zero returns on their money, may at the margin desert the standard financial complex, for higher returning or better yet, less risky alternatives," Gross said.
Gross has been lambasting ultra-loose central bank policies for hindering global economies by keeping so-called "zombie" corporations alive and inhibiting "creative destruction."
For several years, Gross and others have warned that zero and negative interest rates not only fail to provide an easing cushion should recession occur, but they destroy capitalism's business models.
"A commonsensical observation made by yours truly and increasing numbers of economists, Fed members, and corporate CEOs (Jamie Dimon amongst them) would be that low/negative yields erode and in some cases destroy historical business models which foster savings/investment and ultimately economic growth," Gross said.
He added: "Our argument is that NIMs (net interest margins) for banks, and the solvency of insurance companies and pension funds with long dated and underfunded liabilities, have been negatively affected and that ultimately, the continuation of current monetary policies will lead to capital destruction as opposed to capital creation."
All told, Gross said central bankers have fostered a casino-like atmosphere that present "a Hobson's Choice, or perhaps a more damaging Sophie's Choice of participating (or not) in markets previously beyond prior imagination. Investors/savers are now scrappin’ like mongrel dogs for tidbits of return at the zero bound. This cannot end well."
The Janus Global Unconstrained Bond Fund, which saw outflows of $87.7 million in 2015, has seen inflows of $221 million year-to-date as of Aug. 31. So far this year, the fund has returned 4.956 percent, putting it in the 33rd percentile, beating 67 percent of its peers, according to Morningstar data.
Janus Capital announced Monday that it was merging with London-based Henderson Group Plc to form a $320 billion asset manager.
In an emailed statement, Gross said: "Henderson obviously bought a great performing fund with Janus Global Unconstrained. Growth has far exceeded industry trends and absolute and relative performance is typical of my historical standards, at 400 basis points above the benchmark for the year, far better than Pimco. With the greater global scale of the combined Janus Henderson, investors who followed me to Janus would have benefited on multiple levels."
(Reporting By Jennifer Ablan; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Chris Reese) || India's rupee restrictions are boosting demand for bitcoin: Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's decision to withdraw 500 and 1000 rupee notes from circulation has sparked interest in bitcoin among India's consumers. Following last week's announcement that the notes were no longer legal tender , sales volumes for bitcoin increased on several exchanges for the digital currency, according to The Hindustan Times. The announcement by the Indian government was an attempt to crackdown on corruption and "black money", but following the movement, internet searches for the term "buy bitcoin" increased in popularity, according to Google Trends data. Other signs of increased interest include downloads of the smartphone app for bitcoin exchange Zebpay, which passed a threshold of 100,000 downloads. "Queries for bitcoins have gone up by 20 percent to 30 percent in the past couple of days," Zebpay's CEO, Saurabh Agrawal, told the Hindustan Times. As a result of the increased demand, the premium paid for rupee-denominated bitcoin has widened. One bitcoin on the Indian exchange Unocoin is worth 55,405 rupees, or $817.97, at the time of writing. Dollar-denominated bitcoin currently costs around $709. According to Charles Hayter, CEO and founder of Crypto Compare, the premium at the start of September was just $20, or around 3 percent. "Bitcoin is a sanctuary in emerging markets where knee jerk policy reactions are commonplace - India's move on high value bank notes is just the latest in a string of poorly communicated & executed judgments," he told CNBC via email. "Bitcoin was trading at a $20 dollar premium in India at the beginning of September and now is trading at a $70-100 premium to the USD rate." One reason for the increased demand may be due to Indians who are frustrated by the government's decision and are now looking for a way to store their wealth that is (theoretically) out of Dehli's reach. "The Indian rupee, like all other government currencies, is a fiat currency. It exists through the fiat - order - of the government," explained Jacob J, a writer for The CoinTelegraph. Story continues "As seen in the recent instance, its existence can also be terminated through an order from the government. With the passage of time, Bitcoin's superiority as a currency is becoming more and more apparent." India has been slow to start using digital currencies. The amount of bitcoin traded per day in India is a fraction of other countries, according to Linus Lindgren, strategic investor and advisor at BTCXIndia. "I would estimate the average traded volume in India to be around 500btc/day, which is less than 1 percent, maybe even 0.1 percent, of global volumes," he told CNBC via email. "We have certainly seen a larger interest than ever before in the last weeks, but in contrast to centralised systems, where money can be made worthless over night, a decentralised currency like bitcoin is opt-in, meaning that this revolution will come gradually as more and more people start seeing the benefits and switch." Follow CNBC International on Twitter and Facebook . || Payments In The Marijuana Industry: How Blockchain Can Increase Profit And Security: Blockchain was born with the bitcoin, conceived as a way to make databases secure but not managed by one single person. This allows “people who do not know or trust each other [to] build a dependable ledger,” an article fromThe Economistexplained.
As the technology evolved and became more programmable, other applications like tracing a product’s identity/authenticity were found for it. In some cases, blockchain technologies have even managed to replace banks and services like those offered byPaypal Holdings Inc(NASDAQ:PYPL),Moneygram International Inc(NASDAQ:MGI) orThe Western Union Company(NYSE:WU), making transactions faster, cheaper and more secure.
Related Link:You're So Money: NY Judge Rules Bitcoin Qualify As "Funds"
“While software reduces global inequalities through intellectual capital, the blockchain today is helping to reduce global inequalities through financial capital,” Forbes contributor Jonathan Chester explained in arecent piece.
The Marijuana Industry
The legal marijuana industry often finds big hurdles in the banking system; afraid of federal regulators and the money laundering risk derived from such a cash intensive space, most banks don’t want to open accounts for these companies. In this vacuum, a few companies have come up with creative solutions.
For instance,Tokken, provides online banking services to companies in the emerging marijuana industry. As per their site, they offer “safe payment methods to consumers, and a robust compliance platform to partner banks... [eliminating] the risk of money laundering by creating a virtual barrier to cash transactions.”
“Using an indelible Blockchain ledger to ensure data integrity and a proprietary compliance program based on structured analytic techniques, Tokken is designed to comply with every relevant regulatory requirement and provide a sustainable banking solution for the cannabis,” the site added.
CEO Lamine Zarrad recently sat down with Chester and explained that operating in cash costs the marijuana industry between 20 and 25 percent of its revenue. “This is typically lost through the costs of security, storage and shrinkage, a euphemism for employee theft,” he stated. “In order to get cash back into the banking systems, Marijuana companies will work with holding companies that will hold funds on behalf of the dispensary, which the dispensary can then access. In order to get funds into the accounts, these dispensaries need to hire groups of runners who take the cash to ATMs throughout the city to deposit cash in small batches.”
But, how can the company achieve this without recurring to a bank?
Related Link:Reads For The Weed-Kend: Franchising, Canada And Snoop Dogg, Damian Marley's Cannabis Prison Venture
As Chester expounded, blockchains were created specifically to avoid banks while still meeting most audit requirements — as each transaction is both public and protected from “book-cooks.” Tokken, for example, notarizes its transactions via Tierion, a platform that “puts an immutably cryptographic summary of business records on the blockchain, which permits verification while maintaining customer privacy,” Chester concluded.
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Disclosure: Javier Hasse holds no interest in any of the securities or entities mentioned above.
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• Apple, PayPal A Couple Of The Only Stocks That Traded Green Today
© 2016 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Bill Gross of Janus warns financial markets have become 'a Vegas casino': (Adds flow and performance data on Janus Global Unconstrained Bond Fund, Janus-Henderson merger) By Jennifer Ablan NEW YORK, Oct 4 (Reuters) - Global central bank policy makers have turned world financial markets into a casino, thanks to their unprecedented monetary policies, bond investor Bill Gross of Janus Capital Group warned on Tuesday. "Our financial markets have become a Vegas/Macau/Monte Carlo casino, wagering that an unlimited supply of credit generated by central banks can successfully reflate global economies and reinvigorate nominal GDP growth to lower but acceptable norms in today's highly levered world," Gross said in his latest Investment Outlook titled "Doubling Down." Gross, who oversees the $1.5 billion Janus Global Unconstrained Bond Fund, recommended Bitcoin and gold for investors who are looking for places to preserve capital. "At some point investors - leery and indeed weary of receiving negative or near zero returns on their money, may at the margin desert the standard financial complex, for higher returning or better yet, less risky alternatives," Gross said. Gross has been lambasting ultra-loose central bank policies for hindering global economies by keeping so-called "zombie" corporations alive and inhibiting "creative destruction." For several years, Gross and others have warned that zero and negative interest rates not only fail to provide an easing cushion should recession occur, but they destroy capitalism's business models. "A commonsensical observation made by yours truly and increasing numbers of economists, Fed members, and corporate CEOs (Jamie Dimon amongst them) would be that low/negative yields erode and in some cases destroy historical business models which foster savings/investment and ultimately economic growth," Gross said. He added: "Our argument is that NIMs (net interest margins) for banks, and the solvency of insurance companies and pension funds with long dated and underfunded liabilities, have been negatively affected and that ultimately, the continuation of current monetary policies will lead to capital destruction as opposed to capital creation." Story continues All told, Gross said central bankers have fostered a casino-like atmosphere that present "a Hobson's Choice, or perhaps a more damaging Sophie's Choice of participating (or not) in markets previously beyond prior imagination. Investors/savers are now scrappin' like mongrel dogs for tidbits of return at the zero bound. This cannot end well." The Janus Global Unconstrained Bond Fund, which saw outflows of $87.7 million in 2015, has seen inflows of $221 million year-to-date as of Aug. 31. So far this year, the fund has returned 4.956 percent, putting it in the 33rd percentile, beating 67 percent of its peers, according to Morningstar data. Janus Capital announced Monday that it was merging with London-based Henderson Group Plc to form a $320 billion asset manager. In an emailed statement, Gross said: "Henderson obviously bought a great performing fund with Janus Global Unconstrained. Growth has far exceeded industry trends and absolute and relative performance is typical of my historical standards, at 400 basis points above the benchmark for the year, far better than Pimco. With the greater global scale of the combined Janus Henderson, investors who followed me to Janus would have benefited on multiple levels." (Reporting By Jennifer Ablan; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Chris Reese) || C&W Communications Expands Network With Ericsson Across Caribbean and Panama: MIAMI, FL--(Marketwired - Oct 13, 2016) -
• C&W's customers to enjoy best-in-class high speed, high performance network to address increasing data traffic demands
• Expansion is currently underway and expected to be completed in November 2016
• Radio Access Network (RAN) and Core expansion includes both 3G and Long-Term Evolution (LTE), plus indoor coverage based on Ericsson Radio Dot System
Ericsson (NASDAQ:ERIC) andC&W Communications(C&W), one of the largest full service communications and entertainment providers in the Caribbean and Latin American region, now part ofLiberty Global(LiLAC Group) today announce the delivery of a complete network expansion for C&W across their operations in the Caribbean and Panama. The expansion includes hardware, software, licensing and services for C&W brandsFLOW(Caribbean),BTC(Bahamas) andCWP(Panama).
In addition, C&W's network expansion will provide all C&W markets across the Caribbean and Panama access to software upgrades and the opportunity to migrate to the Ericsson Software Model, which provides operators with the best available performance through a simple and transparent upgrade subscription. With 3G and LTE, C&W customers will benefit from a network capable of supporting advanced technologies and other high-speed features designed to provide a better user experience.
"Ericsson is committed to providing C&W Communications with excellence in end-user satisfaction and delivering best-in-class results. In the journey that we envision undertaking with C&W, Ericsson will provide solid guidance and support throughout all of the project's critical phases, enabling C&W to provide its customers with the best in mobile connectivity solutions," said Clayton Cruz, Vice-president, Ericsson Latin America and Caribbean.
"We are happy to once again partner with Ericsson in this network expansion project across all of our markets. Considering the clear trend in the growth of subscribers, mobile data and smartphone usage, C&W's key objective is to deploy a mobile network with world-class quality, performance and operational convenience in order to exceed our customers' expectations," said Carlo Alloni, Executive Vice-president and CTIO, C&W Communications.
According to the latest Ericsson Mobility Report, by 2021, smartphone subscriptions in Latin America and the Caribbean will comprise 65% of all mobile subscriptions; LTE will account for approximately 30% of all mobile subscriptions, representing more than 250 million mobile subscriptions. In addition, mobile data traffic is expected to grow nine times in the region by 2021, reaching 75% of all mobile traffic.
To meet these increasing traffic demands, C&W's network expansion increases site capacity, improves the performance of the existing network through hardware and software upgrades, facilitates the implementation of carrier aggregation, and allows for the addition of small cells. The expansion is currently underway and expected to be completed in November 2016.
Ericsson is present today in all high-traffic LTE markets, including the US, Japan and South Korea, and handles the most global LTE traffic. In addition, 40 percent of the world's total mobile traffic is carried over Ericsson networks. More than 270 LTE RAN and Evolved Packet Core networks have been delivered by Ericsson worldwide, of which 200 are live commercially.
NOTES TO EDITORSCable & Wireless and Ericsson deliver world-class mobile broadband for Caribbean & Latin AmericaCable & Wireless partners with Ericsson and Cisco to enhance its Caribbean IP networksEricsson core to enable Wi-Fi calling and VoLTE for Cable & Wireless in PanamaFor media kits, backgrounders and high-resolution photos, please visitwww.ericsson.com/press
Ericsson is the driving force behind the Networked Society -- a world leader in communications technology and services. Our long-term relationships with every major telecom operator in the world allow people, business and society to fulfill their potential and create a more sustainable future.
Our services, software and infrastructure -- especially in mobility, broadband and the cloud -- are enabling the telecom industry and other sectors to do better business, increase efficiency, improve the user experience and capture new opportunities.
With approximately 115,000 professionals and customers in 180 countries, we combine global scale with technology and services leadership. We support networks that connect more than 2.5 billion subscribers. Forty percent of the world's mobile traffic is carried over Ericsson networks. And our investments in research and development ensure that our solutions -- and our customers -- stay in front.
Founded in 1876, Ericsson has its headquarters in Stockholm, Sweden. Net sales in2015 were SEK 246.9 billion (USD 29.4 billion). Ericsson is listed on NASDAQ OMX stock exchange in Stockholm and the NASDAQ in New York.
Ericsson has been present in Latin America since 1896, when the company established an agreement in Colombia and delivered equipment for the first time in the region. In the early 1900s, Ericsson increased its presence in Latin America by signing commercial deals in Argentina, Brazil and Mexico. Today, Ericsson is present in 56 countries within South America, Central America, Mexico and the Caribbean, which combined count the region as one of the few with complete Ericsson installations, including a Production Unit, R&D Center and Training Center. Ericsson is the market leading telecom supplier, with over 40% market share in Latin America and more than 100 telecom service contracts in the region.
www.ericsson.com/jmwww.ericsson.com/jm/newswww.twitter.com/EricssonCaribwww.facebook.com/EricssonLatinAmericawww.youtube.com/EricssonLatamwww.slideshare.net/EricssonLatinAmerica
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION, PLEASE CONTACTWendi Patrick, External CommunicationsPhone:+506 2519 0800E-mail:wendi.patrick@ericsson.com
About C&W CommunicationsC&W is a full service communications and entertainment provider and delivers market-leading video, broadband, telephony and mobile services to consumers in 18 countries. Through its business division, C&W provides data center hosting, domestic and international managed network services, and customized IT service solutions, utilizing cloud technology to serve business and government customers.
C&W also operates a state-of-the-art submarine fiber network -- the most extensive in the region.
Learn more atwww.cwc.com, or follow C&W onLinkedIn,FacebookorTwitter.
About Liberty GlobalLiberty Global is the world's largest international TV and broadband company, with operations in more than 30 countries across Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean. We invest in the infrastructure that empowers our customers to make the most of the digital revolution. Our scale and commitment to innovation enables us to develop market-leading products delivered through next-generation networks that connect our 29 million customers who subscribe to over 59 million television, broadband internet and telephony services. We also serve 11 million mobile subscribers and offer WiFi service across seven million access points.
Liberty Global's businesses are comprised of two stocks: the Liberty Global Group (NASDAQ:LBTYA) (NASDAQ:LBTYB) (NASDAQ:LBTYK) for our European operations, and the LiLAC Group (NASDAQ:LILA) and (NASDAQ:LILAK) (OTC PINK:LILAB), which consists of our operations in Latin America and the Caribbean.
The Liberty Global Group operates in 12 European countries under the consumer brands Virgin Media, Ziggo, Unitymedia, Telenet and UPC. The LiLAC Group operates in over 20 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean under the consumer brands VTR, Flow, Liberty, Mas Movil and BTC. In addition, the LiLAC Group operates a subsea fiber network throughout the region in over 30 markets.
For more information, please visitwww.libertyglobal.com. || Nadex Q3 2016: Interest Keeps Growing in Limited Risk Trading: Total number of trades up over 53% versus Q3 2015 Faster, easier deposits and withdrawals using bank debit cards on mobile devices Major updates for Android and iPhone apps New Market Filter gives traders greater control and precision CHICAGO, IL / ACCESSWIRE / October 12, 2016 / Following the Trading Update for the quarter ending August 31, 2016 reported by parent company IG Group (LSE: IGG), Nadex reported over 37% growth in trade volume and over 53% growth in total trades of binary options during the third quarter of 2016 compared to Q3 2015. Nadex has seen quarterly increases in volume and total trades for 19 of the last 20 quarters. This sustained growth points to an important movement: demand for limited-risk alternatives to conventional trading. Individual traders are increasingly attracted to the low fees, low minimum opening balance, and guaranteed limited risk offered by exchange-traded binary options and spreads. Faster, Easier Deposits and Withdrawals The latest updates to the Nadex mobile apps make it easy and quick to open and manage an account from anywhere. Mobile users can upload application documents and deposit funds instantly. Members can withdraw funds to their checking accounts just as quickly and securely, anytime from PC or mobile. Powerful Market Filter Tool With over 10,000 contracts available daily, Nadex added a major new feature to its proprietary trading platform: Market Filter. Traders can search for markets and contracts to trade based on several criteria, including asset class, current trading price, length of contract, and time to expiration. For example, a trader can filter for crude oil binaries costing less than $40, to sell, with under an hour until expiration. Or for weekly euro binary options that are at or in the money. This feature, available in both the free demo and live platform with free real-time market data, allows traders to test a virtually limitless range of strategies. Growing Awareness of the Value of Regulated Exchanges The importance of trading binary options on a CFTC-regulated exchange has received mainstream acceptance. In 2013, the CFTC issued an advisory stating that only three exchanges, including Nadex, were legally authorized to solicit US clients. In early 2016, a major Cyprus-based binary options vendor found to have offered off-exchange contracts to US customers settled with the CFTC and SEC for $11 million and closed its US operation. Story continues Such developments have highlighted the contrast between illegal offshore vendors and regulated, US-based exchanges like Nadex. Nadex has emerged as a leading CFTC-regulated exchange offering limited-risk trading in binary options and spreads on multiple asset classes. "We're no longer just trying to introduce the concept of limited-risk trading," said Nadex CEO Timothy McDermott. "People are aware of it. Now our job is to get them asking, 'If I can trade the same markets with limited risk on a CFTC regulated exchange - with lower fees and capital requirements - why not?' Frankly, we hope everyone starts asking that question." Nadex: US-based, regulated, secure Nadex is the first and largest CFTC-regulated online exchange in the U.S offering binary options and spreads to individual traders seeking low-cost, limited risk ways to participate in the markets. Member funds are segregated and held in top-tier US banks. Using Nadex's online and mobile platforms, traders can trade short-term price movements in the most heavily traded currency, commodity, and stock index markets, as well as on economic events and the price of Bitcoin, with limited-risk hourly, daily and weekly contracts. Notes to Editors Nadex offers traders a trusted, secure way to trade binary options and spreads on a wide range of the most heavily traded forex, commodities and stock indices. Nadex is headquartered in Chicago, and is subject to regulatory oversight by the CFTC. Follow us on Twitter: @Nadex_US Like us on Facebook: nadexUS To learn more about Nadex, please visit https://nadex.com . For information on becoming a Nadex member, call 1-866-296-0167 or email customerservice@nadex.com . Disclaimer: Trading on Nadex involves risk and may not be appropriate for all investors. SOURCE: Nadex || Your first trade for Wednesday, October 19: The " Fast Money " traders gave their final trades of the day. Pete Najarian is a buyer of Citi (C). Tim Seymour is a buyer of Avon (AVP). Brian Kelly is a buyer of Chevron (CVX). Guy Adami is a buyer of SuperValu (SVU). Trader disclosure: On Tuesday, October 18 the following stocks and commodities mentioned or intended to be mentioned on CNBC's "Fast Money" were owned by the "Fast Money" traders: PETE NAJARIAN is l ong AAPL, BAC, DIS, DISCA, GE, KMI, KMIA, KO, LUX, MRK, PEP, PFE CALLS: AAL, ABT, AMD, ATVI, BABA, BAC, BBY, BHI, BSX, CNX, COP, COTY, CRM, CS, CSCO, CXW, DAL, DISH, ECA, ETP, gm, GS, HAL, INTC, JBLU, JCP, KBE, KGC, KMI, KO, LLY, LOW, M, MOS, MRO, MRVL, MUR, NAV, NBR, P, RIO, SBUX, SLV, TMUS, TTS, TV, TWTR, VRX, WFT, WLL, XLF. Puts: CLF, EEM, MBLY, WFC Tim Seymour is long ABX, APC, AVP, BAC, BBRY, CLF, DO, DVYE, EDC, EWZ, F, FB, FCX, FXI, GM, GOOGL, GE, INTC, LQD,MCD, MUR, OIH, PG, RACE, RAI, RH, RL, SINA, T, TWTR, VALE, VZ, XOM. short: SPY, XRT; Tim's firm is long ABX, BABA, BIDU, CBD, CLF, EWZ, F, KO, MCD, MPEL, NKE, PEP, PF, SAVE, SBUX, SINA, VALE, VIAB, WMT, WEN, X, YHOO, short EWG, HYG, IWM Brian Kelly is long Bitcoin, SLV and Silver Futures, US Dollar UUP; he is short EUR=, JPY= Guy Adami is long CELG, EXAS, GDX, INTC, Guy Adami's wife, Linda Snow, works at Merck. More From CNBC Top News and Analysis Latest News Video Personal Finance
[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
1 #BTC (#Bitcoin) quotes:
$711.29/$711.44 #Bitstamp
$703.72/$705.00 #BTCe
⇢$-7.72/$-6.29
$714.17/$721.36 #Coinbase
⇢$2.73/$10.07 || 1 KOBO = 0.00000240 BTC
= 0.0015 USD
= 0.4564 NGN
= 0.0216 ZAR
= 0.1518 KES
#Kobocoin 2016-10-12 11:00 pic.twitter.com/P4VVFpuNXh || 1 #BTC (#Bitcoin) quotes:
$707.20/$708.27 #Bitstamp
$695.74/$696.00 #BTCe
⇢$-12.53/$-11.20
$707.44/$714.62 #Coinbase
⇢$-0.83/$7.42 || $656.00 #itBit;
$659.22 #btce;
$653.85 #bitstamp;
$654.93 #GDAX;
$660.90 #bitfinex;
$654.82 #OKCoin;
#bitcoin news: http://bit.ly/1VI6Yse || One Bitcoin now worth $653.50@bitstamp. High $656.00. Low $628.57. Market Cap $10.419 Billion #bitcoin || #Bitcoin Larry Summers, who is currently on the Board of Directors at DigitalCurrencyGroup, involved with the... http://bit.ly/2ef35v4 || CLOAKCOIN – Trustless Anonymous Cryptocurrency Without Master Nodes and Fully Decentralized http://ift.tt/2f0BM8Y #Bitcoin #Crypto #Bitc… || $740.38 #bitfinex;
$738.95 #bitstamp;
$741.00 #itBit;
$737.70 #GDAX;
$736.31 #btce;
$734.10 #gemini;
#bitcoin news: http://bit.ly/1VI6Yse || LIVE: Profit = $153.28 (0.13 %). BUY B181.85 @ $637.00 (#BTCe). SELL @ $641.07 (#Bitfinex) #bitcoin #btc - http://www.projectcoin.org || $643.24 #gDAX;
$644.21 #bitfinex;
$637.00 #Btce;
$639.26 #bitstamp;
$638.48 #oKCoin;
$641.80 #ItBit;
#Bitcoin ne... http://bit.ly/1VI6Yse
|
Trend: down || Prices: 777.94, 771.16, 773.87, 758.70, 764.22, 768.13, 770.81, 772.79, 774.65, 769.73
|
Analyze the provided historical prices, technical indicators, news, and social media sentiment from the last 60 days. Based on this context, predict the overall trend (up, down, or no change) and the specific daily closing prices for Bitcoin for the next 10 days.
|
[Technical Analysis for 2015-03-02]
BTC Price: 275.67, BTC RSI: 67.61
Gold Price: 1207.70, Gold RSI: 42.17
Oil Price: 49.59, Oil RSI: 49.06
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
Bitcoin Makes Its Way To A Major Exchange: Investors looking for a way to invest inbitcoinwithout setting up an online wallet or defer to a small exchange will soon be able to do so as bitcoin makes its way to the New York Stock Exchange.
Tera Group, the company behind the bitcoin derivatives platform TeraExchange, has signed aletter of intentwithMGT Capital Investments Inc.(NYSE:MGT) that will merge the two companies. The agreement, expected to be finalized on March 16, will make TeraExchange the first bitcoin-based company to be publicly traded on the NYSE.
Other bitcoin businesses have gone it alone trading OTC or on smaller exchanges like the Nasdaq Capital Market Composite or the Toronto Stock Exchange, but this merger agreement will make Tera Group the only derivatives exchange to list on the NYSE.
Related Link: Bitcoin And Tax Season: What You Need To Know
TeraExchange CEO Christian Martin said the merger will prove to be a perfect match as both companies are bringing something unique to the table. TeraExchange has long been looking for ways to enter capital markets, while MGT has been interested in finding inroads to the bitcoin market. Martin said the decision to merge with MGT is expected to give both TeraExchange and bitcoin itself a wider audience, further pushing the cryptocurrency into the public eye.
Investors are hoping that the deal will give TeraExchange the financial boost it needs to continue growing its service; the company is expected to roll out new features including more advanced marketplace statistics once the merge is complete.
See more from Benzinga
• Broadband Providers Say Government Intervention Is Not The Answer In Net Neutrality
• Greece Backs Out Of The Spotlight While Anti-Euro Sentiment Remains
• The State Of The Washington D.C. Green Rush
© 2015 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Bitcoin Startup Coinbase Is Raising $75 Million In New Funding: Brian Armstrong Coinbase Anthony Harvey/Getty Images Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong talks at the 2014 TechCrunch Disrupt conference in London. The price of Bitcoin has plummeted in recent weeks, dropping to low levels not seen since the end of 2013. But this hasnt put off investors. Virtual currency startup Coinbase has just closed a $75 million round of funding, Fortune is reporting the largest ever for a Bitcoin company. Coinbase offers customers digital wallets allowing them to store their Bitcoin, as well as providing an exchange platform. Launched in 2012, the company has now raised $105 million in venture capital funding. Investors in this most recent round include the New York Stock Exchange, banks USAA and BBVA, and former Citibank CEO Vikram Pandit, as well as Andreesson Horowitz, Reddit Capital and Union Square Ventures (who had all previously invested). The $75 million funding round is believed to value the company at $400 million, though this couldnt be confirmed. Coinbases platform is used by several major Bitcoin-accepting mainstream companies, Re/code reports , including Overstock and Expedia. The service also has almost 2 million customers. Co-founder Fred Ehrsam told Fortune that Coinbase has grown extensively over 2014 , despite the slump in price. Price volatility isnt good for certain uses of Bitcoin, he said. But, in that same time period, we went from 600,000 users to 2.1 million users. The company also aims to help develop apps on top of the Bitcoin platform, and make the virtual currency more straightforward to ordinary people. Speaking in London in 2014, CEO Brian Armstrong likened Bitcoins current state to the early days of the Internet prior to mass adoption. Heres a tweet confirming the news: Pleased to share weve raised $75M led by @dfjgrowth @USAA @nyse @bbva @docomo and others. Focused on helping #bitcoin grow in 2015 & beyond Coinbase (@coinbase) January 20, 2015 Its much-needed good news for the Bitcoin community, which has been through a tumultuous few weeks. The virtual currencys value is currently hovering around the $210 mark down $100 from just a month ago. The price drop has forced cloud mining service CEX.io to halt operations because theyre no longer profitable. And hackers recently made off with $5 million in Bitcoin from exchange Bitstamp . Interestingly, though the drop in price hasnt been accompanied by a decrease in trading. Its actually quite the opposite: amid mass speculation, the volume of trades surged to record levels last week . Read more stories on Business Insider , Malaysian edition of the worlds fastest-growing business and technology news website. || It's A Big Day For Bitcoin: Bitcoin history was made on Monday after the digital currency opened for trading on the first licensed U.S. exchange. The bitcoin service provider Coinbase previously acted as a brokerage service for bitcoin users. On Monday, it began providing an exchange where individuals and institutions can trade bitcoin in real-time in a more secure environment. Coinbase is backed by a $106 million investment from the New York Stock Exchange and various other financial service institutions creating a more trustworthy exchange environment. This contrasts Mt. Gox, a popular bitcoin exchange in which many individuals saw their money disappear. The exchange has already gained approval in 24 jurisdictions, including California and New York but plans to expand across the U.S. and internationally. The price of one bitcoin was seen trading higher by nearly 10 percent at $278.69 Monday morning. Image credit: Public Domain See more from Benzinga Pacific Crest Doesn't Expect EMC's Profit Recovery To Materialize Until 2016 Why Shares Of Rockwell Medical Are Up Huge Wedbush Sees Amazon Reporting Share Gains In Q4 That Were Likely Offset By Record Spending © 2015 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Bitcoin Gets A Makeover: Scandals like the Silk Road trials and the Mt. Gox exchange collapse have severely damaged the public’s perception of bitcoin and slowed the rate of adoption considerably.
Worries about security and stability have kept the average investor from using the cryptocurrency despite growing enthusiasm among supporters about the possibilities that digital currencies provide.
However, some bitcoin-based firms are looking to reverse public opinion by embarking on abitcoin image makeoveraimed at promoting the cryptocurrency among millennials who are most likely to use it.
Bitcoin Targets Millennials
Firms like Bitcoin Foundation, BitFury and BitGo are counting on ad agency TheAudience to rework bitcoin’s image and renew the enthusiasm that surrounded the cryptocurrency in 2013.
The agency is planning to use online influencers to get bitcoin in front of millennials who will ultimately be the future of its adoption.
Platforms like Twitter, YouTube and SnapChat will be vital to the campaign’s success and ‘microcelebrities’ with large followings online will be tapped to promote their own use of bitcoin.
Related Link:Bitcoin And Tax Season - What You Should Know
Bitcoin Bowl
This is not the first time bitcoin has been force-fed to the public. BitPay tried to help the cryptocurrency go mainstream by signing-on to a college football bowl sponsorship and holding the Bitcoin Bowl.
The mobile pay company ran its own TV ads during the game, and while BitPay gained some brand recognition, the campaign did little to wipe away bitcoin’s tarnished reputation.
See more from Benzinga
• Wearables Not Just For Humans Anymore!
• Deal On Tehran's Nuclear Activities Makes Iran An Attractive Investment
• Investors Begin To Turn Toward Greece
© 2015 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Is Legal Marijuana Here To Stay?: With several states opening medical marijuana dispensaries and both Colorado and Washington paving the way for the legal sale of recreational pot, many investors see the U.S. prohibition on marijuana being completely abandoned within the next 10 years.
Legal Pot Spreading
Oregon looks set to become the next state with recreational sales outlets; voters there approved the use of recreational marijuana in 2014 and growers are already starting to expand their operations by snapping up land and warehouse space in anticipation of a flood of new business.
In Ohio, licensed stores could pop up in a little over a year if a bill to legalize the drug is passed.
Related Link: 15 Marijuana Stocks To Watch In 2015
Some States Hold Off
The push to expand the marijuana market to all 50 states isn’t without opposition. Several states, like Michigan, are still pushing back against allowing medical dispensaries. Those opposed to widespread marijuana sales say they are worried about increased crime rates and stores selling to minors.
Colorado Leads The Pack
Colorado, however, stands as a shining example that legalizing marijuana could do more good than harm. One year after legalizing the sale of recreational marijuana, Colorado police officials have reported no uptick in criminal behavior and the growing industry has flooded the state with new job opportunities.
Colorado’s success is a good indication that legalizing marijuana is a trend that is likely to eventually spread and give rise to an entirely new industry. While current laws prohibit the transport of marijuana across state lines, many see those regulations also loosening to allow growers and retailers to expand into larger brands that reach across the entire United States.
See more from Benzinga
• Bitcoin Startups Prove The Currency Isn't Dead Yet
• ECB Easing Could Strengthen Headwinds For U.S. Firms
• Bigfoot To Enter The Market
© 2015 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || U.S. sharply reduces Silk Road's estimated sales volume: (Corrects identification of federal sentencing guidelines to money laundering from drug trafficking in paragraph 4. Corrects paragraph 6 to correct characterization of the criminal sentencing guidelines as relevant to the money laundering charge, not the drug trafficking charge. Corrects information about recommended terms to indicate they can vary in length according to criminal history.)
By Emily Flitter
NEW YORK, Jan 16 (Reuters) - When U.S. authorities announced the arrest of Silk Road creator Ross Ulbricht in October 2013, they made a startling claim: the online black market had seen an estimated $1.2 billion in illicit sales since its inception.
This week, however, as Ulbricht's criminal trial began, prosecutors significantly scaled back that figure, saying Silk Road had actually seen an estimated $200 million in drug sales, which comprised 95 percent of all sales on the website.
The revision could be good news for Ulbricht, who has admitted creating the site, where users could buy drugs and other illegal goods using the digital currency Bitcoin, according to former federal prosecutor Jeffrey Alberts.
Since advisory federal sentencing guidelines for money laundering take into account the size of the scheme, the reduced sales figure would put Ulbricht's offenses into a different category under the guidelines, said Alberts, who is now a partner at law firm Pryor Cashman and is not involved in the case.
Ulbricht, 30, is facing a seven-count indictment for offenses including money laundering, computer hacking and conspiracy to commit drug trafficking. He could face life in prison if convicted on all counts.
But taken on its own, a conviction on the money laundering count would elicit a recommendation for prison time for an operation larger than $400 million, as prosecutors originally estimated, that would be longer than the recommendation for a scheme netting between $400 million and $200 million, or one just under $200 million. The specific number of months or years recommended would also depend on other factors such as criminal history.
Ulbricht's lawyer declined to comment.
The change in Silk Road's estimated sales volume is not, however, entirely due to fluctuations in the value of bitcoins, which have actually increased in price since prosecutors filed the criminal complaint against Ulbricht on Oct. 2, 2013. Back then, one bitcoin was worth $125 but they are trading at around $205 today.
While formulating the complaint against Ulbricht, prosecutors arrived at the $1.2 billion figure by looking at the total value of bitcoins obtained through sales on the site, according to the complaint.
But after combing through Silk Road's files, they recalculated the total by adding up the value of individual drug sales according to the price of bitcoins at the time of each transaction, arriving at $200 million, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office.
Adjustments like this one are common, Alberts said. The more precisely prosecutors can calculate the size of an illegal operation, the less likely defense lawyers are to contest the estimate during a sentencing hearing.
Another advantage to the revision: it is a number that will not change even if bitcoin prices do.
The case is U.S. v. Ulbricht, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, No. 13-06919.
(Reporting by Emily Flitter; editing by Noeleen Walder and G Crosse) || SpaceBIT Introduces First Ever Space Banking Program For Bitcoin And Cryptocurrencies: Untitled Document SpaceBIT, The First Decentralized Space Company, Is Pleased To Announce The Unprecedented Space Banking Project For Digital Currencies LONDON, UK / ACCESSWIRE / January 4, 2015 / The company is set to launch a constellation of nano-satellites that will act not only as depositories for digital cash, but also as a platform to provide global and universal access to remote areas around the globe where payment infrastructures are non-existent. "Our goal is to establish a secure decentralized banking system with common banking services for current and future crypto-currency users around the world", said Pavlo Tanasyuk, one of the SpaceBIT founders. Furthermore he added that the company will support the expansion of crypto-currency markets and establish their ongoing presence in the world economy. In the short term, SpaceBIT will focus on building a transparent, secured and affordable blockchain based payment system to ‘un-banked’ populations. Different currencies are suited for different applications. For example bitcoin can be used as a universal ledger and other reliable financial instruments to be used for different services depending on use case and jurisdiction. The program is currently forming a committee of high profile specialists from various industries, including finance, space, law and technology. In addition, SpaceBIT is in the process of partnering with land-based banks and exchanges to comply with local regulations and jurisdictions, while simultaneously creating borderless transaction systems. "We believe that is important to stay fully compliant and transparent, while providing global access to our future users. Partnerships with banks will give us the possibility of providing traditional financial services with convenient and simple crypto payments on a global scale", said Pavlo Tanasyuk. "Crypto currency in itself is a science fiction becoming a reality" Brock Pierce, Member of The Bitcoin Foundation The SpaceBIT team is to make appearances at multiple venues around the world throughout 2015 to give more in-depth presentations on logistics, engage interested parties and create a discourse around the implementation. Ian Angell, Emeritus Professor at the London School of Economics and a co-founder of SpaceBIT, is available for interviews About SpaceBIT: SpaceBIT is the first decentralized space company , currently undergoing the stage TRL5 of the first-ever space banking project. The main goal of the company is to establish a secure decentralised banking system with common banking services for current and future crypto-currency users around the world. Story continues SpaceBIT was founded by Pavlo Tanasyuk, who holds degree in Technology Policy from Cambridge University and Ian Angell, Emeritus Professor at the London School of Economics, internationally renowned as a 'futurologist', in particular for his views on the future of money, and a speaker on space bank programmes since 1998. For more information about us, please visit http://www.firstspacebank.com/ Contact: Pavlo Tanasyuk pr@firstspacebank.com SpaceBIT Source: SpaceBIT View comments || A Florida couple recorded their vows into the Bitcoin blockchain in the first 'Bitmarriage': David Mondrus (Consider This!) David Mondrus “A diamond is forever, a marriage is forever, but when was the last time anyone looked at their wedding vows?” Entrepreneur David Mondrus posed that question to the New York Times in explaining why he and his wife, Joyce Bayo, have added their wedding vows to the Bitcoin blockchain — the secure public ledger where all bitcoin transactions are recorded. The couple met in the Philippines. Bayo "stole his heart when she fed him pineapple on a boat," according to the press release the couple put out to explain their blockchain vows . The couple recorded their vows using a bitcoin ATM at Disney World last fall during the the Kingdom Bitcoin Conference. According to the release: Blockchain marriages are ideal for couples who want to record their commitment to each other in a secure and permanent place, but whose relationship may not fit the current governmental system, or any governmental system at all. Some examples might be gay couples or polyamorous groups whose idea of marriage may not so easily conform to the current rules set by governments. Officiating this first Bitmarriage will be Jeffrey Tucker; author/publisher, and the founder of Liberty.me. Media was invited to the wedding in the press release. Business Insider is bummed to have missed it. NOW WATCH: Kanye West explains how marriage has helped him become a better man More From Business Insider '60 Minutes' airs troubling report detailing major problems at Lumber Liquidators factories in China Michael Jordan is a billionaire Lumber Liquidators shares crashed after a damning '60 Minutes' report || 7 ways to play the Swiss franc fallout: The Swiss National Bank's decision to remove its peg of the Swiss franc's value to the euro disrupted markets for a second day on Friday. Among the biggest losers was retail foreign exchange broker FXCM, which took huge losses before Leucadia National ( LUK ) gave it a $300 million bailout on Friday afternoon. Effects continue to pop up around the globe, and CNBC's " Fast Money " traders looked at how to play the ongoing uncertainty. Trader Brian Kelly set his sights on the next big currency move, which he believes could be the devaluation of the Chinese yuan (Exchange:CNY=) . Read More Leucadia to provide $300M in financing to FXCM The yuan has started to move lower against the dollar, and the falling currency could provide a short move, he argued. "To boost exports, they are going to need a weaker currency, and they're already starting to do it," Kelly said. For the second straight day, gold's reaction to global events caught trader Guy Adami's eye. Gold (CEC:Commodities Exchange Centre: @GC.1) , which ended at $1,276 on Friday, should continue to surge in the wake of the Swiss central bank's decision. "I think the gold market wants to go higher. I think there's definitely a blue sky there," Adami said. Read More Swiss shock no 'game changer' for gold? A rise in gold should prove a boon to gold miners, Adami said. He continues to tout the Market Vectors Gold Miners ETF (NYSE Arca: GDX) , which jumped more than 3 percent on Friday. The wider commodities market should also climb from its current point, trader Tim Seymour said. He pointed to the Commodity Research Bureau Index, which he believes has hit a key level that signals commodities have neared a bottom. "People are missing the fact that demand does increase, even though this has been a supply event. I think commodities are going higher," Seymour said. Read More Why commodities are taking a beating again With some potential promise in commodities and construction, Caterpillar ( CAT ) has room to rebound on the upside, the traders said. The stock has fallen about 8 percent in the last year. "No way would I be shorting Caterpillar here. Actually, it's a place you might be taking a look," Seymour said. Trader disclosure: On January 16, 2015, the following stocks and commodities mentioned or intended to be mentioned on CNBC's "Fast Money" were owned by the "Fast Money" traders: Tim Seymour is long AAPL, BAC, C, DIS, F, GE, GM, GOOGL, INTC, BX, SUNE, Tim's firm is long BABA, BIDU, CCU, DSKY, KNDI, MCD, NKE, NOK, PBR, SINA, TSL, VIP. Brian Kelly is long BBRY calls, BTC=, CTRL calls, GCG5, HYG puts, Yen, TWTR call spreads, he is short EWA, EWG, EWQ, EWZ, EWH, EWW, US Dollar, Yuan, HGH5, today he bought GCG5, today he sold TLT, ZBH15, ZBH, today he covered his short in ESH5. Guy Adami is long CELG, EXAS, INTC, Guy Adami's wife, Linda Snow, works at Merck. Steve Grasso is long AAPL, BA, CLVS, EVGN, FB, GDX, GOOGL, IMMR, KBH, KDUS, MBLY, MHY, MJNA, NVIV, PFE, POT, SO, T, TMUS, TWTR, YHOO, his kids are long EFG, EFA, EWJ, IJR, SPY his firm is long APA, APC, DHI, DNR, OXY, MTH. || Bitcoin exchange Bitstamp suspends service after security breach: LJUBLJANA (Reuters) - Bitstamp, one of the largest exchanges for trading the digital bitcoin currency, said it has suspended its service after a security breach on Sunday, resulting in loss of around 19,000 bitcoins.
The breach represented a small fraction of its total bitcoin reserve and the majority was held in secure offline systems, the Slovenia-based firm posted on its website on Tuesday.
Reuters was unable to contact Bitstamp officials in Slovenia or the United Kingdom, but one of the company's founders, Damijan Merlak, told Slovenian state-owned news agency STA that Bitstamp has enough liquid assets to meet its short-term obligations.
"At present we are setting up a duplicate of the whole infrastructure with experts in San Francisco which should be finished within 24 hours. Then we will be able to resume our services," Merlak told STA.
He said he could not give further details on the breach due to an investigation.
Bitstamp said it believed one of its wallets, which store the digital credentials for a customer's bitcoin holdings, had been compromised.
Bitstamp said it had notified all customers after learning of the breach, requesting them not to make any deposits to previously issued bitcoin deposit addresses.
"We would like to reassure all Bitstamp customers that their balances held prior to our temporary suspension of services will not be affected and will be honored in full," the exchange said.
Bitcoin, the best-known virtual currency, started circulating in 2009. Unlike conventional money, bitcoin is generated by computers and is independent of control or backing by any government.
A bitcoin is currently worth $276.80 (BTC=BTSP).
In February, Bitstamp claimed that developers had come up with a solution to thwart cyber attacks against its platform after Mt. Gox, once the world's biggest bitcoin exchange, lost an estimated $650 million worth of customer bitcoin when its faulty computer system was hacked.
(Reporting By Shivam Srivastava in Bengaluru and Marja Novak in Ljubljana; Editing by Savio D'Souza and Louise Heavens)
[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
Current price: 211.9€ $BTCEUR $btc #bitcoin 2015-01-28 20:00:05 CET || In the last 10 mins, there were arb opps spanning 19 exchange pair(s), yielding profits ranging between $0.00 and $31.08 #bitcoin #btc || Current price: 221$ $BTCUSD $btc #bitcoin 2015-01-13 18:00:04 EST || LIVE: Profit = $32.41 (1.52 %). BUY B7.44 @ $285.00 (#BTCe). SELL @ $286.98 (#HitBTC) #bitcoin #btc - http://www.projectcoin.org || buysellbitco.in #bitcoin price in INR, Buy : 15430.00 INR Sell : 14926.00 INR. Buy and sell bitcoin in #India using #buysellbitcoin || Current price: 203.32£ $BTCGBP $btc #bitcoin 2015-01-02 20:00:04 GMT || In the last 10 mins, there were arb opps spanning 23 exchange pair(s), yielding profits ranging between $0.00 and $82.09 #bitcoin #btc || Bitstamp Prices
LAST: $230.00
BID: $230.00
ASK: $230.09
VOL: 23560.90 BTC
http://bit.ly/Cryptoticks || Goedkoopste Nederlandse aanbieder op dit moment is Clevercoin () - 190.00 Euro/bitcoin - http://www.bitcoinweb.nl/prijzen-bitcoins-vergelijken/ … || BTCe Prices
LAST: $269.00
BID: $268.71
ASK: $269.09
VOL: 9447.45 BTC
http://bit.ly/Cryptoticks
|
Trend: up || Prices: 281.70, 273.09, 276.18, 272.72, 276.26, 274.35, 289.61, 291.76, 296.38, 294.35
|
Analyze the provided historical prices, technical indicators, news, and social media sentiment from the last 60 days. Based on this context, predict the overall trend (up, down, or no change) and the specific daily closing prices for Bitcoin for the next 10 days.
|
[Technical Analysis for 2021-01-28]
BTC Price: 33466.10, BTC RSI: 51.74
Gold Price: 1837.90, Gold RSI: 43.21
Oil Price: 52.34, Oil RSI: 60.24
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
DeFi Protocol MahaDAO Announces IDO on Polkastarter: TORTOLA, BRITISH VIRGIN ISLANDS / ACCESSWIRE / December 14, 2020 /MahaDAO, a stablecoin platform for cryptocurrency collateralization and issuance, has announced details of its Initial DEX Offering (IDO). The event will be hosted on Polkastarter, the Polkadot DEX for cross-chain pools, on December 17. The MahaDAO token sale will be the one of the first three IDOs conducted on the decentralized fundraising platform, which launches on December 15.
MahaDAO is a community-focused DAO with a governance ecosystem that utilizes a 2-toke system. The DAO utilizes a two-token system, with MAHA serving as the protocol's governance token and ARTH as its "valuecoin".
While stablecoins, and the dollar they are pegged against, diminish in value due to inflation, ARTH maintains its value. This means that a cup of coffee in 10 years will cost the same amount of ARTH as it does today. As a valuecoin, ARTH has been designed to maintain value stability, ensuring that it maintains consistent purchasing power over time.
Steven Enamakel, Founder of MahaDAO said: "MahaDAO is creating the way forward for new kinds of stablecoins to grow. Some of these stablecoins will solve real world problems like inflation in the fiat markets and the volatility in crypto. With ARTH, we are launching the MahaDAO platform with the world's first valuecoin."
Users can stake assets into the MahaDAO vault to create a Collateralized Debt Position (CDP) and mint ARTH. Designed to be more stable than a traditional crypto asset, ARTH is backed by a basket of un-correlated assets. Based on the reverse vaults pioneered by MakerDAO, the MahaDAO vault acts as a regulator to manage collateralized assets and govern the issuance and redemption of ARTH.
Once minted, ARTH can be used to interact with DeFi protocols and is suitable for farming, staking, lending, borrowing, and saving. The initial MahaDAO vault will contain an index comprising 80% fiat currency, 15% gold, and 5% BTC.
To maintain the 1:1 purchasing power of the ARTH valuecoin, the vault will periodically rebalance, buying and selling assets to maintain parity. Whereas MakerDAO mints new DAI as the underlying assets appreciate, MahaDAO does the reverse, buying more of the collaterals, thereby increasing the total value of locked assets.
During the Polkastarter IDO on December 17th, the community will have the opportunity to acquire MAHA tokens and stake their claim in the platform's future governance.
Polkastarter has been chosen on account of its decentralized design and ability to support cheap transactions and secure, ultra-fast swaps. Upon completion of the IDO, MahaDAO will list on Uniswap and announce details of a liquidity farming program that will incentivize early adopters and launch its governance portal. In January, the project will launch its CDP portal, enabling the community to collateralize assets and start minting ARTH valuecoins.
About MahaDAO
MahaDAO is a stablecoin platform that is governed in a decentralised manner by the MAHA token holders. Its smart contract-controlled vaults are used to mint ARTH, an innovative new kind of currency backed by a basket of assets. ARTH is designed to counter wealth depreciation by maintaining its purchasing power, regardless of the fluctuation in other market assets.
Learn morehttps://mahadao.com
Media Contact:
Kim Bazak, MarketAcrossKim@MarketAcross.com
SOURCE:MahaDAO
View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/620769/DeFi-Protocol-MahaDAO-Announces-IDO-on-Polkastarter || Exclusive: Large bitcoin payments to right-wing activists a month before Capitol riot linked to foreign account: WASHINGTON — On Dec. 8, someone made a simultaneous transfer of 28.15 bitcoins — worth more than $500,000 at the time — to 22 different virtual wallets, most of them belonging to prominent right-wing organizations and personalities. Now cryptocurrency researchers believe they have identified who made the transfer, and suspect it was intended to bolster those far-right causes. U.S. law enforcement is investigating whether the donations were linked to the Jan. 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol. While the motivation is difficult to prove, the transfer came just a month before the violent riot in the Capitol, which took place after President Trump invited supporters to “walk down Pennsylvania Avenue” and “take back our country.” Right-wing figures and websites, including VDARE, the Daily Stormer and Nick Fuentes, received generous donations from a bitcoin account linked to a French cryptocurrency exchange, according to research done by software company Chainalysis, which maintains a repository of information about public cryptocurrency exchanges and whose tools aid in government, law enforcement and private sector investigations. Chainalysis investigated the donations after Yahoo News shared the data points about the transaction. According to one source familiar with the matter, the suspicious Dec. 8 transaction, along with a number of other pieces of intelligence, has prompted law enforcement and intelligence agencies in recent days to actively investigate the sources of funding for the individuals who participated in the Capitol insurrection, as well as their networks. The government is hoping to prevent future attacks but also to uncover potential foreign involvement in or support of right-wing activities, the source said. During a press conference on Tuesday on the investigation into the Capitol riot, acting U.S. Attorney Michael Sherwin said the “scope and scale of this investigation in these cases are really unprecedented.” At this time, Sherwin added, prosecutors are treating the matter as a “significant counterterrorism or counterintelligence investigation” involving deeper dives into “money, travel records, disposition, movement, communication records.” Story continues One of the ways extremist groups have made money in recent years is online through cryptocurrency and crowdfunding. Bitcoin, which was anonymously released online in 2009 as open-source software, exists only virtually. It does not utilize a central bank or administrator to disburse funds, nor does any government control or distribute it. While bitcoin has fluctuated in value in recent years, and continues to do so, it gained mainstream popularity around 2017, the same year prominent alt-right figure Richard Spencer tweeted , “Bitcoin is the currency of the alt right.” A 2017 Washington Post investigation explored how far-right groups turned even more aggressively toward bitcoin following the deadly August 2017 “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Va. The story cited research by the nonprofit Southern Poverty Law Center that identified a large bitcoin donation to Andrew Anglin, the editor of the Daily Stormer, a prominent neo-Nazi website that accepts bitcoin donations. At the time, the donation was worth around $60,000. The night before the "Unite the Right" rally in Charlottesville, Va., in 2017, white supremacists march with tiki torches through the University of Virginia campus. (Zach D. Roberts/NurPhoto via Getty Images) A “newfound expertise in online messaging and recruitment, coupled with the fact that modern extremist groups are generally young and digitally savvy, means that these organizations and individuals have fundamentally altered the way that extremists raise money,” wrote Alex Newhouse, a data analyst at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey, in a 2019 report that explored the links between white supremacists and digital currency. Some prominent right-wing groups or sites display their bitcoin wallets prominently, the report noted. “The lack of regulation over Bitcoin has driven its adoption by white supremacists,” it said. While cryptocurrency has been used by extremist groups and criminals to raise funds while shielding their identities, bitcoin is pseudonymous rather than anonymous. Bitcoin wallet addresses are permanent, and the digital ledger of transactions, called the blockchain, is public and can’t be changed. That means if people identify their bitcoin wallet addresses, as many right-wing groups do to raise funds, transactions can be traced, which is what allowed Chainalysis to uncover information about the source of the large December donations. The source of the funding, according to research conducted by Chainanalysis , appears to be a computer programmer based in France who created an account in 2013 — and who maintained a personal blog, which was not updated between 2014 and Dec. 9, 2020, the day after the “donations.” Chainalysis researchers discovered a blog post from the bitcoin user that reads like an apparent suicide note, bequeathing his money to “certain causes and people” in light of what he describes as “the decline of Western civilization,” though the researchers were unable to confirm that the user was in fact dead. Chainalysis declined to publish the user’s name, citing privacy concerns due to the inability to conclusively confirm his death and out of concerns over ongoing law enforcement investigations. An email to the apparent French donor did not immediately receive a reply. Chainalysis investigators relied on openly available information, or public bitcoin transactions, to investigate and map out the large transaction. The original donor was registered on NameID, an internet service that allows bitcoin users to tie their online pseudonym or email address with their bitcoin profile — information the original donor included. Investigators tracked that email address to the blog, and to several cryptocurrency forum posts going back to 2013. According to their research, Fuentes, a popular right-wing commentator who was suspended from YouTube last winter for violating its policies on hate speech, received the largest chunk of funding on Dec. 8 — about $250,000 in bitcoin. The Daily Stormer and the anti-immigration website VDARE were among the other recipients. Nick Fuentes, center, with right-wing activists Ali Alexander, second from left, and Alex Jones, during a "Stop the Steal" rally at the Georgia governor's mansion on Nov. 19. (Zach Roberts/NurPhoto via Getty Images) Yahoo News reached out to the recipients named in this article to confirm whether they had received the funding, what information they had about the donor and what they planned on doing with the funds. None returned a request for comment, although Fuentes tweeted an obscene gesture , naming several journalists, including this reporter, shortly after the inquiry was sent. While the Daily Stormer website openly requests cryptocurrency donations, it also includes a disclaimer that says it is “opposed to violence” and that “anyone suggesting or promoting violence in the comments section will be immediately banned.” While there’s no evidence that Fuentes directly participated in the Capitol riot, something he has so far denied, the financial resources of prominent right-wing actors are of growing interest to law enforcement. “I’d be stunned if both nation-state adversaries and terrorist organizations weren’t figuring out how to funnel money to these guys,” one former FBI official who reviewed the data for Yahoo News said. “Many of them use fundraising sites (often in Bitcoin) that are virtually unmonitored and unmonitorable. If they weren’t doing it, they’d be incompetent.” Additionally, much like conversations that took place on social media in the weeks leading up to the Capitol riot, the digital currency transactions are happening in plain sight. While cryptocurrency has the reputation of being anonymous and shadowy, that’s actually a common misconception, explained Maddie Kennedy, Chainalysis’s communications director. “With the right tools you can follow the money,” she said. “Cryptocurrency was designed to be transparent.” While there are methods that cryptocurrency users can deploy to obfuscate their identities — including using “privacy coins” such as Monero, which are difficult to trace, or using a “mixer” that allows various users to combine their bitcoins and mix them together to disguise their origin — there’s no indication the French programmer utilized those tools, Kennedy said. Though the donations are not a smoking gun or indicative of a crime, and it remains unclear to what extent the Capitol riot was coordinated in advance, the activity is nonetheless revealing, according to Kennedy. “These extremist groups are probably more well organized and well funded than what was previously believed,” she said. Chainalysis maintains a database of “domestic extremists” who have cryptocurrency accounts, and while the company has traced donations to right-wing groups over the years, the December deposit was “the single biggest month we’ve ever observed” directed toward these causes, the researchers wrote. “This is evidence to show they’re raising money,” Kennedy said. Additionally, the fact that the donor was outside the United States suggests “this has international scope,” she continued, a fact that “law enforcement should be paying attention to.” _____ Read more from Yahoo News: Holiday COVID surge pushes hospitals and ambulance crews to their breaking point Second new coronavirus variant worries health experts. Here’s what we know. After failed attack on Capitol, QAnon asks if it can still ‘trust the plan’ Capitol Police, now under fire, have a history of secrecy Photos show startling presence of National Guardsmen in halls of the U.S. Capitol || Data, lockdowns weigh on stocks and oil; dollar rises: By Rodrigo Campos
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stock and oil prices fell on Friday, pressured by intensifying lockdowns and weak U.S. retail sales data, while the dollar index posted its largest weekly gain in more than two months.
U.S. bond yields and stocks have risen recently, partly on expectations about the rollout of coronavirus vaccines and on a massive stimulus plan by the incoming Democratic administration. President-elect Joe Biden on Thursday unveiled a $1.9 trillion economic aid plan.
But vaccination campaigns have progressed more slowly than expected and the prospect of stricter lockdowns in France and Germany, as well as a resurgence of COVID-19 cases in China, weighed on market sentiment.
"I feel that after all the optimism regarding vaccines, we are now living the reality of a very slow rollout, which is weighing heavily on business activity," said Juan Perez, senior currency trader at Tempus Inc in Washington.
"Until we have more guarantees on the medical front, markets will not continue to flourish despite whatever financial aid may be on the way," Perez said.
The dollar gained ground against the euro and sterling, while the yen was little changed.
Stocks fell but remained close to recent record highs, with investors also digesting the prospect of rising taxes to pay for Biden's plan.
"Spending is easy to do but the question is how are you going to pay for it? Markets often ignore politics but they don't often ignore taxes," said Tim Ghriskey, chief investment strategist at Inverness Counsel in New York.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 177.26 points, or 0.57%, to 30,814.26, the S&P 500 lost 27.29 points, or 0.72%, to 3,768.25 and the Nasdaq Composite dropped 114.14 points, or 0.87%, to 12,998.50.
The pan-European STOXX 600 index lost 1.01% and MSCI's gauge of stocks across the globe shed 0.86%.
Emerging market stocks lost 0.93%. MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan closed 0.67% lower, while Nikkei futures lost 2.01%.
Yields were also pressured lower by a weaker-than-expected reading in U.S. retail sales.
"This morning’s disappointing retail sales figures reinforced the idea that more stimulus will be needed," said Ian Lyngen, head of U.S. rates strategy at BMO Capital Markets in New York.
U.S. 10-year notes last rose 13/32 in price to yield 1.0852%, from 1.129% late on Thursday.
Despite the weekly dip in the benchmark yield, it was set to close a second week above 1%, a streak not seen since before the lockdowns took hold early last year.
Oil prices fell sharply on concerns that demand would be lower as COVID-19 continues to rage globally.
"The recent resurgence in coronavirus infections, appearance of new variants, delayed vaccine rollouts and renewed lockdown measures in most major OECD economies has clouded the economic and demand recovery," said Stephen Brennock of oil broker PVM.
U.S. crude recently fell 2.73% to $52.11 per barrel and Brent was at $54.87, down 2.75% on the day.
The dollar index rose 0.573%, with the euro down 0.68% to $1.2073, while sterling was last trading at $1.3585, down 0.75% on the day.
The Japanese yen weakened 0.07% versus the greenback at 103.88 per dollar.
Spot gold dropped 1.1% to $1,826.59 an ounce. Silver fell 3.11% to $24.74.
Bitcoin last fell 7.59% to $36,164.50.
(Reporting by Rodrigo Campos; Additional reporting by Lucia Mutikani in Washington and Sinead Carew, Karen Brettell, Jessica Resnick-Ault and Saqib Iqbal Ahmed in New York; Editing by Nick Zieminski, Cynthia Osterman and Sonya Hepinstall) || Stocks, U.S. yields climb after Democrats win control of the Senate: By Rodrigo Campos NEW YORK (Reuters) -Bond prices dropped and stocks hit record highs on Thursday as investors bet Democratic control of the U.S. Congress would enable President-elect Joe Biden to borrow and spend heavily, while higher yields helped a bruised dollar recover from near three-year lows. The bullish sentiment remained throughout the day even as the top two Democrats in Congress called for President Donald Trump to be removed from office, one day after his supporters stormed and vandalized the U.S. Capitol in a rampage that left four people dead. U.S. Treasuries prices extended their steepest sell-off in months, with the benchmark yield at its highest in 10 months. Victories in two Georgia races handed the Democratic Party narrow control of the U.S. Senate, bolstering Biden's power to pass his agenda with his party controlling both chambers. The MSCI world equity index, which tracks shares in almost 50 countries, rose more than 1% to hit a record high for the third session this week. After a shaken Congress formally certified Biden's election victory in the early hours of Thursday, Wall Street focused on the implications of the Democrats' control of Congress. Major indexes hit record highs on bets that more pandemic stimulus will help the economy ride out the downturn. "The market is now looking past Trump and it's looking forward to a Biden presidency, more structure and stimulus," said Dennis Dick, a trader at Bright Trading LLC. "A Democratic Congress is going to obviously be more concerned about the small businesses, and the Main Street." The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 211.73 points, or 0.69%, to 31,041.13, the S&P 500 gained 55.65 points, or 1.48%, to 3,803.79 and the Nasdaq Composite added 326.69 points, or 2.56%, to 13,067.48. The pan-European STOXX 600 index rose 0.51% and MSCI's gauge of stocks across the globe gained 1.18%. Emerging market stocks rose 0.53%. Earlier, MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan had risen 0.35% and Japan's Nikkei hit its intraday highest since 1990 before ending up 1.6%. Story continues The prospect for future stimulus spending sent bond prices lower, with the yield on the benchmark hitting its highest since March. It rose as high as 1.088% on Thursday. [US/] "The Georgia Senate elections just added a tailwind to existing trends of reflation and upward pressure on Treasury yields," said Bill Merz, head of fixed income research at U.S. Bank Wealth Management in Minneapolis. Benchmark 10-year notes last fell 12/32 in price to yield 1.0812%, from 1.042% late on Wednesday. The 30-year bond last fell 27/32 in price to yield 1.859%, from 1.821%. BRUISED DOLLAR The Democrats' victory also reverberated in currency markets. The dollar had sunk to a near three-year low against a basket of six major currencies, with traders betting growing U.S. trade and budget deficits would further weigh on the greenback. On Thursday, it rose 0.549%, on track for its strongest session since at least late October, with the euro down 0.02% to $1.2268. The Japanese yen strengthened 0.01% versus the greenback at 103.78 per dollar, while Sterling was last trading at $1.3564, up 0.01% on the day. "Once (Treasury yields) start to move, as they did yesterday, it wasnt a big move but it was in the right direction, that is the direction of the future," said Joseph Trevisani, senior analyst at FXStreet.com. Oil prices touched their highest since late February as markets remained focused on Saudi Arabia's unexpected pledge to deepen its oil cuts. U.S. crude recently rose 0.57% to $50.92 per barrel and Brent was at $54.57, up 0.5% on the day. Spot gold % to $1,913.07 an ounce. Silver gained 0.19% to $27.16. Bitcoin hit a record high that breached the $40,000 mark, and was last up 7.05% at $39,446.75. (Reporting by Rodrigo Campos; additional reporting by Tom Wilson and Noah Browning in London, Laura Sanicola, Herbert Lash and Chuck Mikolajczak in New York and Karen Pierog in Chicago; Editing by Alistair Bell, Nick Zieminski and Dan Grebler) || Bitcoin Blasts Past $34K for First Time, Less Than 24 Hours After Blowing Through $30K: Another day, another $1,000-plus increase in bitcoin’s price, bringing the leading cryptocurrency’s combined gains this new year to about $5,000.
• The price ofbitcoinsurged past $34,000 for the first time ever early Sunday morning Eastern time, extending a record-setting holiday rally and adding an immediate exclamation point to the Bitcoin Network’s 12-year anniversary.
• Once the price of the leading cryptocurrency crossed the $30,000 mark for the first time Saturday – something it had struggled to do for the previous couple of days – it seemed all resistance vanished, rising more than $3,000 in about seven hours and reaching a new all-time high of $33,136.92, before settling down to fluctuate between $30,000 to $33,000.
• “Bitcoin makes TSLA [Tesla] look like it is standing still,”tweetedJim Bianco, well-known macro strategist, when the cryptocurrency broke $30,000.
• Then, Saturday evening, bitcoin resumed its climb, setting a new all-time high of $34,544.94 shortly into Day 3 of the new year, before giving back some gains, recently trading at $34,295.11, up 15.09% in the last 24 hours.
• It’s a wild start to 2021 and follows a landmark year in which the cryptocurrency rose more than 300%, with an almost 50% gain in December alone. On Nov. 30, bitcoinbreacheda nearly three-year-old high of $19,793. By the close of Dec. 31, the cryptocurrency had risen about $10,000.
• Into the third day of 2021, the price of bitcoin has risen about $5,000, bringing its year-to-date return to about 12%.
• Propelling the record-setting run is agrowing narrativethat bitcoin represents a form of “digital gold,” and bringing with it a flood of institutional investors into the cryptocurrency. Among them: Anthony Scaramucci’s Skybridge Capital ($182 millionin December); insurance giant MassMutual ($100 millionin December); and Guggenheim Investments (up to 10%of its $5 billion macro fund).
• “Bitcoin’s price is being driven by institutional money and there is not enough supply,” Laurent Kssis, managing director at 21Shares, told CoinDesk. “The number of family offices asking to invest in our [exchange-traded product] is just staggering. I’ve never seen this before. In 2017 it was just retail knocking at the door. Now it’s only institutional.”
• Kssis’ statements are buttressed by the fact that the number of whale entities – clusters of crypto wallet addresses held by a single network participant holding at least 1,000 BTC –roseto a new record high of 1,994 this past Wednesday.
• The metric increased by over 16% in 2020 and 7.3% in Q4 alone.
• “The final land grab has started, and by this time next year, accumulating >1,000 bitcoin will be nearly impossible for most people,” Jehan Chu, CEO at Hong Kong-based trading firm Kenetic Capital, told CoinDesk.
• HODLersalso have the U.S. Federal Reserve to thank for the cryptocurrency’s rise, as it, along with other central banks, has been printing money with abandon, trying to stave off the worst economic effects of the pandemic. This is viewed by many as a potential catalyst for inflation and bad for the U.S. dollar, both of which could be positive for bitcoin.
• “Many corporations are parking [U.S. dollars] in BTC because they are losing money in conventional banking, so it makes total sense,” 21Shares’ Kssis said.
• Growing global macro uncertainty may also be playing a factor in the recent surge. A peaceful transition of power in the U.S. is no longer the ironclad guarantee it used to be as 11 Republican senatorssaythey’ll vote to reject the presidential electors from certain states. While it’s still almost certain President-elect Joe Biden will assume office later this month, the need for a qualifier is a new event.
• That, plus a mutated strain of COVID-19, a lagging world economy and concerns over the effects of the now-completed Brexit may not be helping thezeitgeistbut could be aiding bitcoin, which some see as insurance against global chaos.
• With a market value now of over $638.00 billion, bitcoin ismore valuablethan all but nine publicly traded companies, sitting between Alibaba at $648.3 billion and Berkshire Hathaway at $543.7 billion.
• Bitcoin enthusiasts will likely find some joy in that last bit, an event that occurred last week, as Berkshire’s CEO, legendary investor Warren Buffett, once famouslyderidedbitcoin as “probably rat poison squared.”
• With today’s surge, the cryptocurrency again has resumed its marchup the ranksof the world’s most valuable currencies, again overtaking the Mexican peso, which it had briefly surpassed Saturday, to move into 16th place, behind the Russian ruble.
See also:Bitcoin Worth $1B Leaves Coinbase as Institutions ‘FOMO’ Buy: Analyst
• Bitcoin Blasts Past $34K for First Time, Less Than 24 Hours After Blowing Through $30K
• Bitcoin Blasts Past $34K for First Time, Less Than 24 Hours After Blowing Through $30K
• Bitcoin Blasts Past $34K for First Time, Less Than 24 Hours After Blowing Through $30K
• Bitcoin Blasts Past $34K for First Time, Less Than 24 Hours After Blowing Through $30K || Market Wrap: Bitcoin Reaches $40.3K While DeFi Value Locked Inflates to Over $22B: Large trading volumes in the bitcoin spot market are helping push prices upward to a fresh record high. Ethereum-based DeFi value locked is also setting records, with rising crypto values playing a part.
• Bitcoin(BTC) trading around $39,143 as of 21:00 UTC (4 p.m. ET). Gaining 8.4% over the previous 24 hours.
• Bitcoin’s 24-hour range: $36,382-$40,324 (CoinDesk 20)
• BTC above its 10-hour and 50-hour moving average on the hourly chart, a bullish signal for market technicians.
The price of bitcoin continues to make incredible gains Thursday, an upward trajectory that helped the world’s oldest cryptocurrency hit a record $40,324. Prices north of the new, big figure were short-lived, however. A sell-off quickly saw nearly $3,000 shaved off the price in a matter of 30 minutes, though it has since rebounded to $39,143 as of press time.
“Bitcoin’s move upwards is fueled by institutions and institutional analysis pointing to price targets called for by firms including $146,000 by JPMorgan and $400,000 by Guggenheim,” said Guy Hirsch, managing director for U.S. at multi-asset brokerage eToro.
Related:Bitcoin Is 'Less Risky the Higher It Goes,' Says Investor Bill Miller on CNBC
“There is likely to be some profit-taking, causing intermediate dips in price, but all signs point to a continued move higher in the short to medium term,” he added.
Read More:Bitcoin Tops $40K for First Time, Doubling in Less Than a Month
“It’s been a wild first week of the year for bitcoin, already up and down 15%-20% moves a few times during this period,” said Cindy Leow, investment manager at multi-strategy trading firm 256 Capital.
“This move is a hybrid of 2013 and 2017 post-halving price action, where 2013 saw a practically vertical move built up over many months while the late 2016 rally saw many more regular corrections that panned out over months,” Leow added. “The overall market sentiment seems to be a mix between disbelief and euphoria, which leads us to think that the retail peak is not in yet and there may still be room to go for this trend to develop.”
Related:Bitcoin's Market Value Now Exceeds That of Facebook
“We remain cautiously bullish, noting that funding rates across most crypto-assets are now persistently high, as are futures premiums and call volume,” Leow concluded.
Read More:CME Now Biggest Bitcoin Futures Exchange as Institutional Interest Rises
Funding premiums on major derivatives venues remain high, signaling traders are willing to pay quite a bit for leveraged positions.
“From here I have an initial target of $50,000 in mind and would love to say that we hit it in three to six months, but I think the power behind the market just now means we have a chance of hitting it in a few weeks,” said Chris Thomas, head of digital asset at Swissquote Bank.
If spot bitcoin volumes can continue on a tear, Thomas’ prediction might not be out of the question. Daily volumes on the eight exchanges tracked by the CoinDesk 20 have been over $5 billion for six days in a row including Thursday’s $6.6 billion tally as of press time.
“After $50,000, I think there will be some very realistic institutional sellers who have to take profits as they will likely have doubled their money at that point,” Thomas said. “It would be prudent to do so and a crash to sub-$20,000, which is not out of the question, could result in difficult discussions with their bosses.“
Nevertheless, 2021 is off to a good start for the cryptocurrency market. “It is early January and bitcoin has broken through $40,000,” noted Denis Vinokourov, head of research at crypto brokerage Bequant.
Ether(ETH), the second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, was up Thursday, trading around $1,245 and climbing 3.8% in 24 hours as of 21:00 UTC (4:00 p.m. ET).
The total value locked in decentralized finance, or DeFi, crossed the $22 billion mark for the first time Thursday. Crypto investors “lock” assets in DeFi smart contracts to gain a “yield” or percentage return in exchange for providing the liquidity.
However, the amount of ether locked in DeFi is dipping, to below 6.8 million ETH as of press time.
In addition, the amount of bitcoin locked has fallen precipitously, down to 30,456, representing a 53% drop from the all-time high of 64,993 BTC locked in October.
Where investors are moving all this crypto to from the DeFi sphere is anyone’s guess, but some degree of profit-taking is likely happening in what has been a red-hot market.
“The charts serve as a good leading indicator of price movement,” said Misha Alefirenko, founder of crypto marketmakerVelvetFormula. “This means people are redeeming back their BTC and ETH and that looks very bearish.”
Digital assets on theCoinDesk 20are mixed Thursday, but mostly green. Notable winners as of 21:00 UTC (4:00 p.m. ET):
• xrp(XRP) + 32.3%
• orchid(OXT) + 6.8%
• tron(TRX) + 5%
Read More:XRP Climbs Back up Crypto Rankings With Near 50% Rise
Notable losers:
• algorand(ALGO) – 5.4%
• cosmos(ATOM) – 4.8%
• ethereum classic(ETC) – 3.3%
Equities:
• The Nikkei 225 in Asia ended the day up 1.6% asJapanese investors expressed optimism after the Democrat victory for the U.S. Senate, boosting banks and insurers.
• Europe’s FTSE 100 closed in the green 0.22% afterU.S. Congress’ confirmation of the election of Joe Biden as president, which could lead to fresh economic stimulus.
• In the United States, the S&P 500 gained 1.5% asinvestors hit the buy button on the tech and consumer discretionary sectors.
Commodities:
• Oil was up 0.85%. Price per barrel of West Texas Intermediate crude: $50.94.
• Gold was in the red 0.21% and at $1,913 as of press time.
Treasurys:
• The 10-year U.S. Treasury bond yield climbedThursday jumping to 1.076 and in the green 3.4%.
• Market Wrap: Bitcoin Reaches $40.3K While DeFi Value Locked Inflates to Over $22B
• Market Wrap: Bitcoin Reaches $40.3K While DeFi Value Locked Inflates to Over $22B || CME Tops in Bitcoin Futures Rankings Amid Rapidly Growing Institutional Interest: The Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) has become the largest bitcoin futures exchange by number of open contracts as institutional interest in bitcoin continues to grow.
• As of Tuesday, open interest on the CME stood at $1.66 billion, the highest among the major derivatives exchanges that including OKEx, Binance and Bybit, according to data from crypto data analytic site Skew.
• CME now accounts for 18.1% of the total global open interest on Tuesday, currently sitting at approximately $9.18 billion.
• Skew’s data also shows that CME logged the highest trading volume for itsbitcoinfutures contracts on Dec. 28.
• “Institutional investors were eager to trade bitcoin again yesterday after a few days off,” Norwegian cryptocurrency analysis firm Arcane Researchwrote in a tweetearlier Tuesday.
• CME’s bitcoin futures products have seen rapid growth this year because ofa surge in institutional capital inflowsto the No. 1 cryptocurrency by market capitalization and its derivative markets.
• Bitcoin’s price passed $28,000on Sunday, and many have attributed the price rally to the new institutional money flowing to the cryptocurrency.
See also:CME Announces Ether Futures Contracts
• CME Tops in Bitcoin Futures Rankings Amid Rapidly Growing Institutional Interest
• CME Tops in Bitcoin Futures Rankings Amid Rapidly Growing Institutional Interest
• CME Tops in Bitcoin Futures Rankings Amid Rapidly Growing Institutional Interest
• CME Tops in Bitcoin Futures Rankings Amid Rapidly Growing Institutional Interest || Hong Kong Crypto Exchange Founder Taken Amid China’s Crackdown on Fraudulent Bank Accounts: Hong Kong-based crypto exchange CEO Global said Saturday one of its founders has been taken away by the authorities and it has no idea when he may return.
“Affected by the ongoing national crackdown on fraudulent SIM cards and bank accounts, the bank account of one of our core founders has received illicit money from international fraudsters and scammers,” the company said in astatement. “The founder has been taken away for 15 days for the investigation.”
The founder holds the private keys to most of the platform’s cold wallets. Since the exchange currently can not process all the withdrawals through its hot wallets, it said it has decided to suspend all withdrawals.
Related:Hong Kong in Talks With PBOC on Digital Yuan Trial for Cross-Border Payments
In the meantime, the platform will close all its over-the-counter (OTC) trading services because of the risks related to uncertainties surrounding China’s regulatory policies.
The State Council, China’s cabinet,announceda national crackdown on fraudulent bank accounts and SIM cards in October. “Fraudulent SIM cards and bank accounts are among the root causes that have enabled many phone and cyber scams,” according to the announcement.
People who want to avoid revealing their identity when opening a bank account or SIM card, many of whom are scammers, would buy existing SIM cards and bank accounts registered under others’ names.
Due to high demand for these fraudulent accounts, an industry has developed to create and sell these accounts, some of which are obtained via identity theft. Within two weeks of the State Council’s announcement, the Chinese police have arrested more than 4,600 people and confiscated about 65,000 bank cards that are linked to fraudulent banking accounts, according to areportby state media outlet CCTV.
Related:Niall Ferguson on Why Bitcoin and China Are Winning the Monetary Revolution
More than 15,000 people involved in the crimes are barred from opening a new bank account in five years, according to the report.
Colin Wu, a Chinese crypto reporter, recentlysaidsome Chinese crypto miners might have had difficulties in exchanging their minedbitcoinorETHfor the Chinese fiat currency topaytheir electricity bills using a bank card due to the crackdown.
• Hong Kong Crypto Exchange Founder Taken Amid China’s Crackdown on Fraudulent Bank Accounts
• Hong Kong Crypto Exchange Founder Taken Amid China’s Crackdown on Fraudulent Bank Accounts || Swedish bankers face identity crisis over digital currency plans: By Colm Fulton
STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - A new way to pay is causing existential angst among Swedish bankers who worry that the e-krona, an electronic equivalent of Sweden's currency, could cost them their deposit base.
Sweden launched a review into the e-krona's feasibility in December after a pilot programme at the central bank, making the Nordic country a litmus test for digital currencies.
The Riksbank wants making payments in e-krona to be "as easy as sending a text", but bankers in Stockholm say this would radically change the dynamic of the banking system.
Like a banknote or coin, the holder of an e-krona has a direct claim on the central bank, effectively bypassing commercial banks, where most state-backed money is held.
"A rational household would hold its money with the Riksbank," Masih Yazdi, chief financial officer of Sweden's largest corporate bank SEB, told Reuters, adding that a central bank offers better interest rates and protection.
As people use less physical cash and alternative currencies such as Bitcoin gain ground, many countries around the globe are looking at issuing their own central bank digital currencies (CBDC).
The Bahamas launched the world's first CBDC in October and China is expected to have a digital yuan within two years.
Sweden, the least cash dependent economy in the world, is leading the way among Western countries and the government is due to reach a decision by November 2022 on whether to pursue the e-krona.
For a graphic on Central bank digital currencies across the world:
https://graphics.reuters.com/CENBANKS-DIGITAL/oakpejoervr/chart.png
BORN TO RUN?
If Swedes moved their money out of deposit accounts and into e-krona, this would potentially deprive banks of funding and leave them reliant on wholesale markets for liquidity.
Yazdi is concerned this could make the sector debt-laden and unprofitable, undermining financial stability.
"If you have a bank account but you can - at the click of a button - move your money to the central bank ... that could risk instability in the system," Yazdi said.
Riksbank Deputy Governor Cecilia Skingsley has dismissed such concerns, saying people can already exit the banking system by buying treasury bills.
"We already have to face the risks that there are cyber runs out of the banking system. I don't think a CBDC will fundamentally change that to a worse situation," Skingsley told Reuters in November.
Rickard Eriksson, an advisor for the Swedish Bankers Association is concerned that the Riksbank has not made it clear what it will do with the money it collects.
It could hold the capital or lend it to the banks to make up their funding shortfall. However, this would mean the availability of mortgages or corporate loans would depend on the Riksbank's credit risk appetite.
"I don't think the Riksbank has really thought about this or come up with good answers," Eriksson said.
The Riksbank did not comment when asked about this issue by Reuters.
POLITICAL DECISION
Although the Riksbank has not yet specified a detailed plan for the e-krona, Yazdi said one option could be to cap e-krona at an amount which only replaces cash in the system.
Skingsley said issuing a CBDC which does not bear interest would limit a central bank's ability to impose its policy rate.
Yet, this would cross a line for Swedish banks, which may end up having to compete with the Riksbank's base rate.
And by digitalising cash, the Riksbank risks straying into areas beyond monetary policy, such as privacy, as payments in e-krona - which is based on blockchain technology - can be traced, SEB's Yazdi said.
"Nothing you buy will be anonymous," he said, adding a positive outcome would be that it is harder for criminals to evade detection or anti-money laundering controls.
Riksbank governor Stefan Ingves said in October the decision on whether to issue an e-krona needs to be made by politicians.
"The concept of a central bank digital currency raises many questions on possible advantages and disadvantages," financial markets minister Per Bolund said after he launched the review.
Eriksson said the Riksbank had little support when it began talking about the e-krona a few years ago, but he fears this may have increased as other central banks consider their own CBDCs.
(Reporting by Colm Fulton; Additional reporting by Simon Johnson; Editing by Alexander Smith) || Bitcoin Tests $40K, May Hit "$50K to $100K": ETFs to Play: The price of Bitcoin has been going through the roof lately. It took less than a month to cross the difference of $20,000 in value as the cryptocurrency hit the $20,000-mark for the first time on Dec 16 and touched $40,000 on Jan 7. Bitcoin soared about 200% last year. Institutional interest has mainly led to this buoyancy.
Sergey Nazarov, the cofounder of Chainlink, said a few days back that “rising inflation and increasingly negative views of modern monetary policy are forcing investors to look for alternative ways to preserve the value of their capital,” as quoted on Businessinsider.
The currency “will be on the road to $50,000 probably in the first quarter of 2021,” said Antoni Trenchev, managing partner and co-founder of Nexo in London, one of the world’s biggest crypto lender, as quoted on Yahoo Finance.
Let’s highlight the reasons for the rally:
Corporations’ greater acceptance in allowing customers to hold bitcoin and other virtual coins in their online wallets has been favoring the cryptocurrency.PayPal Holdings IncPYPL is one such company to have recently announced this move.
This is great news for bitcoin and rival cryptocurrencies. PayPal's competitorSquareSQ launched support for bitcoin back in 2018 through its Cash app. Square also bought $50 million in bitcoin in October as part of a larger investment in cryptocurrency.
Other companies that accept bitcoins includeMicrosoft(MSFT),AT&T(T) ,Dish Network(DISH)Burger King,Domino’s Pizza(DPZ) ,Goldman Sachs(GS) among others. Facebook-backed cryptocurrency Libra has also been rebranded “Diem” in an effort to gain regulatory approval by refurbishing the project in a simpler manner.It is run by a consortium called the Diem Association.
David Marcus, the head of Facebook Financial, also known as F2, said he hopes the cryptocurrency called Diem will hit the market in 2021. A bitcoin ETF could finally see the day of the light in 2021 as VanEck recently filed an application with the SEC. Notably, the SEC had earlier rejected several bitcoin ETF proposals (read: VanEck Files for a Bitcoin ETF All Over Again).
JP Morgan Chase & Co. said recently that the upsurge of cryptocurrencies in mainstream may replace gold. Bitcoin is likely to outdo gold as millennials will be playing an important role in driving the investment market in the long run given their preference for “digital gold” over traditional bullion, JPM indicated.
Investors are probably viewing it asa hedge against inflation and an alternative to the depreciating dollar, per market watchers. There have been about $7 billion outflows from gold and more than $3 billion of inflows into the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust, per a Reuters article.
However, JPM noted that the bitcoin price needs to soar fivefold (which results in $146,000) from here (market cap of $575 billion) to match the value of private gold wealth held in bars, coins or exchange-traded funds. However, the bank now sees chances of a $50,000 to $100,000 level of bitcoin, though it will likely remain unmaintainable due to extreme volatility.
Several central banks are considering the rollout of CBDCs lately. China has been taking serious moves toward no-touch payments. In efforts to match with China, seven major central banks last week set the key principles for issuing CBDCs, per Reuters. China's recent experimental $1.5 million (1.16 million pounds) giveaway of digital yuan to Shenzhen citizens received kudos from currency analysts.
Not only PBOC, other central banks are also walking the same path. Sweden’s Central Bank, Riksbank is conducting a pilot project with Accenture to prepare e-krona. The European Central Bank (ECB) is mulling over the rollout of a "digital euro" for the 19-nation currency club.
A digital, or virtual, euro would be an electronic version of euro notes and coins, it would be a legal tender and guaranteed by the ECB. On Oct 19, Jerome Powell, Chairman of the Board of Governors of the U.S. Federal Reserve, said that the Fed is committed to considering a CBDC but made no final call on it.
Though bitcoin ETFs are not available to investors, they have blockchain ETFs at their disposal. Per a source, “the blockchain in Bitcoin literally acts a ledger; it keeps track of the balances for all users and updates them as money changes hands.”
So, if investors cannot lay their hands on a bitcoin ETF now, they can definitely familiarize themselves with the concept through blockchain ETFs like likeAmplify Transformational Data Sharing ETFBLOK. ETFs offering exposure to the blockchain ecosystem via semiconductor companies that make chips for bitcoin mining (or could make for some potential CBDCs) can be played. The most-popular funds includeiShares PHLX Semiconductor ETFSOXX andVanEck Vectors Semiconductor ETFSMH.
Zacks’ free Fund Newsletter will brief you on top news and analysis, as well as top-performing ETFs, each week.Get it free >>
Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days.Click to get this free reportiShares PHLX Semiconductor ETF (SOXX): ETF Research ReportsVanEck Vectors Semiconductor ETF (SMH): ETF Research ReportsPayPal Holdings, Inc. (PYPL) : Free Stock Analysis ReportSquare, Inc. (SQ) : Free Stock Analysis ReportAmplify Transformational Data Sharing ETF (BLOK): ETF Research ReportsTo read this article on Zacks.com click here.Zacks Investment ResearchWant the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report
[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
None available.
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Trend: up || Prices: 34316.39, 34269.52, 33114.36, 33537.18, 35510.29, 37472.09, 36926.07, 38144.31, 39266.01, 38903.44
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Analyze the provided historical prices, technical indicators, news, and social media sentiment from the last 60 days. Based on this context, predict the overall trend (up, down, or no change) and the specific daily closing prices for Bitcoin for the next 10 days.
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[Technical Analysis for 2017-01-27]
BTC Price: 919.75, BTC RSI: 54.28
Gold Price: 1188.10, Gold RSI: 50.28
Oil Price: 53.17, Oil RSI: 54.55
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
6 ETF Trends Likely to Take Centre Stage in 2017: Donald Trump’s win as the U.S. President and the most sought-after OPEC output deal has actually set the tone of 2017 investing. Many are bullish on the prospect of oil price this year though rising U.S. supplies can anytime thwart the winning momentum in the oil patch. However, Trump-backed hopes are still in fine fettle.
Added to these, there are plenty of other events – across asset class and regions – that could prove to be game-changers this year. In view of this, we intend to highlight a few ETF trends that are likely to be prevalent in 2017:
Stocks to Be Bullish Overall
The year can be attributed to stocks. The first and foremost reason for it is an end to earnings recession. Earnings growth entered into the positive territory in Q3 of 2016 following five consecutive quarters of decline. For the upcoming Q4 earnings season, the S&P 500 is expected to score 3.3% earnings growth on 4.1% revenue growth.
Earnings for Q1 of 2017 are expected to surge 10.3% for the S&P 500 on 7.5% higher revenues, as per the Earnings Trends issued on January 4, 2017. The earnings growth trend is expected to stay firm even for Q2, Q3 and Q4 of this year with an expectation of 9.8%, 8.2% and 12.5% on revenue growth of 5.7%, 5.5% and 4.8% (read: Ten Predictions for the ETF Industry in 2017).
Along with earnings recovery, stabilization in the oil patch after a prolonged rout and a Trump-induced fiscal boost along with lower taxes should augur well for stocks this year. Still, withmarkets appearing overvalued by some measure and the President-elect Trump yet to roll out promised measures, cautious investors with a long-term notion can opt for value ETFs over growth. Investors should also note that a stronger U.S. dollar is likely to take some shine off the S&P 500 index as the components are heavily exposed to foreign currencies.
Investors should note thatSPDR S&P 500 Value ETFSPYV has a positive weighted alpha of 23.00 whileSPDR S&P 500 Growth ETFSPYG has it at positive 13.90. This indicates a higher growth potential in SPYV.
Currency-Hedged Foreign ETFs to Rule
The U.S. dollar is presently at a multi-year high on bets over faster Fed policy tightening and an improving U.S. economy. On the other hand, foreign economies are also gaining momentum. Business and consumer sentiments in the European Union are at about six-year highs. Business conditions in the Japanese economy are also improving.
An upside is more likely for European and Japanese stocks given the ultra-easy monetary policy over there, which will keep their currencies low against a soaring greenback and boost those economies.
As a result, currency-hedged ETFs likeWisdomTree Japan Hedged SmallCap Equity ETFDXJS,WisdomTree Japan Hedged Quality Dividend Growth ETFJHDG andO'Shares FTSE Europe Quality Dividend Hedged ETFOEUH will likely rule the year ahead.
More Factor-Based ETFs to Come On Line
Factor-based products have been quite a trend in 2016 as the fashion for plain vanilla ETFs is gone. Issuers are coming up with a more striking investment objective which can create a winning combination in the present investing environment. All in all, smart beta and multifactor ETFs will likely carry forward the legacy of the ETF world. An example of recently launched factor-based ETFs isALPS Dorsey Wright Sector Momentum ETFSWIN (read: 6 ETF Ideas Most Favored by Issuers in 2016).
More Players to Enter ETF Industry
Be it big banking giants or hedge fund managers, players are increasingly entering the ETF industry. We have already have seen J.P. Morgan and Goldman venturing into the ETF world and now Wells Fargo is also eyeing the space with its first-ever multi-factor ETF. Saba Capital Management, a New York-based hedge fund manager, is also planning to foray into the ETF space with an ETF related to closed-end funds.
Expense Ratio Cut
With rising competition among issuers for market share, expense ratios are increasingly being slashed. So long, Charles Schwab and Vanguard ruled the world of low-cost ETFs. But last year, BlackRock and Fidelity enacted steep fee cuts for several of their products. A new set of rules under the Department of Labor’s “fiduciary standard,” which asked advisors to give precedence to their client’s interest over their own also played a role in this burgeoning trend.
For example, BlackRock lowered fees for its S&P 500 tracking ETF,iShares Core S&P 500IVV, from 0.07% to 0.04%. The fee cut made IVV less expensive than other popular ETFs in its domain. Even a relatively new-comer like Hartford Funds, which launched Lattice Strategies and its ETF operations earlier in 2016, announced that it will lower the expense ratio on four of its smart-beta funds effective January 1 (read: Buy These ETFs as BlackRock Cuts Fees).
Bitcoin ETF to Hit the Market?
Even if we are yet to have a bitcoin ETF, one is expected to hit the market in 2017. Winklevoss Bitcoin Trust has filed for one to make it easy for investors to bet on this soaring digital currency. As per CNBC, “bitcoin is a very volatile asset” but doesn’t have a strong correlation with other classes. Bitcoin’s value beat the $900 mark in late December for the first time since February 2014 (Also read: Explaining Bitcoin and Crypto Currency).
India's demonetization also gave a boost to bitcoin trading volumes. Moreover, trading volumes in China have been solid with the government taking proactive measures against illegal money transfer. With this, investors expect to see an approval of the first bitcoin ETF in 2017.
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Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days.Click to get this free reportSPDR-SP5 VL (SPYV): ETF Research ReportsISHARS-SP500 (IVV): ETF Research ReportsWISDMTR-JP HSCF (DXJS): ETF Research ReportsOS-FT EUR QDH (OEUH): ETF Research ReportsWISTR-JP HQD (JHDG): ETF Research ReportsSPDR-SP5 GR (SPYG): ETF Research ReportsTo read this article on Zacks.com click here.Zacks Investment ResearchWant the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report || Hyperledger Wraps up 2016 By Welcoming Eight New Members: SAN FRANCISCO, CA--(Marketwired - December 28, 2016) -Hyperledger Project, a collaborative cross-industry effort created to advance blockchain technology, announced today that eight new members have joined the project to help create an open standard for distributed ledgers for a new generation of transactional applications. Last month, Hyperledgerannouncedit reached 100 active members in less than one year, a huge milestone for the open source project, hosted by The Linux Foundation.
"This year has been full of growth for the project," said Brian Behlendorf, Executive Director, Hyperledger. "Not only did we exceed 100 members, Hyperledger met significant development milestones thanks to the community's hard work. As 2016 was a year of exploration, R&D and prototyping, we're excited for 2017 to be the year we start to see case studies of the technology in production environments."
Hyperledger aims to enable organizations to build robust, industry-specific applications, platforms and hardware systems to support their individual business transactions by creating an enterprise grade, open source distributed ledger framework and code base. The latest members include: CA Technologies, Factom Foundation, Hashed Health, Koscom, LedgerDomain, Lykke, Sovrin Foundation and Swisscom.
New Member Quotes:
CA Technologies
"To compete today, every company needs to foster innovation that delivers real business value. Blockchain has the potential to disrupt the way many of CA's customers do business," said Otto Berkes, chief technology officer, CA Technologies. "We're honored to be a part of Hyperledger and look forward to collaborating with other members to help shape open standards for blockchain. It's an exciting time for this because blockchain is not just about Bitcoin anymore, and the range of potential applications with it is vast for of our customers. This partnership will help us influence what that future looks like for both CA and our customers as they embark on their digital transformation journey."
Factom Foundation
"We are honored to have been selected to join the Hyperledger Project," said Paul Snow, Founder, Factom Foundation. "We are looking forward to helping build the open source framework for securing data and systems with our blockchain solution."
Hashed Health
"Hashed Health is a healthcare technology innovation company focused on accelerating the commercialization of meaningful new blockchain and distributed ledger-based technologies," said John Bass, Hashed Health CEO. "Hashed is proud to be a member of the Hyperledger Project, sharing its commitment to creating the foundation for scalable, reliable blockchain solutions."
Koscom
"We consider blockchain technology as the next generation infrastructure in the Korean capital market. As an industry leader with 40 years' experience in the financial IT field, we are looking to leverage this industry disruptive technology," said Chung Youn Dae, CEO, Koscom. "We will constantly explore the ways to contribute to the blockchain ecosystem, as we collaborate with the Hyperledger community. We also hope to better serve out customers in a more secure and efficient way by integrating blockchain technology and our own Fintech platform."
LedgerDomain
"LedgerDomain delivers next generation supply chain solutions, harnessing permissioned blockchains to assure supply chain integrity and finished product authenticity through to the consumer for the benefit of all. This highly transparent, trustworthy approach is built upon an industrial-strength Hyperledger Fabric backbone," said Dr. Victor Dods, LedgerDomain. "We're proud to be a part of Hyperledger and its growing community."
Lykke
"We're looking forward to being part of the Hyperledger project," said Richard Olsen, Lykke founder and CEO. "Our company is building a digital asset exchange. Right now, we're implemented on the Bitcoin blockchain settlement layer, with Ethereum to come within the next few months, but our involvement with Hyperledger isn't just the next step forward. Providing decentralized settlement on the Hyperledger blockchain with multisignature wallets and atomic swap transactions will benefit both of our user communities."
Swisscom
"We are very proud to be Switzerland's first connection to Hyperledger," said Johannes Höhener, VP, Swisscom's Fintech Cluster. "We look forward to working with a highly professional community on cutting-edge blockchain developments. Our membership and participation will shape our capabilities to develop blockchain solutions -- for our clients and Switzerland."
The success of Hyperledger is due to the support of the developer community and member companies. Learn how your organization can contribute to the project here:https://www.hyperledger.org/about/join
About Hyperledger
The Hyperledger project is an open source collaborative effort created to advance cross-industry blockchain technologies. It is a global collaboration including leaders in finance, banking, Internet of Things, supply chains, manufacturing and Technology. The Linux Foundation hosts Hyperledger as a Collaborative Project under the foundation. To learn more, visit:www.hyperledger.org || Hyperledger Wraps up 2016 By Welcoming Eight New Members: SAN FRANCISCO, CA --(Marketwired - December 28, 2016) - Hyperledger Project , a collaborative cross-industry effort created to advance blockchain technology, announced today that eight new members have joined the project to help create an open standard for distributed ledgers for a new generation of transactional applications. Last month, Hyperledger announced it reached 100 active members in less than one year, a huge milestone for the open source project, hosted by The Linux Foundation. "This year has been full of growth for the project," said Brian Behlendorf, Executive Director, Hyperledger. "Not only did we exceed 100 members, Hyperledger met significant development milestones thanks to the community's hard work. As 2016 was a year of exploration, R&D and prototyping, we're excited for 2017 to be the year we start to see case studies of the technology in production environments." Hyperledger aims to enable organizations to build robust, industry-specific applications, platforms and hardware systems to support their individual business transactions by creating an enterprise grade, open source distributed ledger framework and code base. The latest members include: CA Technologies, Factom Foundation, Hashed Health, Koscom, LedgerDomain, Lykke, Sovrin Foundation and Swisscom. New Member Quotes: CA Technologies "To compete today, every company needs to foster innovation that delivers real business value. Blockchain has the potential to disrupt the way many of CA's customers do business," said Otto Berkes, chief technology officer, CA Technologies. "We're honored to be a part of Hyperledger and look forward to collaborating with other members to help shape open standards for blockchain. It's an exciting time for this because blockchain is not just about Bitcoin anymore, and the range of potential applications with it is vast for of our customers. This partnership will help us influence what that future looks like for both CA and our customers as they embark on their digital transformation journey." Story continues Factom Foundation "We are honored to have been selected to join the Hyperledger Project," said Paul Snow, Founder, Factom Foundation. "We are looking forward to helping build the open source framework for securing data and systems with our blockchain solution." Hashed Health "Hashed Health is a healthcare technology innovation company focused on accelerating the commercialization of meaningful new blockchain and distributed ledger-based technologies," said John Bass, Hashed Health CEO. "Hashed is proud to be a member of the Hyperledger Project, sharing its commitment to creating the foundation for scalable, reliable blockchain solutions." Koscom "We consider blockchain technology as the next generation infrastructure in the Korean capital market. As an industry leader with 40 years' experience in the financial IT field, we are looking to leverage this industry disruptive technology," said Chung Youn Dae, CEO, Koscom. "We will constantly explore the ways to contribute to the blockchain ecosystem, as we collaborate with the Hyperledger community. We also hope to better serve out customers in a more secure and efficient way by integrating blockchain technology and our own Fintech platform." LedgerDomain "LedgerDomain delivers next generation supply chain solutions, harnessing permissioned blockchains to assure supply chain integrity and finished product authenticity through to the consumer for the benefit of all. This highly transparent, trustworthy approach is built upon an industrial-strength Hyperledger Fabric backbone," said Dr. Victor Dods, LedgerDomain. "We're proud to be a part of Hyperledger and its growing community." Lykke "We're looking forward to being part of the Hyperledger project," said Richard Olsen, Lykke founder and CEO. "Our company is building a digital asset exchange. Right now, we're implemented on the Bitcoin blockchain settlement layer, with Ethereum to come within the next few months, but our involvement with Hyperledger isn't just the next step forward. Providing decentralized settlement on the Hyperledger blockchain with multisignature wallets and atomic swap transactions will benefit both of our user communities." Swisscom "We are very proud to be Switzerland's first connection to Hyperledger," said Johannes Höhener, VP, Swisscom's Fintech Cluster. "We look forward to working with a highly professional community on cutting-edge blockchain developments. Our membership and participation will shape our capabilities to develop blockchain solutions -- for our clients and Switzerland." The success of Hyperledger is due to the support of the developer community and member companies. Learn how your organization can contribute to the project here: https://www.hyperledger.org/about/join About Hyperledger The Hyperledger project is an open source collaborative effort created to advance cross-industry blockchain technologies. It is a global collaboration including leaders in finance, banking, Internet of Things, supply chains, manufacturing and Technology. The Linux Foundation hosts Hyperledger as a Collaborative Project under the foundation. To learn more, visit: www.hyperledger.org || 10 things you need to know before the opening bell: Breathing fire (A Houthi militant displays his skills during a parade held by newly recruited Houthi fighters before heading to the frontline to fight against government forces, in Sanaa, Yemen.Reuters/Khaled Abdullah) Here is what you need to know. Friday is jobs day in America . The US economy is expected to have added 170,000 nonfarm jobs as the unemployment rate ticked up to 7.4%, according to a survey of economists by Bloomberg. Additionally, average hourly earnings are anticipated to have climbed 2.8% year-over-year. The data will cross the wires at 8:30 a.m. ET. A new king of auto sales has been throned in China . Honda saw sales surge 24 percent YoY to 1.25 million vehicles in 2016, surpassing rival Toyota as the number one automaker in China, Reuters says. Australia's first recession in 25 years could be on hold . The country recorded a surprise trade surplus in November, the first since March 2014, and if repeated in December it is expected to add enough to fourth quarter growth to prevent the first recession since 1991. The Australian dollar is little changed at .7341 against the dollar. A second Scottish referendum isn't happening . Prime minister Nicola Sturgeon has abandoned her plans to hold a second referendum to keep Scotland in the European Union, saying that she has accepted "reality." The British pound is down 0.3% at 1.2364 versus the dollar. Bitcoin is crashing again . The cryptocurrency crashed as much as 23% on Thursday, touching a low of $888.99 per coin before finishing the day near $968. Selling has picked back up on Friday with bitcoin lower by 13.5% at $886. Frontier Airlines is planning to go public . The low-cost carrier has hired Deutsche Bank, JPMorgan, and Evercore to help with its initial public offering, the New York Times says. There's finally some good news from the retail sector . Gap announced sales at stores that have been open at least one year rose by 4% versus a year ago, compared to the 1.7% drop that analysts were anticipating, and raised its full-year profit forecast. Shares traded higher by as much as 10% in Thursday's after hours session. Story continues US mall vacancies were flat in the fourth quarter . Vacancies held at 7.8%, Reuters reports, citing data compiled by Reis. Stock markets around the world are mostly lower . China's Shanghai Composite (-0.4%) lagged in Asia and France's CAC (-0.5%) trails in Europe. The S&P 500 is on track to open higher by 0.2% near 2,268. US economic data is heavy. Aside from the jobs report, the trade balance will be released at 8:30 a.m. ET and both factory orders and durable goods orders will cross the wires at 10 a.m. ET. The Baker Hughes rig count will be announced at 1 p.m. ET. The US 10-year yield is up 1 basis point at 2.35%. More From Business Insider Former CIA director James Woolsey has split with Trump, 'effective immediately' Learning Excel isn't just for finance professionals — here's how it can boost anyone's productivity at work Here's a super-quick guide to what traders are talking about right now || Bitcoin extends losses, slides another 12 pct on China warning: LONDON, Jan 6 (Reuters) - Bitcoin plunged another 12 percent on Friday after China's central bank urged investors to take a rational approach to the digital currency, which has is on track for its heaviest two-day falls in two years.
Bitcoin had gained more than 40 percent in two weeks to hit a three-year high of $1,139.89 on Wednesday, just shy of its all-time record of $1,163 on the Europe-based Bitstamp exchange .
But the digital currency - which has shown an inverse correlation to the Chinese yuan in recent months - plunged as the yuan soared on Thursday, falling as much as 20 percent at one point, before closing the day around 10 percent down on the day.
On Friday it fell to $887, having lost almost a quarter of its value since Wednesday's peak.
Bitcoin prices had showed abnormal fluctuations, the Shanghai head office of the People's Bank of China (PBOC) said in a notice. It stressed bitcoin is not a currency and cannot be circulated as a real currency in the market.
(Reporting by Jemima Kelly; editing by Sujata Rao) || First Bitcoin Capital Acquires Large Stake in One of the Oldest Mineable Cryptocoins Ranked High on Coin Market Cap; Also, Company’s Digital Shares Are Now Listed on Two International Cryptocurrency Exchanges: VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESSWIRE / November 30, 2016 / First Bitcoin Capital Corp. ( BITCF ) is pleased to announce that it has sold its Venezuela mining concessions for a large stake in the cryptocurrency of one of the oldest mineable coins that ranks high on Coin Market Cap. See: http://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/kilocoin/ . Kilocoin which is similar to Litecoin primarily trades on a popular cryptocurrency exchange at https://c-cex.com/?p=klc-btc A list of its nodes can be found via https://c-cex.com/?id=ws&shownodes=klc Kilocoin mining can be tracked at https://www.blockexperts.com/klc# From its web site via http://kilocoin.com/ their wallet can be downloaded. At its current rate of mining (159 coins per block) it should take centuries to reach the maximum of 25,000,000,000 mineable coins with a little over 10,000,000,000 coins mine thus far, giving BITCF nearly 10% participation. The Company anticipates that the KLC exchange will boost BITCF's balance sheet with tremendous upside potential and may become a source of future dividends. Differences from Bitcoin and Litecoin and Kilocoin Bitcoin Litecoin Kilocoin Coin limit 21 Million 84 Million 25 Billion Algorithm SHA-256 Scrypt Scrypt Mean block time 10 minutes 2.5 minutes 5 minutes Difficulty Target 2016 Block 2016 Blocks 288 Blocks Initial Reward 50 BTC 50 LTC 159 KLC Current block reward 25 BTC 50 LTC 159 LTC Block explorer blockchain.info block-explorer.com https://www.blockexperts.com/klc# Created by Satoshi Nakamoto Charles Lee Kilocoin, Inc (DAC) Creation date January 3, 2009 October 7, 2011 Feb 27th, 2014 Coins Mined (as of 8 April 2015) 14,029,116.67 37,984,800 10,013,105,152 Furthermore, in conjunction with BITCF's expanding ownership of its common shares onto its own blockchain (BIT) and trading on foreign international cryptocurrency exchanges, the company is proud to announce that its digital shares are now trading on an additional, popular cryptocurrency exchange, LIVECOIN www.livecoin.net . Story continues About the company: First Bitcoin Capital is engaged in developing digital currencies, proprietary Blockchain technologies, and the digital currency exchange- www.CoinQX.com . We see this step as a tremendous opportunity to create further shareholder value by leveraging management's experience in developing and managing complex Blockchain technologies, developing new types of digital assets. "Being the first publicly-traded cryptocurrency and blockchain-centered company (with shares both traded in the US OTC Markets as [BITCF] and as [BIT] in crypto exchanges) we want to provide our shareholders with diversified exposure to digital cryptocurrencies and blockchain technologies." At this time the Company owns and operates the following digital assets. www.BITCoinCapitalcorp.com company website. www.CoinQX.com Cryptocurrency Exchange, registered with FINCEN. www.iCoiNEWS.com real time cryptocurrency and bitcoin news site. www.BITminer.cc providing mining pool management services. www.2016coin.org online daily election coverage and home page for $PRES, $HILL and $GARY $BURN coins. Forward-Looking Statements Certain statements contained in this press release may constitute "forward-looking statements." Forward-looking statements provide current expectations of future events based on certain assumptions and include any statement that does not directly relate to any historical or current fact. Actual results may differ materially from those indicated by such forward-looking statements as a result of various important factors as may be disclosed in company's filings. In addition to these factors, actual future performance, outcomes, and results may differ materially because of more general factors including (without limitation) general industry and market conditions and growth rates, economic conditions, and governmental and public policy changes. The forward-looking statements included in this press release represent the Company's views as of the date of this press release and these views could change. However, while the Company may elect to update these forward-looking statements at some point in the future, the Company specifically disclaims any obligation to do so. These forward-looking statements should not be relied upon as representing the Company's views as of any date subsequent to the date of the press release. Such forward-looking statements are risks that are detailed in the Company's filings, which are on file at www.OTCMarkets.com . SOURCE: First Bitcoin Capital Corp. || Bitcoin jumps above $1,000 for first time in three years: By Jemima Kelly LONDON (Reuters) - Digital currency bitcoin kicked off the new year by jumping above $1,000 for the first time in three years late on Sunday, having outperformed all central-bank-issued currencies with a 125 percent climb in 2016. Bitcoin - a web-based "cryptocurrency" that has no central authority, relying instead on thousands of computers across the world that validate transactions and add new bitcoins to the system - jumped 2.5 percent to $1,022 on the Europe-based Bitstamp exchange, its highest since December 2013. Though the digital currency has historically been highly volatile - a tenfold increase in its value in two months in late 2013 took it to above $1,100, before a hack on the Tokyo-based Mt. Gox exchange saw it plunge to under $400 in the following weeks - it has in the past two years been more stable. Its biggest daily moves in 2016 were around 10 percent, still very volatile compared with fiat currencies, but markedly lower than the trading of 2013, which saw daily price swings of as much as 40 percent. Bitcoin may have been boosted in the past year by increased demand in China on the back of a 7 percent annual fall in the value of the yuan in 2016, the Chinese currency's weakest showing in over 20 years. Data shows most bitcoin trading is done in China. Bitcoin is used to move money across the globe quickly and anonymously and does not fall under the purview of any authority, making it attractive to those wanting to get around capital controls, such as China's. It is also may appeal to those worried about a lack of supply of cash, such as in India, where Prime Minister Narendra Modi removed high-denomination bank notes from circulation in November. "The growing war on cash, and capital controls, is making bitcoin look like a viable, if high risk, alternative," said Paul Gordon, a board member of the UK Digital Currency Association and co-founder of Quantave, a firm seeking to make it easier for institutional investors to access digital currency exchanges. Though bitcoin is still some way off the all-time high of $1,163 that it reached on the Bitstamp exchange in late 2013, there are now more bitcoins in circulation - 12.5 are added to the system every 10 minutes. Its total worth is at a record-high above $16 billion, putting its value at around the same as that of an average FTSE 100 company. (Reporting by Jemima Kelly; Editing by Peter Graff) || Bill Gates' Stock Portfolio: - By Ben Reynolds (Published Jan. 20 by Bob Ciura) Bill Gates ( Trades , Portfolio ) is the richest man in the world. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has a massive $18.5 billion endowment. Warning! GuruFocus has detected 4 Warning Sign with BRK.A. Click here to check it out. BRK.A 15-Year Financial Data The intrinsic value of BRK.A Peter Lynch Chart of BRK.A That kind of wealth is something of which the vast majority of us can only dream. However, there is one similarity between the everyday investor and the wealthiest person on the planet: We're all looking for good stocks to buy and hold for the long term. Gates is a personal friend of Warren Buffett ( Trades , Portfolio ) so it's no surprise to see the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation take a similar approach to investing as the Oracle of Omaha. You can see Buffett's top 20 high-yield dividend stocks analyzed here. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation owns several highly profitable companies with sustainable competitive advantages. Many of the stocks also pay dividends to shareholders and grow their dividend payouts over time. Without further ado, here are the top 16 stocks held by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. No. 1: Berkshire Hathaway Dividend yield: N/A. Percentage of Gates' portfolio: 58%. Price-earnings (P/E) ratio: 17. Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (NYSE:BRK.A)(NYSE:BRK.B) stock takes up the majority of Gates' investment portfolio, and it is easy to see why. It's safe to say the money is in good hands. Berkshire, under Buffett's stewardship, grew from a struggling textile manufacturer into one of the largest conglomerates in the world. Since Berkshire's current management team took the helm 51 years ago, the company's per-share book value rose from $19 to $155,501, a rate of 19.2% compounded annually. Today, Berkshire is a global giant. It owns and operates dozens of businesses with a hand in nearly every major industry including insurance, railroads, energy, finance, manufacturing and retailing. Story continues A breakdown of Berkshire's various operating segments is as follows: Sales and Services (51% of revenue). Insurance Premiums (20% of revenue). Railroad, Utilities, and Energy (19% of revenue). Interest, Dividend, and Other Investment Income (2% of revenue). Financial Product Sales (3% of revenue). Investment and Derivatives (5% of revenue). In Berkshire's annual letters to shareholders, Buffett typically evaluates the company's performance in terms of book value. Book value is an accounting metric that measures a company's assets minus its liabilities. The resulting difference is a company's book value. This is a proxy for the intrinsic value of a firm, which Buffett believes to be the most important financial metric. Over the past five years, Berkshire has done a great job growing assets faster than liabilities, which builds shareholder wealth. BRKA Growth Source: 2015 Annual Report, page 36 Berkshire doesn't pay a dividend to shareholders. Buffett and his partner Charlie Munger (Trades, Portfolio) have always contended that they can create wealth at a higher rate than the dividend would provide to shareholders. There are few managers who can say that and get away with it, but Buffett and Munger might be the only two who can. While Berkshire stock may not be attractive for investors who want dividend income, there are few companies that have a track record nearly as successful as Berkshire. No. 2: Waste Management Dividend yield: 2.4%. Percentage of Gates' portfolio: 6.5%. P/E ratio: 27. Waste Management Inc. ( WM ) is the embodiment of a company with a wide economic moat. It operates in waste removal and recycling services. This is a highly concentrated industry with only a few companies controlling the majority of the market. Waste Management services many different industry groups, which are organized as follows: Collection (55% of revenue). Landfill (19% of revenue). Transfer (9% of revenue). Recycling (8% of revenue). Other (9% of revenue). The company is performing well. Over the first three quarters of 2016, revenue and earnings per share increased 3.6% and 8.8%. Waste Management operates in a stable and necessary industry. Waste removal is extremely capital intensive and is subject to significant regulatory oversight. These competitive advantages allow Waste Management to generate steady profits even when the U.S. economy enters recession. WM Essential Source: JPMorgan Industrials Conference presentation, page 14 Waste Management's high margins and consistent cash flow put the company in a strong financial position. It has reduced its debt significantly in the past several years. WM Debt Source: JPMorgan Industrials Conference presentation, page 17 With less debt to worry about, there is more cash flow left over each year. It uses this cash flow to invest in the business and for shareholder cash returns. WM Capital Allocation Source: JP Morgan Industrials Conference presentation, page On Dec. 15, the company raised its dividend by 4% and added $750 million to its share repurchase program. Waste Management is a Dividend Achiever. Dividend Achievers are companies that have raised dividends for 10 years or more. You can see the entire list of all 272 Dividend Achievers here. For its part, Waste Management has increased its dividend for 14 consecutive years. The stock currently has a 2.5% dividend yield. Waste Management isn't a cheap stock. Its share price has soared over the past several years. But it still has an above-average dividend yield, and the company is growing. No. 3: Canadian National Railway Dividend yield: 1.6%. Percentage of Gates' portfolio: 6.1%. P/E ratio: 20. Canadian National Railway ( CNI ) is the only transcontinental railway in North America. It has a massive network, which includes more than 19,000 miles that spans Canada and the U.S. CNI Network Source: Investor Presentation, page 7 The company offers a full range of services including rail, intermodal, trucking, warehousing and distribution. Canadian National has an excellent business. From 2011 to 2015, it grew revenue and adjusted earnings per share at a 9% and 16% compound annual rate. It generated this growth from executing a number of operational strategies. First, it placed focus on improving productivity. CNI Productivity Source: Investor Presentation, page 9 This has allowed the company to boost volumes and revenue. Furthermore, Canadian National produces industry-leading margins, thanks to its lean cost structure. CNI Cost Source: Investor Presentation, page 12 One factor negatively impacting the company right now is that it is exposed to commodities, specifically coal. Coal revenue declined 32% in the third quarter, year over year. Moreover, revenue for energy and mining fell 13% and 20% last quarter. That being said, the company's diverse customer base and operational excellence more than offset the declines in its commodity-based segments. Canadian National's operating expenses declined 7% last quarter. Operating ratio reached a record 53.3% last quarter. Free cash flow over the first three quarters of 2016 remained steady with the same nine-month period in 2015. The company expects to post flat adjusted earnings per share in 2016. This in itself would be a notable accomplishment given the steep declines in oil and coal shipments. With its hefty margins, Canadian National generates significant cash flow, and its shareholder-friendly management actively deploys this cash flow to investors. Dividends per share have nearly doubled in that same five-year period. The company is one of the best dividend growth stocks in Canada. Canadian National certainly isn't a flashy business. Railroads may be overlooked by many investors for being boring, but Canadian National's shareholder returns prove that boring can be beautiful. No. 4: Caterpillar Dividend yield: 3.3%. Percentage of Gates' portfolio: 5.4%. P/E ratio: 31 (forward P/E ratio). Caterpillar ( CAT ) is a strong brand with a dominant industry position. It manufactures heavy machinery, mostly to the construction and mining sectors. 2016 was a year to forget for Caterpillar. The sharp downturn in precious metals prices weighed heavily on demand for heavy machinery. For example, Caterpillar's earnings per share fell by nearly half in the third quarter. CAT Third Quarter Source: Credit Suisse Industrials Conference presentation, page 4 Separately Caterpillar is being negatively impacted by slowing growth in emerging markets and the strong U.S. dollar. As a result, full-year revenue is expected to decline 29% in 2016. These headwinds are expected to persist in 2017 although there is potential for a recovery. CAT Forecast Source: Credit Suisse Industrials Conference presentation, page 7 Fortunately, there may be a light at the end of the tunnel. There are hopes that Caterpillar will return to growth in 2017. One catalyst could be a renewed emphasis on fiscal stimulus in the U.S. The incoming administration may pursue policies to stimulate the U.S. economy. This could include more infrastructure spending and perhaps a push for more lax regulations on the energy and mining industries, which are among Caterpillar's biggest customers. Separately higher commodity prices would be a major boost. In the meantime, investors are paid well to wait for Caterpillar's turnaround to materialize, and the company enjoys economies of scale. This provides it with the financial flexibility to cut costs so that it can maintain its dividend. Caterpillar forecasts over $1 billion in cost savings this year alone, mostly in manufacturing and headcount reductions. The company may not raise its dividend until economic conditions improve, but its solid 3.3% dividend yield is secure. No. 5: Walmart Stores Dividend yield: 3%. Percentage of Gates' portfolio: 4.5%. P/E ratio: 15. Walmart is another great example of a company with durable competitive advantages. It is the largest retailer in the world with annual revenue of approximately $500 billion. The company came to dominate the retail industry by keeping a laserlike focus on reducing costs everywhere, particularly in supply chain and distribution. This allowed Walmart to offer consistently lower prices than its competitors ever could. In turn, it steadily devoured market share until it became the giant it is today. Walmart's growth has slowed over the past year. The company is investing billions to pay higher wages, and renovate its stores. This will limit Walmart's earnings growth. As a result, some might assume Walmart's best days are behind it. After all, a behemoth as large as Walmart will naturally have difficulty continuing to grow at a rapid pace. But there are still growth catalysts for the company to look forward to, specifically in e-commerce and small stores. Walmart acquired Jet.com for $3 billion to boost its e-commerce business, especially in emerging markets like China. WMT Jet Source: Investor Community Meeting presentation, page 4 E-commerce revenue growth accelerated throughout the year. In the third fiscal quarter, e-commerce sales increased 20.6% year over year. Domestic growth is starting to pick up again, thanks to e-commerce and also Walmart's small-store franchise. The company's Neighborhood Markets small-store banner grew comparable sales by 5.2% last quarter, well above the 1.2% companywide growth rate. Walmart remains highly profitable and very resistant to recessions. Consumers tend to scale down to discount retail when times are tight, which is why Walmart continued to grow, even during the Great Recession. This allows Walmart to pay a solid 3% dividend yield and raise its dividend each year like clockwork. Walmart has raised its dividend for 43 years in a row. Its long history of dividend growth qualifies Walmart as a Dividend Aristocrat, a group of companies in the Standard & Poor's 500 that have raised dividends for at least 25 consecutive years. You can see the entire list of all 50 Dividend Aristocrats here. The stock has an appealing P/E ratio of 14. No. 6: Ecolab Dividend yield: 1.3%. Percentage of Gates' portfolio: 2.9%. P/E ratio: 32. Ecolab ( ECL ) is a commercial cleaning products firm. It operates in three segments: Global Industrial (36% of revenue). Global Institutional (35% of revenue). Global Energy (23% of revenue). Other (6% of revenue). The Other category includes pest elimination and equipment care. The Global Industrial group provides water treatment, cleaning and sanitation services to large industrial firms. The industrial customer base is made up primarily of food and beverage, manufacturing, chemical and mining companies. The Global Institutional business services specialized products and services to the foodservice, hospitality, lodging, health care and retail industries. This segment manufactures products for things like laundry and housekeeping. The Global Energy segment holds the company's Nalco brand. Nalco provides chemical and water treatment services to the oil and gas industry. Going forward, Ecolab is focusing on international growth. Expanding in new markets has been a core priority for the company in recent years. Nearly half the company's revenue comes from outside the U.S. One of the best aspects of Ecolab's business is its consistency. Providing cleaning products and services is a steady business. Customers need Ecolab's services, regardless of the condition of the U.S. economy. This means Ecolab is a recession-resistant business. In fact, the company grew earnings per share each year from 2007 to 2010. It didn't skip a beat, even during the worst recession since the Great Depression. Its reliable earnings growth allows the company to raise its dividend each year. In fact, Ecolab has paid a dividend for 80 years without interruption. It raises its dividend regularly. The company recently passed along a 6% dividend increase, marking its 25th consecutive year of dividend increases. Ecolab qualifies as a Dividend Aristocrat. The stock has a dividend yield of just 1.2%, which is on the low side. Its valuation is a bit high with a P/E ratio above 30. Investors may want to wait for a better buying opportunity, but Ecolab is a high-quality company. It is the largest operator in its industry, which provides competitive advantages. No. 7: FedEx Dividend yield: 0.9%. Percentage of Gates' portfolio: 2.9%. P/E ratio: 27. FedEx ( FDX ) is yet another example of a company with a strong economic moat. It operates in global logistics, essentially an oligopoly. It would be extremely difficult financially for a company to build out a fleet large enough to compete on the scale of FedEx. FedEx generates more than $50 billion in annual revenue. It has more than 400,000 employees and services more than 220 nations and territories around the world. The company has a diversified business model. It operates the following four segments: Express (52% of revenue). Ground (33% of revenue). Freight (12% of revenue). Services (3% of revenue). FedEx maintains a modest outlook for the global economy going forward. Economic growth is expected to be weak but remain positive. One growth catalyst that will help fuel future growth is FedEx's booming ground business, thanks to e-commerce. FDX Ground Source: Roadshow Presentation, page 8 FedEx notes the e-commerce market is growing at a 16% annual rate. Plus the company has captured additional revenue market share gains in ground shipping for 17 consecutive years. In addition, the company is countering sluggish global economic growth by cutting costs. Margins are up consistently over the past several years. FDX Margins Source: Roadshow Presentation, page 5 One downside for FedEx is that it has a very low dividend yield of less than 1%. It yields less than half the 2% average yield in the S&P 500. The company helps make up for this with dividend growth. For example, it raised its dividend by 60% in 2016. While FedEx might not be an appealing stock to income investors, it is a high-quality company with a strong business model. Earnings per share are expected to rise 21% in fiscal 2016. With this kind of earnings growth, FedEx stock can generate more than satisfactory returns, even without a significant dividend yield. No. 8: Crown Castle International Dividend yield: 4.3%. Percentage of Gates' portfolio: 2.7%. P/E ratio: 17. Crown Castle International Corp. ( CCI ) is a real estate investment trust (REIT). It provides infrastructure assets to wireless communications carriers. It has approximately 40,000 towers and 26,500 route miles of fiber supporting small cells. The company operates in an appealing area because wireless communications is a growth industry. U.S. consumers can't do without their smartphones, and Crown Castle is one of the companies reaping the benefits. Crown Castle has been investing additional capital in its infrastructure in several major U.S. markets. One example is Chicago. CCI Chicago Source: 3Q Earnings presentation, page 4 This investment across the U.S. was done to accommodate higher demand for wireless services, and the investment has paid off with strong growth rates. It is enjoying higher occupancy and rising rents as well. Revenue and adjusted funds from operation (FFO) increased 6% and 17% in the third quarter. Management has an optimistic forecast for the next two years based on strong growth for the wireless industry. Higher leasing rates and price increases should fuel solid growth in 2016 and 2017. Revenue is expected to increase 7% in 2016 and 3% in 2017. Adjusted FFO is expected to grow 10% this year and 6% in 2017. One consideration for investors going forward is the risk of rising interest rates. REITs like Crown Castle rely heavily on debt financing. When interest rates rise, so too does the cost of capital. This could inhibit the company's growth in future quarters. Still, the company operates in an industry with healthy fundamentals. It should be able to continue growing above its cost of capital and create wealth for shareholders. Crown Castle is a strong stock for dividends and dividend growth. Its current yield exceeds 4%, and it recently raised its dividend by 7%. No. 9: United Parcel Service Dividend yield: 2.7%. Percentage of Gates' portfolio: 2.7%. P/E ratio: 21. The global logistics industry is dominated by three companies. FedEx is one, and so is UPS. In fact, UPS is the industry leader; its market capitalization is $100 billion, which is double FedEx's market cap. Like FedEx, UPS is benefiting from e-commerce. UPS' domestic package revenue increased 4.8% in the third quarter year over year. This drove 3.6% earnings per share growth for the period. Another emerging growth catalyst for UPS is international growth. UPS International Source: R.W. Baird 2016 Industrials Conference, page 9 UPS is growing international revenue and a rapid pace, and it has significantly improved margins in its overseas operations. For example, UPS' international segment now represents 28% of its operating profit, up from just 6% in 2000. Lastly, UPS plans to grow through acquisitions. The company recently acquired Marken, a supply chain solutions provider to the life sciences industry. UPS Marken Source: R.W. Baird 2016 Industrials Conference, page 5 The acquisition further diversifies UPS' customer base by expanding its presence in health care and pharmaceutical logistics. One concern for investors in 2017 is the risk of global recession. UPS is widely viewed as an economic bellwether. Global uncertainty levels rose as 2016 drew to a close. If the economy enters recession in 2017 or beyond, it would significant affect UPS. Barring a global recession, UPS has a positive outlook. UPS stock is reasonably valued and has a solid dividend. The stock has a P/E ratio of 20. It is cheaper than the S&P 500, which has an average P/E ratio of 26. UPS stock has a 2.7% dividend yield. This is a big advantage over main rival FedEx, which has a much smaller dividend yield. UPS has a long history of paying consistent dividends. It has either increased or maintained its cash dividend for 47 years. Its dividend has risen more than fourfold since 2000. No. 10: Coca-Cola FEMSA SAB Dividend yield: 3%. Percentage of Gates' portfolio: 2.5%. P/E ratio: 28. Coca-Cola FEMSA ( KOF ) produces, markets and distributes Coca-Cola ( KO ) beverages. It offers the full line of sparkling and still beverages. It sells its products through distribution centers and retailers in Mexico, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, Colombia, Venezuela, Brazil, Argentina and the Philippines. Coca-Cola FEMSA is the largest franchise bottler in the world. The stock is an excellent way to gain exposure to two appealing emerging markets: Latin America and South Asia. KOF Markets Source: Investor Kit presentation, page 2 These markets are growing at high rates for the company. Over the first nine months of 2016, total revenue and operating cash flow rose 7.8% and 6.6%. Revenue growth was driven largely by price increases. Coca-Cola FEMSA is in a strong financial position with low levels of debt and positive free cash flow. In addition, carrying the Coca-Cola brand allows it to generate high margins and enjoy pricing power. KOF Financials Source: Investor Kit presentation, page 23 This allows the company to consistently raise its dividend each year. One risk factor on which investors should keep an eye going forward is a potential change in consumer preferences. Coca-Cola FEMSA sells and distributes water and noncarbonated beverages, but more than 75% of the company's annual sales come from carbonated soft drinks. The emerging markets are high-growth economies with expanding middle classes. Citizens are enjoying rising standards of living. Once these markets become more mature, there could be a risk of consumers changing their dietary habits. Soda sales have declined in the U.S. for more than a decade. Coca-Cola's growth is struggling from this trend, which could become a challenge for Coca-Cola FEMSA moving forward. That being said, Coca-Cola FEMSA is still firmly in high-growth mode. No. 11: Grupo Televisa SAB Dividend Yield: 0.5%. Percentage of Bill Gates (Trades, Portfolio)' Portfolio: 2.3%. P/E ratio: 31 (Forward P/E). Grupo Televisa SAB (TV) is a diversified media conglomerate. In all, Televisa operates 26 pay-TV brands and television networks, cable operators and over-the-top services in over 50 countries. In the U.S., it operates Univision. In addition, Televisa owns a majority interest in Sky, a satellite television provider in Mexico, the Dominican Republic and Central America. Televisa also has operations in magazine publishing, radio broadcasting, professional sports, live entertainment, film production and gaming. It operates four business segments: Content (36% of revenue). Sky (22% of revenue). Cable (33% of revenue). Other (9% of revenue). The company is enjoying strong growth, thanks largely to high economic growth in Mexico and several Latin American markets. In 2015, net sales and segment operating income increased 9.9% and 10.6%. Growth has continued in 2016. Net sales and segment operating income rose 6.6% and 4.1% in the third quarter. The company's strongest businesses are Sky, Cable and Other, each of which posted double-digit revenue growth in the third quarter. Content segment revenue was flat in the third quarter although it did see 20% growth in network subscription revenue. However, this was offset by declines in advertising and licensing. The licensing business was affected by difficult comparisons. For example, licensing revenue fell 10% last quarter for Univision, since the comparable 2015 quarter included a major soccer tournament in Mexico. Televisa is a strong brand and has a fundamental advantage, thanks to its geographic focus. As a result, it is a compelling growth stock, for investors interested in international diversification. While it does not pay much of a dividend to shareholders, Televisa's return potential is still significant, thanks to its rapid growth. No. 12: Walgreens Boots Alliance Dividend yield: 1.8%. Percentage of Gates' portfolio: 1.5%. P/E ratio: 22. It is no surprise to see Walgreens Boots Alliance (WBA) on the list of Gates' holdings because it is an industry giant. Walgreens Boots Alliance came together in the $9 billion merger of Walgreens and Alliance Boots in 2014. The merger was a great move for the two companies. Walgreens is the biggest pharmacy operator in the U.S., and Alliance Boots was a top European pharmacy and distributor. When the two joined forces, it allowed the combined company to reach a global scale. Walgreens Boots now has three separate businesses, each of which are very large: Retail Pharmacy USA ($83.8 billion in annual sales, 70% of revenue). Retail Pharmacy International ($13.3 billion in annual sales, 11% of revenue). Pharmaceutical Wholesale ($22.6 billion in annual sales, 19% of revenue). The company performed well in fiscal 2016. Revenue and earnings per share, adjusted for currency and non-recurring costs, increased 16% and 18%. It is off to a good start in fiscal 2017 as well, thanks largely to the U.S. retail pharmacy operation. That segment posted 2.5% growth in pharmacy sales and 3% prescription growth in the 2017 first fiscal quarter. Going forward, Walgreens Boots intends to invest more in its beauty departments to help drive higher traffic. WBA Pharmacy Source: Q1 2017 Earnings presentation, page 8 There could be more transformational deals in the near future. The company has a pending deal to acquire fierce competitor Rite Aid Corp. (RAD) for $17 billion. Walgreens Boots has a below-average dividend yield, and the P/E ratio significantly exceeds the retail industry average. One of Buffett's favorite sayings is that price is what you pay, value is what you get. Walgreens Boots enjoys several competitive advantages, high profit margins and a strong brand. These qualities make it a valuable stock to own as part of a dividend growth portfolio. No. 13: Liberty Global Group Dividend yield: N/A. Percentage of Gates' portfolio: 1%. P/E ratio: 23. Liberty Global (LBTYA) is the largest international television and Internet provider. In all, the company operates in 30 countries and generates more than $20 billion in annual revenue. The company and its various subsidiaries provide service to 29 million customers. Its core brand in Europe is Virgin Media. It also has the Ziggo, Unitymedia, Telenet and UPC brands. Liberty Global is split up into two businesses, which are Liberty Global Group and LiLAC. Liberty Global includes its European operations, and LiLAC houses its Latin America and Caribbean business. Each segment - Liberty Global Group and LiLAC - have three share classes each. This share class corresponds to the Liberty Global Group. The European economy is on shaky ground broadly speaking with weak economic growth and the uncertainty presented by the Brexit vote. But television and Internet is a growth industry because of the low levels of market penetration. There are still many parts of Europe with untapped growth potential. In turn, Liberty Global is rapidly adding customers. LBTYK Customer Source: Q3 Earnings Presentation, page 5 Year-to-date additions rose 50% through the third quarter. As far as future growth is concerned, there is plenty of runway left. Liberty expects to add more than 5 million new households from 2016 to 2018. This aggressive expansion will require significant capital investment. The company plans to spend $2 billion over the next two years to build up its customer base, but the payoff is growth. LBTYK Europe Source: Q3 Earnings Presentation, page 15 Liberty Global realized growth in revenue and cash flow over the first three quarters of 2016. Growth accelerated as the year went by with the fourth quarter expected to be the highest-growth period for the year. The company is investing large amounts of capital. There will be little cash flow to spare over the next two years, which is why the stock does not pay a dividend. Investors looking for income may want to select a different telecom stock that pays dividends, and there are many to choose from. But Liberty Global could conceivably start paying a dividend at some point in the not-too-distant future, once its aggressive expansion period ends. In the meantime, the stock is reasonably valued and could generate double-digit earnings growth. Revenue is growing at a high rate, and Liberty Global will use more than $2 billion to buy back stock next year. This earnings growth means investors can earn satisfactory returns moving forward even without the benefit of a dividend. No. 14: AutoNation Dividend yield: N/A. Percentage of Gates' portfolio: 0.5%. P/E ratio: 13. AutoNation Inc. (AN) is America's largest automotive retailer. It owns and operates over 360 new vehicle franchises in 16 states. The company operates five segments: AN Segments Source: 2015 Annual Report, page 5 AutoNation has been successful growing the business over the past five years. From 2011 to 2015, sales and earnings per share increased by 8.5% and 15% per year. The company has benefited greatly from a strong operating environment. Auto sales are near a record, driven by attractive product offerings, access to affordable credit thanks to low interest rates and lower fuel prices. The market climate is supportive of auto sales, which is why new and used vehicle sales both increased 9% for AutoNation in 2015. Going forward, the company is in the process of rolling out its Brand Extension strategy. This involves further expanding its stand-alone preowned vehicle sales and service centers, branded parts and accessories, branded collision centers and its auto auction businesses. To help accomplish this, AutoNation recently announced the acquisition of three Premium Luxury franchises, one collision center and three Premium Luxury franchise add points. The assets acquired hold combined annual revenue potential of at least $430 million. Separately, the company is building its digital channel platform AutoNation Express. Digital channel sales now account for nearly 30% of vehicle sales. AutoNation does not pay a dividend, but it does return cash to shareholders through stock buybacks. The company has $316 million left on its current share price authorization, which amounts to approximately 6% of its market capitalization. All things being equal, AutoNation's buybacks will boost earnings per share by an additional 6% over the next year. The stock is cheap at a P/E ratio of 13. As a result, the combination of earnings growth and expansion of the valuation multiple, could lead to double-digit annualized returns going forward. No. 15: Liberty LiLAC Group Dividend yield: N/A. Percentage of Gates' portfolio: 0.16%. P/E ratio: 23. This share class corresponds to Liberty Global's LiLAC (LILAK) operating segment. LiLAC includes Liberty Global's Latin America and Caribbean businesses under the brands VTR, Flow, Liberty, Mas Movil and BTC. These are currently a small part of the overall business. LiLAC represents approximately 13% of Liberty Global's total annual revenue, but there is a lot of growth potential up ahead. LiLAC is poised to become a much bigger part of the company going forward as a result of the 2016 acquisition of Cable & Wireless Communications. The $7.4 billion deal added more than 10 million new customers in Latin America and the Caribbean. The CWC acquisition presents cost synergy opportunities. LILAC Synergies Source: Q3 Earnings Presentation, page 12 As a result, LiLAC's year-to-date revenue and operating cash flow doubled year over year through the third quarter. Another growth catalyst for LiLAC is to increase bundling of services. Nearly half of LiLAC's customers purchase only one service. The company will seek to expand on this moving forward. LILAC Bundling Source: Investor relations Bundling services is lucrative for telecommunications providers, which is why the practice is so common in the U.S. Liberty Global has a much higher percentage of triple-play customers in Europe, and it has served the company well. Like Liberty Global, LiLAC uses its cash flow to reinvest in the business and support its balance sheet. It does not pay a dividend. That being said, LiLAC also offers investors attractive return potential, from its future revenue and earnings growth. The company expects to increase operating cash flow by 7% to 9% each year over the next few years. No. 16: Arcos Dorados Holdings Dividend yield: N/A. Percentage of Gates' portfolio: 0.1%. P/E ratio: 18. Last but not least is Arcos Dorados (ARCO). Investors might not immediately recognize Arcos Dorados by its name, but they will certainly understand its business. Arcos Dorados is a holding company. Collectively, it is the largest McDonald's (MCD) franchisee in the world in terms of number of restaurants. It has the exclusive right to own and operate McDonald's restaurants in 20 Latin American and Caribbean countries and territories. In all, it operates or franchises over 2,100 McDonald's restaurants. Its geographic split is as follows: Brazil (45% of revenue). South Latin America Division (28% of revenue). Caribbean (14% of revenue). North Latin America Division (13% of revenue). Many of the countries in which Arcos Dorados operates are emerging markets. For example, sales in South Latin America and the Caribbean rose 24% and 27.6% through the first nine months of 2016. One downside for Arcos Dorados investors is that the stock does not pay a dividend. This might seem like a deal breaker since McDonald's itself is a legendary dividend stock. The upside for Arcos Dorados is that it is growing much faster than McDonald's. For example, on a constant-currency basis, revenue rose 15.3% in the third quarter. Some of this growth was due to aggressive new restaurant openings. In the past four reported quarters, Arcos Dorados opened 33 new restaurants and 133 Dessert Centers. Comparable-restaurant sales, a key metric for restaurant chains that measures growth at locations open at least one year, increased 11.3% last quarter. Double-digit comparable sales growth is virtually unheard of in the U.S. Overall adjusted EBITDA grew 24% last quarter. ARCO EBITDA Source: Q3 Results, page 3 A key factor boosting EBITDA is that, even with sales growing at a rapid pace, Arcos Dorados kept general and administrative costs flat. This indicates the company is doing a very good job boosting productivity. Disclosure: I am not long any of the stocks mentioned in this article. Start a free seven-day trial of Premium Membership to GuruFocus. This article first appeared on GuruFocus . Warning! GuruFocus has detected 4 Warning Sign with BRK.A. Click here to check it out. BRK.A 15-Year Financial Data The intrinsic value of BRK.A Peter Lynch Chart of BRK.A || Forget about Dow 20K: Bitcoin's about to hit $1,000: Bitcoin, the controversial digital currency, is on its way to a major milestone thanks to a confluence of positive factors.
With just a couple trading days left in the year, bitcoin(Exchange: BTC=)looks poised to break the $1,000 barrier — quite an achievement for a product considered close to dead not that long ago amid a series of embarrassing headlines. The price has surged 122 percent in 2016, making it one of the top trades of the year.
The increase has been driven by a number of factors.
China and India both have been big buyers as part of a broader global landscape that has pushed bitcoin's acceptance further along. Chinese investors have bought bitcoins as the yuan has lost its value, while the surge in India has been driven thanks to the government's decision to retire some currency denominations.
"It is one tool that many people around the world use to try to preserve wealth," said Nick Colas, chief market strategist at Convergex who writes a widely followed daily newsletter that was likely the first on Wall Street to discuss bitcoin several years ago. "Bitcoin has gone from being just a nerd's version of gold years ago to now being another thing people do to try to hold onto their wealth."
Indeed, the total value of bitcoins in circulation now is about $15.5 billion, based on more than 16 million bitcoins.
Bitcoin has been one of the investment stories of the year. Only two stocks in the S&P 500(INDEX: .SPX)— Nvidia(NASDAQ: NVDA)and Oneok(NYSE: OKE)— have delivered better returns. No nonleveraged exchange-traded fund has beaten bitcoins, with the SPDR S&P Metals & Mining(NYSE Arca: XME)fund coming closest with a 110 percent gain this year. Of currency trades, the best has been the euro's 16 percent gain against the British pound.
Still, mainstream acceptance remains elusive and investors shy away due to the cryptocurrency's volatility.
"Not yet," Colas said when asked if bitcoin had achieved legitimacy as a system of payment or currency. "It will be mainstream when you can walk into a bank and order a bitcoin account. We're not close to that yet."
Still, both usage and acceptance are growing, even if still not widespread.
Some 45,000 businesses now accept bitcoins as payment, according to Coinbase. Among them are Dell, PayPal and Time. In a recent Twitter exchange with users, Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky said he was surprised by the demand for bitcoin payment integration for the peer-to-peer lodging app. (An active Reddit forumon the topic opened earlier this week.)
Bitcoin prices fell in morning trade Thursday, though it continued to flirt with a record high.
While Wall Street waits for the Dow(Dow Jones Global Indexes: .DJI)to top 20,000, bitcoin eclipsing $1,000 could well come first.
"It's hard to say what was the breakthrough year or if we've had a breakthrough year yet," Colas said. "Certainly in price terms, this has been a pretty impressive year. But in terms of broad mass market adoption, it's still to come."
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• Personal Finance || Flow Signs Iconic Caribbean Comedian -- Majah Hype: MIAMI, FL--(Marketwired - Jan 6, 2017) - The Caribbean's iconic comedy star,Majah Hype, is now aFlow Brand Ambassador.
This internationally-recognized comedian is known for his infectious online videos, many of which have become viral sensations depicting hilarious Caribbean characters, including favourites "Di Rass," "Grandpa James" and "Sister Sandrine."
Majah is more than just 'hype.' A Caribbean artist at heart, he identifies with the islands, and has taken on the task of "unifying the people of the region as one" with his own unique brand of comedy. His act, he says, serves as a means of breaking down national barriers and bringing people together with relatable content.
Passionate about connecting Caribbean and diaspora audiences, Majah epitomizes the spirit, energy and dynamism of theFlowbrand and its mission of connecting communities... transforming lives.
Majah Hype joins Flow's impressive cadre of internationally recognized sports, music and entertainment Brand Ambassadors.
Check out Majah Hype onlineand be among the first to like and share his upcoming Flow sketches. You deserve a rip-roaring laugh and he is very much worth the hype!
About C&W Communications
CWC is a full-service communications and entertainment provider and delivers market-leading video, broadband, telephony and mobile services to consumers in 18 countries. Through its business division, CWC provides data center hosting, domestic and international managed network services, and customized IT service solutions, utilizing cloud technology to serve business and government customers.
CWC also operates a state-of-the-art submarine fiber network -- the most extensive in the region -- in over 30 markets.
Learn more atwww.cwc.com, or follow C&W onLinkedIn,FacebookorTwitter.
About Liberty Global
Liberty Global is the world's largest international TV and broadband company, with operations in more than 30 countries across Europe, Latin America, and the Caribbean. We invest in the infrastructure that empowers our customers to make the most of the digital revolution. Our scale and commitment to innovation enable us to develop market-leading products delivered through next-generation networks that connect our 29 million customers who subscribe to over 59 million television, broadband, internet, and telephony services. We also serve 11 million mobile subscribers and offer WiFi service across seven million access points.
Liberty Global's businesses are comprised of two stocks: the Liberty Global Group (NASDAQ:LBTYA) (NASDAQ:LBTYB) (NASDAQ:LBTYK) for our European operations, and the LiLAC Group (NASDAQ:LILA) and (NASDAQ:LILAK) (OTC PINK:LILAB), which consists of our operations in Latin America and the Caribbean.
The Liberty Global Group operates in 12 European countries under the consumer brands Virgin Media, Ziggo, Unitymedia, Telenet and UPC. The LiLAC Group operates in over 20 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean under the consumer brands VTR, Flow, Liberty, Mas Movil and BTC. In addition, the LiLAC Group operates a subsea fiber network throughout the region in over 30 markets.
For more information, please visitwww.libertyglobal.com.
Image Available:http://www2.marketwire.com/mw/frame_mw?attachid=3096510Image Available:http://www2.marketwire.com/mw/frame_mw?attachid=3096512
[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
MMMBTC || btchip: I'm quite open to consider what other teams are offering, but there isn't much choice yet. sic. https://www.reddit.com/r/btc/comments/5j2snb/eli5_why_is_it_good_that_the_core_developers_who/dbddujw?context=3 … || 3 Major Bitcoin Platforms in Philippines, Efficiency Comparison Test https://t.co/aBwqqrx4KT || #BTC is $731.00 http://bit.ly/1LfnSIe || MMMBTC || Bloomberg Report: Bitcoin Topped All Other Currencies In 2016 http://dlvr.it/MvhgK9 pic.twitter.com/nFK8ss3eeG || Can #bitcoin Assist Venezuela’s Crumbling Financial system? https://news.82bitcoin.com/2016/12/19/can-bitcoin-help-venezuelas-crumbling-economy-58 … #ResidualBitcoin || MMMBTC || MMMBTC || GeoCoin-GEO|Strength Index 11.4%|BTC:0.00004939|Cap 96135.0|1h -1.06%|24h -41.75%|7d -32.69%
|
Trend: up || Prices: 921.59, 919.50, 920.38, 970.40, 989.02, 1011.80, 1029.91, 1042.90, 1027.34, 1038.15
|
Analyze the provided historical prices, technical indicators, news, and social media sentiment from the last 60 days. Based on this context, predict the overall trend (up, down, or no change) and the specific daily closing prices for Bitcoin for the next 10 days.
|
[Technical Analysis for 2019-08-23]
BTC Price: 10407.96, BTC RSI: 47.14
Gold Price: 1526.60, Gold RSI: 71.62
Oil Price: 54.17, Oil RSI: 44.92
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
A Shipping ETF Has Been Quietly Outperforming: This article was originally published onETFTrends.com.
A dry bulk shipping-related exchange traded fund has been cruising under the radar, quietly outperforming on expectations of a favorable resolution to the ongoing trade war and a turnaround in the global economy.
TheBreakwave Dry Bulk Shipping ETF (BDRY) has jumped 16.2% over the past week and surged 59.3% over the past three months. In comparison, the S&P 500 Index gained 2.9% over the past week and increased 4.8% in the past three months.
Shipping prices have been steadily strengthening on back-to-back gains. The Baltic Dry Index rose for 15 consecutive days. The index is comprised of the Capesize, Panamax and Supramax Timecharter Averages and acts as a proxy for dry bulk shipping stocks as well as a general shipping market bellwether.
The steady gains in the Baltic Dry Index reflect higher prices across the Capesize, Panamax and Supramax sub-indices that measure different sizes of carries or merchant ships.
Shipping rates across both hemispheres have exhibited strength throughout the week and demand for iron ore has boosted rates for larger vessels, according toSeekingAlpha.
"Considering that the BDI tends to reflect Chinese resource demand in real time, there would appear to be a good likelihood that commodity supply-demand will take a turn for the better, at least versus May-June," Nomura strategist Masanari Takada said. "The BDI does have a seasonal tendency to improve in July, but the pace of improvement this time around is quite marked."
The Breakwave Dry Bulk Shipping ETF tires to provide exposure to the daily changes in the price of dry bulk fright futures by tracking three-month strip of the nearest calendar quarter of futures contracts on specified indexes that measure rates for shipping dry bulk freight. Specifically, the Benchmark Portfolio includes 50% exposure in Capesize Freight Futures contracts, 40% exposure in Panamax Freight Futures contracts and 10% exposure in Supramax Freight Futures contracts, according to the fund prospectus sheet.
BDRY achieves "direct exposure to shipping rates, which can move significantly. Volatility in rates offers a potentially attractive uncorrelated source of return. Unlike shipping equities, BDRY offers direct exposure to freight futures eliminating equity market risk, company-specific risk, potential dilution, etc.," according to BreakWave Advisors.
For more information on alternative strategies, visit ouralternatives category.
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READ MORE AT ETFTRENDS.COM > || Bitcoin Price Could See $20K in Two Weeks - $100K This Year, Predicts Market Analyst: Bitcoin (BTC) prices could match their all-time high of $20,000 within the next two weeks — and could hit $50,000 or $100,000 by the end of the year, eToro analyst Simon Peters claimed on June 26.
According to Peters, it took 7 to 14 days for BTC to reach the record figure of $20,000 when it was last at $11,800.
He cautioned that his short-term prediction is based on the assumption that bitcoin maintains its current parabolic trajectory.
Peters believes this rally is different from past surges because it hasn’t been accompanied by a spike inGooglesearches for “buy bitcoin” — indicating that the capital entering the market is coming from institutions and investors who had previously parked their funds instablecoins.
On whether the surge is sustainable, Peters added:
“With the number of sell positions building in the market it's possible we could see a correction very soon. Even if that was the case though, bitcoin continues to remain on track to close out the first half of the year on a highly positive note. We could see bitcoin reaching $50,000 or even $100,000 this year.”
The analyst went on to note that BTC’s gains are at the expense ofaltcoins, some of which are being “pummeled” as they languish at significant lows.
Bitcoin’s parabolic advancecontinuedpast $12,000 on June 26 — the first time thecryptocurrencyhas hit this figure in over a year.
Data fromCoinMarketCapalsosuggestsBTC has surpassed 60% market dominance for the first time since April 2017, with a capitalization of $226 billion.
• Twitter Founder Jack Dorsey Expounds on Planned Crypto Team
• Square Rolls Out Bitcoin Deposits for Cash App to General Public
• Deutsche Bank: ‘Aggressive’ Central Banks Making Bitcoin More Attractive
• Grand Theft Crypto: The State of Cryptocurrency-Stealing Malware and Other Nasty Techniques || Binance unveils long list of potential tokens to offer on U.S. exchange: Binance might be havingtrouble with hackers abroad, but it’s coming out swinging in the U.S.
The U.S. division of the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange by volumetoday revealedthe extensive list of assets that the company is considering listing on its platform.
In a statement to its users, the company said that it has adopted a Digital Asset Risk Assessment Framework, designed to “help select bona fide blockchain projects with a real chance of making the world more efficient, to provide transparency in our listing standards, and to ensure Binance US’s compliance with applicable legal requirements.”
All in all, Binance US is currently evaluating 30 token projects for inclusion on its exchange: ADA, ATOM, BAT, BCHABC, BNB, BTC, DASH, EOS, ETC, ETH, HOT, IOTA, LINK, LOOM, LTC, MANA, NANO, NEO, PAX, REP, RVN, TUSD, USDC, USDT, VET, WAVES, XLM, XRP, ZIL, ZRX.
Interestingly, Binance’s statement indicates that crypto trading staples, such asBitcoinandEthereum, are still being evaluated “to ensure they meet our listing criteria for Binance US.” The same is true of even the company’s own token, BNB.
The criteria laid out in the company's risk assessment framework places a strong emphasis on the importance of evaluating the way in which each token that the exchange lists “will affect Binance US’s ability to comply with applicable legal requirements,” including securities laws.
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, after all,does not play around. After waging a number ofhigh-profile civil enforcement actionsagainstvarious crypto startupsover alleged violations of federal laws, the SEC has made it clear that it will bring down the hammer on anyone shilling tokens that regulators believe qualify as securities. And,according to statementsfrom SEC Chairman Jay Clayton and Director William Hinman, that means just about any token could potentially land in the SEC’s crosshairs—with the exception of Bitcoin and, possibly, Ethereum.
The result has been a massive chilling effect on the crypto market with regard to the sale of these blockchain-based digital assets—which may or may notactually be a good thing, depending on who you ask.
That chill, however, appears to be beginning to thaw.
Binance’s announcement today indicates that it is at leastconsideringlisting a number of tokens which could ultimately be considered securities under U.S. federal law, including assets such asRipple’s XRPandNANO, which are still battling class-action lawsuits from investors that allege precisely that.
In doing so, Binance appears to be taking apage from Coinbase’s book. The San Francisco-based Coinbase, firmly entrenched as the leading crypto exchange in the U.S., has been moving quickly since last December to list a number of new assets—possibly in anticipation of Binance’s American foray—including a number of tokens whose regulatory statuses are similarly in question.
In fact, Binance US’s Digital Asset Risk Assessment Framework mirrors Coinbase’s own Digital Asset Framework in more than just name—even if Coinbase’s criteria is far more detailed, compared to what Binance has thus far made public.
Still, it’s clear that the race is on to give the crypto-adoring public what they want—more tokens in which to trade and invest. But with many of the token projects up for consideration still left wondering if an enforcement action from the SEC might be imminent, the newfound attention from being listed on a big-time exchange such as Binance US or Coinbase—once thought to make or break a token’s future—may end up being less blessing and more curse. || BitForex Trading Championship - 15,000 USDT Prize Pool: NEW YORK, NY / ACCESSWIRE / July 2, 2019 / BitForex unveils the launch of their new perpetual contract simulation program following a string of critical success in Korea, which includes BitForex CEO Garrett Jin's appearance alongside South Korean Prime Minister Lee Nak-yeon at the K.E.Y Platform summit 2019 in Seoul. BitForex places itself ahead of the curve by announcing a new perpetual trading derivatives program, set to launch soon. Users will be able to participate in a testing phase using virtual BTC and real market data to try out the system before its official launch in early July. In addition to using real-market data with virtual coins to create a no-risk environment for traders to gain experience, BitForex has organized an impressive 15,000 USDT prize pool to entice participants with the thrill of competing on leaderboards for real-world prizes. A perpetual contract is a futures contract that does not make a final delivery and is a financial derivative. From a trading perspective, it is similar to a traditional futures contract. For the digital asset investment market, it is a suitable product for mass-market crypto traders, and conforms to the concept of decentralization of blockchain assets. In 2016, BitMex first officially proposed their concept for perpetual contracts in crypto, and launched their BTC sustainability contract soon after. Since this, the transaction volume of perpetual contracts has been on the rise. Even in a market with poor overall volume, BitMex's perpetual contract has maintained a steady growth trend. In 2018, OKEx started offering similar services on BTC and ETH. Currently, BitMex and OKEx are the two largest companies in the cryptocurrency exchange industry - no other cryptocurrency exchanges had followed suit until BitForex. With its large Asian and South-East Asian userbase, BitForex's token liquidity puts it in a unique position to bring a new service to users who may not have had access to it previously, effectively cornering a sector of the market. Story continues BitForex is inviting all users to register for the trial, which will see all participants granted 10 virtual BTC for testing the system with (or aggressively compete on the leaderboards) - a risk-free way for users to get comfortable with a new system. "We are doing our best to make this as accessible to all traders as we can. Cryptocurrency trading can seem daunting at first, so the test phase represents not only an opportunity for us to work out any potential kinks in the system before the official launch, but also serves as a chance for users to try their hand at perpetual contracts without the fear of losing their tokens due to inexperience. As an extra bonus, we're putting up 15,000 USDT in prizes to make things a little more interesting for our users" - Garrett Jin, BitForex CEO & Founder. To learn mo re about BitForex, or to sign up and start trading, follow the link below: Register Find us on: www.bitforex.com Catch all the latest BitForex news: blog.bitforex.com About BitForex BitForex is a global Top 10 cryptocurrency exchange dedicated to providing 3+ million users with safe, professional, and convenient digital currency trading services. BitForex is leading the trend of the cryptocurrency exchange industry by effectively providing a wide range of trading tools including token trading, margin trading, and derivatives - constantly adapting to new market needs with the continuous introduction of new features. BitForex is Headquartered in Hong Kong, and operational teams in South Korea, Singapore, the U.S., and more. press@bitforex.com SOURCE: BitForex View source version on accesswire.com: https://www.accesswire.com/550601/BitForex-Trading-Championship--15000-USDT-Prize-Pool || Digital Asset Research predicts Bitcoin will hit $60,000 in May 2020: Cryptocurrency-focused research company, Digital Asset Research, has released a new bitcoin price prediction model based on scarcityi.e. how few bitcoins there are left to be mined . The model estimates that Bitcoin's price could reach as high as $60,595 by May 2020, nearly six times its current value of $10,670. This would place Bitcoin's market capitalization at almost $1.25 trillion. The prediction model is largely based on extrapolating Bitcoin's previous price performanceinto the future. Another key factor the report says will determine price is Bitcoin's block reward halvingsthe next of which is due in 2020. As the reward for mining blocks is cut in half, the price of Bitcoin is due to go up. While the report assumes that history will repeat itself almost perfectly, it did provide an interesting insight into Bitcoin's behavior of the past few years. Digital Asset Research found that the Bitcoin price tends to peak about a third of the way through each halving reward cycleeach peak beating the previous. If this were to continue, this means that Bitcoin would find its eventual ceiling sometime in September 2021surpassing the $60,595 number it quoted originally. The report however, didn't speculate on what that upper ceiling might be to bitcoin's price. But obviously, this would require a large inflow of moneyperhaps $1 trillionto enter the market, to boost prices. Digital Asset Research speculates that it could come from investors looking to hedge against government currencies. This has been widely discussed in crypto media, with many suggesting that a U.S.-China trade war or further geopolitical tensions in Hong Kong could drive investors towards Bitcoin. However, as we saw recently, when the Dow Jones crashedmoney came out of the market, showing that Bitcoin might be seen as a more risky, volatile asset rather than a safe haven . The prediction model was generated using Bitcoin market data, with additional market insight borrowed from price analyst Plan B (@100trillionUSD on Twitter), who previously highlighted the link between Bitcoin's value and its scarcity. Digital Asset Research plans to revise the model as new information or market functions become apparent, to improve its accuracy over time. || Square Is Expanding Access to Bitcoin Deposits for Cash App Users: UPDATE (June 26, 2019 17:50 UTC):Cash Appformally announcedthat customers can deposit bitcoin directly to their accounts on Wednesday.
Payments company Square is rolling out bitcoin deposits for its mobile Cash App.
The app, available on both Android and iOS, now supports deposits for at least some users, according toTwitter posts by bitcoinersand a check by a CoinDesk reporter of his own Square account Tuesday. Previously, users could purchase or sell bitcoin, as well as transfer the cryptocurrency to another wallet.
Related:Above $13K: Bitcoin’s Price Extends 2019 Gains to New 17-Month High
Square first began allowing select Cash App users to purchase and sell bitcoinin November 2017, announcing afew months laterthat it would roll that feature out to all users.
It is unclear how long Square has been adding the deposit feature; as of press time, not every Cash App user had the ability to deposit bitcoin.
Podcaster Marty Benttweeted a screenshotindicating he could accept deposits on June 18, suggesting that the company may be releasing this feature to a select audience in advance of a full lunch.
According toa support pageon Square’s website, “support for bitcoin deposits to third-party wallets is coming soon.”
Related:Bitcoin’s Price Is Up 43% in 7 Days as Bull Frenzy Grips Market
“In the meantime, you can transfer profits from selling bitcoin to any bank account or debit card linked to your Cash App,” the page says.
The company itself has been investing heavily into bitcoin and its ecosystem, bringing in$65.5 million in revenuethrough the world’s largest cryptocurrency by market cap in the first quarter of 2019 alone (though the actual profit was a more modest $832,000).
Square Crypto, the company’s new bitcoin-focused arm, is also hiring developers to specifically develop tools for thebitcoin blockchain. FormerGoogle director Steve Leewas recently named as the first new hire for this team, though his role has not yet been specified.
Square CEOJack Dorsey– who also founded the social media giant Twitter – has long been a proponent of the cryptocurrency, having said in the past that he expects it to becomethe world’s currency.
Square did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Image via CoinDesk archives
• Bitcoin Price Hits 17-Month High Above $12.9K
• Tim Draper Is Bullish On Argentina’s Blockchain Tech Potential || The Crypto Daily – The Movers and Shakers – 19/08/19: Bitcoin rose by 0.99% on Sunday. Partially reversing a 1.36% fall from Saturday, Bitcoin ended the day at $10,332.2.
A bearish start to the day saw Bitcoin slide to an early morning intraday low $10,086 before finding support.
Steering clear of the first major support level at $9,989.77, Bitcoin bounced back to an early afternoon intraday high $10,533.
Driven by a broad-based crypto rally, Bitcoin broke through the first major resistance level at $10,480.47.
Unable to break out from $10,500 levels last struck on Friday, Bitcoin eased back to $10,300 levels late in the day.
Sunday’s gain was not enough to reverse a particularly bearish week, however. Bitcoin ended the week down by 10.74%.
For the bulls, the extended bullish trend remained intact in spite of the weekly loss. Bitcoin closed out the week above the 38.2% FIB of $9,734. More importantly, Bitcoin last visited sub-$9,000 levels back in mid-June, holding well above the 62% FIB of $7,245.
Across the rest of the top 10 cryptos, it was a sea of green for the majors.
Leading the way on the day were Monero’s XMR and Ripple’s XRP, which rallied by 7.36% and 6.88% respectively.
Litecoin (+4.99%), Ethereum (+4.93%), Tron’s TRX (+4.65%), and Stellar’s Lumen (+4.56%) also saw solid gains on the day.
Trailing the pack, however, were Binance Coin and Bitcoin Cash SV, which saw more modest gains of 1.60% and 1.90% respectively.
In spite of the Sunday bounce-back, the majors saw heavy losses for the week. Litecoin lead the way down, Monday through Sunday, sliding by 15.09%. Also joining Bitcoin with double-digit losses were Tron’s TRX and EOS, which fell by 14.03% and 12.18% respectively.
For the week, Bitcoin Cash SV (-5.97%), Bitcoin Cash ABC (-5.32%) and Monero’s XMR (-3.95%) saw the most modest losses.
The total crypto market cap fell back from $299.98bn last Monday to a week low $253.51bn on Thursday before partially recovering. At the time of writing, the total market cap stood at $270.27bn.
In spite of Bitcoin’s heavy loss in the week, Bitcoin’s dominance managed to hold onto 68% levels…
At the time of writing, Bitcoin was down by 0.16% to $10,316. A mixed start to the day saw Bitcoin rise from an early morning low $10,280 to a high $10,342.7 before easing back.
Bitcoin steered clear of the major support and resistance levels early on.
Elsewhere, it was red across the crypto-board for the majors.
Monero’s XMR led the way down, falling by 2.19%, with Ripple’s XRP down by 1.07%.
Bitcoin would need to hold onto $10,300 levels to support a run at the first major resistance level at $10,548.13.
Support from the broader market would be needed, however, for Bitcoin to break out from $10,400 levels.
In the event of a broad-based crypto recovery, the first major resistance level at $10,548.13 and Sunday’s high $10,533 would likely cap the upside.
Failure to hold onto $10,300 levels could see Bitcoin slide deeper into the red.
A fall through to $10,250 levels would bring the first major support level at $10,101.13 into play.
Barring an extended sell-off through the day, Bitcoin should steer clear of sub-$10,000 levels.
In the event of a sell-off, expect Bitcoin to test the second major support level at $9,870 before any recovery.
Thisarticlewas originally posted on FX Empire
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• U.S. Dollar Index Futures (DX) Technical Analysis – Needs Weaker Euro to Sustain Rally into 98.70 || Bitcoin SV (BSV) Pumps 21% After Surprise Mention on Joe Rogan: Bitcoin SV makes a brief impromptu appearance on the Joe Rogan podcast. Or did it? The value of Bitcoin SV (BSV) rebounded 21% on Friday morning, fresh off the back of a surprise mention on the Joe Rogan Experience. BSVs gains outpaced the broader market, which rebounded 10% just hours after $83 billion exited the cryptocurrency market in a flash. Bitcoin SV
Maybe? During episode #1318 of the JRE podcast with prominent Twitter personality Hotep Jesus, the subject of Bitcoin SV popped up. As part of a larger conversation about the monopolous power of centralized social media platforms, attention turned to the revolutionary potential of blockchain. Producer of the Joe Rogan podcast, Jamie Vernon (Young Jamie), briefly mentioned the efforts of a friend who is attempting to host podcasts on the blockchain. That blockchain isnt the PewDiePie fronted DLive , nor the veteran blockchain social media network, Steem . But according to Young Jamie, it might be Bitcoin SV. My friend uploaded an MP3 to the
BSV network maybe? Its just very confusing
It might not be BSV, I might be wrong
Read the full story on CCN.com . || Venezuelans can now shop with crypto, including BTC and BNB, at retailer Trakis 49 stores: Traki, one of the largest chains of department stores in Venezuela, is now accepting payments in ten cryptocurrencies and tokens, including bitcoin (BTC) and Binance coin (BNB), at its 49 retail stores. Singapore-based blockchain startup, Pundi X, has enabled its point-of-sale (PoS) device XPOS across Trakis 49 stores for the initiative, according to an announcement Thursday. Through the device, Traki customers can now purchase everyday essentials with ten cryptocurrencies and tokens - bitcoin (BTC), ether (ETH), Binance coin (BNB), DAI stablecoin, Digix gold token (DGX), NEM (XEM), KuCoin Shares (KCS), Kyber Network (KNC), and Pundi X's own two tokens - NPXS and NPXSXEM. Venezuelas hyperinflation situation and lack of cash make cryptocurrencies a necessary form of commercial trade, and a perfect way to protect the value of liquid assets, said Pundi X. Retailers in over 30 countries, including Argentina, Australia, South Africa and Uganda, use XPOS device, Pundi X said, adding that it aims to roll out 100,000 devices to the global retail market by 2021. Back in October, Pundi X also revealed a blockchain phone called XPhone, which is expected to ship in Q4 of this year to pre-order customers, according to information on its website. || U.S Mortgage Rates – Slide Back as the Markets Price in a FED Rate Cut: Mortgage rates were back on the slide in the week ending 25thJuly. Reversing a 6 basis point fall in the week ending 18thJuly, 30-year fixed rates fell by 6 basis points to 3.75%.
The pullback left 30-year rates close to the lowest level since late 2016 according to figures released byFreddie Mac.
Compared to this time last year, 30-year fixed rates were down by 79 basis points.
More significantly, 30-year fixed rates are down by 119 basis points since last November’s most recent peak of 4.94%.
Freddie Mac noted that purchase application demand has risen steadily over the last 2-months to the highest year-on-year change since 2017. Purchase applications have continued to find support from mortgage rates that have hovered close to 3-year lows.
Key stats out of the U.S through the 1sthalf of the week were on the heavier side.
June existing-home sales and new home sales had a muted impact on U.S Treasury yields on the week. Of greater significance was a pickup in service sector activity. Stagnation in the U.S manufacturing sector somewhat muted the impact of the pickup in service sector activity.
According to prelim July Markit PMI numbers, service sector PMI rose from 51.5 to 52.2. The manufacturing sector PMI, however, fell from 50.60 to 50.0, leaving the composite up by just 0.1 point to 50.6.
While the pickup in service sector activity was key, market sentiment towards the economic outlook and monetary policy remained the key driver.
The markets have priced in a July rate cut by the FED next week that pinned back mortgage rates in the week.
The weekly average rates for new mortgages as of 25thJuly were quoted byFreddie Macto be:
• 30-year fixed rates decreased by 6 basis points to 3.75% in the week. Rates were down from 4.54% from a year ago. The average fee slipped from 0.6 to 0.5 points.
• 15-year fixed rates fell by 5 basis points to 3.18% in the week. Rates were down from 4.02% from a year ago. The average fee held steady at 0.5 points.
• 5-year fixed rates slipped by 1 basis point to 3.47% in the week. Rates were down by 40 basis points from last year’s 3.87%. The average fee held steady at 0.4 points.
For the week ending 19thJuly,rateswere quoted to be:
• Average interest rates for 30-year fixed, backed by the FHA, decreased from 4.01% to 3.98%. Points increased from 0.28 to 0.31 (incl. origination fee) for 80% LTV loans.
• Average interest rates for 30-year fixed with conforming loan balances decreased from 4.12% to 4.08%. Points decreased from 0.38 to 0.33 (incl. origination fee) for 80% LTV loans.
• Average 30-year rates for jumbo loan balances decreased from 4.07% to 4.04%. Points increased from 0.21 to 0.25 (incl. origination fee) for 80% LTV loans.
Weekly figures released by the Mortgage Bankers Association showed that the Market Composite Index, which is a measure of mortgage loan application volume, decreased by 1.9% in the week ending 19thJuly. The fall followed on from a 1.1% decline in the week ending 12thJuly.
The Refinance Index decreased by 2% in the week ending 19thJuly, reversing a 2% rise in the week ending 12thJuly.
The share of refinance mortgage activity decreased from 50.0% to 49.8%, partially reversing a rise from 48.7% to 50.0% in the week prior.
According to the MBA, mortgage activity was lower in spite of rates falling across the board in the week. Refinance activity was also lower, though government refinance applications were on the rise, supported by a 12% jump in FHA applications.
The MBA also noted that mortgage rates are comparable to the average rate of 4.10% in June, while refinances last week were 7% lower than the previous month. The numbers suggest that the market sees rates lower for longer, with borrowers needing a bigger fall to consider refinancing.
It’s a busy first half of the week ahead.
The FED’s preferred June Core PCE Price Index figures are due out on Tuesday. June personal spending and July consumer confidence figures will also influence yields early on in the week.
The focus will then shift to July’s ADP nonfarm employment change numbers due out on Wednesday.
Of greater influence on the week, however, will be the FED’s interest rate decision and FOMC statement.
The markets have priced in a 25 basis point rate cut. The FED will need to deliver along with a dovish statement to pin mortgage rates back.
Earnings season will continue to, not only influence market risk appetite, but also sentiment towards this week’s FED,
On the geopolitical front, the U.S – China trade talks resume at the start of the week, which will also have an impact on yields. There’s also tension in the Middle East to consider…
Thisarticlewas originally posted on FX Empire
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[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
@p9j_v @nazo_desuyo @zagirzafet @miyabi_airdrop @airdropfromtana @apmobs Congratulations on Your Win!
Invite more Friends to Join PI at https://t.co/sXMiV1x0XZ
#CryptoGiveaway #Giveaway #Selfdrop #EMPR #Bitcoin #Tron #cryptocurrency
#crypto #cryptocurrencies #cryptoexchange #btc #blockchain #bounty
#airdrop #altcoin #ico #token #mining #eth https://t.co/nugkVgZOxv || @diegogurpegui Jajajajajajaja AY EL NIÑO BITCOIN || Get a chance to win 1000$ btc here at captain bitcoin https://t.co/R5AAxHnu4y
#BBNajia #bbnaija19 #bitcoin #cryptocurrency #Crypto #giveaway || @PtimeXr @fintechfrank Uhhhh Bitcoin growth has been organic. What’s your mouth breathing point? || Bitcoin Falls under $11,450 as US Stock Market Sees Minor Downturn https://t.co/WBPZQqDNM8 || dash/btc: 0.00933
dash/usd: 105.9
btc/usd: 11357.77 || @Lagarde @ecb The next president of the ECB favorably spoke of #bitcoin many times... just saying... || $barmstead || #Crypto Markets Suddenly Skyrocket Again: But Why?
https://t.co/7YATDnjUEh || Bitcoin addresses of Chinese ‘drug kingpins’ blacklisted by US Treasury https://t.co/5bnrNScEPL #crypto #blockchain #cryptocurrency
|
Trend: up || Prices: 10159.96, 10138.52, 10370.82, 10185.50, 9754.42, 9510.20, 9598.17, 9630.66, 9757.97, 10346.76
|
Analyze the provided historical prices, technical indicators, news, and social media sentiment from the last 60 days. Based on this context, predict the overall trend (up, down, or no change) and the specific daily closing prices for Bitcoin for the next 10 days.
|
[Technical Analysis for 2018-09-12]
BTC Price: 6351.80, BTC RSI: 40.05
Gold Price: 1204.70, Gold RSI: 51.75
Oil Price: 70.37, Oil RSI: 59.45
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
English Rightist Tommy Robinson Receives £20,000 In Bitcoin Donations: Supporters of English rightist Tommy Robinson, who was recently released on bail after a 13-month jail term for contempt of court was reversed, have donated nearly £20,000 inbitcoin.
The level of Robinson’s support, which comes from as far as Washington and Istanbul, has alarmed organizations that monitor right-wing activities, according to theEvening Standard. Robinson’s Facebook fans have reached 830,000, a 10% gain since May, when he was jailed. His YouTube followers have increased by 20 percent to 230,000.
The £20,000 includes a £5,500 payment to his bitcoin wallet when Robinson, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, was jailed after he allegedly filmed people in a criminal trial and posted the footage on social media. His supporters criticized his jailing as a violation of his right to free speech.
Media outlets such as Rebel Media, Robinson’s former employer, as well as Breitbart andFox Newshave supported Robinson. Dutch far-right politician Geert Wilders, actress Roseanne Barr,Donald Trump, Jr.and “alt-right” personalities have also supported him.
Robinson’s cause was mentioned at an event last month where right-wing politicians slammed evils associated with Islam. The event was funded in part by U.S. think-tank Middle East Forum and organized by former Breitbart U.K. editor Raheem Kassam.
The level of support for Robinson has alarmed his critics.
Nick Lowles, chief executive of Hope Not Hate, called Robinson a dangerous extremist attempting to unite the far right around Islamophobia rather than a martyr for free speech.
Heidi Beirich, deputy director of the Southern Poverty Law Center, a U.S. organization that monitors U.S. hate groups, said called the amount of Robinson’s support “extraordinary.”
After Robinson appealed the jail term, London judges overturned the contempt finding, granted conditional bail and called for a new hearing.
Featured image from Shutterstock.
The postEnglish Rightist Tommy Robinson Receives £20,000 In Bitcoin Donationsappeared first onCCN. || Bitcoin Sees Red Early as the Market Hits Reverse: Bitcoin gained just 0.58% on Saturday, following on from Friday’s 2.56% rise, to end the day at $6,732, Bitcoin’s highest close since 5thAugust’s $7,023.9.
Three consecutive day of gains eased pressure on the Bitcoin bulls that had been at the mercy of the SEC late last week, the late in the week moves leading Bitcoin to a 3.81% gain for the current week, Monday through Saturday.
A continuation of Friday afternoon’s rally saw Bitcoin move through to an early intraday high $6,799.7, breaking through the 23.6% FIB Retracement Level of $6.757 to test the day’s first major resistance level at $6,798.27 before easing back to a mid-morning intraday low $6,670.
Holding well above the first major support level at $6,520.67, a relatively range bound second half of the day saw Bitcoin continue to attempt breakouts from the 23.6% FIB Retracement Level of $6,757.
The continued failure to move through to $6,800 levels to bring $7,000 levels into play remains an issue for the Bitcoin bulls, with range bound moves tending to turn out negative for Bitcoin and the broader market during the extended bearish trend formed back at 5thMay’s swing hi $9,999.
In spite of the steady ship following the SEC’s flip flopping at the end of last week, the reality remains that the prospects of the SEC approving any of the 9 Bitcoin ETFs rejected remains slim ahead of the G20’s planned roll out of unified rules and regulations and the decision to review the rejections without a time line could be down to uncertainty over when the unified cryptomarket rules and regs will become effective, the G20 having already pushed back the original deadline of 31stJuly.
Get Into Cryptocurrency Trading Today
At the time of writing, Bitcoin was down 1.65% to $6,622.0, with Bitcoin sliding from a start of a day morning high $6,789 to an early morning low $6,600, the early moves seeing Bitcoin fall through the first major support level at $6,668.1 to call on support at the second major support level at $6,604.2 and avoid falling through to $6,500 levels.
For the day ahead, a move back through to $6,733 would support another run at the 23.6% FIB Retracement Level of $6,757 and the first major resistance level at $6,797.8 to bring $6,800 levels into play, though Bitcoin will need to hold on the $6,600 levels through the remainder of the morning to support a second half of a day recovery.
Breaking back through to $6,700 levels in the early part of the day will be key for Bitcoin to draw investors in later in the day.
Failure to hold on to $6,600 levels could see Bitcoin slide through to sub-$6,500 levels to bring the third major support level at $6,474.5 into play, though sentiment across the broader market will need to materially deteriorate for Bitcoin to cough up $6,500 levels on the day.
Thisarticlewas originally posted on FX Empire
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• Bitcoin – The Bulls Take Control as the SEC Hits Pause || What is ethereum and how does it differ from Bitcoin?: The ethereum cryptocurrency - © 2017 Bloomberg Finance LP Ethereum is a rising star in the cryptocurrency world. It has quickly become the second largest digital currency, booming in value and spurring the rise of hundreds of new rivals to Bitcoin. Launched in 2015, the value of ether (ethereum's currency) has increased rapidly. It hit highs of $1400 in January before showing intense volatility, slumping to less than $400 and then rising to about $560. But to put it all in context, last year saw near continual growth in cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Litecoin. Ethereum started 2017 trading for about $10 per coin. What is ethereum? Ether is the second most valuable form of digital money after Bitcoin in terms of market value. The technology it runs on is called the ethereum blockchain, which was first described by the then 19-year-old bitcoin programmer Vitalik Buterin in 2013. The ether cryptocurrency has rocketed in popularity - and price - in recent months. The total value of all the ether in circulation as of July 6, 2018 was $47 billion (£35bn) at $462 per coin, against the $113 billion value of all the $6,500 Bitcoins . Buterin envisaged ethereum as an improvement on bitcoin. Like Bitcoin , it is a decentralised payment network, with its own cryptograpic currency, that allows anonymous payments to be sent across the internet without the need for a bank or other third party. Coded transactions are stored in a decentralised ledger, the blockchain, and are visible for everyone on the network to see. How does it differ from bitcoin? As the second-biggest cryptocurrency after Bitcoin, ethereum has inevitably drawn comparisons to it. Its rapid rise has also led to claims of a bubble. But advocates say ethereum has several advantages over bitcoin that make it more useful. The first is that ethereum allows for "blocks", the records of cryptocurrency transactions, that can be created much more quickly than bitcoin. While bitcoin has been more widely adopted by online retailers and even some physical stores, ethereum's fans believe its efficiency makes it better for transactions, rather than storing value. Story continues The Ethereum logo But the major advantage of ethereum is that the technology allows for third party applications, not just the currency, to run on the network. Bitcoin's appeal lies in money that is not controlled by any one party and does not have to run through a central server, but ethereum allows not just money, but all sorts of other things to run on the network. If you store files on a cloud storage service like Dropbox, you are trusting Dropbox to take care of it, but on a decentralised storage network you are putting your faith in others who are using it and have an interest in maintaining it. A number of apps are being built on Ethereum, and the network is also being used by start-ups to raise money with initial coin offerings , which exchange ether or other currencies for special "tokens" that grant access to a service. What affects its price? The price of ethereum rose rapidly in 2017, alongside Bitcoin. When first launched, it held steady at around $10 for the first 18 months. Then in March 2017 it started to climb steadily, hitting a peak of $395 in June before plummeting to $155 a month later and then rising again. In December 2017 almost doubled to more than $800. The rise was in no small part thanks to a spike in the value of bitcoin, which has fuelled interest in online currencies. It has also received high profile backing in recent months from large organisations. Its dramatic dips in the past have been related to security concerns and general market wobbles, including sell-offs by big investors or a rush of news. In July the price of ethereum dropped more than 20 per cent in a day following a drop in confidence and a rumour, later proved false, that founder Buterin had died. Bitcoin | Your essential guide Who created ethereum? One of the biggest mysteries in the technology world is who created bitcoin. The enigmatic pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto has plagued cryptocurrency users and journalists who have sought to unmask the inventor. Unlike bitcoin, ethereum's creator has always been in the open. A Canadian citizen born in Russia, Buterin published his idea for the digital currency in 2013 when he was 19, and went on to set it up over the next two years. Buterin was mathematically gifted from a young age and won a bronze medal at the International Olympiad in Informatics in 2012. Ethereum creator Vitalik Buterin Credit: Romanpoet/Wikimedia Buterin started writing for specialist bitcoin websites after hearing about the cryptocurrency from his father when he was 17. He proposed the idea for ethereum in 2013 as a "decentralised mining network and software development platform rolled into one". After receiving a Thiel Fellowship worth $100,000 in 2014 he dropped out of the University of Waterloo. Buterin and Canadian entrepreneur Joseph Lubin co-founded Ethereum Switzerland GmbH later that year. How many people use ethereum? There are more than 20 million cryptocurrency wallets that hold ether, according to Etherscan . Wallets are the equivalent of accounts for ethereum and individuals can have more than one. What can I spend it on? Ethereum, like other cryptocurrencies, is known for being largely anonymous and secure against fraud and theft, as its transactions are logged in a decentralised ledger. Users can transact large sums without having to pay fees because middle men, such as banks, are cut out. Ether can be spent in a handful of online stores and with cryptocurrency Mastercard and Visa "credit cards" . They can also be stored in online wallets in the hope the currency will gain in value and their investment will accumulate into a lucrative sum. Should I invest in ethereum? Ethereum's price soared last year. But throughout its rise many conventional analysts warned that investors could get burned by the volatility of cryptocurrencies. They have been proved right during the first quarter of 2018 with huge losses. || AUD/USD and NZD/USD Fundamental Daily Forecast – Slew of Bearish Factors Weighing on Aussie, Kiwi: The Australian and New Zealand Dollars are trading lower mostly in reaction to increased trade tensions between the United States and China, the weaker Yuan and the hawkish comments from the U.S. Federal Reserve last Wednesday.
At 0632 GMT, theAUD/USDis trading .7388, down 0.0018 or -0.23% and theNZD/USDis at .6778, down 0.0013 or -0.19%.
There wasn’t any fresh economic data from New Zealand, but Australia released better-than-expected trade balance data. However, this news wasn’t strong enough to change the bearish sentiment.
According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, Australia’s trade balance is at a surplus of $1.87 billion for June, marking a substantial increase from the $725 million surplus recorded in May. Exports were up three per cent for the month while imports were one percent lower.
Trade tensions were heightened after the Trump administration announced on Wednesday it is looking at the possibility of slapping a 25 percent tariff on $200 billion worth of imported Chinese goods, up from the initial 10 percent announced on July 10. China responded by saying that blackmail will not work on them and that they would retaliate against the U.S. if additional trade measures are imposed.
With a possible escalation of trade tensions looming, investors bought into the dollar and sold currencies linked to China’s economic fortunes. The move took place as a survey showed China’s factory sector grew at the slowest pace in eight months in July as export orders declined yet again. This may have prompted China’s central bank to set the currency at its weakest since May last year.
Finally, the Federal Reserve concluded a two-day meeting on monetary policy and left interest rates unchanged. The decision was widely expected, but the central bank upgraded its view on the economy calling it “strong”.
With the Australian and New Zealand Dollars seen as a proxy for Chinese growth because of Australia’s and New Zealand’s big export sectors, any weakness in China’s economy is likely to spill over into the Australian and New Zealand economies. This could slow down growth which should push any decisions from their central banks to raise rates further into the future.
The Fed’s assessment of the economy and its hawkish Federal Reserve statement, raised the chances of a September interest rate hike to 91.4 percent and the probability for another move in December to 68.2 percent.
This news drove U.S. Treasury yields higher while highlighting the divergence in monetary policies between the hawkish U.S. Federal Reserve and the dovish Reserve Banks of Australia and New Zealand, making the U.S. Dollar a more attractive investment.
The current downside momentum in the AUD/USD and NZD/USD suggests the Forex pairs should be under pressure all day. We’re also looking for last week’s lows at .7359 and .6762 respectively to fail.
U.S. economic reports today include the Challenger Job Cuts, Weekly Unemployment Claims and Factory Orders. None of these reports should be strong enough to turn the AUD/USD and NZD/USD higher especially ahead of Friday’s major U.S. Non-Farm Payrolls report.
Thisarticlewas originally posted on FX Empire
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• EUR/USD Mid-Session Technical Analysis for August 2, 2018 || Most Complex dApp on Ethereum Already Has Millions of Dollars at Stake: Augur, which its co-founder Joey Krug previously described as the most complex decentralized application (dApp) on the Ethereum blockchain, has surpassed a million dollars at stake and demonstrated a rapid growth rate over the past few weeks.
In essence,Auguris a decentralized betting platform that exists on theEthereumnetwork. Because it utilizes smart contracts to autonomously settle bets and payout users, users can practically bet on any subject, topic, or an event.
Since its launch in mid-July, the decentralized prediction platform has demonstrated a rapid rate of growth, portrayed by the increase in its user base, daily volume, and the amount at stake on the platform.
As of July 25, according to the data provided by Predictions.Global, a platform which allows Augur users to view various prediction markets on the Augur network, nearly $1.5 million are at stake on the Augur prediction market. The three largest bets on the Augur network accounted for nearly 80 percent of the ether at stake, which are:
1. Will price of Ethereum exceed $500 at the end of 2018? ($685,000 at stake, biggest bet)
2. Will REP token trade above $32 at the end of 2018? ($479,115.72 at stake)
3. Will the Ethereum (ETH) marketcap be higher than the Bitcoin (BTC) marketcap on December 31, 2019 at 24:00 UTC ? ($27,097.03 at stake)
The complexity of the Augur platform, apart from its technical aspects, revolves around data verification. For instance, in the case of the largest bet on Augur mentioned above, by the end of 2018, Augur would have to verify that the price of Ethereum is in fact larger than $500. But, due to a wide range of variables including exchange premiums, it is difficult to verify that specific piece of information accurately.
In December 2017, theprice of bitcoinreached $25,000 in the crypto exchange market of South Korea, even on major trading platforms like UPbit and Bithumb, while the price of bitcoin in other markets such as Japan and the US achieved a peak at $19,500.
Joey Krug, the creator of Augur and the co-Chief Information Officer atPantera Capital, a billion dollar cryptocurrency hedge fund, said:
“Augur’s about 10x more complex than the second most complicated ethereum project, makerdao, which has about 10 contracts vs augur’s 100 [complexity isn’t a good thing, and the augur team has tried to make it as simple as possible, it’s just a really complicated endeavor].”
As CCN reported, Brian Kelly, the founder of BKCM and long-time contributor to CNBC’s Fast Money, expressed his enthusiasm towards the fast growth of Augur and its impact on the Ethereum network.
Kellyexplained:
“Augur was one of the oldest ICOs [initial coin offerings] and the platform has been in development for about two to three years now. What’s interesting about this is probably going to be one of the biggest decentralized apps launched on top of Ethereum. If Augur doesn’t slow the system down [unlike CryptoKitties] that could generally be a positive for Ethereum.”
Emin Gun Sirer, a professor at the prestigious Cornell University, added that the launch of Augur is monumental for Ethereum,stating;
“Congrats to the Augur Project team, for getting rid of the crutches and delivering something that stands on its own.”
Images from Shutterstock
The postMost Complex dApp on Ethereum Already Has Millions of Dollars at Stakeappeared first onCCN. || Tom Lydon Talks Tech, EM, Facebook on Fox Business: This article was originally published on ETFTrends.com. Trade wars, especially between the United States and China, have not only wreaked havoc on economic superpowers, but emerging markets have also received a brunt of the punishment with ETFs like Vanguard FTSE Emerging Markets ETF ( VWO ) down 7.32% year-to-date and iShares MSCI Emerging Markets ETF ( EEM ) down 7.44% YTD. Even country-specific ETFs on the periphery are suffering as a result of trade wars-- iShares MSCI Mexico Capped ETF ( EWW ) down 3.13% YTD, iShares MSCI Brazil Capped ETF ( EWZ ) down 19.48% YTD and iShares MSCI Philippines ETF ( EPHE ) down 22.03% YTD. "We've seen areas of the world that have really gotten beaten up," said ETF Trends President Tom Lydon. "Areas like Brazil, Mexico, Malaysia, the Philippines--all because of the trade wars." The amount of red in the YTD performance numbers might scare off investors with an untrained eye, but to others, this presents a perfect buying opportunity, particularly when fundamentally analyzing each country-specific ETF. "While these areas of the world have gotten beaten up and we've got some political restructuring going on in some of these countries, take advantage of some of the sell-offs that we've seen," said Lydon. "Some of these areas of the world are still off 70, 80 percent." For broad based technology exposure, Lydon said look no further than the Invesco QQQ (NasdaqGM: QQQ). For lead-footed investors naturally inclined to step on the investment accelerator when they see green, the technology sector has been the ideal expressway to profits. For investors looking to allocate capital in tech and dip into emerging markets, the Emerging Markets Internet & Ecommerce ETF (NYSEArca: EMQQ ) provides the perfect amalgamation of the two sectors. "You can not only pick up the Ubers of the US, but you can have the Ubers of areas like India or the Amazons of Brazil," said Lydon. Facebook Slides After Hours, ETFs with FB Follow Story continues During the course of today's trading session, Facebook shares were up (almost 3.5%) prior to reporting their second-quarter earnings report with analysts expecting another solid quarter despite a massive data-harvesting scandal . "There are high expectations following Google's strongdigital ad revenue," said Tigress Financial Partners CIO Ivan Feinseth . "I think the whole focus is going to be on the growth of Instagram. Instagram has the potential to be as big as Facebook itself." However, Facebook reported its second-quarter earnings to mixed results--earnings per share were reported at $1.74 versus consensus estimates of $1.72 EPS, but the social media company missed on revenue--a reported $13.23 billion versus consensus estimates of $13.36 billion. As such, shares of Facebook fell by 24% after hours after closing the day up 1.32%. Two ETFs with the largest weightings of Facebook were already down after hours-- Communication Services Sel Sect SPDRETF ( XLC ) was down 1.41% after ending today's trading session up 0.72% while Vanguard Communication Services ETF ( VOX ) was down 0.44% after hours. For more market news, visit ETFTrends.com . POPULAR ARTICLES FROM ETFTRENDS.COM How Much Should a Fee-Only Financial Planner Charge? Reddit Co-Founder Alexis Ohanian on Bitcoin’s Bull Run Venezuela May Reach 1M Percent Inflation Rate, IMF Warns What Lies Ahead for Tesla and Elon Musk? Verizon Releases Better-Than-Expected Q2 Report READ MORE AT ETFTRENDS.COM > || Cryptocurrencies Trade Lower as Chinese, Russian Authorities Strike: Cryptos drop as China extends promotional ban, Russia contemplates criminal activity definition. Investing.com - Cryptocurrencies were mostly lower on Thursday as Chinese authorities extended their ban of the digital assets, while Russia scrutinized keeping a wider eye on what it may categorize as criminal activity in the industry. Bitcoin fell 3.63% to $6,859.90 at 10:10 AM ET (14:10 GMT) on the Bitfinex exchange. Ethereum slid 6.17% to a trading price of $278.20 on the Bitfinex exchange. XRP traded at $0.32715, down by 7.80% in the last 24 hours on the Poloniex exchange, while Bitcoin Cash, product of the Bitcoin fork and the fourth-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, traded down 6.77% to $531.15. China extended its ban on the cryptocurrency industry to the special economic zone of Guangzhou, where commercial venues were banned from promoting crypto-related events. The Chinese government continued the crackdown on digital assets by banning all promotional activities in the area that were directed at digital currencies. According to a statement by the Guangzhou Development District, the ban was the regulator’s latest attempt to protect the financial interests of the public, as the Chinese government remains determined to ensure the legal status of the yuan, prevent money laundering and maintain the stability of the financial system. The news of the ban extension came after China-based multinational technology giant Baidu was told to shut down crypto-related online chat rooms earlier this week. Beijing has started the clampdown on the crypto industry since last September, including banning hotels in Beijing from holding crypto events. Major social media platform WeChat blocked several crypto and blockchain-related accounts in August, while internet giant Tencent announced it no longer allowed crypto trading on its platform. E-commerce giant Alibaba (NYSE:BABA) also said it would restrict or ban accounts that engage in crypto trading. In other news, reports said Russian regulators are considering the possibility of categorizing unauthorized cryptocurrency ventures as criminal activities. Earlier this year, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that the central bank would not accept any digital coin offering that is not supported by a fiat currency. Story continues The BBC reported that the Russian Federal Financial Monitoring Service is looking to track cryptocurrency transactions, especially in Bitcoin, in view of fraud schemes, money laundering and terrorism funding. “Due to anonymity and the inability to find correct sources of transactions, cryptocurrencies are used in gray areas… Lawmakers in many countries are concerned about this phenomenon which was confirmed by the analysis that we conducted on behalf of the president,” Putin’s former adviser German Klimenko told the BBC. Related Articles Standard Chartered, Siemens Partner on Blockchain Pilot to ‘Fully Digitize’ Bank Guarantees Metaverse ETP (ETP) Keeps Going Up in a Bear Market First Kenyan ICO on the Horizon, to Focus on Blockchain Logistics || Qatar ETF Is Strengthening on Improving Sentiment: This article was originally published onETFTrends.com.
A Qatar country-specific ETF was leading the charge Wednesday as the Qatari markets more-or-less recouped its losses suffered since enduring an embargo that began last year.
The iShares MSCI Qatar Capped ETF (QAT) , the lone Qatar equity-related ETF, gained 2.4 Wednesday and was up 5.4% over the past year.
Qatar's main stock benchmark, the QE Index, was trading at levels not seen since May 2017 before countries in the region, including Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates severed economic and diplomatic ties with the country over links to Iran and the alleged funding of terrorism,Bloombergreports.
The emerging market has increase more than 18% so far this year, paring loses experienced last year, after raising foreign ownership limits for their stocks, which helped allow for a larger weighting in widely observed benchmarks from firms such as the MSCI.
Foreign investors can now own 100% of the shares to some Qatari companies and invest in banks and insurance companies.
Qatar Law Changes
Qatar's Ministry of Economy and Commerce stated that the revision to the existing laws was meant to bring in foreign capital to all sectors of the economy. The changes would facilitate investor entry into the market and raise confidence in investment security.
Related:Emerging Markets ETFs Face Dollar Dilemmas
Second-quarter results in recent weeks sustained the rally in Qatar's market after the companies in the developing economy raised limits on foreign ownership,Reutersreports.
The Qatar National Bank stated earlier this year that the total profits of Qatar-listed companies are expected to expand by 4.4% in 2018 and 14.6% in 2019.
For more information on the developing economies, visit ouremerging markets category.
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READ MORE AT ETFTRENDS.COM > || Uzbekistan Opens Door to Cryptocurrency Exchanges, Offers Tax Benefits: uzbekistan bitcoin cryptocurrency exchange In efforts to boost its market-based economy, the government of Uzbekistan has decided to take initiatives favorable to the growing cryptocurrency industry. Uzbekistan Goes Fishing for Bitcoin Exchanges The former Soviet nation confirmed that it is legalizing cryptocurrency exchanges and will allow blockchain companies to set up their offices in the state. The legalization came in the wake of a presidential decree that was signed to encourage the use of cryptocurrency and blockchain in Uzbekistan. A document published at the behest of the president of the Republic of Uzbekistan, titled On measures to organize the activities of crypto-exchanges in Uzbekistan, revealed a set of official definitions for bitcoin-like cryptocurrencies. The state has confirmed that it will not treat cryptocurrencies like securities. Therefore, the laws that are common to security exchanges will not bother cryptocurrency exchanges. Instead, the crypto trading businesses will come under a new set of rules, referred to as special normative acts. Only foreign legal entities which already have a subsidiary or other enterprises in Uzbekistan will be able to open cryptocurrency exchanges. These entities will not be liable to pay taxes on their cryptocurrency turnovers. That said, any revenue derived in cryptocurrency will be untaxable, considering Uzbekistan will define cryptoassets as a set of data records on blockchain which they indeed are that has value and owner, according to the text. Terms and Conditions Applied The free perks wont be precisely free because the Uzbekistani government has also imposed special conditions to setup crypto exchanges. Firstly, the foreign entities must have an authorized capital to support as much as 30,000 minimum wages on the day they apply. Moreover, an equivalent of 20,000 minimum wages will have to be reserved in a state-backed commercial bank. The minimum monthly salary in Uzbekistan was close to $185 in FY2017. Story continues Secondly, the state requires the crypto-exchanges to base their servers in Uzbekistan. Thirdly, Uzbekistan willrequire the exchanges to adhere to rules for trading and publishing exchanges rates based on a demand-and-supply ratio. Finally, the exchanges must store information on transactions, users identification, and other KYC/AML-based data for five years. Crypto Mining Industry Also Gets a Share The presidential decree also legalizes cryptocurrency mining in Uzbekistan and has ordered state-controlled energy companies to allocate lands for mining operations. The bitcoin mining companies will be utilizing over 100 KW/h of electricity on locations designated by the National Project Management Agency, a body governed by the Presidents office itself. Featured Image from Shutterstock The post Uzbekistan Opens Door to Cryptocurrency Exchanges, Offers Tax Benefits appeared first on CCN . || Bitcoin Bulls Holding on After Delivering a pre-Weekend Rally: Bitcoin gained 4.06% on Friday, following on from Thursdays 0.71% rise, to end the day at $6,571.2. The moves through the day left Bitcoin up 4.08% for the week, Monday through Friday, with Fridays broad based cryptomarket rally seeing Bitcoin trail a number of the majors on the day. A day long rally saw Bitcoin break through the first major resistance level at $6,456.83 to test the days second major resistance level at $6,598.67 with a late in the day intraday high $6,592.9 before easing back. In spite of 3 consecutive days of gains, Bitcoin continued to fall short of the 23.6% FIB Retracement Level of $6,757 and $7,000 levels to leave the extended bearish trend firmly intact, though the prospects of a near-term bullish trend formation has improved with the recent gains taking Bitcoin into positive territory for the current week. There was no significant news hitting the wires to drive the broad based market rally, with investor reaction to the SECs decision to postpone decisions on a number of Bitcoin ETFs likely to have been overdone. No news is good news for the cryptomarket and the lack of regulatory noise from the South Korean government, who has been looking to move ahead following the delay to the G20 unified rules and regs, has provided much needed support. The end of week rally also saw Bitcoins dominance ease back from a week high 54.56% to 50.8% at the time of writing, with Fridays double digit gains made by Bitcoin Cash, Litecoin, Ripples XRP and a number of other majors eating into Bitcoins slice of the pie. Bitcoins dominance tends to reflect general market sentiment, with sub-50% levels tending to signal bullish cryptomarket sentiment, Bitcoin tending to see more modest gains and losses that contribute to the shifts in dominance that can be considered a bellwether for the broader cryptomarket. Get Into Cryptocurrency Trading Today At the time of writing, Bitcoin was down 1.14% to $6,508.8, with Bitcoin pulling back from a start of a day $6,619.5 high that came up short of the first major resistance level at $6,679.4. A slide to a morning low $6,456.3 saw Bitcoin hold above the first major support level at $6,376.5, before recovering to $6,500 levels, which will be a key level through the day. For the day ahead, holding above $6,485 through the morning would support a recovery later in the day, with a move back through to $6,600 levels likely to bring the first major resistance level at $6,679.4 into play, while we would expect Bitcoin to face plenty of resistance in any attempt at a break through to $6,700 levels in the event of a rebound. Story continues Failure to hold above $6,485 through the morning could see Bitcoin take a bigger hit later in the day to bring the first major support level at $6,376.5 into play, with any pullback to sub-$6,400 levels likely to leave a break back through to $6,600 levels off the table for the day. For the Bitcoin bulls, the good news will be that the morning reversal is as a result of some profit taking rather than a shift in sentiment, which should support a recovery, though much will depend upon how much money comes off the table through the morning, a shift in momentum never a good thing for Bitcoin and the broader market. {alt} Buy & Sell Cryptocurrency Instantly This article was originally posted on FX Empire More From FXEMPIRE: Crude Oil Price Forecast crude oil markets close out the week on a strong note USD/JPY Weekly Price Forecast US dollar mixed against Japanese yen Gold Weekly Price Forecast Gold markets break down Silver Price Forecast Silver markets stabilize to end the week Crude Oil Weekly Price Forecast crude oil markets very shaky for the week GBP/JPY Weekly Price Forecast British pound continues to struggle against Japanese yen View comments
[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
@btc_current || @lifeoncoin || @bitcoin_reddit || @lifeoncoin || @btc_update || @bitcoin_reddit || @eztechwin || @btc_current || @whats_a_bitcoin || #Doviz
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#USD : 4.8447
#EUR : 5.6752
#GBP : 6.4117
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#BTC
-------------------
#Gobaba : 32273.11
#BtcTurk : 31754.00
#Koinim : 31958.00
#Paribu : 31681.99
#Koineks : 31700.00
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Trend: up || Prices: 6517.31, 6512.71, 6543.20, 6517.18, 6281.20, 6371.30, 6398.54, 6519.67, 6734.95, 6721.98
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Analyze the provided historical prices, technical indicators, news, and social media sentiment from the last 60 days. Based on this context, predict the overall trend (up, down, or no change) and the specific daily closing prices for Bitcoin for the next 10 days.
|
[Technical Analysis for 2022-08-08]
BTC Price: 23809.49, BTC RSI: 59.33
Gold Price: 1786.80, Gold RSI: 58.25
Oil Price: 90.76, Oil RSI: 38.64
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
GLOBAL MARKETS-Stock, bonds groggy after rout, eyes peeled on Fed meet: (Adds quote, updates prices)
By Koh Gui Qing
NEW YORK, June 14 (Reuters) - Global stocks and bonds stemmed heavy losses on Tuesday in choppy trade as investors tried to recover from the previous day's rout, while bracing themselves for an U.S. interest rate rise this week that could be the largest in 28 years.
Surprisingly strong U.S. inflation data released last Friday has fuelled bets that the Federal Reserve must tighten monetary policy more aggressively to tame soaring prices. Fears that the tightening could bring on a recession walloped global equities and government bonds on Monday.
Investors are now betting with near certainty that the Fed could announce a 75-basis-point rate increase - the largest since November 1994 - at the end of its policy meeting on Wednesday.
"It’s the meeting everyone has on their radar..., and the market will be hanging off every word Fed Chair Jerome Powell has to say," said Chris Weston, head of research at Pepperstone Group Ltd, a currency broker in Australia. "The market wants answers on its commitment to smash inflation."
By late morning in New York, the Dow Jones Industrial Average had ceded early gains and was down 0.39%. The S&P 500 sagged 0.23%, and the Nasdaq Composite was flat.
MSCI's gauge of stocks around the world dropped 0.52% to levels last seen in November 2020, while a pan-European equity index slumped 1.05% to March 2020 lows .
Underscoring expectations of rising U.S. rates, two-year Treasury yields hit a high of 3.430%, the highest since November 2007. Ten-year Treasury yields hovered at 3.3848%, within sight of an 11-year high of 3.440% struck on Monday.
Markets now see the Fed's rate hike cycle peaking around 4%, rather than the 3% seen last month.
Euro zone government bond yields also hit new multi-year highs, as spreads between core and periphery widened amid concerns about accelerated central bank monetary tightening.
Investors' repricing of higher rates has pummelled assets that benefited from rock-bottom interest rates - stocks, crypto, junk-rated bonds and emerging markets.
Monday's sell-off pushed the S&P 500 index into a so-called bear market, as it has lost more than 20% from its most recent closing high.
"Quite simply, when we see monetary tightening the order of what we are seeing globally, something is going to break," said Timothy Graf, head of EMEA macro strategy at State Street.
"Stock markets are reflecting the reality of the first-order effect of tighter financial conditions," Graf said, predicting that with U.S. stock valuations still above COVID-era lows, there was more pain to come.
"I think there are other shoes to drop," he added.
Asian shares too fell 1%, catching up with Monday's bleak Wall Street session.
Crypto markets, where bitcoin and ether hovered near 18-month lows, have also been drubbed by interest rate expectations and crypto lender Celsius Network's decision to freeze withdrawals.
Bitcoin, which fell as low as $20,816, recovered to $22,377.9 on Tuesday.
Brent crude futures rose above $123 a barrel, supported by the tight oil supply picture.
State Street's Graf did not see recession as inevitable but acknowledged that "monetary tightening and the squeeze on real incomes from commodity prices mean the probability has gone up".
Markets are also having to contend with the dollar's surge to new 20-year peaks against a basket of currencies.
It was up 0.26% on Tuesday, pressuring the yen to languish near 24-year lows against the greenback.
With the Bank of Japan expanding bond purchases on Tuesday and unlikely to budge from ultra-low rates policy at its Friday meeting, a respite for the yen looks unlikely.
"Given Wednesday may see the Fed go 75 bps and flag more, while the BOJ on Friday will only flag more bond-buying, the yen is not going to stay at these levels for long. It's going to get much, much worse," Rabobank strategist Michael Every said.
(Reporting by Sujata Rao; additional reporting by Scott Murdoch and Alun John in Hong Kong; Editing by David Evans, Alex Richardson and Mark Heinrich) || Morning Crypto Brief: BTC Slips to Mid-$20Ks, ETH Pivots $1.1K Amid Pre-Powell Caution: • Cryptocurrencies prices are lower in tandem with stocks amid a cautious tone pre-remarks from Fed Chair Powell.
• The Bitcoin price was last in the mid-$20,000s, while Ethereum was last trading just under $1,100.
• Tether on Wednesday announced it will expand its stablecoin offerings with pound sterling-backed GBPT.
In tandem with a pre-market pullback in US equities, cryptocurrency prices fell during Wednesday’s Asia Pacific session, with total crypto market capitalization last down about 1.5% near $880 billion, down nearly 6.0% from Tuesday’s leaks close to $940 billion. But that leaves crypto markets still well within recent ranges, with total market cap still up about 15% or around $115 billion from Saturday’s 18-month lows near $760 billion.
According to FX Empire head of crypto analysis Bob Mason, markets are feeling cautious ahead of this week’s Congressional testimony by Fed Chair Jerome Powell, which begins later on Wednesday. “Movement today will hinge on how Powell threads the needle,” Mason said, arguing that if the Fed Chair was to offer “a convincing argument that the Fed can achieve a soft landing, this would ease market angst”. But any such argument “will need to be very convincing, with US inflation at 40-year highs,” Mason added.
According to other analysts, US recession concerns have been weighing on risk assets (like stocks and crypto), with the likes of Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs both warning that recession risks might not be fully priced in.“The bear market will not be over until recession arrives or the risk of one is extinguished,” analysts at Morgan Stanley stated. Meanwhile, analysts at Goldman said that traders were pricing in a mild recession, “leaving them exposed to a further deterioration in expectations”. Elsewhere, major US consumer bank Citibank said it saw the probability of a recession in the near-term as close to 50%, citing risks associated with central banks tightening monetary policy and a weakening of demand for goods.
A slightly more optimistic take came from Bloomberg’s senior commodity strategist Mike McGlone. The recent and ongoing drop in risk assets “are taking away inflation at a breakneck pace, which may translate into pre-pandemic deflationary forces resurfacing in H2 2022”, he said in a thread on Twitter. McGlone said the primary beneficiaries of this scenario may be Bitcoin, gold and US government bonds.
Bitcoin, the world’s largest cryptocurrency with a market cap of around $390 billion as of Wednesday, was last changing hands in the mid-$20,000s, down about 4% over the last 24 hours according to CoinMarketCap data. BTC/USD is down nearly 6.0% versus its Tuesday peaks above $21,700 but continues to trade about 16% up from Saturday’s sub-$18,000 lows as it consolidates within recent ranges pre-remarks from Fed Chair Powell.
Similarly,Ethereum, the world’s second-largest cryptocurrency with a market cap of just above $130 billion as o Wednesday, was last trading down by about 6% in the last 24 hours just below the $1,100 level according to CoinMarketCap data. That marks a more than 8.0% pullback from Tuesday peaks close to $1,200 per token but leaves ETH/USD still trading an impressive 25% above sub-$900 weekend lows.
Major altcoins are trading in line with the two major cryptocurrencies and are lower by similar margins as of Wednesday morning.Cardanodoesn’t seem to have been impacted too much by a one-month delay to its Vasil hardfork upgrade which was supposed to go ahead later this month. Shiba Inu’sSHIBtoken and the Bitfinex crypto exchange parent company’sLEOtoken are the standout performers of the top 20 cryptos, with both trading more than 5.0% higher over the past 24 hours.
Tether, the British Virgin Island-based issuer of what is currently the largest US dollar-backed/pegged “stablecoin”USDTannounced plans on Wednesday to expand its stablecoin offerings with the introduction of GBPT. A stablecoin is a cryptocurrency running on the blockchain that maintains a stable value (normally 1:1) to a fiat currency, such as the US dollar or pound sterling.
Like USDT, Tether says GBPT will be backed 1:1 by cash or liquid cash equivalents (such as short-term government paper). GBPT will be the fifth stablecoin to be offered by Tether, with the company having already issued USDT,EURT,CNHTandMXNT.
“We believe that the United Kingdom is the next frontier for blockchain innovation and the wider implementation of cryptocurrency for financial markets,” Tether Chief Technology Officer Paolo Ardoino said in a statement as it announced the introduction of GBPT. Tether said it would work closely with UK regulators.
In April, the UK government announced plans to introduce legislation that would see stablecoins recognized as a valid form of payment, as part of wider plans to make the country a global hub for crypto-asset technology and investment.
GBPT’s introduction by Tether comes against the backdrop of persistent fears that USDT might lose its 1:1 peg to the US dollar. These fears have seen outflows of over $16 billion from USDT since early May and seen USDT trade around 0.1% below the $1.0 level, despite Tether fulfilling all USDT redemptions thus far.
Magic Eden, the most popular Non-Fungible Token (NFT) trading platform running on the Solana blockchain recently closed a Series B funding round which saw it raise $130 million. That put the platform’s value at $1.6 billion, with the company saying its newly raised capital will be used to expand its primary and secondary NFT marketplaces, as well as explore multi-chain expansion possibilities and research and development. According to analysts, 40,000 NFTs are traded on Magic Eden’s per day, amounting to 92% of all NFT volume on the Solana blockchain.
Magic Eden’s impressive funding round and hefty valuation comes despite the broader bear market in the NFT and crypto/digital asset space. According to NFT data analytics website NFT Price Floor, the minimum cost to get hold of a Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) NFT was around $95,000 on Wednesday, down four-fold from the record high hit just over two months ago above $400,000. The BAYC collection of 10,000 original NFTs is currently the most valuable NFT collection, with a price floor cap of nearly $1 billion.
US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) commissioner Hester Pierce, often referred to by members of the crypto community as the SEC’s “crypto mom” given her pro-crypto stance, spoke out against bailouts for struggling crypto companies like Celsius Network earlier this week.“When things are a bit harder in the market, you discover who’s actually building something that might last for the long, longer-term and what is going to pass away,” Pierce said. It’s better to “let these things play out,” she added.
Separately, the launch of the first inverse Bitcoin Exchange Traded Fund (ETF) on Tuesday in the US is a positive sign for the crypto industry, argued grayscale CEO Michael Sonnenshein, given it shows the US SEC is becoming more comfortable with Bitcoin. The ProShares Short Bitcoin Strategy (BITI) began trading on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) on Tuesday. Crypto investors are pining for the SEC to approve a spot Bitcoin ETF, as this is expected to bring significant sums of institutional money in from the sidelines. Grayscale has applied for its Bitcoin Trust to be converted into a spot Bitcoin ETF, with an SEC decision on the matter due in July.
Elsewhere, European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde on Tuesday said that cryptocurrencies and Decentralised Finance (DeFi) pose a real risk to financial stability, especially if crypto starts playing a bigger role in the economy. Right now, the links between crypto and the legacy financial services industry remain small, but the ECB nonetheless supports the EU’s proposed Markets in Crypto-Asset (MiCA) regulatory framework. MiCA is in the final stage of approval within the EU’s legislative process and is expected to come into force in 2024.
90% of global central banks are looking into the feasibility of introducing their own digital currencies, a new report from the Bank of International Settlements (BIS) said on Tuesday. The report criticized what it referred to as crypto’s “inability to perform “basic fundamental functions of money”, as well as its “opacity”. The report also highlighted recent adverse developments in the DeFi space, with the likes of Celsius Network having recently halted investor withdrawals and risks related to stablecoins in wake of Terra UST’s collapse. The BIS also highlighted the limited scalability of popular blockchains like Ethereum, which have in the past seen significant congestion and a sharp rise in transaction fees (I.e. gas fees).
Thisarticlewas originally posted on FX Empire
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• Russian consumer prices decline for third week running || Tesla sells most of its bitcoin holdings: Tesla CEO Elon Musk said the move to sell most of the company's bitcoin holdings was to maximise the company's cash position. Photo: Patrick Pleul/Pool via Reuters (POOL New / reuters) Tesla ( TSLA ) has sold 75% of its bitcoin ( USD-BTC) holdings, adding $936m (£783.6m) in cash to its balance sheet, and causing the cryptocurrency market to slide backwards as it tries to escape the "crypto-winter". News of the move damaged bitcoin's recent break-out and revealed how sensitive the cryptocurrency market is to the actions of the world's richest person, Tesla CEO Elon Musk. Bitcoin dropped 3.1% in 24 hours, to $23,000 and ethereum ( USD-ETH ) fell 4.5%, to hover around the $1,500 mark. The electric car maker's earnings report, released on Wednesday, revealed that it sold the majority of its bitcoin holdings during the second quarter of 2022. Tesla's bitcoin holding was worth about $2bn at the end of 2021, but the price of the volatile digital asset has fallen by more than 50% this year. Read more: Crypto live prices Tesla CEO Elon Musk said the move was to maximise the company's cash position. During the earnings call Musk explained the reason, stating: "We sold a bunch of our bitcoin holdings because we were uncertain when the COVID lockdowns in China would alleviate. "So it was important for us to maximise our cash position, given the uncertainty of COVID lockdowns in China." This was in reference to the recent mass testing and lockdowns implemented in major Chinese cities. Despite the sell-off, the Tesla boss confirmed the electric carmaker has not sold any of its dogecoin ( DOGE-USD ) holdings. Musk also confirmed that Tesla is open to increasing its bitcoin holdings in the future. Read more: The Crypto Mile: How NFT art and activism is responding to a world in crisis He said: "This should not be taken as some verdict on bitcoin," he said, making sure to add that Tesla has not sold any of its dogecoin. Musk then claimed that cryptocurrencies were not something the company was primarily interested in. He stressed that Teslas main goal is to accelerate the advent of sustainable energy. He added: "We're neither here nor there on cryptocurrency." Story continues In 2021, Tesla made a $1.5bn investment in the world's largest cryptocurrency. This was followed by an announcement it would accept bitcoin as payment. The February 2021 revelation of the electric car maker's bitcoin holdings caused a surge of demand for the cryptocurrency. However, in May of 2021, the electric car maker abruptly reversed its position on bitcoin payments causing the price of bitcoin to plummet. Musk released a tweet in mid-May citing the environmental damage from bitcoin mining as the reason for the halt in accepting payments in the cryptocurrency. Watch: The Crypto Mile: Episode 4 How NFT art and activism is responding to a world in crisis || Cardano (ADA) Price Prediction: Rally Back Towards $0.70 Possible?: Key Points Crypto markets are consolidating on Wednesday with Cardano within recent $0.435-0.475 ranges ahead of macro events. Cardano has formed a pennant in the last two months and technicians are eyeing a breakout. ADA/USD could be launched back towards $0.70, although a bearish scenario could see it fall back under $0.20. Cryptocurrency markets are in a broadly consolidative mood on Wednesday as traders keep their powder dry ahead of key macro risk events later in the session. US ISM Services PMI survey data for June is set for release at 1400GMT and will offer a timely insight into the health of the US economy as recession calls grow. Meanwhile, the minutes from last month’s ultra-hawkish Fed meeting where the bank hiked interest rates by 75 bps (the largest hike in 28 years) are scheduled for release at 1800GMT. Bitcoin was last trading just above $20,000, little changed over the course of what has been a choppy past few days, though still up about 4.0% this week. Ethereum was last trading just under $1,150 and just above its 21-Day Moving Average , with gains of closer to 6.0% this week. Cryptocurrency market participants are currently observing trends in other asset classes like stocks, bonds and currencies and weighing up the implications for crypto. Markets Pricing for Recession There has been a powerful bid for safe-haven assets in the last few days as markets increasingly bet that the US and European economies are already in, or are close to slipping into recession. As a result, the US dollar has been the best-performing currency, with the Dollar Index ( DXY ) breaking out to fresh multi-decade highs near 1.07. This is typically a headwind for USD-denominated crypto, just as it can be for other USD-denominated assets, as it makes them more expensive for purchase by foreign buyers. However, the bid for US bonds has sent yields tumbling, with the US 10-year now back to around 2.80% from nearly 3.5% as recently as mid-June. This lowers the so-called “opportunity cost” of holding non-yielding assets like crypto and commodities. Story continues Bond markets are also flashing recession warnings, with the US curve inverted all the way out to the 10-year. The 2-year yield is currently at 2.84%, the 5-year at 2.82% and, as mentioned, the 10-year is closer to 2.80%. Yield curve inversion (defined as longer-term yields falling below shorter-term yields) has a track record of accurately forecasting a recession in the near future. Commodities are also pricing in a recession. WTI futures are back below $100 per barrel from as high as the $120s as recently as mid-June. Bloomberg’s broader commodity index (BCOM) has fallen nearly 20% from its June highs above $138 to around $112 on Wednesday. Recessions typically mean lower demand for commodities. Bullish for Stocks & Crypto? For now, risky assets like stocks and crypto seem unsure how to react to increased recession risk. The kneejerk assumption might be that recession is bad for risk appetite. Indeed, this kind of thinking is evident in risk assets, with major US equity indices and most cryptocurrencies still only trading barely above their annual lows posted in June. But the recent ramping up of recession bets has seen markets dial back on 1) long-term inflation expectations and 2) longer-term Fed tightening bets. 10-year break-even inflation expectations (essentially the market’s prediction for average CPI over the next 10 years) are around 2.25% on Wednesday, having been as high as 2.86% in June. Recessions are typically deflationary as they result in reduced consumer demand for goods, which puts downwards pressure on prices. But recession fears are not the only thing compressing inflation expectations. US PCE inflation data for May showed signs that price pressures in the US have already peaked and are now easing, with the core metric hitting a six-month low on a YoY basis. Given that markets are increasingly pricing in weaker growth/recession and lower inflation ahead, it makes sense that they have also moved to price in a less aggressive Fed rate hiking cycle. Money markets see the Fed’s benchmark lending rate peaking at around 3.25% in 2023, versus nearly 4.0% a few weeks ago. If markets continue paring back on Fed tightening bets in the weeks ahead, even if this is due to increased recession bets, there is every possibility that this could support a rally in crypto/risky stocks (like tech). After all, Fed tightening bets amid sky-high inflation have been the primary driver of crypto/equity downside so far this year, not growth pessimism. Cardano Consolidates, Eyes Key Long-term Pennant Breakout Cardano has been in consolidation within thin ranges over the past few days. Ahead of key macro events this week (including the US jobs report on Friday), ADA/USD will likely remain capped below resistance around $0.475, where the 21DMA also resides. Meanwhile, ADA/USD may continue to find support from an uptrend linking the lows since the end of June, as well as above support in the form of the end-June $0.4350 low. ADA/USD consolidates. Source: FX Empire Things get more interesting when looking at Cardano on a longer time horizon. ADA/USD has been squeezing within a pennant structure since the start of May. The likelihood of a breakout is rising. Say the bullish scenario for stocks and crypto outlined above plays out. ADA/USD could see a break back towards June highs in the upper-$0.60s. ADA/USD eyes pennant breakout. Rally towards $0.70 possible? Source: FX Empire Of course, say this month’s inflation data hints at a nightmarish scenario of inflationary pressures continually rising despite slowing growth/recession. Stocks and crypto may well see further downside, which could coincide with ADA/USD breaking to the downside of the pennant. A swift test of annual lows around $0.40 would be likely. A break below that level could open the door to a run lower towards support levels from 2020 in the $0.15-0.18 area. ADA/USD bearish scenario. Source: FX Empire This article was originally posted on FX Empire More From FXEMPIRE: Highland Park shooting suspect admits to deadly attack, prosecutor says French PM says cost of living a priority, urges opposition to help pass reforms Congo and Rwanda agree to de-escalate tensions at Angola summit Weak sterling boosts FTSE 100 amid political, growth worries UK watchdog investigates Microsoft’s $68.7 billion Activision deal UK ministers, including new Finance Minister, to tell Johnson to go-reports || Celsius Sends $500M of Bitcoin Derivative to Crypto Exchange After Debt Payoff: Beleaguered crypto lender Celsius deposited $500 million in wrapped bitcoin (WBTC), a bitcoin derivative product of the Ethereum blockchain, to crypto exchange FTX just hours after Celsius repaid its debt to the decentralized lending protocol Maker and reclaimed $450 million of collateral in WBTC.
Blockchain transaction datashared by blockchain data firm Nansen shows that a wallet linked to Celsius sent 24,463 WBTC to the FTX in various steps.
Earlier Thursday, CoinDesk reported Celsius reclaimed 21,963 wrapped bitcoin (WBTC) tokens after it fully paid off its debt to Maker. Celsius alreadyredeemeda 2,000 WBTC installment of the collateral on Tuesday.
Fundstrat analyst Walter Teng said that Celsius's "de-leveraging activity on-chain will add sell-side pressure to assets that have been used as collateral," including WBTC, which has been the firm's largest holding pledged against its decentralized finance (DeFi) loans.
The move suggests that Celsius might sell the assets for more liquid assets, although market data on the exchange did not indicate that it had already happened. At press time, WBTC traded closely in tandem with bitcoin, changing hands at $21,600, up 6% in the last 24 hours.
Celsius halted withdrawals and all user transfers starting in June, citing "extreme market conditions" that led to fears that the lender might face insolvency. The firm alsohiredrestructuring advisers, while regulators alsostarted investigationsinto the crypto lender's operation in several U.S. states.
Last week, the company said in a statement that it was exploring options to "preserve and protect assets" in consultation with experts, which can include “pursuing strategic transactions” and “restructuring its liabilities,” asreported.
Read more:How Crypto Lender Celsius Overheated || Visa Is a Reliable Payments Giant That Will Endure: In these turbulent times, it might be tempting to dump yourVisa(NYSE:V) shares and stay in an all-cash position. But V stock is among the safest investments during a time when cash displacement is a global phenomenon.
In America and abroad, the way people pay and transact is changing quickly. Billionaire Ray Dalio once famously said that “cash is trash.” This might be an exaggeration, but there’s little doubt that millennials and Gen Z tend to favor digital payments over cash transactions.
As they say, the proof is in the numbers. The data will show that Visa’s payments and processed transactions are growing, including those that are cross-border. At the same time, investors can potentially beat the inflation blues by holding Visa shares for price appreciation and consistent dividend payouts.
InvestorPlace - Stock Market News, Stock Advice & Trading Tips
[{"Ticker": "V", "Company": "Visa", "Current Price": "$201.46"}]
For the past year, V stock has gone nowhere fast. It gyrates up and down, but the $200 level is like a magnet and that’s undoubtedly frustrating for Visa’s long-term investors.
But hey, breaking even with Visa shares hasn’t been the worst-case scenario. It’s better than having lost roughly 8% of value per year with an all-cash position. Besides, cash doesn’t pay a dividend, whereas Visa offers a forward annual dividend yield of 0.79%. Plus, Visa’s trailing 12-month price-to-earnings ratio of 31.38x suggests that the stock isn’t drastically overpriced.
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Furthermore, there’s a sense of safety in knowing that you’re investing in a thriving business. During2022’s second quarter, on a year-over-year basis, Visa’s net revenue increased 25%. Also, the company’s GAAP net income grew 21%, and Visa’s GAAP earnings-per-share advanced 23%.
Where Visa really shone in Q2, however, was in the area of cross-border payments/transactions. Impressively, the company cross-border volume grew 38%. If we exclude intra-Europe cross-border volume, then the year-over-year increase jumps to 47%.
During the second-quarterearnings call, Chairman and CEO Alfred F. Kelly emphasized that in the area of consumer payments, Visa continued to “displace cash at a strong rate.” In Q2, Visa’s debit cash volumes at grew 2%, while debit payment volumes increased 12%.
Kelly further noted that cash displacement “continued around the world.” He pointed out that “Year-over-year across debit and credit, they were 7.9 billion more payments transactions and 16 million less cash transactions.” Additionally, in Q1 2022 Kelly “highlighted the shift from cash to payments volume in Latin America, and that trend continued in this quarter.”
Moreover, the shift away from cash isn’t limited to Latin America. Neil Mumm, Head of Merchant Sales & Acquiring, Visa, Asia Pacific, observed that Visa is“enabling cashless payments”in Asia, “from a bicycle shop in Vietnam to pop-up stores and street vendors in Hong Kong.” To facilitate this transition, Visa has introduced the Acceptance Fast Track Program. This program enables Asian small businesses to accept digital payments in just a matter of minutes.
From reliable dividend payments to growing revenue and earnings, there are ample reasons to hold V stock. Cash might or might not be “trash,” but cashless payments are on the rise. Hence, Visa is anticipating this global trend with best-in-class digital-payment systems.
So, don’t let worries about inflation deter you from investing in Visa now. Granted, the stock has been stuck in a range for a while. Yet, it may be due for a breakout as Visa leads the charge in the worldwide shift away from cash payments.
On the date of publication, David Moadeldid not have (either directly or indirectly) any positions in the securities mentioned in this article.The opinions expressed in this article are those of the writer, subject to the InvestorPlace.comPublishing Guidelines.
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The postVisa Is a Reliable Payments Giant That Will Endureappeared first onInvestorPlace. || Binance Extends Zero-Fee Bitcoin Trading Globally: Binance will cut bitcoin (BTC) trading fees to zero worldwide as of July 8, stepping up competition with its rival cryptocurrency exchanges.
• Trading fees are being eliminated across 13 stablecoin and fiat combinations including BTC/USDT, BTC/USDC and BTC/BUSD,Binance announced Wednesday.
• The cut in fees is an extension of a program the largest cryptocurrency exchange by volume introduced in the U.S. last month.
• Zero-fee trading will take effect July 8 to coincide with the exchange's five-year anniversary this month. It will remain in place until further notice.
• The move across the global Binance business follows two weeks after Binance.USremoved trading fees on bitcoin spot pairs.
• With the onset of the crypto bear market, exchanges like Binance have been seeking ways of attracting and retaining users on their platforms to ensure their slice of the depleted pie remains healthy.
• Shares of Binance's publicly traded rival Coinbase (COIN) fell 9.7% June 22,the day Binance.US announced free trading. Shares are down 5.8% so far today while the Nasdaq 100 index has lost less than 0.2%.
Read more:Binance Resumes Local Currency Deposits with Brazilian Payment System Pix || Genesis Trading at risk of nine-figure losses in 3AC contagion: report: Crypto market maker and lender Genesis Trading may lose “hundreds of millions” due to its exposure to troubled crypto firms Three Arrows Capital (3AC) and Hong Kong-based lender Babel Finance, CoinDesk reported . See related article: Wall Street seems to sense opportunity in distressed crypto markets Fast facts Genesis is seeking at least partial reimbursement from its counterparties and some of the loss may have been offset, according to an anonymous source cited by CoinDesk. Genesis Chief Executive Officer Michael Moro tweeted on June 17 that the company has “carefully and thoughtfully mitigated losses” when a large counterparty failed to make a margin call. 3AC recently defaulted on a loan worth about US$665 million from Canadian cryptocurrency broker Voyager Digital, which consisted of 350 million in USDC stablecoins and 15,250 Bitcoins. A British Virgin Islands court ordered the liquidation of 3AC on Wednesday. Babel Finance announced last week that it has reached “preliminary agreements” on debt repayments to counterparties to ease the liquidity pressure, but withdrawals have been frozen for two weeks. See related article: Voyager calls time on Three Arrows as crypto fund teeters on the brink || EU Ramps Up Legal Pressure on UK Over Breaches of Brexit Deal: (Bloomberg) -- The European Union ramped up its legal campaign against the UK over breaches to the Brexit deal, days after legislation allowing Britain to scrap parts of the Northern Ireland protocol cleared the House of Commons. Most Read from Bloomberg Tesla’s Bitcoin Dump Leaves Accounting Mystery in Its Wake WHO Chief Overrules Panel to Call Monkeypox Global Emergency VW Billionaire Clan Plotted CEO Ouster as He Was on US Trip Russian Odesa Missile Strike Tests Ukraine Grain Export Deal Three Arrows Founders Break Silence Over Collapse of Crypto Hedge Fund On Friday, the European Commission launched four additional infringement proceedings against the UK, claiming the government had failed to comply with customs and value-added tax rules it signed up to. Britain has two months to respond, after which the European Commission said it is ready to take further measures. The move marks an escalation of tensions as Britain’s ruling Conservative party prepares to elect a new leader. Both Foreign Secretary Liz Truss and former Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak, the two candidates to replace Boris Johnson as prime minister, have ruled out withdrawing the controversial legislation which would let Britain unilaterally rewrite key parts of the Northern Ireland protocol. Johnson, who negotiated the accord in 2019, has since argued that the protocol -- which effectively kept Northern Ireland in the EU’s single market for goods at the cost of creating a customs border in the Irish sea -- is causing disruption in Northern Ireland and should be amended. The EU had put forward a number of proposals to tackle several of the UK’s concerns -- among them, the flow of medicines between Britain and Northern Ireland and the volume of paperwork that businesses need to file when moving goods across the Irish sea. But the British government has said the proposals aren’t enough and instead has sought scrap parts of the deal -- a move the EU has warned would violate international law. Story continues The Commission had initially refrained from legal action to provide space for talks, but the UK’s lack of engagement and the introduction of the Northern Ireland Protocol Bill “go directly against this spirit,” the Commission said in a statement. Last month, the bloc started legal action over the UK’s failure to provide trade data and comply with animal and plant health rules. The legislation was approved by the House of Commons without amendments this week. It is now with the upper chamber, the House of Lords, where amendments are still possible. If the Lords makes amendments to the bill after it returns from recess in September, it is then sent back to the Commons for those changes to be considered. Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek The $260 Swatch-Omega MoonSwatch Is Reviving the Budget Brand Postmortem Sperm Retrieval Is Turning Dead Men Into Fathers The US Has Lost Its Way on Computer Chips Ghosts of 2012 Haunt Europe as Rate Hikes Begin Sam Bankman-Fried Turns $2 Trillion Crypto Rout Into Buying Opportunity ©2022 Bloomberg L.P. || Crypto contagion fears spread after Celsius Network freezes withdrawals: By Tom Wilson, Hannah Lang and Elizabeth Howcroft WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Bitcoin fell as much as 14% on Monday after major U.S. cryptocurrency lending company Celsius Network froze withdrawals and transfers citing "extreme" market conditions, in the latest sign of the financial market downturn hitting the cryptosphere. The Celsius move triggered a slide across cryptocurrencies, with their value dropping below $1 trillion on Monday for the first time since January 2021, sparking worries the rout might spill over into other assets or hit other companies. "Almost anything can be systemic in crypto ... because the whole space is over-levered," said Cory Klippsten, chief executive of Swan Bitcoin, a bitcoin savings platform. "It's all a house of cards." Celsius CEO Alex Mashinsky and Celsius did not respond to Reuters requests for comment. New Jersey-based Celsius, which has around $11.8 billion in assets, offers interest-bearing products to customers who deposit cryptocurrencies with its platform. It then lends out cryptocurrencies to earn a return. After Celsius's announcement, bitcoin touched an 18-month low of $22,725, before rebounding slightly to around $23,265. No.2 token ether dropped as much as 18% to $1,176, its lowest since January 2021. Companies exposed to cryptocurrencies have previously warned that declines in token prices could have ripple effects, including by triggering margin calls. "It's still an uncomfortable moment, and there's some contagion risk around crypto more broadly," said Joseph Edwards, head of financial strategy at fund management firm Solrise Finance. Crypto markets have dived in the past few weeks as rising interest rates and surging inflation prompted investors to ditch riskier assets across financial markets. Markets extended a sell-off on Monday after U.S. inflation data on Friday, which showed the largest price increase since 1981, prompting investors to raise their bets on Federal Reserve rate hikes.[MKTS/GLOB] Story continues That was likely the key driver of the crypto market nosedive, Jay Hatfield, chief investment officer at Infrastructure Capital Management, wrote in a note on Monday. "The Fed’s overexpansion of its balance sheet led to a number of bubbles including tech stocks, (and) crypto tokens," he said. Cryptocurrency investors have also been rattled by the collapse of the terraUSD and luna tokens in May which was shortly followed by Tether, the world's largest stablecoin, briefly breaking its 1:1 peg with the dollar. In a blog post https://tether.to/en/celsius-feels-impact-of-market-volatility-tether-reserves-hold-strong on Monday, Tether said that while it has invested in Celsius, its lending activity with the crypto platform has "always been overcollateralized" and has no impact on Tether's reserves. The token was last trading flat at $1. Also on Monday, BlockFi, another crypto lending platform, said it was reducing its staff by about 20% due to "dramatic shift in macroeconomic conditions." BlockFi said that it has no exposure to Celsius. Bitcoin, which surged in 2020 and 2021, is down around 50% so far this year. Ethereum is down more than 67% this year. CRYPTO LENDING Celsius says on its website that customers who transfer their crypto to its platform can earn an annual return of up to 18.6%. The website urges customers to "Earn high. Borrow low". In a blog post https://blockfi.com/a-message-from-our-founders on Sunday evening, the company said it had frozen withdrawals, as well as transfers between accounts, "to stabilise liquidity and operations while we take steps to preserve and protect assets." "We are taking this action today to put Celsius in a better position to honour, over time, its withdrawal obligations," the company said. Celsius's token has fallen about 97% in the last 12 months, from $7 to around 20 cents, based on CoinGecko data. 'GREY AREA' Crypto lending products have surged in popularity and many companies have launched offerings within the last year. That has sparked concerns among regulators who are worried about investor protections and systemic risks from unregulated lending products. Celsius and crypto firms that offer similar services operate in a regulatory "grey area," said Matthew Nyman at CMS law firm. Celsius raised $750 million in funding last year from investors including Canada's second-largest pension fund Caisse de Dépôt et Placement du Québec. Celsius was valued at the time at $3.25 billion. As of May 17, Celsius had $11.8 billion in assets, its website said, down by more than half from October, and had processed a total of $8.2 billion worth of loans. Mashinsky, the CEO, was quoted in October last year saying Celsius had more than $25 billion in assets. Rival crypto lender Nexo said on Monday it had offered to buy Celsius' outstanding assets. "We reached out to Celsius Sunday morning to discuss the acquisition of its collateralised loan portfolio. So far, Celsius has chosen not to engage," said Nexo co-founder Antoni Trenchev. Celsius did not respond to a request for comment on Nexo's offer. (Reporting by Tom Wilson and Elizabeth Howcroft in London and Hannah Lang in Washington; additional reporting by Abinaya Vijayaraghavan in Bengaluru and Alun John in Hong Kong; Editing by Jane Merriman, David Evans and Lisa Shumaker)
[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
None available.
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Trend: no change || Prices: 23164.32, 23947.64, 23957.53, 24402.82, 24424.07, 24319.33, 24136.97, 23883.29, 23336.00, 23212.74
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Analyze the provided historical prices, technical indicators, news, and social media sentiment from the last 60 days. Based on this context, predict the overall trend (up, down, or no change) and the specific daily closing prices for Bitcoin for the next 10 days.
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[Technical Analysis for 2021-12-23]
BTC Price: 50784.54, BTC RSI: 50.65
Gold Price: 1811.20, Gold RSI: 55.99
Oil Price: 73.79, Oil RSI: 52.55
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
Mastercard Tops Earnings and Revenue Estimates on Spending Boom: Mastercard , a global payments and technology company, reported better-than-expected earnings and revenue in the third quarter, largely driven by strong domestic and cross-border spending which has recently returned to its pre-COVID-19 levels. The U.S. multinational financial services corporation reported a net income of $2.4 billion and diluted earnings per share of $2.44, beating the market expectations of $2.19 per share. The Purchase, New York-based firm said its net revenue jumped 30% to $5.0 billion, above the Wall Street consensus of $4.95 billion. Following this Mastercard’s shares rose 3% to $345 in premarket trading on Thursday but was trading 0.26% lower at $334.84 at the time of writing. It is worth noting that its rivals American Express and Visa also beat estimates on spending growth. Analyst Comments “ Mastercard (MA) reported solid 3Q results ahead of estimates with volume growth (ex-cross border) on a two-year stack having largely returned to normal. Key metrics accelerated sequentially in 3Q and further in October MTD. We expect the stock to be strong at the open,” noted Andrew Charles, equity analyst at Cowen. “Revenue growth is expected to be in the mid-20s vs. consensus of +26%, or in the low-20son a non-GAAP organic cc basis. Operating expenses are expected to be up in the mid-teens. On a non-GAAP basis, operating expense growth is expected to be in the high-end of high-teens, or the low-end of low double-digits on a non-GAAP organic cc basis. Note, we were modelling 27% revenue growth and 20.5% operating expense growth.” Mastercard Stock Price Forecast Fourteen analysts who offered stock ratings for Mastercard in the last three months forecast the average price in 12 months of $437.64 with a high forecast of $482.00 and a low forecast of $385.00. The average price target represents a 30.53% change from the last price of $335.29. From those 14 analysts, 13 rated “Buy”, one rate “Hold”, while none rate “Sell”, according to Tipranks. Story continues Morgan Stanley gave the base target price of $266 with a high of $319 under a bull scenario and $184 under the worst-case scenario. The firm gave an “Overweight” rating on the restaurant chain’s stock. “ Mastercard (MA) is one of our preferred stocks in the space. MA’s compounding growth drivers include resilient global consumer spend growth, market share gains, and the secular shift to a card from cash. As the second-largest global card network (behind Visa), MA appears well-positioned to benefit from market share gains in particular regions and consumer spending trends, which have been fairly resilient even through economic cycles,” noted James Faucette, equity analyst at Morgan Stanley. “These trends should support double-digit revenue growth over the next few years. High incremental margins and opportunities to expand its Vocalink and B2B capabilities should enable the company to drive compounding earnings growth longer term.” Several other analysts have also updated their stock outlook. Jefferies lowered the target price to $425 from $450. JPMorgan raised the price target to $430 from $427. Mizuho lifted the target price to $450 from $435. Check out FX Empire’s earnings calendar This article was originally posted on FX Empire More From FXEMPIRE: Silver Price Daily Forecast – Silver Rebounds After Recent Pullback Natural Gas Price Prediction – Prices Fall Following Inventory Report Technology Select Sector SPDR ETF Up By 0.6% As Tech Stocks Rally GBP/JPY Price Forecast – British Pound Continues to Find Buyers on Dips Matt Damon Hastens Bitcoin Mainstream Adoption in New Ad Natural Gas Price Forecast – Natural Gas Markets Pull Back || Facebook whistleblower Haugen admits she invested in crypto: Frances Haugen, a former Facebook employee-turned whistleblower, revealed that her refuge in Puerto Rico is currently being supported by a well-timed cryptocurrency investment. Some of her main revelations included how Facebook executives handled politicised lies, including Donald Trump’s claims of election fraud. Often, the company chose to let misinformation spread widely, to keep more people logging on. The Haugen series also noted the lengths that Facebook went to in its desperation to hang on to its audience as young people drifted away from its platforms Haugen, who worked as a Facebook product manager, accused the company of spreading controversial and insensitive misinformation. Recently she blamed the social media giant for harming children, sowing division and undermining democracy in pursuit of breakneck growth and “astronomical profits.” Facebook prioritises profits over its users’ well-being Haugen also claimed that Facebook consistently chose to maximise its growth rather than implement safeguards on its platforms, just as it hid from the public and government officials internal research that illuminated the harms of Facebook products. “The result has been more division, more harm, more lies, more threats and more combat. In some cases, this dangerous online talk has led to actual violence that harms and even kills people,” Haugen said. Allegedly she possesses numerous confidential research documents, which according to her, shows that “Facebook prioritises profit over the well-being of children and all users”. She explained that she had moved to Puerto Rico to cope with a health condition – but also to join her “crypto friends” on the island, whose capital gains tax exemptions have made it a hub for that novel financial system. The whistleblower also confirmed she had received financial help from nonprofit organisations (NPO) backed by Pierre Omidyar, the co-founder of eBay. Still, Haugen explained that Omidyar’s NPO fundings were only used to finance travel and related expenses. Haugen also got support from the famous whistleblower and former CIA agent Edward Snowden also who is constantly advocating for the Bitcoin (BTC) economy amid regulatory pressures from governments across the world. || JPMorgan says ethereum is a better bet than bitcoin as interest rates rise, due to the boom in DeFi and NFTs: Ethereum and bitcoin are the two biggest cryptocurrencies. Jordan Mansfield /Getty Images Crypto investors should hold ethereum rather than bitcoin in an era of rising interest rates, JPMorgan analysts said. Ethereum is at the heart of decentralized finance and the market for non-fungible tokens, two booming areas. Bitcoin is more akin to digital gold, which is likely to fare less well as interest rates and bond yields rise. Crypto investors should be holding ethereum rather than bitcoin as interest rates rise, JPMorgan said, because the blockchain has more uses such as powering decentralized finance and non-fungible tokens. JPMorgan analysts, led by market strategist Nikolaos Panigirtzoglou, said in a recent report that rising interest rates could pose a problem for bitcoin, just as they traditionally do for gold. Bitcoin has boomed in a world of ultra-low interest rates and massive bond-buying, which have flooded markets with cash and spurred concerns about overheating. Many see bitcoin as "digital gold" and a hedge against inflation. But central banks around the world are cutting back their support for economies in an effort to cool strong inflation. That means interest rates and bond yields are poised to start rising. The Bank of England on Thursday said interest rates would have to rise "over the coming months." The Federal Reserve on Wednesday cut back its $120 billion a month of bond purchases. Given that, JPMorgan said investors may be better off holding ether, the world's second-biggest cryptocurrency, which runs on the ethereum blockchain. That's because it has many more uses than bitcoin and so interest should remain stronger. The ethereum network is central to the world of decentralized finance, a booming sector that uses crypto technology to carry out traditional financial tasks such as lending or trading. It is also at the heart of non-fungible tokens or NFTs, collectible items traded and secured using crypto tech. Read more: Beware of 'The Flippening': 7 crypto experts break down the ominous-sounding event and its implications for bitcoin, with some investors fearing it could unsettle the crypto market "The rise in bond yields and the eventual normalization of monetary policy is putting downward pressure on bitcoin as a form of digital gold, the same way higher real yields have been putting downward pressure on traditional gold," Panigirtzoglou wrote. "With ethereum deriving its value from its applications, ranging from DeFi to gaming to NFTs and stablecoins, it appears less susceptible than bitcoin to higher real yields." The bank's analysts also said ethereum may be the better bet over the longer-term due to the growing importance of environmental concerns in investing. Story continues Both cryptocurrencies currently use a validation and security system that uses vast amounts of electricity. Yet ethereum plans to move away from this system to a far less energy-intensive one by the end of 2022. "The greater focus by investors on [environmental, social and governance investing] has shifted attention away from the energy intensive bitcoin blockchain to the ethereum blockchain," the analysts said. However, JPMorgan has said that both cryptocurrencies currently appear overvalued, as they're far too volatile for most institutional investors. Ethereum traded at $4,498 on Friday, just off an all-time high of above $4,600 touched earlier this week. Bitcoin was trading at $61,501, down from a record high of $66,000 in October. Read the original article on Business Insider View comments || El Salvador’s Chivo Bitcoin Wallet Could Be At Risk Of U.S. Sanctions: It has been three months sincebitcoinbecame alegal tenderin El Salvador, and all the bitcoin transactions occur through the Government official wallet called “Chivo Wallet”. At first, it seemed everything was good, but lately there have been concerns about the people who are behind this business..
Cristosal is an non-governmental organization (NGO) and a non-profit founded by anglican bishops Justo Martin Barahona and Richard Bower, their objective is to promote justice, human rights, and democratic societies in Central America, through strategic litigation, monitoring of human rights and care for victims of human rights violations, according to their officialwebsite.
On December 8th, Zaira Navas, a lawyer and member of Cristosal presented a case of identity fraud to the General Prosecutor of the Republic of El Salvador on behalf of 131 people whose identities were compromised by opening an account in Chivo Wallet and withdrawing the $30 incentive provided if you register in the app.
“Accounts are opened, they take out the bonus of $30 and then they close it again so that it opens again” Zaira Navas said.
Navas and other lawyers of Cristosal also presented the case to the Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice. This is the second time that Cristosal has filed the same case of identity fraud to the General Prosecutor of the Republic of El Salvador, it has been one and a half month since they introduced the first claim and they haven’t been summoned or informed, Navas commented.
Last week the U.S. Department of Treasury applied sanctions, under the Magnitsky Act, to close officials to president Nayib Bukele, including Carolina Recinos, chief of staff and director of one of the companies which owns Chivo Wallet, among others, according to a localnewsreport.
After this news, President Nayib Bukele, said on twitter“These daily accusationsseem absurd.” “It is clear that the United States Government does not accept collaboration, friendship or alliance.”in order to defend his close officials.
Navas claimed that after seeing the connection between Carolina Recinos and Chivo Wallet, the U.S. could be targeting Chivo Wallet in the U.S. because of lack of transparency and it could be linked to corruption. According to Milena Mayorga, Salvadoran ambassador in the U.S., just in November more than $32 million remittances entered to El Salvador through Chivo Wallet.
Cristosal has received more than one thousand complaints of identity fraud. It is not certain that the U.S. could impose sanctions over Chivo Wallet, but according to the facts, it appears there would be no other way.
Thisarticlewas originally posted on FX Empire
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• Natural Gas Price Forecast – Natural Gas Markets Continue to Drift Lower || 2 reasons why bitcoin's rally stalled in November and why the weakness may continue, according to JPMorgan: • Bitcoin has stumbled in November, falling as much as 12% and reversing October's strong rally.
• Bitcoin's price decline can continue into year-end as crypto positioning remains overbought, JPMorgan said in a note last week.
• These are the two reasons why the crypto rally stalled in recent weeks, according to JPMorgan.
Bitcoin's27% rally in October reversed in November, with the cryptocurrency falling as much as 12% this month amid a risk-off period for stocks andconcerns of a new COVID-19 variant.
But according to a November 24 note fromJPMorgan, the weakness in bitcoin prices likely stems from a slowdown in fund flows into recently launched bitcoin futures ETFs. Those ETFs saw a surge in October, with the ProShares Bitcoin Strategy BITO ETF becoming thefastest ETF ever to reach $1 billion in assets under management.
After that record-setting pace, inflows came to a near standstill in November, with the BITO ETF seeing its AUM edge up from $1.2 billion at the start of the month to $1.3 billion as of Friday.
"What is more disappointing is that the stalling in bitcoin fund inflows in November took place as physical gold ETFs continued to bleed," JPMorgan's Nikolaos Panigirtzoglou said. Bitcoin isviewed by many as a "digital gold" alternativeto physical gold, thanks to its fixed supply and the widely held investor belief that it is an inflation hedge.
Another reason for the recent weakness in bitcoin's price has to do with investor positioning in the cryptocurrency hitting overbought levels, according to the note. "Our bitcoin position proxy based on CME futures had spiked in September/October to overbought levels last seen in February 2021," Panigirtzoglou explained.
Those overbought levels will serve as a headwind for bitcoin going forward, JPMorgan said, which could limit upside pressure in a price rally until they moderate. When bitcoin last hit overbought levels in February, the price extended its gains through April but then experienced a multi-month drawdown of about 50%.
And after bitcoin hit its most oversold levels of the year in October, the price rallied nearly 30%, highlighting the potential for big returns when traders go against the crowd.
Read the original article onBusiness Insider || 7 New Stocks That Can Provide Long-Term Gains After Their IPOs: Although all eyes have been on the searing path that benchmark equity indices have blazed in 2021, initial public offerings (IPOs) have had their own impressive bull market. In fact, Reuters reported in mid-June that U.S. IPOs hit an annual record in less than six months . So if 2020 was the year of the novel coronavirus, 2021 could be considered the coming of age of new stocks. Not since the mad rush of the tech bubble during the late 1990s to early 2000s have we seen such a pronounced backdrop for IPOs. Not only that, CNBC told its viewers to gird themselves for the possibility of a record-breaking rush of new stocks this fall. And while the exuberance for new public market opportunities may seem to imply a brewing bubble, for the sake of argument, theres also a case for this rides sustainability. InvestorPlace - Stock Market News, Stock Advice & Trading Tips Primarily, the new enterprises launching IPOs are not centered toward one particular segment, such as technology. Instead, you see a rich diversity of new stocks which to my knowledge has no modern precedent. In my work covering IPOs for Benzinga , Ive seen everything from biotech plays to hair care to even car washes . While diversity alone isnt a reason to trust new stocks, it does suggest that economic demand is spread out across various sectors suggesting a more stable environment for IPOs. Secondarily, the surge of new stocks has brought additional opportunities for retail investors. True, traditional IPOs tend to bludgeon regular folks because underwriters distribute new issues at their initial offering price to institutional investors for profitability reasons. But thanks to special purpose acquisition companies (SPACs), anybody can take early bird bets; Hence Bloombergs labeling of SPACs as the poor mans private equity funds . 7 European Stocks to Buy to Diversify Your Portfolio To be fair, anytime you take a step into the unknown which is exactly the case with IPOs youre absorbing substantial risk. Nevertheless, for those who want extra oomph with their speculation funds, here are new stocks with potential long-term gains. Story continues Rent the Runway (NASDAQ: RENT ) GlobalFoundries (NASDAQ: GFS ) Warby Parker (NYSE: WRBY ) Vivid Seats (NASDAQ: SEAT ) NerdWallet (NASDAQ: NRDS ) Better Therapeutics (NASDAQ: BTTX ) Lottery.com (NASDAQ: LTRY ) For full disclosure, the very existence of IPOs benefits me because I spend a quarter of my workdays covering the topic. But among the many Ive analyzed, these new stocks appeal to me as potential long-term winners. IPOs Set for Major Gains: Rent the Runway (RENT) colorful clothes on a white rack with a bright yellow background Source: Africa Studio/shutterstock.com After discussing cryptocurrencies, blockchain architectures, biopharmaceuticals and integrated circuits, I jumped at the opportunity to discuss Rent the Runway. The subscription-based service allows users mainly women to rent thousands of designer fashions. And while Im not very knowledgeable about fashion, Rent the Runway gave me a chance to talk about something different. But beyond my penchant for discussing new stocks off the beaten path, RENT offers serious relevance for the modern up-and-coming consumer. For starters, the sharing economy is massive and will continue to expand as millennials and Generation Z flex their fiscal muscles. Back in 2014, the sharing economy reached a valuation of $14 billion. By 2025, experts project that it will hit $335 billion . Furthermore, in a private message sent to me by Anya Cheng, founder and CEO of Taelor, she informed me that men are much more willing to spend money on fashion through her companys subscription-based platform than they would left to their own devices. Taelor is similar to Rent the Runway but focuses on menswear. If the gents are that enthusiastic about fashion, its a safe bet that the ladies are too, making RENT one of the IPOs to consider. GlobalFoundries (GFS) Close-up Presentation of a New Generation Microchip. Gloved Hand Holding Piece of Technological Wonder. Source: Shutterstock Thanks to the global supply chain disruption that has made everything from used cars to toilet paper much more expensive than they have any right being, the new normal has imposed substantial setbacks for the world economy. But no sector has experienced as much change and pressure as the semiconductor industry. And due to its extreme relevance, semiconductor firms have skyrocketed over the trailing year. Naturally, one of the top-performing IPOs in recent weeks is GlobalFoundries, a former spinoff from Advanced Micro Devices (NASDAQ: AMD ). Between its first public trading session on Oct. 28 through the close of Nov. 4, GFS stock gained more than 35%. Much of this is due to unprecedented demand for computer chips. And while this rampant demand could turn into a supply glut later, its all hands on deck for the semiconductor industry right now. Nonetheless, even if a supply glut materializes, GFS is one of the most intriguing new stocks for another reason: the underlying company finds itself front and center of a hotly brewing geopolitical conflict. With China rattling its sabers over Taiwan, theres a possibility that the U.S. can get dragged into an armed conflict due to Taiwans importance to global chip production. The Top 7 Micro-Cap Stocks to Buy Before 2022 However, GlobalFoundries is levered away from both Asian countries , giving the company critical insulation that could attract long-term investors. IPOs Set for Major Gains: Warby Parker (WRBY) The front of a Warby Parker (WRBY) store in Hoboken, New Jersey. Source: Dev Chatterjee / Shutterstock.com As one of the more popular IPOs that debuted in the past few months, Warby Parker specializes in low-cost prescription glasses and sunglasses that are high in fashion-forward thinking. From that standpoint, Warby Parker features almost-perfect marketing for the core millennial demographic, who are not nearly as tied to branding as prior generations. Additionally, who doesnt love a good deal? One of the interesting side notes about the company is that unlike a majority of the IPOs of this year, Warby Parker direct listed its shares. A key distinguisher of a direct listing is that it involves no underwriters (or middlemen entities to basically gin up interest for the new stocks). Instead, the company sells its shares directly to would-be buyers. To be blunt, WRBY stock is only slightly above parity from its Sep. 29 debut. However, those who have a longer-term perspective should consider adding it to their portfolio. Namely, myopia is the most common ocular disorder in the world. Furthermore, evidence indicates that global myopia cases will only increase over time. Admittedly, such a thought process is cynical but its also undeniably powerful. Vivid Seats (SEAT) Image of a singer at a rock concert. Source: kondr.konst/Shutterstock.com Im going to be straightforward from the get-go regarding Vivid Seats. Among the new stocks issued in recent months, Vivid Seats is one of the most questionable enterprises due to the uncertainties of the novel coronavirus pandemic. As an independently owned and operated online ticket marketplace, SEAT stock requires society to stay on the up and up. Otherwise, a resurgence of Covid-19 cases could spell serious trouble. Still, its hard not to recognize how the pandemic has also helped Vivid Seats become one of the more compelling IPOs of the new normal. As I mentioned in my interview with CGTN Americas Rachelle Akuffo, American consumers essentially suffered a one-year period where they encountered denials of basic social experiences . Thus, we have pent-up demand commonly termed as retail revenge with people ready to open their wallets to make up for lost time. 3 Streaming Stocks to Buy on the Dips As evidenced by packed stadiums at baseball and football games in 2021, many Americans are ready to return to packed arenas and stadiums for sporting events and concerts. And its difficult to imagine that people will voluntarily go back to quarantines and social distancing not unless we have another outbreak. IPOs Set for Major Gains: NerdWallet (NRDS) The NerdWallet (NRDS) logo displayed on a computer screen. Source: monticello / Shutterstock.com NerdWallet is one of the newest IPOs out there on Wall Street, debuting just this week. Therefore, I dont have the benefit of hindsight to determine what kind of market sentiment NRDS stock commands. While that puts me in a disadvantage, I still believe that NerdWallet will be one of the better-performing stocks over the long haul. You just need to look at the broader development. Back when the Covid-19 crisis first capsized us, the intuitive inclination was to dump out of the equities market. With what seemed like the apocalypse heading straight for us, engaging in risk-on assets seemed imprudent. But then, something strange happened. Rather than people running away from stocks, they embraced them. Indeed, the Wall Street Journal mentioned that suddenly, everyone became a day trader . Of course, artificial dynamics such as unemployment extensions and stimulus checks incentivized the shift to the capital markets. Not only that, newcomers were jumping on everything, from blue chips to IPOs to penny stocks. Somebody needs to provide trusted educational information regarding these asset classes, which is where NerdWallet comes in. So, with demand insatiable for other investment classes as well (most notably real estate), NerdWallet will be kept plenty busy. Better Therapeutics (BTTX) IV drip in hospital hall representing therapeutics Source: Shutterstock Coming to us via a SPAC merger, Better Therapeutics may be one of the few IPOs that give business combinations with shell companies a stronger reputation. While SPACs have been all the rage this year, you cant ignore the facts. On a year-to-date (YTD) basis, new stocks that have formed through reverse mergers with blank-check firms have underperformed benchmark equity indices . Recently, though, SPACs overall have performed much better so they can still redeem themselves. Certainly, Better Therapeutics is thus far contributing to this burgeoning narrative, with shares rising from their $10 initial offering price. A significant catalyst for the equity units demand profile is the companys approach to type 2 diabetes. Rather than targeting the effects of disease, Better Therapeutics focuses on causes. 3 Bitcoin ETFs to Give Investors A Taste of the Hot Crypto Particularly, the biotech firms cognitive behavioral therapy, which aims to shift cognitive patterns to promote healthier eating and lifestyle behaviors, is truly compelling stuff. With such an approach, Better can help patients not be entirely dependent on management mechanisms, such as glucose monitoring devices. As well, the company can ease up soaring medical costs by again targeting causes rather than just effects. IPOs Set for Major Gains: Lottery.com (LTRY) an excited man screaming with clinched fists as hundreds of dollars floats in the air around him Source: Shutterstock As I mentioned above, SPACs have generally not performed well. But the ones that seemed to break above the mold are from gambling-related enterprises such as DraftKings (NASDAQ: DKNG ). Therefore, the introduction of Lottery.com also by way of a SPAC would seem to be a long-term winner. However, some important caveats exist to the enthusiasm, as I mentioned for Benzinga: To be sure, such gambling platforms have their dark side. As a 2017 op-ed from The Wall Street Journal mentioned, states essentially push lottery tickets on the poor , earning billions of dollars in the process. But because lotteries by nature are low-probability affairs, this system can keep underprivileged communities who lack access to financial education resources in a cynical cycle of poverty. While Im not casting any judgment, youre probably going to find LTRY stock included in a list of vice stocks soon. That said, if you can tolerate the cynicism, Lottery.com does have substantial upside appeal. Mainly, weve become a country of speculators. In fact, just look at how much stock trading on margin expanded this year! The thing is, the wealth gap in the U.S. is so skewed to the ultra-privileged that speculation has almost become a necessity for survival. So, like it or not, LTRY stock is in it for the long term. On the date of publication, Josh Enomoto did not have (either directly or indirectly) any positions in the securities mentioned in this article. The opinions expressed in this article are those of the writer, subject to the InvestorPlace.com Publishing Guidelines . A former senior business analyst for Sony Electronics, Josh Enomoto has helped broker major contracts with Fortune Global 500 companies. Over the past several years, he has delivered unique, critical insights for the investment markets, as well as various other industries including legal, construction management, and healthcare. More From InvestorPlace Stock Prodigy Who Found NIO at $2
Says Buy THIS Now Analyst Who Found Microsoft at $0.38 Names #1 Pick for the AI Boom Americas #1 EV Stock Still Flying Under the Radar The post 7 New Stocks That Can Provide Long-Term Gains After Their IPOs appeared first on InvestorPlace . || Behind the Scenes of El Salvador’s Bitcoin Bond With the Man Who Designed It: El Salvador’s national adoption of bitcoin was easily the most transformationalcryptocurrency landmarkin a year full of them. The use of bitcoin as legal tender seems poised to attract a wave of experiments and investment, while a program to mine bitcoin usingvolcanic energycould be a significant boost for the lower-income economy.
But El Salvador’s recently-announced “Bitcoin Bond” may be the most truly disruptive and empowering part of the project. By selling bitcoin-backed bonds through blockchain infrastructure, El Salvador will bypass the Wall Street banks and international institutions that have had a century-long choke hold on loans to developing economies. There are signs that this could escalate into afull-scale public battleas global financiers angle toretain controlof the system.
Still, there are plenty of questions about the functional details of the bond, and a lot of unknowns about its real impact. To find out more, I recently spoke with Samson Mow, Chief Strategy Officer of Blockstream. Mow and Blockstream acted as advisors on the design of the bond, and the bond will be issuedusing Liquid, a bitcoin-based service created by Blockstream. But Blockstream won’t be directly involved in issuing, selling or servicing the bond, which will be handled by El Salvador’s central bank and the Bitfinex crypto exchange.
Read more:David Morris’s profile of Jack Mallersfor “Most Influential 2021″
Mow got involved with El Salvador through Strike CEO Jack Mallers, recognized recently by CoinDesk as one of themost influential people in cryptocurrencyfor helping spearhead El Salvador’s program.
“Our relationship goes back to theblocksize wars,” Mow said. “He came in on the small block side … That was a formative period in bitcoin history, when a lot of alliances were made. A lot of those alliances are still in place today.”
Mow says he first pitched the bond idea, via Mallers, ahead of the Bitcoin 2021 conference in June. But with the Salvadoran government focused on the retail rollout, real work on the bond didn’t get underway until October. Despite the project’s accelerated timeline, Mow was able to spend a good amount of time in El Salvador, and took away a positive impression of the Salvadoran government and its officials.
“The overarching feeling was one of very strong cohesion and direction,” he said. “I’ve been on trade missions before, with the government of Canada, but I’ve never felt this kind of drive from government officials … I felt, this is a once in a lifetime, a once in a thousand years chance to do something.”
That sense of shared purpose and commitment extended to Mow’s interactions with a variety of government agencies – not just finance teams, but also those focused on tourism, agriculture and energy.
“They were arranging things on the weekends, they were all scrambling to make something happen,” said Mow. “I met with the guys at [state power companies] Cel and LaGeo – those guys are on all the time. Everyone is really rallying behind [President Nayib] Bukele, and everyone believes in his ability to lead. That’s why they’re able to do things so quickly.”
Mow contrasts that focus with Canada, where he said, “We’re sitting on massive hydropower, but we’re not doing anything with it.” (Blockstream is based in Victoria, British Columbia.) Mow’s takeaway is particularly interesting in light of attempts to paint Bukele as a nascent dictator, which are hard to square with the sky-highpublic approval ratingshe’s maintained since winning power in a 2019 election that theU.S. State Departmentcalled “transparent and credible.”
Ultimately Mow said he developed three possible designs for the bond. One proposal was closer to themining-backed notesissued by Blockstream. Another proposal on the table was a more traditional bond issued in the form of a crypto token. The decision was ultimately made to go with the initial proposal, which tied bond returns strongly to bitcoin’s price performance over the next 10 years.
Amazingly, Mow said there was little discussion of whether the bonds would sell. “The target market for at least the first few bonds is people familiar with the Bitcoin space. I don’t think marketability was ever an issue, because there’s so much capital in the space. We never really thought it would be an issue to fill one bond, if not five bonds.”
As of our conversation in early December, Mow said there were already $300 million worth of “soft commitments” to the bond, which is still being refined ahead of its expected launch in 2022. “These are just Bitfinex whales, mostly,” said Mow.
That demand is great news for El Salvador, though it does highlight one of the potential risks of the project. Bitfinex is very closely aligned with tether, a dollar-denominated stablecoin that has been caughtmisrepresenting its reservesand accused of printing unbacked tokens. El Salvador will have to be vigilant to ensure it trades its assets for the real U.S. dollars or bitcoin it needs to run its economy, not questionable synthetic USD.
For regulators and authorities outside of El Salvador, the role of Bitfinex is worrying for other reasons. The exchange does not have a history of strong anti-money laundering (AML) or other financial controls, and operates with scattershotregulatory oversight. El Salvador is a sovereign nation, and has the right to sell its bonds to anyone who’s interested, in theory leaving a very large lane for money laundering or other abuses.
Ironically, Bitfinex officially doesn’t serve U.S. customers, meaning they’re among the most likely to be effectively barred from the bond sale. “It will be up to U.S. broker-dealers to see if they can source it,” said Mow.
“I think the bonds are probably the next biggest thing since Bitcoin’s invention,” Mow said of the larger stakes. “It’s a way for a huge flood of capital to flow into this bitcoin-based financial system. And the challenge has been, who will do it. Most people are followers, and nation-states are the same. They need to see someone do it, and they need to see it succeed, and then they’ll do it.”
As for the mounting hostility of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and other legacy players, Mow sees them sweating.
“I think it’s definitely a threat. They’re feeling it. But I don’t think it matters in the long run,” he said. “These organizations do harm people, and they do make nation-states into vassal states. There’s a high degree of interference with sovereign nations who are not so sovereign. That’s going to be hard for organizations like the IMF to swallow, but I just don’t think there’s anything they can do about it.”
Blockstream is happy to help push that challenge along. Mow says that the design of the bond, like Blockstream’s software, will be open-sourced. “All of the things we’re designing for the bonds, specifications, the economics, the legal framework, people are welcome to adopt this.”
Mow predicts a dramatic domino effect as countries follow El Salvador’s lead and decouple from the U.S. dollar system.
“We’re at a stage where Bitcoin is pretty secure and pretty resilient against any attack. We saw that with China shutting down mining. The mining will move, it’ll adjust. But [the Bitcoin Bond] is another level of going up against massive institutions. Your SDR [Special Drawing Rights, foreign exchange reserves housed at the IMF] aren’t going to work anymore if fiat doesn’t work anymore.
“You either get with the program or you become obsolete. Banks like JPMorgan and everyone else, they have to bend the knee.” || NFL star Aaron Rodgers to be paid Bitcoin as part of salary: American Football star Aaron Rodgers is to be part-paid in crypto. The three-time NFL MVP took to Twitter to say he’ll be receiving a portion of his $33.5m annual salary in Bitcoin. A legendary figure in the sport, the Green Bay Packers’ quarter-back is aiming to spread his influence in the cryptocurrency industry. I believe in Bitcoin & the future is bright. That's why I’m teaming up with Cash App to take a portion of my salary in bitcoin today. To make Bitcoin more accessible to my fans I’m giving out a total of $1M in btc now too. Drop your $cashtag w/ #PaidInBitcoin & follow @CashApp pic.twitter.com/mstV7eal04 — Aaron Rodgers (@AaronRodgers12) November 1, 2021 As well as receiving Bitcoin, Rodgers is also giving $1m worth of it away, as he stated in his Twitter post. Rodgers was enthusiastic when discussing the future of Bitcoin and appreciated that it could be daunting for those in the public who has yet to make the leap into the world of cryptocurrency. “I’m excited about Bitcoin because I believe it’s the future of money – it’s valuable, super secure, and no one can mess with it,” Rodgers said. “Bitcoin is new and the concept can be intimidating, so to make Bitcoin more accessible to my own fans I’m giving out a total of $1 million in BTC now too.” NFL athletes in cryptocurrency and NFTs Rodgers is following what is a growing list of National Football League (NFL) athletes investing their time and money into cryptocurrency and NFTs. NFL veteran Russell Okung hosted a Bitcoin meetup for beginners and was also vocal in his preference to be paid in it. The reigning NFL Superbowl MVP, Tom Brady, co-founded his own NFT company – Autograph – a platform that creates digital collections of the biggest names in sport and entertainment such as Tiger Woods, Naomi Osaka, and Usain Bolt. The NFL has taken advantage of the popularity of NFTs, linking up with Dapper Labs , to launch a market of NFL sports highlights where users will be able to buy and sell these moments. || AUD/USD and NZD/USD Fundamental Daily Forecast – Aussie Firms as CPI Rise Fans Flames of Early Rate Hike: The Australian and New Zealand Dollars are trading mixed on Wednesday after the release of key domestic economic reports. The Aussie dollar rose and short-dated Aussie government bonds sold heavily after the release of a report that showed Australian core inflation hit a six-year high. The Kiwi dollar retreated after New Zealand reported a record trade deficit.
At 06:40 GMT, theAUD/USDis trading .7528, up 0.0026 or +0.35% and theNZD/USDis at .7170, up 0.0007 or +0.10%.
Australian core inflation sped to its fastest annual pace since 2015 in the September quarter as price increases became more broad-based, a major surprise that led markets to wager heavily on earlier hikes in interest rates, Reuters reported.
Data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics out on Wednesday showed the headlineconsumer price index (CPI)rose 0.8% in the third quarter and 3.0% for the year, much as expected.
However, thetrimmed mean measure of core inflationfavored by the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) rose 0.7% in the quarter, above forecasts of 0.5%.
The annual pace accelerated to 2.1%, well above the 1.8% expected and putting it back in the RBA’s 2% to 3% target range for the first time in six years.
The central bank had forecast core inflation would not reach 2% until mid-2023 and, in turn, that cash rates would remain at record lows of 0.1% right out to 2024.
New Zealand posted a record merchandise trade deficitof NZ$2.171 billion in September, Statistics New Zealand said on Wednesday. That follows the upwardly revised NZ$2.139 billion deficit in August.
Exports climbed NZ$387 million or 10 percent on year to NZ$4.40 billion following the upwardly revised NZ$4.36 billion total in the previous month (originally NZ$4.35 billion).
Imports surged NZ$1.5 billion or 30 percent on year to NZ$6.57 billion, up from the upwardly revised NZ$6.50 billion a month earlier (originally NZ$6.49 billion).
In other news, New Zealand business sentiment fell in October as cost and inflation pressures intensified due to COVID-19 uncertainty, an ANZ Bank survey showed on Wednesday.
The survey’s headline measure showed a net 13.4% of respondents expected the economy to deteriorate over the year ahead. It compared with a 7.2% pessimism level in the September poll.
A net 21.7% of respondents expected their own businesses to grow in the next 12 months, higher than 18.2% from last month.
The jump in inflation is likely to keep pressure on the RBA to keep reducing monetary stimulus (tapering) in the months ahead, but it may not necessarily encourage policymakers to raise rates sooner than expected. The RBA is not likely to cave to pressure from investors to raise rates prematurely until the pace of wage growth increases.
Wage growth in Australia is running at a miserly 1.7% while Lowe argued it would need to top 3% at least to get underlying inflation up into the target band of 2-3%, something not achieved since 2015.
In New Zealand, the record deficit is not a concern after last week’s report showing “hot” inflation. The Reserve Bank (RBNZ) just raised its Official Cash Rate (OCR) for the first time in seven years and more are likely to follow as central bankers have their eyes set on trimming inflation without stifling the economy.
For a look at all of today’s economic events, check out oureconomic calendar.
Thisarticlewas originally posted on FX Empire
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• Bitcoin Drops Below $60k As The Broader Crypto Market Faces A Correction || Stock Market Today: Stocks' Gains Erased as Omicron Reveals Itself in U.S.: COVID-19 virus concept Getty Images Some solid economic data sent stocks higher at the open, but the bounce lost steam as investors continued to fret over the omicron variant of COVID-19. ADP this morning reported November private payrolls rose by 534,000 – led by an increase in leisure and hospitality hirings (+136,000) – exceeding expectations for 525,000 jobs added. SEE MORE 2022's Best Mutual Funds in 401(k) Retirement Plans Additionally, the Institute for Supply Management's (ISM) manufacturing purchasing managers index (PMI) improved to 61.1 in November over its October reading of 60.8, in line with economists' consensus estimate. "The internals of the survey were positive, with new orders remaining robust while prices improved," says Michael Reinking, senior market strategist for the New York Stock Exchange. Plus, "there were some signs that supply chain issues were easing as delivery times were lower." But the market giveth and the market taketh away, and while the major benchmarks were all sporting gains above 1% just before lunchtime, they swung into the red mid-afternoon on news the U.S. had confirmed its first case of the omicron variant, in California. Sign up for Kiplinger's FREE Investing Weekly e-letter for stock, ETF and mutual fund recommendations, and other investing advice. At the close, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 1.3% at 34,022, the S&P 500 Index was off 1.2% at 4,513 and the Nasdaq Composite was 1.8% lower at 15,254. stock price chart 120121 YCharts Other news in the stock market today: The small-cap Russell 2000 sank 2.3% to end at 2,147. U.S. crude futures also reversed course, dipping 0.9% to $65.57 per barrel. Gold futures improved by 0.4% to $1,784.30 per ounce. Bitcoin retreated 1.5% to $56,709.46. (Bitcoin trades 24 hours a day; prices reported here are as of 4 p.m.) Salesforce.com ( CRM ) was the heaviest weight on the Dow on Wednesday. CRM, which is the industrial average's fifth-largest weight by virtue of its share price, plunged 11.7% after beating third-quarter estimates for both the top and bottom lines, but issuing disappointing Q4 guidance. Salesforce is looking for 72 to 73 cents per share in profit, shy of estimates for 81 cents per share; its revenue forecast of $7.22 billion to $7.23 billion was slightly higher than Wall Street's views at the midpoint. Salesforce also announced that Chief Operating Officer Bret Taylor will become co-CEO alongside current chief Marc Benioff. "We see this a positive," says Jefferies analyst Brett Thill, who maintained a Buy rating on CRM shares. "Bret has been at the company for five years and has a strong product focus. We do not expect there to be a significant change in course but will be watching to see how the co-CEO strategy plays out this time around." Meta Platforms ( FB , -4.3%) declined on what was expected to be the Facebook parent's first day of trading under the new ticker "MRVS." However, Facebook announced after Monday's close that it would be postponing the transition until the first quarter of 2022. Vertex Pharmaceuticals ( VRTX , +9.7%) was one of a few standout winners Wednesday. The company said its VX-147 drug candidate, being tested for a genetic kidney disorder, "led to a statistically significant, substantial and clinically meaningful mean reduction in proteinuria of 47.6% at 13 weeks compared to baseline and was well tolerated." The company plans to advance VX-147 into "pivotal development" in Q1 2022. Story continues Welcome to December December is a historically strong month for stocks. Just how strong? Ryan Detrick, chief market strategist at LPL Financial, offers up some impressive data points. "Historically, the S&P 500 has gained 1.5% on average in December, which is the third best month of the year with only April and November better," he says. What's more, the index has been positive 74.3% of the time in December, going back to 1950. And slow starts are typical, with stocks historically picking up steam in the latter half of the month, he says. SEE MORE 5 Mobile Payments Stocks to Grab Major Growth Detrick adds that he's "optimistic that stocks will sidestep the new variant worries, but we recommend investors buckle up their seatbelts, as the end of 2021 could be a bumpy one." While we can't tell what will happen over the next several weeks, one of the best ways to cushion your portfolio against market uncertainty is with dividend stocks. There are lots to choose from right now, including these dividend doublers or the Dividend Aristocrats – companies with a track record of increasing shareholder payouts for at least 25 consecutive years. But for those looking for the cream of the crop, consider these high-yielding dividend stocks . Each of the names featured here have yields north of 4% – well above the S&P 500's current 1.3% yield – and have received bullish ratings from the analyst crowd. SEE MORE Best Online Brokers, 2021 You may also like Your Guide to Roth Conversions Resist the Impulse to Buy These 14 Holiday Gifts Should You Take an Extra Big RMD This Year?
[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
None available.
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Trend: down || Prices: 50822.20, 50429.86, 50809.52, 50640.42, 47588.86, 46444.71, 47178.12, 46306.45, 47686.81, 47345.22
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Analyze the provided historical prices, technical indicators, news, and social media sentiment from the last 60 days. Based on this context, predict the overall trend (up, down, or no change) and the specific daily closing prices for Bitcoin for the next 10 days.
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[Technical Analysis for 2019-04-29]
BTC Price: 5247.35, BTC RSI: 56.90
Gold Price: 1278.60, Gold RSI: 44.24
Oil Price: 63.50, Oil RSI: 54.21
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
Payment system Zeux brings BSV on board: Bitcoin Cash breakaway venture BSV has received a shot in the arm from a payment system which has now adopted the crypto onto its platform. Zeux – a London-based fintech company offering instant crypto payments – will now allow BSV holders to spend anywhere that accepts Apple Pay or Samsung Pay. By adding Bitcoin SV (BSV) to its portfolio, Zeux aims to integrate key financial services like payments, banking, and investments into one app. The move was welcomed by Calvin Ayre – the leading figure behind Bitcoin Cash before breaking away with Bitcoin Cash Satoshi Vision (BSV) following a hard fork in November 2018. “It is becoming increasingly clear from proof rather than talk that BSV is the only scalable coin out there. It is key to show the tangible utility of BSV,” he said. “Being on-boarded by Zeux adds a very important layer for BSV as it can now be used to pay in people’s daily lives. “It is a pivotal moment for mass adoption of cryptocurrencies – very exciting times.” Foreign exchange Zeux boasts an in-built investment platform and a foreign exchange function while charging no fees for account opening, money transfers, or top ups. Zeux’s CEO and founder – Frank Zhou – said he was delighted to bring BSV on board. “As one of the biggest cryptocurrencies, this represents a big step forward to Zeux becoming the world’s first crypto mobile payment and investment app,” he beamed. “I believe that, together, we can provide our customers with more personal financial freedom by combing the fiat and crypto worlds.” Meanwhile, Bitcoin Association president Jimmy Nguyen suggested the match was a good move for both parties. “Bitcoin is supposed to be genuine digital money, and Zeux’s forward-thinking platform makes this an immediate reality,” he said. “BSV has shown recently with a 100MB mined block that it can properly scale, and now it is showing utility as well. “Scalability and use are the most important factors in demonstrating how Bitcoin, by which I mean BSV, can become a global, low-transaction fee digital currency.” Story continues Hard fork BSV, at only five months old, created a storm when it was born from the Bitcoin Cash hard fork in mid-November, which coincided with a sudden and huge drop in the value of Bitcoin. BTC had levelled at $6,500 for much of 2018 before the fork, which then resulted in a hashing war between BSV and rival Bitcoin ABC (Adjustable Blocksize Cap) endorsed by Roger Ver and Bitmain’s Jihan Wu. The fallout was, in many eyes, the trigger that caused the resulting crypto crash in the 48 hours after the hard fork – something denied by Calvin Ayre. “The hard fork was a distraction, but the downturn is because the SegWit coin that’s erroneously still called Bitcoin (Core) now follows the old-fashioned financial trends,” he told Coin Rivet at the time. “It’s also because people wrongly focus on market cap when it should be about scalability and actual usability.” Bitcoin will be worth nothing in 2019, predicts industry firebrand Calvin Ayre By Darren Parkin – March 8, 2019 The post Payment system Zeux brings BSV on board appeared first on Coin Rivet . || Market Morning: China Makes a Move, May Fails Again, Bond Market Goes Mad, Walgreens Goes to Pot: China Makes ‘Unprecedented’ Trade Proposals, Says Reuters According to Reuters , China has suddenly made unprecedented proposals in trade talks. The topics include forced technology transfer and what the Trump Administration calls systematic theft of U.S. intellectual property. China probably doesn’t call it that. “If you looked at the texts a month ago compared to today, we have moved forward in all areas. We aren’t yet where we want to be,” in official said. “They’re talking about forced technology transfer in a way that they’ve never wanted to talk about before – both in terms of scope and specifics,” he said, referring to Chinese negotiators. Robert Lighthizer and Steve Mnuchin arrive in China on Thursday for the first face to face talks in weeks, and officials don’t know if the talks will extend into June or longer. They always need more time, but are happy to keep stringing markets along as long as they say progress on core issues is being made. Despite rumors of progress, Asian markets are down, led by Japan’s Nikkei ( NYSEARCA:EWJ ) and followed by China ( NYSEARCA:FXI ). SEE: Canopy Rivers Secures Cannabis Growth License From Health Canada May Offers To Quit If Brexit Deal Passes, Still Can’t Get Majority British Prime Minister Theresa May offered to resign on condition that her Brexit deal gets passed, but she still can’t grab a majority in the House of Commons owing to a few hardcore Brexit holdouts in the European Research Group, who don’t believe her deal constitutes Brexit in the first place because it keeps basically all the agreements of the EU intact practically anyway. Meanwhile, the Democratic Unionist Party still refuses to support it because the Backstop that would separate Ireland, part of the EU, with Northern Ireland, Part of the UK but on the same island physically, would constitute a hard border on the island and disrupt trade between Ireland and the rest of the UK, which would be pretty bad for both Ireland and the UK. So she’s still short a majority, which means maybe she’ll stay on anyway and keep getting battered and we’ll be repeating these headlines for the next 5 years or so. Story continues Final Throes of ‘Mad’ Bond Market Bubble Upon Us? It’s Crazy Out There “ Fixed Income has gone mad ,” says one Rishi Mishra, an analyst at Futures First, quoted by Bloomberg, who continues, “It really is a mad search for quality.” As bond prices explode and Germany goes deeper into negative interest rate territory, bond traders are actually starting to buy up “century bonds” which pay out, yes, a century into the future, which isn’t even on the time scale of a human life. Maybe a tortoise would earn some money buying that stuff, but would still lose out on inflation. Ireland, Belgium, and Austria for example have bonds maturing in 2116 and 2117, and that’s not a typo. We checked it. 2116. The 2117 bonds, meaning the year 2117, are up 15% this quarter. Bond investors know that something is wrong, but can’t keep themselves from following the herd. Ben Emons, the managing director of global macro strategy at Medley Global Advisors, writes, “Credit should not do well when the yield curve is inverted and recession fears heighten. Yet, inverted yield curves, recession and rate cut expectations has driven credit spreads tighter.” Just smile and nod. Or short century bonds. Cannabis – Meet the Dow Jones Industrial Average, Dow – Meet Cannabis Cannabis has become mainstream. We know this now because the most famous alliance on the Dow, the Walgreens Boots Alliance ( NYSE:WBA ), will be selling CBD products at its pharmacies. The company plans to start selling CBD products in nine states, but declined to say which brands it would be offering but said that creams, patches and sprays were planned for 1,500 stores. Rival CVS ( NYSE:CVS ) has already begun selling CBD products. Bitcoin Volatility Collapses, Finally The monthly trading range for Bitcoin ( BTC-USD ) has been only 7.8% for March, the lowest on record for the world’s leading cryptocurrency by market cap. After that, the lowest has been 21.2% counting from the beginning of 2017. Supporters believe that once volatility calms down for an extended period of time, it would allow merchants to begin accepting it as payment in and of itself rather than as a vehicle for transferring money at best. Other bulls believe that just like Bitcoin rallied from a base of comparatively volatility, that this is setting up for a new bull run. Skeptics believe that’s over and this is the calm before yet another capitulation in one of the strangest asset classes markets have seen yet. The post Market Morning: China Makes a Move, May Fails Again, Bond Market Goes Mad, Walgreens Goes to Pot appeared first on Market Exclusive . || Bitcoin Cash, Litecoin Futures Volumes Top $150 Million at Kraken Exchange: It’s not just bitcoin futures products that are becoming popular with investors, at least according to one U.K.-based crypto derivatives provider.
Crypto Facilities, a subsidiary of the San Francisco-based exchange Kraken that providesbitcoinandether reference datafor CME Group and has offered its own derivatives products for years, has seen trading volume in its altcoin futures markets jump dramatically in recent weeks â in particular, its litecoin and bitcoin cash futures contracts, said head of indices and pricing products Sui Chung.
He told CoinDesk that the company had seen a dedicated following for each coin sincelitecoin was listed in June 2018andbitcoin cash two months later, “but relative to bitcoin and ether [those contracts] were pretty small in terms of volume.”
Up 100%: Litecoin Price Sets Q1 Performance Record
This changed after KrakenÂacquired the startupearlier this year.
“We began to onboard Kraken users … [and] that’s basically given us better exposure to the communities around litecoin and bitcoin cash, and I think what we’re seeing is those communities have a pretty strong interest in trading derivatives for litecoin and bitcoin cash, respectively,” Chung said. “The volumes have gone up pretty appreciably.”
Prior to the acquisition, Crypto Facilities saw its litecoin futures contracts average around $15 million innotional volumeeach month, while its bitcoin cash contracts saw roughly $10 million per month.
By contrast, last month, the litecoin product saw $100 million notional volume, while bitcoin cash was just under $50 million, Chung said.
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Chung does not think that Kraken’s userbase is the sole contributor to the increasing volumes, but rather just one of a number of factors.
In particular, he stressed that Crypto Facilities is one of the few â if not only â exchanges that offer regulated altcoin futures contracts that pay out in the underlying cryptocurrencies. Speaking to litecoin and bitcoin cash specifically, Chung believes that there was some pent-up demand for such regulated contracts (Crypto Facilities is regulated by the U.K.’s Financial Conduct Authority).
These futures are physically-settled, meaning buyers are delivered actual cryptocurrency when the contracts expire, unlike cash-settled futures, which essentially are side-bets on the direction of crypto prices payable in fiat.
“I think there was always demand from those communities for a strong derivatives contract that is collateralized and paid out in that coin because there are contracts in other markets ⦠where the base asset is litecoin but they pay out in bitcoin,” he said. “Our contracts are paid out in litecoin and bitcoin cash.”
He cited BitMEX, which offers a number of crypto futures products, as one platform which settles in bitcoin (a spokesperson for BitMEX confirmed that all deposits to, and withdrawals from the startup’s wallets are in bitcoin).
Chung added:
“I think the broad trend weâre seeing is … thereâs obviously demand for regulated futures contracts for crypto that is denominated and paid out in crypto.”
The litecoin and bitcoin cash communities “have an appetite for trading derivatives,” he said.
Volume boosts aside, not all altcoin futures are exploding. In particular, the demand forXRP futureshas remained relatively stable, despite the outpouring of support for litecoin and bitcoin cash, Chung said.
“XRP has been pretty steady, itâs always accounted for about between 5 and 10 percent of our market and that hasnât changed,” he said, explaining:
“Interestingly, that hasnât really changed [from] before the acquisition, post acquisition, in all the time weâve had that contract ⦠[the acquisition] hasnât seemed to have affected that.”
This does not mean that XRP contracts are losing market share or dropping in volume. The raw numbers for Crypto Facilities’ products are increasing across the board. However, XRP futures’ volume is not growing as quickly as litecoin and bitcoin cash futures.
By process of elimination, that means bitcoin and ether futures contracts are losing market share, even as their volume grows. More traders are onboarding and bringing new liquidity to Crypto Facilities’ products, “but [volume is] not increasing at such a dramatic rate, market volatility is subdued,” he said.
In fact, Crypto Facilities saw its overall trading volumejump some 500 percent, nearing $1 billion traded across its various contracts in just the first month after Kraken acquired the platform.
If Kraken’s user base spurred Crypto Facilities’ recent growth, its future may well come from an influx of institutional capital, Chung said.
In recent weeks and months, the company has been contacted by various funds and other major firms looking to dip their toes into the crypto derivatives market. “I think we can say thereâs heightened interest ⦠from traditional financial institutions,” Chung said.
Market makers, brokers and other firms interested in bringing crypto derivatives products to their clients have begun reaching out to discuss participating in Crypto Facilities’ markets, he said.
And while preliminary, their interest is serious, Chung said, explaining:
“These institutions are in the early stages of exploring this, but at the same time I think the interest weâve seen are coming from, itâs not driven by hype, itâs not as if the price is going up [or] doubling every month. Itâs more considered than previous waves of inquiry.”
These companies have researched what processes and infrastructure they would need to develop in order to become more involved in the crypto space, he said.
“Theyâve done a lot more homework about what it means to be involved in crypto,” Chung said. “The interest is not driven by the prospect of crypto doubling in price every morning, itâs driven more by them saying âhey thereâs a market here.'”
That being said, institutions are not about to jump head-first into the space just yet. Chung said the firms which have expressed interest are still evaluating the risks, so that when they do enter, it is in a more controlled manner than entrants at the peak of the last bull run.
“Itâs much more considered than the interest that we once saw in early 2018,” he said.
Litecoinimage via Shuttertock
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• Crypto Futures and Institutional Interest: Looking in the Wrong Place || Murder, Censorship and Syria: Crypto and the Future of Uprisings: Rachel-Rose O’Leary is a reporter at CoinDesk, covering how cryptocurrencies are being used in areas of economic, social and political unrest. This article is part of her ongoing dispatches from Rojava, Syria. In August 2011, a hackerspace in Damascus, Syria, was stormed by armed guards. DeFi Upstart Dharma Brokers $6.4 Million in Crypto Loans in First 3 Weeks Known as Aikilab, the guards stripped the place; televisions, computers and even couches were now gone. Once home to a thriving art and technology community, Aikilab hasn’t opened its doors since. And one of its co-founders, Bassel Khartabil, is now dead, having been arrested in 2012 and later tortured and executed by the Syrian regime under president and dictator, Bashar-Al-Assad. It’s still unclear who, if anyone, ordered the raid of Aikilab and the arrest of Khartabil, but at that time during the Syrian uprising – the period of civilian protests that preceded the Syrian Civil War – nothing was clear cut. Except for an idea articulated to Dr. Harry Halpin , a former World Wide Web Consortium employee, now working with Binance Labs-backed Nym Technologies , before Khartabil’s arrest: the same force that enabled an angry populace to coordinate against oppressors – the internet – could also be used to suppress people. And while things have changed greatly in the handful of years since the uprisings – the area is now characterized by proxy wars and militant Islam – Halpin says Khartabil’s observation is still very true. 2015 Bitcoin Price Resistance Re-Emerges Amid Bitfinex Controversy “Rojava faces the same situation seven years later … They are under surveillance. They are likely going to be under attack. People who participate in that social movement may be killed,” Halpin told CoinDesk, adding: “We still do not have, as an open source community interested in decentralization and cryptography, we don’t have software that is adequate for these people.” It’s a hope – finding intersections of hardware and software to empower the people – first experimented with by Khartabil that still commands many people’s attention today, especially as the last of the ISIS strongholds in Syria has been taken down and civilians are looking for ways to rebuild, at times with crypto and blockchain , in a more equitable and accountable system. Story continues “I think that [Khartabil] was trying to bring stability and new social structure to the technology world that we’re moving into,” Jon Phillips, who was Khartabil’s best friend and colleague, said. While Khartabil wasn’t “deep into crypto,” Phillips continued, he was an early investor of an open hardware design called the Milkymist, which was later repurposed into the first bitcoin ASIC by Canaan Creative . And with that, Phillips said: “He helped shape the DNA of the cryptocurrency industry. He was absolutely formative in that.” Mozilla’s Mitchelle Baker speaking at Aikilab, Damascus, 2010 Technology’s duality Khartabil’s story exemplifies the parallel use of technology for both liberation and repression – and it resonates with the work being done in Rojava on the technical academies. Stepping back, it’s important to note the role that technology played in the Syrian uprising. Throughout the Arab Spring, social media proved a vital platform for voicing dissent and allowing people to organize protests and rebellions against oppressive regimes. But what started as peaceful protests was brutally repressed. As the revolution transformed into war, Phillips, who lived in Beijing at the time, urged Khartabil to leave Damascus, but Khartabil refused. “A bomb went off where my mom lives. I need to find her. My dad has not had water in two weeks. I need to take him some,” Phillips recalled Khartabil saying. It was this character that created Aikilab in the first place. The hackerspace – although Phillips wary of the dark connotations to the word hacker contended it was more of a cultural or community center – was named after Khartabil’s pet turtle, whose name came from the Chinese “ai” meaning love and “ki” or “qi” meaning energy. “It means love energy, or join forces, join energy together,” Phillips said. “We wanted to help humanity and society, we wanted to make life better, we didn’t want to make life worse.” The last time Phillips saw Khartabil was at the Creative Commons summit in Warsaw, Poland in 2011. Bassel Khartabil pictured with Jon Phillips and Joi Ito, in Warsaw, Poland in 2011 After that, Khartabil, in his communication with Halpin, was coordinating to secure the communications of other protestors. Halpin provided Khartabil with access to a VPN, although sanctions against the Syrian regime meant that the Google Play Store was blocked for people trying to download applications. Recognizing the role that the Syrian regime also played in controlling the network infrastructure, in conversation with Halpin, Khartabil raised questions about new, autonomous alternatives for communication security and recognized the importance of anonymous, censorship-resistance tooling. According to Halpin, who has been providing tech support to human rights activists in the region since Tahrir Square clashes , the last question Khartabil asked to hackers on IRC before his arrest was: “Do you want to help the Syrian people to connect?” Eliminate the leadership Halpin describes his work with Khartabil as a “failed intervention.” Because of what happened, Halpin – and the other hackers that assisted Khartabil in his final days as a free man – were unable to help the movement’s greatest problem: that its communication was exposed. “What Bassel was doing is he was trying to provide technology solutions for openness and to make society better, but other people saw that as a threat,” he said, adding: “Information and technology is a magic art is some level. It’s the power to multiply. Bassel knew that art, the art of computer science, and he understood hardware science, and so he was detained.” This aptitude for technology, Phillips continued, is what made Khartabil a target, although information surrounding the arrest is limited. Khartabil was imprisoned on March 15, 2012. While it’s also unclear what happened to Khartabil in prison, he was communicating from the inside for some time; according to Phillips, Khartabil spent at least some of the time being used for tech support. He was executed in 2015, but his death was not announced until 2017. According to Halpin, Khartabil recognized something very important, and something very dangerous, that had yet to be comprehended by hackers and activists in the West – the risk that surveillance poses to any kind of social movement. In any uprising, Halpin said, there are certain people with a higher level of activity (like Khartabil). In the Syrian revolution, these players were quickly identified and eliminated, he continued. This process led to a leadership vacuum, that caused the revolution to be co-opted by far more dangerous players. The crypto tools The ability to communicate and interact without the fear of surveillance or censorship is critical for any kind of political activity, Halpin told CoinDesk. He said: “People must control their own means of communication. That is a precondition to any type of political horizon, it is a precondition to any kind of political liberation.” The experience with Khartabil led Halpin to recognize the importance of decentralized tools, as well as the failure of Western programmers to build the right software to support such events in countries dealing with more corrupt regimes. Such tools need to be built in advance of any revolution, before it’s too late, he said. Toward this, Halpin emphasized the importance of bitcoin. “While not particularly privacy-enhanced, bitcoin has put censorship-resistant money in the hands of a fair amount of the population and it is becoming easier to use. There is tremendous unforeseen political advantages to giving ordinary people decentralized, encrypted technologies,” he said. And while many are working on types of decentralized communication tools – Halpin cited ethereum project Status as an example of this – there’s a failure to provide tools that can even function offline. Halpin warned that without such software, there’s a risk that history will repeat itself. For example, while Rojava has declared autonomy from the Syrian regime, for the most part, its people rely on a Syrian communication network, called Syriatel, to interact. Equally, much of the data flows through Turkey, and when Turkey occupied Rojava’s city of Afrin in 2018, the Turkish state cut off all internet access and telephone communications, plunging the people into darkness. Yet, while the situation in Rojava is highly vulnerable, Halpin ended on a note of optimism, believing that due to an alignment of interest between Rojava and high tech communities, things could change. “Rojava is trying to provide a radically democratic and decentralized model for society. Some of the rhetoric does mirror the rhetoric of free software, the blockchain community, of highly technical people,” he said, concluding: “That’s a good sign because it may mean that we may eventually see a convergence between the kinds of software that cutting edge technologists want to create, and the kinds of technologies that new forms of democratic societies need.” The full story of Dr. Harry Halpin’s work with Bassel Khartabil will be published in 2019 as “The Tragic Dream of Autonomous Internet Access: The Case of Bassel Safadi and the Syrian Revolution” in the book “Access to Knowledge & Mobile Technologies” by the American University in Cairo. Photos courtesy of Jon Phillips Related Stories Vitalik Proposal Could Turn Ethereum Staking Into $160 Million Industry How Crypto Markets Are Reacting to the Tether-Bitfinex Allegations || Bitcoin Exchange Suffers Trader Backlash Months After Suspicious ‘Fire’: ByCCN: A crypto trader provided CCN with documents proving that he has lost around 43 Ether all told after depositing it on BiteBTC on Christmas Eve. As wepreviously reported, the Bitcoin exchange claimed a fire wrecked its servers, but the exchange claimed crypto wallets were safe.
Nearly every tweet sent by the exchange is answered with multiple complaints about deposit and withdrawal issues. The following is an example, which allegedly shows BiteBTC harassing a complaining user:
Our tipster contacted BiteBTC after the fire and was told his account would be restored. He provided the requested information, but they wrote him off as someone attempting a double-spend and have refused to respond to any further inquiries. Given that we have seen proof of the user’s claims, this makes the story that “wallets are safe” seem relatively far from the truth.
Here is a screenshot of the user’s account, which was never credited back with the lostEthereum:
BiteBTC told this user that his details were invalid, despite blockchain proof, and has never responded further.
The user can prove that he deposited usingthe Ethereum blockchain. BiteBTC announced it would be crediting useraccounts in February. If you look at the Etherscan records, it shows that the user received 42.98 ETH and then sent it to BiteBTC. There may be some confusion about which transaction credited the BiteBTC account, but the result is the same: the user proved it was his account, proved that he sent the deposit, and has never received his money back.
Read the full story on CCN.com. || The development of Bitcoin and the need for patience: Time sometimes feels like it moves very slowly in the world of cryptocurrencies. When there is limited movement in the price of Bitcoin, people often begin to wonder whether enough is happening. We recently had a discussion on the Lightning Network for Coin Rivet TV , and one of my colleagues suggested that progress on the network is too slow. Whilst he does make a valid point, there is a reason for this slow development of Bitcoin. Bitcoin, in its 10-year life span, has worked almost flawlessly. People may argue that the fee market in 2017 suggests otherwise, but for most Bitcoiners, they are happy with where we are today. Other cryptocurrencies often see consistent new developments in order to keep up their hype cycle. Tron is one example of this, with its leader Justin Sun consistently announcing new developments. Bitcoin’s main focus though is on the security of the network and decentralisation. This means that new developments such as Schnorr signatures or the Lightning Network itself must go through peer review to ensure their security and benefits. The fact is there are relatively few experts in the field of Bitcoin, so finding enough people to check new advancements will always take time. Ensuring new developments work on Bitcoin resolves any issues that could arise that might be harmful to the network. Ethereum has had many of its own issues when upgrading its protocol, and with cryptocurrencies being so complex, there is a chance that a bug can always sneak through. Bitcoin isn’t going to succeed in the next year or two. The plan for many developers is much more long term. Whilst it may appear that there isn’t too much happening on the development front for Bitcoin, once you dig a little deeper, there is plenty going on. So relax, be patient, and enjoy the ride. The post The development of Bitcoin and the need for patience appeared first on Coin Rivet . || Québécois Regulator Calls for Investors in Non-Compliant Blockchain Firm to Come Forward: Québec’sfinancial markets regulator has asked investors in the firm Laboratoire Blockchain to come forward, now that the firm and associated individuals face a sweep of injunctive orders over their alleged violations of securities laws. The appeal was made in an official statementpublishedon March 18.
The AMF (l'Autorité des marchés financiers) states that the Québécois Financial Markets Administrative Tribunal (TMF) issued a series of injunctive orders against Laboratoire Blockchain (also known as Blockchain Lab) and three associated individuals — Jonathan Forte, Benjamin Forte and Nicolas Barbasch-Bouchard — on March 12.
The orders, issued due to alleged breaches of national securities laws, prohibit the defendants from all activities related to the promotion and transaction of securities. They also stipulate that the defendants must not dispose of any funds or cryptocurrencies, as well as any mining equipment or other relevant hardware, in their possession.
Moreover, the TMF has reportedly demanded that Blockchain Lab remove any promotional material or publication in connection with its activities, in particular from Facebook.
Anyone who invested in Blockchain Lab or used the defendants’ services is requested to contact a direct line for an AMF official no later than April 1, 2019.
This January, crypto derivatives trading platformBitMEXrefutedmedia reports that had alleged that a regulatory crackdown from the AMF had prompted it to close Québécois accounts, stating that the regulator had been satisfied with the platform’s swift cooperation on all requests.
Québec has also made crypto headlines in recent weeks over a controversy in regard to electricity provisions for crypto miners. Earlier this month, the governmentstatedit does not see the added value provided by the mining industry, and is not interested in providing low-cost power rates for miners via state utility Hydro-Québec. The latter, with its low cost power, had becomeincreasingly popularwith mining operators facing less advantageous conditions worldwide.
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• SEC Chairman Highlights Investor Protection in Regard to Bitcoin ETF || eToroX launches crypto exchange including suite of unique stablecoins: 17th April 2019 eToroX, the blockchain division of global investment company eToro, has today announced the launch of its crypto exchange a secure and regulated trading venue offering a range of cryptoassets as well as a suite of stablecoins. Yoni Assia, Co-founder and CEO of eToro, says: Just as eToro has opened up traditional markets for investors, we want to do the same in the tokenized world. We want to bring crypto and tokenized assets to a wider audience, allowing them to trade with confidence. This is the future of finance. Blockchain will eventually eat traditional financial services through tokenization. At launch the exchange will have a range of instruments including: · Eight fiat-stablecoins (eToro New Zealand Dollar (NZDX), eToro Japanese Yen (JPYX), eToro Swiss Franc (CHFX), eToro United States Dollar (USDEX), eToro Euro (EURX), eToro Pound Sterling (GBPX, eToro Australian Dollar (AUDX), eToro Canadian Dollar (CADX) · Six cryptos (Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), Ripple (XRP), Dash (DASH), BitcoinCash (BCH) and Litecoin (LTC) · 37 pairs including BTC-USD, XRP-GBP etc. The launch of the exchange is a natural next step in eToros blockchain journey which began with the work with Colored Coins in 2012. eToro was one of the first regulated financial companies to offer crypto, enabling users to trade Bitcoin in 2014 and today has 15 cryptoassets on the eToro platform. The exchange is managed by eToroX, a subsidiary of eToro Group. eToroX is one of the first companies to be certified as a regulated Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) provider by the Gibraltar Financial Services Commission (GFSC). Doron Rosenblum, Managing Director of eToroX, says: We are proud to be one of the first companies in the world to obtain a license for cryptoassets, and one of only a handful of regulated exchanges in the crypto space. In the coming weeks and months we will add more cryptoassets, stablecoins and tokens to the exchange and will work with other exchanges to encourage them to list our growing range of stablecoins. Tokenization helps open up markets and encourages diversification by facilitating fractional ownership and removing geographical boundaries. Assia concludes: We believe that we will see the greatest transfer of wealth ever as financial services move onto the blockchain. The blockchain brings transparency and a new paradigm for asset ownership. In time, we will see the tokenization of all traditional asset classes, as well as the emergence of new asset classes such as tokenized art, property or even IP. Cryptoassets are just the first step on this journey and we are excited to explore the opportunities offered by tokenization with the launch of our exchange. The post eToroX launches crypto exchange including suite of unique stablecoins appeared first on Coin Rivet . View comments || New Crypto-Mining Malware Targeting Asian Firms With NSA Tools: A new form of malware is targeting enterprises in Asia to mine monero (XMR) cryptocurrency.
Cybersecurity software provider Symantecpublishedthe news in a blog post Wednesday, saying that over 80 percent of victims are located in China, with nations such as South Korea, Japan and Vietnam also seeing activity.
Dubbed “Beapy,” the malicious code is a file-based crypto miner, not a browser-based one, the firm said. It works by sending a malicious Excel file to victims as an email attachment, downloading the DoublePulsar backdoor onto the victim’s system if the file is opened.
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DoublePulsar (notablydevelopedby the U.S. National Security Agency before it was stolen then released to the public in 2017) was also used in the WannaCry ransomware attack in 2017, according to the post.
Once DoublePulsar is installed on to a victim’s machine, the miner is downloaded. At the same time, it uses another leaked NSA tool, EternalBlue, to propagate across the infected network via unpatched computers where it can steal credentials to further access patched machines.
Cryptojacking malware can have a major impact on enterprises, Symantec said, including slowing down device performance, reducing employee productivity and increasing costs.
Although cryptojacking activity has decreased by about 52 percent over the last year, it is still an area of interest among hackers which largely target businesses.
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Symantec said:
“Looking at the overall figures for cryptojacking, we can see that there were just under 3 million cryptojacking attempts in March 2019. While a big drop from the peak of February 2018, when there were 8 million cryptojacking attempts, it is still a significant figure.”
The firm said it first noticed Beapy in January of this year, but activity has increased since early March.
Monero’s privacy features make it by far the most popular cryptocurrency among hackers deploying mining malware. A recent academic studyestimatedthat cybercriminals have mined around 5 percent of the total monero in circulation.
Earlier this year, researchers at cybersecurity firm Palo Alto Networksdiscovereda form of malware that takes administrative control to first uninstall cloud security products and then injects code to mine monero. The same team alsodiscoveredanother variant that steals browser cookies and other information on Apple Mac computers to directly steal cryptocurrencies.
Symantecimage via Shutterstock
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• Privacy Crypto Monero Celebrates Its 5th Birthday || Bitcoin Price Could Blitz Beyond $150,000 During Next Bull Cycle in 2023: Despite the 82 percent drop in the valuation of the crypto market in the past year and the inability of bitcoin to recover beyond $4,000 in the past three months, one analyst sees the dominant cryptocurrency surpassing $150,000 by 2023.
Josh Rager, a cryptocurrency technical analyst and investor, said that based on the price trend of bitcoin since 2011 and the pattern of bitcoin rebounding from a correction following an all-time high, he sees bitcoin achieving a new peak price in 2,051 days, by 2023.
The long-term projection of Rager is particularly more notable because he has expressed his bearish view on the near-term price trend of bitcoin.
Many traders and technical analyst have similarly said in recent weeks that bitcoin could avoid a potential drop to its support level at $3,500 if it can sustain its momentum in the $4,000 region.
In the past three months, bitcoin has continuously tried to break out of the $4,200 resistance level, which is widely considered to be a key level for the asset to climb to meaningful ranges above $5,000 but has failed at every attempt.
The bitcoin price has recovered fairly well in the past month, recording a slight increase in price (source: coinmarketcap.com)
Read the full story on CCN.com.
[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
"Introducción a Blockchain y Contratos Inteligentes", seminario impartido por Eduardo Fernández Corrales quien participa en proyectos sobre Bitcoin
Organiza el #MásterUPO en Derecho de las Nuevas Tecnologías
11 de abril
19:00 h.
aula B11 del edificio 24 pic.twitter.com/anQ00XL8nC || 04-06 05:00(GMT)
#SPINDLE price
$SPD (BTC)
Yobit :0.00000017
HitBTC :0.00000016
LiveCoin:0.00000015
$SPD (JPY)
Yobit :0.10
HitBTC :0.09
LiveCoin:0.08 || 2019/04/18 17:00
BTC 588612.5円
ETH 19225.2円
ETC 702.1円
BCH 34621.5円
XRP 38.2円
XEM 7.2円
LSK 227.8円
MONA 72.4円
#仮想通貨 #ビットコイン #Bitcoin #bitFlyer #Coincheck || NEW TRADE
Exchange: #Binance
#RCNBTC
Buy Date : 2019-03-27 22:34:13
Sell Date : 2019-03-28 00:05:48
Buy : 0.00000616
Sell : 0.00000620
Profit : 0.65%
#RCN #bitcoin #projectxonline #probot #trading #tradebot #btc #cryptocurrency #blockchain #crypto #altcoin || Expert Advisor 💰👉 https://t.co/VSPkpbqAIQ 👈🛒💸📆 https://t.co/ApsCFi5MDs [WallStreet Forex Robot 2.0 Evolution REAL Money Account] #forextrade #forex #forextrader #binaryoptions #forextrading #money #bitcoin #success #trading #makemoney #binaryoption #binarysignal #investing || $btc had a lot of bearish setups and patterns all the way to 20k...$spy || Mar 27, 2019 07:32:00 UTC | 4,006.80$ | 3,556.60€ | 3,038.00£ | #Bitcoin #btc pic.twitter.com/makwukiNuY || Total Market Cap: $177,093,195,083
1 BTC: $5,212.70
BTC Dominance: 51.92%
Update Time: 11-04-2019 - 12:00:05 (GMT+3) || SoftBank's Masayoshi Son made a huge personal bet on bitcoin just as prices peaked and lost more than $130 million when he sold out https://t.co/Ov7psYVz76 || #Doviz
-------------------
#USD : 5.3791
#EUR : 6.1230
#GBP : 7.1224
--------------------------------------
#BTC
-------------------
#Gobaba : 22629.74
#BtcTurk : 20632.00
#Koinim : 20699.00
#Paribu : 20700.00
#Koineks : 20787.99
|
Trend: up || Prices: 5350.73, 5402.70, 5505.28, 5768.29, 5831.17, 5795.71, 5746.81, 5829.50, 5982.46, 6174.53
|
Analyze the provided historical prices, technical indicators, news, and social media sentiment from the last 60 days. Based on this context, predict the overall trend (up, down, or no change) and the specific daily closing prices for Bitcoin for the next 10 days.
|
[Technical Analysis for 2020-03-27]
BTC Price: 6469.80, BTC RSI: 44.38
Gold Price: 1623.90, Gold RSI: 54.41
Oil Price: 21.51, Oil RSI: 26.61
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
New Settlement Layer to Offer Asian Crypto Institutions Local Alternative to Silvergate Bank: Legacy Trust’s digital asset division plans to create the first settlement layer in Asia for institutional investors trading both fiat and cryptocurrencies.
First Digital Trust (FDT) announced Friday its new rapid settlement and clearing network (RSCN) will provide custodian clients, including some of Asia’s most prominent over-the-counter desks and financial institutions, with the means to transfer digital assets seamlessly across the region.
Based in Hong Kong, FDT also holds its clients’ funds there because the territory’s regulatory framework allows it to offer a custodial solution for both cryptocurrencies and fiat, making it possible for institutions to perform secure trades between the two asset classes.
Related:Jill Carlson, Meltem Demirors Back $3.3M Round for Non-Custodial Settlement Protocol Arwen
“There isn’t a similar service anywhere in Asia,” said FTD COO Gunnar Jaerv, who added it was high time the region had a settlement solution of its own.
Asian trading constitutes a large percentage of total cryptocurrency trading volumes. But most of the region’s institutional investors use the Silvergate Exchange Network (SEN), the settlement layer from California-based Silvergate Bank – one of the few regulated financial institutions to take clients that trade cryptocurrencies.
SEN is popular with traders. The settlement layer, which allows users to move USD between cryptocurrency exchanges,processeda record of more than 14,000 transactions in Q4 2019, an increase in 17 percent from the previous quarter.
But Jaerv said it compelled its clients in Asia to follow strict U.S. financial regulation, even if the trades would not otherwise involve American entities. He added that it seemed pointless for a region, home to some of the largest OTC desks in the world, like OSL, should take the “scenic route” by processing payments with a U.S.-domiciled institution.
Related:Seychelles’ Stock Exchange Will List Ethereum Tokens Representing Supercars
“If they’re trading with a U.S. counterparty then it might make more sense for them to use Silvergate exchange network, but if they’re trading with somebody in Japan, Korea or Hong Kong … it definitely makes more sense to use a local provider,” Jaerv said.
Whereas Silvergate can only support U.S. dollars, any freely tradable currency, including the Singapore and Hong Kong dollars as well as euros, sterling and the greenback, can be used on FDT’s RSCN. That gives clients a broader range of fiat exchange rates as well as more diverse options for purchasing cryptocurrencies, Jaerv said.
FDT, which wasspun outof Legacy Trust in September, said the RSCN was currently in the testing phase, but a full launch is slated for sometime in May. The layer will initially be restricted to fiat and crypto assets but could be expanded to include other assets, like tokenized securities, sometime in the future, Jaerv indicated.
• Few Banks Will Touch Crypto Firms, but Silvergate Wants to Touch Bitcoin Itself
• Nomura Launching Benchmark for Japan’s Crypto Assets || Coinbase Wallet Adds Short, Customizable Addresses to Simplify Sending Cryptos: Coinbase Wallet users can now send cryptocurrencies to “short human-friendly addresses” as well as ones creating using the Ethereum Name Service (ENS). Product lead Sid Coelho-Prabhu announced Tuesday that Coinbase Wallet now supports customizable wallet usernames for sending cryptocurrencies, rather than traditional long-form ones such as “0x89136a83664fa0673930be34463e444260775dc.” “We believe these improvements will make cryptocurrency much easier to use and help drive adoption with a more mainstream audience,” Coelho-Prabhu said in a blog post. Related: February Gains Disappear as Bitcoin Drops Below $9k Sent live Tuesday, users can send cryptocurrencies by asking recipients for their wallet usernames like “@walletfan” and use them as the sending addresses. There is also an option to keep usernames private. To be clear, the short usernames do not replace 16-digit wallet addresses but instead provide a more user-friendly representative that sits on top. A user can send cryptocurrencies using the associated username rather than typing in the full wallet address. The new support also includes an integration with ENS, allowing Coinbase Wallet users to send cryptocurrencies to .eth addresses. Launching in 2018, Coinbase Wallet provides users with a service to store and transfer cryptocurrencies to one another. Users have been able to use a decentralized web feature since August 2019. Related: CoolBitX Raises $16.7M to Make Crypto More Bank-Friendly Coelho-Prabhu confirmed that all cryptocurrencies supported by the app, including bitcoin (BTC), ether (ETH) and XRP (XRP), can now be sent using the new username feature. Related Stories Coinbase Becomes First ‘Pure’ Crypto Firm Approved as Visa Principal Member Coinbase Revives Margin Trading, With Conservative (for Crypto) 3x Leverage || CoinFlip Adds Support for Stellar XLM to Its 450 Crypto ATMs: Cryptocurrency ATM startup CoinFlip now allows customers to purchase Stellar Lumens (XLM) from its network of machines, according to co-founder and CEO Daniel Polotsky. The listing increases XLM’s availability in bricks-and-mortar stores , Polotsky said. CoinFlip operates about 450 ATMs in gas stations and convenience stores across the United States, allowing customers to buy a variety of cryptocurrencies with credit cards. It also runs 40 two-way ATM locations where users can sell their crypto for hard cash USD. Related: Former Venezuelan Gold Mining Company Wants to Centralize Bitcoin ATM Infrastructure CoinFlip ATMs already offer customers access to bitcoin (BTC), litecoin (LTC), ether (ETH), dash (DASH), komodo (KMD), chainlink (LINK) and tron ( TRX ). Polotsky said XLM’s high daily liquidity and market prominence – plus his customers’ requests – prompted him to list the token. CoinFlip plans to continue adding coins as it rapidly expands its own ATM network, which already has clearance to run in over 40 states, according to Polotsky. “We’re trying to push out 20 [ATMs] a week,” he said. Related Stories Why Compliance Is the Biggest Team at Bitcoin ATM Startup Coinsource Stellar Tried to Give Away 2B XLM Tokens on Keybase. Then the Spammers Came Stellar’s Version of Bitcoin’s Lightning Torch Has Been Burning Quietly Since June || OpenNode Finds Way for Retailers to Turn Fiat Payments Into Bitcoin (Using Apple Pay): The bitcoin payments startup OpenNode just gained access to Apple Pay, according to the startup’s head of marketing, Ryan Flowers.
This could be a boon for the small subset ofmerchantswho want to hold bitcoin, because it allows people to spend dollars through their regular fintech accounts yet still have those dollars exchanged to bitcoin for the merchant to receive.
The customer’s fiat payment goes through OpenNode’s partner, Wyre, converting tobitcoin(BTC) and depositing in the merchant’s wallet. Merchants can sign up to be part of the private feature release,currently in beta, before it goes live across the platform in a few months.
Related:Oil Prices Are Now More Volatile Than Bitcoin
“They [shoppers] put the card information into the widget that OpenNode is using, in some cases the card information may already be stored, for example with your Apple Pay,” said Jack Jia, Wyre’s director of institutional sales. “So all the user does is click the ‘Buy with Apple Pay’ button” to make a purchase with fiat that the merchant receives as bitcoin.
The same back-end rails that offer indirect access to Apple Pay accounts, which both OpenNode and Wyre declined to name, also work for most debit cards. Now shoppers can spend fiat at online stores and choose for the merchant to receive bitcoin. This assumes shoppers are willing to take a few extra seconds to benefit the merchant, rather than checking out without the bitcoin button. So this might only suit merchants with a devoted customer base.
“Our merchants keep some, or most, of their payments in bitcoin. Merchants want exposure to bitcoin,” OpenNode CEO Afnan Rahman said of the 5,000 merchants registered with the startup so far. “This year a lot of luxury goods businesses are signing up.”
OpenNode’s Flowers said shoppers are reluctant to spend bitcoin because of the volatility, but demand among merchants for receiving the cryptocurrency hasn’t dwindled. In particular, Rahman said the company has seen the most uptick in 2020 from merchants in India, South Korea, Japan and China.
Related:Bitcoin News Roundup for Feb. 20, 2020
He said OpenNode processes “a couple million” dollars worth of bitcoin a month for such diehard merchants. The startup will initially deploy the Apple Pay feature with less than a dozen merchant testers.
“We’re rolling it out slowly to make sure the rate of chargebacks isn’t high,” Flowers said, describing contested payments credit-card companies return to consumers.
By this time next year, Wyre and OpenNode hope to complement this feature with a “full-suite treasury management tool for merchants,” Jia said. By relying onWyre, which has a money transmitter license, OpenNode will offer merchants a bitcoin savings account where they can earn interest and pay out invoices. Jia said this would be “offering the same functions as a bank,” with the option to cash out bitcoin to a personal wallet.
“We’re not looking at revenue right now as much as building up infrastructure,” Jia said, referencing debit cards and Apple Pay. “These are all layers on top of the banking system, so connecting those networks to the bitcoin network through infrastructure is more important right now.”
Apple didn’t offer any comments by press time.
• Norwegian Air May Allow Customers to Pay With Crypto as Soon as Spring
• Bitcoin Traps Buyers With Biggest Daily Price Loss in Three Months || Latest Bitcoin Cash price and analysis (BCH to USD): Bitcoin Cash has been one of most affected cryptocurrencies during the recent sell-off , falling by more than 20% after being rejected from the $500 level of resistance. Despite the fact that a number of top altcoins have rallied against their respective BTC trading pairs today, Bitcoin Cash has struggled to make a gain. At the time of writing it was trading at around $391, six percent lower than the crucial level of support turned resistance at $418. The daily 22 exponential moving average (EMA) is now ticking to the downside which suggests that momentum in the short term is driving price towards the $358 level of support. A break below the daily 55 EMA and the $357 level of support would undoubtedly cause continuation to the downside as cryptocurrency bulls put the champagne on ice. However, much of it depends on the upcoming direction of Bitcoin, which will undergo a block reward halving in May. The block reward halving is considered a key event in the cycle of Bitcoin bull and bear markets as it theoretically dries up supply, thus causing a natural increase in price. Breaking above $500 would mark a fairly substantial and historic moment for Bitcoin Cash, which has failed to trade above that level since November 2018. Key price targets fn a breakout comes into fruition would be at $560 and $644 with another level at $855. Pricing Current live BCH pricing information and interactive charts are available on our site 24 hours a day. The ticker bar at the bottom of every page on our site has the latest BCH price. Pricing is also available in a range of different currency equivalents: US Dollar – BCHtoUSD British Pound Sterling – BCHtoGBP Japanese Yen – BCHtoJPY Euro – BCHtoEUR Australian Dollar – BCHtoAUD Russian Rouble – BCHtoRUB Bitcoin – BCHtoBTC About Bitcoin Cash Bitcoin Cash was born out of the idea of making Bitcoin more practical for small, day-to-day payments. In May 2017, Bitcoin payments took about four days unless a fee was paid, which was proportionately too large for small transactions. A change to the code was implemented and Bitcoin Cash was born on 1st August 2017. Story continues More Bitcoin Cash news and information If you want to find out more information about Bitcoin Cash or cryptocurrencies in general, then use the search box at the top of this page. Here’s an article to get you started: Roger Ver to launch crypto exchange on Bitcoin.com By Oliver Knight – February 18, 2020 As with any investment, it pays to do some homework before you part with your money. The prices of cryptocurrencies are volatile and go up and down quickly. This page is not recommending a particular currency or whether you should invest or not. You may be interested in our range of cryptocurrency guides along with the latest cryptocurrency news . The post Latest Bitcoin Cash price and analysis (BCH to USD) appeared first on Coin Rivet . || Coronavirus helps make the case for crypto: Tom Lee: After beating the overall market’s return in 2019, bitcoin (BTC-USD) is off to its hottest start to the year in nearly a decade.
Rising nearly 30% in January to top $9,000, the world’s largest cryptocurrency by market cap is now trading above its 200-day moving average — a significant signal for more gains ahead, according to Fundstrat Global Advisors Managing Partner Tom Lee.
Interestingly, bitcoin’s surge to start the year has come at a time when fears over the spread of coronavirus across the globe has rattled equities in the U.S. and abroad. Lee estimates that to be further support for the theory that bitcoin is increasingly being seen as a safe haven asset, similar to a digital gold. Indeed, over the past three months, bitcoin’s correlation with the S&P 500 has flipped from positive 13% to negative 10%, indicating more market volatility could continue to carry bitcoin higher.
“These geopolitical events including coronavirus and geopolitical tensions really improve the use case,” said Lee in a new interview with Yahoo Finance’s YFi PM. He also highlighted that the cryptocurrency has historically traded higher 80% of the time after notching the technical feat of trading above its 200-day moving average and averages more than a 190% return after eclipsing the technical mark.
“Anyone who’s a trend follower knows when you’re above your 200-day [moving average] you’re back in a bull market,” Lee said. “Whenever bitcoin breaks back into its 200-day, its average six-month gain is 197%, so we’re sort of talking about a levitation taking place.”
According to Fundstrat research, that average six-month performance would compare to the modest 10% gain bitcoin averages when trading below its 200-day moving average.
“It’s a good time to look at crypto,” said Lee.
Zack Guzman is the host ofYFi PMas well as a senior writer and on-air reporter covering entrepreneurship, cannabis, startups, and breaking news at Yahoo Finance. Follow him on Twitter@zGuz.
Read the latest financial and business news from Yahoo Finance
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Illinois becomes the latest state to legalize marijuana, these states may follow
Follow Yahoo Finance onTwitter,Facebook,Instagram,Flipboard,SmartNews,LinkedIn,YouTube, andreddit. || Coronavirus Rate Cuts: Australia’s Central Bank Did It First: Hours before the U.S. Federal Reserve, the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) also cut interest rates in hopes of curbing market reaction to the ongoing coronavirus outbreak.
In a meeting held on March 3, the RBA announced it would be cutting the cash rate by 25 basis points (bps) to 0.50 percent, its lowest on record, according to recent figures.
Several hours later, the U.S. Federal Reserve also took action to cut interest rates byhalf a percentagepoint, between 1 and 1.25 percent, in its first emergency measure since the 2008 global financial crisis.
Related:Bitcoin Prints Bullish Price Pattern With Move Above $9K
The cuts in Australia and the U.S. are designed to boost demand to assist in easing pressure for local businesses and homeowners. It marks the first cut for Aussies this year and is further evidence that central bankers are becoming weary of the continuingthreat the coronavirus poseson global growth.
“The coronavirus has clouded the near-term outlook for the global economy and means that global growth in the first half of 2020 will be lower than earlier expected,” the RBA board said in arecent media release.
Solutions, like that of America’s quantitative easing (QE) programs, have not been ruled out by the RBA, with preparations being made for additional rate cuts to ease monetary conditions even further.
In arecent tweetcommenting on the RBA’s decision, U.S. President Donald Trump said the U.S. fell behind “others” when it came to lowering interest rates, which were currently applying pressure to U.S. exporters.
Related:BitGo Reveals Bitcoin Lending Push; $150M Booked So Far
Still, in the face of a looming recession, cryptocurrencies have failed to attract new capital to the fore as investors look to cash as the safest investment vehicle.
The global slowdown in growth for stocks and bonds have so farfailed to translateinto higher prices for digital assets, which have intermittently held the status as a risk-off asset, forcing investors to play a much more dangerous game.
“When things go from bad to very very bad like they did last week, investors take leverage down as fast as they can. They book profits to make up for other losses. Ouch,” Galaxy Digital Chief Executive Michael Novogratz said in arecent tweet.
Bitcoin‘s (BTC) role as a safe-haven asset continues to be questioned after it dropped 2 percent on Monday amid the backdrop of the U.S. Fed’s decision to cut rates. Prices have since then rebounded by about 2.5 percent but have failed to attract further investment on the day.
It comes at a time when the world’s second-largest economy, China, also a large participant ofcrypto mining, is deeply caught up in one of the worst contagions in recent memory.
Conventional crypto wisdom holds that loose monetary and fiscal policies would be a net positive for the crypto markets, with capital flowing from stocks to digital assets. However, it would appear that traditional investors have been playing it safe, sticking to well-worn strategies by remaining liquid with cash reserves and avoiding what some would perceive as risky investment decisions.
“Unlike traditional safe havens such as gold or the [U.S. dollar], the BTC market is a speculative one with high volatility, which might explain why they are failing to act as a safe haven asset,” said Nemo Qin, markets analyst at eToro.
“While gold has been rallying since Sunday evening, crypto assets including BTC continue to face heavy sell-offs amid the growing global epidemic, challenging bitcoin’s safe-haven status,” Qin added.
Bitcoin is currently changing hands at around $8,719 after remaining somewhat steady throughout most of Asia’s March 4 trading period, with relatively low levels of intraday trading volume at press time, Bitstamp data shows.
• Bitcoin Remains Steady Amid Weaker Volume
• CoinDesk’s Statement on Coronavirus and Blockchain Week NYC || Blockchain Pioneer Caitlin Long to Build Crypto Bank in Wyoming: The U.S. may soon get its first dedicated bank for digital assets. A Wyoming corporation founded by blockchain legislative champion and Wall Street veteran Caitlin Long is preparing to apply for a special purpose depository institution (SPDI) charter with the state’s division of banking. The future bank is called Avanti, which means “forward” in Italian, and will be focused solely on providing regulated services for digital assets, Long announced Monday. The company, formed on Jan. 6, has already raised $1 million in seed funding. Avanti will provide payment, custody, securities and commodities activities for institutional customers using digital assets. Related: Caitlin Long on Coronavirus, Crypto Custody and Building a Bank While the company has yet to submit its application, it already has eight products in its pipeline that are not currently available in the U.S. market – the only named one being custody for security tokens. Because trust companies cannot custody securities under U.S. law, SPDIs are uniquely positioned to fill the gap. Avanti’s balance sheet is planned to hold more assets under administration than deposits, and profits will be generated by providing services to institutional clients, similar to large traditional custody banks such as State Street, Bank of New York Mellon and Northern Trust. Long described the business as a “money warehouse. The firm will custody digital assets without any change in the ownership of those assets, like a valet takes care of your car without being given its legal title, Long said. Blockstream partnership Under Wyoming state law, SPDI banks must keep all of customers’ fiat demand deposits as liquid assets and cannot lend. However, these entities get to operate under the regulatory oversight of the crypto-friendly Wyoming Division of Banking instead of the U.S. Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC). Related: Morgan Stanley Buys E*Trade in $13B Deal Avanti is partnering with bitcoin and blockchain technology startup Blockstream, which will provide bitcoin applications, as well as the software and hardware needed to custody digital assets. “Blockstream brings software for the bitcoin protocol. … Avanti brings a regulated delivery vehicle to deliver it into the USD markets,” Long said in an email. Story continues With Blockstream’s Liquid – a “sidechain” or parallel network sometimes used to move money between exchanges – the company will able to develop a “one-stop shop” for digital asset custody, said Blockstream CEO and cofounder Adam Back. With Blockstream, Avanti can build adjacent blockchain application programming interfaces (APIs) and conventional banking APIs, Back said. The first might look like an API that initiates multi-signature transactions; the second is usually an API that transfers money between traditional banking ledgers. Long, who pushed for the creation of the SPDI charter, said she didn’t plan on forming an SPDI bank until last Christmas when she was visiting Rome. Prior to her trip, a group – which Long would not name – approached her about creating such an entity. Because of the high capital level required to start an SPDI – around $25 million – many potential applicants have been slow to seek approval, even though the regulatory door been open since last October. Currently, the Wyoming Division of Banking has only received two applications, which the regulator is working with applicants to refine. In Rome, Long had been talking to Back on the phone when she became convinced to start Avanti. (Back is a well-known cryptographer who regularly talked with Satoshi Nakamato during bitcoin’s (BTC) early days and was cited in Nakamoto’s bitcoin white paper for having created Hashcash, a predecessor technology that inspired the first cryptocurrency.) When in Rome The setting was appropriate. While they spoke, Long walked between the Imperial Forums and the Roman Forums. There she saw for the first time a rostra , a large platform for delivering speeches. “A symbol of decentralized power where citizens gathered to debate and engage in commerce voluntarily during the Republic,” she said. With Back, she talked about the need for big money – pension funds, endowments, foundations, corporations and sovereign wealth funds – to have a regulated partner to deliver services around bitcoin. “It’s a $300 billion asset class and they can’t ignore it anymore,” Long said. “Their existing service providers aren’t able to help them.” That night she landed on the name Avanti. “It’s a fitting name for a bank that’s moving ahead, while also anchored in the history of sound money and clear property rights,” she said. Seeking perfection Having finalized the requirements for applications, the Wyoming Division of Banking is now developing the policies and procedures for SPDI banks and defining how the regulator will perform its yearly examination and supervision processes. To do this, the regulator is speaking to other state banking regulators to ensure the charter can transport to other states. “Wyoming is integrating digital assets into the U.S. banking system for the first time,” said Chris Land, general counsel at the state’s banking division. “The first applications that go through the process literally have to be perfect because many of the top financial industry officials in the country will be following the process. Perfection, like art, takes time.” With “a lot of trust placed in us by very important people,” Land said that the process will not be rushed. “Wyoming is a leader in responsible financial innovation, so we have to get this right,” he added. The Wyoming legislature has several blockchain initiatives coming up later this year, including bills that would expand the blockchain task force into a select committee, provide First Amendment protections to code (as long as it isn’t written in a malicious way), and extend the SPDI charter’s field of service to include retail customers. “It’s going to take a little while for folks to get their arms around all that we’ve done,” said Tyler Lindholm, a Wyoming state representative and chairman of the Wyoming Blockchain Task Force. “Blockstream being able to partner with Caitlin Long is a big win for them. Ms. Long knows the charting process. She knows financial regulation inside and out.” Related Stories Openfinance Lists New Security Token in Charity Fundraising Effort IOHK Opens Cardano Research Lab at University of Wyoming Following $500K Donation || Past Fed rate cuts suggest Bitcoin is not a safe haven asset: Bitcoin's performance during the past three interest rate cuts suggests that it is not a safe haven asset, The Block's research shows. In 2019, the Federal Reserve Board (Fed) cut the interest rate three times, which currently sits at 175 bps. During the three cuts, bitcoin's price did not show any significant pick-up, the research found. On the contrary, its median return across 1-week, 1-month, and 3-month lag were -5.0%, -20.9%, -11.0%, respectively. A common thesis for Bitcoin as a safe haven asset is that during macro volatility, Fed's action to step in and lower interest rates is a net positive on risk-assets and non-inflationary assets such as gold. Therefore, as the market anticipates another Fed rate cut, some analyst believes that bitcoin would see a rebound. However, The Block's analysis suggests that rate cuts are not correlated to the bitcoin price movement. Hence it is not likely to rise during the next rate cut. Recent macro volatilities precipitated first by the U.S. killing a major Iranian general then the global spread of Coronavirus has triggered a new round of discussion on whether Bitcoin has been accepted by investors as a safe haven asset. However, similar to the U.S. stock market, bitcoin price has been on a downward trend in the latter half of February due to Coronavirus, currently sitting at around $8550. || The Domain Startups Building an Uncensorable Internet on Top of Ethereum: Ethereum developers are leveraging blockchain’s censorship-resistant nature to launch the next iteration of the internet, Web 3.0. Last weekend at ETHDenver – one of the conference circuit’s top gatherings of ethereum coders – decentralized internet alternatives were on display, including Ethereum Name Service (ENS), Unstoppable Domains and UniLogin. Launched in 2017 and 2018, respectively, ENS and Unstoppable Domains are confronting the hierarchical nature of the internet stack and the Domain Name System (DNS) by building out a peer-to-peer (P2P) internet alternative. Meanwhile, UniLogin provides a portal to Web 3.0 projects such as ENS. Related: The Internet Is a Right, Not a Luxury: 30% of Americans Still Don’t Have It The current internet architecture is controlled by select bodies including non-profit groups, businesses, universities and world governments. Buying, naming and controlling a domain is dependent on the good will of hosting providers, said the teams. Perhaps the best example of the perils of this dynamic is the controversial planned sale of the .org domain to a private equity firm. Using the ethereum blockchain, this new crop of startups is helping developers get decentralized websites onto the internet without the approval of DNS authorities. Unstoppable Domains Unstoppable Domains announced the launch of its own browser, complete with a new top-level domain name : .crypto. Related: Is Bitcoin in 2020 Really Like the Early Internet? Built on ethereum, Unstoppable Domains co-founder Brad Kam told CoinDesk the product is purpose-built to protect free speech online. Domains linked to .crypto addresses can not be taken offline by a third party, Kam said. Recent populist uprisings in Spain and Turkey, which were heavily censored online by each government, were unique motivators, he said. “Censorship is happening. For example, the .cat registry, which was supporting Catalonian independence, was raided by the Spanish police,” Kam said. “They arrested the founders and they took down a bunch of websites, all to stop them from running independence votes.” Story continues In Turkey, all web hosting providers received a list of 150 banned words that cannot be hosted anywhere in the country. One of them is “naked.” Another one of them is “gay.” “With decentralized hosting, we focus on replacing the current internet,” Kam said in an interview. Kam said most people see Web 3.0 products as competitors against one another, a flawed viewpoint. The goal remains cutting out incumbent systems like DNS, Kam said. “Any existing attempts in the blockchain world are tiny, ourselves included,” he said. “The competition is .com.” Ethereum Name Service While Unstoppable Domains has built out a domain registry and browser, ENS has focused on the former with its increasingly popular .eth top-level domain. “Our ambition is that ENS, long term, upgrades the tech stack of the domain name system of the internet,” said ENS Director of Operations Brantly Millegan. “Practically, it means that you can have a name that you own, that has all the decentralization and censorship-resistance and programmability of ethereum.” Millegan said ENS is compatible with certain browsers such as Opera and has over 100 applications and APIs integrated. As an ethereum smart contract, Millegan said .eth domains are dependent on the ethereum network and not web hosting partners. For now, the main use-case remains connecting domains with cryptocurrency wallets, although this feature remains controversial. Originally intended to make crypto addresses similar to email, a recent report by Decrypt showed how ENS domain names could be used to gather personal information such as business deals or people’s locations. Related Stories Decentralized Domain Registry Raises $4 Million From Draper, Boost VC The Ethereum Name Service Is Turning Nearly 300,000 .ETH Domains Into NFTs
[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
None available.
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Trend: up || Prices: 6242.19, 5922.04, 6429.84, 6438.64, 6606.78, 6793.62, 6733.39, 6867.53, 6791.13, 7271.78
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Analyze the provided historical prices, technical indicators, news, and social media sentiment from the last 60 days. Based on this context, predict the overall trend (up, down, or no change) and the specific daily closing prices for Bitcoin for the next 10 days.
|
[Technical Analysis for 2018-04-10]
BTC Price: 6834.76, BTC RSI: 37.48
Gold Price: 1342.00, Gold RSI: 55.54
Oil Price: 65.51, Oil RSI: 58.88
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
Oil Demand Is Red-Hot Right Now, Which Could Make 2018 a Great Year for Oil Stocks: Increasing adoption of electric vehicles and renewable-energy technologies has fueled worries that demand for oil may be nearing its peak. At the moment, however, the need for crude is stronger than it has ever been. In fact, instead of cooling off after a banner year, demand growth has come in hotter than expected so far in 2018, keeping the price of crude higher than many anticipated. If that trend continues, oil producers could reap a windfall of profits this year, and make their investors a lot of money. Drilling down into the latest demand forecast The International Energy Agency (IEA) recently released its monthly report on the oil market. What stood out was its outlook for demand, which it sees increasing to an average 99.3 million barrels per day this year, up by 1.5 million BPD from last year's average. That increase is worth noting -- it's about 90,000 BPD higher than the IEA's forecast last month. Fueling that upward revision has been stronger-than-expected demand growth in China and India, which combined to account for nearly 50% of the incremental demand last year. Add in the impact of frigid temperatures across parts of the northern hemisphere, fueling an increase in heating demand, and the global thirst for oil is at an all-time high. That's one reason crude prices are about 20% above where they were this time last year. A fuel pump by the side of a road with a blur of cars Image source: Getty Images. Another factor fueling those higher oil prices is that supplies are currently lower than demand, averaging 97.0 million BPD last month. However, that's by design: OPEC is holding back some of its output to help drain off the excess oil sitting in storage tanks, which had filled up in recent years because producers had pumped more than the market needed. In fact, oil storage levels remain more than 50 million barrels above the five-year average. That number should fall back to a more normal level this year, though, as long as demand stays strong and producers don't turn more pumps back on. It's a delicate balance, but enough to produce monster profits The latest IEA report found that, thanks to red-hot demand, oil industry fundamentals are largely balanced. As long as they stay that way, oil prices should remain at or above their current levels, above $60 a barrel. That's an ideal price point for large U.S. oil producers, which spent most of the past few years reducing their costs so that they could thrive on oil prices around $50 a barrel. Two plastic oil barrels on top of a pile of U.S. paper money Image source: Getty Images. With crude well above that point, many producers are on pace to reap a windfall of profits this year; several anticipate that they can generate significant excess cash at current prices. One of those companies is shale leader EOG Resources (NYSE: EOG) , which currently estimates that it can produce a whopping $1.5 billion in free cash flow this year with oil at $60. EOG Resources already allocated some of that anticipated windfall, announcing plans to boost its dividend 10% this year and to pay off an upcoming $350 million debt maturity. Beyond that, EOG appears content to let any extra cash pile up on its balance sheet for the time being, potentially using it later this year to make an acquisition. Story continues Marathon Oil (NYSE: MRO) is another producer on pace to generate substantial excess cash if crude remains above $60, anticipating that at that price point, it could produce $500 million more than it needs this year. Like EOG, Marathon hasn't made any firm plans for that money, other than to use it initially to shore up its balance sheet. However, Marathon did say it was looking at raising the dividend or making acquisitions if cash starts piling up. Fellow shale driller Devon Energy (NYSE: DVN) also anticipates producing a gusher of excess cash this year. Initially, Devon aimed to use that money to bolster its balance sheet, but it recently announced a plan to pay off another $1 billion in debt, buy back $1 billion in stock, and raise its dividend 33%. That buyback could prove to be a major catalyst for Devon's stock, which is down more than 20% this year after the company reported disappointing fourth-quarter results last month due to some temporary issues. Similar programs have fueled big-time outperformance from rival oil stocks. Anticipating a windfall this year After several tough years, U.S. oil producers appear poised to finally start making money again in 2018, as briskly growing oil demand could keep crude above $60. That sets several producers up to generate much more cash than they need to expand their businesses -- allowing them to make deals, pay dividends, and buy back their beaten-down stock. Those catalysts could prove to be powerful forces fueling healthy gains in their stocks in the coming year. More From The Motley Fool 3 Growth Stocks at Deep-Value Prices 5 Expected Social Security Changes in 2018 6 Years Later, 6 Charts That Show How Far Apple, Inc. Has Come Since Steve Jobs' Passing 10 Best Stocks to Buy Today The $16,122 Social Security Bonus You Cannot Afford to Miss Bitcoin's Biggest Competitor Isn't Ethereum -- It's This Matthew DiLallo has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy . View comments || A tale of two startups with 'superstore' ambitions: Robinhood and Cadre: The buzzy startups Robinhood and Cadre are known for different things. Five-year-old Robinhood has established its reputation by offering commission-free stock trading, while three-year-old Cadre burst onto the scene with a real estate investing platform. Yet both have developed similar ambitions to become financial "superstores," using the Amazon playbook of starting in one place, and quickly expanding into other terrain. "If you think about Amazon, they took the book model, built brand equity, trust, credibility and now they are a superstore for any retail product," Cadre's co-founder and CEO Ryan Williams told attendees at an industry event in San Francisco last week. "We're doing the same for the investments world." Robinhood's co-founder and CEO, Vlad Tenev, speaking at the same event later in the evening, had much the same messaging. "Five years from now," Tenev told the crowd, Robinhood will be a "full service financial institution" with every product one can find at a "local bank branch and more." Whether either startup or both will realize their dream is something we won't know for years, but certainly both are already being watched closely by competitors, many of which find themselves playing catch-up these days. In fact, throwing the old guard off balance is largely the modus operandi of both companies. It's something they share in common with the company they are most trying to emulate -- yet could ultimately find themselves competing against. As the WSJ reported just yesterday, Amazon is now in talks with big banks, including JPMorgan Chase, about building a checking-account-like product . You can guess it would be just the first of many financial products to come. Money, money, money, money The founders of Cadre and Robinhood come from distinctly different places. A Louisiana native, Cadre's Williams was selling worms to bait-and-tackle shops by the time he was eight to pay for sports apparel, including sweatbands. As a teenager, struggling to afford merchandise from Nike and Adidas, he started his own custom-embroidery sweatband shop. Story continues By the time he reached Harvard, Williams had the entrepreneurship bug. In fact, on a trip to Atlanta, he became convinced that there was an opportunity to reinvest in several communities rife with foreclosed homes, ultimately working with a syndicate of investors -- including his Harvard classmate Joshua Kushner and Kushner's older brother Jared -- to buy more than 700 housing units before he was hired out of college in 2010 by Goldman Sachs, then Blackstone. (An asset management firm wound up buying many of those homes, says Williams.) Like Williams, Tenev of Robinhood didn't necessarily imagine running a tech company. In fact, as the son of parents who worked for the World Bank, "I didn't think that I would be an entrepreneur," he said last week at the event. "I had no entrepreneurs in my family. It just started pretty much with two friends who wanted to get in business together" -- Tenev and his Robinhood co-founder, Baiju Bhatt, who'd originally met at Stanford. First the pair started an endeavor where they "didn't care about making money or being successful at all, and that company actually wasn’t successful," Tenev told the audience. While attendees laughed at the story, it wasn't a joke to his parents. "When are you going back to school?" They asked. "When are you going to get a real job?" His parents, said Tenev, were "fairly risk averse. They took one big risk in moving our entire family from Bulgaria to the U.S. After that, it was basically like, 'We’re done. Let’s just not screw it up.' " Money, money, money, money Despite their different backgrounds, the companies Williams and Tenev lead are now heading in remarkably similar directions. Cadre, headquartered in New York, is currently a platform helping accredited investors delve into commercial real estate deals in what it claims is a far more transparent way. Williams likens its offerings to baseball cards. Visitors get information about the properties that have been sourced and approved by Cadre. For an upfront fee and a recurring subscription rate, they can then buy and sell a stake in a property based on their goals. They also can trade their stakes to other investors on the platform. At least, some of them can. Cadre launched a secondary marketplace some time ago, says Williams, though he adds that it "hasn't quite scaled the product quite yet." It hasn't scaled its primary business all that extensively yet, either. To date, Cadre has funneled more than $1 billion in investors' money into just under 20 commercial buildings, most of them in New York and four in California. But that hasn't stopped investors from pushing piles of money in front of Williams. The company has so far raised $130 million from investors that include Founders Fund, Andreessen Horowitz, General Catalyst and the Ford Foundation. It also has attracted $250 million from Goldman Sachs's private wealth clients, money that will be funneled through the platform -- and more partnerships with Goldman and others are coming, Williams told the audience last week. "I'm good at negotiating," he said, amiably. Perhaps it's no wonder that Williams has stopped talking about Cadre as a real estate platform and now describes it instead as "the world's first digital stock market for alternative assets." With so many big brands backing it, what Cadre wants now is to "unlock every single potential product in the portfolio of our users and give them true diversification, so they can build their own sort of customized portfolio across non-equity products." Think timber, energy, private equity -- even farmland. Each are asset classes that are hard to break into, provide little visibility and which require long holding periods. Williams believes that by directing more investment into them -- and letting investors buy, sell and trade their holdings -- he can create a liquid marketplace that can operate around his former employers, Blackstone and Goldman, while blowing smaller, middle market players out of the water. Robinhood, headquartered in Palo Alto, is also changing fast all of a sudden. Today, it is known as a commission-free trading platform that enables users to buy and sell equities. But it's becoming almost as well-known for its waitlists. Robinhood has attracted four million users, but many of its newest customers gravitated to the platform for two products that are still being rolled out slowly. In late December, it announced the launch of commission-free options trading , a tool Tenev says many of its customers had requested. This month, it introduced fee-free crypto trading . Both products have one million customers in line to use them, says Tenev. Interest in the latter product in particular isn't surprising. Coinbase , the six-year-old digital currency exchange based in San Francisco, currently rules the roost in terms of crypto trading. But the company, which first launched services to buy and sell Bitcoin back in 2012, has famously had problems catering to its fast-ballooning customer base. (It had more than 13 million registered users as of mid-November, compared with 4.7 million in November 2016.) Coinbase also charges what some users complain are exorbitant fees on trades. Robinhood is making some money, though presumably not much. It charges $10 a month for a margin account that allows users to borrow money to buy stocks. It also earns interest off assets under management, though Tenev declined to talk about how much in assets it oversees or what percentage of its customers are using that margin product, saying that Robinhood "prefers to talk about other numbers." In the meantime, the company doesn't want to charge for trades so it can grow. Said Tenev to the audience, "A lot of people ask, 'Why don't you charge 99 cents or something? You could make a lot of money.' But we're willing to sacrifice that because we want to build a big business. We want to be known as the place that across the board offers customers the best prices and rates and customer experience." It was then that Tenev -- like Williams before him -- evoked Amazon. He said, "You look at a company like Amazon that has a similar strategy in retail e-commerce. People misunderstood that company for about 20 years. I think only recently has the Street and analysts started looking at it and saying, 'There’s something here. [CEO Jeff Bezos] wasn’t just B.S.ing us in his shareholder letters.' " That Tenev and Williams might share similar thinking isn't a complete surprise. Both were graduating from college as the financial markets were imploding roughly a decade ago -- with trust in household names like Lehman Brothers collapsing with them. Newer cases of fraud, as uncovered last year at Wells Fargo, have only made younger investors even more dubious about entrusting their burgeoning assets with established players. (Tenev says that half of Robinhood's users are first-time investors.) The founding teams are also friendly. When Robinhood raised $110 million in Series C funding last year, Williams introduced Tenev and Bhatt to Thrive Capital, the venture capital firm co-founded by Joshua Kushner and one of Cadre's first investors. In fact, Joshua and Jared Kushner are technically co-founders of Cadre, though Williams has long said the elder Kushner, who is Donald Trump's son-in-law and White House advisor, has " no operational control, governance or say on the company ." Mean, mean green Cadre and Robinhood share another trait, too: Neither company is willing (right now) to think about being acquired. Williams, whose company was valued at its last financing at $800 million , readily concedes that a long list of things have to go its way for things to work out as planned. But he already sees a day when Cadre has established a "more liquid platform" that has "even big players clamoring to be involved with us" because "they don't have liquidity." Meanwhile, asked if Robinhood might accept a big check from Charles Schwab or E*trade, both of which are struggling to sign up the millennials who are flocking to Robinhood, Tenev said last week, "I wouldn't take it. We aren’t doing this for the money, and I’d hate to see the mission die. Said Tenev of Robinhood, which has raised $176 million to date and boasts a $1.3 billion valuation: "We’re doing this because we see an opportunity to build a really, really big company that’s very, very customer friendly. And the rewards from the seeds that we’re planting are going to germinate later than most other companies. We’re really looking at it 10 or 20 years down the road." If it has that kind of time. Given Amazon's new interest in financial services, it may not. “We thought that fintechs would provide the chief digital threat" to traditional institutions, read a McKinsey report that came out last fall. Instead, the report observed, e-commerce giants are "reshaping one industry after another, blurring sector boundaries as they seek to be all things to all people.” Indeed, while banks are watching nimble players like Cadre and Robinhood with superstore ambitions, the bigger danger -- if these startups don't move fast enough -- may be the ultimate superstore itself. (Photos of Ryan Williams and Vlad Tenev, courtesy of StrictlyVC/Dani Padgett.) This article originally appeared on TechCrunch . || Washington Post Adds Support for Brave Browser, Basic Attention Token: The Brave browser and its Basic Attention Token (BAT) just added another verified mainstream publisher to its list of partners.
According to originalpostson Reddit, theWashington Postrecently integrated with Brave to accept contributions in BAT on its website. As such, thePost’s readers can now donate BAT to the publication via the Brave platform.
Users trumpeted the news as a major adoption milestone and with good reason. Owned by Jeff Bezos, theWashington Postis one of the largest media outlets in the United States, and this is just the latest publisher to adopt Basic Attention’s model in recent months. Other mainstream publishers that Brave and BAT have on board includeViceand theGuardian(U.K.).
TheWashington Post,Viceand theGuardianare all impressive bedfellows, but the Brave browser gets around with more than just media outlets. Popular YouTube channels, such asPewDiePie,Casey NeistatandPhilip DeFrancostarted accepting BAT back in November of 2017, and, this February, the projectannouncedthat it has enabled streamers on the popular streaming serviceTwitch.tvto receiveuser donations via Brave Payments.
Founded by Mozilla Firefox creator Brendan Eich, Brave offers acryptocurrency payment solution for the digital advertising space. Eich created Brave to fix the problems that plague digital advertising, such as bot views, inequitable share of advertising revenue and fraud. Brave attempts to streamline the process by connecting advertisers and publishers directly, cutting out middlemen and third party partners.
As the first working iteration of BAT’s model, the Brave browser works with publishers and users to deliver a less intrusive and more equitable advertising model. With Brave, users can hide ads from any website they visit on the browser. However, they can also disable this ad-blocking feature and earn a portion of advertising revenue for every ad they interact with. Users can then spend these tokens for services, promotions and the like on participating sites, or they can donate them directly to publishers they especially appreciate if they’re feeling generous.
The platform also anonymously gauges user attention to ensure that publishers get no more or no less than their allotted share of ad revenue. Additionally, it keeps tabs on what ads consumers favor so that advertisers can know which products they should direct at which audiences. Thus, Basic Attention Tokens monetize user engagement so as to reward consumers for their attention; cut publishers a fairer piece of the advert pie; and give advertisers more reliable data on user interests.
Currently, only the Brave Browser supports BAT, but the team has it in its sights to expand the token to other browsers in the future. If the project can onboard more browsers, BAT may become more attractive to online publishers as its proof of concept morphs into adoption.
Image attribution: By Michael Fleischhacker - Own work,Public Domain.
This article originally appeared onBitcoin Magazine. || Genomic Health (GHDX) Q4 Earnings & Revenues Miss Estimates: Genomic Health, Inc.GHDX reported fourth-quarter 2017 adjusted earnings per share (EPS) of 8 cents, reflecting an improvement from the year-ago quarter’s 4 cents. Adjusted EPS however missed the Zacks Consensus Estimate of 9 cents.
Reported EPS came in at 5 cents, improving from the year-ago figure by a penny.
Full-year 2017 adjusted EPS came in at a penny, comparing favorably with the Zacks Consensus Estimate of a loss of 9 cents and the year-ago number of a loss of 42 cents.
Revenues in Detail
Total revenues in the quarter rose 5.8% year over year to $87.5 million, missing the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $89.1 million. Growth in the United States and international markets drove the top line. Moreover, during the quarter, Genomic Health witnessed solid U.S. invasive breast cancer growth.
Net revenues in 2017 totaled $340.8 million, missing the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $343.1 million. The figure however improved 3.9% from the year-ago number.
Genomic Health, Inc. Price, Consensus and EPS Surprise
Genomic Health, Inc. Price, Consensus and EPS Surprise | Genomic Health, Inc. Quote
Geographically, fourth-quarter product revenues in the United States rose 5% to $73.5 million. The U.S. product revenue growth was fueled by a 38.9% rise in Prostate test revenues to $5 million and a 3.6% hike in invasive breast cancer revenues to $66.2 million. International product revenues totaled $13.7 million in the reported quarter, up 14.2%.
During the quarter, the company delivered more than 31,990 Oncotype DX test results, up 6.6% year over year.
Margin Trend
In the quarter under review, Genomic Health’s gross margin expanded 80 basis points (bps) year over year to 84.2%.
The company also witnessed a 5.6% rise in operating expenses to $71.4 million owing to a 0.61% rise in research and development expenses to $14.9 million, 11.1% uptick in general and administrative expenses to $20 million and 5.2% increase in selling and marketing expenses to $36.5 million.
In the reported quarter, Genomic Health reported an operating income of $2.2 million, showing a year-over-year improvement from $1.5 million a year ago. Accordingly, the operating margin expanded 70 bps to 2.5%.
Financial Update
Genomic Health exited 2017 with cash and cash equivalents and short-term marketable securities (including a corporate equity investment) of $129.6 million, reflecting an improvement from $97 million recorded at the end of 2016.
2018 Guidance
The company issued guidance for 2018. Genomic Health expects full-year 2018 revenues in the range of $366-$382 million, reflecting growth of 10-15%. The Zacks Consensus Estimate of $384.1 million is above the guided range.
The company expects adjusted basic EPS in the band of 39-56 cents. The Zacks Consensus Estimate is pegged at 34 cents.
Our Take
Genomic Health exited fourth-quarter 2017 on a disappointing note.
Nevertheless, we are encouraged by the year-over-year rise in revenues, driven by solid performances in United States and internationally. Within prostate cancer, the Oncotype DX Genomic Prostate Score test witnessed expanded private coverage. We are also upbeat about the company’s signing of an exclusive licensing agreement with Cleveland Diagnostics and research collaboration agreement with Janssen Pharmaceuticals. Also, the launch of Oncotype DX AR-V7 Nucleus Detect buoys optimism. The company also witnessed positive developments for its Oncotype DX Breast Recurrence Score tests.
Genomic Health’s sole reliance on the Breast Oncotype DX test is a concern. Moreover, the company’s rising operating expenses pose a challenge.
Zacks Rank & Key Picks
Genomic Health carries a Zacks Rank #5 (Strong Sell).
A few better-ranked stocks that reported solid results this earnings season are PetMed Express PETS, PerkinElmer PKI and athenahealth, Inc. ATHN. While PetMed and athenahealth sport a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy), PerkinElmer carries a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). You can seethe complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.
PetMed reported third-quarter fiscal 2018 results. Adjusted EPS of 44 cents was up 88.3% from the prior-year quarter. Revenues rose 13.7% to $60.1 million.
PerkinElmer posted fourth-quarter 2017 adjusted EPS of 97 cents. Adjusted revenues were approximately $641.6 million, up from $567 million a year ago.
athenahealthreported adjusted EPS of $1.11 in the fourth quarter of 2017, up 79% on a year-over-year basis.Revenues totaled $329 million, up 14.2%.
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Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days.Click to get this free reportPetMed Express, Inc. (PETS) : Free Stock Analysis Reportathenahealth, Inc. (ATHN) : Free Stock Analysis ReportPerkinElmer, Inc. (PKI) : Free Stock Analysis ReportGenomic Health, Inc. (GHDX) : Free Stock Analysis ReportTo read this article on Zacks.com click here.Zacks Investment Research || South Korea regulator flags better deal for cryptocurrency industry: By Dahee Kim
SEOUL (Reuters) - A better deal for South Korea's cryptocurrency industry might be in the offing as the market regulator changes tack from its tough stance on the virtual coin trade, promising instead to help promote blockchain technology.
The regulator said on Tuesday that it hopes to see South Korea - which has become a hub for cryptocurrency trade - normalize the virtual coin business in a self-regulatory environment.
"The whole world is now framing the outline (for cryptocurrency) and therefore (the government) should rather work more on normalization than increasing regulation," said Choe Heung-sik, chief of South Korea's Finance Supervisory Service (FSS), told reporters.
The latest news suggests authorities might adopt a lighter regulatory touch, a step change from the justice minister's warnings in January that the government was considering shutting down local cryptocurrency exchanges, throwing the market into turmoil.
FSS has been leading the government's regulation of cryptocurrency trading as part of a task force.
Cryptocurrency operators see Choe's comments as positive step for the industry's plans for self-regulation.
"Though the government and the industry have not yet reached a full agreement, the fact that the regulator himself made clear the government's stance on co-operation is a positive sign for the markets," said Kim Haw-joon of the Korea Blockchain Association.
South Korea banned the use of anonymous bank accounts for virtual coin trading as of January 30 to stop cryptocurrencies being used in money laundering and other crimes.
Three local banks including Shinhan Bank, Industrial Bank of Korea, NH Bank, are currently offering cryptocurrency accounts to around five local virtual coin exchanges.
Choe said that Kookmin Bank and KEB Hana Bank may have also put in place an appropriate system, though they haven't as yet started handling transactions.
"I hope they (the banks) no longer fear authorities once they have the right system," Choe added.
An official from FSS told Reuters tough regulatory oversight of illegal trade in cryptocurrencies will remain in place.
Bitcoin <BTC=BTSP>, the world's most heavily traded cryptocurrency, is now changing hands at a three-week high of $11,160 on the Luxembourg-based Biststamp exchange after falling as low as $5,920.72 in early February.
South Korean electronics giant Samsung has already started production of cryptocurrency mining technologies, local media reported in January.
(Reporting by Dahee Kim; Editing by Eric Meijer & Shri Navaratnam) || Electric scooters for grown-ups are taking over San Francisco, and tech workers are annoyed: LimeBike
• More and more electric scooters are covering the streets and sidewalks ofSan Francisco.
• Startups like LimeBike andBirdlet users reserve a scooter from a smartphone app, ride for a small fee, and leave the scooter anywhere.
• People are abandoning their scooters on sidewalks — which is becoming a nuisance for tech workers and people who commute to work on foot.
Electric scooters for grown-ups are taking over the streets of San Francisco.
Since mid-March, three startups have rolled out motorized scooter rentals across San Francisco. These are stand-up vehicles like the Razor scooter you might have cruised around on as a kid — but they're outfitted with motors and electricity and reach speeds up to 15 mph.
Electric scooter-sharing startups Bird, LimeBike, and Spin let users reserve a scooter from a smartphone app, ride for a small fee, and leave the scooter anywhere at the end of a journey.
The rise of electric scooter rentals has created some crowding on San Francisco sidewalks, because the vehicles don't use docking stations like some electric-bike-sharing startups.
In recent days, tech workers took to social media to gripe about the electric scooter onslaught.
M.G. Siegler, a general partner at GV, the venture-capital arm of Google's parent company, Alphabet, said the proliferation of electric scooters in San Francisco happened quickly.
Tweet Embed://twitter.com/mims/statuses/980846271702249472?ref_src=twsrc%5EtfwA few weeks ago, I had not noticed any electric scooters in SF. Now you can’t exit a building without tripping over one.
It's hard not to notice them, according to tech writer and editor Jessica Misener.
Tweet Embed://twitter.com/mims/statuses/978299782560034816?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfwmeanwhile in san francisco: razor scooter share for adultspic.twitter.com/B15Mt7YvS2Tweet Embed://twitter.com/mims/statuses/980853889057529856?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfwthey're abandoned everywhere. Tweet Embed://twitter.com/mims/statuses/980181248831143936?ref_src=twsrc%5EtfwI leave town for 5 days and the entire city of San Francisco is now riding electric scooters. Count me in!
Business Insider's Rob Price spotted a trio of electric scooters from Bird outside of our office in San Francisco. He said he saw people driving the scooters down sidewalks, which is illegal.
Tweet Embed://twitter.com/mims/statuses/980891528598978561?ref_src=twsrc%5EtfwIt's true: Electric scooters are taking over San Francisco right now. These 3 are right outside our office. More round the corner. People cruising down roads and sidewalks on them.pic.twitter.com/ecG8SY2OSI
Scott Kidder, a software engineer, called for these startups to curb their scooters.
Tweet Embed://twitter.com/mims/statuses/979560059813285888?ref_src=twsrc%5EtfwElectric scooters and bikes are littering#SanFrancisco, found these scooters blocking entrances at the SF Ferry Building. I'm all for new transportation options, but@limebikeneeds to keep our city clean!@SFFerryRiders@SFBayFerrypic.twitter.com/LfRfaCm5Lu
Now, city officials say they plan to regulate electric-scooter sharing.
The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA) is working with San Francisco Supervisor Aaron Peskin to create legislation that would "create appropriate permits and requirements to regulate motorized scooter sharing," a SFMA spokesperson toldTech Crunch.
Their office sent a letter to Bird, LimeBike, and Spin, asking each to submit a business plan that describes how the company will comply with the city's requirements and how it plans to distribute and maintain scooters across the city, theSan Francisco Chronicleand TechCrunch reported last week.
The letter said the city would "actively enforce local laws protecting the city's right of way."
Tweet Embed://twitter.com/mims/statuses/980854668489252864?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfwevery stupid startup floods the zone with their garbage crap until you cant walk anywhere without falling over a neon tricyclegovernment steps in when the arteries of every city are long clogged with the trash of the moment, usually already too late
Electric scooters are not prohibited in any way, though California state law bans riding motorized scooters on sidewalks and requires riders to wear a helmet and hold a valid driver license. The vehicles do not come with helmets, which means riders must bring their own.
Bird, a startup based in the so-called Silicon Beach area of Los Angeles, delivered about 175 electric scooters to the San Francisco Bay Area in late March. The startup is led bya former Uber and Lyft executiveand has closed $115 million in funding since the start of the year.
When Bird first launched in a city near Los Angeles called Santa Monica, the city filed acriminal complaintagainst the startup over its failure to obtain a permit for operation.
Bird is now trying to do right by the cities where it operates. The company said it will pick up vehicles nightly and relocate them to where they're likely to be used, and it will add new scooters to a city only if it can show the existing scooters are being used at least three times per day.
Bird also plans togive $1 per vehicle per dayto local city government, "so they can use this money to build more bike lanes" and build and maintain road infrastructure.
NOW WATCH:This tiny electric scooter will make your commute a lot more exciting
See Also:
• Trump says Amazon has received a free ride from taxpayers in cities across the US — and he might be right
• The best US cities for millennials who have student debt
• What 9 famous monuments around the world looked like while they were under construction
SEE ALSO:Bitcoin millionaires are buying Lamborghinis as a status symbol of crypto wealth, and the carmaker says sales are rocketing || Top 5 Things That Moved Markets This Past Week: What will next week bring? Investing.com – Top 5 things that rocked U.S. markets this week. 1. Wage Growth: Lightening Doesn’t Strike Twice Traders had to endure yet another week of wild swings in U.S. stock markets as jobs data, Trump’s tariffs and a surprise conciliatory gesture by North Korean leader Kim Jong Un helped U.S. indexes post a weekly win. U.S. stocks rounded off the week with sharp gains on Friday as the Dow closed 440 points higher after data showed the U.S. economy created 313,000 jobs in February. Unlike the previous jobs report in January, Friday’s jobs report didn’t spark investor panic as wages grew at a slower pace than estimated, denting the prospect of a faster pace of inflation. That in turn, kept a lid on expectations for a fourth rate hike in December. That came amid falling geopolitical tensions on the Korean peninsula as the White House confirmed that Trump has agreed to meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. A day earlier, meanwhile, President Donald Trump, as expected, pushed forward with plans to impose tariffs on steel and aluminium imports on Thursday, but exempted Canada and Mexico while leaving the door open for “real friends” of the U.S. to negotiate exemptions. 2. WTI Crude Soared To Notch Unlikely Weekly Win When crude prices settled more than 2% lower on Thursday for the second straight day, investors had little hope that oil prices would avert a second-straight weekly plunge were it not for a more than 3% rally on Friday. The rally on Friday was partly supported by data showing that the number of U.S. oil rigs fell for the first time in seven weeks, pointing to a potential slowdown in U.S. oil output. While the lower rig count signalled a potential tightening in output, U.S. shale producers are expected to continue to ramp output, taking advance of oil prices above $60 a barrel. The Energy Information Agency reported Wednesday that U.S. output jumped to a record high per day of nearly 10.4 million barrels last week, while crude stockpiles rose less than expected. Story continues On Friday U.S. crude futures rose $1.95 to settle at $64.91 a barrel. 3. Central Bankers Leave Their Mark on Euro, Yen EUR/USD settled roughly unchanged for the week, after the European Central Bank (ECB), as expected, left interest rates unchanged and adopted a less hawkish stance in its monetary policy statement, dropping its pledge to increase bond purchases if the economic outlook deteriorates. ECB president Mario Draghi, however, tempered any notion that the ECB's decision to omit its easing bias from the statement marked the start of shift in policy, as he warned of potential headwinds for the EU economy in the form of subdued inflation, and a potential trade war with the U.S. The Italian election Sunday, resulting in a hung parliament, had little impact on the euro as it was quick to rebound from any weakness. The yen – which had served as the safe-haven proxy last week – fell sharply against the dollar as fears of a global trade war subsided, while the Bank of Japan, spearheaded by governor Kuroda, left its ultra-accommodative monetary policy measures unchanged. 4. Gold Prices Averted Third Weekly Slump Gold prices squeezed a win for the first time in the three weeks despite falling safe-haven demand as Trump’s tariffs were less controversial than many had feared, while geopolitical uncertainty eased after Trump accepted North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s invite for a sit down. Some market participants, however, questioned the sincerity of Kim Jong Un’s conciliatory gesture as it was only a few months ago that the two nations exchanged a flurry of verbal threats. “North Korea best not make any more threats to the United States,” Trump told journalists in August last year. “They will be met with fire and the fury like the world has never seen.” With a little less than two weeks until the Federal Reserve meets to decide whether to stick or twist on interest rates, traders remain surprisingly optimistic on the prospect of gold adding to this week’s gains. CFTC COT data showed money managers increased their long bets on gold in the week ended March 9. 5. Bitcoin: How low can it go? Bitcoin ended the week nursing heavy loss as fresh regulatory threats forced traders to cut their positions on cryptocurrencies. The SEC warned on Wednesday it would take a closer look at trading platforms operating as exchanges that failed to register with the regulator, leaving many questioning whether this was the start of a wider crackdown. More technically-minded market participants, however, were quick to point to technical reasons to explain bitcoin’s collapse as the popular digital currency failed to break above a “key level” close to $12,000. Bitcoin rose to high of $11,696 this week before retreated sharply. Frank Cappelleri, executive director, institutional equities at Nomura Instinet, warned that “if bitcoin fails to garner demand at current levels then “the February lows [around $6,000] would in the cross-hairs." The prospect of a flood in demand looks unlikely, however, as the total cryptomarket cap fell to about $372 billion – at the time of writing – down nearly 20% from $457 billion last week, indicating that investors continue to slash their bullish bets on crypto bets, while new entrants remain reluctant to buy the dips. Related Articles Former Transmar executives plead guilty to U.S. fraud charges Derivatives experts wary about next U.S. stock volatility shock Trump steel tariffs may leave these U.S. steelworkers jobless || Warren Buffett: Investors handicapped by debt miss 'extraordinary opportunities': It’s impossible to accurately know when the next market decline will be, according to legendary investor Warren Buffett.
“Stocks surge and swoon, seemingly untethered to any year-to-year buildup in their underlying value. Over time, however, Ben Graham’s oft-quoted maxim proves true: ‘In the short run the market is a voting machine; in the long run, however, it becomes a weighing machine,’” Buffett wrote in his newest annual shareholder letter.
It’s important to remember that even Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway (BRK-A,BRK-B) hasn’t been immune to significant swings in its stock price either.
“For the last 53 years, the company has built value by reinvesting its earnings and letting compound interest work its magic. Year by year, we have moved forward. Yet Berkshire shares have suffered four truly major dips,” Buffett notes. He included in his letter the following chart of “gory details”:
“This table offers the strongest argument I can muster against ever using borrowed money to own stocks. There is simply no telling how far stocks can fall in a short period. Even if your borrowings are small and your positions aren’t immediately threatened by the plunging market, your mind may well become rattled by scary headlines and breathless commentary. And an unsettled mind will not make good decisions,” Buffett wrote.
When an investor is investing with borrowed money, losses are amplified when prices go down. And since the best opportunities to buy occur when prices are down, those getting crushed by their leverage bets gone bad won’t be able to take advantage.
Buffett emphasized that no one can predict market declines, and said that declines “offer extraordinary opportunities to those who are not handicapped by debt.”
“That’s the time to heed these lines from [Rudyard] Kipling’sIf:
‘If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs…
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting…
If you can think — and not make thoughts your aim…
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you…
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it.’
—Julia La Roche is a finance reporter at Yahoo Finance.Follow her on Twitter.
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• Munger: You won’t get the returns Buffett and I got by doing what we did || AUD/USD has choppy and sideways week: The Australian dollar has gone back and forth during the week, at one point breaking above the 0.77 level only to turn around and show signs of indecision. We have a major uptrend line underneath, which should keep this market somewhat afloat. If we can break above the top of the candle for the week, the market could go towards the 0.78 level. The uptrend line underneath is the bottom of an overall daily uptrend channel. I think that the uptrend line should continue to be an area where a lot of buyers come back in, but if we break down below there I think that the Australian dollar will probably unwind down to the 0.75 handle. Remember that the Australian dollar is highly sensitive to risk appetite overall, as we have a lot of concerns when it comes to the potential trade war between the United States and China, which of course directly affects the Australian economy as the Australians supply China with a lot of their raw materials. Gold also has is influence as well, so keep that in mind. If gold markets rally a bit, its likely that the Australian dollar will also. If we break above the 0.78 handle, the market is likely to continue to go higher, perhaps reaching towards the 0.80 level above. The uptrend line goes back to late 2015, so I think it is in fact a major amount of support just waiting to happen. If we did breakdown below there, it could signal a very bad news. AUD/USD Video 09.04.18 This article was originally posted on FX Empire More From FXEMPIRE: Ethereum fails again during the previous week Bitcoin tries to rally during the week, but it shows failure yet again NZD/USD continues to bounce around the 0.7250 level Dow Jones 30 and NASDAQ 100 had a volatile week DAX falls initially during the week but find buyers US dollar falls against Canadian dollar during the week || Air Force Cancels $7B JSTARS Program Over Boeing, Northrop Objections: The Air Force is canceling the planned refresh of its Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System (JSTARS) airborne command and surveillance aircraft, a $7 billion blow for program competitorsBoeing(NYSE: BA),Lockheed Martin(NYSE: LMT), andNorthrop Grumman(NYSE: NOC).
Funding for the JSTARS recapitalization was not included in the 2019 Pentagon budget request, with the Air Force expected to instead try to develop a program that would link together sensors from a number of sources to complete the same tasks.
The original JSTARS program was first deployed in the early 1980s, designed to use airpower to detect and track multiple enemy targets and help coordinate attacks against targets. The Air Force in December 2016 launched a request for proposal for the engineering, manufacturing, and development of a fleet of 17 new aircraft with an estimated price tag of at least $6.9 billion.
An artist rendering of a militarized Boeing 737, which was to be used in the JSTARS bid. Image source: Boeing.
However, critics have argued that the platform, based on relatively slow-moving planes, was outdated because those planes represent easy targets in a combat theater. Advances in sensor and radar technologies also helped contribute to the downfall of JSTARS. New, smarter, and smaller equipment can increasingly be placed on a variety of air, space, sea, and land systems and coordinate in real time, diminishing the need for a flying hub.
Using data from a variety of sources would also theoretically provide more global coverage than a limited fleet of aircraft.
The cancellation is a setback for Boeing's plan to create a military version of its mainstay 737 narrowbody commercial jet. Boeing in its lobbying had called the 737 "the right sized aircraft" for the mission and had argued that given the extensive hours already flown by the 737, and the massive supply chain that is currently supporting it, the plane would be the lowest-cost and least-risky option.
There are still potential opportunities for the 737 to enlist, notably as eventual replacements for the Boeing RC-135 reconnaissance aircraft and its AWACS sentry aircraft, but the company can no longer count on JSTARS as a springboard. Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg last monthduring the company's year-end calllisted the JSTARS bid as one of several "important opportunities" for the company.
For Northrop, the prime contractor on the existing JSTARS program, there wasn't an in-house aircraft at stake,as that company envisionedusingGeneral Dynamics' Gulfstream G550 for the project. But Northrop had been hoping to use the program to showcase its battle management and ground surveillance systems. It also late last year beat outRaytheonto provide the radar systems for whomever ultimately would have won the JSTARS competition, meaning the cancellation cost the company a guaranteed contract.
Lockheed too had hoped to spotlight its own battle management platform, but it arguably had the least on the line when the decision was announced.
The Air Force has not yet said exactly what will replace JSTARS, but odds are it will not be a big-ticket airplane but rather a series of small systems working in parallel. Lockheed has extensive experience integrating radar andcomputer systems via its Aegis Combat System program. Though the requirements for the JSTARS replacement would be different than those of Aegis, Lockheed has arguably moved from a dark horse to a favorite to win a bulk of the business on the project.
Other winners could include General Atomics MQ-9 Reaper drone, which could be outfitted with new sensors and used in tandem to replace the radar coverage of one JSTARS plane. Northrop has also suggested its RQ-4 Global Hawk to perform that task.
There's still a chance the Air Force's wishes could be overruled by Congressional appropriators, where the JSTARS program still has considerable support. JSTARS also has some allies among U.S. Army hierarchy. The Army has used the plane's real-time reconnaissance in combat situations.
If a compromise aircraft emerges, it will likely be much more costly than the recent JSTARS development because the Air Force has put a heavy emphasis on survivability.
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[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
2018年4月5日(木) 20：00～
☆将来、爆上が期待されるコインとは？
☆ICO案件への“賢い参加方法”と“見分け方のコツ”は？
☆バイナリーで月収500万円を稼ぐ手法を特別公開！
などなど
⇒https://bit.ly/2GkbdZu
#不労所得 #仮想通貨
#NEM #BCH #LISK #BTC
pic.twitter.com/sjVN6r64im || "Pay it forward" bitcoin
Start Bitcoin mining today!
https://e-mine.co/?ref=27621 || 03/18 12:00 Crypto currency sentiment analysis.
BTC : Positive
BCC : Positive
ETH : Positive
ETC : Positive
https://goo.gl/5hp6Cz #BTC || The INCREDIBLE uses of BLOCKCHAIN!!!
https://www.everydayape.com/blockchain-and-art/ … …
#electroneum #cryptocurrency #Crypto #Cryptopia #CryptoNews #trezor #LedgerWallet #Ledgernanos #Ledger #XRP #Bitcoin #BitcoinPrivate #BitcoinCash #BitcoinGold #Ripple #Ripplenews || START BITCOIN MINING http://keita2016.jp || The current price of 1 $BTC on March 28, 2018 at 04:59PM is $7900.00. || Token Engineering Pt III: Analysis of Bitcoin, design of Ocean protocol http://dlvr.it/QNLntn pic.twitter.com/i1BwU637TK || BreadWallet Bitcoin Wallet Announces Ethereum (ETH) Support Soon https://ift.tt/2IA4vfr
As ICOs get increasingly popular by the day, the demand for an easy way to transfer and store these tokens has grown. Digital wallets fulfill this purpose, however, to stay ahead in a very… || He’s A Fraud!: Ethereum’s Buterin Calls Out ‘Fake Satoshi’ At Deconomy | BitCoin trends Blog Bitcoin Trending - https://btctrending.com/2018/04/04/hes-a-fraud-ethereums-buterin-calls-out-fake-satoshi-at-deconomy-bitcoin-trends-blog/ …pic.twitter.com/zNKJaeIfga || Current Bitcoin Price = $12128.51 --- Includes Sum of Forks, Core $10520.00 (86.74%) + Cash $1476.96 (12.18%) + Gold $131.55 (1.08%)
|
Trend: up || Prices: 6968.32, 7889.25, 7895.96, 7986.24, 8329.11, 8058.67, 7902.09, 8163.42, 8294.31, 8845.83
|
Analyze the provided historical prices, technical indicators, news, and social media sentiment from the last 60 days. Based on this context, predict the overall trend (up, down, or no change) and the specific daily closing prices for Bitcoin for the next 10 days.
|
[Technical Analysis for 2022-09-15]
BTC Price: 19701.21, BTC RSI: 42.11
Gold Price: 1665.40, Gold RSI: 31.63
Oil Price: 85.10, Oil RSI: 41.57
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
Crypto-Related Stocks Bounce as Bitcoin Retakes $22K: Badly beaten-up crypto brokers, miners, and bankers are posting double-digit gains on Monday alongside gains in cryptocurrencies and the broad stock market. Bitcoin ( BTC ) is up more than 5% since Friday, and – at this point on Monday morning – holding above $22,000 for a sustained period for the first time since the mid-June price crash. Ether ( ETH ) is performing even better, up nearly 20% since Friday to $1,479 as anticipation over the "merge" builds. Checking traditional markets, the Nasdaq is higher by about 1% and the S&P 500 is up 0.6%. Among crypto-related stocks on the move are miners Marathon Digital (MARA) up 20%, Hut 8 (HUT) +15%, and Riot Blockchain (RIOT) +15%. Crypto exchange Coinbase (COIN) is ahead 13%, and crypto merchant banker Galaxy Digital (GLXY.TO) is higher by 17%. Michael Saylor’s MicroStrategy (MSTR) is up 10%. Read more: First Mover Americas: Bitcoin Has Best Day in a Month, but Ether’s Getting Even More Love Bank of America on Friday said it was seeing “continued signs of fading sell pressure,” in crypto. “Over the last two weeks, digital assets' market value fell 4% vs. 30% over the prior four weeks,” said Alkesh Shah and team in the note. "When the market starts reacting positively to negative news, this is a signal that a local bottom could be in for now, as fear may have caused the news to be priced in," said GlobalBlock's Marcus Sotiriou on Monday morning, noting continued Fed hawkishness in the face of ugly inflation headlines continues. || 6 Reasons Why So Many People are Getting Started Investing in Crypto: Source Unsplash The cryptocurrency market is attracting an increasing number of participants. There are over eighty-one million people who are using this market. Many want to know why more and more people are getting engaged with it. There are several reasons why the market is growing so rapidly. One of the bigger reasons is the decentralization of the market itself. People no longer have to rely on a third party or middle man to help them with their finances. With crypto, things are becoming much more democratic. This allows anyone and everyone to become a part of it regardless of location or background. In addition, using crypto as currency is easier and more convenient for everyone involved. The value of a crypto coin can fluctuate wildly. Sometimes you may even lose money if you arent careful. If this sounds like something youd like to do, read why people are investing in crypto. Reasons for Investing in Crypto Real-Time Transactions Youre making a transaction when you buy and sell Bitcoin, Ethereum, or any other cryptocurrency. Youre transferring value from one persons account to another. Transactions can happen instantly. When you buy $1 worth of Bitcoin, your transaction is recorded and confirmed in the blockchain within minutes. Transactions are verified using cryptography and distributed among nodes on the network. Its also extremely secure because all transaction records are stored on the blockchain ledger in one place. This is similar to credit card companies and their databases. You can instantly pay your bills, buy a cup of coffee, and even send money across continents. Diversify Your Investment Portfolio Another reason to invest in cryptocurrency is that its a great way to diversify your investment portfolio. Cryptocurrency has the potential to provide returns and returns on investments. It is better than other types of assets, such as stocks or bonds. A good way of thinking about this is by comparing an investment like gold and another like real estate. For example, gold has been around for thousands of years. But there have been times when people believed it was worthless. This is because they couldnt see any value for its price tag (or lack thereof). Story continues People who dont want to lose money can use AI-based trading platforms. In the field of artificial intelligence, most of the developments are made in the area of trading. The main benefit of using an AI stock trading system for crypto is that it is completely free from human error. With the AI systems help, you can analyze all the possible investment outcomes. The program works without breaks and on weekends. It does not have to be afraid of losing because it does not have emotions. So, there is a high probability of making a profit in the crypto field. Source Unsplash No Physical Currency Any government or central bank does not back digital currency. So, it cannot be considered a real currency. Instead, its just data in the form of numbers that can be exchanged with other people for goods and services (or simply as an investment). That being said, you wont find any physical coins or bills either. Cryptocurrency is also very convenient because it can be used anywhere in the world anytime. So its easy for anyone who wants to invest but doesnt want any complications. It also applies to anyone who has only a limited amount of time available each day (like students). With cryptocurrencies, you can instantly transfer your funds and start investing immediately. Freedom of Bank With cryptocurrency, you can store your wealth anywhere and be safe from the governments who want to take your money. With a traditional bank, if you dont have enough money in your account, they can close it and freeze your assets. In addition, they can also seize any of your purchases if they suspect you might be involved in illegal activities. You can send money anywhere in the world anytime, and it doesnt cost anything to transfer. You dont have to go through a mediator and can use the same currency you use daily. Source Unsplash No Requirements for Starting Investing When you invest in any other type of investment, you give up some of your privacy and control over your finances. You cannot just decide to take out a loan from your bank and use it for whatever purpose. You must go through a long application process to get approval for a loan. You will have even more trouble getting approved if you have bad credit or no credit. However, when you invest in crypto, you can immediately start with as little as $100 and buy $1,000 worth of Bitcoin. You can do the same thing with Ethereum or any other altcoin. All you need to do is go online and buy some crypto using an exchange like Coinbase or Gemini that supports FIAT currency like USD or EURO. You can then transfer the funds into your private wallet. This keeps it safe from hackers because there is no central authority controlling them as banks do with fiat currency. Make Purchases You can make purchases online with cryptocurrency, and you can use it at certain retailers as well. Its now possible to buy things with cryptocurrency in person. This is a big step forward for the industry. This makes it more accessible to people. They are able to participate in the future economy by using their own money rather than having theirs taken away by banks or governments. You can also use your money to make more by investing in other peoples businesses. If you have a small amount of capital and want to support it in someone elses business idea, this is where cryptocurrency comes into play. You have the opportunity of becoming an early adopter at no risk. This is because all of your investments will be backed by actual hard cash (the value of which increases over time). Wrapping Up If you are thinking about investing in cryptocurrency, it is important to know that it can be a good idea if you have the time and knowledge to do so. It would help if you also had a plan for your investment. Cryptocurrency is still new and uncharted territory. You must consider many things before jumping in. For example, what kind of risks do you want to take? The best way of managing these risks is by having an exit strategy in mind from day one. This will likely involve selling some or all of your holdings at some point down the road. This happens when they go up too high or become unprofitable for whatever reason (i.e., a downturn). || 7 Preferred Stocks Trading a Discount Right Now: Looking for the consistency of fixed yield, plus the potential for upside? Preferred stocks may be right for your portfolio. There are many approaches you can take with this asset class, but one you should consider is buying preferred stocks trading at a discount. With the sharp rise of interest rates so far this year, many preferred shares have fallen to discount to their respective par value. Thats bad news for those who got in at par value (typically $25 per share). Yet for investors buying them today, at between $20 and $25 per share? They could provide solid returns. Both in terms of yield, as well as upside. Like with common stock, theres no guarantee preferred stocks will go up. In fact, like common shares, preferred stocks can be volatile, if the underlying company is facing issues. However, if you stick to large, more stable names, you may be able to mitigate much of this risk. InvestorPlace - Stock Market News, Stock Advice & Trading Tips 7 Seriously Undervalued Dividend Stocks to Buy for High Total Returns So, which preferred stocks trading at a discount should you consider right now? These seven, issued by large companies across many sectors, look appealing today. Allstate Corporation 4.75% Noncumulative Preferred Stock Series I (ALL.PI) Issued by property and casualty insurer Allstate (NYSE: ALL ), Allstate Corporation 4.75% Noncumulative Preferred Stock Series I (NYSE: ALL.PI ) has gone from trading at a premium, to trading at a discount, since January. Chalk this up to the Federal Reserves hiking of interest rates to combat inflation. At todays prices, ALL.PI stock trades at around a 10.5% discount. It offers a forward yield of 5.31%. Per the terms detailed in its prospectus, Series I shares are redeemable after Jan. 15, 2025 . Thats not to say they will be redeemed on or after that date. Given their sub-5% coupon, if rates keep climbing, Allstate would have little reason to buy back all outstanding Series I shares. Also, issuers of noncumulative preferred can skip dividends without having to pay them later on. Still, considering Allstates A+ credit rating , theres not a high risk of this happening. Story continues Bank of America 4.335% Noncumulative Preferred Stock Series NN (BAC.PO) Bank of America 4.335% Noncumulative Preferred Stock Series NN (NYSE: BAC.PO ) is another situation with a moderately high yield, plus a moderately high discount. Issued by Bank of America (NYSE: BAC ), this preferred stock yields 5.58% at current prices. At just under $19.50 per share, BAC.PO stock trades at around a 22.3% discount to par value. The optional redemption date for it occurs on Nov. 3, 2025 . With rates rising, its questionable whether its issuer will want to redeem shares. 7 Oversold Value Stocks to Buy Now Also, if rates keep on climbing, presumably BAC.PO will continue to slide. Even so, its not set in stone that interest rates will continuously rise over the next few years. If a much feared recession happens in the next year or so, the Federal Reserve could end up lowering rates once again. That may result in pushing back up the value of this preferred stock. Brookfield Infrastructure Partners 5.125% Class A Preferred Limited Partnership Units (BIP.PA) Brookfield Infrastructure Partners (NYSE: BIP ) is a master limited partnership that, as its name suggests, owns infrastructure assets. Regular BIP shares yield 3.69% at current prices. If yield rather than capital growth is your sole focus, you may want to consider the Brookfield Infrastructure Partners 5.125% Class A Preferred Limited Partnership Units (NYSE: BIP.PA ). Right now, BIP.PA stock trades at a nearly 25% discount to par value. It has a forward yield of 6.78%. If you think that fears of runaway interest rates are overblown, this may be an appealing preferred stock to buy. Theres a chance Brookfield exercises its redemption option on or after Oct. 15, 2025. If that ends up happening, investors would get a strong return on their investment. Collecting 6.78% in distributions over the next three years, plus a 33.05% in appreciation on their investment. Energy Transfer L.P. 7.375% Series C Fixed-to-Floating Rate Cumulative Preferred (ET.PC) If youre worried that interest rates will keep rising, putting more pressure on preferreds, this preferred stock could be the right choice for you. Energy Transfer L.P. 7.375% Series C Fixed-to-Floating Rate Cumulative Preferred (NYSE: ET.PC ) was issued by Energy Transfer L.P (NYSE: ET ). Energy Transfer L.P. is a large owner of mid-stream oil and gas (pipeline) assets. What may make ET.PC stock appealing is the floating rate terms laid out in its prospectus. At todays discounted price, this 7.375% coupon preferred stock has around an 8.4% forward annual yield. 7 Warren Buffett Stocks to Buy on the Dip But after May 15, 2023, the distribution rate switches over to the prevailing LIBOR rate, plus 4.53% . If rates keep rising, LIBOR will as well . This could result in ET.PC having a much higher coupon than it does today. This may help keep it steady in a rising-rate environment. Pebblebrook Hotel Trust 6.3% Series F Cumulative Preferred (PEB.PF) It makes sense that Pebblebrook Hotel Trust 6.3% Series F Cumulative Preferred (NYSE: PEB.PF ) is one of the preferred stocks trading at a discount. Post-pandemic revenge travel notwithstanding, Pebblebrook Hotel Trusts (NYSE: PEB ) recovery could be hampered by inflationary pressures. At least, thats the view of analysts at Hedgeye , who late last month recommended the common shares as a short idea . Presumably, challenges with the underlying company could mean more uncertainty for PEB.PF stock, which admittedly may be riskier than many of the names listed above. On the other hand, these risks may be more than priced-in. As a cumulative preferred stock, unpaid preferred dividends accrue. PEB.PF also trades at around a 15.75% discount to par value, and has a forward yield of around 7.43%. More research may be warranted, but put it on your watchlist. Risk/return may be still in your favor. Public Storage 4.7% Cumulative Preferred Series J (PSA.PJ) Many real estate investment trust investors hold shares in self-storage giant Public Storage (NYSE: PSA ). This high-quality REITs common shares currently yield 2.61%. If youre looking for a yield that does a better job at keeping up with inflation, however, Public Storages preferred shares may be a better option. For instance, Public Storage 4.7% Cumulative Preferred Series J (NYSE: PSA.PJ ). It currently has a forward yield of 5.22%. This preferred stock also trades at around a 10% discount to par value. Again, like with some of the low-coupon preferred stocks trading at a discount, Public Storage may have little reason to redeem it. 7 Meme Stocks to Sell Now So then, is PSA.PJ stock a buy? Maybe not right now. Factoring in the risk of more rate hikes, you may want to wait until theres a further discount before entering a position. Keep an eye on it for now. AT&T 4.75% Cumulative Preferred Series C (T.PC) With its forward dividend yield of 6.59%, many investors treat common shares in AT&T (NYSE: T ) almost like a preferred stock. They buy it because of the dividend, with little regard for its long-term upside potential. However, chasing yield has resulted in losses for long-time common shareholders. Investors attracted to the cash flows of AT&T, therefore, may want to consider buying one of its most actively traded preferred shares, AT&T 4.75% Cumulative Preferred Series C (NYSE: T.PC ) instead. At todays discounted price (21.2% below par value), T.PC stock currently sports a forward yield of 6%. Not too far below the common stocks forward yield all while possibly having less downside risk. Besides the chance of higher volatility with T common stock, much like how it slashed its dividend earlier this year , Ma Bell could again slash the common stocks quarterly payout. On the date of publication, Thomas Niel did not have (either directly or indirectly) any positions in the securities mentioned in this article. The opinions expressed in this article are those of the writer, subject to the InvestorPlace.com Publishing Guidelines . More From InvestorPlace Buy This $5 Stock BEFORE This Apple Project Goes Live The Best $1 Investment You Can Make Today Early Bitcoin Millionaire Reveals His Next Big Crypto Trade On Air Cash Holders Could Get Hit Hard THIS FRIDAY The post 7 Preferred Stocks Trading a Discount Right Now appeared first on InvestorPlace . || Market Wrap: BTC Not Quite Ready to Stay Above $25K: BTC briefly touches $25,000 in overnight trading
Bitcoin (BTC) briefly broke through the psychologically significant $25,000 mark in overnight trading, before paring those gains during U.S. trading hours.
The largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization reached as high as $25,212 early in the U.S. trading day before retreating to its current level above $24,000.
This article originally appeared inMarket Wrap, CoinDesk’s daily newsletter diving into what happened in today's crypto markets.Subscribe to get it in your inbox every day.
Ether’s (ETH) price declined 4% on Monday, but it remained above the $1,900 level it has maintained since late last week. In overnight activity, ETH briefly surpassed $2,000.
Both BTC and ETH traded on average volume, using the 20-day exponential moving averages (EMA) as a barometer for normality.
Traditional markets started the week relatively flat, with the S&P 500, Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) and tech-heavy Nasdaq composite up 0.1%, 0.2% and 0.3% respectively.
Commodities were in decline, with the prices of crude oil and natural gas down 4% and 1.3%, respectively. The price of gold, a traditional safe haven asset, contracted 1.09%, while copper’s price sank 1.7%.
●Bitcoin (BTC): $23,997−1.2%
●Ether (ETH): $1,893−2.2%
●S&P 500 daily close: 4,297.14+0.4%
●Gold: $1,794 per troy ounce−0.2%
●Ten-year Treasury yield daily close: 2.79%−0.06
Bitcoin, ether and gold prices are taken at approximately 4pm New York time. Bitcoin is the CoinDesk Bitcoin Price Index (XBX); Ether is the CoinDesk Ether Price Index (ETX); Gold is the COMEX spot price. Information about CoinDesk Indices can be found atcoindesk.com/indices.
BTC’s hourly chart highlights the attempt to surpass $25,000
The hourly chart below illustrates BTC's brief move above $25,000 before it retreated.
However, that move occurred within a candle that finished the hour in negative territory, indicating that bitcoin isn’t ready to hold $25,000 support. A trading candle illustrates an asset's high, low, opening and closing price within a chart. Bitcoin’s price rose 2.7% before the start of U.S. trading before declining 3.5%.
BTC appeared to be settling into a range between $24,000 and $25,000, with trading volume recently declining. A lack of trading volume for an asset can imply lesser trader conviction about an asset’s potential gains.
Bollinger bands on BTC’s daily chart indicate a reversion to mean
BTC’s Bollinger bands indicate that prices may retreat to $23,500. For context, Bollinger bands measure the moving average for an asset and calculate values that are two standard deviations above and below the aforementioned moving average.
Traders often use Bollinger bands to determine whether prices have drifted too far from an asset’s short-term average. The question that Bollinger bands attempt to answer is whether an asset’s price is excessively high or low compared with its recent activity.
Traditionally, when prices breach the upper range of the Bollinger band, investors see them as being too high. Conversely, when an asset’s price breaches the lower end of its bollinger band, investors view them as too low.
Because the bands are based on standard deviation of price moves, they contract when volatility decreases and expand when volatility increases.
In BTC’s daily chart, prices on Monday have been flirting with the upper range of its bands. On several occasions BTC’s price has reverted to the mean/middle band following instances where it touched the upper and/or lower bands.
Investors can look at what happened on July 30, July 20 and July 8 as examples of this reversion. Should BTC prices behave as they did during those past occasions, BTC's price would revert to $23,500.
• Acala’s Stablecoin Falls 99% After Hackers Issue 1.3B Tokens:Polkadot-based decentralized finance (DeFi) platform Acala’s nativestablecoin,aUSD, depegged on Sunday, plummeting 99%. A bug in the protocol’s newly deployed iBTC-aUSD liquidity pool left the door wide open for hackers to exploit.Read more here.
• Price Discount on 'stETH' Reflects Some Doubt on Smooth Ethereum Merge:The current price ofstETHimplies a close to 94% chance of the Merge succeeding without major hiccups or delays, according to Enigma Securities.Read more here.
• Shiba Inu, Dogecoin Jump as Risk-On Behavior Returns to Crypto Markets:Meme tokens shiba inu (SHIB) and dogecoin (DOGE) gained over 15% in the past 24 hours. Futures tracking the two tokens saw over $25 million in liquidations in the past 24 hours.Read more here.
• Listen 🎧:Today’s "CoinDesk Markets Daily" podcast discusses the latest market movements and Ethereum’s decreasing gas fees.
• Crypto Custody Firm BitGo to Sue Galaxy Digital for Abandoning $1.2B Merger Agreement:BitGo said Galaxy Digital owes it a $100 million break-up fee.
• Blockchain Services Firm Eqonex Closes Crypto Exchange, Citing Volatility and Dwindling Volume:The Nasdaq-listed company will now focus on its asset-management and custody businesses.
• Miner Chandler Guo Repeats Support for Ethereum Fork Post-Merge:Guo told CoinDesk TV he wants to create a new proof-of-work blockchain to help miners.
• Monero’s Privacy-Focused Crypto Protocol Upgrade Is Now Live:The change to the protocol, a collaborative effort involving 71 developers, has been successfully implemented.
• Crypto Exchange Coinify Obtains Regulatory Approval to Operate in Italy:The now-bankrupt crypto lender Voyager Digital acquired the exchange for $84 million in stocks and cash last August.
• Crypto Exchange Binance Receives Preliminary Approval to Operate in Kazakhstan:The crypto exchange has strengthened its compliance team and enhanced efforts to win operating licenses this year after drawing the ire of regulators.
• Digital Bank Revolut Gets Approval to Offer Crypto Services Throughout Europe:The authorization will let the firm, which was valued at $33 billion in a recent funding round, offer crypto services to its 17 million customers in the European Economic Area.
• Gate.io's Hippo Financial Services Obtains Hong Kong Crypto Custody License:The parent company is expanding globally.
• Zipmex Crypto Exchange Gets Over 3 Months of Creditor Protection in Singapore, Bloomberg News Reports:The city-state's High Court granted Zipmex protection until Dec. 2 to give the exchange time to come up with a funding plan after filing for bankruptcy in July.
There are no gainers in CoinDesk 20 today.
[{"Asset": "Shiba Inu", "Ticker": "SHIB", "Returns": "\u22126.2%", "DACS Sector": "Currency"}, {"Asset": "Polygon", "Ticker": "MATIC", "Returns": "\u22124.4%", "DACS Sector": "Smart Contract Platform"}, {"Asset": "Dogecoin", "Ticker": "DOGE", "Returns": "\u22124.3%", "DACS Sector": "Currency"}]
Sector classifications are provided via theDigital Asset Classification Standard (DACS), developed by CoinDesk Indices to provide a reliable, comprehensive and standardized classification system for digital assets. TheCoinDesk 20is a ranking of the largest digital assets by volume on trusted exchanges. || First Mover Asia: Bitcoin Holds Tight Below $20K; Blockchain Protocol Cardano Arrives on Robinhood. Who Cares?: Good morning. Here’s what’s happening: Prices: Bitcoin and ether spend the weekend in a tight trading range below $20K; investors will have few, significant economic indicators to consider until the next U.S. inflation figures next week. Insights: Blockchain Protocol Cardano's arrival on Robinhood seems like a big yawn, given the protocol's lack of achievements. Catch the latest episodes of CoinDesk TV for insightful interviews with crypto industry leaders and analysis. And sign up for First Mover , our daily newsletter putting the latest moves in crypto markets in context. Prices ● Bitcoin ( BTC ): $19,927 +0.5% ● Ether ( ETH ): $1,576 +1.1% ● S&P 500 daily close: 3,924.26 −1.1% ● Gold: $1,719 per troy ounce +0.6% ● Ten-year Treasury yield daily close: 3.19% −0.07 Bitcoin, ether and gold prices are taken at approximately 4pm New York time. Bitcoin is the CoinDesk Bitcoin Price Index (XBX); Ether is the CoinDesk Ether Price Index (ETX); Gold is the COMEX spot price. Information about CoinDesk Indices can be found at coindesk.com/indices. Bitcoin's Quiet Weekend Below $20K By James Rubin Bitcoin camped out below $20,000 on the last three-day summer holiday weekend in the U.S. The largest cryptocurrency by market value was recently trading at about $19,900, up a few ticks of a percentage point over the past 24 hours and about where it ended Friday. BTC has held support at roughly this level for a week as investors eyed employment data that could give them some hint about the U.S. central bank's next interest rate intentions later this month and wisdom of committing to higher risk assets. "We continue to see Bitcoin struggling to maintain $20,000 support," Joe DiPasquale, the CEO of crypto asset manager BitBull Capital, wrote in an email to CoinDesk. DiPasquale called bitcoin's current range "good...to begin accumulation," although he advised "being mindful of further drops" that might occur around Sept. 13, when the Bureau of Labor Statistics releases the August Consumer Price Index (CPI). Story continues Ether maintained a similar level of crypto price stasis with a little more than half the U.S. Labor Day weekend over. The second largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization was recently changing hands just below $1,600, up approximately 1% over the previous day but just about where it ended Friday. ETH investors now await the Bellatrix upgrade on Tuesday. This enhancement on the Beacon Chain will be responsible for setting the rest of the Merge process in motion. The Merge will shift ether from proof-of-work to a more energy efficient proof-of-stake protocol. Other altcoins were mostly in the green with ADA, ATOM and SHIB all recently up over 4% over the previous 24 hours. The native token for GMX, a decentralized exchange on Arbitrum, rose more than 9% and has climbed significantly in recent weeks. Stocks U.S. equity markets closed down on Friday after the Labor Department's latest jobs data offered little hope that the Federal Reserve, which has boosted interest rates a hefty 75 basis points at its last two Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meetings, would ratchet back its hawkishness. The tech-heavy Nasdaq, S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) all dropped more than a percentage point and have fallen three consecutive weeks. U.S. markets will be closed on Monday. The Institute for Supply Management will release its monthly services index on Tuesday with expectations for a slight decline. And the U.S. Census Bureau will publish its wholesale inventories report for July. Crypto news On Saturday, MicroStrategy Executive Chairman Michael Saylor told an audience at the Baltic Honeybadger conference in Riga, Latvia that the non-crypto part of the software firm is working on bitcoin-related projects as well. The firm's developers are working on solutions that would allow the onboarding large numbers of people onto the Lightning network, a payment network on top of bitcoin allowing faster and cheaper transactions. CoinDesk's Jocelyn Yang reported , unusual blockchain data appears to show large blocks of bitcoin worth more than $200 million moving for the first time in years, prompting crypto analysts to puzzle over its significance. On Aug. 28, according to a post from crypto data analysis platform CryptoQuant , 5,000 BTC that hadn’t moved for at least seven years was transacted. The next day, LookIntoBitcoin ’s data tracker showed another 5,000 BTC was transferred again. And the saga of troubled crypto lender Celsius Network continued when the company, which is going through bankruptcy proceedings, said in a legal filing Thursday that a freshly found $70 million pile of cash would likely help it continue operating through the end of 2022. According to the document, Celsius expects “approximately $70 million of proceeds from the repayment of USD denominated loans.” BitBull's DiPasquale remains wary about predicting any long-term, crypto price movement upward. "If the current macro economic conditions persist, we may see a prolonged consolidation period for crypto and markets in general, as opposed to a sharp upward recovery," he wrote. Biggest Gainers Asset Ticker Returns DACS Sector Cardano ADA +4.8% Smart Contract Platform Cosmos ATOM +4.5% Smart Contract Platform Shiba Inu SHIB +4.2% Currency Biggest Losers Asset Ticker Returns DACS Sector Terra LUNA −2.7% Smart Contract Platform Insights Cardano on Robinhood? So What By Sam Reynolds Robinhood recently announced that it’s listing Cardano (ADA) on its trading platform, which has generated all kinds of buzz and bullish predictions about a price breakout. Of course, talk about ADA and price breakouts sometimes seems as old as crypto itself: The token, according to its faithful, is always on the precipice of something great. But the reality is a breakout has yet to happen. ADA, despite being launched in 2017, only introduced smart contracts last year. Smart contracts are what make blockchains useful; the maturity of smart contract framework on Ethereum can be directly tied to the value of Ether. And even after smart contracts were launched on ADA, nothing happened. DeFi Llama shows that the total value locked (TVL) in Cardano is only $81 million. Compared to the TVL locked in other protocols this is smaller than a rounding error (or in the case of Solana, a double-counting scheme ). In the time since ADA’s launch, other protocols have far surpassed it for utility and for the market’s faith in them. Klaytn, which is relatively unknown outside Korea , launched in late 2021 and has a TVL of $357 million. Avalanche, launched in September 2020, has $1.8 billion in TVL . Even if Tron, which is synonymous with shitcoin, and whose founder’s name is closely associated with a get-rich-quick scheme, has a TVL of $5.7 billion – way more than ADA. Market cap is a measure of the value of tokens in circulation, not in the value locked in the protocol’s code. To be sure, Cardano founder, Charles Hoskinson, seems to always draw a crowd wherever he goes, and this charisma and his past accomplishments (some falsified as journalist Laura Shin recounts in her recent book) may largely explain the protocol’s allure and $15 billion market cap. Investors are often drawn to entrepreneurs with great presence. Based on Cardano’s current merits, nothing else accounts for its attraction. Important events U.S. Labor Day holiday 8:30 a.m. HKT/SGT(12:30 a.m. UTC): Jibun bank services PMI (August) 9:45 a.m. HKT/SGT(1:45 p.m. UTC): Caixin services PMI (August) CoinDesk TV In case you missed it, here is the most recent episode of "First Mover" on CoinDesk TV : Bitcoin Hovers Around $20K as US Adds 315K Jobs in August; Ethereum Energy Consumption "First Mover" dove into the crypto markets following the jobs report for August. While the U.S. added 315,000 jobs last month, the unemployment rate inched up to 3.7%. What does this mean for crypto markets? Path Trading Partners Chief Market Strategist Bob Iaccino provided his analysis. Also, Hodder Law Firm's Sasha Hodder discussed questions before the court in the Celsius bankruptcy case, such as whether the crypto lender's custodial account holders will get their funds back. Plus, what will "The Merge" upgrade do to Ethereum's energy consumption? Headlines Australian CBDC Research Project Could Provide Crypto Clarity, Legal Expert Says: Michael Bacina, partner at law firm Piper Alderman, joined CoinDesk TV's "First Mover" to discuss why the country is the prime location to test asset digitization. US Job Growth Slowed in August; Bitcoin Gains: The report is one of the last major economic data points the Federal Reserve will see before its September monetary policy meeting. Did Merge Optimism Lift Ether or Was It the S&P 500?: The summer bounce in equity markets probably helped as battered crypto bulls cheer Ethereum's impending technological upgrade.. Coinbase Mispricing Allows Users in Georgia to Cash Out for 100 Times Rate: The bug saw Georgia's national currency, the lari (GEL), priced at $290 rather than $2.90. Longer reads TradFi Investors Will Love Ethereum’s Merge: The impact of the big shift to proof-of-stake are not priced into the market for ether, says CoinDesk's chief content officer. Other voices: El Salvador Had a Bitcoin Revolution. Hardly Anybody Showed Up (Bloomberg) Said and heard "We know that despite the moribund state of markets, many hedge funds, family offices, venture funds and even pension funds and endowments are looking seriously at the long-term benefits of including crypto in their portfolios. Below I lay out why post-Merge ether could figure prominently in their future allocations." ( CoinDesk Chief Content Officer Michael Casey ) ... "Call me the world’s happiest cynic, then, because when I predicted the utter and catastrophic failure of Facebook’s rebranding as “Meta” starting less than a year ago, I genuinely didn’t think it would all unravel as quickly and ignominiously as it has. Horizon Worlds, Meta’s intended metaverse, went live in December and, my god, it has been downhill from there." ( CoinDesk columnist David Z. Morris ) ... .@MicroStrategy's R&D is now working on enterprise-grade applications of the #LightningNetwork technology, including the enterprise Lightning wallet, @saylor said at #BH2022. ( CoinDesk investigative reporter Anna Baydakova ) || Gucci begins accepting BAYC-tied token ApeCoin as payment: Gucci has further embraced cryptocurrencies, announcing in atweeton Tuesday that it is accepting in-store purchases with ApeCoin through payment service provider BitPay.
See related article:How high fashion is waking up to blockchain’s possibilities
• ApeCoinis a cryptocurrency tied to Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC), a non-fungible token (NFT) project created by Yuga Labs.
• ApeCoin is not the first crypto that Gucci accepts. In May, some Gucci stores in the U.S.started taking cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Dogecoin, as well as five dollar-pegged stablecoins.
• Last summer, a Gucci virtual pursewas soldon Roblox for over $4,000, more than the price of a physical one.
• In addition to Gucci, luxury brands such asBalenciaga,Off-White,Phillip Plelin, and luxury retailerFarfetchstarted accepting cryptocurrency payments this year.
See related article:Taking opulence online: How blockchain is beckoning luxury brands || Is Crypto’s “Winter” Almost Over?: There are lots of portfolio-shaping news stories hitting the headlines. So, let’s take a spin through the investment universe to make sure you’re up to speed.
***Is crypto setting up for a sustainable bull run?
In early June, bitcoin’s price fell off a cliff, dropping from the $30,000 level to $20,000. This fall took the entire sector down with it.
InvestorPlace - Stock Market News, Stock Advice & Trading Tips
Since then, the grandaddy crypto has been bouncing between roughly $18,000 and $21,000, seemingly unable to make up its mind about where to go next.
Yesterday, bitcoin bounced above $22,000, hitting its highest level in more than a month. As I write on Tuesday, it trades around $22,200.
Importantly, we’re seeing gains across the broader altcoin sector. Polygon’s MATIC surged as much as 21%. Cardano added 8%. And Ethereum, the world’s second largest cryptocurrency, added 9%.
Pulling back and looking at seven-day performance is even more impressive.
MATIC is up 58%. Cardano is up 16%. And Ethereum is up 43%.
Some of the gains are coming from bullishness based on Ethereum’s announcement of the specific date that it will be converted to a proof-of-stake consensus mechanism. This news was announced last week and the merge is targeted for September 19.
Beyond Ethereum-related bullishness, the gains seem to be coming from shifting sentiment that’s rooted in the hope that we’re nearing the end of the wipeout.
In yesterday’s issue ofNew Digital World, our crypto expert Ashley Cassell highlighted analysis from Glassnode that helps explain the bullish push higher:
A common thread amongst almost all metrics explored above, is a trend resembling the majority of bear market lows in the past, albeit lacking a component of duration.
Our other crypto experts, Luke Lango and Charlie Shrem ofUltimate Crypto, are noting a bottoming as well:
Another week, another round of evidence that cryptos are working through a bottoming process and preparing for theirnext boom cycle.
Luke and Charle then highlight a mountain of bullish data (Ultimate Cryptosubscribers, make sure to get all those details in Saturday’s update. For non-subscribers, we don’t have room to cover it all in today’sDigest.)
They conclude with:
In other words, there is a plethora of important on-chain data which strongly imply thatthe worst of the crypto crash is over.
If you’re a crypto investor with open positions, this is encouraging news. And if you’ve been watching the sector looking for signs that it’s turning north, offering a buying opportunity, that moment could be nearly here.
Here’s Luke and Charlie’s bottom line for now:
…We’re looking for BTC to breakout in the short-term to the$23,000 level.
***Meanwhile, Congress needs to get off its butt if it wants to help the U.S. semiconductor industry
To make sure we’re all on the same page, semiconductors are materials that can conduct electricity under certain conditions. This makes them great mediums for controlling electric currents – and a critical component of virtually every electronic device with an on/off switch.
Basically, semiconductors are a “must have” in any technology product. Our world would be unrecognizable today without them.
Now, most of the world’s semiconductor chips are made outside of the U.S. Back in 1990, the U.S. made roughly 37% of chips globally. Today, the number has dropped to 12%.
If we focus on the world’s most advanced semiconductors, 92% of global capacity comes from Taiwan.
Given the geopolitical tension between the U.S. and China over Taiwan today, as well as the U.S.’s overall low production output, there’s been a push to bring semiconductor production back to U.S. shores. That’s why it was such big, welcomed news in January when Intel announced that it was planning to build a $20 billion chip foundry in Ohio.
Well, according to Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger, Congress better quit the bickering and pass a bill helping the U.S. semiconductor industry, or else Intel is headed to Europe.
From Gelsinger:
We’ve made super clear to McConnell, to the Democrats, to the Republicans, that if this doesn’t pass, I will change my plans.
According to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, voting in the Senate will begin today.
FromReuters:
…The bill would include, at a minimum, billions of dollars in subsidies for the semiconductor industry and an investment tax credit to boost U.S. manufacturing.
Should the bill pass, it will serve as a strong tailwind for a sector that’s been selling off hard all year.
However, as you can see by looking at the semiconductor ETF SMH below, chip stocks are trying to bounce and begin a new bullish push.
Source: StockCharts.com
We’ll keep you updated on the bill’s progress.
***Over in the homebuilding sector, pessimism is spreading
U.S. homebuilder confidence plunged this month.
Yesterday, we learned that the National Association of Home Builders’ (NAHB) monthly confidence index nosedived 12 points in July to 55. The reading came in far worse than the expected number of 66. This is the second largest decline in the history of the index.
It’s noteworthy that all three components of the index fell.
Here’sMarketWatchwith more:
The gauge that measures current sales conditions fell by 12 points; the component that tracks traffic of prospective buyers fell by 11 points; and the gauge that assesses sales expectations for the next six months fell by 11 points.
It will be important to watch how this impacts housing supply. Over the last year, the shortage of housing inventory relative to demand has helped push home prices to record levels.
Combine those record prices with mortgage rates that are now hovering near their highest levels since 2008, and housing affordability has turned into a massive problem.
Worse, like inflation, this housing inventory/affordability interplay risks turning into a negative, self-reinforcing loop:
Nosebleed housing affordability is hurting demand… Low demand disincentivizes homebuilders from building new homes because they’re worried about being stuck with unsold product… The lack of new homes keeps the supply/demand balance out of whack and prices high… High prices keep housing affordability out of reach for many buyers…which disincentivizes homebuilders… rinse and repeat.
From Robert Dietz, chief economist at the NAHB:
Affordability is the greatest challenge facing the housing market. Policymakers must address supply-side issues to help builders produce more affordable housing.
We’ll keep our eye on this.
***Finally, what’s the early take on earnings?
For that answer, let’s go to FactSet, which is the earnings-data analytics company used by the pros.
From last Friday’sEarnings Insight:
The start of the second-quarter earnings season for the S&P 500 has been weaker than normal, as the number and magnitude of positive earnings and revenue surprises have been smaller than average.
Obviously, it’s so early in this earnings season that we shouldn’t read too far into these results either way.
But as we’ve noted here in theDigest, this is a critical earnings season. Whether or not earnings match expectations will play a massive role in influencing the direction of the market as we head toward the fall and holiday season.
So far, while we can’t say results are great, they’re not awful. We’ll keep you updated.
Have a good evening,
Jeff Remsburg
The postIs Cryptoâs âWinterâ Almost Over?appeared first onInvestorPlace. || China Issues Private Warnings to US on Pelosis Taiwan Trip: FT: (Bloomberg) -- China issued strong private warnings to the US government about a planned trip to Taiwan by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, which included a possible military response, the Financial Times reported. Most Read from Bloomberg VW Billionaire Clan Plotted CEO Ouster as He Was on US Trip Russian Odesa Missile Strike Tests Ukraine Grain Export Deal Teslas Bitcoin Dump Leaves Accounting Mystery in Its Wake Worlds Key Workers Threaten to Hit Economy Where It Will Hurt WHO Chief Overrules Panel to Call Monkeypox Global Emergency The warnings were much stronger than those made previously when China wasnt pleased with US policies and actions related to Taipei, the paper said, citing unidentified people familiar with the issue. Chinas foreign ministry earlier this week officially vowed to take a resolute and strong response to any Taiwan visit by Pelosi, which was reported to be next month. Her trip would be the first by a House speaker to Taipei since 1997. Pelosis office didnt respond to a request from the Financial Times for comment about whether she might abandon her trip. Beijing routinely responds angrily to countries that deal directly with Taiwan, which China claims as part of its territory. President Joe Biden also raised doubts about whether the visit would go ahead, saying Wednesday that the military thinks its not a good idea right now. Heres How China Might Respond to a Taiwan Visit by Nancy Pelosi Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek The $260 Swatch-Omega MoonSwatch Is Reviving the Budget Brand Postmortem Sperm Retrieval Is Turning Dead Men Into Fathers The US Has Lost Its Way on Computer Chips Ghosts of 2012 Haunt Europe as Rate Hikes Begin Sam Bankman-Fried Turns $2 Trillion Crypto Rout Into Buying Opportunity ©2022 Bloomberg L.P. || 7 Stocks Analysts Love for Their 20% Upside Potential: A popular investing strategy is to identify sectors and stocks while they are undervalued by the market. One way to do this is to look for stocks analysts love. This can be a key indicator of investor sentiment. And, these stocks tend to have a higher price target over a period of time. Analysts have access to companies that retail investors lack. Their ratings usually come with a written analysis explaining their reasoning. As a result, their ratings tend to carry weight with institutional investors. And as many retail investors know, thats when the big moves tend to happen. There are forecasts that single-digit stock price growth will become the norm over the next year. Thats why its a good time to look at these seven stocks analysts love. Each stock has a price target that is at least 20% higher than its price as of this writing. InvestorPlace - Stock Market News, Stock Advice & Trading Tips ET Energy Transfer $11.67 COP ConocoPhillips $102.75 FTNT Fortinet $54.29 SMPL Simply Good Foods $34.17 ELY Callaway Golf Company $24.30 LYV Live Nation Entertainment $97.89 PENN Penn National Gaming $37.70 Energy Transfer (ET) A magnifying glass zooms in on the Energy Transfer (ET) website. Source: Casimiro PT / Shutterstock.com Theres ample evidence to suggest that the world is actively transitioning to renewable energy sources. However, as the price of crude oil remains near $100 a barrel, investors should remember that fossil fuels arent going away anytime soon. And Energy Transfer (NYSE: ET ) is trading as an undervalued stock in the energy sector. Energy Transfer is a midstream oil and gas company that has a large portfolio of assets primarily in Texas and Oklahoma. As supply chain issues continue to beset the energy sector, midstream companies are becoming more profitable due to expanding margins. And a significant portion of Energy Transfers earnings comes from its fee-based, volume-driven business models. The company has also retired a substantial amount of debt in the past year which is showing up in the companys free cash flow. Story continues Currently ET stock trades at a trailing price-earnings (P/E) ratio of 9.2x. Analysts are giving the stock a consensus price target of $14, which is 20% higher than its current price. ConocoPhillips (COP) a sign in front of the Conoco Philips office building Source: JHVEPhoto / Shutterstock.com If youre looking for a larger name in the oil and gas sector, you can look at ConocoPhillips (NYSE: COP ). The company makes this list of stocks analysts love for several reasons. It is one of the worlds leading suppliers of liquefied natural gas. With European countries increasingly looking to wean themselves from their dependence on Russian energy, Conoco is well-positioned to fill the gap. But one reason that is particularly compelling is the companys Norway operations . This gives the company the ability to supply Europe with the natural gas liquids it will need to get through the winter. COP stock trades at an attractive P/E ratio of 7.9x. And analysts give the stock a consensus price target of $129.64 which implies 26% upside from its current price. Fortinet (FTNT) The Fortinet logo on a wall Source: Sundry Photography / Shutterstock.com Cybersecurity will remain a growth sector for investors in the coming years. It is, however, becoming a crowded sector so its still important to look for value where you can find it. In the case of Fortinet (NASDAQ: FTNT ), the company provides, among other things, VPN services. In our hyperconnected world, VPNs are becoming a best practice for protecting our personal information when were online. And in May, the company announced a suite of new FortiGate appliances to support diverse data center environments and offer better performance than its competitors. The company is projecting double-digit growth in revenue that will average 22% in the next five years. And earnings growth is expected to be even stronger at 38% over that same period. Analysts give FTNT stock a consensus price target of $73.38 which is 35% higher than the current price. Simply Good Foods Company (SMPL) a pizza in a Simply Good Foods (SMPL) branded box Source: melissamn / Shutterstock.com When the economy is slowing and inflation is taking its toll on household budgets, it may seem counterintuitive to recommend Simply Good Foods Company (NASDAQ: SMPL ), a mid-cap company that specializes in offering healthy snacks. But thats exactly the case Ill try to make. As of the companys last earnings report, revenue and earnings were both increasing on a year-over-year (YOY) basis. And while past performance doesnt predict the future, this is a trend that is likely to have legs. My reasoning is that fresh food is becoming much more expensive. And for families on a budget, the companys portfolio of low-carb, low-sugar products may offer a cost-effective alternative. SMPL stock is down 26% from its all-time high in April 2022. However, in the next five years, revenue is projected to grow at an average range in the high single digits while earnings are supposed to average double-digit growth. Analysts give SMPL stock a price target of $44.50 which is 30% higher than its current price. Callaway Golf Company (ELY) callaway gold (ELY) logo hot stocks Source: 360b/Shutterstock.com The next company on my list of stocks analysts love is Callaway Golf Company (NYSE: ELY ). Golf made a resurgence during the pandemic. It turns out that a sport thats played outdoors and allows for a certain amount of social distancing becomes popular when other forms of gathering are not available. It also remains a popular activity for destination travel. Combine that with the growing popularity of the Top Golf experience and you have several catalysts for future growth. That being said, ELY stock is down 34% since June 2021, but its still trading slightly above pre-pandemic levels and it has a price target that suggests 54% upside. The company is projected to have double-digit growth in revenue and earnings in the next five years. Live Nation Entertainment (LYV) A Live Nation (LYV) sign on a corporate building in Los Angeles, California. Source: 4kclips / Shutterstock.com Social media can be an imperfect metric in many ways, but its impossible for me to ignore that my timeline is filled with people getting back to live entertainment. Live Nation Entertainment (NYSE: LYV ), which generates 70% of its revenue from live concerts, therefore is an interesting pick. The companys revenue isnt back to pre-pandemic levels, but barring any unforeseen events, that should only be a matter of time. Consumers continue to show that they are willing to pay for experiences, and concerts fit that bill. LYV stock is down 23% from its all-time high reached in February 2022. But the stock is still up 20% in the last 12 months and analysts give the company a consensus price target of $115.83, which implies 20% upside from its current level. Penn National Gaming (PENN) Penn (PENN) National Gaming logo on the website homepage. Source: Casimiro PT / Shutterstock.com The last company on this list of stocks analysts love is Penn National Gaming (NASDAQ: PENN ). The company operates more than 25 casinos and horseracing tracks spanning 17 states. The company also is home to the Barstool sports betting app. Thats significant because in the companys most recent earnings report, the company reported that it had 12% market share of the sports betting market outside of Nevada. And with Americans getting ready to welcome back college and professional football, its likely that the companys leadership position in several states will show up in its bottom line. Theres no question investors got out over their skis on the growth of sports betting and the relaxing of pandemic restrictions in 2021. But PENN stock has a much more attractive valuation of 15.2x and stands to benefit from strong revenue and earnings growth in the next several years. On the date of publication, Chris Markoch did not have (either directly or indirectly) any positions in the securities mentioned in this article. The opinions expressed in this article are those of the writer, subject to the InvestorPlace.com Publishing Guidelines . Chris Markoch is a freelance financial copywriter who has been covering the market for over five years. He has been writing for InvestorPlace since 2019. More From InvestorPlace Buy This $5 Stock BEFORE This Apple Project Goes Live The Best $1 Investment You Can Make Today Early Bitcoin Millionaire Reveals His Next Big Crypto Trade On Air It doesnt matter if you have $500 or $5 million. Do this now. The post 7 Stocks Analysts Love for Their 20% Upside Potential appeared first on InvestorPlace . || A Q&A with Dan Weiskopf on Saylor and MicroStrategy: This article was originally published on ETFTrends.com. Evan Harp speaks with Dan Weiskopf, Portfolio Manager at Toroso Investments and CO-PM of the Amplify Transformational Data Sharing ETF (BLOK) to discuss Michael Saylor stepping down as CEO of MicroStrategy and what it means for the company and the broader crypto space. Evan Harp: At a high level, what does Michael Saylor’s exit mean for MicroStrategy and what can expect under Phong Le’s stewardship? Dan Weiskopf : Well, take a step back. Saylor didn't exit a micro strategy, right? He’s just changing title. It's not like he sold his 2 million shares, He's been the CEO – And I'm not trying to get too nitty gritty, but he's still the largest shareholder by far with control and class shares. I would argue that he's taking the step back to free up time to focus on the Company’s Bitcoin assets more than anything else. I sat down with him back this January where he again was transparent with me about how he addressed the challenges and frustrations as a fiduciary with the Company’s build up of cash dating back to 2019. Put simply, the software business is wonderful because it generates so much cash, but that benefit only helps if you're getting credit for that cash and he wasn't getting any credit for it. Which forces an entrepreneurial CEO to think things through their options. What do I do with the cash? What do I do with my position in the marketplace? Should I make a big acquisition or make tuck-in acquisitions? I think he came to the conclusion as an operator that he didn't want to make a large acquisition within the context of the software business. The reason why that is, is because he was up against companies like Oracle, Microsofts and SAP – and he couldn't outbid them. Therefore whatever he would buy might only be marginal or incremental at best. I don't think that, frankly, people give him the full credit for really managing such risk and actually being conservative. Instead what he's done, is he's found the right leadership to, in his mind, manage the business better than he has been doing from an operating standpoint. Candidly, if you look at MicroStrategy’s revenue growth it just hasn't been growing in a meaningful way for years. Story continues Evan Harp: The day he stepped down as CEO it went up something like 15%. To what extent though, do you think that bump was buoyed by the recent Bitcoin surge? What do you make of that? Dan Weiskopf : Yeah. My last point on it is the CEO/President and CFO are both relatively new. So he's brought the team in that he feels confident about. I think that it was definitely crypto/Bitcoin driven, why the stock went up. The stock also has a mammoth short position. The problem with these shorts is that when bitcoin is going down, it looks like it's going to go down forever and the shorts feel super happy and super confident. People were talking about Bitcoin going to $13,000, then it stabilized at $20,000 or maybe it hit bottom at $17,000. But then it started moving up again. Now the shorts are afraid that it might be going higher. Let's take a step back. It may not even be in their purview and making the decision to cover. It may be somebody else's. It's, you know, the short interest in MicroStrategy is, like, 36% of the float. That’s huge, right? Evan Harp: Yeah, that's pretty huge. To pivot a bit, I’d love to hear your take on the $917 million impairment charge and how that may have factored in Saylor’s decision to step down as CEO – or if it even factored in at all. Dan Weiskopf : I don't think it factored in at all. It is an accounting adjustment based upon current FASB rules that mark-to market at the lowest point Bitcoin traded so investors should not be surprise by the write down. Moreover, I believe the board was completely aligned with him and the long term opportunity in owning Bitcoin despite its short term volatility. The accounting is being reviewed by the FASB. Hopefully in the future they will allow for Bitcoin to be mark-to market rather than mark-to lowest price. Let's just take a step back and remember that he owns 2 million shares. He is not walk away. He has been CEO for 32 years. So, stepping back, you also have to appreciate at the end of the day, at its peak, I think MicroStrategy may have been worth $700 million in market cap value, maybe a billion. The Bitcoin value just going 130,000 times 24,000 is $3 billion. You know, you tell me where one should spend your energy, if you're the largest shareholder of MicroStrategy? Evan Harp: That makes a lot of sense. MicroStrategy is very bullish on Bitcoin. What does that mean at this particular moment? Bitcoin just had this big drawdown, you've got the recent surge, and you have companies like Tesla that have been offloading a lot of their Bitcoin. All of this is creating these conflicting narratives. Dan Weiskopf : We're looking at entrepreneurial CEOs in the technology world as reviewing Bitcoin as an option when they have excess cash. We think that's a possibility. Clearly, Saylor was the first to do it. But, let's be honest, it requires a great deal of conviction. I think everybody has to be an admirer of Elon Musk for what he's accomplished. But… He isn't the most consistent CEO out there. Him waffling on the Bitcoin doesn't really surprise me. Then the question becomes, who else might step up and take the kind of position that Saylor has taken? So I guess my answer to you is Elon Musk’s sale proves that you can turn around and sell Bitcoin in massive scale if you're panicking, which he did. I mean, he did. He sold during the crisis. Maybe he still has two or three hundred million. I don't know. Because we'll find out later when they report the next quarter. Evan Harp: When people are putting up think pieces or talking about this story, what is something that, in your view, not enough people are considering? Dan Weiskopf : I think what is not necessarily appreciated is that he has been the CEO for 32 years. I think he was the longest running active CEO/entrepreneur as a controlling shareholder. That doesn't come around very often. I think what people underestimating is I think he's worked very, very closely with his board and the other members of the management team to do it the right way. To do this the wrong way is an invitation for lawsuits. I think he really telegraphed what his intentions were when he started to buy bitcoin. He owned it himself before MicroStrategy bought it. He had to get comfortable himself with the volatility and the trend and analysis that he had done. Then he went to the board and laid out his plan. I also don't think that people fully appreciate the structure that they took to manage the risk associated with owning the Bitcoin. They've done it in stages. When they borrowed, they borrowed very carefully. All the rumors about a margin call, I think, were the shorts providing misinformation. Well, clearly it was because it didn't happen. He graduated from MIT with the highest honors, so he obviously is a pretty smart guy. I think engineering background – maybe he knows how to do the math? Evan Harp: Does his role change make you more or less bullish on MicroStrategy? Or, or maybe about the same level you were at before? Dan Weiskopf : It doesn't change our outlook on MicroStrategy. At all. He probably has more free time to focus his energy to have a positive influence on the price of Bitcoin, and arguably walk through how to do it the right way with other CEOs and other folks who are interested in in bitcoin. I think it's way too under appreciated, frankly, that, here you have a billionaire who's taking this massive risk and buying Bitcoin. Why is he doing that? Is it just to make more money? Or is to make a statement that things need to change? I think he views Bitcoin as a technology as much as anything else. Having said that, he would tell me that I'm wrong, it's a store of value. Evan Harp: Just thinking in terms of something you said, every community has personalities and leaders and spokespeople, but do you agree that the crypto space, compared to other types of spaces or corners of the market, relies more on its personalities and big names? What do you see as Saylor’s role in the Bitcoin community going forward compared to what it might have been when he was a CEO? Dan Weiskopf : So a couple of things. Yeah, he must spend a crazy amount of time promoting the interests of the Bitcoin community. I asked him, at one point, whether it was really altruistic in that – I think here in the US, it's under appreciated the challenge of transferring money, right? In the emerging markets, it is difficult to transfer money. Bitcoin is just definitely changing people's lives. It just isn’t as clear in the U.S. where the banking system is developed. I think the other thing that is under appreciated is as a personality he has always been very generous about education. That's why he created and funded the Saylor Academy back in 2008. Evan Harp: What do you see happening in the second half of the year for the crypto space in general? Dan Weiskopf : My hope is that Bitcoin has bottomed, and if bitcoin has bottomed the trend will move positively for the price. Which would mean that it would challenge $25,000 which means that it's going to challenge $30,000 and then people are again going to get super excited, because everybody likes to work with large numbers and the excitement will come back. I think my message is not just about Bitcoin, my message is about the blockchain. I see venture capitalists continuing to fund money into this space. I did ask Michael Saylor directly at one point, why won't you ever diversify away from Bitcoin? He said, with his piercing eyes – he's got piercing eyes, it can be a little bit intimidating. He said, “no, my mandate is twofold. One to see the software business grow. And then secondly, to work on developing our Bitcoin assets as a business. I'm not going to deviate from my mandate. That's not what I've been hired to do by those investing in MicroStrategy.” You can see the answer, by the way on my interview series, when I talked to him . He's very, very specific in his view, and his thought is, “If I know the best idea, why am I going to dilute that best idea with a secondary idea?” I'm not sure I agree with it. I like diversification. But that's not his message. That's not what he's going to do. And, if you don't like that, don't own MicroStrategy. That's your problem. This is what this person is going to do and he's been very clear on that. Evan Harp: A lot of people seem to ask the question, whether or not MicroStrategy is an alternative to a spot bitcoin ETF? What would happen if a spot ETF came about? Dan Weiskopf : We probably wouldn't change our position if an ETF were to be launched. To be clear, I don't see a spot ETF happening in 2022, maybe later on in 2023 or 2024. It's possible. But he's filling a void, right? Because a spot ETF doesn't exist. I also think that institutions feel comfortable with him because he's done the right thing so they've invested in the in the firm. My last point that I would make is that I like what the firm did in leveraging its balance sheet. I'm sorry, but I was pleased back in 2021 when he through MicroStrategy borrowed at cheap rates to buy Bitcoin. I don't think that people appreciate his sensitivity around the firm’s capital structure, but being able to borrow $1.7 billion at below 1% was a once in a life time opportunity. Don't get me wrong. MicroStrategy, as a company, serves a purpose for us. I'm not married to the stock but it gives me, with confidence, direct exposure to Bitcoin, which I want. And as an institution, I feel he's protected it. By the way, on a side note I would also say that I asked him whether or not he would loan it out to get some yield?. His response was very direct, he basically bluntly said “what are you crazy?” “I'm going to loan it out. Clip 4 for 5% in income and take a risk of losing it or you making things very complicated for me?” Of course, all this foreshadowed some of the problems we just experienced in Crypto, right?. He sees Bitcoin going way, way, way higher. Trying to get a 4 or 5% income stream made no sense to him. And it was against his fiduciary responsibilities as he saw it. I respect that. For more news, information, and strategy, visit the Crypto Channel . POPULAR ARTICLES AND RESOURCES FROM ETFTRENDS.COM SPY ETF Quote VOO ETF Quote QQQ ETF Quote VTI ETF Quote JNUG ETF Quote Top 34 Gold ETFs Top 34 Oil ETFs Top 57 Financials ETFs New ConvexityShares ETFs Offer Exposure to SPIKES Volatility Index Q&A With Innovator’s Graham Day U.S. Stock ETFs Are on a Bullish Trend Why Buffered ETFs Now: Financial Professionals Share Tips & Best Practices Unloved And Overlooked, Gold Mining Stocks Could Be The Ultimate Contrarian Play READ MORE AT ETFTRENDS.COM >
[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
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Trend: down || Prices: 19772.58, 20127.58, 19419.51, 19544.13, 18890.79, 18547.40, 19413.55, 19297.64, 18937.01, 18802.10
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Analyze the provided historical prices, technical indicators, news, and social media sentiment from the last 60 days. Based on this context, predict the overall trend (up, down, or no change) and the specific daily closing prices for Bitcoin for the next 10 days.
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[Technical Analysis]
Not fully available.
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
Pay BTC, ETH and More with Apple Pay or Samsung Pay with Zeux - The World’s First Crypto Mobile-Payment App: PALO ALTO, CA / ACCESSWIRE / June 25, 2019 / Mobile phones give us power to do almost anything. As well as making and receiving calls, through our phones we can access the Internet, play games, listen to music, book an Uber and pay for things in almost all stores. But the competition is fierce in the mobile space, with many business models being designed purely with one function and accessibility in mind - an app. Apps allow businesses to be customer-focused and provide personalisation services to meet their needs. And one in particular, Zeux, has caught a lot of attention recently setting itself apart by integrating payments, banking and investments. Zeux has launched its product at the right time. In a seamingly saturated market where we have the likes of Monzo, Revolut and Starling Bank widely used, Zeux has managed to address a real pain-point for everyday crypto users. So what makes this London-based fintech stand out from other competitors in the industry? It's capability to simplify financial services and provide fast and easy crypto payments. Simplifying financial services Similar to a digital bank, Zeux provides payments and banking services in both traditional and digital currencies - combining the best of both worlds. Zeux has a fresh and integrated approach that gives its customers the ability to access the best traditional and digital investment opportunities, getting competitive returns, while being able to manage all their financial accounts with ease. Zeux offers 6% deposit interest rate for customers' crypto deposits in both BTC and USDT with no fixed term, so customers can take their money out at anytime. What's more, the product will be available for all customers around the world so everyone can take advantage of maximizing their assets from an FCA regulatory entity. Fast and Easy Crypto Payments Zeux has also revolutionised crypto payments for everyone. Rather than wait years for merchants to accept cryptocurrency, Zeux has put the consumer at the heart of its product and operations, and created a solution to allow them to pay with crypto in all stores that accept Apple Pay or Samsung Pay - and in just one click. Story continues They have simplified the concept to allow customers to spend their cryptocurrencies - such as Bitcoin, Ethereum and other crypto tokens - like they would any traditional currency - such as GBP or USD. So when the value of crypto is on the rise, it allows customers to take advantage, at any given moment, to make real-world purchases from their gains. Game changer. Zeux has also signed with Coinbase, a crypto trading venue currently valued at $8 billion that generated $1.3 billion in revenue in 2018. This collaboration is a significant upgrade as Coinbase will function as a crypto-fiat gateway for Zeux's crypto payments. What's more, Zeux charges no fees for payments, crypto-conversion or transfers giving maximum benefits for the consumer. So in a world where mobiles are used for nearly every single aspect of life, Zeux has provided an innovative solution to multiple everyday issues. And with this new found accessibility, mass adoption of cryptocurrency is highly likely. Want to be on top of your game and master your financial future? Zeux has an app for that. About Zeux Zeux has just completed the presale of their token ZeuxCoin (ZUC) at the end of May, which gives holders cashback on crypto payments and reduced investment transaction fees, which raised 5000 ETH in less than 2 full days. Their token sale is live now on their website from 7 June - 5 July 2019. Zeux is available in the UK on iOS and Android , launching across the rest of Europe later this year and the wider-world in 2020. Website: www.zeux.tech Whitepaper: Read their whitepaper Telegram Group: Join our community Twitter: @ZeuxApp Facebook: Like and Follow Zeux's FB page YouTube : View our channel CEO : Frank Zhou Email : frank.zhou@zeux.com SOURCE: Zeux View source version on accesswire.com: https://www.accesswire.com/549844/Pay-BTC-ETH-and-More-with-Apple-Pay-or-Samsung-Pay-with-Zeux--The-Worlds-First-Crypto-Mobile-Payment-App || Bitcoin Faces Further Price Losses After Breaching Long-Term Support: Bitcoin is on the defensive for the fourth straight day, having breached long-term support on Tuesday.
The leading cryptocurrency by market value is currently trading at $9,720, representing a 1.1 percent drop from today’s opening price of $9,841, according to Bitstamp data. Prices fell 1.39, 2.56 and 4.66 percent, respectively in the previous three trading days.
Related:Andrew Yang Super PAC Will Accept Lightning-Powered Bitcoin Donations
With a three-day drop, BTC has left another bearish lower high at $11,120. Further, the cryptocurrency violated the four-month bullish rising trendline by printing a UTC close well below $10,000 on Tuesday.
As a result, a drop to the July 17 low of $9,049 in the short-term cannot be ruled out.
Such a drop would hardly be surprising, given the bounce from that level to weekend’s high of $11,120 was accompanied by falling volumes, as discussed yesterday.
So far, the downside has been restricted around $9,650, meaning the support at $9,614 (July 2 low) is still intact.
Related:US Treasury Secretary Mnuchin Thinks Outlook for Bitcoin Is Bleak
However, that level could be breached soon as key daily chart indicators like the moving average convergence divergence histogram indicating the bearish momentum is gathering strength.
The case for a drop toward $9,650 would weaken if prices rise above $10,222, invalidating a bearish lower highs pattern on the 4-hour chart. That said, a UTC close above $11,100 is needed to confirm a bullish reversal.
Bitcoinimage via Shutterstock; chart by TradingView
• People in US Trust Bitcoin More Than Facebook’s Libra: Report
• Bitcoin Drops Below Long-Term Price Support at $10K || Bitcoin soars past $13,000 as Facebook's Libra fuels demand: By Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss and OLGA COTAGA NEW YORK/LONDON (Reuters) - Bitcoin jumped to an 18-month high on Wednesday, as investors looked for safety in alternative investments amid geopolitical tension, and cheered prospects that Facebook Inc's Libra token could push cryptocurrencies into the mainstream. The world's biggest cryptocurrency has surged in value since April and on Wednesday hit a peak of $13,666.02 on the Bitstamp exchange, the highest level since January 2018. So far this year, bitcoin has risen more than 260%, although it remains below its all-time high of nearly $20,000 hit in December 2017. Bitcoin last traded up 14.7% at $13,475. Investors have flocked back in to digital currencies after a bruising 2018. Bitcoin has risen for eight consecutive days. And now Facebook has said it would offer its own cryptocurrency, the Libra coin, by end of June 2020. Analysts say Facebook's announcement this month has revived interest in digital currencies, while investors seeking safety have also pushed up bitcoin's price. "Cryptocurrency traders were reinvigorated by Facebook's launch of their own digital coin and momentum appears to be stirring up fresh new investors," said Edward Moya, senior market analyst, at online FX broker OANDA in New York. "Bitcoin skeptics are cautious in trying to stop this surge and may look for the next key resistance level which is $15,000," he added. With major central banks keeping interest rates near all-time lows, investors have been looking for ways to diversify their portfolios, including through cryptocurrenies, analysts said. Bitcoin CME futures volumes have also increased in the past few days, as investors look for ways to get their hands on the coin via the derivatives market. Traders, who have access to both spot and futures markets have been buying the spot and selling the futures, arbitraging the two prices, said Michael Moro, chief executive officer at Genesis Global Trading, which provides over-the-counter digital currency trading for institutional investors. Story continues The cryptocurrency has rocketed 150% since early May, along with big rises in other smaller digital currencies such as Ethereum's ether and Ripple's XRP. "It should be noted that this a very different market today than it was in 2017," said Moro. "2017 saw an overwhelming number of ICOs (initial coin offerings), which was very distracting. 2019 has less distractions. It's also a different space because the CME bitcoin futures product wasn't available until December 2017." ICOs refer to a fundraising scheme that bypasses banks and venture capital firms and involves startups creating their own tokens and selling them to the public. (Reporting by Olga Cotaga in London and Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss in New York; Editing by Larry King and Matthew Lewis) || Congressmen: Bitcoin “unstoppable,” Libra not that bad: US Congressmen struck a notably more conciliatory tone toward Facebook than their Senate colleagues, going so far as to praise Bitcoin, and the broader cryptocurrency movement, as “unstoppable,” during a House Financial Services Committee hearing on Libra today. Facebook’s David Marcus, who was savaged by a far more bellicose Senate Housing, Banking and Urban Affairs Committee yesterday, reiterated his defense of the social network’s hoped-for cryptocurrency today. He said that the Libra currency would be decentralized, with only a modicum of power accruing to Facebook; that services built atop the network would comply with jurisdictional regulations; and that Libra had been deliberately proposed early to anticipate concerns raised by lawmakers. But this time, the congressmen were more amenable. “Change is here,” said Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-NC). “Facebook’s entry in this world is just confirmation—albeit at scale.” McHenry (R-NC) cautioned observers not to dismiss Libra outright, saying that cryptocurrencies were the future and that it was imperative to exert “thoughtful government oversight” to avoid stifling innovation. Directly acknowledging the influence of Bitcoin on Libra, McHenry continued: “The world that Satoshi Nakamoto, author of the Bitcoin white paper, envisioned is an unstoppable force. We should not attempt to deter this innovation. And those that have tried have already failed.” “Some of us want to live in permissioned society, where you have to come to the government and for its blessing before you even think about innovating,” he added. “Others believe in innovation.” This was a far cry from the rhetoric that has been trotted out in recent months, notably by Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) herself, who chairs the committee. Last week, Waters issued a lacerating letter that was signed by her fellow committee members, calling on Facebook to immediately halt development of the Libra currency. Similarly, US Treasury Secretary Stephen Mnuchin disparaged Bitcoin earlier this week as a technology fit only for “money launderers and terrorist financiers,” while Rep. Brad Sherman (D-CA) called earlier this year for the US government to shut Bitcoin down—inadvertently highlighting the difficulty of doing so. Story continues This is not to suggest that the Congressional hearing was a lovefest. Waters noted that Facebook’s overtures to compliance seemed hollow—especially in the wake of a CNBC report yesterday that contradicted Marcus’s claim that he was actively working with Swiss banking authorities to establish appropriate regulatory oversight. Much of the discussion revolved around what Libra actually is. Rep. McHenry pointed out that there was tension between Marcus’s inability to define the crypto scheme—is it a commodity? a security? an exchange-traded fund?—and Facebook’s stated hopes to comply with regulators. The same, he added, could be said of Facebook’s plans to eventually become “permissionless.” Marcus defended Libra against claims it was an investment vehicle, specifically an ETF, and that it would need to be regulated as a security. Because the Libra is designed for stability, he argued, nobody would buy it in the hope of squeezing out speculative gains—a primary metric for what qualifies as a security. Others tried to extract commitments from Marcus, but to no avail. Rep. Carolyn B. Maloney (D-NY) demanded that Marcus commit to a “small pilot program,” with no more than one million users, before fully launching the Libra. Marcus only vowed to work with regulators. Similarly, Maloney tried to elicit a promise that Facebook would permit digital wallets competitive to Facebook’s own wallet, Calibra, on its platform. Marcus demurred. Beyond this, Waters ran through the usual gamut, bringing up Facebook’s track record on privacy and saying the Libra project would ultimately “concentrate government influence in the hands of a few elites.” She also made reference to a bill in the works intended to bar tech companies outright from setting themselves up as banks, and, as she put it, “inappropriately mix commerce and banking activities.” “If Facebook’s plans come to fruition,” she added, “the company and its partners will wield immense economic power that could destabilize currency.” Others were more extreme in their takes. Sherman, present in the hearing, responded to Marcus’s argument that Libra was an important innovation by saying that 9/11, too, was also a “big innovation.” But Libra, he said, “might be a bigger threat to America.” What could come next? Sherman suggested Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg himself ought to testify about Libra. Zuckerberg, notably, hasn’t specifically addressed Libra and has been keeping his distance. Perhaps for good reason. || Bitcoin wallet Blockchain.com creates its own crypto exchange: Blockchain.com, a popular cryptocurrency wallet, has now branched out into offering anexchange servicecalled PIT that itclaimsis the fastest in the world. The PIT is an institutional-grade cryptocurrency trading platform that will also cater to the retail market.
The exchange will, initially, be open to more than 200 countries and offer 26 trading pairs, including the U.S. Dollar, the Euro, and the British Pound.
The PIT’s most significant selling point is its speed. The exchange boasts that it makes trades in microseconds, not milliseconds (1 millisecond is equivalent to 1,000 microseconds) and has been in the works for a year. This USP, the team hopes, will be enough to tempt users away from more established exchanges, likeBinanceandCoinbase.
“We delivered… a matching engine that could go head-to-head against any machine engine in the entire world,” it said in astatement.
Speed is a decisive factor for traders. Small delays can cause changes in price, particularly during high-frequency trading. The PIT will also be hosted at Equinix LD4, which is a low-latency data centre, based in the UK, to ensure there will be few delays for traders.
Finally, to hit the ground running, Blockchain.com says it has already made partnerships with global market makers to provide initial liquidity.
Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao was briefly the CTO at Blockchain.com before he was fired in early 2014. He went on to create Binance, the biggest crypto exchange in the world. Blockchain.com’s CTO has some serious boots to fill. || European blockchain company Bitfury launches artificial intelligence unit: By Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss
NEW YORK (Reuters) - European blockchain company The Bitfury Group, valued recently at more than $1 billion, has launched its artificial intelligence (AI) division, the company's top official told Reuters in an interview.
The AI division will operate alongside Bitfury's existing blockchain services and remain part of the company.Bitfury is one of a handful of blockchain companies around the world with at least a $1 billion valuation. That list includes Coinbase, a U.S.-based exchange, and China's Bitmain, the largest cryptocurrency mining firm in the world.
Valery Vavilov, chief executive officer and co-founder of Bitfury, said the need to analyze and extract value from tons of available data drove the company to go into artificial intelligence, that branch of computer science that emphasizes the creation of intelligent machines that act and behave like humans.
"Data is becoming the next oil," Vavilov said. "We have collected so much data, but only 2% of all this data has been analyzed; 98% is sitting idle and waiting to be analyzed."
He believes the best and most efficient way to analyze the data is through artificial intelligence.
"We also need to trust that data so that's where blockchain comes in," Vavilov said.
Blockchain, a digital ledger of transactions, gained prominence as the software underpinning virtual currency bitcoin <BTC=BTSP>. The technology, being developed in the public and private sectors, has gained attention globally for its ability to permanently record and track assets or transactions across all industries.
Artificial intelligence is one of the tech sectors that attracted large funding so far this year. According to research firm CB Insights, the second quarter of 2019 saw a record of $7.4 billion invested in AI startups, with the majority going to transportation and health care-related companies.
Vavilov said that Bitfury's AI group is still in "research mode". He would have more clarity about the range of AI products the company intends to offer by the end of the year or the beginning of 2020.
Bitfury also said it appointed technology expert Fabrizio Del Maffeo to lead the AI division. Del Maffeo was the vice president and managing director of AAEON Technology Europe, the AI and internet of things computing company within Taiwan's ASUS Group.
(Reporting by Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss; Editing by Lisa Shumaker) || Bitcoin Price Ends Longest Losing Streak Since December: • Bitcoin logged gains in the three days to July 20, snapping the longest losing streak on the three-day chart since December.
• The bias, however, is still bearish with prices holding below $11,080 (as per Bitstamp).
• Key indicators on short-duration charts are biased for a fall back below $10,000.
• A 4-hour close above $11,080 would activate twin bullish cues and could yield a rally to $12,000.
• A weekly close (Sunday, UTC) or consecutive daily close above $12,000 is needed to confirm a continuation of the bull market.
Bitcoin (BTC) ended its longest losing streak in seven months over the weekend, but the outlook still remains bearish.
The top cryptocurrency by market capitalization eked out 10.83 percent gains in the three days to July 20, confirming a green candle on the three-day chart.
The green candle notably formed following three consecutive red candles, representing bitcoin’s longest losing streak since the end of December, according to Bitstamp data.
Related:Using the Awesome Oscillator to Find Bitcoin Buy and Sell Signals
Back then, BTC had created four straight read candles, as seen in the chart below.
As seen above, bitcoin’s recovery rally from the bear market low of $3,122 on Dec. 15 ended with a four-candle losing streak, which saw prices create a bearish lower high at $4,236 and drop by 15 percent to $3,560.
The resistance created at $4,236 remained intact for more than three months before bitcoin breached that on the back of higher volumes on April 2, confirming a long term bearish-to-bullish trend change.
Related:Could Donald Trump Ban Bitcoin?
What followed was a solid rise to $13,880 by June 24. Essentially, BTC more than tripled in value in six months to June 24 and was looking overbought at the start of the current month.
Therefore, the latest three-candle losing streak likely marked a healthy correction of the bull market, as noted by popular technical and fundamental analystAlex Kruger.
While the losing trend has ended, the correction phase may not be over yet, as the cryptocurrency is yet to violate the bearish lower-highs pattern with a move above $11,080,as notedon Friday.
As of writing, BTC is changing hands at $10,460 on Bitstamp – down 1.47 percent on a 24-hour basis.
Bitcoin clocked a high of $11,120 on Saturday, but failed to close above $11,080 and fell back to $10,300, leaving intact the bearish lower highs pattern created during the sell-off from $13,200 to $9,049.
The moving average convergence divergence histogram has crossed below zero, signaling a bullish-to-bearish trend change, meaning the bounce from the July 17 low of $9,049 has ended and prices may fall back below $10,000 over the next 24 hours.
Supporting the bearish case is the below 50-print on the relative strength index.
Bitcoin, however, may rise to $12,000 this week if prices break above $11,080, activating twin bullish cues: invalidation of lower highs and an inverse head-and-shoulders breakout (above right).
The neckline resistance of a potential inverse head-and-shoulders pattern is currently located at $11,130.
On the weekly chart, $12,000 is the level to beat for the bulls.
A convincing weekly close on Sunday (UTC), or a back-to-back daily close above $12,000 would invalidate the buyer exhaustion signaled by bitcoin’s repeated failure to hold onto gains above that level, as shown by candles with long upper wicks (see arrows).
That, however, looks unlikely, with the 14-week RSI rolling over from the overbought territory (above 70) and the MACD histogram losing altitude, a sign of weakening bullish momentum.
Also, on the three-day chart, the MACD hasturned bearishfor the first time since December.
All-in-all, the odds of BTC falling below $10,000 in the next day or two are high. On the downside, key support is located at $9,097 (May 30 high).
Disclosure: The author holds no cryptocurrency assets at the time of writing.
Bitcoinimage via Shutterstock; charts byTrading View
• What It’s Like to Review Bitcoin’s Code
• Short of Target: Bitcoin’s $1K Rally Leaves Bear Bias Intact || Blockstream Launches Atomic Swaps on Liquid Bitcoin Sidechain: Blockstream has created an “experimental” tool that makes it easier for users to trade “trustlessly” between tokens launched on its Liquid sidechain.
DubbedLiquid Swap Tool, the platform uses “atomic swaps,” a cryptographic technology that already serves as backbone for newer decentralized exchanges currently in development.
The motivation for these types of transactions is that today most exchanges are middlemen trusted by users to exchange cryptocurrency on their behalf. Many have lost funds or suffered hacks over the years, leading technologists to argue they really can’t be trusted with this money. Atomic swaps offer an alternative.
Related:June Sets Records for CME Bitcoin Futures as Sign-Ups Surge 30%
As mentioned above, this atomic swap tool is specifically geared for tokens launched on Liquid, a sidechain that’s pegged to bitcoin. To use it, users must send their tokens to the sidechain, effectively trading their bitcoin for “L-BTC.” It’s kind of like alchemy: morphing bitcoin into an altered type of bitcoin, which is faster and has more privacy features, but requires more trust in the intermediaries that run the sidechain.
Recently, Blockstream launcheda toolfor launching security tokens on top of the so-called “sidechain,” which is pegged to the bitcoin network.
With the new Liquid Swap Tool, users will be able to trade one of these tokens for another without requiring an intermediary to do the exchange.
Though, it’s worth noting the instructions for the tool are pretty technical for now. Users need to download Liquid, fiddle with a configuration file, download the separate swapping tool and perform the instructions inthe code repositoryto get it going.
Related:Casa Launches Lightning Node Mobile App for Bitcoin Newbies
Not to mention, the repository describes the tool as “early days,” arguing it “should be considered experimental,” going on to outline a way to make such a trade more private.
“It is recommended to use the tool with someone that you can trust to keep such data private. Users are also encouraged to encrypt/sign messages sent with their trading partners in order to mitigate against man-in-the-middle attacks,” the description continues.
Buttonsimage via Shutterstock
• Bitcoin Rallies $2K in 24 Hours But Price Hurdles Remain Intact
• Bitcoin Price Dips Below $10K With Deeper Losses Likely || Lucien Chen’s VOL: the BTC of hard disk mining: NEW YORK, NY / ACCESSWIRE / August 14, 2019 /In 2008, Satoshi Nakamoto proposed the idea of Bitcoin and published the open-source software of Bitcoin in 2009. Bitcoin’sjourney from 0 to 1is full of twists and turns, ups and downs, and in a blink of eye, it has been 10 years. However, for the majority, Bitcoin appears to be an exclusive club whose dooris only open to a few.
In 2019, former CTO ofTron, Lucien Chen startedaproject called Volume in the hope of guiding more people into the world of digital currency. Theproject generates a new digital currency VOLviatheencrypted consensus algorithmbyhard disk capacity. VOL isacurrency like Bitcoin, but it is not a common public chain project, nor an application project.To some extent, VOL can be seen as the BTC of thehard diskmining industry.
When compared to all hit hard disk mining project, VOL had a better point than the recent hit projects Lambda and BHD, sitting at the top of the chart with the best overall performance.
What improvements has VOL made based on BTC?
VOL, the Volume Network, usesanencrypted algorithm related tohard disk capacityto guarantee the production of the currency. Similar to Bitcoin that usesanencrypted algorithmrelated to computing capacity, the circulation of the currency is fair and square; the difference is that instead of calculating therandom numberfrom the entire network like BTC does, VOL searches for that number inhard disks of the network. Compared with BTC, VOL stands out with its own edges:
1. Eco-friendlier mining: as we all know, BTC mining has been categorized as outdated production capacity due to its huge electricity consumption.By comparison,the POSThard diskmining mechanism of VOL does not consume massive amount of electricity, which not only avoids energy waste but also makes it convenient for users to mine at home. In addition, the life span ofhard diskexceeds that of ASIC chip and GPU used by BTC, which means that you don’t have to frequently update your devices.
2. Naturally anti-centralized:as BTC mining evolves from CPU to GPU to FPGA, the devicesbecomemore professional and thecomputingpower becomes more centralized; yet thehard diskmining of VOL is naturally anti-centralized.
3. Lower threshold:the VOL network is just atastarting point with its hard disk mining mechanism, which allows for mining with simply a household computer; while with BTC, you will be looking at thousands or even millions worth of investment! With VOL, it costs far less than BTC to mine, be it the earlier or the later stage of your investment.
4. Lower risks：the general blockchain market remains unstable. If another bearish market hits, many mines will crash and the mining machines of BTC will just turn into worthless pieces of metal. With the hard disk mining mechanism, even if the hard disk is not used for mining, it can still be used for household computers.
5. More robust economic model: to incentivize early adopters, Satoshi designed the halving mechanism of Bitcoin: the block reward halves every 210,000 blocks. In 2020, the reward will be halved down to 6.25 BTC. When you look at VOL, with a dynamic token producing mechanism, VOL’s economic model prevents problems like high threshold for the latecomers and centralized mining capacity, making it possible forenhanceddecentralization and userparticipation.
6. Healthier and more secure management of VOL mining pool: for BTC, the mining pool whichdistribute all the profitsto each miner in a centralized way,which is very likely to be anon-transparent and unfairprocess. With VOL, miners sign tojointheMiningPoolRepresentative Nodes (MPRN), and the mining pool does notholdthe private key of the miners.Pledgesare made on the chain toMPRNs, and the profits will be automatically distributed, guaranteeing the benefits of the miners in a highly secureway.
Lucien believes that VOL is still at its infancy, and the team is patiently welcoming more participants toitsecosystem. The team is confident that one day when a “consensus” is reached of VOL, it will become a basic currency justlikeBTC. Even BTC was unknown 10 years ago. Lucien and the team is very confident about the future of VOL.Lucien Chen’s vision for VOL: a “basic currency” like BTC
Statistics showthat by the end of Q1, 2019, mining digital currencies account for 68% of the general digital currency market. The mainstream projects are those based on the PoW consensus mechanism, and these projects are all faced with problems such as high energy consumption, centralized computing power and scaling challenges, making it harder and harder to see the future of BTC and other PoW-based tokens; other projects like ETH and GRIN are shied away from being mainstream options due to their high GPU costs. On that note, a project that is based on hard disk mining is one that truly has low threshold.
Lucien Chenhas his vision set for VOL: a “basic currency” like BTC, and the team is setting sail for an ambitiousjourney of integrity and intelligence.
Website：https://volumenetwork.io
Twitter：https://twitter.com/network_volume
Official Telegram：https://t.me/VolumeNetworkio
Contact:
VOLUME NETWORK FOUNDATION LTD.
Lucy Lee
feedback@volumenetwork.io
888.552.4466
SOURCE:VOLUME NETWORK FOUNDATION LTD.
View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/555966/Lucien-Chens-VOL-the-BTC-of-hard-disk-mining || Google Searches for ‘Bitcoin’ Starting to Catch Up With $10K Euphoria: Data fromGoogleTrends’ search analytics resource indicates that internet googling of ‘bitcoin’ (BTC) is approaching a monthly high as of today, June 24.
According to the data, searches for bitcoin are continuing their ascent in the week after the unveiling ofFacebook’snewcryptocurrencyandblockchain-powered financial infrastructure project,Libra, even as searches for Libra itself have tapered off since June 18 — the date the white paper for the forthcoming token waspublished.
Google trendsdata for search terms ‘bitcoin’ vs. ‘libra.’ As of June 24 2019
As Cointelegraphnotedyesterday, from a wider perspective, the number of Google searches for “bitcoin” remain only around 10% of what they were in 2017 — the year of the top coin’s historic bull run, which peaked at $20,000 in December of that year.
The resurgent public interest is seemingly correlated with the renewed bull market, with bitcoin is currently trading at $10,881, up almost 35% on the month, according tocoin360 data.
By country, thetop five nationscurrently googling bitcoin are Nigeria, South Africa, Austria, Switzerland and Ghana —as compared withUruguay, Dominican Republic, Nicaragua, Albania and Panama for Libra.
As Cointelegraph noted yesterday, the fact that Google trends data for bitcoin remains well below its former peak apparently suggests that retail FOMO has not yet become a major driver of the coin’s renewed price momentum. Instead, several parameters indicate that institutional demand for bitcoin isincreasingin lockstep, and that network fundamentals are hittingall-time-highs.
While high-profile industry figures such asEthereumco-founderJoe LubinhavecritiquedLibra over its lack ofdecentralization, researchers at topcrypto exchangeBinance, haveproposedthat thesocial mediagiant’s token could spark additional volume in the cryptocurrency space.
At press time, BTC/USD is consolidating under the $11,000 mark — up over 3% over the past 24 hours, according to Cointelegraph’sbitcoin price index.
• Ripple CEO: Bitcoin and XRP Aren’t Competitors — I’m Long BTC
• Facebook Has Not Applied for RBI Approval to Operate Libra in India: Report
• No, It’s Not Facebook: Bitcoin Price Already Up 200% in 2019 Before Libra
• Hodler’s Digest, June 17–23: Top Stories, Price Movements, Quotes and FUD of the Week
[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
Crypto is my job and I take lots of time to investigate various projects. This project is the most top-drawer in my rating. #Shato || $EPAZ's Bitcoin Sharing & Blockchain Social Media App Webbeeo Is In Alpha Testing Phase https://www.owltmarket || Yeni #bitcoin #currency #altcoin(İngiltere’nin Ripple tanımı! Tahvil mi değil mi?) https://t.co/v7t2DeWH94 - Sizin Arşiviniz / Archiviz - https://t.co/WDHmPDm634 || España: La CNMV advierte sobre 10 "chiringuitos" financieros que operan con bitcoin y criptomonedas https://t.co/OThypIccnU || ETERBASE exchange provides reliable and reliable trading in compliance with all European Union laws and regulations such as GDPR and AMLD4 / AMLD5.
#eterbase https://t.co/j5xvB8oGlV #bitcoin #exchange || $EPAZ's Bitcoin Sharing & Blockchain Social Media App Webbeeo Is In Alpha Testing Phase https://www.owltmarket || Discoin Airdrop is now Live🚀💰🏆
Click on below link to participate into this amazing #Airdrop🎁
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https://t.co/dHzzEJ6OEe #Airdrops #blockchain #cryptocurrency #ICO #bitcoin #Crypto #ETH || @h4shr8 @BitcoinDood Investing in Bitcoin is one of the most profitable business move you can think of at the moment . Gold BTC offers you a unique opportunity to make tremendous profits by becoming a stakeholder in our mining farms. Visit https://t.co/7nqVmGB6ew and start making 15-25% daily profits || If #BTC profits on this next climb up, over the next few days, don’t start flowing into Alts this will be invalidated. || The latest The blockchain fintech Daily! https://t.co/PAHHMN2mem Thanks to @webvixen @RiskDataScience @chuckmcshane #bitcoin #blockchain
|
Trend: down || Prices: 10916.05, 10763.23, 10138.05, 10131.06, 10407.96, 10159.96, 10138.52, 10370.82, 10185.50, 9754.42
|
Analyze the provided historical prices, technical indicators, news, and social media sentiment from the last 60 days. Based on this context, predict the overall trend (up, down, or no change) and the specific daily closing prices for Bitcoin for the next 10 days.
|
[Technical Analysis for 2020-08-19]
BTC Price: 11758.28, BTC RSI: 58.75
Gold Price: 1958.70, Gold RSI: 54.67
Oil Price: 42.93, Oil RSI: 61.10
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
Twitter Cryptocurrency Scam Echoes Previous Schemes on YouTube: (Bloomberg) -- The Bitcoin scam that hackers deployed while breaking into the Twitter Inc. accounts of political leaders and business titans last week closely resembles similar schemes used previously on YouTube. In the July 15 Twitter attack, hackers hijacked accounts belonging to Barack Obama, Elon Musk, Joe Biden and Jeff Bezos and asked their followers to send Bitcoins to their crypto wallet with a promise to double the amount. In a matter of hours, the hackers had accrued more than $100,000. But before compromising those accounts, the hackers targeted the Twitter accounts of popular cryptocurrency exchanges, such as Coinbase Inc., Gemini Trust Company LLC and Binance Holdings Ltd. In this case, the attackers tweeted a link to a website dubbed “CryptoForHealth,” which also promised to double donations made to a crypto wallet. The move caught the attention of computer security researchers, who say similar scams were perpetrated in recent months on Google’s YouTube. One of the researchers, who like his colleagues requested anonymity because he isn’t authorized to speak publicly, said it isn’t yet clear who was behind the Twitter hack but said that the YouTube scams appeared coordinated. The earlier attacks make clear that stealing user accounts to perpetrate cryptocurrency scams isn’t a problem unique to Twitter. The possibility that the incidents are connected may give investigators additional ways to identify the perpetrators, people familiar with the scams say. In online forums, several people have claimed to know the identity of the person behind the CryptoForHealth websites. One website used as part of the apparent YouTube scams, “btc-gemini.info,” looks almost identical to the “CryptoForHealth” site. Beyond the visual similarities, the sites share technical details, such as IP addresses and website code, according to a Bloomberg review of the data. The links between the schemes on Twitter and YouTube aren’t definitive, according to the researchers and Bloomberg’s analysis. But at the very least, it shows how easily they can be duplicated, they said. Alex Joseph, a YouTube spokesman, said the company takes account security seriously by automatically protecting users and notifying them when suspicious activity is detected. “If a user has reason to believe their account was compromised,” he said, “they can notify us to secure the account and regain control.” YouTube declined to address whether the alleged crypto scams on its site were related to the Twitter hack. On Tuesday, Apple Inc. co-founder Steve Wozniak filed a lawsuit in state court n California alleging that YouTube has for months allowed scammers to use his name and likeness as part of a phony Bitcoin giveaway. Story continues In the alleged YouTube scams, a hacker typically gained control of an account and made it look like an official page of a cryptocurrency exchange or celebrity. Taking over a YouTube account with an already established following lets the hackers reach a wide audience. That was the same goal with last week’s Twitter hack, which hijacked accounts with tens of millions of followers. After gaining control of an account, the hacker typically live streams an interview with the likes of Bill Gates and runs information about the fake cryptocurrency giveaway alongside it. The alleged scam has been used with video interviews of the Winklevoss twins (who founded popular cryptocurrency exchange Gemini), and Vitalik Buterin, the creator of the Ethereum cryptocurrency. In June, cybersecurity blog BleepingComputer reported three YouTube accounts were hijacked to run a crypto giveaway scam, this time live streaming an interview with Tesla Inc. Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk next to fake information about the scam. In this instance, the perpetrator raked in more than $150,000. The live streams tend to attract a large audience for the alleged scams before they’re detected by YouTube. In some instances, the perpetrators skip stealing an account altogether and simply purchase YouTube ads promoting the alleged scam. The cryptocurrency company Ripple Labs Inc. filed a lawsuit in April against YouTube over the so-called “giveaway” swindle. “For every scam, giveaway, fake conspiracy that is taken down, multiple more pop up nearly immediately,” the company wrote in a blog post. “The reality is that big technology and media companies need to take responsibility and be held accountable for protecting consumers.” In one case, a YouTube user with 282,000 subscribers was hacked and had his account edited to appear as if it was representing the “Ripple Foundation,” according to the lawsuit. The attackers then began posting videos from the hacked account promoting the cryptocurrency scam. The user, Mesa Sean, who makes videos of himself playing videogames, didn’t respond to a request for comment. According to the lawsuit, YouTube accounts with hundreds of thousands of followers are targeted with email phishing attacks, where hackers trick the account owner into giving up their password. Ripple estimates that hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of Ripple cryptocurrency have been stolen as part of the illicit operations. The string of high-profile scams makes it harder for cryptocurrency companies to persuade consumers that their operations are secure. ”Last week’s Twitter hack is just the latest dramatic example of an ongoing and widespread problem with social media platforms – malicious scams on Twitter, YouTube, Medium, Instagram and others have proliferated for years with no real solution,” Ripple Chief Executive Officer Brad Garlinghouse said in a statement. In a motion to dismiss Ripple’s lawsuit filed on Monday, lawyers for YouTube said it’s not liable for the scams under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which shields platforms from potentially illegal activity by users. For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com Subscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source. ©2020 Bloomberg L.P. View comments || Market Wrap: Bitcoin Briefly Pops Above $9,400 as Global Stocks Rally: Bitcoin hit its highest price point in almost two weeks as stocks climbed.
• Bitcoin(BTC) trading around $9,371 as of 20:00 UTC (4 p.m. EDT). Gaining 2.2% over the previous 24 hours.
• Bitcoin’s 24-hour range: $9,149-$9,439
• BTC above 10-day and 50-day moving average, a bullish signal for market technicians.
Bitcoin stakeholders were delighted to see green flashes on their screens next to the world’s oldest cryptocurrency Tuesday.
Prices on the world’s most valuable cryptocurrency went as high as $9,439 around 7:00 UTC (3 a.m. EDT), a price not seen since July 9.
Related:Bitcoin ‘Active Entities’ at Highest Since 2017 Bull Run
“Bitcoin might be waking up,” said Rupert Douglas, head of institutional sales at London-based crypto brokerage Koine. “A close above $9,600 would be a strong sign.”
Some are just happy to see prices go up in the bitcoin market, which has lacked activity for much of July.
“Nice to finally see a bit of movement,” said Douglas Bilyk, a director at New York-based crypto brokerage Copper. “With lower volumes, it doesn’t take as much to push it, and looks like the initial move was up. Now we just need to see some follow-through.”
Major global equities are also showing positive gains today:
• The Nikkei 225 in Asia closed in the green 0.73%led by gains in tech stocks SoftBank Group, Nintendo and Sony.
• The FTSE 100 in Europe ended the day up 0.13% as theEuropean Union agrees to a stimulus package worth €750 billion.
• The U.S. S&P 500 index climbed 0.20% as thebanking and travel sectors made gains despite tech stocks mostly heading lower.
Related:Bitcoin Futures Pass $1B in Open Interest on BitMEX for First Time Since March Crash
Read More:Bitcoin Futures Pass $1B on BitMEX for First Time Since March Crash
Gains in the equity markets appear to have been the catalyst for bitcoin’s positive trading day. “Bitcoin seems pretty correlated to equities at the moment,” Koine’s Douglas told CoinDesk. “The test will be whether BTC can hold up if equities sell off.”
Stock indices have been outperforming bitcoin in July. However, Vishal Shah, an options trader and founder of derivatives exchange Alpha5, points out that flat markets for the oldest cryptocurrency sometimes can occur.
“This lull isn’t uncharacteristic of bitcoin; it spent most of Q1 2019 in a sideways market,” he said.
“Expectations are always running high for performance. And though it’s a well-run narrative by now, bitcoin has a tendency to exhibit a high volatility; things will move again,” Shah added.
Read More:Bitcoin Shows Signs of Life But Ether (And Crew) Steal the Limelight
The second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization,ether(ETH), was up Tuesday, trading around $245 and and climbing 4.4% in 24 hours as of 20:00 UTC (4:00 p.m. EDT).
Ethereum-powered decentralized exchange (DEX) Curve Finance is seeing huge growth in volumes this past week. Curve, at $70 million in volume over the past 24 hours, has overtaken bellwether DEX Uniswap as decentralized finance (DeFi) heats up.
“It is probably a bit of interest picking up in non-bitcoin assets that are becoming multifunctional or yield-enhancing,” said Neil Van Huis, director of institutional trading for Chicago-based liquidity provider Blockfills.
Jake Brukhman, managing partner for New York-based crypto asset manager CoinFund, said Curve’s specialization in swapping stablecoins gives the DEX an edge in execution.
When DeFi traders seeking opportunities need to arbitrage stable assets, Curve’s volume increases.
“They are using a mathematical equation which makes slippage very low,” Brukhman said.
Read More:Troll Token? Why DeFi Yield Farmers Are Now All About YFI
Digital assets on theCoinDesk 20are mostly green Tuesday. Notable winners as of 20:00 UTC (4:00 p.m. EDT):
• zcash(ZEC) + 7.7%
• tezos(XTZ) + 7.3%
• neo(NEO) + 6.5%
Read More:China’s Blockchain Infrastructure to Extend Reach With Six Public Chains
Notable losers as of 20:00 UTC (4:00 p.m. EDT):
• chainlink(LINK) – 3.5%
• basic attention token(BAT) – 1%
Read More:Bitcoin Rises With Stocks as EU Agrees €750B in Coronavirus Stimulus
Commodities:
• Oil is in the green 2.5%. Price per barrel of West Texas Intermediate crude: $41.80
• Gold is up 1.2% Tuesday, at $1,840 per ounce
Read More:Whale Alert Identifies 1.125 Million BTC as Satoshi’s Stash
Treasurys:
• U.S. Treasury bonds all slipped Tuesday. Yields, which move in the opposite direction as price, were down most on the 10-year, in the red 1.8%.
Read More:Crypto Exchange Group Eyes ‘Bulletin Board’ System for FATF Compliance
• Market Wrap: Bitcoin Briefly Pops Above $9,400 as Global Stocks Rally
• Market Wrap: Bitcoin Briefly Pops Above $9,400 as Global Stocks Rally || Market Wrap: As Stocks Rally, Bitcoin Trades Above $9.3K for the First Time in 10 Days: A rising tide in equities is lifting all boats – including in the bitcoin market. Bitcoin (BTC) is trading around $9,295 as of 20:00 UTC (4 p.m. ET), gaining 2.7% over the previous 24 hours. Bitcoin’s 24-hour range: $8,938 – $9,345 BTC above 10-day and 50-day moving average, bullish signal for market technicians. Market participants are pointing to global stock markets as reasons for bitcoin’s rise in price, with the world’s oldest cryptocurrency in a narrow range just above $9,000 since July 3. “Equity markets are up across the board and so you see a spike in bitcoin’s price,” said Michael Rabkin, head of institutional sales at Chicago crypto trading firm DV Chain. Related: Delta Exchange Predicts $40 Price for COMP Ahead of Governance Token Deluge Read More: Bitcoin Rises in Line With Stocks After Dip Below $9K Indeed, stock indexes globally are flashing green. In Asia, the Nikkei 225 index of companies ended the day up 1.8%. Despite a rising number of coronavirus cases in Japan, gains were made in industrial stocks including conglomerate Mitsubishi . Europe’s FTSE 100 index closed up 1.5%. Optimism on fresh government stimulus across the continent contributed to leading the index higher. The U.S. S&P 500 index gained 1.6%. Record highs for tech stocks Netflix and Amazon led the way. Since the start of June, the major stock indexes are actually beating bitcoin. Despite some excitement in crypto price action Monday, traders point out volatility has been absent in the bitcoin markets, said Elie Le Rest, a partner at Paris-based cryptocurrency trading firm ExoAlpha, “Since the bitcoin halving on May 12, the digital asset markets have gone nowhere for six weeks in a row,” said Le Rest. “Volatility has collapsed abruptly and bitcoin remains stuck between $8,200 and $10,500.” Related: Bitcoin Up 27% in First Half of 2020, Beating Gold, Silver and Platinum Story continues Read More: ConsenSys, Polychain, Tron, CipherTrace: Blockchain Startups Got $18M+ in US ‘PPP’ Bailout Loans Bitcoin’s one-month at-the-money (ATM) implied volatility, reflecting the market’s future expectation of volatility and calculated by using options with a strike price nearest to the spot price, has dipped. In the past month, ATM implied volatility for bitcoin has dropped from as high as 70% on June 11 to 43% on July 3, though it is creeping back up. This is something derivatives traders are following closely as they make option bets on future price action. Read More: Kraken-Owned Crypto Facilities Wins UK License to Offer Derivatives To be sure, the bitcoin price pop on Monday has stakeholders ready for a bigger price move, hopefully up, said Mostafa Al-Mashita, an executive at Toronto-based crypto liquidity provider Secure Digital Markets. “Bitcoin is poised for a big move as it’s held a tight range for a couple of weeks now,” he told CoinDesk. A dip in DEX The second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, ether (ETH), was up Thursday, trading around $238 and climbing 5.7% in 24 hours as of 20:00 UTC (4:00 p.m. ET). Read More: Arca Labs Launches Ethereum-Based SEC-Registered Fund Ethereum-based decentralized exchanges, or DEX, have seen volumes decrease over the past few weeks. DEX week-over-week volume growth has dropped 19%, according to data from aggregator Dune Analytics. Nevertheless, decentralized finance (DeFi) traders seem to be finding creative ways to profit that don’t necessarily require DEX. “DeFi has been killing it,” said Karl Samsen, director of strategy for crypto merchant services firm Global Digital Assets Despite the drop in volumes. Read More: What Is Yield Farming? The Rocket Fuel of DeFi, Explained Samsen pointed to at least one new play that might be contributing to a dip in DEX: Yield farming, where crypto stakeholders leverage lenders such as Compound to gain a profit on Ethereum-based tokens. Other markets Digital assets on CoinDesk’s big board are mostly in the green Monday. Notable gainers (as of 20:00 UTC (4:00 p.m. ET): bitcoin SV (BSV) + 23% dogecoin (DOGE) + 9% tron (TRX) + 7%. Commodities Oil is up 0.86%. Price per barrel of West Texas Intermediate crude: $40.58 Gold is up 0.69% at $1,786 per ounce U.S. Treasury bonds all climbed Monday. Yields, which move in the opposite direction as price, were up most on the two-year, in the green 2.65%. Related Stories Market Wrap: As Stocks Rally, Bitcoin Trades Above $9.3K for the First Time in 10 Days Market Wrap: As Stocks Rally, Bitcoin Trades Above $9.3K for the First Time in 10 Days || Rivian To Start Delivering All-Electric Pickup By Summer Next Year: Report: Amazon.com, Inc (NASDAQ: AMZN )-backed Rivian will begin deliveries of its all-electric pickup truck and SUV by sumer next year, the electric vehicle maker said in an email on Saturday, as reported by TechCrunch. What Happened Rivian had previously said in May that its delivery schedule had been moved to 2021, and it now spelled out the specifics in the note sent to prospective customers. The Irvine, California-based company said it would begin delivering its R1T electric pickup truck in June 2021 and its R1S electric SUV in August 2021. The EV maker has reportedly begun running a pilot production line at its factory in Normal, Illinois. Rivian is also expected to make 100,000 delivery vehicles for Amazon and said it's on schedule to begin delivering the electric vans to the retailer in early 2021. Of the Amazon vehicles, 10,000 will hit the roads in 2022, and remaining would be in use by 2030, TechCrunch noted. Why It Matters The delay in commencement of production is being attributed to the COVID-19 pandemic, as the EV maker halted construction work on its factory, a former Mitsubishi plant it purchased in 2017. Last week, it was reported that the rival Tesla Inc (NASDAQ: TSLA ) is suing Rivian for allegedly poaching its employees and stealing its intellectual property. The T. Rowe Price Group Inc. (NASDAQ: TROW )- and BlackRock, Inc. (NYSE: BLK )-backed firm raised $2.5 billion in its first financing round of 2020 held earlier this month. It had raised over $2.85 billion last year. Photo courtesy: Rivian See more from Benzinga Gold Hits Record High As US-China Relations Deteriorate Further, Bitcoin Crosses ,000 Mark Credit Suisse Silently Invested 0M In Alibaba Subsidiary Ant Financial, Set To Benefit Immensely In Public Debut Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Google CEOs To Testify Before House Antitrust Subcommittee Wednesday © 2020 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. View comments || What People Who Aren’t Bullish on Bitcoin Still Like About It: In this audio interview, CoinDesk’s Leigh Cuen and researcherNadia Eghbal, author of the upcoming book “Working in Public,” talk about open-source software projects. From platforms like Github to software languages like Rust, Cuen and Eghbal explore what the open source movement looks like in 2020.
Formore episodesand free early access before our regular 3 p.m. Eastern time releases, subscribe withApple Podcasts,Spotify,Pocketcasts,Google Podcasts,Castbox,Stitcher,RadioPublica,iHeartRadioorRSS.
This episode is sponsored byCrypto.com,BitstampandNexo.io.
Related:Dark-Web Vendor and Pharmacist Charged With Trafficking Drugs Worth $270M in Bitcoin
There are people who understandbitcoinyet aren’t obsessively bullish on it. (I know, it’s weird. Like, how?)
Eghbal, a Protocol Labs alum who is familiar with bitcoin, is among them. She described bitcoin as a rare example of a project growing throughout a decade and continuing. Many people measure growth in terms of unique contributors, users or profits. For Eghbal, looking at different types of “activity” might offer a better spectrum.
“Measuring activity is maybe a better way to think about project health … some projects also don’t need to be as actively developed as others,” Eghbal said. “I was also looking at things like maintainers’ responsiveness.”
In short, are problems promptly fixed before they affect users? The quality of contributions should be evaluated in addition to the sheer number of contributors. Do the people who use the software get unique value from it when they need it?
Related:Missouri Man Pleads Guilty to Trying to Buy Chemical Weapons With Bitcoin
Another useful metric, she said, can be “work done,” including “how many pull requests are being merged or how many issues are being closed.”
And, luckily, Eghbal isn’t the only researcher who understands bitcoin without being “active” in the “Bitcoin community.” (To be fair, I use these silly words more than anyone.) Privacy tech legend Claudia Diaz, Nym’s chief technologist, said she believes there could be value in cryptocurrency projects, although that’s not her focus nor passion.
“Cryptocurrency offers an option for the people who use the systems to fund them,” Diaz said. “I’m interested in making systems that make sense and self-sustain because everyone has the right incentives.”
There are many different types of value people derive from open-source software projects.
Sometimes they use the software, sometimes they use public work to develop their own personal brand. Eghbal said some of the most widely sought after engineers are “building an active fanbase for whatever they are creating.”
She added there are “different types of open-source projects” with passionate fandoms, like Rust, plus open source developers have “a lot in common” with other types of online content creators. These public displays can lead to dramatic Twitter feuds and heated rivalries, just like otherpersonality-driven roleslike TikTok stars and podcasters.
“I’ve been told so many things are definitely, absolutely true, yet are all conflicting with each other,” Eghbal said of her research. “If I’ve learned anything it’s that developers have opinions.”
This is why Diaz’s token-funded startup, Nym, is developing a privacy layer comparable toTor, the latter of which she said is heavily reliant ongovernmentfunding. In contrast, her startup Nym raised$2.5 millionin a private token sale in 2019.
“Tor offers different trade-offs,” Diaz said. “We built Nym and the applications on top can be messaging applications or cryptocurrency applications … using the infrastructure to protect their metadata in the sense the network can’t figure out what services you are accessing or what they might be doing with those services.”
Diaz considers herself somewhat of an outsider to the open-source developer community, like Eghbal. Their motivations are primarily research-oriented, because research is their job.
Nym co-founders like Harry Halpin have more experience in (ideological) open source software development. Even coming from different perspectives, Halpin, Diaz and Eghbal all agreed that collaboration and interdependence are the crux of the open source development process.
“Now instead of relying on a couple of other developers’ code you may now be relying on hundreds of thousands of people’s projects and you don’t even know who these people are,” Eghbal said.
As such, Halpin said Nym works closely with teams contributing to other open-source projects, like Rust,Cosmosand Zcash. In addition, his team often works with independent (quasi-celebrity) developers likeAmir Taaki. Sometimes people contribute as a hobbyist or a user with specific needs, other times they are paid. There are many reasons why people work on cryptocurrency projects.
“I think it would be great to have an infrastructure that could support privacy in a variety of applications,” Diaz said. “Cryptocurrency offers an option for the people who use the systems to fund them … Privacy technologies have been very difficult to market.”
On the other hand, Eghbal described bitcoin as moving more slowly than some other cryptocurrency projects.
“Trying to prioritize stability is a very different development style rather than allowing people to have lots and lots of features,” Eghbal said, describing Bitcoin as relatively “stable.”
And even if the price of the asset never goes “to the moon,” perhaps continuing to provide reliable software tools can be a metric of success in itself.
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• What People Who Aren’t Bullish on Bitcoin Still Like About It
• What People Who Aren’t Bullish on Bitcoin Still Like About It || Bitcoin and Cardanos’ ADA – Weekly Technical Analysis – June 29th, 2020: Bitcoin fell by 1.87% in the week ending 28thJune. Following on from a 0.45% decline from the previous week, Bitcoin ended the week at $9,125.4
It was a bullish start to the week, with Bitcoin rallying by 4.27% on Monday before hitting reverse.
The early breakout saw Bitcoin strike a Monday intraweek high $9,795.0 before sliding to a Saturday intraweek low $8,855.0.
Monday’s rally saw Bitcoin break through the first major resistance level at $9,622 before sliding to sub-$9,000 levels.
The reversal saw Bitcoin fall through the first major support level at $8,947 and the 23.6% FIB of $8,900.
A Sunday recovery from early losses saw Bitcoin break back through to $9,000 levels to limit the loss of the week.
5 days in the red, including a 3.55% slide on Wednesday delivered a 3rdconsecutive week in the red.
Bitcoin would need to move through the $9,258 weekly pivot to bring the first major resistance level at $9,662 into play.
Support from the broader market would be needed for Bitcoin to break back through to $9,500 levels.
Barring an extended crypto rally, the first major resistance level and last week’s high $9,795 would likely cap any upside.
In the event of a breakout, Bitcoin could take a run at $9,900 levels before any pullback.
Failure to move through the $9,258 pivot could see Bitcoin see red for a 4thconsecutive week.
A pullback through to sub-$9,000 levels would bring the 23.6% FIB of $8,900 and the first major support level at $8,722 into play.
Barring an extended crypto rally, however, Bitcoin should steer well clear of sub-$8,000 levels. The second major support level at $8,318 should limit any downside in the week.
At the time of writing, Bitcoin was up by 0.17% to $9,141.1. A mixed start to the week saw Bitcoin fall to an early morning low $9,107.4 before rising to a high $9,147.7.
Bitcoin left the major support and resistance levels untested at the start of the week.
Cardano’s ADA rose by 2.36% in the week ending 28thJune. Following a 2.54% gain from the previous week, Cardano’s ADA ended the week at $0.08024
It was a choppy start to the week for Cardano’s ADA. A Monday 6.78% rally saw Cardano’s ADA rise to an early in the week high $0.08515 before easing back.
Falling short of the first major resistance level at $0.08812, Cardano’s ADA fell back to $0.082 levels before striking a Wednesday intraweek high $0.08738.
Falling short of the first major resistance level at $0.08812 once more, Cardano’s ADA slid to a Saturday intraweek low $0.07427.
While falling through the week’s $0.7520 pivot, Cardano’s ADA avoided the first major support level at $0.06531.
In spite of 5 consecutive days in the red, Monday’s 6.78% rally and a 3.82% gain on Sunday delivered the upside.
Cardano’s ADA would need to avoid a fall through the $0.08060 pivot to support a run at the first major resistance level at $0.087.
Support from the broader market would be needed, however, for Cardano’s ADA to break out from $0.085 levels.
Barring another extended crypto rally, the first major resistance level and last week’s high $0.08738 would likely cap any upside.
Failure to avoid a fall through the $0.08060 pivot could see Cardano’s ADA reverse early gains.
A pullback through to sub-$0.080 levels would bring the first major support level at $0.07388 into play.
Barring an extended broader-market sell-off, however, Cardano’s ADA should continue to avoid sub-$0.060 levels. The second major support level at $0.06752 should limit any downside in the week.
At the time of writing, Cardano’s ADA was up by 3.23% to $0.08283. A bullish start to the week saw Cardano’s ADA rally from an early Monday low $0.07996 to a high $0.08385.
Cardano’s ADA left the major support and resistance levels untested at the start of the week.
Thisarticlewas originally posted on FX Empire
• Bitcoin Weekly Technical Analysis – June 29th, 2020
• GBP/USD 1-2-3 Bearish Pattern on 4H Timeframe
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• GBP/USD Daily Forecast – Support At 1.2350 Stays Strong || ALT 5 Sigma Digital Instrument Market Summary for BTC, ETH, LTC, BCH: NEW YORK, NY / ACCESSWIRE / August 11, 2020 /ALT 5 Sigma Inc. an emerging leader in blockchain powered financial platforms provides its daily digital instruments market summary for Bitcoin (BTC/USD), Ether (ETH/USD), Litecoin (LTC/USD).
Real-Time Market Data is available atwww.alt5pro.comand Real-Time Market Data feed is also available atwww.alt5sigma.comALT 5 Sigma Digital Instrument Market Summary for BTC, ETH, LTC, BC
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ALT 5's digital asset custodian services are secured by GardaWorld. GardaWorld is the world's largest privately-owned business solutions and security services company, offering cash management services.
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View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/601216/ALT-5-Sigma-Digital-Instrument-Market-Summary-for-BTC-ETH-LTC-BCH || Ethereum predictions will it hit a new all-time high in 2020?: Ethereum is one of the most divisive cryptocurrencies in the industry. Bitcoiners tend to dismiss its potential while those who entered the space in 2017 have a strong affinity with it following the boom in ICOs. Three years on from the unsustainable ICO bubble has paved the way for a new Ethereum-based wave of hype, with decentralised finance (DeFi) projects popping up at an alarming rate. Last week Coin Rivet covered why DeFi was the next bubble to pop in crypto with uninformed investors chasing unimaginable returns from projects with market caps lower than $10 million. But, in Ethereums case this is bullish regardless of the eventual outcome. As investors become more keen on the idea of putting capital on these erc-20 tokens, they will need to first purchase Ethereum to contribute. Then when it comes to liquidating their potential profits, they will most likely trade with an Ethereum trading pair, thus equating to more buyside pressure on the ETH/USD pair. This, coupled with the recent Bitcoin halving, creates a scenario that could well see Ethereum eclipse its all-time high in Q4 of this year. Bitcoin has rallied by more than 20% over the past week with Ethereum experiencing a similar surge, if it can begin to take on levels of support and resistance set in the 2017 bull run and subsequent bear market, it would almost certainly prompt another wave of retail investment from those who have been waiting on the sidelines for the past few years. Its worth pointing out that Ethereums all-time high is $1,415, which would mean from its current position it would need to rally by 339.21%. While this seems unlikely, its important to consider that Ethereum has surged by 199.2% since march 12s low of $107 and that was without the impact of a new DeFi bubble. Now, cryptocurrencies are incredibly volatile assets due to a relative lack of liquidity in order books. This means that although Ethereum is demonstrating signs of bullish continuation, all it takes is a very minor catalyst to spark a correction to the downside, with a severe second spike in covid-19 cases potentially having that ability. For more news, guides and cryptocurrency analysis, click here . Disclaimer: This article is not intended as financial advice. The author of this article does not hold or have a vested interest in Ethereum. || Bitcoin, etherium and other cryptocurrencies surge in popularity although many don't understand the risks: The numbers of people buying highly risky cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin or etherium has surged in the past year, research from the Financial Conduct Authority showed today.
Research showed the numbers of people owning crypto currencies has increased sharply from 1.5 million people in 2019 to 2.6 million now.
Awareness of cryptos increased dramatically due to increased advertising and media coverage; when the sample was polled last year, 58% of respondents did not know what cryptos were compared with just 27% today.
Most people who buy cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin or etherium are earning well below £100,000, with nearly a third earning less than £30,000, giving the lie to the impression some advertising makes that they are commonly traded by sophisticated investors.
Research from the Financial Conduct Authority found only 9% of crypto owners earned more than £100,000 – far fewer than the 15% who were earning under £20,000.
The FCA study implied that a worrying number of unsophisticated investors cannot afford the losses that often feature in crypto markets and may not understand the risks.
Those who were least likely to understand that bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies were unregulated and therefore unprotected investments were more likely to be from the C2DE social bracket, including manual workers, state pensioners and those unemployed or on benefits.
Overall, typical cryptocurrency owners are:
:: 79% male
::69% over 35
::27% in the C2DE social grade with a lack of any basic understanding about what they were investing in.
However, while the risk to unsophisticated investors appears high, most cryptocurrency owners hold only small sums and are aware of the risks and lack of regulatory protections.
Around 35% of owners had bought in after seeing an advertisement, with that number higher for those who were naïve about the product and more likely to regret having invested.
The study also found most consumers treat them as a gamble rather than an investment, and only 15% regret having bought them. || In the Aftermath of Hack, Lawmakers Blame Twitter, Not Bitcoin: Wednesday’s Twitter hack would seem to spell regulatory doom for Bitcoin, which is widely distrusted in Washington. Some lawmakers – and U.S. President Donald Trump himself – associate it with crime.
In 2019 Trumptweetedhe is not a fan of bitcoin and that “unregulated crypto assets can facilitate unlawful behavior.” He alsoreportedly toldTreasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin to “go after Bitcoin.”
But immediately following the hack, lawmakers seemed more focused on Twitter’s security problems rather than cryptocurrency’s role in the hack.
Related:Twitter Hacker Is Mixing Bitcoin Loot Using a Wasabi Wallet, Elliptic Says
On Wednesday, high-profile accounts belonging to Elon Musk, Kanye West, Barack Obama, Joe Biden, cryptocurrency exchanges and many others were co-opted into abitcoinscam that netted the hackers at least $100,000. Twitter struggled to resolve the issue, even temporarily blocking verified accounts’ abilities to tweet and reset their passwords. Security experts said thehack was likely deep in Twitter’s system, and therefore is not a quick fix.
Lawmakers were quick to respond.
See also:CoinDesk’s full coverage of the Twitter hack
Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), a vocal critic of tech platforms, fired off anopen letter to Twitter CEO Jack Dorseysoon after the hack went mainstream. The event, he said, “may represent not merely a coordinated set of separate hacking incidents but rather a successful attack on the security of Twitter itself.”
Related:Money Reimagined: This Isn't Good for Bitcoin
Hawley also asked whether there was a risk that President Trump’s account could have been hacked and how many users might have had their data stolen.
Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) revealed he had met with Dorsey privately in 2018 and discussed implementing end-to-end encryption of users’ direct messages, which could contain sensitive information and may have been vulnerable during the hack. Wyden says Dorsey told him at the time that Twitter was working on encrypted DMs, but two years later it hadn’t delivered.
Read more:Twitter Hack 2020 Was Probably Done by a Bitcoiner – But Not a Savvy One
“This is a vulnerability that has lasted for far too long, and one that is not present in other, competing platforms. If hackers gained access to users’ DMs, this breach could have a breathtaking impact for years to come,” Wyden said in a statement.
Meanwhile, some crypto supporters in Washington, D.C., aren’t worried the hack will cause lasting damage to the industry.
Coin Center Director of Communications Neeraj Agrawal noted that while Twitter was compromised, Bitcoin (or crypto) was not. And if the hackers’ goal was to make money, they failed miserably: Only a scant $123,200 in bitcoin flowed through the wallet listed, and it’s likely some of those fundswere recycled through by the attackers.
The incident shines a spotlight on centralized points of failure, such as one individual on a single platform being able to compromise numerous accounts.
“Somebody who has limited access to the admin panel on Twitter was able to do so much damage because Twitter is a centralized server,” Agrawal said.
Agrawal doesn’t think the incident will have a huge impact on how lawmakers approach crypto.
“Even though maybe it’s been broadcast to more people than ever before, the kind of people who are watching it closely, like policymakers for example, see this and … they’re not surprised by the capability for this,” he said. “I hope that they see this, and they know that there’s nothing new here, there’s nothing to react to when it comes to Bitcoin policy.”
It remains to be seen whether the White House or senior administration officials decide to weigh in, but so far the response from lawmakers has been promising, said Kristin Smith, executive director of the Blockchain Association.
See also:After the Twitter Hack, We Need a User-Owned Internet More Than Ever
She pointedto a tweetfrom Rep. Tom Emmer (R-Minn.) as one example, noting he explicitly said centralized control was the issue behind Twitter’s hack.
“I would say 99% of policymakers are not thinking about blockchain or cryptocurrency. And so anytime that you have national headlines that deal with a hack of this size and magnitude, and Bitcoin is sort of involved in the process, for the uneducated it’s a bad association because they then think that Bitcoin is sort of a preferred tool of criminals. Those of us that work in the industry and know it, study it, the policymakers who spent the time to learn about it, know that that’s not the case,” Smith said.
Wednesday’s hack may prove to be a teachable moment for the crypto-skeptics, she said. Blockchain analytic firms are already watching the address the scammer used, and exchanges have begun blacklisting it, preventing potential victims from sending any funds to the account.
Agrawal said he hopes there is a conversation about the potential benefits of using crypto, such as byRussian political activistsor in trying to avoid currency freezes.
Read more:Russian Activists Use Bitcoin, and the Kremlin Doesn’t Like It
“We got lucky, because hackers have unprecedented access to a massively important system where so much damage [could have happened]. I mean, it’s mind numbing the amount of payoffs they could have caused in a few minutes. But instead they went for bitcoin,” he said.
James Comer (R-Ky.), head of the House Committee on Oversight and Reform,also sent a letter to Dorseydemanding the committee be briefed on everything from how quickly Twitter alerted the FBI to whether the hack was conducted by a foreign adversary. Comer, too, expressed concern over where direct messages were vulnerable.
“Twitter’s failure not only created an opportunity for criminals to perpetrate a crime broadcasted to millions of Twitter’s users, but the hackers’ potential breach of Twitter’s security poses broader risks regarding hackers’ access to private direct messages,” he said in the letter.
Senate Commerce Chair Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) alsosent Dorsey a letter, though it was less strident than Hawley’s. He said he was concerned about the potential for disinformation to be spread through such a hack, especially via high-profile accounts.
Rep. Frank Pallone (D-N.J.) said in a statement shared with CoinDesk the hack could have had “major consequences” on elections, calling on Twitter to “get to the bottom of the hack and implement necessary safeguards” to prevent a repeat.
Read more:Twitter Hack: Chainalysis and CipherTrace Confirm FBI Investigation
On a local level, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo directed the state to conduct a full investigation into the hack.
“With more than 300 million users, Twitter is a primary source of news for many, making it a target for bad actors. This type of hack by con artists for financial gain can also be a tool of foreign actors and others to spread disinformation and – as we’ve witnessed – disrupt our elections,” saidCuomo in a statement.
The hack is likely to continue to ratchet up pressure on social media companies, which are already facing scrutiny over content moderation, disinformation and foreign interference.
• In the Aftermath of Hack, Lawmakers Blame Twitter, Not Bitcoin
• In the Aftermath of Hack, Lawmakers Blame Twitter, Not Bitcoin
[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
None available.
|
Trend: down || Prices: 11878.37, 11592.49, 11681.83, 11664.85, 11774.60, 11366.13, 11488.36, 11323.40, 11542.50, 11506.87
|
Analyze the provided historical prices, technical indicators, news, and social media sentiment from the last 60 days. Based on this context, predict the overall trend (up, down, or no change) and the specific daily closing prices for Bitcoin for the next 10 days.
|
[Technical Analysis for 2016-12-23]
BTC Price: 921.98, BTC RSI: 90.23
Gold Price: 1131.90, Gold RSI: 30.01
Oil Price: 53.02, Oil RSI: 62.75
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
10 things you need to know before the opening bell: Santa surfing (A surfing instructor dressed as Santa Claus gives a lesson to orphans on Kuta Beach, Bali, Indonesia.Reuters/Antara Foto Agency) Here is what you need to know. Italy has reached a deal to save its banks . The Italian government has agreed to a 20 billion-euro ($20.9 billion) fund to aid its struggling banking system, Reuters reports. Monte Paschi, the world's oldest bank, requested a bailout just moments after a deal was completed. Bitcoin is zooming higher . The cryptocurrency is up 5.1%, or $44, to $905.50, bringing its year-t0-date gain to 117%. Bitcoin trades at its best level in three years. "Fallen angel" debt had its best year since 2003 . B onds issued by companies that were unexpectedly downgraded by credit rating agencies have generated a 37% total return in 2016, more than double the total return for the broader high yield market, according to Goldman Sachs. Putin says the Russian economy is on the mend . Speaking at an annual year-end news conference, Russian President Vladimir Putin said the economy is slowly healing as the capital flight fades and wages pick up, Reuters, reports. Deutsche Bank and Credit Suisse have reached settlements with the US . The two banks have agreed to settlements related to mortgage-backed securities totaling more than $12 billion, Reuters says. The US is suing Barclays over mortgage-backed securities . The Department of Justice is suing the bank and two former executives, saying more than half of the $31 billion worth of packaged mortgage loans defaulted during the financial crisis, a person familiar with the matter told Reuters. Twitter has had a rough week . The stock has tumbled 12% over the past week after a slew of top executive departures. Stock markets around the world are lower . China's Shanghai Composite (-0.9%) trailed in Asia and Spain's IBEX (-0.4%) lags in Europe. The S&P 500 is set to open up 0.2% near 2,262. US economic data flows. New home sales and University of Michigan consumer confidence will be released at 10 a.m. ET and the Baker Hughes rig count will cross the wires at 1 p.m. ET. The US 10-year yield is down 1 basis point at 2.54%. Story continues US markets are closed on Monday . US stock markets are open a full day on Friday, but the US Treasury market will see an early 2 p.m. ET close. More From Business Insider Apple's newest MacBook Pro is the first MacBook not recommended by Consumer Reports A deep-sea fisherman in Russia has been posting his nightmarish finds on Twitter Here's a super-quick guide to what traders are talking about right now || Bitcoin is flying after Donald Trump's victory: In May, a Juniper Research study (“Will Bitcoins Bite Back?“) predicted that the price of the digital currency bitcoin would jump if Donald Trump were elected. On Tuesday, Trump was elected, and bitcoin jumped. The currency is up nearly 3% since Tuesday night, hovering around $725.
“If Donald Trump becomes President of the US,” said Dr. Winslow Holdenin a statement with the study, “there is the very real prospect of turmoil on world markets… Bitcoin would thrive in such an environment.”
Bitcoin has in fact been on the rise all fall,not only because of the election. The price is up 19% in the last month, 23% in the last three months, and 68% in 2016. But in the next few days and perhaps months, the uncertainty after Trump’s win will likely serve as an accelerant.
Investors see bitcoin as a safe haven from fiat currencies (hence why it rises when the Chinese yuan falls), and an asset largely untied to mainstream markets. Gold typically behaves the same way, and indeed,gold shot up to $1,320 on Tuesday night as Trump closed in on the presidency, though it fell back to earth on Wednesday and is now at $1,275.
Bitcoin’s October rise has been mostly due to heightened activity in China, where the yuan is falling and the government has tightened capital controls. Bitcoin prices also spikedduring the bank shutdown in Greecelast year.
Juniper Research says the Brexit vote, back in June, is still having an impact as well: “The ongoing ramifications around Brexit are also likely to act as an additional spur for higher activity levels.”
IfBrexit helped contribute to a bitcoin bump, then Trump’s win is likely to do it, too. Many were quick to compare the surprising result of the US election to the EU referendum result. Trump, in the days before the election, told crowds that his win would be like “Brexit plus plus plus,” and nicknamed himself “Mr. Brexit.”
While Trump and bitcoin might seem to have something in common (Coin Telegraphmade the case that Trump would eventually cozy up to the coin), his campaign never accepted donations in bitcoin. Hillary Clinton’s campaign considered accepting donations in bitcoin, aleaked email thread revealed,but John Podesta was more intrigued by the digital currency Ven, writing that bitcoin suffers from a “libertarian Ayn Rand schtick.” Sen. Rand Paul and Gov. Gary Johnson were the only two presidential candidates to accept bitcoin.
It doesn’t matter now: Trump won, and bitcoin benefited without his support. The coin doesn’t need Trump to champion it in order to succeed.
The defining word of this US election is the same word that defined the Brexit vote: “uncertainty.” As the Juniper Research report noted, bitcoin’s price rose in the weeks leading up to the Brexit vote, then fell a little bit just before the vote when the outcome looked clear, then spiked when the outcome was, in fact, a big surprise. Expect the same to happen after Trump’s win.
—
Daniel Roberts is a writer at Yahoo Finance, covering technology and sports business. Follow him on Twitter at@readDanwrite.
Read more:
The latest bitcoin price surge isn’t just about Brexit
Here’s where big banks stand on blockchain
Why 21.co is the most exciting bitcoin company right now
Coinbase is more bullish on bitcoin than ever || Bitcoin soars to nearly three-year high in wake of China volatility: By Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss NEW YORK (Reuters) - Digital currency bitcoin on Tuesday surged to its highest in nearly three years as investors bought the asset in a supposedly safe-haven bid in the midst of volatility in the Chinese stock market. On Tuesday, bitcoin climbed as high $793.27 on the BitStamp platform, its highest since February 2014. Since August this year, bitcoin has soared 70 percent. Darin Stanchfield, founder and chief executive officer of bitcoin wallet KeepKey said bitcoin has benefited from uncertainty in the Chinese stock market. Mainland Chinese markets have been on the defensive the last two days due to a widely-anticipated interest rate increase by the Federal Reserve on Wednesday. Chinese stock markets though did finish higher on Tuesday. "Bitcoin has become a safe haven, though not like a mainstream safe haven. We have been seeing lots of volume from China and also India," Stanchfield said. According to digital currency research firm Coindesk, 95 percent of global bitcoin trading is done through Chinese exchanges. Bitcoin is a virtual currency that can be moved money around the world quickly and anonymously without the need for a central authority. That makes it attractive to those seeking to get around strict capital controls in countries like China. While China currently dominates the space, Chris Burniske, analyst at exchange traded fund manager ARK Invest, noted that bitcoin trading in Venezuela has also soared, rising seven-fold this year as inflation surged and the bolivar currency collapsed. Analysts said the groundwork for bitcoin gains was laid in July this year in a process called "halving", where the rewards offered to bitcoin miners shrink. That has constrained the supply of the digital currency. Bitcoin relies on so-called "mining" computers that validate blocks of transactions by competing to solve mathematical puzzles every 10 minutes. In return, the first to solve the puzzle and clear the transaction is rewarded new bitcoins. Before the halving in July, the miner's reward was 25 bitcoins. The bitcoin program was designed in such a way that it cut the reward for miners in half every four years, a move that was meant to keep a lid on inflation. "If you look back a couple of years when the mining rewards were halved as well, it did take a few months before the effect of the mining rewards kicked in," said KeepKey's Stanchfield. Stanchfield believes bitcoin could exceed the record high set in 2013 of more then $1,100. (Reporting by Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss,; additional reporting by Jemima Kelly in London; Editing by Andrew Hay) || Tips on How to Protect Your Private Information On Black Friday and Cyber Monday: Americans will line up around stores and standby their computers or smartphones to take advantage of Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals, but protecting their private information should also be priority for shoppers. During the holiday season many shoppers are harmed by failing to take simple precautions, says Gene Richardson, COO of Experts Exchange , a network for technology professionals. In Store Vs. Online Retail stores are one of the top areas identity thieves go after, Richardson said in an email to the IBTimes. A large number of some of the biggest identity thefts in the past few years were at large retail stores, he says. Long lines and busy cashiers could potentially put your private information at risk. “All the clerk cares about is getting you through the line as fast as they can so they can deal with the next customer and hope that none of you are angry,” says Richardson. “So, if there is a hiccup with your transaction, they will take “backup” paths to complete your transaction like entering your credit card number by hand.” Richardson, who is also the former head of the data security teams IBM, Charles Schwab and Motorola, says customers should never give their credit card to someone to perform a transaction by entering a card number. “Hand transactions are a huge risk for identity theft,” he says. Customers should also avoid buying if a cashier’s computer is down or too busy, unless it’s with cash, or try to go back later. Credit card scanners are also a threat to customers, as some of them may be rigged to copy a person’s information so that a duplicate credit card can be made. People may be less exposed to this action in large retail stores, but the risk is higher in smaller boutiques shops, says Richardson. Customers should also make sure their credit card number is not printed on receipts and should instead have XXX's where the number is displayed. But online purchases can be riskier because of all the extra information customers hand over, like their name, address, phone number, credit card information, expiration date and CSV. Story continues “They ask for so much more information from you to validate who you are than a purchase in a retail store,” says Richardson. “You have no control of who or where that information is going.” Tips to Protect Yourself Here are Richardson’s tips for shoppers on how they can protect themselves on Black Friday and Cyber Monday: Ensure that the website address is secure and has a valid encryption certificate. It will usually display a “locked, green” indicator in front of the website name. If it doesn’t have that, it does not have a higher level of security that has been guaranteed by a known entity like Verisign, Symantec and others. Ensure your system has the most recent recommended system and security patches. Always use a credit card that is not tied directly to your personal bank account(s), even if you are using PayPal, Bitcoin or some other payment method. Never give anything other than name, address and phone number. You should not need to answer security or privacy questions when making a purchase or checking out. If they ask, see if you can checkout as a “guest” instead. Monitor your credit through a third party for identify theft and have SMS and email alerts sent to you immediately. Set-up alerts with your credit card company that send both SMS and emails when any purchases are made and the credit card was not scanned (meaning, it wasn’t in someone’s hand when the charge was made). Set them as low as $25 per purchase. Also, set-up alerts for total purchases over $500 in a billing period to protect multiple $24.99 purchases. And if possible, a maximum amount of purchases allowed in a billing period such as $1500 before card will get declined. Ensure that you have a reputable Antivirus program running on your computer and that your browser has an Ad blocking plug-in. (Richardson recommends Norton, McAfee or ESET.) Ensure that the network your computer/device is on is secure and you know who has access to your network. This is usually done with your router. You want to lock down your router so that traffic can be initiated from the inside-out but you do not want traffic to be initiated from the outside-in. If you are using a WiFi connection, make sure that network is also secure and requires a password to join. If it is a public WiFi network that doesn’t require a password, then the traffic coming from your device can be monitored and stolen. (Link to onsite how-to article?) Any passwords that you use should be strong, hard to guess ones. Or, even better, hard to guess, but easy to remember . Don’t click on unfamiliar links to sites advertising sales, coupons, etc. Use two-factor authentication/verification, if it is offered. Shopping on Mobile Devices One in 10 mobile apps that are found through searching “Black Friday” are blacklisted as malicious, according to cyber security company RiskIQ An estimated 30 percent of purchases will be made on mobile devices, RiskIQ says. Shopping on mobile devices can substantially increase the risk of encountering phishing pages, malicious apps, and viruses that infect customers’ smartphones and tablets to steal money and private information. There are also fake apps out there that contain malware that can steal customers’ data or lock the device until the user pays a ransom, says RiskIQ. Other malicious apps may ask consumers to use their Facebook or Gmail logins, which could compromise their private information. Tips For Safe Shopping on Mobile Devices Here are some tips from RiskIQ: Ensure that you are only downloading apps from official app stores such as Google or Apple Be wary of applications that ask for suspicious permissions, like access to contacts, text messages, administrative features, stored passwords, or credit card info. Just because an app appears to have a good reputation doesn’t make it so. Rave reviews can be forged, and a high amount of downloads can simply indicate a threat actor was successful in fooling a lot of victims. Before downloading an app, be sure to take a look at the developer—if it’s not a brand you recognize or has a strange appearance or spelling, think twice. You can even do a Google search on the developer for more clues about its reputation. Make sure to take a deep look at each app. New developers, or developers that leverage free email services (e.g., @gmail) for their developer contact, can be enormous red flags— threat actors often use these services to produce mass amounts of malicious apps in a short period. Also, poor grammar in the description highlights the haste of development and the lack of marketing professionalism that are hallmarks of mobile malware campaigns. Check website addresses after following links on Twitter, Facebook, or other social media channels to be sure you end up on the true website of the retailer you want. Look for the “S” in HTTPS when you visit shopping sites. Beware of shopping sites that do not use HTTPS in their website addresses or do not display the symbol of a lock next to the web address. Secure sites use HTTPS, and without that, you’re dealing with unsecured connections or weak encryption of personal data. Never provide your credit card information unless you are in a secure online shopping portal. Sites that ask for it in return for “coupons” or to win “free” merchandise are almost always scams. Protect Yourself From a Major Headache For those who might not want to go through the hassle of setting up credit card alerts on purchases or locking down their router, it’s important to remember that it can and save consumers from a major headache. “Identity theft could cost you several thousand dollars in actual money and can cost you a lot more in your personal time and future anticipated losses cleaning up after the fact,” Richardson said. “The impact of identity theft could last years as you personally have to work to call all your creditors to fix your credit, loss of credibility for future purchases of a home, car, etc. as your credit scores will have been impacted, the effect on future employment opportunities as background checks are run and many, many more,” he added. Related Articles $100 Off HTC Vive On Black Friday and Cyber Monday American Consumers Prep For Cyber Monday || Swiss rail operator to sell bitcoins at its ticket machines: ZURICH (Reuters) - Switzerland's national railways firm SBB is branching out next month with the launch of a new service on its ticket machines to sell bitcoins, the web-based digital currency. Beginning Nov. 11, customers will be able to trade Swiss francs for bitcoins using the ticket machines in a two-year experiment that will test Switzerland's appetite for the cryptocurrency, the state-owned company announced on Friday. "There have been few possibilities to obtain bitcoins in Switzerland until now," SBB said. "With its 1,000-plus ticket machines, SBB operates a dense, around-the-clock distribution network that's suited for more than just ticket sales." SBB is working with Zug-based digital payments firm SweePay to allow customers to top up their digital 'bitcoin wallet' accounts by mobile phone. Customers can exchange anywhere between 20 and 500 Swiss francs ($20-503) per transaction. SBB will act as distributor, while the exchange will be performed by SweePay and require users to hold an account with a wallet service that allows storage of the digital currency. Bitcoin is known for allowing users to move money across the world quickly and relatively anonymously but, on the Swiss ticket machines, users won't be able to procure it without a trace: customers will need to identify themselves using a Swiss mobile phone. While bitcoins can be purchased, they won't be accepted as payment at the machines, meaning ticket revenues will be unaffected by changes in the bitcoin exchange rate. ($1 = 0.9943 Swiss francs) (Reporting by Brenna Hughes Neghaiwi; Editing by Greg Mahlich) || The 'failure' of election polling was about 3 key things: Before voting began on Election Day, nearly every major poll was predicting a Hillary Clinton win by 2-4 percentage points. When the smoke cleared Wednesday morning, Donald Trump had won.
In the wake of Trump’s surprise win, arguably the biggest fascination has been the failure of the polls.Politicoasked, “How did everyone get it so wrong?”Fusionasked how it went “so, so, so wrong?”Harvard Business Reviewwrote that pollsters were “completely and utterly wrong.”
Yes, the polling was wrong—but the reasons why are numerous, and nuanced, and will take a long time to fully parse and understand. In addition, it wasn’t just the polls that went wrong, but also the media’s interpretation of the polls.
One of the biggest theories as to what the polls missed was the idea of “shy Trump voters” who didn’t want to say when polled that they were planning to vote for Trump, but always knew.
White women, in particular, proved to be a surprise: 53% of them voted for Trump overall, led by those without a college degree, who went for Trump by a 2-1 margin. White women with a college degree went for Clinton, but only barely, by six percentage points. “There’s your shy Trump vote,”tweeted Kristen Soltis Anderson, a pollster at Echelon Insights.
Andersonlater addedthat a bigger problem than secret Trump voters was “a phony mirage of a Clinton vote.” Trump got fewer votes than McCain did in 2008 and Romney did in 2012 and won anyway, because too many Democrats didn’t vote.
Indeed, polling also fails to account for turnout, which was the lowest overall it has been since 2000. (Latino turnout was up from 2012 and skewed toward Clinton, but not by enough to beat Trump.) All non-white ethnic groups went for Clinton, as did millennials—but not enough of them voted.
AsHarvard Business Reviewpoints out, “People tend to say they’re going to vote even when they won’t… the failure of a complex likely voter model is why Gallup got out of the election forecasting business.”
As much as big data (and the technology to sift through it) has advanced, our methods of gathering data are still dated. Most of the national polls are still done by landline telephone. And that has been a problem for over a decade now.
In 2003, Gallup wrote a post about thefalling response ratesin polls. If you start with a target sample size of 1,000 households, Gallup wrote, at least 200 households fall out because they are businesses or non-working numbers. Of the 800 left, another 200 “may be unreachable in the time frame allocated by the researcher… household members at these numbers may use caller ID or other screening devices and refuse to answer.” Now you’re down to 600, of which 200 more people may pick up the phone but refuse to participate in the poll. Suddenly, the sample size has shrunk from 1,000 to a mere 400 households. Declining to pick up the phone, or declining to participate in the poll, may have been a particular problem with this election polling.
The shrinking sample size is a significant problem. As pollster Andersontweeted, the “only way you can bring down margin of error is to raise sample size.” That’s not easily done.
In an interview withBloomberg, Iowa pollster J. Ann Selzer pointed to “the continuing barrier of the lack of landlines, the erosion of landlines” as a particular problem this cycle. Bloombergwrote it in October: “Your mobile phone is killing the polling industry.” And Matthew Nisbet atThe Breakthroughnoted back in 2012, “Other under-reported sources of error also factor into a poll’s accuracy, including the greater reliance on cell phones.”
Online polling is a newer method, but has its own problems. Trump campaign managerKellyanne Conway said back in August, after a Trump dip in the polls, that the candidate “performs consistently better in online polling where a human being is not talking to another human being about what he or she may do in the elections.” TheWashington Postpointed out that this wasn’t the case overall—on average, Trump wasn’t doing better in online polls than in telephone polls.
However, a Morning Consult post from Nov. 3 (with nearly the now-suspect headline, “Yes, there are shy Trump voters. No, they won’t swing the election”) pointed out that Trump was doing 1% better in online polls than phone polls, a difference small enough to be dismissed. But here was the key line in the Morning Consult post: “Trump’s edge over Clinton online instead of in phone polling is especially pronounced among people with a college degree or people who make more than $50,000… more-educated voters were notably less likely to say they were supporting Trump during a phone poll than in an online survey.” That was the exact slice of voters that went for Trump more than anyone expected.
So it isn’t black-and-white whether phone or online polls are better, and it isn’t clear that phone polls should die; but it is clear that methods of polling need to evolve and improve, and that the best route to get as many data sets as possible is a combination of different methods.
After an initial immediate backlash to the polls, a newer narrative is already emerging: the polls didn’t fail as terribly as everyone is saying they did.
Many are pointing out that Clinton looks likely to win the popular vote (although barely, and by a smaller margin than Gore won it in 2000). If Clinton does win the popular vote by around one percentage point, then polls that showed Clinton winning by two or three points were only one or two points inflated. Moreover, polls come with a margin of error that in many cases did cover the eventual difference.
The problem is that in a 140-character media landscape, margin of error is often left out, or squeezed into posts and articles as an asterisk.
The election polls were actually off by less than Brexit polls were off. And Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight pointed out on Thursday morning that this year’s polls were in fact more accurate than in 2012. That year, polls generally predicted a slim Obama win margin of 1 percentage point, and he won by 4 points. This time, the polls gave Clinton a margin of 3-4 points, and she looks likely to win the popular vote by 1 or 2.
Of course, that defense won’t exactly quell outrage over the polling (just look at the replies to Silver’s tweet), because the polls in 2012 didn’t call the wrong winner. There’s a big difference between Obama winning by a larger margin than polls said he’d win by, and Trump winning when polls said Clinton would win.
And to be sure, a fair retort to Silver and others claiming that the polls weren’tthatwrong is that the result here was binary: polls could either predict the right winner or the wrong winner. Almost all of them predicted the wrong winner.
Polls are estimates. They are aprojectionof what appears likely to happen, within a margin of error. But we take them too literally. As Fairleigh Dickinson University professor Peter Woolleytold Bloomberg, “We tend to over-report the accuracy of the poll, and tend to forget very quickly that it’s an estimate within a range.” The biggest problem with the polls this time around, then, wasn’t actually the polls, but our interpretation of them.
Because the vast majority of the polls (all of them but two, from USC/LA Times and IBD/TIPP) had Clinton winning, the media and the public counted on a Clinton win, ignoring the fact that most polls had her winning only slightly, and many had a margin of error that allowed for the opposite result. The volume and noise drowned out nuance.
In a September article inThe Atlantic(appropriately headlined, “Taking Trump seriously”), Salena Zito wrote of Trump, “The press takes him literally, but not seriously; his supporters take him seriously, but not literally.” The media spent time picking over everything Trump said as though he were serious, when he often wasn’t, and didn’t take him seriously as a legitimate threat to Clinton; his voters didn’t worry too much about each individual shocking sound bite, but took him seriously as a candidate.
In a column published after Trump’s victory,Maureen Dowdof The New York Times pointed to Zito’s line as a “prescient” one, and it truly was—it describes not just the result of the election, but the problem with how the media embraced the polls. Pundits – and the public – took the polls literally.
Many are now asking whether polls are even useful if they can be so wrong. Does the Trump surprise win kill the polling industry? Hardly. Polling isn’t going anywhere, but the methods need to improve, and we must temper our embrace of the predictions they yield. They are only that: predictions.
—
Daniel Roberts is a writer at Yahoo Finance, covering sports business and technology. Follow him on Twitter at @readDanwrite.
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What it was like to listen to Trump and Clinton debate on the radio || The Linux Foundation Appoints Three Tech Industry Leaders to Its Board of Directors: SAN FRANCISCO, CA --(Marketwired - November 02, 2016) - The Linux Foundation, the nonprofit organization enabling mass innovation through open source, today announced the appointment of Erica Brescia, co-founder and COO of Bitnami; Jeff Garzik, co-founder of Bloq; and Nithya A. Ruff, director of Western Digital's Open Source Strategy Office, to its Board of Directors. Ms. Ruff and Ms. Brescia join as At-Large Directors, and Mr. Garzik comes on board as the representative of Linux Foundation Silver members. Ms. Brescia and Ms. Ruff will take the place of Larry Augustin and Bdale Garbee as At-Large Directors. Mr. Garzik replaces Matt Jones of Jaguar Land Rover. "The Board of Directors and the entire Linux Foundation organization are delighted to welcome Nithya, Erica and Jeff," said Jim Zemlin, executive director. "They will help guide the strategy of The Linux Foundation, the home to some of the most successful open source projects and largest shared technology investment in history. The open source community at large and our nearly 800 members will benefit from the insight and expertise each of these individuals brings. We thank Larry, Bdale and Matt for their long and faithful service on the Board and look forward to their continued participation in the community." New Directors Bring Diversity of Perspectives Erica Brescia Ms. Brescia is the co-founder and chief operating officer of Bitnami. With more than one million deployments per month, Bitnami provides the largest source of applications and development environments to the world's leading cloud service providers, such as Amazon AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google Compute Platform and Oracle Cloud Platform. Prior to co-founding Bitnami, Ms. Brescia held various sales and management positions at T-Mobile, as well as working as a consultant with Chekiang First Bank in Hong Kong. She holds a B.S. in business administration from the University of Southern California. Ms. Brescia has been a dedicated builder of diverse, globally distributed technology and business teams, and has been featured as a keynote speaker at OpenStack Summit and OSCON. To further those goals, Bitnami founded the Bitnami Bootcamp, which provides free education and training on cloud, open source and containers, for recent college graduates and self-taught technologists living in southern Spain. As a YC Founder, Ms. Brescia is also an active mentor of aspiring entrepreneurs in the technology and related industries, as well as being an angel investor in a number of early stage startups. "Open source technologies make possible the incredibly rapid innovation that we see in tech-driven sectors today," Ms. Brescia commented. "Shared R&D in the form of open source helps companies like Bitnami thrive, while creating value for others. I'm proud to be a part of the organization that's propelling that collaboration." Story continues Jeff Garzik Mr. Garzik has long been at the center of developing and commercializing open source software surrounding bitcoin and blockchain. Before co-founding Bloq to develop enterprise-grade blockchain solutions, he spent five years as a Bitcoin core developer, and 10 years at Red Hat. His work with the Linux kernel is now found in every Android phone and data center running Linux today. Mr. Garzik serves on the board of Coin Center and the advisory boards of BitPay, Chain, Netki and WayPaver Labs. He was also recently appointed to the World Economic Forum Expert Network as an expert in Information Technology. "I'm excited to bring Bloq's expertise in developing blockchain software to The Linux Foundation," Mr. Garzik said. "Projects like Hyperledger are emblematic of the future of open source: bringing together the efforts of developers to fundamentally alter global finance, digital identity and beyond." Nithya Ruff Ms. Ruff first glimpsed the power of open source while at SGI in the 1990s and has been building bridges between hardware developers and the open source community ever since. She's also held leadership positions at Wind River (an Intel Company), Synopsys, Avaya, Tripwire and Eastman Kodak. Ms. Ruff has been a passionate advocate and a speaker for opening doors to new people in open source for many years. She has also been a promoter of valuing diverse ways of contributing to open source, such as in marketing, legal and community. She is co-leader of the Women of OpenStack group and a liaison into the OpenStack Foundation, as well as a sponsor of the Women in Open Source (WIOS) Lunch at Linux Foundation events and an active leader of WIOS advocating for reducing barriers for women and underrepresented minorities. In 2015, Ms. Ruff was invited by Red Hat to be on a diversity leaders' panel at the "All Things Open" conference. In recognition of her work in open source both on the business and community side, Ms. Ruff was named to CIO magazine's most influential women in open source list. Ms. Ruff was also the founding president of the Women's Innovation Network at Western Digital, which is dedicated to the development of women's highest potential in the workplace. Ms. Ruff said: "I've been fortunate to work in an environment at Western Digital that values the contributions of every individual and that encourages diversity in open source communities. Through its training, events and now projects, The Linux Foundation is working to create an inclusive open source culture that stretches across organizations. I anticipate being able to help deepen that work as more industry professionals of all backgrounds get involved in open source." About The Linux Foundation The Linux Foundation is the organization of choice for the world's top developers and companies to build ecosystems that accelerate open technology development and commercial adoption. Together with the worldwide open source community, it is solving the hardest technology problems by creating the largest shared technology investment in history. Founded in 2000, The Linux Foundation today provides tools, training and events to scale any open source project, which together deliver an economic impact not achievable by any one company. More information can be found at www.linuxfoundation.org . The Linux Foundation has registered trademarks and uses trademarks. For a list of trademarks of The Linux Foundation, please see our trademark usage page: https://www.linuxfoundation.org/trademark-usage . Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds. View comments || Bitcoin hits highest levels in almost three years: By Jemima Kelly
LONDON (Reuters) - Web-based digital currency bitcoin hit its highest levels in almost three years on Friday, extending gains since India sparked a cash shortage by removing high-denomination bank notes from circulation a month ago.
Bitcoin was trading as high as $774 on the New York-based itBit exchange, up almost 1 percent on the day and the highest since February 2014, having climbed almost 9 percent in the past month.
Bitcoin is a cash alternative that can be used for moving money across the globe quickly and anonymously with no need for a central authority to process transactions. It has climbed around 80 percent so far this year, far exceeding its 35 percent rise in 2015.
Indian prime minister Narendra Modi announced a shock move on Nov. 8 to ditch 500 and 1,000 rupee notes - worth a combined $256 billion - that he said were fuelling corruption, being forged and even paying for attacks by militants who target India.
The cryptocurrency's value has been highly volatile - after rocketing above $1,100 in 2013, it had fallen to around $150 by early 2015. But it has since stabilized, staying above $500 for the past six months.
(Reporting by Jemima Kelly; Editing by Jamie McGeever) || Bitcoin price soars, but it isn't about Trump and Clinton: The price of bitcoin has soared 23% in the last month and is now approaching its 2016 peak of around $765 in June. The coin is up 66% since January. At its current price of $728 at the time of writing, bitcoin’s market cap is nearly $12 billion.
So, what’s stoking the ride?
You might think the US presidential election, just five days away now, has something to do with it. And indeed, aJuniper Research studyfrom back in May (“Will Bitcoins Bite Back?“) predicted the bitcoin price would spike right before the election, due to market uncertainty. Specifically, the study determined that a win by Donald Trump would boost the bitcoin price: “If Donald Trump becomes President of the US, there is the very real prospect of turmoil on world markets,” said Dr. Winslow Holden in a Juniper press release about the report. “Bitcoin would thrive in such an environment, at least until the impact on major fiat currencies becomes clear.”
Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton’s campaign considered accepting donations in the form of bitcoin, aleaked email thread revealed. But John Podesta was more intrigued by the digital currency Ven, writing: “I don’t send all the crazy ideas I hear about at fundraisers your way, but this seems interesting and legit. Essentially digital currency with a green angle as opposed to bitcoin’s libertarian Ayn Rand schtick… see if it’s worth a real conversation?” UltimatelyClinton’s campaign decided not to accept bitcoin.Trump’s campaign did accept bitcoin.
Despite the timing so close to the election, the bitcoin community consensus is that the October price spike isn’t from Clinton or Trump: it’s China driving the surge.
The Chinese yuanhas fallen 4.3% against the US dollarin the last six months, and thePeople’s Bank of China has cracked downwith stricter capital controls.
China and a falling yuan is almost always cited as the biggest factor when the price of bitcoin rises. The thinking is that Chinese investors seek a safe haven in bitcoin, which is an asset largely untied to mainstream markets. (This alsohappened to an extent in Greece during its bank shutdownlast year and ishappening right now in Venezuela.) Often,it’s actually something else. This time around, the data supports the idea that the interest is coming from China.
Nearly 99% of all global bitcoin trading activity happening right now is happening in Chinese yuan. (It’s worth noting that some bitcoin people doubt Chinese exchange data because it could be inflated or meaningless due to very low fees that prompt empty trading activity.)
Bitcoin trading volume in the Chinese yuan is up more than 20% in the past 30 days, based on charts frombitcoincharts.com,bitcoinity.organdcoinmarketcap.com. If you check out the sitefiatleak.com, which maps bitcoin purchases in real-time, the overwhelming majority of activity right now is in yuan (CNY).
“It does seem like a cop-out sometimes when everyone says it’s China, but in this case, the data supports it,” says Alex Sunnarborg, CFO ofLawnmower, a digital currency trading and data app. Bitcoin trading volume on Lawnmower is up 40% in the past two weeks from the typical two-week average.
Sunnarborg adds that whenever the bitcoin price spikes significantly, regardless of the reason, it feeds on itself and drives it higher. “People see that demand and feel that FOMO [fear of missing out], which drives a lot of new people in. The market is so thin and new, people are hunting for news, so anything you hear has an immediate effect. It goes the opposite way as well—if you read bad news about bitcoin prices, the market has a tendency to panic. That’s what Ethereum is doing right now.”
Indeed, the price of ether (ETH), arival coin that trades on the separate Ethereum blockchain, isdown 17% in the past month. In July, Ethereum completed a “hard fork” that essentially reset its network after a major hack in June. Keep in mind that ether only launched just over one year ago, and is up nearly 300% since then, to $11 per coin. But its recent fall has been a boon to bitcoin, Sunnarborg reasons.
“If you look at ethereum communities right now, people are a little scared, and the bitcoin vs ethereum chasm does go back and forth,” says Sunnarborg. “Whenever you see strength in the bitcoin network, volume goes back into bitcoin.”
Ripple, another popular digital currency (XRP) that came along after bitcoin (in 2012), is also down 4% in the last week.
There’s one other bitcoin factor driving the price up: this month, a sort of voting period will begin for whether to implement “segregated witness,” a proposed solution to bitcoin’s ongoing block-size debate.
Huh? Let’s step back: bitcoin is traded on the bitcoin blockchain, a decentralized, permissionless, peer-to-peer ledger that records every single bitcoin transaction. On the bitcoin blockchain, bundles of transactions are added to the chain by “miners” who receive a small reward in bitcoin for doing the mining; think of them as librarians recording the date and borrower of a book, or as court stenographers recording the history of bitcoin trades. (For more, watch the below video.)
The speed of the blockchain has slowed in the last year under the weight of activity, and the bitcoin community has argued amongst itself over whether to raise the size limit of each block. The speed at which the bitcoin blockchain operates is of crucial importance, since it is often compared to the payment rails of big mainstream processors like Visa.
“Segregated witness” was one popular proposal: an update to the bitcoin software that would allow miners to raise the size capacity on individual blocks without raising the capacity of the entire blockchain for good, and without doing a “hard fork” (which would split the blockchain into two) like Ethereum just did. Think of it like a Brinks armored car, which hauls bags of cash. Rather than having all the cars start using bigger bags, Segregated Witness (bitcoin people are calling it SegWit for short) is like allowing each driver to start using a few bigger bags just in cases where a bigger bag is needed.
Beginning on Nov. 15, bitcoin miners can signal, with each block they mine, whether or not they support Segregated Witness. It should help more transactions go through faster. After one year, if 95% of the blocks have signaled that they like it, Segregated Witness will go into full effect for the Bitcoin Core software.
Why does all this matter for the price of bitcoin? It might not matter for the casual outside speculator, but for wonky bitcoin insiders, the implementation of SegWit is an exciting milestone, and may contribute a little bit to the price hike. “I think SegWit was a big market move,” says Sunnarborg. “SegWit has been talked about for so long that if there had been a huge delay or problem announced, we would have seen the market swing the other way. But now it’s bringing demand from the community to go back into bitcoin.”
While the Chinese yuan has been the biggest factor in boosting the bitcoin price, the beginning of SegWit and general US market uncertainty are not unrelated. And the election almost certainly will play a larger role right after it ends. If Trump somehow wins, expect bitcoin to soar.
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Daniel Roberts is a writer at Yahoo Finance, covering technology and sports business. Follow him on Twitter at@readDanwrite.
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Coinbase is more bullish on bitcoin than ever || First Bitcoin Capital Acquires Large Stake in One of the Oldest Mineable Cryptocoins Ranked High on Coin Market Cap; Also, Company’s Digital Shares Are Now Listed on Two International Cryptocurrency Exchanges: VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESSWIRE / November 30, 2016 / First Bitcoin Capital Corp. ( BITCF ) is pleased to announce that it has sold its Venezuela mining concessions for a large stake in the cryptocurrency of one of the oldest mineable coins that ranks high on Coin Market Cap. See: http://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/kilocoin/ . Kilocoin which is similar to Litecoin primarily trades on a popular cryptocurrency exchange at https://c-cex.com/?p=klc-btc A list of its nodes can be found via https://c-cex.com/?id=ws&shownodes=klc Kilocoin mining can be tracked at https://www.blockexperts.com/klc# From its web site via http://kilocoin.com/ their wallet can be downloaded. At its current rate of mining (159 coins per block) it should take centuries to reach the maximum of 25,000,000,000 mineable coins with a little over 10,000,000,000 coins mine thus far, giving BITCF nearly 10% participation. The Company anticipates that the KLC exchange will boost BITCF's balance sheet with tremendous upside potential and may become a source of future dividends. Differences from Bitcoin and Litecoin and Kilocoin Bitcoin Litecoin Kilocoin Coin limit 21 Million 84 Million 25 Billion Algorithm SHA-256 Scrypt Scrypt Mean block time 10 minutes 2.5 minutes 5 minutes Difficulty Target 2016 Block 2016 Blocks 288 Blocks Initial Reward 50 BTC 50 LTC 159 KLC Current block reward 25 BTC 50 LTC 159 LTC Block explorer blockchain.info block-explorer.com https://www.blockexperts.com/klc# Created by Satoshi Nakamoto Charles Lee Kilocoin, Inc (DAC) Creation date January 3, 2009 October 7, 2011 Feb 27th, 2014 Coins Mined (as of 8 April 2015) 14,029,116.67 37,984,800 10,013,105,152 Furthermore, in conjunction with BITCF's expanding ownership of its common shares onto its own blockchain (BIT) and trading on foreign international cryptocurrency exchanges, the company is proud to announce that its digital shares are now trading on an additional, popular cryptocurrency exchange, LIVECOIN www.livecoin.net . Story continues About the company: First Bitcoin Capital is engaged in developing digital currencies, proprietary Blockchain technologies, and the digital currency exchange- www.CoinQX.com . We see this step as a tremendous opportunity to create further shareholder value by leveraging management's experience in developing and managing complex Blockchain technologies, developing new types of digital assets. "Being the first publicly-traded cryptocurrency and blockchain-centered company (with shares both traded in the US OTC Markets as [BITCF] and as [BIT] in crypto exchanges) we want to provide our shareholders with diversified exposure to digital cryptocurrencies and blockchain technologies." At this time the Company owns and operates the following digital assets. www.BITCoinCapitalcorp.com company website. www.CoinQX.com Cryptocurrency Exchange, registered with FINCEN. www.iCoiNEWS.com real time cryptocurrency and bitcoin news site. www.BITminer.cc providing mining pool management services. www.2016coin.org online daily election coverage and home page for $PRES, $HILL and $GARY $BURN coins. Forward-Looking Statements Certain statements contained in this press release may constitute "forward-looking statements." Forward-looking statements provide current expectations of future events based on certain assumptions and include any statement that does not directly relate to any historical or current fact. Actual results may differ materially from those indicated by such forward-looking statements as a result of various important factors as may be disclosed in company's filings. In addition to these factors, actual future performance, outcomes, and results may differ materially because of more general factors including (without limitation) general industry and market conditions and growth rates, economic conditions, and governmental and public policy changes. The forward-looking statements included in this press release represent the Company's views as of the date of this press release and these views could change. However, while the Company may elect to update these forward-looking statements at some point in the future, the Company specifically disclaims any obligation to do so. These forward-looking statements should not be relied upon as representing the Company's views as of any date subsequent to the date of the press release. Such forward-looking statements are risks that are detailed in the Company's filings, which are on file at www.OTCMarkets.com . SOURCE: First Bitcoin Capital Corp.
[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
Invista apenas uma vez 0,02 BTC & Ganhe 2,000,000 mês BTC (Emprego a tempo parcial) Visite o site e saiba mais
https://www.bitcoin4u.biz/sandroesm1983 || MMMBTC || A Look To The Future: Why Cryptocurrencies Will Be Needed for Space Colonies Via cryptocoinsnews #bitcoin #bAgilepic.twitter.com/VbZ6nuDtAI || 1 DOGE Price: Bter 0.00000033 BTC #doge #dogecoin 2016-11-08 00:31 pic.twitter.com/h53caEiZZD || MMMBTC || How To Convert #Bitcoin Into #Ethereum (or any other #Cryptocurrency) http://buff.ly/2efFtqO || 1 #bitcoin está custando R$2738.98 na FoxBit. Acesse http://bit.ly/FoxBit e negocie com as menores taxas do Brasil. || How you could really make money from bitcoin,saving money for christmas. http://ow.ly/2bKZ307dLrO || http://ift.tt/2hM7SDX ETF Rotational System Update — Dynamic Momentum Trading — Informational Only #Bitcoin #Blockchain || A shorter answer: Nothing about Bitcoin needs to change anything to please anyone. This isn't democracy. Deal with it.
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Trend: up || Prices: 898.82, 896.18, 907.61, 933.20, 975.92, 973.50, 961.24, 963.74, 998.33, 1021.75
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Analyze the provided historical prices, technical indicators, news, and social media sentiment from the last 60 days. Based on this context, predict the overall trend (up, down, or no change) and the specific daily closing prices for Bitcoin for the next 10 days.
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[Technical Analysis for 2017-01-12]
BTC Price: 804.83, BTC RSI: 40.01
Gold Price: 1198.90, Gold RSI: 63.20
Oil Price: 53.01, Oil RSI: 55.00
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
10 things you need to know before the opening bell: Breathing fire (A Houthi militant displays his skills during a parade held by newly recruited Houthi fighters before heading to the frontline to fight against government forces, in Sanaa, Yemen.Reuters/Khaled Abdullah) Here is what you need to know. Friday is jobs day in America . The US economy is expected to have added 170,000 nonfarm jobs as the unemployment rate ticked up to 7.4%, according to a survey of economists by Bloomberg. Additionally, average hourly earnings are anticipated to have climbed 2.8% year-over-year. The data will cross the wires at 8:30 a.m. ET. A new king of auto sales has been throned in China . Honda saw sales surge 24 percent YoY to 1.25 million vehicles in 2016, surpassing rival Toyota as the number one automaker in China, Reuters says. Australia's first recession in 25 years could be on hold . The country recorded a surprise trade surplus in November, the first since March 2014, and if repeated in December it is expected to add enough to fourth quarter growth to prevent the first recession since 1991. The Australian dollar is little changed at .7341 against the dollar. A second Scottish referendum isn't happening . Prime minister Nicola Sturgeon has abandoned her plans to hold a second referendum to keep Scotland in the European Union, saying that she has accepted "reality." The British pound is down 0.3% at 1.2364 versus the dollar. Bitcoin is crashing again . The cryptocurrency crashed as much as 23% on Thursday, touching a low of $888.99 per coin before finishing the day near $968. Selling has picked back up on Friday with bitcoin lower by 13.5% at $886. Frontier Airlines is planning to go public . The low-cost carrier has hired Deutsche Bank, JPMorgan, and Evercore to help with its initial public offering, the New York Times says. There's finally some good news from the retail sector . Gap announced sales at stores that have been open at least one year rose by 4% versus a year ago, compared to the 1.7% drop that analysts were anticipating, and raised its full-year profit forecast. Shares traded higher by as much as 10% in Thursday's after hours session. Story continues US mall vacancies were flat in the fourth quarter . Vacancies held at 7.8%, Reuters reports, citing data compiled by Reis. Stock markets around the world are mostly lower . China's Shanghai Composite (-0.4%) lagged in Asia and France's CAC (-0.5%) trails in Europe. The S&P 500 is on track to open higher by 0.2% near 2,268. US economic data is heavy. Aside from the jobs report, the trade balance will be released at 8:30 a.m. ET and both factory orders and durable goods orders will cross the wires at 10 a.m. ET. The Baker Hughes rig count will be announced at 1 p.m. ET. The US 10-year yield is up 1 basis point at 2.35%. More From Business Insider Former CIA director James Woolsey has split with Trump, 'effective immediately' Learning Excel isn't just for finance professionals — here's how it can boost anyone's productivity at work Here's a super-quick guide to what traders are talking about right now || Bitcoin Activity in India Has Doubled Since the Banknote Ban: Early in November, Indiaabolishedthe 500 and 1000 rupee banknotes in an effort to fight corruption and so-called "black money". Since then, interest in Bitcoin appears to be increasing in the Asian country based on a variety of different metrics. Although there was already a vibrant Bitcoin community in India, the recent move to clamp down on illegal income and tax evasion seems to have sparked new interest in the peer-to-peer digital cash system.
So who uses Bitcoin in India? According toSunny Ray, who is the president and co-founder of Indian bitcoin exchangeUnocoin, there are two main categories of Bitcoin users in the country.Inan interviewwithBitcoin Uncensoredco-hostChris DeRosejust before the large denomination banknote ban was put into place, Ray claimed that 40 to 50 percent of their users are savers who view bitcoin as a digital gold. "India is the largest gold market in the world," said Ray. "If you couple that with—I think it's something like 20 or 25 percent of the world's programming and IT population also live in India—digital gold is obviously something that I think people have the capacity to get."Ray also noted that roughly 20 percent of Unocoin's users are freelancers who use Bitcoin as a cheaper alternative to PayPal. Ray noted that Bitcoin currently offers what are essentially negative fees for freelancers based in India because of the relatively higher price bitcoins sell for in the country.During the Bitcoin Uncensored interview, Ray stressed that his estimates should be taken with a grain of salt, as the very nature of Bitcoin makes it difficult to get real user data.
So what's happened since India got rid of the 500 and 1000 rupee banknotes? For starters, Ray toldCoinJournalthat Unocoin has seen a doubling in traffic and trading volume over the past 30 days.An increase in trading volumecan also be seenonLocalBitcoins, where the daily volume has increased from around 1.25 million rupees (around $18,500) per day before the cash ban to around 2.5 million rupees per day in early December. There was also an all-time high of more than 5.5 million rupees (just over $81,000) worth of bitcoin traded on November 26th.
It's important to remember that LocalBitcoins trading volume is a rather rough metric because many traders continue exchanging bitcoins off of the site after finding someone they trust.
Bitcoin currently trades at a high premium in India due to capital controls in India, which make it difficult for Bitcoin companies, such as Unocoin, to settle against foreign exchanges; however, Unocoin is currently working on a method to bring more bitcoin liquidity into the Indian market.In ablog poston their website,BitGohas noted the value of India-based transactions co-signed by them has increased by 240 percent since September.
While there's been a nice uptick in Bitcoin activity in India over the past month or so, Ray believes the larger effects of India's removal of the 500 and 1000 rupee banknotes from circulation will be seen over the long term.
"Right now, people are being very careful with their spending," said Ray. "We think it will be long term because with all of the restrictions, the push towards digital money, and the amount of new money that's entering the banking system, some of that will find a home in bitcoin." || First Bitcoin Capital Corp Announces Appointment of Bitcoin Protocol Development Expert Patrick Dugan to the Company’s Board of Directors. Additional Developments Announced: VANCOUVER, B.C. / ACCESSWIRE / November 23, 2016 /First Bitcoin Capital Corp is pleased to announce that leading bitcoin protocol development expert in the crypto currency field Patrick Dugan has joined the company's Board of Directors.
A serial entrepreneur with several years of experience in blockchain, finance, ecommerce and game development, Mr. Dugan has extensive knowledge of complex securitization structures and trading strategies.
Mr. Dugan brings 9 years of trading experience, with over 3 years in cryptocurrency trading, averaging 50% annual returns. He served as a consultant on social game economics, and market making operations for exchanges.
Mr. Dugan has served for the last year and a half as operations manager for the Omni Layer Foundation (previously Mastercoin), and has been involved in the issuance of the world's first bearer bonds on the Bitcoin blockchain.
"Patrick Dugan is well known in the international crypto-currency space," the company said. "He brings a wealth of strategic experience in finance and blockchain business development. We look forward to his contributions as a member of our Board as we advance the development of the world’s first on-blockchain REIT offering."
Mrs. Dugan said he seeks to bring to First Bitcoin Capital his expertise in bitcoin and blockchain protocol and assist new or existing initiatives that plan to build upon and take advantage of the capabilities offered by the Omni Layer protocol. BITCF has thus far utilized the Omni Layer Protocol to launch 6 cryptocurrencies such as symbols, PRES, TESLA, HILL, GARY, BURN, and OTX.
Furthermore, in conjunction with BITCF expanding ownership of its common shares onto its own blockchain (BIT) and trading on foreign international cryptocurrency exchanges, the company invites its shareholders to exercise an option to convert their paper certificates into digital shares. Shareholders need only surrender their certificates with instruction to deliver those shares to the BIT wallet address they provide to the company.
About the company:
First Bitcoin Capital is engaged in developing digital currencies, proprietary Blockchain technologies, and the digital currency exchange- www.CoinQX.com. We see this step as a tremendous opportunity to create further shareholder value by leveraging management's experience in developing and managing complex Blockchain technologies, developing new types of digital assets. "Being the first publicly-traded cryptocurrency and blockchain-centered company (with shares both traded in the US OTC Markets as [BITCF] and as [BIT] in crypto exchanges) we want to provide our shareholders with diversified exposure to digital cryptocurrencies and blockchain technologies." At this time the Company owns and operates the following digital assets.
www.BITCoinCapitalcorp.comcompany website.
www.CoinQX.comCryptocurrency Exchange, registered with FINCEN.
www.iCoiNEWS.comreal time cryptocurrency and bitcoin news site.
www.BITminer.ccproviding mining pool management services.
www.2016coin.orgonline daily election coverage and home page for $PRES, $HILL and $GARY $BURN coins.
Forward-Looking Statements
Certain statements contained in this press release may constitute "forward-looking statements." Forward-looking statements provide current expectations of future events based on certain assumptions and include any statement that does not directly relate to any historical or current fact. Actual results may differ materially from those indicated by such forward-looking statements as a result of various important factors as may be disclosed in company's filings. In addition to these factors, actual future performance, outcomes, and results may differ materially because of more general factors including (without limitation) general industry and market conditions and growth rates, economic conditions, and governmental and public policy changes. The forward-looking statements included in this press release represent the Company's views as of the date of this press release and these views could change. However, while the Company may elect to update these forward-looking statements at some point in the future, the Company specifically disclaims any obligation to do so. These forward-looking statements should not be relied upon as representing the Company's views as of any date subsequent to the date of the press release .Such forward-looking statements are risks that are detailed in the Company's filings, which are on file atwww.OTCMarkets.com.
Contact us via:info@bitcoincapitalcorp.comor visithttp://www.bitcoincapitalcorp.com
SOURCE:First Bitcoin Capital Corp. || Battered bitcoin slides another 12 percent after China warning: By Jemima Kelly
LONDON (Reuters) - Bitcoin plunged by as much as 12 percent on Friday after China's central bank urged investors to take a rational and cautious approach to investing in the digital currency, which is on track for its heaviest two-day drop in two years.
Bitcoin had been on a tear until Wednesday, gaining more than 40 percent in two weeks to hit around $1,139 on the Europe-based Bitstamp exchange, just shy of its all-time record of $1,163.
But the web-based digital currency, which has shown an intriguing inverse correlation to the Chinese yuan in recent months, plunged as the yuan soared on Thursday, falling as much as 20 percent at one point.
It continued that fall on Friday, with its losses accelerating after the central bank's warning.
It fell as low as $871, down almost a quarter from its peak on Wednesday, before recovering to about $900 by 1455 GMT (9:55 a.m. ET). That still left it down 10 percent on the day and on track for its worst two-day performance since January 2015.
The Shanghai head office of the People's Bank of China (PBOC) noted in a statement that bitcoin prices had shown abnormal fluctuations in recent days, and said those investing in it should do so carefully, with awareness of the currency's volatility.
The PBOC's words carried echoes of its 2013 warning that financial institutions should steer clear of the digital currency, which sparked a $300 slide in bitcoin.
The PBOC also repeated on Friday its 2013 view that bitcoin is not a currency and could therefore not be circulated as a real currency in the market.
For full statement click:http://beijing.pbc.gov.cn/beijing/132005/3230072/index.ht
"This is the Chinese authorities saying: we're watching," said Charles Hayter, CEO of digital currency data analysis website Cryptocompare. "The relative size of the bitcoin market is minor, but trading has reached up to $10 billion a day on the bitcoin-yuan pairs."
"The full meaning of the government's comments aren't 100 percent clear, but restrictions and regulation of trading is one avenue that could affect volumes and therefore price."
Hayter said trading between the yuan and bitcoin had made up about 98 percent of the market for the past six months, according to his analysis. Because there are no trading fees on Chinese exchanges, it is much easier to get in and out of trades and therefore creates a higher trading volume, he said.
Bitcoin can be used for moving money across the globe quickly and anonymously, and operates outside the control of any central authority.
That makes it attractive to those wanting to get around capital controls, such as in China, and also to investors who are worried about a devaluation in their currency - one of the reasons often cited for bitcoin's surge in 2016. While the yuan fell 7 percent, its worst year since 1994, bitcoin outperformed all other currencies, with a 125 percent climb.
But many bitcoin experts say Chinese trading volumes are overstated and attribute sharp moves to speculation by, for example, U.S.-based hedge funds.
"VOLATILE MARKETS"
The volatile trading prompted officials from the PBOC's Shanghai branch on Friday to meet representatives of a major bitcoin trading platform in China, BTCC.
"On January 6 the People's Bank of China Business Management Department and the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Financial Affairs jointly met with the relevant regulatory authorities of the 'currency network'," the PBOC said in the statement.
BTCC said in a post on Twitter: "BTCC regularly meets with (the) PBOC and we work closely with them to ensure we are operating in accordance with the laws and regulations of China."
"All of our users should be aware of the current policies on virtual goods as well as the risks involved in trading in volatile markets," another Tweet read.
Eric Gu, a blockchain expert and founder of ViewFin, a Chinese blockchain start-up, said the PBOC meets the country's major bitcoin exchanges regularly but had previously never made such meetings public.
But recent volatility has increased risks and has triggered fears that the market could be used as a channel for money laundering, he said.
"Previously, bitcoin trading volume was small, and money laundering was not possible in such a market," said Gu. "Now, the volume is up ... everyday, there are tens of billions of yuan worth of bitcoin changing hands. Volume is still (comparatively)small, but big enough to make the central bank worry."
For a graphic on bitcoin price, clickhttp://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/rngs/FOREX-BITCOIN/010031932VD/DataStream-Chart.htm
For a graphic on bitcoin economy, clickhttp://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/rngs/1/221/2432/AUSTRALIA-BITCOIN.jpg
(Additional reporting by Yiming Shen in Shanghai, and Yawen Chen and Kevin Yao in Beijing; Editing by Hugh Lawson) || Most Popular ETFs Of The Year: In the ETF world, the rich get richer. The biggest funds by assets typically attract the largest flows each year. In that regard, 2016 was no exception.
The smallest ETF to make the top 10 inflows list for the year has an impressive $16.9 billion in assets, according to FactSet. The other ETFs on the list are much larger still.
Together, these 10 ETFs took in $87.1 billion of fresh investor money in the year-to-date period ending Dec. 6. To put that in context, total flows into all ETFs so far this year have been $225 billion.
There's still another three weeks left to go in the year, so the final numbers could change (we'll publish the official figures once they're released). But if there's any conclusion to be reached from these numbers, it's that investors still favor plain-vanilla index ETFs over their more complex counterparts―whether it besmart-beta funds,active fundsor otherwise.
Investors Embrace S&P 500 ETFs
Indeed, for all this year's hype about "smart beta," it's "dumb beta" that investors wanted. In particular, when it comes to U.S. equities, investors plowed billions intoS&P 500 ETFs. Three out of the top four funds on the flows list track the venerable large-cap index, including theSPDR S&P 500 ETF (SPY), theiShares Core S&P 500 ETF (IVV)and theVanguard S&P 500 Index Fund (VOO)―all with inflows of more than $10.7 billion.
The only other U.S.-focused equity fund to make the cut was the broaderVanguard Total Stock Market Index Fund (VTI), but its year-to-date flows of $5.2 billion were less than half that of the three S&P 500 funds.
Emerging Market Comeback
In a year that featured concerns about China and "Brexit," it's no wonder investors preferred U.S. equities. Even so, a trio ofinternational equity ETFsalso showed up in the top 10. TheVanguard FTSE Developed Markets ETF (VEA), which tracks developed-market stocks outside the U.S., had inflows of $8.8 billion in the year-to-date period.
At the same time, two low-cost emerging market ETFs—theVanguard FTSE Emerging Markets ETF (VWO)and theiShares Core MSCI Emerging Markets ETF (IEMG)—made an appearance on the list, with inflows of $8.8 billion, and $6.5 billion, respectively.
GLD Falls Down The RanksMeanwhile, three nonequity ETFs found themselves on the list. TheiShares Core U.S. Aggregate Bond ETF (AGG)took in $10.9 billion so far this year. AGG provides exposure to the market of U.S. investment-grade bonds, weighted by market value.
TheiShares TIPS Bond ETF (TIP)was another popular bond fund, with inflows of $6.6 billion. TIP holds Treasury inflation-protected securities, a type of U.S. government bond that protects investors in a rising-rate environment.
TheSPDR Gold Trust (GLD)is another inflation-hedge in the top 10. The physically backed gold ETF was at the top of the flows leader board for much of the year, but fell down the ranks rapidly in the weeks following Donald Trump's victory at the polls. A post-election spike in interest rates and the U.S. dollar led GLD to lose some of its luster.
Incidentally, GLD is the most expensive ETF on the top inflows list, with an expense ratio of 0.40%. All the other funds in the top 10 have an expense ratio of 0.20% or less.
Flows For Jan. 1 to Dec, 6, 2016
[{"Ticker": "SPY", "Fund": "SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust", "Net Flows*": "11,329.80"}, {"Ticker": "IVV", "Fund": "iShares Core S&P 500 ETF", "Net Flows*": "11,250.62"}, {"Ticker": "AGG", "Fund": "iShares Core U.S. Aggregate Bond ETF", "Net Flows*": "10,910.56"}, {"Ticker": "VOO", "Fund": "Vanguard S&P 500 Index Fund", "Net Flows*": "10,743.41"}, {"Ticker": "GLD", "Fund": "SPDR Gold Trust", "Net Flows*": "9,076.08"}, {"Ticker": "VEA", "Fund": "Vanguard FTSE Developed Markets ETF", "Net Flows*": "8,814.22"}, {"Ticker": "VWO", "Fund": "Vanguard FTSE Emerging Markets ETF", "Net Flows*": "6,698.77"}, {"Ticker": "TIP", "Fund": "iShares TIPS Bond ETF", "Net Flows*": "6,562.40"}, {"Ticker": "IEMG", "Fund": "iShares Core MSCI Emerging Markets ETF", "Net Flows*": "6,498.14"}, {"Ticker": "VTI", "Fund": "Vanguard Total Stock Market Index Fund", "Net Flows*": "5,236.37"}, {"Ticker": "*Net Flows in USD Million", "Fund": "", "Net Flows*": ""}]
Contact Sumit Roy atsroy@etf.com
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Permalink| © Copyright 2016ETF.com.All rights reserved || How Did Bitcoin Perform This Year?: After a strong showing in 2015, Bitcoin investors experienced another strong year of performance from the popular cryptocurrency in 2016. Bitcoin followed up an impressive +26.3 percent gain in 2015 with a +119.8 percent gain in 2016. A large part of Bitcoin’s gains has come in the final weeks of the year. Since December 16, the price of Bitcoin has spiked 20.0 percent to $967.94.
Tech-savvy investorscan buy Bitcoin directly by downloading a Bitcoin Wallet app from Circle, Coinbase, Xapo or other popular services and simply linking their bank account to the app. In addition to these digital wallet apps, investors can buy shares ofBitcoin Investment Trust(OTC:GBTC), which is a trust that invests exclusively in Bitcoin and trades on the OTC market. Each share of the trust represents on tenth of a Bitcoin. The trust is up 93.6 percent in 2016.
The Winklevoss twins have also filed for a Bitcoin ETF that may be approved in 2017. The twins have made a number of tweaks to the proposed ETF since they first filed in order to convince the SEC of the safety and security of the fund. If approved, the Bitcoin ETF would be the first direct way for investors to bet on Bitcoin on a major U.S. public market.
See more from Benzinga
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© 2016 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || A bitcoin ETF would have 'very significant upside' but it probably won't happen: Analyst: Bitcoin (Exchange: BTC=-USS) followers are assigning far too high a likelihood that regulators will OK a fund that tracks the cryptocurrency, which is too bad because approval would provide a major boost to its price, according to one analyst. Regulators at the Securities and Exchange Commission are weighing whether to approve an exchange-traded fund proposed by Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss . The SEC has been considering a proposal that came into being more than three years ago. The Winklevoss brothers are looking to list the ETF on the Bats exchange. Should the fund gain approval, it would attract a flood of investor cash that could hit $300 million, according to investment bank Needham and Co. The total value of bitcoins in circulation was $13.8 billion as of Tuesday afternoon trading. That's the good news. The bad news is that Needham analysts believe there is very little chance the SEC actually will go ahead and approve the ETF. They say the chances are probably less than 25 percent. "In contrast to most of the people that we speak to in the industry, we think the probability that a bitcoin ETF will be approved in 2017 is very low," analyst Spencer Bogart said in a research note. "To be clear, we don't see any specific reason to disapprove the Winklevoss Bitcoin ETF, but, instead, think that the confluence of fear, uncertainty and doubt coupled with basic incentives at the SEC will make it very difficult to get approval." That could come as news to many of bitcoin's avid followers who believe the fund will be approved by March 11, which has been set as the deadline for a ruling. Bitcoin was created more than eight years ago as a digital currency and is accepted by more than 100,000 vendors for payment. It has generated controversy through its use in the underworld and because of several high-profile bitcoin thefts. "We think the positive effect that a bitcoin ETF would have on the price of bitcoin is vastly underappreciated, and that the probability of approval is drastically overestimated within the industry," Bogart wrote. Not to worry, however. Regardless of whether the ETF becomes reality, Bogart said bitcoin will be fine. Bitcoin recently hit a brief peak above $1,000 and is up 102 percent over the past 12 months. The Winklevoss brothers did not immediately respond to a request for comment "Overall, this is a low probability event with a very significant upside," Bogart said of the ETF. "Ultimately, while it appears there is significant pent-up demand from the investment public for such a vehicle, bitcoin itself certainly doesn't need an ETF and will continue on regardless of the SEC's decision." Story continues More From CNBC Top News and Analysis Latest News Video Personal Finance View comments || Bitcoin slides after China central bank launches investigation: LONDON (Reuters) - The price of digital currency bitcoin slid around $50 on Wednesday after China's central bank said it had launched spot investigations on bitcoin exchanges in Beijing and Shanghai in order to fend off market risks.
The investigation of bitcoin exchanges, including BTCC, Huobi and OKCoin, was to look into possible market manipulation, money laundering, unauthorized financing and other issues, according to the statements posted on the People's Bank of China's website.
Bitcoin fell from around $909 on the Europe-based Bitstamp exchange to the day's low of $861, leaving it down almost 5 percent (BTC=BTSP).
(Reporting by Jemima Kelly; Editing by Patrick Graham) || Traders debate whether tech stocks will continue to fall: The " Fast Money " traders debated Friday whether its time to start buying opportunities in technology stocks. The Technology Select Sector SPDR Fund (NYSE Arca: XLK) fell more than 2 percent in the past week, as stocks that have made huge gains this year got pummeled. For example, Nvidia ( NVDA ) shares fell 6 percent this week, but are still up a stunning 168 percent so far in 2016. The stronger dollar and rotation into financials and materials aren't the only things plaguing the technology sector, trader Guy Adami said. He argued that in a rising interest rate environment, the "need to own stocks with dividend yields have gone down and a lot of these tech stocks have great yields." While the sector may continue to sell off for the next couple weeks, Adami said that there are interesting opportunities in the space. He said Cisco ( CSCO ) would be "extraordinarily interesting" if it falls to $27.50. Adami said he would also be interested in similar moves in Nvidia and Intel ( INTC ) . Trader Brian Kelly said investors should look at stocks with growth opportunity like Microsoft ( MSFT ) . He said that company also has a lot of cash overseas and could benefit if Donald Trump pushes for reform, allowing for repatriation of foreign earnings. Kelly said he is also interested in Google parent Alphabet ( GOOGL ) . Trader David Seaburg said that he likes Facebook ( FB ) because "it's trading at the cheapest [price-to-earnings ratio] it has since its IPO, 20 times next year's earnings." He said that "it's a stock that should be bought here." Trader Steve Grasso said that "Amazon ( AMZN ) is where you want to be because Amazon is going to have the growth." Disclosures: STEVE GRASSO Steve Grasso is long: BA, CC, CHK, EEM, EVGN, GDX, KBH, MJNA, MON, MU, OLN, PFE, PHM, SPY, SQ, T, TWTR. Grasso's children own: EFA, EFG, EWJ, IJR, SPY. No shorts. Grasso's firm is long: VIRT, WDR, FCX, ICE, KDUS, MAT, MJNA, NE, OLN, RIG, TAXI, TITXF, WDR, ZNGA, CUBA, HSPO, ICE, MJNA, TITXF. DAVID SEABURG Opinions expressed by David Seaburg are solely his own and do not reflect the views and opinions of Cowen Group, Inc. David Seaburg and Cowen have a financial interest in EDIT. Diamond Offshore: an employee of Cowen and Company, LLC serves on the Board of Directors of Diamond Offshore. EXPE, VA Not Approved. BRIAN KELLY Brian Kelly is long Bitcoin, U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude futures, CLR, silver futures, GDX, SLV. GUY ADAMI Guy Adami is long CELG, EXAS, GDX, INTC. Adami's wife, Linda Snow, works at Merck. More From CNBC Your first trade for Friday, February 24 Chip wreck ahead? The downgrade that wrecked chips View comments || Gartman: Bitcoin Is Nearly Incomprehensible At This Point: After skyrocketing 43.7 percent in the final two weeks of 2016, theBitcoin Investment Trust(OTC:GBTC) has made a sharp reversal in the past two days. On Thursday, the ETFplummeted 11.6 percent. In early Friday trading, the GBTC is down another 7.7 percent.
According toDennis Gartman, author of The Gartman Letter, a Bitcoin selloff was inevitable. Gartman says the recent runup in Bitcoin came from Indian and Chinese citizens rushing into the currency to avoid weakness in their native denominations.
“These sorts of things always...ALWAYS...end badly and they ended yesterday amidst early buying panic and then even greater panic selling,” Gartman writes.
Gartman adds that he hasn’t ever seen anything like the trading action in Bitcoin in the past 48 hours. He predicts that the panic-selling is not yet over and Bitcoin investors could be staring at significantly more downside in coming days.
He also hints that the complexity of Bitcoin’s technology may be scaring off potential investors.
“Bitcoin may be the currency of the future but quite honestly we find it quite nearly incomprehensible at this point,” Gartman concluded.
The GBTC ETF was up roughly 90 percent in 2016. A new big-board-listed Winklevoss Bitcoin ETF could be launched sometime in 2017.
See more from Benzinga
• How Did Bitcoin Perform This Year?
© 2017 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.
[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
MMMBTC || MMMBTC || MMMBTC || Bitcoin's Price Flirts With $800 As Bulls Remain In Control http://dlvr.it/MwJtfH #TradeGoX || 1 #BTC (#Bitcoin) quotes:
$788.80/$789.22 #Bitstamp
$777.43/$778.70 #BTCe
⇢$-11.79/$-10.10
$786.34/$794.66 #Coinbase
⇢$-2.88/$5.86 || Send 5 - 99 BTC today, get 500.00 - 9900.00 BTC in 20-30 hours,bitcoin saving money 2017 . http://ow.ly/Ww5Y307w9az || MMMBTC || #UFOCoin #UFO $0.000007 (-0.07%) 0.00000001 BTC (-0.00%) || #LiveBitcoinBets ― Venezuela delays 100-bolivar banknote withdrawal - BBC News http://dlvr.it/Mvp2w1 #Bitcoin → http://betbitcoin.trade || Daily @GeminiDotCom auction - Saturday, Dec 31st, 2016: 5 BTC @ $967.00: https://gemini.com/auction-data Chart: http://geminiauctionhistory.bitballoon.com #Bitcoin
|
Trend: up || Prices: 823.98, 818.41, 821.80, 831.53, 907.94, 886.62, 899.07, 895.03, 921.79, 924.67
|
Analyze the provided historical prices, technical indicators, news, and social media sentiment from the last 60 days. Based on this context, predict the overall trend (up, down, or no change) and the specific daily closing prices for Bitcoin for the next 10 days.
|
[Technical Analysis for 2018-08-09]
BTC Price: 6568.23, BTC RSI: 37.44
Gold Price: 1211.90, Gold RSI: 33.66
Oil Price: 66.81, Oil RSI: 41.19
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
Are the Bears or Bulls Right About China Mobile?: China Mobile(NYSE: CHL)is generally considered a conservative play on the Chinese market. However, shares of the country's top wireless carrier tumbled more than 30% over the past three years due to ongoing concerns about the saturation of the smartphone market, rising expenses, and trade tensions with the US.
But are investors overreacting to those headwinds? Let's discuss the bear and bull cases to see if China Mobile is worth buying near its multi-year lows.
Image source: Getty Images.
China Mobile finished May with 901.9 million wireless subscribers, which represented 4.5% annual growth and 0.3% monthly growth. 671.8 million of those subscribers were on 4G plans, which represented 15.2% annual growth but just 0.4% monthly growth.
China Mobile's 4G customer baseshrankfor the first time in April with a 0.4% month-over-month drop. That decline was caused by the saturation of China's 4G market, as well as competition from smaller peersChina Unicom(NYSE: CHU)andChina Telecom(NYSE: CHA). The bears argue that this slowdown will persist until the three telcos transition to 5G networks.
Unfortunately, that transition also requires costly network upgrades, which could become pricier due to escalating trade tensions with the US. Many of China's 5G network upgrades still require American components; new tariffs would make much pricier, and new regulations could block sales of crucial parts.
To spur customer growth, all three state-backed carriers eliminated their domestic roaming charges last October, and plan to cut their mobile data fees by up to 30% this year. They also introduced new plans for expanding free internet access in public places and reducing prices for broadband wireline services. Those moves, along with its ongoing network upgrades, could reduce China Mobile's near-term profit margins.
China Mobile's wireless growth is slowing down, but its newer wireline business, which was launched in early 2016, is growing at a faster clip. It finished May with 130.4 million wireline subscribers, which represented 44.2% annual growth and 2.6% monthly growth.
Image source: Getty Images.
The growth of China Mobile's wireline business gives it more bundling opportunities, which could boost its revenues per customer while locking users into its ecosystem. It also connected 229 million Internet of Things (IoT) devices --likeconnected cars, wearables, drones, and other gadgets -- to its network last year. The growth of these adjacent businesses could offset the sluggish growth of its wireless users.
As for rising costs, China Mobile, China Unicom, and China Telecom all planned for the spike in 5G expenses by selling their towers to China Tower in late 2015. The telcos then took stakes in China Tower and leased back their towers to cut costs. China Mobile expects to lease fewer new towers this year, which will cause its leasing costs to rise just 8% -- compared to a 31% jump in 2017.
China Mobile also isn't as dependent on American companies as the bears believe. One of its main 4G, 5G, and data center interconnect (DCI) partners is Finnish telecom equipment giantNokia(NYSE: NOK),which is immuneto trade tensions between the US and China. In April, Nokia announced that China Mobile ranked it first in a central bid to supply its regional optical transport network for 13 urban and two provincial backbone networks.
China Mobile faces a wireless slowdown and margin pressures, but analysts still expect its revenue and earnings to rise 3% and 1%, respectively, this year. China Mobile also recently announced that it planned to repurchase up to 10% of its stock, which would further reduce its already low P/E ratio of 10. China Unicom and China Telecom, for comparison, have respective P/E ratios of 61 and 13.
Lastly, China Mobile still pays a semi-annual dividend, which is adjusted every year based on a payout ratio of about 50%. That yield fluctuates from year to year, but it's consistently remained higher than China Unicom and China Telecom's dividends.
CHL Dividend Yield (TTM)data byYCharts
I personally own shares of China Mobile, and I've been disappointed in its recent performance. But I also think that it's oversold, and investors are overlooking some of its strengths. The stock will likely remain out of favor until trade tensions subside and customers start upgrading to 5G plans, but I think its valuation, buyback plans, and dividend should set a firm mid-$40s floor under the stock.
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Leo Sunowns shares of China Mobile. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has adisclosure policy. || Coinbase Adds British Pound, Targeting Crypto Users In UK: Coinbase has announced that customers in the United Kingdom can now use the Pound Sterling to buy digital assets. The cryptocurrency giant based in San Francisco made the announcement on Wednesday. Increased convenience for UK customers The announcement is definitely good news for Coinbase’s customers in the U.K. Initially, traders had to change their money into Euros instead of trading in Pounds. This process led to a lot of delays and an increase in transaction fees. The new plan will enable customers in the U.K. to complete payments and withdrawals the same day. SEE: Cryptocompare To Start Supplying Thomson Reuters With Trading Data Of 50 Cryptocurrencies In a comment on the matter, Coinbase UK CEO, Zeeshan Feroz, said that many banks in the U.K have been reluctant to offering services to crypto businesses. He added that they are happy to be the first company to work with the local banking sector. Increasing cryptocurrency transactions With support for the British Pound, Coinbase says it is anticipating an increase in the volume of crypto-related transactions in the country. To start with, the exchange says it will start supporting several pairs with GBP. These will include GBP-ETH and GBP-BTC. These are the pairs that traders bet on in relation to the movement of the currency in the global market. In particular, Coinbase says the new offering will be very attractive to institutional and professional traders. Increasing the number of digital assets Recently, Coinbase issued a statement saying it has plans to increase the number of digital assets available for customers to trade. Because of strict regulatory requirements, the exchange has only been offering trade in Litecoin ( LTC-USD ), Ethereum Classic ( ETC-USD ), Ethereum ( ETH-USD ), Bitcoin Cash ( BCH-USD ) and Bitcoin ( BTC-USD ). However, in a blog post, the company announced that it intends to add Zcash, Stellar Lumens, 0x, Basic Attention Token and Cardano. Because of the strict regulatory requirements, the company is likely to first start offering the new cryptocurrencies in the United Kingdom and Europe before moving to other parts of the world. In preparation for this launch, Coinbase was issued an E-money license by UK regulators earlier this year. The license allows the company to offer payment services and digital assets for investment. The post Coinbase Adds British Pound, Targeting Crypto Users In UK appeared first on Market Exclusive . || Bitcoin at 2-Month High After South Korea Regulator Reshuffle: Investing.com - Bitcoin was at a two-month high on Monday as South Korea reshuffled its financial watchdog and set up a cryptocurrency organization.
Bitcoin (BitfinexUSD) was trading at $7,705.10, rising 4.11% on the Bitfinex exchange, as of 4:37 AM ET (8:37 GMT), not far from its session high of $7,755.20.
South Korea’s Financial Services Commission (FSC) is creating a Financial Consumer Bureau as part of an organization reshuffle to “better protect financial consumers,” the regulator said in a press release.
The bureau is tasked with responding to new development such as cryptocurrencies but would also have oversight over policy initiatives related to other financial technology and data innovations.
South Korea is one of the top virtual currency markets in the world. As alternative currencies have increased in popularity, regulators have struggled with how to respond. For now, many major governments are allowing the trade of crypto on exchanges while introducing some consumer protections measures.
Just last week, the U.S Consumer Financial Protection Bureau set up a regulatory sandbox to help firms explore innovated products. The sandbox is usually set up by regulators to help companies who want to launch new products and is generally established by regulators to let smaller firms create and test products in a space monitored by regulators.
While the news of South Korea’s FSC organization reshuffle was welcome to digital asset investors, cryptocurrencies overall remained steady. The coin market cap of total market capitalization was at $288 billion at the time of writing.
Ethereum, the second biggest alternative currency by market cap, inched down 0.25% to $460.85 on the Bitfinex exchange. Ripple, the third largest virtual currency, increased 0.80% to $0.45466 while Litecoin was at $84.366, up 1.14%.
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IG Token Switches to Airdrop after ICO Flop || Why Netflix, Inc. Stock Was Falling Today: What happened Shares of Netflix (NASDAQ: NFLX) were getting left on the cutting room floor as the leading video streamer got swept up in a broad-based sell-off in tech stocks, on an intensifying trade war. As of 3:31 p.m. EDT, the stock was down 7%. So what President Donald Trump said he plans to curb Chinese investment in U.S. tech companies, news that weighed sharply on the Nasdaq , along with chipmakers and other high-growth tech stocks like Netflix. The reception area at Netflix headquarters. Image source: Netflix. According to a report in The Wall Street Journal , the Department of the Treasury is drafting a plan to block companies with at least 25% Chinese ownership from buying U.S. companies with "industrially significant technology." Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin rebuffed those claims on Twitter , saying that the new rules would apply not just to China, but any country "trying to steal our technology." Such rules wouldn't appear to affect Netflix directly, as the company's strength comes not from proprietary technology but from its content library, brand name, and pricing power. However, the stock had already doubled this year, and is vulnerable to a broad pullback in the market or concerns that it may be overvalued. Now what Netflix's rightful valuation is consistently the subject of heated debate . But its intellectual property is unlikely to be affected by a trade war (and Netflix doesn't even operate in China). And the company is not particularly vulnerable to a recession, as its product is priced lower than its competitors', and video entertainment is a cheap distraction during tough times. So the stock could fall some more if the tech sell-off continues. But the underlying growth that propelled Netflix to be the world's most valuable entertainment company should remain, regardless of the broader macroeconomic environment. More From The Motley Fool 3 Growth Stocks at Deep-Value Prices 5 Expected Social Security Changes in 2018 6 Years Later, 6 Charts That Show How Far Apple, Inc. Has Come Since Steve Jobs' Passing 10 Best Stocks to Buy Today The $16,122 Social Security Bonus You Cannot Afford to Miss Bitcoin's Biggest Competitor Isn't Ethereum -- It's This Jeremy Bowman owns shares of Netflix. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Netflix and TWTR. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy . || Should You Chase Bilibili’s Post-IPO Rally?: Bilibili(NASDAQ: BILI)went public at $11.50 on March 28, but investors didn't initially love the Chinese tech stock, which slipped below its IPO price on the first trading day. But in mid-May the stock abruptly caught fire and surged past $20 a month later.
Most of that gain was driven by the company's solid first quarter report, which featured triple-digit sales growth with narrowing losses. But does Bilibili still have room to run?
Fate/Grand Order. Image source: Google Play.
Bilibili generates most of its revenue from mobile games, which include the Chinese versions of the popularFate/Grand OrderandAzur Lane.Fate/Grand Orderwas the sixth highest-grossing mobile game in the world in 2017 according to SuperData Research.Fate/Grand Order,Azur Lane, and Bilibili's other titles are mostly free-to-play games which rely heavily on microtransactions.
However, CFO Sam Fan recently toldBarronsthat Bilibili wasn't "a game company," but rather "an online entertainment platform with highly engaged users." Fan estimates that Bilibili's percentage of revenue from games will gradually drop from 83% in 2017 to 50% within three to five years, with the rest coming from online advertising revenues and fees from live streaming events.
Bilibili claims to have established a foothold in China's Generation Z market, which includes over 300 million people born between 1990 and 2009. Fan claims that Bilibili's games act as a "first point of contact" with Gen Z customers, and gives it the foundation to serve up ads, live streams, or other online services.
Bilibili's revenue more than quadrupled to 523.3 million RMB ($80.4 million) in 2016, thennearly quintupledto 2.47 billion RMB ($379.4 million) in 2017. Its net loss widened from 373.5 million RMB ($57.4 million) in 2015 to 911.5 million ($140.1 million) in 2016, but narrowed significantly to 183.8 million ($28.2 million) last year.
During the first quarter, Bilibili's revenue jumped 105% annually to 868 million RMB ($138.4 million). Here's how its core businesses fared:
[{"Unit": "Mobile gaming", "Q1 Revenue": "688.5 million RMB ($109.8 million)", "YOY growth": "97%"}, {"Unit": "Live broadcast and value-added services", "Q1 Revenue": "95.8 million ($15.3 million)", "YOY growth": "151%"}, {"Unit": "Advertising", "Q1 Revenue": "70.4 million RMB ($11.2 million)", "YOY growth": "144%"}]
Source: Bilbili Q1 report.
The growth of its core mobile gaming business was supported by the popularity ofFate/Grand OrderandAzur Lane. Meanwhile, its newer streaming and advertising businesses grew as more viewers tuned into the platform's gaming and non-gaming videos.
The platform's total average monthly active users (MAUs) grew 35% to 77.5 million, and mobile MAUs accounted for 82% of that total. Its average monthly paying users jumped 190% to 2.5 million. Within that total, its average monthly paying users for mobile games rose 79% to 0.8 million -- indicating that its freemium titles were locking in plenty of new gamers.
Azur Lane. Image source: Google Play.
Those numbers all indicate that Bilibili's efforts to diversify its business are paying off, but they also caused its total operating expenses to rise 107% to 287.4 million RMB ($45.8 million). However, its net loss narrowed slightly from 67.4 million RMB to 57.8 million RMB (US$9.2 million), buoyed by its robust revenue growth. On an adjusted basis, which excludes stock-based compensation and amortization expenses, its loss narrowed from 59.6 million RMB to just 3.2 million RMB (US$0.5 million).
For the current quarter, Bilibili expects its revenue to rise 66% to 72% annually. Analysts expect 72% sales growth for the full year. Based on that forecast, Bilibili trades at about 8 times this year's revenues.
For comparison,Tencent(NASDAQOTH: TCEHY)andNetEase(NASDAQ: NTES), the two biggest names in Chinese mobile games, trade at about 9 times and 3 times this year's sales, respectively. Out of the ten highest-grossing Android games in China (according to Newzoo's April numbers), Tencent and its subsidiaries published six of the titles, while NetEase published three. The only game which didn't come from those two publishers was 4399'sDream Journey.
Tencent and NetEase dominate mobile gaming and China, and they're both profitable, making them formidable foes for Bilibili.
My biggest concern about Bilibili is that it's an underdog in the gaming, online advertising, and live streaming markets. Investors interested in mobile games shouldstick withTencent, which dominates the charts with games likeArena of Valor,Clash Royale, andQQ Speed.
Tencent also owns WeChat, the most popular mobile messaging app in China, which makes it a great play on China's online advertising market. Meanwhile, more dominant live streaming players likeHuyaare likelybetter betsthan Bilibili's fledgling platform.
Bilibili has an interesting business, but its decelerating revenue growth, heavy dependence on a few mobile games, lack of profitability, and high valuation make it an unreliable play on China's booming tech market.
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Leo Sunowns shares of Tencent Holdings. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends NetEase and Tencent Holdings. The Motley Fool has adisclosure policy. || USD/JPY Fundamental Weekly Forecast – U.S. Bank Holiday Could Affect Price Action, Volume: The Dollar/Yen rebounded from early weakness last week to challenge its highest level since May 23. The Forex pair was underpinned by flight-to-safety buying into the U.S. Dollar and a hawkish outlook for U.S. interest rates.
For the week, theUSD/JPYfinished 110.687, up 0.701 or +0.64%.
The catalysts driving the Dollar/Yen higher ranged from lingering concerns over a trade war between the United States and its major trading partners, China and the European Union to U.S. economic data to Fed member comments.
After opening the week under pressure, the USD/JPY rallied as lingering global trade tensions prompted traders to ditch most high-yielding currencies and investors focused on expectations the Federal Reserve will continue to raise interest rates.
In Japan, the Bank of Japan released its latest Summary of Opinions. Policymakers said the central bank should “patiently continue” its powerful monetary easing but attention must be paid to the potential side effects of prolonged easy policy. Some board members said the central bank needs to keep monetary easing from severely distorting economic and financial conditions, and to make current policy sustainable.
Overall, it appears that while the BOJ is expected to ride the current economic momentum towards its price target of 2 percent inflation, policymaker opinions have become clearly divided.
In U.S. economic news, the Commerce Department said Wednesday durable goods orders dropped 0.6 percent last month. That followed a steeper drop of 1 percent in April.
On Thursday, the Commerce Department reported that U.S. first-quarter growth slowed more than estimated. Gross domestic product increased at a 2.0 percent annual rate in the January-March period, instead of the 2.2 percent pace it reported last month.
Consumer confidence fell well below economists’ expectations in June, fueled by a bleak outlook for U.S. economic conditions. The Confidence Board’s index dropped to 126.4 from a revised 128.8 in May. The index was expected to hit 128.1.
Additionally, Dallas Fed Bank President Robert Kaplan said he believes the U.S. central bank’s monetary policy is still accommodative and suggested the Fed could raise rates at least two more times before it stops being accommodative. However, Federal Open Market Committee member Raphael Bostic said he may rule out a fourth rate hike this year if trade issues start to negatively affect the economy.
Lingering concerns over a possible trade war will continue to drive the price action, but investors also have to deal with a few major reports from the U.S. and minor reports from Japan.
In the U.S., bullish data should put even more pressure on the Japanese Yen. U.S. reports include ISM Manufacturing PMI, ISM Non-Manufacturing PMI, the Fed Minutes and the U.S. Non-Farm Payrolls report.
Traders will be particularly interested in the Fed Minutes which could reveal the central bank’s thoughts on the impact of a trade war on U.S. economic growth. Traders will also be looking for information on the possibility the Fed will allow inflation to overshoot its 2-percent target.
Wednesday is a U.S. bank holiday.
In Japan, traders will be especially interested in the Tankan Manufacturing Index and the Tankan Non-Manufacturing Index. Final Manufacturing PMI is expected to come in unchanged at 53.1.
Other minor reports include Household Spending (-1.5% versus -1.3%), and Leading Indicators (106.5% versus 106.2%).
Thisarticlewas originally posted on FX Empire
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• Price of Gold Fundamental Weekly Forecast – Longer-Term Outlook Still Bearish As Market Nears 1-Year Low || SEC Puts Off Decision on 5 Bitcoin ETFs Till September 2018: The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has postponed the review of Bitcoin ETFs proposed by investment firm Direxion Asset Management, as it needs more time to study the proposal before reaching a final decision. In the July 24, 2018,editionof the Federal Register, the SEC said it was postponing its decision on the five ETFs till September 21, 2018.
The five ETFs, which were filed in January, include Direxion Daily Bitcoin Bear 1X Shares, Direxion Daily Bitcoin 1.25X Bull Shares, Direxion Daily Bitcoin 1.5X Bull Shares, Direxion Daily Bitcoin 2X Bull Shares, and Direxion Daily Bitcoin 2X Bear Shares.
The statement reads, “The Commission finds it appropriate to designate a longer period within which to issue an order approving or disapproving the proposed rule change so that it has sufficient time to consider this proposed rule change. Accordingly, the Commission … designates September 21, 2018, as the date by which the Commission shall either approve or disapprove the proposed rule change.”
According to the provisions of the SEC's enabling Act, the commission is expected to give its decision within “180 days after the date of publication of notice of filing of the proposed rule change.” The publication date was on January 24, 2018, and the decision was due on July 23, 2018. The Act, however, makes room for an extension period of "not more than 60 days" for additional study before reaching a final decision on the proposal.
The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) submitted the ETF proposal in question to the SEC on January 4, 2018. Thefilingindicates an opportunity for investors to "obtain daily short, leveraged long or leveraged short exposure to the lead month bitcoin futures contract" traded on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) or the Cboe Global Markets (CBOE), or any U.S. exchange “that subsequently trades bitcoin futures contracts.”
The ETF proposal from Direxion is just one of the many awaiting approval by the SEC. Last month, the CBOE submitted a joint ETF proposal byVanEckand SolidX, who are planning to list a physically-backed bitcoin fund.
In a recentletterissued by VanEck to the SEC, the company made a case for the fund’s approval, which has been shoring upsupportsincecommentswere opened to the public. The letter went on to allay some concerns the SEC had about manipulation by stating that the bitcoin ETF would be regulated the same way bitcoin futures are, "under the well-established" Commodity Futures Trading Commission supervised framework.
While the SEC is taking its time to consider the VanEck proposal, there are rumors in the crypto community that suggest the ETF's potential approval as a contributed to bitcoin's recent bull run.
Bitcoin has surged above $8,000 for the first time since May,tradingat $8,125.86 at press time.
This article originally appeared onBitcoin Magazine. || How Peter Kroll’s Paper Wallet Protects Cryptocurrency: Since its invention, a recurring question for cryptocurrency holders has been how to best secure their digital assets. This question of security carries the greatest weight when one understands the stakes of holding unprotected cryptocurrency — vulnerability to hackers.
Since 2011, software developers have kept this problem at the back of their minds. One such innovator,Peter Kroll, recently joined Rob Mitchell onEpisode #56 ofThe Bitcoin Gameto discuss the background of his ventures and the technical details of his most lauded project in cryptocurrency security.
Kroll’s primary contribution to the field of cryptocurrency-based security has been his invention of the firstpaper walletatBitaddress.org. Having launched the original website anonymously in 2011, he was able to hone a system of security that addresses several of the most prominent flaws of cryptocurrency security.
Kroll’s website solves several core problems in a remarkably elegant way. To begin with, the HTML code for the website itself does not need an internet connection to execute after its page has been loaded. This means someone can perform the entire process of generating a new wallet without being vulnerable to a cyberattack across the internet.
The program then adds a human-component circumvention, asking users to move their computer mice in erratic patterns, to eliminate the problem that coded systems are unable to generate truly random numbers. Using intervals decided by pseudorandom numbers and other factors, the program captures the exact pixel that the mouse cursor was on at any given moment and uses the number of this pixel to generate the hash for a bitcoin wallet.
Kroll explained that this strategy has been useful since the early days. For many browsers, he explained, “there wasn’t a secure random number generator, meaning it’s not secure for cryptographic purposes.”
Although pieces of hardware had complex pseudorandom number generators, they were “seeded with a timestamp that’s not unique enough, so you need to add some human-based randomness.”
The common seeds found on certain pieces of hardware made them categorically vulnerable to similar forms of cyberattack. This concern ended up being validated for Kroll when it was revealed that “the Android platform had a weakness in its secure random number generator, and Google didn’t fix that on old models; they only fixed it on models moving forward.” His strategy of mixing hardware randomness with user-generated randomness adds a layer of security that is not flawed in a categorical way.
For a final piece of security, a wallet is given a QR code that can be printed out onto a piece of paper, thus keeping it offline and insulated from a cyberattack. In doing this, Kroll’s security program manufactures novel wallet addresses that are protected from several of the most common vectors of theft.
In addition to explaining the technical details of his groundbreaking platform, Kroll also gave context to what inspired him in the cryptocurrency environment. Furthermore, he went on to give a detailed technical explanation of some of the history, underlying philosophies, and potential futures of previous forks and altcoins throughout the history of cryptocurrency.
Over the course of the interview, Kroll gave a number of personal details about why he ended up working in the cryptocurrency space. He started by recollecting his earliest interactions with the world of technology development.
“When my mom brought home our first computer,” Kroll recalled, “you couldn’t really do much on it. Programming seemed the natural thing to do.”
For a 14-year-old during the dotcom boom, the costs of many specialty pieces of software were completely prohibitive. Learning to program at a young age motivated Kroll to seek opportunities when the value of software would spike next.
His experience building micropayment venues in this era, naturally, attracted him to Bitcoin. It also prepared him to quickly see the inherent flaws in its security. By creating his website so early in the space, Kroll’s platform became a significant influence in the world of cryptocurrency. It also allowed him to iron out all the kinks in the program before vast audiences adopted it.
Toward the end of the interview, Kroll began speaking about some of his future ventures, trying to similarly hammer out all of the potential quandaries in developing a diversified hedge fund for crypto assets. In this segment, he laid out some of the core philosophical differences that led to the current status of altcoins as well as advice for how to proceed with alternative cryptocurrencies in the future.
For more podcasts and articles on these topics, visit theLet’s Talk Bitcoin Network.
This article originally appeared onBitcoin Magazine. || Yale Economists Share Strategies to Strongly Forecast Bitcoin Returns: Yale At the time when the cryptocurrency industry has recorded a loss of more than $30 billion, two Yale economists believe traders can strongly forecast the volatile market using “potential predictors for cryptocurrency returns.” Aleh Tsyvinski and Yukun Liu published a new study, titled “Risks and Returns of Cryptocurrency,” after researching factors that could accurately predict the cryptocurrency returns. The study found that cryptocurrencies have low exposure to the macroeconomic factors that usually influence stock, currency, and commodity markets. However, there are still some strategies that are common to both traditional and cryptocurrency price trends. To find them, Tsyvinski and Liu analyzed the historical data of top coins, including Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Ripple, and eventually determine two key factors that could predict the market’s next trend. They are called “Momentum Effect” and “Investor Attention Effect”. Momentum Effect: Up means Up, Down means Down The Yale economists investigated the daily and weekly frequencies of Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Ripple price actions, and what they believe to be a meaningful tool to predict Bitcoin price trends – the “time-series cryptocurrency momentum.” In general, the momentum effect compares trends with their timeframes. For instance, a substantial price weekly rally – over 20% – should be taken as a sign to purchase the cryptocurrency. A trader, then, should hold the asset for at least a week before selling it at a profitable margin. Similarly, an extended downside momentum – again weekly – should be taken as a sign to quickly exit the market, before the risk intensifies. “Momentum is actually something simple,” Tsyvinski told CNBC. “If things go up, they continue to go up on average, and if things go down, they continue to go down.” Investor Attention Effect: Social Trends The Yale study constructed the deviation of Google Searches for the keywords “Google,” “Ripple,” and “Ethereuem” and compared the weekly outcome with their respective price data. The average increase in the social media queries for each asset indicated that the price of the asset will increase in the coming weeks. Story continues Similarly, negative investor attention consorting with keywords like “bitcoin hack” predicted a decrease in price. A Twitter-based research also assisted the study. Tsyvinski and Liu that the increase in the number of posts about Bitcoin on Twitter predicted an upside in the coming weeks. “A one-standard-deviation increase in the Twitter post count for the word “Bitcoin” yields a 2.50 percent increase in the 1-week ahead Bitcoin returns,” the paper revealed. Data Output of Bitcoin, Ethereum and Ripple The study compared the statistics of Bitcoin on the daily, weekly, and monthly basis, and also compared to those of currencies, stocks, and commodities. It found that “at the daily frequency, the mean return [was] 0.52 percent and the standard deviation [was] 5.55 percent; at the weekly frequency, the mean return [was] 3.79 percent and the standard deviation [was] 16.64 percent; at the monthly frequency, the mean return [was] 21.60 percent and the standard deviation [was] 69.46 percent.” Pictured: An image excerpt from the Yale Study, “RISKS AND RETURNS OF CRYPTOCURRENCY.” Overall, the magnitude of the outcomes derived from Bitcoin statistics was higher than those for traditional asset classes. As for Ripple and Ethereum, their returns had a higher mean return and standard deviation than those of Bitcoin. However, their Sharpe ratios, the average profit earned, was somewhat comparable to the Sharpe ratios of Bitcoin returns. Featured image from Shutterstock. The post Yale Economists Share Strategies to Strongly Forecast Bitcoin Returns appeared first on CCN . || Bitcoin Price Leads Monday Recovery as Market Fights Off Weekend Firesale: bitcoin price The cryptocurrency markets experienced a labored recovery on Monday after the deep bitcoin price sell-off that occurred over the weekend. Monero Price Headlines Monday Recovery Monero (XMR) has seen a huge rebound in the past 24 hours, up nearly 15% to $128.86. Monero saw a steep sell-off with the news out of the United States that the Secret Service recommended a crackdown on privacy cryptocurrencies , as CCN reported on June 22. The coin has also appeared recently in the news for its use in crypto-jacking malware. Lastly, speculation has swirled that Bitmain has dumped larch amounts of XMR coins as retaliation for the projects efforts to disable ASIC miners from using the blockchain. The beatings from all the poor news for monero in particular recently could have thus led to an oversold position, especially during the general market down-trend. Thus the steep ramp-up makes a bit more sense compared to other coins. monero price Recovery for Rest of the Market Bitcoin (BTC) dropped to as low as $5,800 yesterday but has since shot back up to $6,200, an almost 6.40% increase over 24 hours. With that quick rise, bitcoin is maintaining a clear support around $6,000, with very little movement below or above that line. It has traded sideways around the $6,000 range for over two weeks. bitcoin price Following the trend of previous market corrections, other coins and tokens have generally followed the same pattern as the bitcoin price. In early June, however, ripple (XRP) stood out as a token maintaining its price while bitcoin, ethereum, and bitcoin cash saw sell offs. Later this month, however, the bearish trend did catch up to ripple. Today, the recovery is nearly across the board. The top ten coins and tokens by marketcap are seeing strong gains, in addition to nearly all of the top 100 coins. Ethereum (ETH) has jumped 6.91% to $469.57 over the past 24 hours. ethereum price The $30 million Bithumb hack was partly of the decline across the market last week, as CCN reported . However, in light of other previous, large-scale hacks, the price drops were not as steep and Bithumb has already promised to reimburse customer funds. The bitcoin price remained within its $6,000 trading range. Story continues Despite the Bithumb hack, the steep price drops last week and into the weekend across the entire crypto market is contrary to the good news and sentiment overall. More and more large corporations are showing interest in blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies, as regulations become clearer. Additionally, a law firm also reported that Tether did in fact have the funds to match the amount of USDT that the company has produced. The question is whether the market recovery will continue or prices will remain within their monthly ranges. Featured Image from Shutterstock The post Bitcoin Price Leads Monday Recovery as Market Fights Off Weekend Firesale appeared first on CCN .
[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
En 5 años el bitcóin será tan importante que “se reirán de ti” si intentas usar otra moneda #Pronóstico https://goo.gl/dfgyj5 || @btc_reddit || @Bitcoin_Post || @btc_current || 1 BTC = 28823.00001000 BRL em 23/07/2018 ás 02:00:02. #bitcoin #bitcoinbr #bitcoinexchangebr || @btc_update || @Bitcoin_Stats || #BTC: $6206.03 (1.24%)
#ETH: $457.56 (-3.28%)
#XRP: $0.483 (-1.00%)
#BCH: $755.82 (-0.02%)
#EOS: $8.02 (-3.60%)
#LTC: $80.71 (-1.89%)
#XLM: $0.199 (-1.11%)
#ADA: $0.135 (-0.98%)
#IOTA: $0.987 (-3.42%)
#TRX: $0.042 (-1.79%)
#NEO: $31.66 (-6.19%) || @Bitcoin_Stats || @btc_0
|
Trend: up || Prices: 6184.71, 6295.73, 6322.69, 6297.57, 6199.71, 6308.52, 6334.73, 6580.63, 6423.76, 6506.07
|
Analyze the provided historical prices, technical indicators, news, and social media sentiment from the last 60 days. Based on this context, predict the overall trend (up, down, or no change) and the specific daily closing prices for Bitcoin for the next 10 days.
|
[Technical Analysis for 2016-01-12]
BTC Price: 435.69, BTC RSI: 50.85
Gold Price: 1085.60, Gold RSI: 51.79
Oil Price: 30.44, Oil RSI: 25.99
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
6 trades to watch in an uncertain market: After U.S. stocks followed global markets lower Thursday, "Fast Money" traders outlined what they deemed safe plays to ride out uncertainty.
Major averages each closed down more than 2 percent, after a brief Chinese trading session in which a 7 percent drop in the CSI300 triggered a halt. Traders looked to longer-term plays that could offer protection through volatility.
Market Vectors Gold Miners ETF(NYSE Arca: GDX)
The price of gold(CEC:Commodities Exchange Centre: @GC.1), a traditional "safe haven" asset, climbed Thursday amid the uncertainty in stock and oil markets. The Market Vectors Gold Miners ETF rose more than 4 percent for the day.
Both traders Guy Adami and Brian Kelly said gold likely has more upside ahead.
iShares 20+ Year Treasury Bond ETF(NYSE Arca: TLT)
U.S. Treasury prices rose in choppy trading Thursday amid a flight to safer assets, sending yields lower. In that environment, the iShares 20+ Year Treasury Bond ETF could make a good play, said Adami and trader Dan Nathan.
Utilities Select Sector SPDR Fund(NYSE Arca: XLU)
Utilities offer a place to "hide" in current markets, said trader Steve Grasso. Nathan also identified them as a defensive play because of their dividend yields.
They looked to the Utilities Select Sector SPDR Fund, which fell slightly on Thursday.
Retail
Shares of department store chain Macy's(NYSE: M)climbed about 2 percent Thursday in the wake of a restructuring announcement. Adami believes the stock can rise even more.
Grasso also outlined possible strength in American Eagle Outfitters(NYSE: AEO).
Verizon(NYSE: VZ)
Nathan also saw Verizon as a possible play for investors looking for yield.
Disclosures:
Dan Nathan
Dan Nathan is long MCD Feb Put Spread, Long PFE buy-write, long TWTR March Risk Reversal, long UUP March call, long XLU Feb Call spread, long PYPL Jan Risk Reversal, long M Jan16 call spread, long NTAP Jan risk reversal, long QCOM feb calls, short SPY, Long UUP, long WMT puts
Steve Grasso
Steve Grasso is long AAPL, BA, BAC, CC, DD, DIS, DECK, EVGN, KBH, MJNA, MBLY, MU, OLN, PFE, PHM, T, TWTR, GDX firm is long APC, CXO, OXY, BP, CVX, MCD, RIG, AMZN kids own EFA, EFG, EWJ, IJR, SPY
Brian Kelly
Brian Kelly is long BBRY, Bitcoin, GDX, GLD, Hong Kong Dollar, TLT, US Dollar; he is short British Pound, Euro, Yuan, Canadian Dollar, GSG, EEM, EWC, EWH, KRE, SPY, DB
Guy Adami
Guy Adami is long CELG, EXAS, GDX, INTC, Guy Adami's wife, Linda Snow, works at Merck.
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• Personal Finance || How Diageo Plans To Turn Its Smirnoff Brand Around: Diageo Plc (ADR) (NYSE: DEO ) has already declared its New Year's resolution to turn its struggling Smirnoff vodka brand around. In the 2014-2015 financial year, Smirnoff sales by 3 percent as consumers turned their attention to "craft" vodka brands with smaller batches and local distilleries. Flavor Mistakes However, Smirnoff wasn't always struggling. The brand became hugely popular with several flavor varieties when consumers were interested in unique cocktails, but that era seems to have ended leaving the vodka brand behind with it. In an effort to revive the brand this year, the company added 42 new flavors designed to appeal to younger drinkers. However, the decision missed the mark and Smirnoff global brand director Matt Bruhn admitted that the flavor additions were a "mistake." New Strategy Diageo Chief Executive Ivan Menzes vowed to turn the brand around this year as vodka market makes up about 12 percent of the company's net sales. In order to do this, Smirnoff is to cut down on the number of flavors offered and embed its name into the electronic-dance-music community. Smirnoff is slated to sponsor 26 electronic-music festivals in the coming year and the brand has also developed a sound collective that will sponsor fresh new electronic-music artists. The company has also created a line of glow-in-the dark flavors that will be marketed as shots. Competing With Craft All of Smirnoff's efforts in the coming year are designed to appeal to the coveted millennial generation, a group that has recently reached the legal drinking age and makes up a huge percentage of the market. While Smirnoff's efforts are valiant, many believe that the company is fighting an uphill battle as bespoke companies that make unique offerings have become popular choices among young people. See more from Benzinga What's In Store For Bitcoin In 2016? FedEx Gets The Blame For Holiday Delays How Blockchain Can Reform The Real Estate Industry © 2015 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || 16 Bold ETF Predictions for 2016: 2015 wasn’t exactly a great year for fund investors. A few choice companies dominated and left their competitors in the dust, making it a pretty poor year to be a sector investor. For example, stocks likeAmazon (AMZN)orNetflix (NFLX)more than doubled in 2015 while not a single major SPDR sector looks to finish the year with gains in excess of 11%.
However, 2016 looks to be a bit brighter, assuming of course it isn’t going to be a ‘stock picker’s market’ again in the New Year. Beyond that though, it looks to be another exciting and prosperous year for the ETF industry, and one that looks to see plenty of changes, as well as new funds. In terms of what specifically the New Year might hold, I offer up 16 predictions on what I think 2016 will hold for the world of ETFs, and what investors need to watch for in the New Year:
Hedged currency trend finally ends
One of the most annoying trends in 2015 has been the surge in every type of hedged currency ETF you could think of, be it half hedged, dynamic hedged, or Chinese currency hedged. While I think the dollar will strengthen a bit more, I think the second half of 2016 will see the flow of hedged ETFs slow to a trickle—if not an outright halt—as the dollar levels out and investors look elsewhere for gains in foreign markets (see Flurry of New Currency Hedged ETFs Fuels Price War ).
ETMFs Debut, but stumble out of the gate
Exchange Traded Mutual Funds are going to be a big buzzword in 2016 as companies like Eaton Vance look to launch this product type which seeks to provide the exchange-traded benefits of ETFs, with the closed-off holdings aspects of mutual funds to prevent front-running. While I think these will one day have a place in the fund world, they will stumble out of the gate as they confuse investors, unless of course big name players jump on this category and can bring their brand name following with them.
More specialized sectors funds look to catch fire, but struggle
After the insane rise of thecybersecurity ETF (HACK)in the past year, a number of ETF issuers are looking to strike it rich with similar products in the New Year. As of late, I have seen filings for e-commerce funds, 3D Printing ETFs, and an Internet of Things product, with all of them looking to catch fire like HACK did. However, HACK had a massive catalyst, and without that, the new funds will struggle for a bit to gain popularity in 2016 (see Invest in Booming Technologies with These 3 ETFs).
IWM will beat SPY in 2016
Large caps led the way in 2015, mostly thanks to incredible performances from well-known companies. I think this trend reverses in 2016 and we see a return of thesmall cap ETF (IWM)and its outperformance over its large cap counterparts in the New Year.
RSP will beat SPYin 2016
In that same vein, theequal weight S&P 500 fund (RSP)had long beaten its cap-focused counterpart,SPY. However, this trend ended in 2015 thanks to those surging mega cap securities. I am also looking for this trend to reverse in 2016 and to see a resurgence of equal weight product demand in general for the New Year as well.
Surge in duration hedged/negative duration ETF interest
A few years ago, hedged Japan ETFs (likeDXJ) hit the market and many thought they were too sophisticated for retail investors. However, as this turned out to be the best way to play the Japan story, investors of all stripes flocked to these products, making them ultra-popular choices in the Japan market. The same concerns are present now with hedged/negative duration bond funds and I think as interest rates rise these will have their time in the sun (by being the best bond ETF plays) and surge in popularity in 2016 ( Worried About Higher Interest Rates? Buy These 4 ETFs to Profit ).
Ex-sector funds hit $100 million under management
If 2016 is anything like 2015, we will see at least one major sector stumble. That is why I think the lineup from ProShares of ex-sector ETFs (ex-energy, ex-financials, ex-health care, and ex-technology) will finally surge in 2016 after languishing in anonymity for much of Q4 in 2015. With a year under their belt, these will finally see some interest from investors and will go from a combined AUM of under $20 million today, to a combined AUM of at least $100 million by year’s end.
New SPDR Select Sector ETFs hit $100 million in assets
State Street’s SPDR lineup has proven to be very popular, but the company recently launched two new products to round out its financial ETF offering;XLFS(focus on financial services) and XLRE (focus on real estate). Both of these made their debut in Q4 but haven’t really seen a surge in assets. I think this will change in 2016 as the interest rate picture becomes clearer, making at least one of them a $100 million product, up from roughly $16 million total right now.
Oil-free in 2016
The trend against oil investing will continue in 2016 and I think we will see at least a few more fossil-free funds hit the market as investors look to avoid this space in their portfolios. I also think we could see an oil-free bond ETF (or fossil free bond ETF) as issuers look to cash in on the trend against oil investments and over the concerns of defaults in the high yield market in this corner of the fixed income world (read Support the Environment and Profit with Fossil Fuel Free ETFs ).
ETF Closures Go Over 100 and Hit/Approach a Record
There are nearly 20 funds that have less than $1 million in assets under management, while about 300 have less than $5 million under management. There is basically no way these are profitable and I am sure we will see a host of closures in 2016 as the writing on the wall becomes clear for many of these strategies. This will make 2016 another big, if not the biggest, year for ETF closures on record.
Someone Will Close Down Too Early
The flip side of this is that a fund will close down too early. In 2016, I predict a fund will shut its doors only to see its segment go on to great popularity within the next few months. We saw this with FAA and the airline space (among others) and it is hard to discount the importance of timing in the ETF world right now, so look for this to happen to a country or sector fund in the New Year (see Finally a New Airline ETF Prepares to Take Off).
Two similar ETFs will launch within a one month window
You know when Hollywood launches two similar movies pretty close together (White House DownandOlympus Has FallenorA Bug’s LifeandAntzback in the day)? Well, the ETF industry likes to do that too, putting out funds that target pretty much the same area within a few weeks of each other. The idea is to dilute the first-mover advantage (or to race andbecomethe first mover) and I’d look for that trend to continue in 2016 at least once.
Wearable ETF hits the market (or at least a filing)
Thanks to the ubiquitous nature ofFitbit (FIT)and a boost in interest in all technology connected devices that are ‘wearable’, a number of companies are jumping into this market. As we saw in recent months with cyber security and cloud computing ETFs, I’d expect to see a wearable (ticker WEAR?) before too long, or at least a filing that will get this fund to market eventually.
Bitcoin fund finally comes out
For quite some time now, there has been a filing in the pipeline for a bitcoin ETF (COIN) from the Winklevoss twins of all people. The first filing was in 2013, an index was launched earlier in 2014, and I think 2016 will finally mark see this idea pass regulatory hurdles as well as the launch of this product which should help to make bitcoins more easily tradable and liquid for the masses, much like whatGLDdid for gold (read Believe It or Not: Winklevoss Bitcoin ETF on the Horizon ).
Price war continues
As the ETF space starts to round out, many ETF issuers have launched ‘me-too’ products which target substantially similar segments of the market. The way they differentiate has largely been on the price front and this has forced issuers to slash costs in order to remain competitive. This war has been great for consumers who look to save more money, and I expect to see more fee cuts and price competitive products in 2016 as well.
You’ll see more calls of an ETF Bubble… These will be wrong
Every couple of months, ETF pundits will write articles or go on TV saying that the end is near for the ETF world and that the category cannot support more products. These predictions have been wrong before and they will be wrong again in 2016. While there are a lot more ETFs than there were a few years ago, there is still plenty of more sector specific and active ETF opportunities out there, meaning that investors shouldn’t be worried about a bubble again in the New Year either (see Best and Worst ETFs of 2015).
Happy New Year and best of luck to fund investors in 2016!
Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days.Click to get this free report >>
Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days.Click to get this free reportFITBIT INC (FIT): Free Stock Analysis ReportPURFDS-ISE CYBR (HACK): ETF Research ReportsISHARS-R 2000 (IWM): ETF Research ReportsSPDR-FS SELS (XLFS): ETF Research ReportsSPDR-SP 500 TR (SPY): ETF Research ReportsGUGG-SP5 EQ ETF (RSP): ETF Research ReportsTo read this article on Zacks.com click here.Zacks Investment ResearchWant the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report || 5 Tech Trends To Watch In 2016: Tech is an ever-changing landscape that has provided investors and venture capitalists with an unending supply of "next big things."
Over the past decade, Internet use has completely upended the way most companies do business and built an entirely new industry based on connecting people with each other. Now, with the tech space overflowing with new startups and great ideas, many investors are wondering where to place their bets in the year to come.
Here's a look at five tech trends to watch in 2016.
1. The Internet Of Things
Connected devices are expected to become a huge part of the future in the coming year as more companies work to give appliances, automobiles and even lightbulbs an Internet connection.
The idea of connecting several aspects of life and being able to control them with the click of a button has grown in popularity, leading many to look into services like Hive, a system that remotely controls a home's heating system. On a larger scale, some cities are beginning to plan major overhauls that will allow residents to track things like real-time traffic and pollution levels and give planners the ability to regulate energy usage by installing remotely controlled lightbulbs and monitoring building conditions.
Related Link:More Connections Means More Security
Where To Look
There are a wide variety of companies participating in the shift toward a more connected world. One firm that has been at the forefront of connected technology isInternational Business Machines Corp.(NYSE:IBM). The firm recently an IoT "starter pack" that allows users to take readings from the environment using sensors attached to the device. The kit can be used on a small scale, for homeowners, or in a much larger capacity by a city planner.
Cisco Systems, Inc.(NASDAQ:CSCO) is another interesting play, as the company has also begun working on smart city planning involvement. The company has already to provide automated solutions that connect important city functions in major places like Barcelona and Hamburg.
2. Wearables
Wearable technology took off in 2015 whenApple Inc.(NASDAQ:AAPL) entered the space with the highly anticipated Apple Watch.
Competing products like Jawbone's UP and FitBit's activity trackers also saw a rise in popularity as more consumers began to focus on living a healthier, active life.
However, just because this year was a big one for the wearables market doesn't mean the opportunity to jump on board is over. Many believe that wearable technology is still in its infancy and that new and improved devices will help the trend expand even further.
At the moment, the idea that a smartwatch can do things like direct a wearer to the correct grocery aisle is novel, but many believe that the technology will expand to do even more impressive things in the future.
Related Link:Research And Markets: Wearables Generating The Next Wave Of Personal Finance Experiences
Where To Look
The obvious pick for wearable devices is Apple, as the company has established itself as a leader in new consumer technology. The Apple Watch arguably put wearable devices on the map this year, and many believe that new versions due out in the coming months will attract even more fanfare.
However, for investors looking even further into the future, companies likeSAMSUNG ELECT LTD(F)(OTC:SSNLF) andIntel Corporation(NASDAQ:INTC) may be good bets.
Samsung has a new line of circuit boards that are about the size of postage stamps, making them ideal for use in things like fitness trackers. The company is expected to use the boards in its own line of products, as well as selling them on to other firms interested in using them in wearables or connected appliances.
Intel similarly a bite-size computer chip that the company believes will make an impact on the wearables market. The firm says that watches are only the beginning of the trend and that its computer chips could be used in clothing designed to track the wearer's biometrics.
3. Big Data
It should come as no surprise that big data will remain a huge part of corporate strategy in the coming year. The advent of cloud computing has given companies the ability to pull together and analyze huge data sets in order to run their business more effectively. Everything from comparing best practices to analyzing medical conditions has benefitted from improvements in data analysis, and that practice is only expected to become more commonplace in the coming year.
A conducted by the analyst firm Gartner showed that over 75 percent of companies are planning to invest in big data over the next two years. Gartner researchers said the research's findings illustrated big data research itself is becoming the norm among most companies as they work to improve things like customer experiences and cut down on costs.
Related Link:Harte Hanks Launches Data Refiner Platform
Where To Look
When it comes to big data, companies likeAmazon.com, Inc.(NASDAQ:AMZN) have a massive advantage, because the volume of customers using their service to shop, watch movies and listen to music has created a valuable store of data allowing for more accurate targeted marketing.
However other companies like International Business Machines andMicrosoft Corporation(NASDAQ:MSFT) also offer interesting investment opportunities, as those firms offer services that allow companies to make better use of their data collection by mining and analyzing customer data. So far, IBM appears to be a leader in this industry, as the firm offers developers and businesses a popular suite of products to help them manage big data.
4. 3D Printing
3D printing is a controversial tech trend that some say has been over-hyped during the past few years. While that may be true, 3D printing technology has come a long way recently, and many believe that 2016 could be its breakout year.
The technology has proven most useful in specific capabilities, such as providing replacement parts for machinery or helping engineers create scalable models. However, new use-cases for 3D printing have started to crop up, leading many to believe that the industry will continue growing in the New Year.
NASA has said that 3D printing technology could prove useful on missions into space; the devices have already been used to print tools for astronauts aboard the international space station. 3D printing technology has also changed to allow for printing , something that could revolutionize medical testing.
Related Link:Add 3D Printing To Your Portfolio With These Stocks
Where To Look
Investors who are interested in tapping into the 3D printing space often look to firms likeStratasys, Ltd.(NASDAQ:SSYS) or3D Systems Corporation(NYSE:DDD).
Stratasys has been a market leader in the 3D printing space, as the company has already sold and installed thousands of devices that generate a steady revenue from replacement sales. 3D Systems has a much smaller reach, but the firm offers a wider variety of printers that are able to cater to several different industries – something that could give the firm a leg up as more and more businesses see a need for 3D printing technologies.
5. Cybersecurity
With the pace of technological innovation rapidly increasing, the need for security has risen dramatically. A spate of high-profile hacking attacks and data leaks over the past year has raised awareness among both consumers and CEOs of the importance of a comprehensive security program.
Consumers are using the Internet for everything from banking transactions to controlling their heating system, and the growing number of connections means threats to companies' databases is rising as well.
Related Link:Adding Some Volatility To The Cybersecurity ETF Trade
Where To Look
When it comes to investing in cybersecurity, there is a plethora of options. For investors looking to benefit from increasing interest in cybersecurity on the whole, an ETF likePureFunds ISE Cyber Security ETF(NYSE:HACK) could be a good play. The fund tracks a range of different companies and gives investors exposure to the industry as a whole.
For a more targeted route, some investors are looking into companies likeNXP Semiconductors NV(NASDAQ:NXPI). NXP is the company responsible for the security behind Apple Pay, making it a valuable investment for those who see interest mobile payment ballooning over the next year.
Image Credit:
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© 2015 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Match and Square trade, Pepsi invades Empire, and Europeans prepare to fight ISIS: Two more unicorns leave the stable today. Both Square ( SQ ) and Match Group ( MTCH ) priced a bit lower than expected but hit the tickers this morning, trading solidly higher. Other than that, it's a relatively quiet day in the markets ( ^DJI , ^GSPC , ^IXIC ) . Get the Latest Market Data and News with the Yahoo Finance App Here are some of the other stories Yahoo Finance is keeping an eye on today. Are Europeans prepared to battle ISIS? ISIS recently claimed responsibility for three major terrorist attacks, including those in Paris last week. As the threat of ISIS stretches well beyond Iraq and Syria, it's not clear if European powers will have the military strength to fight ISIS abroad. Yahoo's Rick Newman gives a special report. Pepsi invades Empire Taking product placement to a whole new level, Pepsi ( PEP ) just struck a deal with Fox to make the beverage giant an integral part of three episodes of the hit show Empire. Is this part of a larger trend in an ad-averse world? Frequent flyer miles for Wi-Fi Move over Bitcoins, frequent flyer miles might just be the new currency du jour. United ( UAL ) will soon let you spend your miles on Wi-Fi access on its flights. The move is part of an image campaign that's focusing on improving travelers' experiences instead of trying to shake a few more dollars out of flyers. || Where do the presidential candidates stand on encryption? A handy guide: Photo: Getty Images In the wake of terrorist attacks here and abroad, candidates in the 2016 presidential race have shifted their attention to issues of national security. Many have proposed aggressive measures to confront ISIS, including bombing it “back to the Stone Age” (Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas) and banning Muslims from entering the country altogether (Donald Trump ) . But very few have articulated a clear position on how to prevent terrorist recruitment and plotting online. CNN’s Tuesday night Republican debate brought many of these issues to the table, raising questions about surveillance, who owns the Internet and — paramount to the tech world — encryption . Encryption — a way to encode information so that only the sender and the intended recipient can read it — has been central to a security versus privacy debate dubbed the Crypto Wars that dates back to the early 1990s. For years, intelligence officials have pointed to the technology as a significant obstacle in tracking nefarious activity online. Those complaints have only grown more insistent since the terrorist attacks in Paris and San Bernardino. Recently, FBI Director James Comey even suggested that major tech companies reconsider their business structure to intercept and pass on encrypted information when needed. And those pressures are sure to increase after French counterterrorism investigators announced that encrypted apps such as WhatsApp and Telegram may have been used to plot the Nov. 13 Paris attack. Virtually all tech companies and cryptographers argue that building any type of “backdoor” into these secure communications would undermine the purpose of the technology entirely, ultimately compromising public privacy and driving consumers to use unregulated international products. It’s something our next president will most definitely have to weigh in on. And though not every presidential candidate has offered a firm stance on the debate, they’ve definitely dropped hints. Below, a survey of those candidates who have acknowledged the issue of encryption and what they think about it. Story continues Democrats: Hillary Clinton The current Democratic frontrunner has discussed encryption regulation several times, though we still don’t know how she feels about it. In a conversation with Re/code’s Kara Swisher in June, she said Silicon Valley needs to sit down with legislators and have a “real conversation” about ways to get around encryption to combat online terrorist activity. Then she waffled, admitting it was a “hard choice” and that “there are really strong, legitimate arguments on both sides.” During a speech at the Brookings Institution in December, Clinton threw around more vague platitudes, requesting an “urgent dialogue” between industry giants and law enforcement officials about tackling terrorists online, appealing to Silicon Valley to “disrupt ISIS.” Her voting record, however, offers a clearer picture of her stance on privacy tech. As a New York senator in 2001, Clinton supported the Patriot Act , which authorized expanded government surveillance to monitor phone and email communications, collect bank and credit card records and track Internet activity. As provisions under that act were set to expire this year, she endorsed a bill that re-upped and modified that surveillance program, ending the NSA’s bulk metadata collection but maintaining other forms of surveillance. At the same time, she said the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act, which allows the sharing of Internet traffic information between the government and tech companies, “ doesn’t go far enough ,” in protecting us from foreign hackers. So, it seems Clinton has a history of siding with the surveyors, and not the surveilled. Bernie Sanders Maintaining a steadfast focus on economic and social justice issues during his presidential campaign, Sanders hasn’t spent much time battling mass surveillance. But his record signals that he’s much more concerned than Clinton about protecting citizen’s privacy. Just as he voted against the Patriot Act, he rejected the USA Freedom Act this June, arguing that it didn’t “go far enough in protecting our privacy rights.” “I worry that we are moving toward an Orwellian form of society, where Big Brother — whether in the corporate world, or the government — knows too much information about the private lives of innocent people,” he told Yahoo Global News Anchor Katie Couric in June. Though that’s not an outright condemnation of building back doors into encrypted communications for the purpose of government surveillance, it’s very close. Martin O’Malley Photo: Cheryl Senter/AP The Democratic Party’s third wheel addressed encryption, however noncommittally, in an op-ed for the New York Daily News , calling for “greater public-private collaboration on how we can prevent terrorists from exploiting encryption, which has enabled them to ‘go dark’ well before they strike.” Ultimately that concern for security is likely what pushed O’Malley to support the USA Freedom Act . However, he said he “would like to see us go further” when it comes to limiting the government’s ability to conduct surveillance on citizens. So it seems he’s conflicted in this area. Republicans: Jeb Bush: Photo: John Locher/AP Jeb Bush more or less condemned the use of encryption in August: “If you create encryption, it makes it harder for the American government to do its job — while protecting civil liberties — to make sure that evildoers aren’t in our midst,” he said at an event sponsored by a military contractor-affiliated group named Americans for Peace, Prosperity, and Security . Rand Paul Paul has positioned himself as one of the most tech-savvy candidates of the 2016 presidential race, hosting hack-a-thons and accepting donations via Bitcoin . So it’s no surprise that he has a lot to say about the proposal to limit encryption. In an interview with Yahoo News’ Olivier Knox in November, he supported public use of the technology and echoed the security concerns of many cryptographers and activists. “The head of the FBI came out with this recently, he says, ‘Oh, we’re going to ban encryption.’ And it’s like we want to build a backdoor into Facebook and a backdoor into Apple products,” Paul said at the Yahoo Politics Digital Democracy Conference . “A backdoor means that the government can look at your stuff, look at your information, your conversations. … The moment you build an opening — and I’m not an expert on coding or anything, but the moment you give a vulnerability to a code that someone can get into your source code, not only can the government, but so can your enemies, so can foreign governments.” This comes as no surprise, as Paul has challenged the provisions of the Patriot Act in the past, and recently compared banning encryption to banning guns . Carly Fiorina Photo: John Locher/AP During the first GOP debate, Carly Fiorina was asked whether Google and Apple should cooperate with the U.S. government to weaken encryption so criminals can’t hide behind it. In response, the former Hewlett-Packard CEO made up a new word . “We need to tear down cyberwalls,” she said, referring, one can only assume, to encryption. “We could have detected and repelled some of those cyberattacks” if we had passed “a law [that] has been sitting, languishing, sadly, on Capitol Hill.” Just this week, she clarified her stance in an interview with Breitbart News . “You can’t outlaw encryption,” she said. “Encryption protects American consumers from identity theft, and all the rest of it. But we have to be able to work around it when necessary to give our investigators the information they need.” Fiorina reiterated this strategy, which some experts say is wholly infeasible, at the debate on Tuesday, solidifying her willingness to compromise the security of encryption in the wake of terrorist threats. Lindsey Graham Photo: Mike Blake/Reuters Graham followed up on Fiorina’s remarks at the first Republican debate by declaring “if I have to tear down a cyberwall, I’ll tear down a cyberwall.” But the South Carolina senator’s past comments about technology may be reason to question whether he knows what tearing down that cyberwall would entail. In March, Graham said he’d never sent an email . Adding: “I don’t know what that makes me.” In this case, it makes him a person who probably doesn’t know much about the encryption debate. However, those who contribute to his campaign can rest assured that the governor’s website processes each credit card transaction “using encrypted code.” John Kasich Tuesday’s debate gave the Ohio governor an opportunity to blame encryption for our lack of prior intelligence in terrorist attacks. “There is a big problem, it’s called encryption,” he said. “The people in San Bernardino were communicating with people who the FBI had been watching, but because their phone was encrypted, because intelligence officials could not see who they were talking to, it was lost. … We need to be able to penetrate these people when they’re involved in these plots and these plans, and we have to give the local authorities the ability to penetrate in this route. Encryption is a major problem and Congress has got to deal with this, and so does the president, to keep us safe.” Kasich’s suggestion that we could not access the San Bernardino shooters’ phone conversations because their phone was encrypted is somewhat misleading. Kasich was referring to a CBS News tweet that quoted a “senior law enforcement official” who said investigators had found “levels of built-in encryption” in Syed Farook and Tashfeen Malik’s phones. Virtually all modern phones in the United States come out of the box with “levels of built-in encryption,” otherwise criminals would be able to intercept your calls whenever your phone connected to a cellular tower. Not to mention, if your phone was stolen, anyone would be able to access your sensitive information. Whether Kasich is confused by that point, or simply using it as an example to explain why all encryption is dangerous, is unclear. But there’s no question that he’s willing to significantly downgrade the security of devices to be sure nothing gets past intelligence officials. George Pataki During Tuesday night’s undercard debate, the former New York governor said that, as president, he would pass “a law on tech firms to prevent encryption.” In clarifying his position, he provided suggestions similar to Fiorina’s. “Companies are entitled to encrypt and protect their knowledge and their intelligence,” he said. “But what we need is a backdoor for law enforcement to be able — when they can establish that that communication poses a risk to our safety and engages in terrorism — to get a court order and go in and access those communications. Allow the companies to continue encryption, provide an entryway for law enforcement when they can prove to a court that there’s a sufficient risk, when there’s an attack upon us, that they have the right to look at those messages.” Marco Rubio Photo: John Locher/AP Rubio has made it clear that he wants the federal government and the private sector to share more information as a way to prevent cyber- and terrorist attacks. He’s also publicly supported the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act . And during Tuesday’s debate, he doubled down on his commitment to mass surveillance. “We are now at a time where we need more tools, not less tools,” the Florida senator said , criticizing the limits on metadata collection in the USA Freedom Act. Rubio’s willingness to expand programs that collect the private information of Americans signals an apparent willingness to compromise encryption for the same reasons. Ted Cruz Photo: John Locher/AP The Texas senator has towed a libertarian line when it comes to surveillance legislation in the past. As a candidate whose campaign runs on an explicit distrust of big government, it makes sense that Cruz would vote for the USA Freedom Act — a move that has earned him scorn from Rubio. During Tuesday’s debate, he argued that the bill’s mandate to transfer mass phone data collection from the NSA to phone companies actually gave more tools to pinpoint terror threats. However, cybersecurity activists worry that Cruz is uneducated on the intricacies of these policies, after an Oct. 15 video surfaced of the senator admitting to a crowd in Iowa that he was unfamiliar with CISA — a bill that critics say allows companies to monitor their customers and share their information with the government without warrant. Donald Trump Photo: John Locher/AP Trump has made many a reference to building walls, and some of them even appear to be cyber in nature. Though the Republican presidential frontrunner has not explicitly addressed encryption issues, he has suggested we shut off ISIS’ Internet connection, and expressed concern that the group is “using the Internet better than we are,” despite the fact that it “was our idea.” During the debate, he elaborated as best he could. “I wanted to get our brilliant people from Silicon Valley and other places and figure out a way that ISIS cannot do what they’re doing,” he said . “You talk freedom of speech, you talk freedom of anything you want. I don’t want them using our Internet to take our young impressionable youth.” Trump could be referring to the issue of encryption, or something much simpler. But anyone who’s willing to ban a world religion from the country might be willing to do the same for an essential element of consumer technology. Ben Carson Photo: Mike Blake/Reuters The retired brain surgeon has made virtually no mention of encryption on the campaign trail. But when it comes to assuring potential donors that their credit card information is safe, his website has a whole page on it: “Carson America uses a secure socket layer (SSL) with the highest level of encryption commercially available for www.bencarson.com on pages where online visitors register or make a secure online donation using their credit card.” That being said, Carson has said he’s open to the surveillance of mosques, churches and schools. Who knows whether that would entail the compromise of encryption technology? Chris Christie Photo: John Locher/AP In early 2015, Christie signed a law that required health insurance companies in New Jersey to encrypt client information, signaling he understands its importance. Still, the New Jersey governor has made his support for the NSA and government surveillance very clear, praising the provisions in the Patriot Act, and calling for the extension of intelligence-gathering capabilities. The fact that he’s publicly criticized Edward Snowden, and sparred with Rand Paul about these issues suggests he’d overhaul encryption if that meant even a hint of access to potential terrorist activity. Rick Santorum Photo: Mike Blake/Reuters Though the former senator from Pennsylvania has made no explicit mention of encryption, his voting record speaks for itself. Santorum voted for the Patriot Act in 2001, and said he’d do it again today. He’s also criticized Paul’s stance on the issue, saying “hopefully Rand Paul won’t prevail, that the Senate will do what it must do, which is to keep our defenses up and follow through with a plan that balances the interests,” Santorum replied. “It’s always a [balance] between security and freedom, and that’s in every aspect of our [lives].” That balance would likely mean that he’d prefer the government has access to encrypted communication for the sake of national security. Mike Huckabee Photo: Mike Blake/Reuters Huckabee, though not the race’s expert on online surveillance, has most definitely been vocal about the issue. He’s been known to publicly criticize unregulated monitoring by the NSA , arguing that the Patriot Act has gone too far. The former Arkansas governor has even said he’d repeal “Obama’s warrantless NSA spying program” if he became president. However, his comments about cybersecurity have caused experts to question his technological knowledge of the government’s digital capabilities in general. So, though he’s made no explicit mention of encryption, it’s possible that he, like so many other candidates, might not understand it. Related: Following Paris attacks, encryption services face new scrutiny Here’s the manual ISIS uses to teach its soldiers about encryption How encryption works and why people are so freaked out about it || 5 'Bold' Predictions For 2016: In a new report, Cup & Handle Macro analyst Michael Lingenheld revealed five bold market predictions for 2016. Heres a breakdown of his list. 1. Revolution in a major emerging market Lingenheld believes that South Africa is the top target, but names Turkey, Indonesia, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, Ukraine and Russia as other possibilities. All of these countries are currently suffering from large debt burdens, poor leadership and high youth unemployment. 2. Bitcoin outperforms all fiat currencies Lingenheld made this same prediction prior to 2015, and it came true. Bitcoin gained 35 percent in 2015, and he sees no reason why the cryptocurrency wont outperform again in 2016. 3. A major currency peg will break Lingenheld notes that the IMFs annual review of currency regimes revealed than only 35 percent of member countries let their currencies float as of the beginning of 2015. He adds that Middle Eastern countries suffering from low oil prices are top candidates, including Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and UAE. Bringing down any of these pegs would be a major macro story, but a free-floating or devalued Hong Kong Dllar would be a monumental development, Lingenheld explains. 4. Corn and wheat will each rally at least 20 percent Global stock-to-use ratios are at 16-year highs, and low gas prices have been a major boost for farmers. However, Lingenheld is not convinced that crop prices are high enough to drive a huge planting season in the spring. 5. A unicorn company will go bankrupt Lingenheld sees a shift in market enthusiasm for new tech companies, including the disappointing Square Inc (NYSE: SQ ) IPO pricing. He believes that the reality of competing with big tech companies like Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ: GOOGL ) , Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL ) and Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN ) will start weighing heavily on smaller unicorn companies and their investors. Disclosure: the author holds no position in the stocks mentioned. Latest Ratings for AAPL Dec 2015 Cowen & Company Maintains Market Perform Dec 2015 Barclays Maintains Overweight Dec 2015 BMO Capital Initiates Coverage on Outperform View More Analyst Ratings for AAPL View the Latest Analyst Ratings Story continues See more from Benzinga Apple's Chart Indicates A Tough Start To 2016 Ahead CES 2016 Expected To Be Huge For Drones, Virtual Reality And Wearables Apple Stock For ? How Fractional Investing Changes The Game © 2015 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Ledger Fights For Bitcoin's Staying Power At CES 2016: The Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas is a chance for electronics and technology firms to debut their latest offerings and future prospects. Everything from self-driving cars to mind-blowing virtual reality sets have made their debut at CES, and each year the show tends to set the tone for what kind of tech will be big in the coming year.
This year, bitcoin startupLedgeris keeping the cryptocurrency in the spotlight by hosting the only bitcoin startup booth at the event.
Physical Bitcoin Storage
Ledger created a hardware wallet product in 2015 that provides customers with a safe and secure way to store and use their bitcoins. Ledger takes some of the worry out of using bitcoin by giving users a physical way to store bitcoins – a lightweight smart card. They can then use a USB to make secure payments, and the company offers a simple backup system that provides users with a microchip and pin code encrypted system in case they lose their card.
Related Link:Can The Bitcoin Foundation Last?
This year, Ledger is planning to exhibit new offerings at CES including a new technology that will strengthen the security of online authentication by reducing the reliance on passwords.
Bitcoin's Year
Ledger's presence at CES suggests that although bitcoin had a rough year in 2015, the cryptocurrency isn't dead yet. Concerns about privacy and security have increased skepticism about cryptocurrencies, making it difficult for bitcoin firms to push mainstream approval. However, many believe that as security improves and more and more vendors open up to the possibility of bitcoin transactions, the public will get on board.
Image Credit: Public Domain
See more from Benzinga
• Virtual Reality In 2016
• Is Tesla A Good Investment For 2016?
• 3 CEOs Who Made Headlines In 2015
© 2016 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Global Arena Holding Subsidiary Attends Final Demo of Blockchain High Speed Scanning and Voting Tabulation Software: NEW YORK, NY--(Marketwired - Dec 7, 2015) - Global Arena Holding, Inc. (OTC PINK:GAHC), (the "Company") announced today that its subsidiary, Global Elections Services ("GES"), successfully completed its final testing of the blockchain voting tabulation system developed by Blockchain Technologies Corporation ("BTC").
In early November, GES executives conducted their first round of tests on a blockchain tabulation system designed by BTC as a technology upgrade for one of the current methods the elections company uses. While those initial tests did give Ms. Maralin Falik (CEO of GES) confidence in the system's user interface, as expected from a 35 year industry veteran, she sent BTC back with additional specs to be met. After several more iterations by BTC's software engineers, GES conducted their final test of BTC's blockchain scanning and voting tabulation system with great success.
"GES strives to provide the highest standards in the election process. All of our municipal public elections must conform with the regulations of the United States Department of Labor, which has very stringent requirements," stated Maralin Falik. "Conforming to these standards is crucial. Working with BTC, we will now be on the cutting edge as an early adapter of a world changing technology, which will transform the election process in an efficient and credible way while maintaining the level of integrity the Department of Labor requires and expects."
Ms. Falik continued, "We are very pleased with the results of this demonstration for Scanning and Tabulating Mail-in Ballots. We will look to move forward with BTC's technology at our elections, and quickly begin expanding our reach, securing many different types of elections, on a global scale."
BTC CEO Nick Spanos stated, "At Blockchain Technologies Corporation, we pride ourselves on achieving real world blockchain integration. Through a partnership with GES, we will revolutionize election processes with the unveiling of the world's first blockchain voting tabulation system. In this case, we have modified our patented platform to coincide with the Department of Labor specifications. This will allow for greater transparency, accessibility and security for Union elections."
Mr. Spanos continued, "This is just the beginning. Keep in mind, this blockchain voting tabulation system is only utilizing a small segment of our elections platform. I have over three decades of experience engineering electoral management software. So Maralin will have many options to grow GES with our technologies and applications, and we will support her every step of the way."
John Matthews, CEO of Global Arena Holding, Inc., said, "When we began investing in Blockchain Technologies Corporation, we envisioned great synergies between GES and BTC. Today, it looks as though our ambitions are materializing. This relationship will pave the way to a new standard in 21st century voting, with the integrity of every election now being secured by the blockchain."
Mr. Matthews continued, "This new process will also mean continued growth and potentially increased revenues to GES, while concurrently providing an income stream for BTC. So instead of paying third party providers for tabulation services, GES will pay a technologically advanced company [BTC], which Global Area Holding has a vested interest in." Mr. Matthews additionally stated, "This demonstration of the High Speed Scanning and Tabulation Software is phase one of GES' growth strategy. The Company expects further software upgrades using the blockchain to enhance our other current services which include; Internet Voting, In Person voting, and Hybrid Elections."
At this point, the next step is for GES to sign an agreement with BTC and begin conducting elections using BTC's blockchain voting system. The Company's management is excitedly looking forward to this collaboration being consummated.
About Global Arena Holding
The Company trades on the OTC Pink Sheets under the ticker symbol GAHC. The Company has been publicly traded since 2011 and holds a number of interests, including Global Elections Services, Inc., GAHI Acquisition Corp and Blockchain Technologies Corporation Inc. The Company focuses on acquiring technologies, patents and companies having the ability to leverage the blockchain crypto technology.
For more information visit:http://globalarenaholding.com
Twitter:www.twitter.com/GlobalArenaGAHCFacebook:www.facebook.com/GlobalArenaHoldingGAHCLinkedIn:www.linkedin.com/pub/global-arena-holding/107/86a/a7Google+:http://tinyurl.com/GlobalArenaHolding
Safe Harbor Statement
The Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 provides a "safe harbor" for forward-looking statements. Certain information included in this press release contains statements that are forward-looking, such as statements related to the future anticipated direction of the industry, plans for future expansion, various business development activities, planned or required capital expenditures, future funding sources, anticipated sales growth, and potential contracts. Such forward-looking information involves important risks and uncertainties that could significantly affect anticipated results in the future and, accordingly, such results may differ from those expressed in any forward-looking statements made by, or on behalf of, the company. These risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, those relating to development and expansion activities, dependence on existing management, financing activities, domestic and global economic conditions, and other risks and uncertainties described in the Company's periodic filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. || Ledger Fights For Bitcoin's Staying Power At CES 2016: The Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas is a chance for electronics and technology firms to debut their latest offerings and future prospects. Everything from self-driving cars to mind-blowing virtual reality sets have made their debut at CES, and each year the show tends to set the tone for what kind of tech will be big in the coming year.
This year, bitcoin startupLedgeris keeping the cryptocurrency in the spotlight by hosting the only bitcoin startup booth at the event.
Physical Bitcoin Storage
Ledger created a hardware wallet product in 2015 that provides customers with a safe and secure way to store and use their bitcoins. Ledger takes some of the worry out of using bitcoin by giving users a physical way to store bitcoins – a lightweight smart card. They can then use a USB to make secure payments, and the company offers a simple backup system that provides users with a microchip and pin code encrypted system in case they lose their card.
Related Link:Can The Bitcoin Foundation Last?
This year, Ledger is planning to exhibit new offerings at CES including a new technology that will strengthen the security of online authentication by reducing the reliance on passwords.
Bitcoin's Year
Ledger's presence at CES suggests that although bitcoin had a rough year in 2015, the cryptocurrency isn't dead yet. Concerns about privacy and security have increased skepticism about cryptocurrencies, making it difficult for bitcoin firms to push mainstream approval. However, many believe that as security improves and more and more vendors open up to the possibility of bitcoin transactions, the public will get on board.
Image Credit: Public Domain
See more from Benzinga
• Virtual Reality In 2016
• Is Tesla A Good Investment For 2016?
• 3 CEOs Who Made Headlines In 2015
© 2016 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.
[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
$329.02 #coinbase;
$323.01 #bitfinex;
$322.00 #bitstamp;
$318.00 #btce;
#bitcoin #btc || LIVE: Profit = $235.50 (0.79 %). BUY B89.00 @ $331.89 (#BTCe). SELL @ $335.82 (#Bitfinex) #bitcoin #btc - http://www.projectcoin.org || In the last 10 mins, there were arb opps spanning 13 exchange pair(s), yielding profits ranging between $0.00 and $844.49 #bitcoin #btc || Current price: 301.11€ $BTCEUR $btc #bitcoin 2015-11-20 14:00:07 CET || LIVE: Profit = $15.38 (0.60 %). BUY B7.94 @ $321.00 (#BTCe). SELL @ $323.08 (#HitBTC) #bitcoin #btc - http://www.projectcoin.org || Current price: 401.01€ $BTCEUR $btc #bitcoin 2015-12-21 09:00:25 CET || Current value of DOGE in BTC: Vircurex: 0.00000032 -- Volume: 3557141.86625 Today's trend: stable at 01/03/16 00:55 || $447.70 #coinbase;
$446.41 #bitfinex;
$446.00 #bitstamp;
$442.00 #btce;
#bitcoin #btc via #ThePriceOfBTCpic.twitter.com/I3inSJm6ph || #RDD / #BTC on the exchanges: Cryptsy: Error Bittrex: 0.00000002 Average $7.0E-6 per #reddcoin 05:00:02 via #priceo…pic.twitter.com/7Z6fcaXCSL || #RDD / #BTC on the exchanges:
Cryptsy: 0.00000004
Bittrex: 0.00000003
Average $1.2E-5 per #reddcoin
00:15:02
|
Trend: down || Prices: 432.37, 430.31, 364.33, 387.54, 382.30, 387.17, 380.15, 420.23, 410.26, 382.49
|
Analyze the provided historical prices, technical indicators, news, and social media sentiment from the last 60 days. Based on this context, predict the overall trend (up, down, or no change) and the specific daily closing prices for Bitcoin for the next 10 days.
|
[Technical Analysis for 2016-12-08]
BTC Price: 770.81, BTC RSI: 63.23
Gold Price: 1169.80, Gold RSI: 30.16
Oil Price: 50.84, Oil RSI: 59.10
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
Expanded gift card and loyalty features could boost Apple Pay: Distortion of Apple Pay (BI Intelligence) This story was delivered to BI Intelligence " Payments Briefing " subscribers. To learn more and subscribe, please click here . Apple Pay users will be able to add gift cards and a wider selection of loyalty programs following a partnership between the tech giant and Blackhawk Network, a gift and prepaid card firm. The partnership will allow customers to “store, manage, and make payments” with gift and loyalty cards from Blackhawk partners, which include Amazon, Target, Best Buy, and Home Depot. Partnering with Blackhawk will improve upon a feature that’s already one of Apple Pay’s most popular. As it currently stands, Apple Pay’s loyalty support is limited. But just a few months after Apple Pay added loyalty in that limited capacity, proprietary store and loyalty cards made up 25% of the cards loaded into the wallet, according to data from First Annapolis . For context, that’s nearly as much as the share held by debit cards, which are the most popular payment method among US adults. Blackhawk’s vast partnership network could further extend that percentage and in turn help Apple capitalize on pent-up demand for store and loyalty offerings in-wallet. And that could lift Apple Pay in two key areas. It could increase adoption of the wallet overall. Apple Pay adoption has stagnated just below a quarter of eligible users, which means the wallet needs to look for new ways to draw in users. Loyalty could be one such solution. Nearly a quarter of adults with mobile phones want to organize, track, and store loyalty and rewards points on their phones. And 53% of nonusers would start using mobile payments if they were offered these types of opportunities, which could drive new customers to the wallet. And among existing users, it could help increase engagement. Adding a vast loyalty network to Apple Pay could give users incentives to pay with the wallet in more locations, because they want to capture the benefits that loyalty cards can provide. More frequent spending could help drive up habit formation, which could increase payment volume and drive up usage across the board. Mobile payments are becoming more popular thanks to services such as Apple Pay, but they still face some high barriers, such as consumers' continued loyalty to traditional payment methods and fragmented acceptance among merchants. But as loyalty programs are integrated and more consumers rely on their mobile wallets for other features like in-app payments, adoption and usage will surge over the next few years. BI Intelligence , Business Insider's premium research service, has compiled a detailed report on mobile payments that forecasts the growth of in-store mobile payments in the U.S., analyzes the performance of major mobile wallets like Apple Pay, Android Pay, and Samsung Pay, and addresses the barriers holding mobile payments back as well as the benefits that will propel adoption. Story continues Here are some key takeaways from the report: In our latest US in-store mobile payments forecast, we find that volume will reach $75 billion this year. We expect volume to pick up significantly by 2020, reaching $503 billion. This reflects a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 80% between 2015 and 2020. Consumer interest is the primary barrier to mobile payments adoption. Surveys indicate that the issue is less the mobile wallet itself and more that people remain loyal to traditional payment methods and show little enthusiasm for picking up new habits. Integrated loyalty programs and other add-on features will be key to mobile wallets taking off. Consumers are showing interest in wallets with integrated loyalty programs. Other potential add-ons, like in-app, in-browser, and P2P payments, will also start fueling adoption. This strategy has been proved successful in China with platforms like WeChat and Alipay. In full, the report: Forecasts the growth of US in-store mobile payments volume and users through 2020. Measures mobile wallet user engagement by forecasting mobile payments' share of their annual retail spending. Reviews the performance of major mobile wallets like Apple Pay and Samsung Pay. Addresses the key barriers that are preventing mobile in-store payments from taking off. Identifies the growth drivers that will ultimately carve a path for mainstream adoption. To get your copy of this invaluable guide, choose one of these options: Subscribe to an ALL-ACCESS Membership with BI Intelligence and gain immediate access to this report AND over 100 other expertly researched deep-dive reports, subscriptions to all of our daily newsletters, and much more. >> START A MEMBERSHIP Purchase the report and download it immediately from our research store. >> BUY THE REPORT The choice is yours. But however you decide to acquire this report, you’ve given yourself a powerful advantage in your understanding of how mobile payments are rapidly evolving. More From Business Insider Apple pushes further in mapping and location technology Fintech could be bigger than ATMs, PayPal, and Bitcoin combined THE PAYMENTS INDUSTRY EXPLAINED: The Trends Creating New Winners And Losers In The Card-Processing Ecosystem View comments || Cable & Wireless Preliminary Q2 2016/17 Results: MIAMI, FL--(Marketwired - Nov 4, 2016) -Cable & Wireless CommunicationsLimited ("CWC") is the leading telecommunications operator in substantially all of its consumer markets, which are predominantly located in the Caribbean and Latin America, providing entertainment, information and communication services to 3.5 million mobile, 0.4 million television, 0.6 million internet and 0.8 million telephony subscribers. In addition, CWC delivers B2B services and provides wholesale services over its sub-sea and terrestrial networks that connect over 30 markets across the region.
Liberty Global's Acquisition of CWCOn May 16, 2016, a subsidiary of Liberty Global plc ("Liberty Global") acquired CWC (the "Liberty Global Transaction"). Revenue, Adjusted Segment EBITDA and subscriber statistics have been presented herein using Liberty Global's definitions for all periods presented unless otherwise noted. Further adjustments to these metrics are possible as the integration process continues. The results for the six months ended September 30, 2016 ("Q2 2016/17") have also been aligned to Liberty Global's EU-IFRS accounting policies and estimates. Significant policy adjustments have been considered in our calculation of rebased growth rates for revenue and Adjusted Segment EBITDA.
Operating and financial highlights*:
• Delivered 9,000 organic RGU additions in Q2 2016/17
• Mobile revenue 2% lower than the prior year in Q2 2016/17, as compared to Q2 2015/16 on a rebased basis, due primarily to a decrease in the Bahamas
• Establishing Flow as a leading sports broadcaster in the CaribbeanSuccessful Olympics campaign with over 4.6 million viewers tuning into Flow channels85% increase in Flow Sports viewership in August versus May through July averageExclusive rights to broadcast Premier League commenced during the quarter
• Strengthened customer proposition in Panama through launch of MAST3R fixed bundles in SeptemberProviding HD, play from start, live pause and rewind functionality300 Mbps broadband product now available to 135,000 homes
• YTD revenue of $1,141 million, 2% lower YoY, on a rebased basis10% rebased top-line growth in Jamaica more than offset by declines in other major geographies primarily due to competitive and macroeconomic factors and lower managed services revenue
• Net losses of $18 million and $124 million in Q2 2016/17 and YTD, respectively
• YTD Adjusted Segment EBITDA of $411 million, up 1.5% YoY, on a rebased basis$9 million (4%) sequential EBITDA improvement from Q1 2016/17 to Q2 2016/17, reflecting margin improvement of 200 basis points
• Property, equipment and intangible asset additions declined to 17% of revenue in Q2 2016/17 from 25% in Q2 2015/16
• BTC in the Bahamas suffered significant infrastructure damage and business interruption as a result of Hurricane Matthew during early October 2016Anticipate Q3 2016/17 adverse Adjusted Segment EBITDA impact of $8 million to $12 millionTotal infrastructure repair costs estimated at $35 million to $45 millionWe expect that our third-party insurance will cover a significant portion of the hurricane-related losses
Synergies from combination with LiLAC
• LiLAC is targeting $150 million of synergies by December 31, 202050% OCF related -- primarily recurring cost reductions50% capital expenditure related -- recurring and nonrecurringAnticipate a substantial amount of total LiLAC synergies will benefit CWC
* The financial figures contained in this release are prepared in accordance with EU-IFRS.28CWC's financial condition and results of operations will be included in Liberty Global's condensed consolidated financial statements under U.S. GAAP10. There are significant differences between the U.S. GAAP and EU-IFRS presentations of our condensed consolidated financial statements.
Subscriber Statistics
We delivered organic subscriber growth across video, internet and telephony product categories in Q2 2016/17. In our mobile business, which represents roughly 40% of total revenue, postpaid subscriber growth was more than offset by a decline in our prepaid base, primarily due to the impact of competitive offers to lower value subscribers in Panama.
On the mobile front, we continue to invest in our networks to enable the delivery of high speed, resilient mobile services and leading converged products to our customers. We are actively expanding our LTE coverage in Panama and plan to launch LTE in the British Virgin Islands later this year.
Turning to our video, internet and telephony businesses, we added 9,000 organic RGUs during the quarter, as we achieved subscriber growth in each of our products. In terms of broadband internet, we added 7,000 organic subscribers on the back of 5,000 RGU additions in Jamaica and 2,000 RGU additions in Trinidad and Tobago. On the video front, we added 1,000 RGUs in the quarter, primarily driven by our DTH business in Panama. The increased RGUs from our DTH business were largely offset by declines in video RGUs in Barbados and Trinidad and Tobago as a result of increased competition.
During the quarter, our regional sports offering, led by Flow Sports and Flow Sports Premier, performed strongly, helping to establish Flow as a leading sports broadcaster in the Caribbean. Our official Olympic Games application was downloaded approximately 60,000 times during the event with over 73,000 hours of live content streamed. Flow Sports Premier, following its launch in July, also began providing unrivaled coverage of the Premier League in the region beginning in August 2016.
Rounding out fixed-line products, we added 1,000 telephony subscribers in the quarter, as we continued to modestly increase penetration of our VoIP-based services through bundling across our footprint.
At September 30, 2016, our bundling ratio stood at 1.51 RGUs per customer as 10% of our customers subscribed to a triple-play product, 32% to a double-play product, and 58% took only one product from us. This relatively low bundling ratio provides ample runway for RGU growth as we seek to sell additional products to our customers.
From a geographic standpoint, highlights of the trends in our largest markets are as follows:
• In Panama, mobile subscribers declined by 36,000 in the quarter on an organic basis with the decline weighted towards lower value customers as our postpaid base continued to grow (up 2,000). We are seeking to improve our fixed video and internet performance with our improved "Mast3r" bundles featuring HD, play from start, live pause and rewind functionality and 300 Mbps broadband speeds.
• In the Bahamas, we grew our mobile customer base by 4,000 subscribers (up 1%) due to increased promotional activity, successfully targeting higher-ARPU postpaid customers. We have made steady progress with our broadband internet and video products following the roll-out of our fiber-to-the-home ("FTTH") network, which now passes 14,000 homes.
• Turning to Jamaica, broadband internet and video RGUs were up 3% and 1%, respectively, as our improved product offering and strong Olympics campaign resonated well in the market. We grew our mobile subscriber base by 3,000 RGUs in the quarter, as we continued to win back market share and launched new products such as Flow Lend, an innovative solution enabling prepaid customers to request credit advances and earn rewards for prompt payment.
• In Barbados, competition drove RGUs lower across all products in the quarter. We are implementing changes to our bundling strategy and focusing on quickly migrating customers who are on legacy DSL services to our high-speed FTTH network.
• Rounding out our main operations, in Trinidad and Tobago we delivered 3,000 organic RGU additions, despite a tough macroeconomic environment and increased competition.
About C&W CommunicationsC&W is a full service communications and entertainment provider and delivers market-leading video, broadband, telephony and mobile services to consumers in 18 countries. Through its business division, C&W provides data center hosting, domestic and international managed network services, and customized IT service solutions, utilizing cloud technology to serve business and government customers.
C&W also operates a state-of-the-art submarine fiber network - the most extensive in the region.
Learn more atwww.cwc.com, or follow C&W onLinkedIn,FacebookorTwitter.
About Liberty GlobalLiberty Global is the world's largest international TV and broadband company, with operations in more than 30 countries across Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean. We invest in the infrastructure that empowers our customers to make the most of the digital revolution. Our scale and commitment to innovation enables us to develop market-leading products delivered through next-generation networks that connect our 29 million customers who subscribe to over 60 million television, broadband internet and telephony services. We also serve 10 million mobile subscribers and offer WiFi service across seven million access points.
Liberty Global's businesses are comprised of two stocks: the Liberty Global Group (NASDAQ:LBTYA) (NASDAQ:LBTYB) (NASDAQ:LBTYK) for our European operations, and the LiLAC Group (NASDAQ:LILA) and (NASDAQ:LILAK) (OTC PINK:LILAB), which consists of our operations in Latin America and the Caribbean.
The Liberty Global Group operates in 12 European countries under the consumer brands Virgin Media, Ziggo, Unitymedia, Telenet and UPC. The LiLAC Group operates in over 20 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean under the consumer brands VTR, Flow, Liberty, Mas Movil and BTC. In addition, the LiLAC Group operates a subsea fiber network throughout the region in over 30 markets.
For more information, please visitwww.libertyglobal.com. || A 26-year old Bitcoin entrepreneur was handed prison time, and the experience only confirmed his belief in the cryptocurrency: charlie shrem (Wikimedia) The rise of 26-year old Charlie Shrem was swift. So was his fall. The self-professed computer geek turned divisive digital currency entrepreneur won notoriety as the founder of BitInstant. The firm took off, attracting investors like the Winklevoss twins , and helping popularize bitcoin. Then, his whole world came crashing down. He was charged with operating an unlicensed money transmitting business. He pled guilty, and was given prison time. He had "knowingly transmitted money intended to facilitate criminal activity – specifically, drug trafficking on Silk Road," according to a press release by the United States Attorney's Office, Southern District of New York . Shrem got of prison earlier this year, and his experience there hasn't deterred his faith in bitcoin and blockchain, the technology behind it. In fact, an incident with a prison guard and mackerels, the currency of choice in prison, only confirmed his belief in an alternative currency system. A computer geek Shrem opened up about his prison experience and his past on Wall and Broadcast , a podcast hosted by TABB Group COO Alex Tabb, TABBForum producer Anna Stumpf and Vested CEO Dan Simon. Raised in a deeply religious orthodox Jewish household, Shrem describes himself as an "outcast" at Yeshiva high school. "I just loved computers," he said in the podcast. "I would hang out in the internet chat rooms and all of the places where all socially awkward people hang out." Shrem first heard about the concept of Bitcoin from a friend in an internet forum he was a part of. "There was no website or anything," he said in the podcast. "Only a white paper," referring to the research paper released under the pseudonym Satoshi Nakimoto that unveiled the concept. Bitcoin is a digital currency in which transactions occur peer-to-peer, meaning no government or third party is involved. Shrem was immediately interested and purchased a few thousand bitcoin - at the time worth very little. Story continues Austrian parliament (Flickr/Kosala Bandara) He caught the entrepreneurial bug early, founding Daily Checkout, a daily deal website that sold refurbished used goods, at 18. He also attended night school at Brooklyn College and got introduced to the Austrian School of Economics, an economic theory that promotes laissez-faire ideals and the elimination of government intervention. In his mind, something clicked. "I realized that bitcoin was taking all of that Austrian economic theory and putting it into practice," he said in the podcast. It was on Bitcointalk.org that he got the idea for a way to make the purchasing of bitcoin faster and more accessible to the every day consumer. He launched BitInstant, which partnered with payment processors that had physical locations at CVS, Duane Reade, Walmart, Walgreens and 7-11, among others. The site allowed people to buy small amounts of bitcoin (with an average ticket size of $300-500) and charged customers a small fee for each transaction. "Within a few months, we enabled people to be able to buy bitcoin at almost a million locations in the US," Shrem said in the podcast. "And overnight volume exploded." The company achieved an average growth rate of 1.5x per month, according to Shrem, with advertising limited to word of mouth. At one point, the company was facilitating transactions worth a million dollars a day, he said. The growth of BitInstant attracted investors like the Winklevoss twins and angel investor Roger Vere. They moved into bigger offices, shrouded in secrecy. " We needed an army security guard, our own floor, and shaded windows," he said. Soon the two man band become a 30 person office, and he admits in the podcast interview that he let the success get to his head. Entrepeneurs Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss arrive at the Metropolitan Museum of Art Costume Institute Gala (Met Gala) to celebrate the opening of ( Entrepreneurs Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss arrive at the Met Gala in New York Thomson Reuters) "I started drinking too much," he said. "I invested in my friend's nightclub. In fact, I lived upstairs in the nightclub." The fall of BitInstant was just as quick as its rise. The fall of BitInstant In March 2013, regulators enforced a ruling that outlined what type of companies were now considered money transmitters. Suddenly, BitInstant was operating without a license. "We couldn't take the risk of operating illegally," Shrem said in the podcast, "so we shut down...It was heartbreaking." Eight months later, Shrem travelled to Amsterdam to speak at a conference. It was when he returned to JFK airport that he was confronted by a dozen law enforcement officials, a joint task force of the FBI, IRS, DEA and other officials, he said in the podcast. Shrem had knowingly facilitated transactions to a re-seller, Robert Faiella, whose customers were using the Silk Road, an underground bitcoin only marketplace where people buy and sell illegal drugs. The re-seller was also trying to deposit more money than the new money transmitter laws allowed for, and these transactions were done behind the scenes to get around reporting requirements. On September 4 2014, Faiella and Shrem both pled guilty in connection with the sale of approximately $1 million in bitcoins for use on the Silk Road website. “Robert Faiella and Charlie Shrem opted to travel down a crooked path – running an illegal money transmitting business that catered to criminals bent on trafficking narcotics on the dark web drug site, Silk Road," Prett Bharara, United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, said in a statement at the time. Shrem, who was also Chief Compliance Officer of BitInstant and thus in charge of compliance with federal anti-money laundering (AML) laws, was fully aware that Silk Road was a drug-trafficking website and that he was operating a Bitcoin exchange service for Silk Road users. Nevertheless, he "knowingly facilitated Faiella’s business with the company in order to maintain Faiella's business as a lucrative source of revenue, " according to the court report. "Even though it was Shrem’s job to enforce the Company’s AML restrictions...[he] failed to file a single suspicious activity report with the US Treasury Department about Faiella's illicit activity...and deliberately helped Failla circumvent the Company’s AML restrictions." Shrem knew what he was doing, he said in the podcast, and he admits his guilt. (Forsaken Fotos/flickr) Digitizing the Prison Economy Prison "was no country club, but it wasn't Rikers Island either," he explained in the podcast. One out of every ten prisoners were white collar criminals - a state senator, a judge, and a few law enforcement officials were among his group. They were all nonviolent offenders so the fear wasn't as great as in maximum security persons. That's not to say it was easy settling in. "Everything here is word of mouth," he said in the podcast. "There is no Google, information is trickling in. I think the hardest part is learning to use my own resources to grow, and not the internet." On the outside, he had this Bitcoin celebrity status, he said, and in the prison, nobody knew him nor did they care about him. "I needed to humble myself." Of particular fascination to Shrem was the prison currency system, which involved bartering mackerels. According to an article in the Wall Street Journal , there has been a mackerel economy in federal prisons since about 2004, when federal prisons prohibited smoking and, by default, the cigarette pack, which was the earlier gold standard. Prisoners need a proxy for the dollar because they're not allowed to possess cash. Every inmate can only buy 14 mackerels per week, said Shrem, so there is a certain number in circulation in the prison. Also, not all mackerels are created equal. The fish expire after about 3 years, after which their value depreciates. Expired mackerels, referred to as "money macks," retain 75% of the value of the "eating macks," or non-expired fish, explained Shrem. There were currency exchanges between the two, and everything had two prices in the prison. mackerel fish (Wikimedia Commons) One day, a large number of mackerels were confiscated by prison guards and left out for any prisoner to take. Overnight, the guards essentially introduced hyperinflation, said Shrem, and flooded the market. They lost all of their value. This got Shrem thinking. He started to think about the value of digitizing the prison economy and putting it on the blockchain. If there was a shared, distributed ledger among say a dozen inmates, everyone would have a real-time record of all transactions that occurred in the prison. All members would have to verify and validate a transaction to make sure it was legitimate before taking place. "Everyone has a financial incentive to make sure the system maintains its integrity," said Shrem. The experience reminded him of how blockchain could not only be useful, but also necessary - not only in the financial services world, but in the prison world. "It avoids the guards having power over the value of the mackerel. Shrem's belief in the power of the bitcoin blockchain and the elimination of the middleman continues. He sees the digital currency as a "great equalizer" and believes that b itcoin will do to money what email did to the postal service. "It will allow everyone to be equal." Despite Shrem's optimism, the hype around Bitcoin seems to have died down from initial levels. Now, the investment and the excitement seems to be focused on the blockchain, the technology behind bitcoin. Digital currencies have also been challenged by recent security issues. In August, hackers stole $72 million worth of bitcoin from accounts at the Hong Kong cryptocurrency exchange Bitfinex. And in June, hackers stole $55 million worth of ether, a bitcoin rival. The nonprofit that runs ether, Ethereum Foundation, just rolled back the chain. It's as if the hack never took place, and business returned to normal. But that worries purists like Shrem. He continues to be a staunch believer in the integrity of the blockchain and denounces Ethererum's decision to roll back the chain, even though he said he is friends with the founder. "Once you change the ledger for one specific reason, then you've already set the precedent." "I used to be a bitcoin maximalist, thinking bitcoin is the one and only blockchain," he said to Wall & Broadcast. "Now I believe that alternate chains can and do exist." NOW WATCH: A Harvard business professor explains a legal form of 'insider trading' in America More From Business Insider Deloitte is launching a blockchain lab in Dublin The CEO of one of China's largest biggest bitcoin exchanges says regulation is inevitable Here's why the Chinese love bitcoin || C&W Communications Expands Network With Ericsson Across Caribbean and Panama: MIAMI, FL--(Marketwired - Oct 13, 2016) -
• C&W's customers to enjoy best-in-class high speed, high performance network to address increasing data traffic demands
• Expansion is currently underway and expected to be completed in November 2016
• Radio Access Network (RAN) and Core expansion includes both 3G and Long-Term Evolution (LTE), plus indoor coverage based on Ericsson Radio Dot System
Ericsson (NASDAQ:ERIC) andC&W Communications(C&W), one of the largest full service communications and entertainment providers in the Caribbean and Latin American region, now part ofLiberty Global(LiLAC Group) today announce the delivery of a complete network expansion for C&W across their operations in the Caribbean and Panama. The expansion includes hardware, software, licensing and services for C&W brandsFLOW(Caribbean),BTC(Bahamas) andCWP(Panama).
In addition, C&W's network expansion will provide all C&W markets across the Caribbean and Panama access to software upgrades and the opportunity to migrate to the Ericsson Software Model, which provides operators with the best available performance through a simple and transparent upgrade subscription. With 3G and LTE, C&W customers will benefit from a network capable of supporting advanced technologies and other high-speed features designed to provide a better user experience.
"Ericsson is committed to providing C&W Communications with excellence in end-user satisfaction and delivering best-in-class results. In the journey that we envision undertaking with C&W, Ericsson will provide solid guidance and support throughout all of the project's critical phases, enabling C&W to provide its customers with the best in mobile connectivity solutions," said Clayton Cruz, Vice-president, Ericsson Latin America and Caribbean.
"We are happy to once again partner with Ericsson in this network expansion project across all of our markets. Considering the clear trend in the growth of subscribers, mobile data and smartphone usage, C&W's key objective is to deploy a mobile network with world-class quality, performance and operational convenience in order to exceed our customers' expectations," said Carlo Alloni, Executive Vice-president and CTIO, C&W Communications.
According to the latest Ericsson Mobility Report, by 2021, smartphone subscriptions in Latin America and the Caribbean will comprise 65% of all mobile subscriptions; LTE will account for approximately 30% of all mobile subscriptions, representing more than 250 million mobile subscriptions. In addition, mobile data traffic is expected to grow nine times in the region by 2021, reaching 75% of all mobile traffic.
To meet these increasing traffic demands, C&W's network expansion increases site capacity, improves the performance of the existing network through hardware and software upgrades, facilitates the implementation of carrier aggregation, and allows for the addition of small cells. The expansion is currently underway and expected to be completed in November 2016.
Ericsson is present today in all high-traffic LTE markets, including the US, Japan and South Korea, and handles the most global LTE traffic. In addition, 40 percent of the world's total mobile traffic is carried over Ericsson networks. More than 270 LTE RAN and Evolved Packet Core networks have been delivered by Ericsson worldwide, of which 200 are live commercially.
NOTES TO EDITORSCable & Wireless and Ericsson deliver world-class mobile broadband for Caribbean & Latin AmericaCable & Wireless partners with Ericsson and Cisco to enhance its Caribbean IP networksEricsson core to enable Wi-Fi calling and VoLTE for Cable & Wireless in PanamaFor media kits, backgrounders and high-resolution photos, please visitwww.ericsson.com/press
Ericsson is the driving force behind the Networked Society -- a world leader in communications technology and services. Our long-term relationships with every major telecom operator in the world allow people, business and society to fulfill their potential and create a more sustainable future.
Our services, software and infrastructure -- especially in mobility, broadband and the cloud -- are enabling the telecom industry and other sectors to do better business, increase efficiency, improve the user experience and capture new opportunities.
With approximately 115,000 professionals and customers in 180 countries, we combine global scale with technology and services leadership. We support networks that connect more than 2.5 billion subscribers. Forty percent of the world's mobile traffic is carried over Ericsson networks. And our investments in research and development ensure that our solutions -- and our customers -- stay in front.
Founded in 1876, Ericsson has its headquarters in Stockholm, Sweden. Net sales in2015 were SEK 246.9 billion (USD 29.4 billion). Ericsson is listed on NASDAQ OMX stock exchange in Stockholm and the NASDAQ in New York.
Ericsson has been present in Latin America since 1896, when the company established an agreement in Colombia and delivered equipment for the first time in the region. In the early 1900s, Ericsson increased its presence in Latin America by signing commercial deals in Argentina, Brazil and Mexico. Today, Ericsson is present in 56 countries within South America, Central America, Mexico and the Caribbean, which combined count the region as one of the few with complete Ericsson installations, including a Production Unit, R&D Center and Training Center. Ericsson is the market leading telecom supplier, with over 40% market share in Latin America and more than 100 telecom service contracts in the region.
www.ericsson.com/jmwww.ericsson.com/jm/newswww.twitter.com/EricssonCaribwww.facebook.com/EricssonLatinAmericawww.youtube.com/EricssonLatamwww.slideshare.net/EricssonLatinAmerica
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION, PLEASE CONTACTWendi Patrick, External CommunicationsPhone:+506 2519 0800E-mail:wendi.patrick@ericsson.com
About C&W CommunicationsC&W is a full service communications and entertainment provider and delivers market-leading video, broadband, telephony and mobile services to consumers in 18 countries. Through its business division, C&W provides data center hosting, domestic and international managed network services, and customized IT service solutions, utilizing cloud technology to serve business and government customers.
C&W also operates a state-of-the-art submarine fiber network -- the most extensive in the region.
Learn more atwww.cwc.com, or follow C&W onLinkedIn,FacebookorTwitter.
About Liberty GlobalLiberty Global is the world's largest international TV and broadband company, with operations in more than 30 countries across Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean. We invest in the infrastructure that empowers our customers to make the most of the digital revolution. Our scale and commitment to innovation enables us to develop market-leading products delivered through next-generation networks that connect our 29 million customers who subscribe to over 59 million television, broadband internet and telephony services. We also serve 11 million mobile subscribers and offer WiFi service across seven million access points.
Liberty Global's businesses are comprised of two stocks: the Liberty Global Group (NASDAQ:LBTYA) (NASDAQ:LBTYB) (NASDAQ:LBTYK) for our European operations, and the LiLAC Group (NASDAQ:LILA) and (NASDAQ:LILAK) (OTC PINK:LILAB), which consists of our operations in Latin America and the Caribbean.
The Liberty Global Group operates in 12 European countries under the consumer brands Virgin Media, Ziggo, Unitymedia, Telenet and UPC. The LiLAC Group operates in over 20 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean under the consumer brands VTR, Flow, Liberty, Mas Movil and BTC. In addition, the LiLAC Group operates a subsea fiber network throughout the region in over 30 markets.
For more information, please visitwww.libertyglobal.com. || John Reid Confirmed as CEO of Cable and Wireless: MIAMI, FL--(Marketwired - Nov 21, 2016) - John Reid has been confirmed as Chief Executive Officer ofC&W Communications("C&W", or the "Company") effective November 7, 2016. C&W serves 18 countries and is one of the largest full service telecommunications and entertainment providers in the Caribbean and Latin America. The Company was recently acquired byLiberty Globalplc "Liberty Global", the world's largest international TV and broadband company.
"This is a time of meaningful change and development for C&W, and I am excited for the expertise and continuity that John brings to this growing region," said Mike Fries, CEO of Liberty Global. Reid is tasked with aligning the former UK-based company with Liberty's Latin America and Caribbean ("LiLAC Group") division, while strengthening the Company's growth opportunities, in particular triple-play, mobile data and fixed-mobile convergence, and seizing on the significant business-to-business and wholesale opportunities in the region.
"I am honored to lead C&W Communications into the next phase of our development. I look forward to achieving our growth objectives, creating greater value for our stakeholders, and transforming our employee and customer experience," Reid said.
Reid, a Canadian national, is uniquely positioned to take C&W to its next chapter as he has over 28 years of telecommunications and cable television experience, and has spearheaded complex integrations and pioneered a culture of transformation and engagement, first in Canada, and during the past 11 years, across the Caribbean. Prior to his role as Interim CEO of C&W, Reid served as C&W's President, Consumer Division and was part of the executive leadership team at C&W that achieved in excess of $100m in synergies in less than 18 months following the Columbus transaction.
At Columbus, where he was President and Chief Operating Officer, he led the Company to become a leader and innovator in the broadband and entertainment industry across the Caribbean and Latin America. Prior to Columbus John held various roles with Canadian MSO Persona, holding the position of Executive Vice President & Chief Operating Officer.
John holds a B.A. and an M.B.A. from Memorial University of Newfoundland, serves as the Chairman of Bahamas Telecommunications Company (BTC), a 49% subsidiary of C&W, and is a member of the Advisory Board of Caribbean Tales.
About C&W CommunicationsC&W is a full service communications and entertainment provider and delivers market-leading video, broadband, telephony and mobile services to consumers in 18 countries. Through its business division, C&W provides data center hosting, domestic and international managed network services, and customized IT service solutions, utilizing cloud technology to serve business and government customers.
C&W also operates a state-of-the-art submarine fiber network -- the most extensive in the region.
Learn more atwww.cwc.com, or follow C&W onLinkedIn,FacebookorTwitter.
About Liberty GlobalLiberty Global is the world's largest international TV and broadband company, with operations in more than 30 countries across Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean. Liberty Global invests in the infrastructure that empowers its customers to make the most of the digital revolution. Liberty Global's scale and commitment to innovation enables it to develop market-leading products delivered through next-generation networks that connect its 29 million customers who subscribe to 60 million television, broadband internet and telephony services. Liberty Global also serves over 10 million mobile subscribers and offers WiFi service across seven million access points.
Liberty Global's businesses are comprised of two stocks: the Liberty Global Group (NASDAQ:LBTYA) (NASDAQ:LBTYB) (NASDAQ:LBTYK) for its European operations, and the LiLAC Group (NASDAQ:LILA) (NASDAQ:LILAK) (OTC PINK:LILAB), which consists of its operations in Latin America and the Caribbean.
The Liberty Global Group operates in 12 European countries under the consumer brands Virgin Media, Ziggo, Unitymedia, Telenet and UPC. The LiLAC Group operates in over 20 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean under the consumer brands VTR, Flow, Liberty, Mas Movil and BTC. In addition, the LiLAC Group operates a subsea fiber network throughout the region in over 30 markets.
For more information, please visitwww.libertyglobal.com.
Image Available:http://www2.marketwire.com/mw/frame_mw?attachid=3082861 || Bitcoin is flying after Donald Trump's victory: In May, a Juniper Research study (“Will Bitcoins Bite Back?“) predicted that the price of the digital currency bitcoin would jump if Donald Trump were elected. On Tuesday, Trump was elected, and bitcoin jumped. The currency is up nearly 3% since Tuesday night, hovering around $725.
“If Donald Trump becomes President of the US,” said Dr. Winslow Holdenin a statement with the study, “there is the very real prospect of turmoil on world markets… Bitcoin would thrive in such an environment.”
Bitcoin has in fact been on the rise all fall,not only because of the election. The price is up 19% in the last month, 23% in the last three months, and 68% in 2016. But in the next few days and perhaps months, the uncertainty after Trump’s win will likely serve as an accelerant.
Investors see bitcoin as a safe haven from fiat currencies (hence why it rises when the Chinese yuan falls), and an asset largely untied to mainstream markets. Gold typically behaves the same way, and indeed,gold shot up to $1,320 on Tuesday night as Trump closed in on the presidency, though it fell back to earth on Wednesday and is now at $1,275.
Bitcoin’s October rise has been mostly due to heightened activity in China, where the yuan is falling and the government has tightened capital controls. Bitcoin prices also spikedduring the bank shutdown in Greecelast year.
Juniper Research says the Brexit vote, back in June, is still having an impact as well: “The ongoing ramifications around Brexit are also likely to act as an additional spur for higher activity levels.”
IfBrexit helped contribute to a bitcoin bump, then Trump’s win is likely to do it, too. Many were quick to compare the surprising result of the US election to the EU referendum result. Trump, in the days before the election, told crowds that his win would be like “Brexit plus plus plus,” and nicknamed himself “Mr. Brexit.”
While Trump and bitcoin might seem to have something in common (Coin Telegraphmade the case that Trump would eventually cozy up to the coin), his campaign never accepted donations in bitcoin. Hillary Clinton’s campaign considered accepting donations in bitcoin, aleaked email thread revealed,but John Podesta was more intrigued by the digital currency Ven, writing that bitcoin suffers from a “libertarian Ayn Rand schtick.” Sen. Rand Paul and Gov. Gary Johnson were the only two presidential candidates to accept bitcoin.
It doesn’t matter now: Trump won, and bitcoin benefited without his support. The coin doesn’t need Trump to champion it in order to succeed.
The defining word of this US election is the same word that defined the Brexit vote: “uncertainty.” As the Juniper Research report noted, bitcoin’s price rose in the weeks leading up to the Brexit vote, then fell a little bit just before the vote when the outcome looked clear, then spiked when the outcome was, in fact, a big surprise. Expect the same to happen after Trump’s win.
—
Daniel Roberts is a writer at Yahoo Finance, covering technology and sports business. Follow him on Twitter at@readDanwrite.
Read more:
The latest bitcoin price surge isn’t just about Brexit
Here’s where big banks stand on blockchain
Why 21.co is the most exciting bitcoin company right now
Coinbase is more bullish on bitcoin than ever || Blockchain could soon power stock markets, music sales, and even prevent child labor — here's how it works: bi graphics_future of blockchain (.) It's a technology conceived by the mysterious creator of bitcoin — the digital currency championed by a motley crew of privacy-obsessed libertarians, social activists, and some criminals. Bank of America (AP Photo) Now the idea of blockchain has gripped Wall Street's biggest institutions. Its enthusiasts think it could change the world. Sure, it would make contracts more enforceable and speed up the settlement of stock trades — hence the interest from big banks. But some see it going much further, cracking down on sex trafficking , music piracy, and child labor. And the key to all that — what attracts these different factions — is something that, on the surface at least, sounds rather banal: a digital ledger, like the one in your checkbook. "Blockchain is a truly extraordinary technology that does really mundane things," said Paul Brody, Ernst & Young's global blockchain leader. But for all the promise, these big questions remain: Who will foot the bill, and is it really as secure as supporters say? What is blockchain? In the non-blockchain world, we keep separate records of transactions. If you write your friend a check, you balance your own checkbook and your friend does the same when they deposit it. But things can go wrong. They might forget to update their checkbook ledger. And each bank has no way to know immediately if the person has enough in their bank account to cover it. checkbook, checks, writing a check (Flickr / oblivion9999) With a blockchain, instead of two separate checkbooks with two records of debits and credits, you'd both look at the same ledger of transactions. It's private (encrypted, in computer-speak), and decentralized, so neither of you controls the ledger. This "distributed ledger" operates on consensus. Both of you can look at the ledger. Each transaction gets put into a block. If you both say that block is valid and correct, it's added to a chain. And that chain is protected by sophisticated cryptography: No one can change the chain after the fact. Now imagine this in a more complex form. This is what gets people in finance and technology excited. Say you want to buy a stock. Right now, your bank, brokerage, the stock exchange, and the company you're buying all have separate, private records of transactions. They can't see each other's ledgers. Nor can they verify that everything is accurate among all involved. With blockchain, they can all be on the same page — literally. Your bank can verify that you have enough money to transfer to your brokerage. That transfer is added to the ledger of transactions that everyone involved can see. Then your broker executes a trade for 100 shares. That gets added to the blockchain, too. Everyone involved verifies it's legitimate. Story continues The exchange receives the order — also added and verified. And then the company's shares end up in your account. You could see the record of all the shares you buy and sell in the permanent record. If you decide to sell the shares later, that transaction gets added to the blockchain. And because it's a consensus model in which every party confirms a transaction, "it gets more secure the more people you add" to the blockchain, Brody said. "When a transaction is completed, everyone has to get a copy of the transaction." That's blockchain in its purest form. In reality, however, different companies are experimenting with different forms. A blockchain used in financial services could be private, or a hybrid model between the decentralized vision and a more traditional centralized model that bankers are used to. A regulator, for instance, could hold the key to a blockchain, and some companies are thinking about how to maintain a middleman. Mysterious beginnings No one knows who invented blockchain. The idea for it came from a paper published online eight years ago that unveiled bitcoin, the digital currency. The author, Satoshi Nakamoto, is thought to be using a pseudonym. The true identity remains a mystery, and there's debate over whether it was created by an individual or group. At first, bitcoin got all the attention. The idea of a secure, private currency, divorced from a specific government, captured the imaginations of technologists, libertarians, and people concerned about the power of big banks and government regulation. Bitcoin transactions occur peer-to-peer, meaning no government or third party is involved. Goldman Sachs recruiting video (Goldman SachsYouTube/Goldman Sachs) Today, bitcoin and blockchain still attract privacy-minded and antigovernment types. But it also increasingly appeals to people like Grainne McNamara. She spent years building out technology at banks like Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs. Now she's a leader of PricewaterhouseCooper's blockchain for financial services. And that means she spends a lot of time attending and hosting blockchain conferences. At one, a speaker showed a picture of a shed in his presentation. McNamara remembers him jokingly saying, "Take the bankers behind the shed and kill them." He didn't know his audience. McNamara was sitting next to former bankers, who found the whole thing humorous, she said. Despite the shed metaphor, "it's a peaceful cohabitation," McNamara told Business Insider. "People genuinely appreciate the disruptive element to spawn innovation." A contract with a brain One area blockchain proponents get excited about is the idea of a "smart contract." While most bank agreements are still paper documents — banks are awash in paper, even in 2016 — a smart contract is a computer program that helps keeps everyone accountable. video games (People play a video game on the stand of Acer at the IFA Electronics show in Berlin, Germany, Sept. 2, 2015.Reuters/Axel Schmidt) Let's say you're a company that designs and sells video game consoles. You work with suppliers and shipping companies, and have a number of serious concerns. You want to make sure they're manufactured well and on time. You want to make sure there are no labor violations, such as children working on the assembly line. And you want to make sure everyone gets paid on time. In the old way of doing things, numerous contracts might be involved to manufacture one video game console. And each side may have its own paper copies. Smart contracts provide automated accountability. bi graphics a smart contract (Samantha Lee / Business Insider) Because this is blockchain, everyone involved looks at the same contract; no one can change it without the permission of most others. Here's an example: When a truck picks up finished video game consoles from a factory in, say, China, the shipping company scans each box. Those are added to the blockchain, triggering a release of funds from the video game company's bank account. No one has to invoice and chase a payment. "You can marry up the delivery and payment of services," Brody said. It can go beyond getting paid, too. Each worker on the assembly line could scan their identification card, which is then verified by multiple sources such as government agencies and third-party auditors, ensuring the workers are not underage or overworked. And because it's a blockchain, no one can alter the record later. Some have discussed blockchain as a possible tool to help prevent sex trafficking and other scourges. And there are other uses for it that may become big parts of our lives. Healthcare bi graphics possible uses for blockchain (Samantha Lee / Business Insider) Smart contracts in healthcare could do things such as trigger an insurance payment to a doctor when a patient undergoes a CT scan. A blockchain could also be a secure place to store electronic medical records. It would detail all patient-doctor communication, illness and treatment information, vaccination records, medical bills etc. Every subsequent doctor visit or treatment would be added to the blockchain, including those in different cities and countries, creating a complete, historical record of the patient's health. In this case, the blockchain is private, and only certain participants would have the encryption keys to see the record. Music and media Musicians may wish there had been blockchain when Napster undermined music sales around the turn of the century through file-sharing. Music (Blockchain could prevent music piracyFlickr/Kelsey) Now some are thinking blockchain could prevent piracy and help boost sales. Artists could provide their music directly off a ledger, and smart contracts might ensure the right people are paid and only those with rights play the tracks. A similar model could help fund news outlets and other media organizations. Property records Some companies' whole job is tracking down property records. Blockchain could change that. If property deeds were on a blockchain, the other participants (known as "network nodes") that validate the transaction could be real-estate agents, financing banks, and a land registry authority. Once the transaction is validated, it is added to the blockchain, and the updated state of the blockchain is broadcast to the participants in real time. As the blockchain maintains the history of all transactions, the entire history of the property and its owners is on the blockchain. Trading and banking The Australian Securities Exchange — ASX — plans to decide by mid-2017 if it will replace its post-trade clearing and settlement system with a blockchain version . This could be a turning point for blockchain and potentially a catalyst for widespread adoption. Bank of England (Bank of EnglandJim Edwards) Central bankers are also getting in on the action. The Bank of England and the People's Bank of China are discussing issuing their national currencies — the pound and the renminbi, respectively — on blockchain. If successful, the technology would make the currencies more traceable, allowing the banks to track them through the financial system in real time. Right now, this use of blockchain is limited to discussion and research papers, but if implemented, other central banks are likely to follow suit. The US Federal Reserve is closely following developments as well, with Fed Gov. Lael Brainard in charge of keeping an eye on the new technology. It's also rumored that other items such as diamonds, art, and food could be put on blockchain so the entire history of the items could be traced. Buzz vs. reality There are over 120 blockchain projects spanning a variety of industries, and the annual budget for blockchain initiatives in 2016 is estimated to be $1 billion. In financial services, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, and Bank of America are among the big names that have partnered with R3, a startup trying to bring blockchain technology to the finance world. But if blockchain is going to work, it needs an industrywide standard. For the first bank to adopt this digital system and overhaul existing infrastructure, it could mean a risky and expensive investment, and that bank would have to hope others follow suit. No one wants to be the first to test that theory. That's why this is one of the few cutting-edge technologies that is generating a lot of talk but not a lot of action among banks. While they are dabbling in the technology, attending conferences and partnering with R3, no bank is taking the lead and going from proofs of concept to using it in the real world. "To get the true value, you need the network effect," said Graham Warner, head of global transaction banking product development in the Americas at Deutsche Bank. The more people and companies use blockchain, the more valuable the technology becomes. Other challenges For all its promise, some major impediments could prevent blockchain's widespread deployment, including regulation, cost, and security issues. Implementing and standardizing blockchain could cost in the billions of dollars, and it would mean an overhaul of legacy systems that people are used to and understand. Today's technology works, and replacing it with something unproven is seen as an expensive risk. Blockchain technology would also potentially mean a huge number of job losses, especially in middle- and back-office functions. Banks would have to get the remaining employees up to speed on the new technology, and using it would initially be a trial-and-error process. Security and privacy issues ethereum (Ethereum) In August, hackers stole $72 million worth of bitcoin from accounts at the Hong Kong cryptocurrency exchange Bitfinex. And in June, hackers stole $55 million worth of ether, a bitcoin rival. The nonprofit that runs ether, Ethereum Foundation, just rolled back the chain. It's as if the hack never took place, and business returned to normal. But that worries purists. The Ethereum hack — and the response to it — led Accenture to create an "editable blockchain model," to "resolve human errors, accommodate legal and regulatory requirements, and address mischief and other issues," according to a news release . Blockchain enthusiasts say this threatens the very nature of the blockchain itself. One of the fundamental benefits of blockchain technology is its immutability — the blockchain represents a "golden record" of transactions, a complete, historical record that technically cannot be interfered with or undone. But there "isn't one blockchain to rule them all," Warner said. "It will be an evolutionary, Darwinian process" to figure out which version of the blockchain applies to which use case. What's next When McNamara learned about blockchain, she said she was "a little bit of a skeptic. But I've been proven wrong." The ecosystem is evolving, she said, and people involved, whether they're activists or bankers, are getting together and talking about "shared values and pain points." ASX Australia Stock Exchange Trader (ASXAP) While some big players like the ASX may be using some form of blockchain as early as next year, some issues are holding blockchain back. Different versions of blockchain are in development, and there's little agreement on what's the best or purest version to deploy. And dozens of startups are working on their own takes on blockchain. Innovation is happening, but all the competing ideas makes big companies cautious to commit to any one type. But most proponents think everything will be worked out in due time, and that in the next few years, blockchain and its smart contracts would improve our lives, even if it operates quietly in the background, invisible to most people. NOW WATCH: Ken Rogoff explains why he's been advocating to eliminate the $100 bill More From Business Insider Now is the worst time to buy a new computer John Kasich's dire warning for the Republican Party: EVOLVE OR DIE Amazon Prime members have access to one of the best smartphone deals out there right now View comments || SEC Approves Fund Liquidity Rules, Goes Easy On ETFs: WASHINGTON/NEW YORK (Reuters) – The top U.S. securities regulator on Thursday approved rules designed to protect mutual fund investors from the effects of a sudden sell-off, but it left for another day some of the dicier issues involved.
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's new rules take aim at liquidity issues of the $18 billion traditional mutual fund market. But the agency deferred action on a separate plan to regulate the use of derivatives in funds and carved out significant exemptions for exchange-traded funds.
Thursday's action was part of a sweeping set of reforms that SEC Chair Mary Jo White has sought in the asset management industry, which includes the open-end fund market. On Thursday, she said the SEC will finish rules on how the funds use derivatives "in the near term," and is also working on annual stress-testing for large investment advisors.
‘More Targeted Approach To ETFs’
White said the rules have been strengthened since they were first proposed more than a year ago. They are "better tailored to the liquidity risks faced by different kinds of funds, with an improved classification scheme for the liquidity of fund investments and a more targeted approach to ETFs," she said before the vote.
But the mutual fund and ETF industry did win some major concessions. The three members of the SEC unanimously approved a final version that exempts "in kind" exchange-traded funds, those that honor redemptions in securities instead of cash, from some of its requirements.
Several, but not all, ETF issuers asked to keep their products exempt from the rules because they often meet redemption requests from large sellers by handing over stocks or other securities, rather cash. The issuers had said the proposal better fit mutual funds that face pressure to raise cash when investors head to the exits.
Three Fund Classifications
Under the final rules, funds would have to classify investments into the categories of highly liquid, moderately liquid, less liquid and illiquid. They also would be permitted to classify investments by asset class. The first draft had proposed stricter definitions of categorizing investments.
The new version also keeps in place a requirement that funds keep on hand a certain level of assets that can be converted into cash in three days, but leaves it to the funds' boards to decide how to rectify any dip below that threshold. The original proposal had blocked funds from buying any more assets until they got back up to the minimum.
That change should reassure some ETF managers who said that being prevented from buying some assets could contradict their strategies.
ETFs have faced fears that they cannot manage rampant selling. On Aug. 24, 2015, heavy demand to sell U.S. ETFs pushed many of their market prices far below the value they could have fetched if they had been redeemed by the issuer.
But ETFs operate differently from mutual funds, because most individuals sell them in the public market and cannot redeem them directly with the issuers.
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Permalink| © Copyright 2016ETF.com.All rights reserved || First Bitcoin Capital Corp Announces Appointment of Bitcoin Protocol Development Expert Patrick Dugan to the Company’s Board of Directors. Additional Developments Announced: VANCOUVER, B.C. / ACCESSWIRE / November 23, 2016 /First Bitcoin Capital Corp is pleased to announce that leading bitcoin protocol development expert in the crypto currency field Patrick Dugan has joined the company's Board of Directors.
A serial entrepreneur with several years of experience in blockchain, finance, ecommerce and game development, Mr. Dugan has extensive knowledge of complex securitization structures and trading strategies.
Mr. Dugan brings 9 years of trading experience, with over 3 years in cryptocurrency trading, averaging 50% annual returns. He served as a consultant on social game economics, and market making operations for exchanges.
Mr. Dugan has served for the last year and a half as operations manager for the Omni Layer Foundation (previously Mastercoin), and has been involved in the issuance of the world's first bearer bonds on the Bitcoin blockchain.
"Patrick Dugan is well known in the international crypto-currency space," the company said. "He brings a wealth of strategic experience in finance and blockchain business development. We look forward to his contributions as a member of our Board as we advance the development of the world’s first on-blockchain REIT offering."
Mrs. Dugan said he seeks to bring to First Bitcoin Capital his expertise in bitcoin and blockchain protocol and assist new or existing initiatives that plan to build upon and take advantage of the capabilities offered by the Omni Layer protocol. BITCF has thus far utilized the Omni Layer Protocol to launch 6 cryptocurrencies such as symbols, PRES, TESLA, HILL, GARY, BURN, and OTX.
Furthermore, in conjunction with BITCF expanding ownership of its common shares onto its own blockchain (BIT) and trading on foreign international cryptocurrency exchanges, the company invites its shareholders to exercise an option to convert their paper certificates into digital shares. Shareholders need only surrender their certificates with instruction to deliver those shares to the BIT wallet address they provide to the company.
About the company:
First Bitcoin Capital is engaged in developing digital currencies, proprietary Blockchain technologies, and the digital currency exchange- www.CoinQX.com. We see this step as a tremendous opportunity to create further shareholder value by leveraging management's experience in developing and managing complex Blockchain technologies, developing new types of digital assets. "Being the first publicly-traded cryptocurrency and blockchain-centered company (with shares both traded in the US OTC Markets as [BITCF] and as [BIT] in crypto exchanges) we want to provide our shareholders with diversified exposure to digital cryptocurrencies and blockchain technologies." At this time the Company owns and operates the following digital assets.
www.BITCoinCapitalcorp.comcompany website.
www.CoinQX.comCryptocurrency Exchange, registered with FINCEN.
www.iCoiNEWS.comreal time cryptocurrency and bitcoin news site.
www.BITminer.ccproviding mining pool management services.
www.2016coin.orgonline daily election coverage and home page for $PRES, $HILL and $GARY $BURN coins.
Forward-Looking Statements
Certain statements contained in this press release may constitute "forward-looking statements." Forward-looking statements provide current expectations of future events based on certain assumptions and include any statement that does not directly relate to any historical or current fact. Actual results may differ materially from those indicated by such forward-looking statements as a result of various important factors as may be disclosed in company's filings. In addition to these factors, actual future performance, outcomes, and results may differ materially because of more general factors including (without limitation) general industry and market conditions and growth rates, economic conditions, and governmental and public policy changes. The forward-looking statements included in this press release represent the Company's views as of the date of this press release and these views could change. However, while the Company may elect to update these forward-looking statements at some point in the future, the Company specifically disclaims any obligation to do so. These forward-looking statements should not be relied upon as representing the Company's views as of any date subsequent to the date of the press release .Such forward-looking statements are risks that are detailed in the Company's filings, which are on file atwww.OTCMarkets.com.
Contact us via:info@bitcoincapitalcorp.comor visithttp://www.bitcoincapitalcorp.com
SOURCE:First Bitcoin Capital Corp. || Traders weigh chasing Microsoft rally after stock passes all-time high in late trading: The "Fast Money" traders debated whether it's worth chasing the rally in Microsoft(NASDAQ: MSFT)after the company posted anearnings beat driven by continued growth in its cloud business.
The stock climbed above its 1999 all-time high of $59.97 in extended trade.
Trader Brian Kelly said he would not chase the rally in Microsoft, but would be interested in it on a pullback.
"Everything that these guys said is exactly what everybody in this market now wants. There's very few stocks out there that have this type of growth, that have a dividend, that have a strong management team ... so Microsoft is going to attract a lot of investment money," Kelly said.
Trader Karen Finerman agreed, but added that Microsoft's current valuation — about a 27 price-to-earnings ratio on a trailing basis — is much more appetizing than it was 17 years ago.
Trader Dan Nathan said that a large portion of Microsoft's revenue still comes from its legacy businesses and that the current valuation is still too rich. He said there's a risk that the growth of the cloud business could slow down.
Trader Tim Seymour disagreed, saying that Microsoft could still increase margins and market share.
Disclosures:
KAREN FINERMAN
Karen Finerman is long AAL, BAC, C, DAL, long DB calls, FB, FL, GOGO, GOOG, GOOGL, JPM, LYV, KORS, KORS calls, KORS puts, M, MA, SEDG, SPY puts, UAL, URI, WIFI long call spreads. Her firm is long ANTM, AAPL, BAC, C, C calls, FB, GOOG, GOOGL, JPM, JPM calls, KORS, LYV, M, MOH, PLCE, SPY puts, URI, WIFI. Her firm is short IWM, MDY. Finerman is on the board of GrafTech International.
DAN NATHAN
Dan Nathan is TWTR long, PYPL long Oct calls, XHB long Jan put spread, XLU long Dec call Spread, XLK long Jan put spread, XRT long Jan put spread, PG long Dec put spread, EEM long Nov put spread.
BRIAN KELLY
Brian Kelly is long Bitcoin, SLV and Silver Futures, US Dollar UUP. He is short the euro and Japanese yen.
TIM SEYMOUR
Tim Seymour is long ABX, APC, AVP, BAC, BBRY, CLF, DO, DVYE, EDC, EWZ, F, FB, FCX, FXI, GM, GOOGL, GE, INTC, LQD,MCD, MUR, OIH, PG, RACE, RAI, RH, RL, SINA, T, TWTR, VALE, VZ, XOM. short: SPY, XRT. His firm is long ABX, BABA, BIDU, CBD, CLF, EWZ, F, KO, MCD, MPEL, NKE, PEP, PF, SAVE, SBUX, SINA, VALE, VIAB, WMT, WEN, X, YHOO, short EWG, HYG, IWM
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[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
1 KOBO = 0.00000253 BTC
= 0.0016 USD
= 0.4864 NGN
= 0.0222 ZAR
= 0.1619 KES
#Kobocoin 2016-10-19 03:00 pic.twitter.com/mkuQGcu1pv || $704.50 #bitstamp;
$707.99 #bitfinex;
$710.50 #quoine;
$707.64 #GDAX;
$701.00 #btce;
$708.71 #itBit;
#bitcoin news: http://bit.ly/1VI6Yse || 1 MUE Price: Bittrex 0.00000118 BTC YoBit 0.00000000 BTC Bleutrade 0.00000103 BTC #MUE #MUEprice 2016-11-16 09:00 pic.twitter.com/mI1VUXiZnJ || Current price of Bitcoin is $762.00. || #UFOCoin #UFO $0.000007 (0.33%) 0.00000001 BTC (-0.00%) || Be A Crypto Currency Miner And Start Earning Your First Bitcoins, Etherium and other #btc http://bit.ly/2e1Fbz4 00:16 || #ChainCoin #CHC $0.000089 (-46.42%) 0.00000013 BTC (-48.00%) || #8BitCoin #8BIT $0.014293 (-1.45%) 0.00002180 BTC (-4.00%) || 1 KOBO = 0.00000300 BTC
= 0.0000 USD
= 0.0000 NGN
= 0.0000 ZAR
= 0.0000 KES
#Kobocoin 2016-10-31 15:00 pic.twitter.com/3DfjHo34Hq || #EuroCoin #EUC $0.000265 (21.38%) 0.00000037 BTC (20.00%)
|
Trend: up || Prices: 772.79, 774.65, 769.73, 780.09, 780.56, 781.48, 778.09, 784.91, 790.83, 790.53
|
Analyze the provided historical prices, technical indicators, news, and social media sentiment from the last 60 days. Based on this context, predict the overall trend (up, down, or no change) and the specific daily closing prices for Bitcoin for the next 10 days.
|
[Technical Analysis]
Not fully available.
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
Down Again: Bitcoin Is Closing on Key Long-Term Price Support: • Bitcoin is again closing on the 200-week moving average, which served as strong support in December. The weekly RSI is more bearish this time round, though, and is reporting undersold conditions.
• A weekly close below that level could be followed by a slide back to September 2017 lows near $2,970.
• A failure to push prices below the 200-week SMA support would weaken the bears. A bullish reversal, however, would be confirmed only above $3,658 â the high of gravestone doji carved out Saturday.
Bitcoin (BTC) is on the defensive after a drop to six-week lows and could soon test crucial long-term support below $3,300.
The cryptocurrency fell to $3,322 â the lowest level since Dec. 17 earlier today â bolstering the bearish viewput forwardby Monday’s high-volume range breakdown. Trading volumes jumped to 18-day highs near $7 billion yesterday, according toCoinMarketCap data.
The high-volume sell-off has likely opened the doors to re-test of December lows near $3,100.
Iran Could Ban Bitcoin for Payments, Central Bank Report Suggests
Moreover, the long-term support level put the brakes on a sell-off back in December, and was followed by a corrective bounce to levels above $4,000.
A strong bounce from the 200-week SMA line would likely embolden the bulls, but the probability of a bull reversal from that SMA support looks low, according to technical indicators.
As of writing, BTC is trading at $3,380 on Bitstamp, representing a 1.5 percent drop on a 24-hour basis.
Bitcoin Price Looks South After Drop to Six-Week Lows
As seen above, BTC is again trading within striking distance of the 200-week SMA of $3,298.
The support had held ground on a weekly closing basis (Sunday, UTC) in mid-December, possibly because the relative strength index (RSI) was reporting oversold conditions at the time. This time, however, the SMA support could be breached, as the RSI is currently in undersold territory.
The RSI on the daily chart is also biased toward the bears, as opposed to the record oversold conditions seen in November and December. The 5- and 10-day moving averages (MAs) are also trending south, indicating a bearish setup.
Hence, a drop to the December low of $3,122 could be on the cards.
The RSIs on the 4-hour and hourly charts are reporting oversold conditions below 30.00. Therefore, a convincing break below the 200-week SMA of $3,298 could be preceded by a minor bounce.
Disclosure:ÂThe author holds no cryptocurrency at the time of writing.
Bitcoin image via CoinDesk archives; charts byÂTrading View
• 3 Things Every Crypto Trading Journal Needs
• Stranger Things: The Upside of Down Bitcoin Prices || Leveraged Treasury Bull ETFs Benefitting from Shift to Risk-Off: This article was originally published onETFTrends.com.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average plunged almost 800 points on Thursday followed by another day of sell-offs in U.S. equities with a loss of over 500 points on Friday, confirming that a risk-off sentiment is being highlighted by a flight to government debt--a benefit for leveraged Treasury bull exchange-traded funds (ETFs) like theDirexion Daily 7-10 Year Treasury Bull 3X ETF (TYD) andDirexion Daily 20+ Year Treasury Bull 3X ETF (TMF) .
In the past month, TYD has risen past its 200-day moving average, while TMF is close to doing the same as the risk-off sentiment has taken hold of the capital markets with fears of a global economic slowdown permeating investors' psyche.
It's certainly welcome news for the bond markets as inflows of capital flood the fixed-income space, but to equities investors, it could be a sign of more pain to come.
"The tide is turning,"saidKomal Sri-Kumar, president of Sri-Kumar Global Strategies. "The fact the 10-year yield is falling so sharply after the massive correction on Tuesday—we don't even have a dead cat bounce—says there's a lot more pain ahead for equities."
TYD seeks daily investment results equal to 300% of the daily performance of the ICE U.S. Treasury 7-10 Year Bond Index. TYD invests in securities of the index and ETFs that track the index and other financial instruments that provide daily leveraged exposure to the index or ETFs that track the index. The index is a market value weighted index that includes publicly issued U.S. Treasury securities that have a remaining maturity of greater than seven years and less than or equal to ten years.
Related:Lessons From How Pros Use Bond ETFs
TMF seeks daily investment results worth 300% of the daily performance of the ICE U.S. Treasury 20+ Year Bond Index. The fund invests at least 80% of its net assets in securities of the index and ETFs that track the index and other financial instruments that provide daily leveraged exposure to the index or ETFs that track the index. The index is a market value weighted index that includes publicly issued U.S. Treasury securities that have a remaining maturity of greater than 20 years.
On Monday, U.S. equities were boosted as U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese president Xi Jinping agreed to cease fire on their tariff-for-tariff battle, giving the markets hope that a year-end rally could ensue. However, it proved to be an overreaction as volatility returned on Tuesday, racking U.S. equities for the remainder of the week.
Meanwhile, fears of an inverted yield curve also helped to rack U.S. equities as sell-offs in stocks were accompanied by an influx of capital into bonds. As equities investors seek asylum into safer-haven assets like debt, the shift is occurring across the spectrum whether it's short or long-term durations.
“The expectations of further turmoil in equities and widening in credit is serving to support Treasuries,” said Peter Chatwell, head of European rates strategy at Mizuho International Plc. “The main support for USTs being at the front end highlights that investors are comfortable in positioning contrary to what the Fed has been guiding the market to expect.”
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READ MORE AT ETFTRENDS.COM > || How Did Twitter CEO’s Square Overtake Coinbase as #1 Bitcoin Buying App?: Square, a payment platform for merchants and individual users operated byTwitterCEO Jack Dorsey, has surpassed Coinbase to become the most widely used iOS app to buyBitcoin (BTC).
The platform, called Cash App onApple’s iOSstore, also overtookYouTubeto become the number one top free mobile application on the iOS store, demonstrating a rising demand for digitalized payment systems in the U.S. market.
But how wasSquareable to overtake Coinbase and provide users the easiest way to purchase the dominant cryptocurrency?
On Square, which initially gained traction as a tool for merchants, individual users can instantly send and receive money using mobile phones without the need to go through inefficient bank wire transfers and traditional payment platforms.
Similar apps in South Korea and China likeKakaoPayandAliPayhave also become increasingly popular as alternatives to banks as the preferred payment systems of both businesses and individuals.
Prior to its integration of Bitcoin, Square was already being utilized as an online payments platform that is popular among millennials and new generation users that refrain from utilizing banking systems.
Square’s Bitcoin integration almost instantly appealed to its existing user and client base, as a large portion of the global population that is interested in cryptocurrencies has consistently been millennials throughout the past several years.
With the app, users can purchase Bitcoin efficiently because their bank accounts and credit cards are already connected to the application.
But, if a user is to trade on a regulated exchange likeCoinbaseorGemini, the user would have to go to a bank and initiate a wire transfer to deposit a payment to the exchange, which then involves an inefficient process and risks of potential payment delays and technical issues.
Cryptocurrency exchanges also request new users to go through a rigorous and impractical Know Your Customer (KYC) verification period, demanding government-issued IDs such as a passport or a driving licenses, and in some cases, evidence of income or bank statement to increase the limit of the account.
It is easier for users to remain with an application they use on a regular basis on which they already have completed a KYC process like Square that do not require additional information.
In August, speaking to CNBC, Square CFO Sarah Friar stated that the company does not consider its Bitcoin trading service as a major monetization engine and does not intend to generate large profits out of it.
At least in the short-term, Friar said that the strategy of the company is to drive utility in the Cash App and increase the liquidity of the asset. She said:
“It’s not a major monetization engine. The goal is to continue to drive utility in the Cash App.”
Jack Dorsey, the CEO of Square, previously emphasized that Bitcoin means more to the company than simply a new area for revenue generation.
“Bitcoin, for us, is not stopping at buying and selling. We do believe that this is a transformational technology for our industry, and we want to learn as quickly as possible.”
Featured image from Shutterstock.
The postHow Did Twitter CEO’s Square Overtake Coinbase as #1 Bitcoin Buying App?appeared first onCCN. || Precious Metals Gain Steadily as Safe Haven Demand Remains High on First Trading Session of 2019: Gold’s year-end rally is pushing into 2019. Bullion advanced for a fifth straight day as equities posted fresh losses after the worst year since the financial crisis, with investors weighing more signs of slower growth across Asia and the U.S. government shutdown dragging on. Gold scaled a more than six-month peak earlier today on demand owing to concerns of global economic slowdown. Current market scenario looks very optimistic and fundamentally supportive for gold as the overall mood is still very uncertain and the market confidence is still weak owing to geo-political woes. The dollar index which tracks the greenback against a basket of major currencies continues to hover near a two-month low hit in the previous session. A softer dollar makes the greenback denominated bullion cheaper for investors holding other currencies.
A boost in demand can be found whenever exchange rate is low amid global crisis, causing bullion to climb significantly. Also, Asian shares turned tail on the first trading day of the new year as more disappointing economic data from China, the world’s second-largest economy which completely eased early gains in U.S. stock futures increasing fund flow towards safe haven assets in broad market. As of writing this article, Spot Gold XAUUSD is trading at $1287.21 per ounce up by 0.54% on the day. US Gold Futures GCcv1 is trading at $1289.50 per ounce up 0.64% on the day. Meanwhile Spot Silver XAGUSD is trading at $15.47 per ounce down by 0.09% as silver failed to see increase in fund flow post profit booking activity on recent Bull Run. As uncertainty in market continues to rise owing to geo-political issues and partial shutdown in US government demand for safe haven assets will help precious metals stage solid bullish price action.
Crude oil markets dropped by around 1% in 2019’s first trading on Wednesday, pulled down by surging US output and concerns about an economic slowdown in 2019 as factory activity in China, the world’s biggest oil importer, contracted. International Brent crude futures were at $53.19 per barrel at 0544 GMT down by 1.1% from their final close of 2018. While West Texas Intermediate (WTI) futures were at $44.95 per barrel down by 1% on the day. Analysts and traders believe that futures prices fell on expectations of oversupply amid surging US production and concerns about a global economic slowdown. Factory activity weakened in December across Asia, including in China, as the Sino-US trade war and a slowdown in Chinese demand hit production in most economies, pointing to a rocky start for the world’s top economic growth region in 2019. Spot Crude WTIUSD is trading a $44.73 per barrel down by 0.60% on the day.
Thisarticlewas originally posted on FX Empire
• USD/JPY Price Forecast – the US dollar continues to fall
• Oil Price Fundamental Daily Forecast – Stock Market Weakness Weighing on Crude Prices
• GBP/JPY Price Forecast – The Dragon falls
• Price of Gold Fundamental Daily Forecast – Prices Surge but Gains Could Be Limited by Recovery in U.S. Dollar
• Will 2019 be the Year where Investors Sell Everything?
• Bitcoin And Ethereum Daily Price Forecast – Ethereum Breaches $150 Handle While Bitcoin Moves Near $4000 Mark || Stocks Rally, Gold Breaks as Reports Say China Offered U.S. Import Boost: Investors celebrated the potential positive progress in U.S.-China trade talks on Friday by driving the majorstock indexessharply higher. U.S. Treasury yields also rose on the news, making theU.S. Dollara more attractive investment, while driving down demand for the safe-havenJapanese Yenandgold.
Fueling the reactions in the markets was a report from CNBC that China had offered a six-year increase in U.S. imports during recent trade talks. Bloomberg News also reported on Friday that the deal would aim to reduce the annual U.S. trade deficit to zero by 2024.
Traders in these markets were already on edge before their regular session openings after the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday that Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin was considering the idea of easing tariffs on Chinese goods as a means of moving along the negotiations for a new trade deal. The reaction to this news was cautious, however, because the report was refuted by a senior administration official who told CNBC that there is “no discussion of lifting tariffs now.”
According to CNBC, China has offered a six-year boost in imports during its ongoing talks with the U.S., officials familiar with the matter told CNBC.
Bloomberg news is saying that Chinese officials made the offer during the mid-level trade talks earlier in the month. Furthermore, China offered to increase its annual import of U.S. goods by a combined value of over $1 trillion, the officials told Bloomberg, which was the first to report on the import boost offer.
According to the latest data, the U.S. trade deficit with China in 2018 was $323 billion. If the deal is accepted, this deal would aim to reduce that annual trade difference to $0 by 2024, one of the officials told Bloomberg.
Additionally, sources told CNBC that China pegged its proposal to buy more U.S. goods through 2024 to President Donald Trump’s hopes of being re-elected in 2020.
CNBC is also reporting that China’s top trade negotiator, Vice Premier Liu He, will visit Washington, D.C., on January 30 for two days of talks with U.S. trade representative Robert Lighthizer. With this meeting scheduled for so late in the month, stock traders will have nearly two weeks to continue to push equities higher.
Today’s price action in the U.S. Treasurys suggests talk of a weaker U.S. Dollar may be premature since the rise in rates suggests investors are pricing in a stronger economy which could mean the Fed will have to raise rates. Of course, it all depends on whether a trade deal is reached over the short-run.
Thisarticlewas originally posted on FX Empire
• Treasury Yields Jump on China Proposal, Trump Will Make ‘Major” Announcement on Saturday
• Natural Gas Price Futures (NG) Technical Analysis – Strengthens Over $3.320, Weakens Under $3.215
• Stocks Rally, Gold Breaks as Reports Say China Offered U.S. Import Boost
• Brent Crude Oil Price Update – Needs to Take Out $63.91 to Reaffirm Change in Trend
• NZD/USD Forex Technical Analysis – Headed into Minor Retracement Zone at .6720 to .6690
• Bitcoin – Tight Ranges Return, Which Could Spell Trouble For The Bulls || Open UBI Ecosystem Launched by GoodDollar and Partners in Berlin: At Web Summit 2018, in early November, Yoni Assia, Chief Executive of eToro , announced the launch of GoodDollar : an ecosystem-led project that explores how cryptocurrency and blockchain technology may reduce inequality through models based on universal basic income (UBI). Less than two weeks later, on November 19, GoodDollar’s first community event took place, in Berlin, and was designed to establish an OpenUBI ecosystem. The day-long conference, titled OpenUBI in the Crypto Age , gathered like-minded people seeking to reduce wealth inequality from around the globe. The event, held at the office of amatus. in the north of the German capital, attracted numerous leading lights in this space from all over the world. It was part of Revision Summit 2018 , a social-impact technology conference, and sponsored by eToro, the leading global social trading and investing platform that is funding $1 million towards GoodDollar. The OpenUBI community has been formed to encourage collaboration and discussion around UBI and its technological implementation. “Anyone can join because we are building a decentralized community,” says Gilad Barner, GoodDollar’s community and operations manager. {alt} He traveled from Tel-Aviv and organized the launch event in Berlin, along with Anna Blume and Christian Hildebrand, founders of Value Instrument , an organization designed to stimulate economic activity in communities. During the event, an interactive demonstration of the Value Instrument alpha product was held, which illustrated an unusual approach of digital UBI via a chat application. “Berlin has a very vibrant, pioneering, UBI-aware community,” continues Mr. Barner. “There are a lot of projects happening in this space in the city.” For example, one project is Circles , an electronic cryptocurrency that aims to create and distribute a globally accessible UBI. Julio Linares and Karenina Schröder, from the Berlin-based organization that utilizes a network of enthusiasts and volunteers, provided lectures on their work. Karenina’s enlightening talk focused on the rise of women in blockchain and specifically the OpenUBI space. Story continues Two-afternoon panel sessions – discussing governance and identity challenges of both crypto and UBI – particularly sparked debate and ideas. Panelists talked about how individuals and groups should work together in this area. Moreover, project leaders left the conference with a much better idea of how to collaborate, and who with. {alt} One delegate, Kingsley Advani , founder and partner at Chainfund Capital , said: “We have never had such an opportunity or a platform to be able to provide UBI at scale. In this day and age we have the technology, and with the blockchain, companies like GoodDollar can provide UBI to those with the greatest need. We also have the potential to audit UBI. We can track if a family in Africa has received UBI and in the future, we can follow what they use the proceeds for.” Cem Dagdelen , Founder at Horatii Partners , agreed and said: “UBI is a design space where you can actually create future economic systems. [Karl] Marx only had his pen and paper while designing [UBI], and now we have this beautiful design space where we can create autonomous entities, economic systems. UBI fits here perfectly.” Another attendee, meditation facilitator Thorsten Wiesmann , was similarly enthusiastic about OpenUBI. “Evolution of humanity goes to a direction where we need to be conscious of our choices on an ethical level, much more than ever before, with artificial intelligence and other developments. Cryptocurrencies and UBIs, these are tools, or playgrounds, you might call them, to find out solutions that work for everyday life and for the society as a whole,” he said. “The first get-together event was very well received and very successful,” continues Mr. Barner. “People were hugely excited to meet one another, and itching to start collaborating on projects. It was great to see attendees realizing there truly is an ecosystem. It was proof that this is possible.” “Many individuals, all around the world, are coming to the conclusion that UBI solutions need to be explored. There is no reason why they should not work together, and if they do it will be much more efficient. A lot of meetings were generated from the conference.” {alt} Mr. Assia was also greatly encouraged by the OpenUBI event in Berlin. He hopes this move will encourage communication and collaboration within this space, and be the catalyst for GoodDollar and other UBI projects to be developed, which is the ultimate goal. “I was excited to see the ecosystem collaborating, and feel confident that OpenUBI will lead to significant breakthroughs and the creation of amazing products in this space,” he says. The Berlin conference marked the first cornerstone of the OpenUBI community, according to Mr. Barner. He will be in London later on this week, on December 13, moderating a GoodDollar panel at The Next Web’s Hard Fork summit . “I hope everyone can come along to this event, which will indicate how active the ecosystem is in London, and what projects are happening” he adds. “The OpenUBI movement is just starting, and I want to see this sort of activity happening in every city in the world.” CALL TO ACTION: Join GoodDollar. The project needs builders, scientists, and experts in identity, privacy, and financial governance, as well as philanthropists and ambassadors. Email GoodDollar at hello@gooddollar.org , contact us via our social media channels ( Twitter and Telegram ) or join the OpenUBI movement. This article was originally posted on FX Empire More From FXEMPIRE: NZD/USD Forex Technical Analysis – Downside Momentum Targets Main Bottom at .6753 U.S Mortgages – Rates Down Again, With More to Come IF the FED Turns OECD Warns of Hard Landing in Australian Housing Market, Others See RBA Rate Cut in Late 2019 This Week’s Fed Meeting: Pressure on Powell to Sound Dovish, but Not Too Dovish Bitcoin – Respite from the Crypto Storm or Finally the Floor? Price of Gold Fundamental Weekly Price Forecast – A Dovish Powell Will Drive Gold Higher, A Super-Dovish Powell Will Be Bad for Gold || Bullish Move: Crypto Market Adds $5 Billion as Bitcoin Price Surpasses $3,700: Over the last 24 hours, the crypto market has rebounded slightly by $5 billion, from $120 billion to $125 billion following a promising breakout of the Bitcoin price above $3,700. The unforeseen strong movement of Bitcoin could lead to the short-term recovery of other major crypto assets and low market cap cryptocurrencies in the upcoming days. Promising Move by Bitcoin Before Monday Typically, during the weekend, the crypto market tends to demonstrate a dip in volume and a minor decline in trading activity. However, throughout the past two days, the volume of Bitcoin has remained above the $5 billion mark with the daily volume of the crypto market above $17 billion. The relatively high daily volume of major crypto assets has allowed the market to rebound prior to Monday when the volume generally begins to pick up and the market starts to see an increase in trading activity. Prior to the breakout of Bitcoin above $3,700, a prominent cryptocurrency technical analyst with an online alias “Cred” said that if the Bitcoin price surpasses $3,700 in the short-term, it is highly likely to lead to a positive upward movement. The analyst explained : Very compressed price action following the high set on Monday. My plan is straightforward: Price below & finding resistance at $3,560s I’ll look for sells targeting $3,430s. Breakout & price accepted above $3,700s I’ll be a buyer until $3,840s. In the grand scheme of things, while a breakout of resistance levels below the $4,000 mark may prevent a further drop below the mid-$3,000 region, it may be insufficient in providing a foundation for the dominant cryptocurrency to initiate a proper short-term rally. Since late December, Bitcoin has remained in a tight range between $3,500 to $4,100, unable to test key resistance levels nor drop below crucial support levels. Not Entirely Negative For Bitcoin Across the board, many major crypto assets and low market cap digital assets have recorded two to four percent gains against the U.S. dollar on the day. Story continues Ethereum, Cardano, and Litecoin surged by three percent, four percent, and five percent respectively in the last 12 hours, following the upward price movement of Bitcoin. While the bear market in crypto remains in full effect, leading businesses in the likes of Binance are seeing high demand in key markets like Europe. On January 17, subsequent to the launch of Binance Jersey, a regulated fiat-to-crypto exchange that supports British pound and euro trades, Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao said : Binance.je is overwhelmed with registrations. There is a backlog of KYC verifications already. More resources are allocated to reduce it. In the mean time, we appreciate your understanding and patience. The registration prize is FIFO based, no worries. Just crazy! One thing we do “well” is underestimating ourselves, and the market. To prevent a further drop below a low enough range, a sustainable high daily volume in the crypto market is crucial. For now, the market is seeing a relatively high level of trading activity across major markets. The post Bullish Move: Crypto Market Adds $5 Billion as Bitcoin Price Surpasses $3,700 appeared first on CCN . || Bitcoin up 7% and Ethereum Surges 19%, Good 2019 Start For Crypto: new years bitcoin ethereum crypto Over the last 48 hours, the Bitcoin price increased from $3,629 to $3,890, by more than seven percent. The Ethereum price has also surged by 19 percent since January 2 from $143 to $160, recording a substantial increase in value prior to its highly anticipated Constantinople hard fork. Not a Bad Year For Bitcoin Bitcoin ended 2018 with an 80 percent drop in its price from its all-time high at $19,500. However, Jameson Lopp, the chief technical officer at Casa and a former BitGo executive, has said based on several metrics, it can be argued that Bitcoin has performed relatively well. In terms of scalability, the growth of nodes, hash rate, influence in academics, and daily volume, Bitcoin recorded a significant improvement from early 2018. Lopp said : A couple things are clear: 2018 was the worst year for Bitcoin. Also, 2018 was the best year for Bitcoin. It just depends upon which metrics youre focused. The Casa executive noted that despite the fall in the price of Bitcoin, the number of reachable nodes has not fallen by a large margin, suggesting that individuals are using Bitcoin nodes for economic purposes and will not suspend them in the short-term. With academic interest in Bitcoin growing rapidly and the amount of venture capital investment steadily increasing as well, he said: Yes, Bitcoin fared poorly in terms of exchange rate in 2018. But by almost any other metric the system is improving and growing. Those of us who are dedicated to this system shall continue to BUIDL and add value; we have no control over the market but I expect that it will catch up to us sooner or later. In the cryptocurrency market, the value of crypto assets move by cycles, and it is minimally affected by developments in the industry. As the industry establishes the foundation for the next wave of investors and users in the cryptocurrency ecosystems, analysts believe the price of Bitcoin and other major cryptocurrencies will follow. Can the Momentum of Crypto Assets be Sustained? ethereum wallet dapp cryptocurrency Digital assets in the likes of Ethereum , EOS , and Bitcoin Cash have recorded large gains over the past week, with Ethereum increasing by over 19 percent in a 24-hour span against the U.S. dollar to take over Ripple (XRP). Story continues Ethereum could continue to see an increase in its price over the long run, considering that the Constantinople hard fork is similar to the halvening of Bitcoins block reward in the sense that it decreases the potential supply in circulation of ETH throughout the months to come. But, there still remains questions on whether the recent recovery of crypto assets could result in the end of a bear market for digital assets. As of January 3, the valuation of the cryptocurrency market remains $90 billion down from November, and it has to increase by 69 percent to recover to November levels. Until crypto assets reach a valuation of over $300 billion, it is not possible to conclusively state that the bear market of cryptocurrencies has come to an end. Featured Image from Shutterstock. Price Charts from TradingView . The post Bitcoin up 7% and Ethereum Surges 19%, Good 2019 Start For Crypto appeared first on CCN . || Bitcoin Drops Below $3.4K to Set a New 2018 Low: Bitcoin, the worldâs largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, has once again hit a fresh 2018 low amid a greater crypto market sell-off.
On Dec. 7 around 1:00 UTC, bitcoin (BTC) dropped by 11.46 percent to find a bid below $3,500 at $3,306 surpassing the prior low of $3,640, according to CoinMarketCap and CoinDesk data.
SEC Again Delays Decision on VanEck-SolidX Bitcoin ETF
The sell-off has continued to plague the worldâs best known cryptocurrency since its most recent rapid depreciation from the $6,000 mark almost a month ago, taking most of the alt-coins along with it.
Bitcoinâs market capitalization has also dropped by $4.8 billion over a 24-hour period and is down more than $14 billion on the week, indicating a shift by traders away from cryptoâs first-mover back to fiat as hope in a crypto reversal wanes for this year.
According to CoinDesk data, bitcoin has now erased the largest portion of its October, November and December 2017 bull run gains and is effectively down 84.28 percent from its all time highs of $19,781.
Bitcoin is also down 64 percent year-over-year, having dropped hard from each successive lower highs.
Bets On Bitcoin Price Decline Hit 6-Week High
The cryptocurrency isnât the only major network feeling the pain as ether, Stellar, and bitcoin cash each fell between 11-15 percent and show technical signs of not letting up anytime soon.
Total market capitalization of all cryptocurrencies fell sharply as well, wiping away another $11.5 billion to stand at $110.6 billion on the day, a far cry from $813 billion seen on Jan. 8, CoinMarketCap data shows.
Disclosure: The author holds USDT at the time of writing.
Bitcoin Imagevia Shutterstock
• Bitcoin Still on Defensive But Price Rally Possible Over $3.9K
• Bitcoin Price On Track for Biggest Yearly Loss on Record || Bitcoin Cash – ABC, Litecoin and Ripple Daily Analysis – 05/01/19: Bitcoin Cash ABC gained 0.38% on Friday, following a 6.19% slide on Thursday, to end the day at $158.86.
A mixed day saw Bitcoin Cash ABC rise to a late morning intraday high $163.19, testing selling pressure at the 38.2% FIB Retracement Level before hitting reverse, the day’s first major resistance level at $170.72 left untested.
The reversal saw Bitcoin Cash ABC fall to an intraday low $153.00, calling on support at the first major support level at $152.87 before recovering to $158 levels by the day’s end.
At the time of writing, Bitcoin Cash ABC was down 0.54% to $158.00, with a trend bucking start to the day seeing Bitcoin Cash ABC fall from an early morning high $161.52 to a morning low $158.00, the day’s major support and resistance levels left untested early on.
For the day ahead, a hold onto $158 levels through the morning would support a move back through the morning high $161.52 to bring the 38.2% FIB Retracement Level of $163 and the first major support level at $163.70 into play, with the broader market needing a sustained rally through the day to support a break through the second major resistance level at $168.54 to bring $170 levels into play.
Failure to hold onto $158 levels through the morning could see Bitcoin Cash ABC fall back deeper into the red, with a fall through $155 levels bringing the day’s first major support level at $153.51 into play before any recovery, sub-$150 support levels unlikely to be in play through the day.
Litecoin gained 1.33% on Friday, partially reversing a 4.04% loss from Thursday, to end the day at $32.02.
A relatively bullish morning saw Litecoin rise to a mid-morning intraday high $32.64 before sliding to an early afternoon intraday low $31.01, Litecoin coming within reach of the first major resistance level at $32.8, while steering clear of the major support levels on the day.
Tracking the broader market, a late recovery saw Litecoin move back through to $32 levels by the day’s end, sub-$31 levels avoided on the day.
At the time of writing, Litecoin was up 2.5% to $32.82, Friday’s late rally continuing into the early hours of this morning, with Litecoin rising from a start of a day $32.01 to strike a morning high $33.13 before easing back to $32 levels, Litecoin breaking through the first major resistance level at $32.77 early on in the day.
For the day ahead, a hold above the first major resistance level at $32.77 would support another break through to $33 levels to bring the second major resistance level at $33.52 into play before any pullback, $34 levels likely to remain out of reach through the day.
Failure to hold above the first major resistance level could see Litecoin pullback through the morning low $32.01 to bring $31 levels back into play, while we would expect Litecoin to steer clear of $30 levels, with the day’s first major support level at $31.14 there to prevent heavier losses in the event of a sell-off.
Ripple’s XRP gained 0.23% on Friday, partially reversing a 5.07% slide from Thursday, to end the day at $0.36855.
Tracking the broader market, Ripple’s XRP rose to a late morning intraday high $0.37434 before hitting reverse, with selling pressure from the broader market leading Ripple’s XRP to an intraday low $0.3584.
Finding support at the first major support level at $0.3581, Ripple’s XRP broke back through to $0.37 levels late in the day before easing back to $0.36 levels by the day’s end.
At the time of writing, Ripple’s XRP was up 1.02% to $0.37230, with moves through the early morning seeing Ripple’s XRP rally from a start of a day morning low $0.36810 to strike a morning high $0.37823 before easing back, Ripple’s XRP coming up against the first major resistance level at $0.3758 early on in the day.
For the day ahead, a hold onto $0.37 levels through the morning would support another break through the first major resistance level at $0.3758 to bring $0.38 levels into play before any pullback, the second major resistance level at $0.3830 likely to prevent any more material gains in the event of a day long rally.
Failure to hold onto $0.37 levels could see Ripple’s XRP pullback through the morning low $0.36810, with sub-$0.367 levels bringing the day’s first major support level at $0.3590 into play before any recovery, heavier losses not expected through the day, barring a broad based crypto sell-off.
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Thisarticlewas originally posted on FX Empire
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• Bitcoin – Resistance at $4,000 could be the Bulls’ Undoing
• S&P 500 Weekly Price Forecast – S&P 500 shows resiliency for the week
• Gold Weekly Price Forecast – Gold markets show signs of exhaustion
[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
BitCoinを始めるなら【bitFlyer】https://bitflyer.jp?bf=cmc24fnhbitflyer.jp/?bf=cmc24fnh #ビットコイン || Jan 11, 2019 07:01:00 UTC | 3,661.20$ | 3,176.60€ | 2,869.00£ | #Bitcoin #btc pic.twitter.com/7KkRyCGSeu || Yeah, these two guys are like Teddy Bears. I wouldn't stop hugging them!
May this serve as an example to all. Instead of creating a "privacy oriented" scamcoin, they build on top of bitcoin, work under and around its constraints and improve on it !!!
Heroes! || Sanırım kontratlar dan bahis ediyor || #Robostopia Smart #CryptoCurrency Trader Bot for #Binance and #Bittrex
Trailing Stop-Loss, Buy or Sell #altcoins / BTC pairs.
Auto Renew Orders
Profit / Loss notifications by transactions.
Completed Order notifications and many more..
http://robostopia.com pic.twitter.com/7gQfyyXEh3 || Check out our telegram group where we post daily updates of the crypto world.
#Bitcoin #blockchain #ThursdayThoughts #Technology #ThursdayMotivation #Cryptocurrency #Cryptonews #thursdaymorning #ICO #Ethereum #Ripple #Business #News #Tech #Crypto #BTC
https://t.me/biditex || #BITCOIN CHARTS: We're just in a consolidation right now....and oh ya...it's a bearish consolidation https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0qptCV-JqtI … $BTCUSD || Bo, what happened to your "early Xmas 50% fire sale off" ? Imagine people listened to you and bought at $6,000 ?? || Ya existen las que tienen que existir. De Maduro y de don Bitcoin no tenemos, no hay espacio para internacionales pusilánimes. Ahora de los nacionales solo Otto no tiene. pic.twitter.com/mzyMOLj0yJ || BTC/TNT (Binance) gained 7.00% in the last 20 min. 0.01845856USD, 0.0000051Ƀ $TNT #Tierion #blockchain https://app.inputspike.com/t?x=binance&b=BTC&q=TNT …
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Trend: up || Prices: 3464.01, 3459.15, 3466.36, 3413.77, 3399.47, 3666.78, 3671.20, 3690.19, 3648.43, 3653.53
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Analyze the provided historical prices, technical indicators, news, and social media sentiment from the last 60 days. Based on this context, predict the overall trend (up, down, or no change) and the specific daily closing prices for Bitcoin for the next 10 days.
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[Technical Analysis for 2019-03-19]
BTC Price: 4071.19, BTC RSI: 65.41
Gold Price: 1305.00, Gold RSI: 51.84
Oil Price: 59.03, Oil RSI: 66.64
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
Op Ed: How Bitcoin’s Protocol of Peace Can End the Nuclear Age: Since it came to life in early 2009, Bitcoin has begun disrupting the world of finance. Over the years, this decentralized digital currency came to mean different things for different people. For some, it presented opportunities for prosperity, becoming the best performing asset in their portfolio. For others, this peer-to-peer cash for the internet represents a non-confiscatable digital gold that could enable financial sovereignty. For those who are concerned about civil liberty, Bitcoin’s censorship resistance and permissionlessness define it as free speech money. “Yellow Vest” protesters occupying in the streets of Parisfoundallies in this rebel crypto that promises to end the tyranny of central banks.
As Bitcoinreachedits 10-year anniversary last month, this breakthrough of computer science now further reveals its value proposition. Perhaps the fundamental ethos of this technology is hidden in the mystery surrounding the identity of its creator, the pseudonymous Satoshi Nakamoto. The genesis of Bitcoin is rooted in anonymity.
Behind the mask of this Japanese character, a deeper vision of Bitcoin is found in the story of Japan, the first and only nation to experience the horror of nuclear weapons. The devastation that this country went through at the end of the World War II teaches us consequences of war and calls for people to come together for peace. This commitment to peace is embodied in Japan’s pacifist constitution, with its notableArticle 9clause that renounces war as a means to solve conflicts.
In our contemporary post-Cold War world, this enshrinement of peace has shown itself to be vulnerable to international and domestic pressures to destroy it. In recent years, as North Korea’s repeated missile tests threaten stability in the Pacific region, there has beena pushtoward Japan’s remilitarization.
Now, from the internet, Satoshi, a representative cultural survivor of atomic bombs, brings to humanity a means to secure this peace, opening a new path for us to never repeat the tragedy of the past.
The weakness of the Japanese peace constitution is found in its foundation. Article 9 of Japan’s renunciation of the sovereign right of war is part of the constitution that was imposed by General MacArthur after the United States defeated Japan’s imperialism in 1945. The integrity of this model of governance called “democracy” that Japan adopted after its surrender relies on the U.S.–Japan security alliance thatplacedJapan under the umbrella of U.S. protection.
The security and stability of this system is backed by a monopoly of violence. Its nucleus was developed during WWII by physicists working on the Manhattan Project and by the establishment of a large, armed industry that has now morphed into the military industrial complex.
With creation of nuclear weapons, humanity tried to outdo the force of nature, unleashing power that could bring total annihilation of life on the planet. Around this elusive power, those who are driven by an urge for domination have created a network of security to protect their private interests. The global security state has established a secret law that violates our fundamental right to life: the right not to be vaporized or eradicated by warfare.
By using the threat of weapons of mass destruction, transnational corporations engage in conquest of territory. They control world resources, with central banks printing money out of thin air andweaponizinglarge financial institutions like the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. The superpower state has caused the entire world to fear an uncontrolled fission chain reaction in order to keep all nations under the thumb of its military command, imposing petrodollar hegemony. Armies of economists, legislators and regulators apply pressure to maintain monopoly of the market, putting sanctions, trade embargoes and blockades against those who challenge the legitimacy of the corporate state.
Now, in this digital age, man’s subversion of nature has come online, forming patronage networks that act like one giant computer. The internet has been effectively militarized with the penetration of intelligence agencies andthe CIA cyber weapon, along with giant tech companies engaging in censorship. This occupation of cyberspace is maintained by private paying processing companies like Visa, PayPal and Mastercard controlling the flow of money, freezing assets and restricting transactions.
Bitcoin offers an alternative to this universal security system backed by men with guns. It creates a new model of security based on cryptographic proof that can resist unlimited applications of violence, making a bulletproof network.
Bitcoin is free software where users control the programs. Everyone can read, study and participate in the development of its code. Bitcoin is developed and stewarded by a group of cypherpunks. They are a new wave of scientists who take up moral obligations to shift the balance of power and to help individuals counter illegitimate authority derived from violence.
Cypherpunks don’t conquer nature. They liberate wisdom inherent in nature by keeping its source code open. Cypherpunks write code. They try to preserve a repository of scientific knowledge that belongs to humankind and build applications that benefit all. By using cryptography for social change, they challenge a model of governance that fuels wars of aggression and surveillance capitalism. Through designing a new security based on mathematics, they aim to make the subversive state secret law obsolete.
Bitcoin’s core consensus algorithm is an innovation that is created through application of laws of nature. Satoshifoundthe force that governs nature manifested in the law of physics, specifically thermodynamics — principles concerning heat, temperature and their relation to energy. Combining this understanding of natural law with the knowledge that human nature contains the paradox of man being selfish as well as being altruistic, the creator of Bitcoin found a way to coordinate human actions to build economies of scale.
Tech entrepreneur and author Andreas Antonopoulosacknowledgedhow Satoshi not only invented a new currency, but also gave us the world’s first perfect market. He described how bitcoin mining is built around a valuable currency and using it as a token of reward, engages miners in a broadcast math competition known as “proof of work.”
Working with careful balance of risk and reward, in combination with game theory, Satoshi created a new economic incentive that makes miners work honestly and enforces rules of the network without applying pressure. This process leads to both the creation of money and clearing of transactions. Most importantly, it enables unprecedented security backed by laws of nature.
Nature does not create waste. The market that dynamically adjusts according to a demand with a tight feedback loop every two weeks engages miners to strive for high efficiency in a brutally competitive environment. It channels misused forces of nature in the arms race and redirects energy into building a global security.
The law of nature that is now restored in Bitcoin’s noble architecture commands the industrial hardware manufacturers to challenge the military industrial complex. The computing power of specialized hardware, through a method of decentralization, re-networks the supercomputer of the old world. Power that is now redistributed begins to free people who are enslaved by the proprietary software of nuclear programs and state-sponsored terrorism.
Bitcoin mining, largelydrivenby renewable energy, counters energies that are used to maintain the existing security state that creates overconsumption, pollution and environmental destruction. This newly created network can now start to transform the death-spiraling war economy into a resilient, asset-based ecosystem.
The way of peace is in harmony with nature. It is a society that acknowledges interconnectedness of all living beings and their freedom of expression. It embraces the equality of all creation in its diversity and solves conflicts through nonviolent means.
Now, from what was once the land of the rising sun, from the ashes of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, a protocol of peace arises. Bitcoin is a new sun, ascending to replace the explosive nuclear power. This sun radiates through the heat generated through the heart of liberty-loving people around the world. With algorithmic regulation, it expands every 10 minutes without ever exploding, circulating an abundant flow of life to all directions across the network.
Can this cryptocurrency preserve the value of peace and defend against mighty swords, missiles, tanks and atomic bombs? The security of this system cannot be given from outside — by governments, institutions, politicians and even by cypherpunks. It can only be guaranteed through sovereign individuals across the world freely choosing to adopt this protocol of peace, a way of nonviolence as a new code of conduct for the world they wish to live in. Peace can be ensured through a decentralized network created by users running full nodes and enforcing consensus rules as a universal law of nature.
In a piece of mathematics, we can now enshrine a constitution of peace that can act as a truly neutral arbitrator to settle conflicts and disputes among people. This new sort of security can guard our children and a future generation from resource wars. It can shelter people against currency wars and wealth confiscation, protecting the planet from ecological destruction. Through each individual upholding this networked constitution powered by this sublime golden sun, we could end the nuclear age and leave humanity’s destructive past behind.
This is a guest post by Nozomi Hayase. Views expressed are her own and do not necessarily reflect those of Bitcoin Magazine or BTC Inc.
This article originally appeared onBitcoin Magazine. || Jamie Dimon predicted bitcoin's nosedive, but isn't celebrating it: The CEO called it a fraud last year but tells CNBC he finds no satisfaction in prices dropping 80 percent from the peak. Bitcoin is trading around $3,570 after skyrocketing to almost $20,000 at the end of 2017. Still, Dimon and other Wall Street CEOs have advocated for cryptocurrencies' underlying technology, blockchain. The bitcoin price bubble has burst but JP Morgan Chase JPM 's Jamie Dimon isn't taking a victory lap. The CEO was among the first and loudest on Wall Street to warn against the cryptocurrency, calling it a "fraud" and warning investors that if they were "stupid enough to buy it" they would "pay the price one day." When asked if he took any satisfaction in being right after bitcoin dropped 80 percent, Dimon told CNBC at the World Economic Forum in Davos he "didn't take any." Still, Dimon is advocating for its underlying technology, blockchain. Despite its own level of corporate hype, he said it's not the perfect fit to disrupt things like equity trades. It's a better replacement for certain online databases, he said. "Blockchain is a real technology — it's just a database we can all access that's kept up-to-date," Dimon told CNBC's Squawk Box . J.P. Morgan is using the technology, which gets rid of the need for a third party intermediary by creating a permanent, open record of all transactions on a network. Buyers and sellers can interact directly and have their exchange recorded on a what's known as a "distributed," or blockchain ledger. In October 2017, J.P. Morgan Chase announced a blockchain-based system that will "significantly reduce" the number of parties needed to verify global payments, reducing transaction times "from weeks to hours." Royal Bank of Canada and Australia and New Zealand Banking Group are among the bank's partners in the project. Corporate giants Amazon, Facebook, and IBM are among the many others exploring blockchain use cases. Story continues Bitcoin meanwhile has failed to stage a recovery. Since its peak in December 2017, the cryptocurrency has fallen 82 percent, according to data from CoinDesk. It has dropped roughly 75 percent over one year, and was trading near $3,570 on Wednesday. More From CNBC This is one of the world's most dangerous places to mine bitcoin Global crypto exchange looks to go public in the U.S. through a reverse merger Bitcoin stumbles below $4,000, reversing weekend gains || 25 Payment Tools for Small Businesses, Freelancers and Startups: Dwolla Dwolla Dwolla is a developer-friendly payments system that lets you customize how you make and receive recurring, bulk or single payments. Offering a free account with no transaction fees, it only links to a U.S. bank account or credit union account. There are no account setup fees or transaction fees. However, Dwolla is strictly made for domestic payments. Authorize.net Authorize.net Authorize.net is a payments gateway that offers domestic and some international transactions for small to medium-sized businesses. You can accept all major credit cards, signature debit cards, echecks and digital payment options like Apple Pay, PayPal and Visa Checkout. Other features include automated recurring billing, a free suite of security and fraud prevention tools and the ability to synch with your Quickbooks. Although there are no annual renewal or hidden fees involved, there are some other fees to consider: a $49 set-up fee, $25 per month gateway fee and 2.9 percent plus $0.30 per transaction. Braintree Braintree As part of PayPal, this company has bolstered the company’s payments expertise and provided more options for you to pass onto your customers -- like Venmo, Apple Pay, Android Pay, Bitcoin and debit and credit cards. There are no extra fees, including no fees for refunds, inactivity or failed transactions. You only pay for those transactions you actually carry out. After your first $50,000 in transactions, you will pay as little as 2.9 percent plus $0.30 per transaction . 2Checkout 2Checkout 2Checkout focuses on global payment acceptance, providing you with a secure and compliant gateway to do business in nearly every country around the world. It offers both online and mobile platforms for payments, including numerous language and currency options, recurring billing, hosted checkout and fraud protection. You can accept all major credit and debit cards as well as PayPal, and then get paid by bank or wire transfer. Transactions are 2.9 percent plus $0.30 per transaction. While there are no setup or monthly fees, you will have fees like an extra 1 percent added on to each transaction from outside of the U.S., 2 to 5 percent charge above daily bank rate on currency conversion and a $20 chargeback fee. Story continues Square Square Square is a credit card processing company that provides a way for small businesses to accept credit cards without carrying the burden of additional fees. You will be able to accept credit cards anywhere and process gift cards with their free magstripe reader that works with the Square app on smartphones and tablets. Features include fraud protection and deposits on demand with payments received in your bank account in one to two business days. You only pay per transaction with no setup or monthly fees. The fee is 2.75 percent per swipe for all major credit cards. Stripe Stripe Stripe was built for developers to create custom payment solutions, but it can also be used in its basic form. Even as a standardized payment platform, it is packed with features like integrated mobile payments for iOS and Android, checkout, the ability to add coupons and recurring billing. As a global payment option, it works with over 100 currencies, as well as Bitcoin and local payment instruments like Alipay. You can also accept digital payment services like Apple Pay, Android Pay and AmEx Express Checkout. Wepay WePay WePay is an online payments processing platform that is completely customizable. Its standard payments solution is fully integrated into your business, offering fraud prevention, fraud detection tools, direct bank transfer, recurring payments, multi-party payments, compatibility with all major credit cards and ACH payments. Credit card processing fees are 2.9 percent plus $0.30 per transaction, while ACH payment processing is 1 percent plus $0.30 per transaction. Chargebacks are $15. Related: 5 Features to Look For While Selecting the Right E-Payment Model Popmoney Popmoney Popmoney is a way to send, request and receive money within the U.S. from bank account to bank account or debit card. It has a limited amount of daily and monthly funds that can be sent and received, making this ideal for smaller transactions. This highly secure payment solution is ideal for collecting money from groups or for recurring payments. With a debit card, you can receive the funds in as little as one business day while a bank account may take up to three business days. There is a fee of $0.95 for each transaction, making this a relatively low-cost payment option. Due Due Due is a payments solution company that offers credit card processing and international credit card processing. It charges a flat-rate transaction fee of 2.7 percent for credit card processing, including global credit card payments . It also features a digital wallet tool as well as the ability to handle ACH payments. The company has integrated PayPal and Stripe for further payment options, and in addition, it offers time-tracking and online invoicing. PayPal PayPal PayPal has become one of the most trusted payment platforms online. It was one of the first that provided freelancers with a way to accept debit and credit card payments without having to partner with a credit card processing company and face high monthly and transaction fees. Over time, PayPal has evolved into offering personal and business accounts, its own debit and credit cards, a revolving credit line and business loans. It allows you to accept payment in foreign currency and then handles the currency exchange process for you for a minimal fee. Now, PayPal is beginning to accept Bitcoin so that customers can make and accept cryptocurrency payments. Related: The 15 Most Popular Online Payment Solutions Heartland Payment Systems Heartland Payment Systems Although they do not list their pricing, they are known to be a competitively priced payment processing provider that focuses on service, security and transparent processes. They promise no fees and next-day funding on a wide range of payments, including major credit and debit cards, EMV, gift cards, PayPal, Apple Pay, Samsung Pay and Android Pay. They offer payment processing on any type of device and focus on EMV, tokenization and end-to-end encryption to deliver one of the most robust security solutions for card processing. They have other services for businesses, including payroll, POS, loyalty programs, e-commerce and billing solutions, mobile payments, gift cards and more. Cybersource Cybersource Cybersource is an online payment processing company that offers a wide array of services, including gateway and processing connections, digital wallet and digital payments, debit and bank transfers, payer authentication, payments security, global tax calculation and more. It allows you to take and make payments in 190 countries and 40 currencies across all major and local payment cards as well as Alipay, PayPal, Visa Checkout, PayEase, Apple Pay and Android Pay. It does not list pricing but instead offers a custom program for businesses of all sizes. Digital River Digital River Digital River is a global payment processing company working in 190 countries, including many emerging countries like China and India, as well as with 170 transaction and display currencies. It offers local and global card processing as well as transactions with retail and internet banks. Its pricing information is available by contacting the online payment processing company and working with them to develop a customized program for your business. ecoPayz ecoPayz ecoPayz offers personal, business and merchant global payment processing services that do not require any recipient bank accounts. This is because this payments solution uses its own branded ecoCards that have a Visa or Mastercard logo and work as payment cards for transactions in 45 currencies. There is instant funding and free setup for an ecoAccount that uses these virtual payment cards. Creditcall Creditcall Creditcall links to all U.S. processors and U.K. acquirers, offering online and mobile payments for your business. It uses an EMV-ready payment gateway and virtual terminal to keep your transaction costs low. Creditcall allows you to customize your hosted payment page to seamlessly integrate it into your existing website. Elavon Converge Elavon Converge Elavon Converge offers a number of services, including a solution for small businesses. With an online and mobile option, Elavon Converge provides a way to process credit cards, debit cards, electronic gift cards, electronic checks, Electronic Benefit Transfers (EBTs) and mobile wallets via tools like Apple Pay. The payment processing provider is also preparing its customers for the EMV transition. Pricing information is available by calling the company to get a customized payment processing program that fits your small business. Neteller Neteller Neteller is a global payment processing company that helps businesses work with customers in 200 countries and across 15 languages. You will be able to accept a wide array of credit and debit cards and local payment options, including cryptocurrency like Bitcoin. Along with many deposit options, Neteller offers businesses instant payouts on these transactions. Related: 4 Tips for Revving Up Revenue When You Need It The Most Nochex Nochex Nochex is a U.K.-based credit card processing company that was established to help companies in the U.K. work with consumers and businesses around the world, accepting payments from all the major debit and credit card companies. It offers free PCI and anti-fraud tools along with low fees and transparent pricing. Payoneer Payoneer Payoneer specializes in the ability for a business to make mass payments to customers all over the world, but it also offers a payment processing solution. You will be able to work with 200 countries and 150 currencies. Payoneer allows you to receive and withdraw funds through deposit in your local bank account, use of the Payoneer Prepaid Mastercard or through an online store affiliated with Payoneer’s network. PayXpert PayXpert PayXpert is a global payment processing company that offers transaction rates around 1.5 percent based on volume and risk. They handle more than 40 currencies across 40 countries and work with 150 payment solutions. Features include a payment gateway, merchant account services, mobile and online payment functionality, credit card processing, data encryption and a virtual terminal. Payment Depot Payment Depot Payment Depot operates as a membership solution to offer businesses of all sizes access to wholesale credit card processing. It works for all major credit cards and delivers one of the lowest transaction rates available. For its basic membership, which costs $29 per month or $299 per year, you can process up to $20,000 per month and receive a rate of $0.25 per transaction. As your transactions grow in value per month, you can tap into even lower transaction rates, from $0.15 all the way down to $0.05 per transaction with the highest volume of transaction value. Worldpay Worldpay As a global payments system solution, the company offers numerous POS, online and mobile payment processing options. Its online payment solutions include shopping carts, payment gateways, a virtual terminal and recurring payments. You can accept all major payment types, including credit, debit, gift and direct debit cards. The pricing is also customized on a business-by-business basis. Payline Data Payline Data Payline Data is a credit card and debit card company that offers low rates for small businesses, helping them grow on a budget. Its main plan, for those who process less than $5,000 in transactions per month, is interchange plus 0.5 percent and $0.15 per transaction for online credit card processing. The other plan is for those who process more than $5,000 in transactions per month: $15 per month plus a $0.10 per transaction, as well as interchange plus 0.2 percent. Charge.com Charge.com Charge.com offers many types of credit card processing services, including one made for small businesses. It comes with no setup fees, low processing fees, free software and shopping card, no hidden fees and Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) transactions. Charge.com lets you process all major credit and debit cards online, as well as through a mobile device like a tablet or smartphone. Moneris Solutions Moneris Solutions Moneris Solutions is a U.S. and Canada-based payments processing company that offers a wide range of tools, including EMV solutions, online and mobile payments, gift card and loyalty programs, e-checks, ACH direct deposits, recurring payments and even payroll processing. There are custom pricing models for businesses to match business size, volume and budget. A world of online payment options for your business. This is just a sampling of the growing number of payments companies that include credit card processors, global payment processing firms, online payment providers, digital payment companies and cryptocurrency payment businesses. As you build out your business, you’ll be able to offer a wide range of payment options, including e-cash, e-checks, digital currencies, debit cards, credit cards and traditional payments across a wide range of different currencies. || Bitcoin The Bears Take Back the Reins to Deliver a Week in the Red: Bitcoin gained 0.83% on Saturday. Following on from a 0.88% rise on Friday, Bitcoin ended the day at $3,564.2. A bearish start to the day saw Bitcoin fall to a morning low $3,502.9 before finding support to move through to a morning high $3,537.8. A lack of a market catalyst through the day saw Bitcoin fall to a late afternoon intraday low $3,498.8. The pullback saw Bitcoin steer clear of the first major support level at $3,476.87. For the bulls, Bitcoin called on sub-$3,500 support for a 6 th consecutive day. In addition, Bitcoin managed to close out at $3,500 levels for a 4 th consecutive day. After a move back through to $3,500 levels, a late in the day rally saw Bitcoin strike an intraday high $3,581 before easing back. The late rally saw Bitcoin break through the first major resistance level at $3,575.87. Elsewhere Litecoin stole the show on Saturday. A 5.69% rally through the day continued to support the bullish outlook ahead of this Augusts halving. For the rest of the top 10, Bitcoin Cash ABC gained 4.51%, with EOS up by 4.45%. Finally, bucking the trend through the day, Trons TRX slipped by 0.76%. A partial reversal to a previous week 23% rally was to be expected. Pressure came from a number of the majors that are in the red for the current week. As a result of a lack of news to provide direction for the cryptomarket, Bitcoin continues to languish at $3,500 levels. Bitcoin has now failed to break through to $3,600 levels for a 6 th consecutive day. Equally significant are more material gains made elsewhere through the start of the year. While Tron may be leading the back, Litecoin could be the February pick. In contrast, Ripples XRP continues to lag the majors. Ripples XRP is down by 12.6%, year-to-date. While Litecoin is setting the early pace in February, Ripples XRP could be the dark horse should the bulls manage to take back the reins. Get Into Cryptocurrency Trading Today At the time of writing, Bitcoin was down 1.13% to $3,524.1. Bitcoin fell from a start of a day morning high $3,566.8 to a morning low $3,523.5 before steadying. Story continues In spite of the pullback, Bitcoin held above the first major support level at $3,515 early on in the day. For the day ahead Bitcoin will need to move through to $3,550 levels to support an afternoon recovery. Sentiment across the broader market will need to improve for Bitcoin to take a run at the first major resistance level at $3,597.2. We will expect that Bitcoin will fall short of $3,600 levels in the event of an afternoon recovery. Failure to move through to $3,550 levels could see Bitcoin fall back deeper into the red. A fall through the morning low $3,523.5 to sub-$5,200 levels will likely bring the first major support level at $3,515 into play before any recovery. Bitcoin will likely call on sub-$3,500 support levels before any recovery should the bears continue to control the broader market through the day. This article was originally posted on FX Empire More From FXEMPIRE: Bitcoin Cash ABC, Litecoin and Ripple Daily Analysis 02/02/19 Lukmans Week Ahead: Market Themes to Watch Out For Webinar February 04 S&P 500 Weekly Price Forecast stock markets continue to grind higher Silver Weekly Price Forecast Silver markets pierce major resistance Natural Gas Weekly Price Forecast natural gas markets continue to show weakness Natural Gas Price Prediction Prices Slide Through Support Despite Cold Weather || Bitcoin Cash ABC, Litecoin and Ripple Daily Analysis 03/02/19: Bitcoin Cash ABC Hits $120 Bitcoin Cash ABC rallied by 4.51% on Saturday, following on from a 1.1% rise on Friday, to end the day at $120. A bullish start to the days saw Bitcoin Cash ABC rally from a mid-morning intraday low $114.63 to a late morning intraday high $120.79 before easing back to $117 levels in the early afternoon. The early rally saw Bitcoin Cash ABC break through the first major resistance level at $117.64 to come up against the second major resistance level at $120.51 before falling back. A late bounce back saw Bitcoin Cash ABC break back through the first major resistance level to $120 levels by the days end. At the time of writing, Bitcoin Cash ABC was down by 0.31% to $119.64. Moves through the early morning saw Bitcoin Cash ABC fall from a start of a day morning high $119.80 to a morning low $118.68 before recovering to $119 levels. The days major support and resistance levels were left untested early on. For the day ahead, a hold onto $119 levels through the morning would support another break through to $120 levels. Support from the broader market would be needed for Bitcoin Cash ABC to breakout from $120 levels to take a run at the first major resistance level at $122.32, with Saturdays high $120.79 likely to deliver plenty of resistance. Failure to hold onto $119 levels could see Bitcoin Cash ABC fall through 118.50 to bring $116 levels and the first major support level at $116.16 into play before any recovery. Heavier losses are not expected in the event of a sell-off. Litecoin Targets $35 Litecoin rallied by 5.69% on Saturday, following a 3.58% gain from Friday, to end the day at $34.18. It was particularly range-bound through the majority of the day, with Litecoin seeing a morning low $32.19 and morning high $33.09 ahead of an end of day surge. Leaving the major support levels untested through the day, Litecoin rallied to a late intraday high $34.18. Litecoin broke through the first major resistance level at $33.53 to hit $34 levels for the first time since 10 th December, while coming up short of the second major resistance level at $34.69. Story continues At the time of writing, Litecoin was down 0.82% to $33.90. Litecoin fell from a start of a day morning high $34.58 to a morning low $33.67 before steadying. The days major support and resistance levels were left untested early on. For the day ahead a hold above $33.50 levels through the morning would support a move back through to $34 levels to bring the first major resistance level at $34.84 into play. The bulls will be eyeing $35 levels, with support from the broader market needed to give Litecoin a run at the second major resistance level at $35.51. Failure to hold above $33.50 levels could see Litecoin slide back through to $32 levels to call on support at the first major support level at $32.85. Barring a broad-based crypto sell-off, we would expect Litecoin to avoid sub-$32 support levels on the day. Ripple Sees a Choppy Week Continue Ripples XRP rose by 1.01% on Saturday, reversing a 1.04% from Friday, to end the day at $0.31570. A relatively choppy day saw Ripples XRP fall from a morning high $0.31528 to an early afternoon intraday low $0.30743 before finding support. Holding above the first major support level at $0.30310, Ripples XRP moved back through to $0.31 levels ahead of a late in the day broad-based crypto rally. Ripples XRP struck an intraday high $0.31884, coming within range of the first major resistance level at $0.31970 before easing back. At the time of writing, Ripples XRP was down by 1.05% to $0.31240. Ripples XRP fell from a morning high $0.31768 to a morning low $0.31183 before finding support. The days major support and resistance levels were left untested early on. For the day ahead, a move back through $0.3140 levels to the morning high $0.31768 would be needed to bring the first major resistance level at $0.3206 into play. Ripples XRP would need support from a broad-based crypto rally to take a run at the second major resistance level at $0.3254. Saturdays high $0.31884 will likely place plenty of resistance to leave $0.33 levels off the table for the day. Failure to move back through $0.3140 could see Ripples XRP take a bigger hit later in the day. A fall through the morning low $0.31183 could see Ripples XRP pullback to $0.30 levels to bring the first major support level at $0.3091 into play. We would expect the second major support level at $0.3026 to be left untested on the day. Buy & Sell Cryptocurrency Instantly This article was originally posted on FX Empire More From FXEMPIRE: The Week Ahead Brexit, The BoE, The RBA and Trump in Focus Natural Gas Weekly Price Forecast natural gas markets continue to show weakness USD/JPY Weekly Price Forecast US dollar mixed during the week against yen Gold Price Prediction Prices Consolidate Following Robust US Payroll Report S&P 500 Weekly Price Forecast stock markets continue to grind higher Live Market Trading Strategies Webinar February 05 || Long-Term Bitcoin Price Indicator Turns Bearish, Suggesting Bottom May Be In: A lagging indicator has turned bearish for the first time in four years, suggesting bitcoin’s price may have bottomed out and that a new bull run could begin this year.
As of press time, bitcoin’s 50-week moving average has dropped below the 100-week MA, confirming a bearish crossover â the first since April 2015. Long-term bearish crossovers, however, tend to occur at the end of a big bear move, with prices rallying soon after, as MAs are based on past data.
For instance, the 50-week MA responds to price action seen over the last 12 months, and the 100-week MA tracks much older data. Therefore, the bearish cross of the two is the product of a prolonged bear market â BTC dropped from $20,000 to $3,122 in the 12 months ending December 2018.
Validators Create New Attack Vectors for Decentralized Systems
Put simply, it takes a great effort on the part of the bears to push the 50-week MA below the 100-week MA. As a result, the bear market is usually exhausted by the time the crossover is confirmed, which seems to be the case with BTC.
The leading cryptocurrency by market capitalization is currently trading at $3,749, up more than 19 percent from the lows near $3,100 seen 11 weeks ago.ÂFurther, bitcoinâs historical data shows the previous bear market ended with the 50-week MA falling below the 100-week MA in April 2015.Â
As seen above, the 50-week MA fell below the 100-week MA in April 2015 â three months after the bear market stalled at lows near $150.Â
Back Above $4k: Bitcoin’s Price Jumps to a Two-Month High
The cryptocurrency spent the following five months consolidating in a range of $200-$300 before breaking higher into a fresh bull market in October 2015.ÂInterestingly, all this happened a year before bitcoin underwent its second mining reward halving in July 2016.
With the third reward halvingduein less than 12 months, history looks to be repeating itself.
The latest bearish crossover has happened nearly three months after the sell-off from December 2017 highs ran out of steam near $3,100.
The relative strength index (RSI) has breached the falling trendline, warning the bear cross could trap sellers on the wrong side of the market.ÂFurther, the cryptocurrency is now looking north, havingwitnesseda high-volume bullish breakout last week.
So, there is a strong possibility that BTC will begin a new bull run later this year by violating the bearish lower highs pattern, as represented by the trendline sloping downwards from December 2017 highs.
Disclosure: The author holds no cryptocurrency assets at the time of writing.
Bitcoin image via Shutterstock;Âcharts byÂTrading View
• The First Car Purchased With Bitcoin Is Now the World’s Most Expensive Prius
• Bitcoin Remains On Hunt For $4.2K Despite Price Consolidation || Blockstream announces c-lightning 0.7: Blockstream has released a new version of its Bitcoin scalability software, c-lightning. “This release is the culmination of eight months of work since our last major release , by 50 contributors from all over the world and comprising 1,300 commits. Not only does this release include a number of performance enhancements and bug fixes, but it comes with some truly exciting new features,” the venture says in a blog post. The flagship feature is plugin supports. “Plugins allow developers to extend Lightning with their own applications written in any language,” the blog post states. “They further strengthen our commitment to becoming the most flexible, extensible, and customisable implementation of the Lightning Network specification. They enable us to stay focused on the core functionality, while at the same time empowering users and developers to add their own functionality to integrate c-lightning into their environment.” Further details here . The post Blockstream announces c-lightning 0.7 appeared first on Coin Rivet . || Bitcoin Price Analysis: Low Time Frames Show Signs of Life Amid Weekly Tests: Bitcoin Price Analysis Bitcoin continues to coil tightly within its range-bound market as the bulls and bears fight it out to see which is most dominant. On the lower time frames (TF), bitcoin is managing to find support: Figure_1 (7).png Figure 1: BTC-USD, 2-Hour Candles, Low TF Support The zone outlined by the green line in Figure 1 represents local support that has kept the market afloat for the last week and a half. Late last night, we saw another test of this support level has failed to break it thus far. On a macro level, we are in a kind of no-mans-land, following the bounce off macro support in the mid $3,000s: Figure_2 (15).png Figure 2: BTC-USD, Daily Candles, Macro Support Respected The blue zone outlined above shows the market respecting the support zone following the high volume rejection from the high established in the low $4,000s. Since we managed to establish support on the low TF and high TF market structures, it seems logical that the next move will be a test of supply in the red-dotted zone shown above. If we zoom out even further to the weekly candles, we can see clearly that this low TF range-bound market is nothing more than a weekly resistance test in an attempt to reclaim macro support: Figure_3 (2).png Figure 3: BTC-USD, Weekly Candles, Weekly Resistance Test Figure 3 shows a test of the weekly resistance level. So far, we have seen a few tests of the area but nothing that has managed to close above the level. If we can manage to get a weekly close above the level shown above, that would be a very strong, bullish statement to make in the current market structure. So far, we have been rejected twice, but if we manage to close a weekly candle above the resistance level, this could be a great sign of bearish exhaustion considering that level has been heavily shorted for the last few months. If we can close above the current high thats been established in the $3,900s, that would be bullish on all TFs down to the hourly candles. However, if this level gets rejected, it would most likely mean a revisit to the lows in the low $3,000 zone. For now, things are fairly bullish as we maintain support on lower and macro TFs. Look out for a close above the weekly resistance level, as this would indicate a change of character in the market structure. Story continues Summary Bitcoin managed to establish support with its lower TF range-bound market. This support coincided with a macro support level on the daily candles as well. We are currently in between major support and resistance levels, so the market is drifting up and down as the bulls and bears battle it out. Macro resistance is being tested for a third time. If we manage to close a weekly candle above this level, that would likely mean bearish exhaustion is failing to suppress the market demand. Look for a close above this level, as this would represent a change in market structure. Trading and investing in digital assets like bitcoin is highly speculative and comes with many risks. This analysis is for informational purposes and should not be considered investment advice. Statements and financial information on Bitcoin Magazine and BTC Inc related sites do not necessarily reflect the opinion of BTC Inc and should not be construed as an endorsement or recommendation to buy, sell or hold. Past performance is not necessarily indicative of future results. This article originally appeared on Bitcoin Magazine . || Exclusive: Komodo GM Explains How to Build on Bitcoin without Being Constrained by It: CCN had a moment to speak with Ben Fairbank, the general manager ofKomodo(KMD), a community-oriented smart contract-centric fork ofZcash. Komodo offers a usable layer between the world’s largest proof-of-work system, Bitcoin, and decentralized applications.
Komodoenables tokenized systems to rely on the security and immutability of the Bitcoin blockchain without having to build directly on top of it. They have pioneered the “crypto conditions” aspect of smart contracts. In layman’s terms, smart contracts can run on Bitcoin-based blockchains with the same degree of usability as Ethereum smart contracts.
Source: Shutterstock
Komodo uses something calleddelayed proof-of-work(dPoW). Delayed proof-of-work provides developers with the ability to conduct fast transactions on their independent blockchains. Within 10 minutes, notary nodes notarize such transactions on the Bitcoin blockchain.
Read the full story onCCN.com. || Crypto Trading Giant Circle Wants to Raise $250 Million in Funding – But Why?: ByCCN.com: One of the world’s leading cryptocurrency startups, Circle, is seeking to raise $250 million according tosourcesdirectly involved with the initiative. Circle is the operator of the Poloniex cryptocurrency exchange, currently ranked 74 in the world by volume on Coinmarketcap. The firm acquired Poloniex for $400 million and also runs an institutional trading branch called Circle Trade.
Circle was valued at a formidable $3 billion at the time of its last funding round when it raised $110 million, largely from Bitmain, the world’s leading manufacturer of bitcoin and cryptocurrency mining hardware. Circle has raised $246 million to date oversix different rounds, with other investors including Goldman Sachs, IDG Capital, and Baidu of China.
The $3 billion valuation may have decreased since then, with some analysts estimating that it has since shrunk to $750 million as a result of the recent crypto-economicdownturn.
A successful fundraising round at this time would make the company one of the first to attract an investment of that size since the recent decline in the markets.
It is likely that the major correction in the price of Bitcoin from early last year onwards is the behind the firm’s need for capital. Source: Pixabay
The so-called “crypto winter” has already seriously impacted major cryptocurrency and blockchain firms, resulting in widespread staff layoffs and downsizing even among well-established heavy hitters like ShapeShift, Steemit, and ConsenSys.
Steemit recentlyfired70% its workforce, citing major losses due to the bear market resulting in an inability to pay staff wages. ShapeShift, one of the earliest and well-regarded cryptocurrency exchanges, let one-third of its staff go last month,calling crypto a “harsh mistress.” Meanwhile, Ethereum giantConsenSys announced layoffs of 60%in December, as well as plans to axe underperforming projects.
Read the full story on CCN.com.
[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
Hi, yes I am! || Myślisz świadomość rynku wtedy i dzis. BTC kosztując 100$ było kompletnie nieznanym wynalazkiem a do 10k$ doprowadziła po prostu ludzka chciwość, chociaż nie ukrywam chciałbym sie mylić i zobaczyć btc nawet za 50k$ || I just realized that #sparkwallet is not only a #Lightning but a #Bitcoin wallet with a validating #Fullnode. The best thing - it fits in my pocket. || the article is about cryptos, not just btc.
and yes nano is super fast, because nobody’s using it || 1 BTC = 14641.55900000 BRL em 02/03/2019 ás 09:00:10. #bitcoin #bitcoinbr #bitcoinexchangebr || $1,000,000 worth of #Bitcoin bought at $3,799.81 14:00:17.187Z 2019/02/18
| http://bit.ly/BitMexCheapFees | "Hey Hey Heyyyyyyyyy" || Günaydın yesim hn.
#bist
#bist100
#usdtry
#XU100
#𝒷𝑒𝓁𝑒𝓃𝓈𝒶𝓎
#doge #dogeusd
#btc #btcusd
YTD || 1 BTC = 15220.10000000 BRL em 16/03/2019 ás 12:00:02. #bitcoin #bitcoinbr #bitcoinexchangebr || i can see a bitcoin machine in my loval vape shop and so much makes sense || Hi , add combo bitcoin
|
Trend: no change || Prices: 4087.48, 4029.33, 4023.97, 4035.83, 4022.17, 3963.07, 3985.08, 4087.07, 4069.11, 4098.37
|
Analyze the provided historical prices, technical indicators, news, and social media sentiment from the last 60 days. Based on this context, predict the overall trend (up, down, or no change) and the specific daily closing prices for Bitcoin for the next 10 days.
|
[Technical Analysis for 2017-02-07]
BTC Price: 1061.35, BTC RSI: 71.30
Gold Price: 1234.20, Gold RSI: 68.11
Oil Price: 52.17, Oil RSI: 47.37
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
Bitcoin jumps above $1,000 for first time in three years: By Jemima Kelly LONDON (Reuters) - Digital currency bitcoin kicked off the new year by jumping above $1,000 for the first time in three years late on Sunday, having outperformed all central-bank-issued currencies with a 125 percent climb in 2016. Bitcoin - a web-based "cryptocurrency" that has no central authority, relying instead on thousands of computers across the world that validate transactions and add new bitcoins to the system - jumped 2.5 percent to $1,022 on the Europe-based Bitstamp exchange, its highest since December 2013. Though the digital currency has historically been highly volatile - a tenfold increase in its value in two months in late 2013 took it to above $1,100, before a hack on the Tokyo-based Mt. Gox exchange saw it plunge to under $400 in the following weeks - it has in the past two years been more stable. Its biggest daily moves in 2016 were around 10 percent, still very volatile compared with fiat currencies, but markedly lower than the trading of 2013, which saw daily price swings of as much as 40 percent. Bitcoin may have been boosted in the past year by increased demand in China on the back of a 7 percent annual fall in the value of the yuan in 2016, the Chinese currency's weakest showing in over 20 years. Data shows most bitcoin trading is done in China. Bitcoin is used to move money across the globe quickly and anonymously and does not fall under the purview of any authority, making it attractive to those wanting to get around capital controls, such as China's. It is also may appeal to those worried about a lack of supply of cash, such as in India, where Prime Minister Narendra Modi removed high-denomination bank notes from circulation in November. "The growing war on cash, and capital controls, is making bitcoin look like a viable, if high risk, alternative," said Paul Gordon, a board member of the UK Digital Currency Association and co-founder of Quantave, a firm seeking to make it easier for institutional investors to access digital currency exchanges. Though bitcoin is still some way off the all-time high of $1,163 that it reached on the Bitstamp exchange in late 2013, there are now more bitcoins in circulation - 12.5 are added to the system every 10 minutes. Its total worth is at a record-high above $16 billion, putting its value at around the same as that of an average FTSE 100 company. (Reporting by Jemima Kelly; Editing by Peter Graff) || Giuliani as Trump's cybersecurity adviser is an unfunny joke: I had just finishedhacking the Gibsonwhen I heard the news: Rudy Giuliani, the guy who said he was gonnasolve cybersecurity, had just beennamed Trump's cyber adviser. I hopped onto our hacker mafia's government-proof encrypted chat app to make sure everyone knew that we were in real trouble. When I got no response from Mr. Robot or Anonymous, I got my rollerblades on and got out of my mom's basement as fast as possible.
I dialed our ringleader with a secret, anti-authority encrypted phone app while hacking all the traffic lights between here and his mom's basement as I raced over. When he picked up I blurted, "Stop hacking baby monitors and trying to crash the stock market!"
He yelled, "What?!" I realized I'd forgotten to take my balaclava off! I shouted that Big Rudy was the new hacker sheriff in town, and all us hackers were gonna have to go underground. Tears spilled down the front of my ninja costume as I wobbled on my 'blades, telling him our days of taking out the internet for lulz and raking in piles of Bitcoin from ransomed AOL accounts was over.
In reality, we have plenty of reasons to worry. Before Rudy Giuliani was named Donald Trump's official presidential cybersecurity adviser, the former New York City mayor had made a number of things crystal clear about his intentions toward hackers and the cybersecurity industry. For one, he'd been pretty up front about the fact that he got into cybersecurity dealmakingfor the money. Giuliani was emphatic over many years and at every opportunity that he was going to be the guy to "solve cybersecurity."
Hacking, he said on several occasions, waslike cancer. It was the worst word he could think of to call information security research. And finally, he never wavered from his belief that hackers were not onlylike the mafia, but that they could never, ever be trusted -- especially "reformed" hackers. Giuliani always made sure that people knew he couldn't be fooled by that principle of the justice system.
All his talk of hackers as permanent criminals spreading cancer has no doubt bolstered the beliefs of conservatives in Trump's extreme right pocket, who didn't need help imagining pedophiles and lawless balaclava-wearing basement dwellers (or Asians in faraway hives). Like most things we've seen come out of Trump's surreal fright show, Giuliani's working hard to encourage that people and press wallow in these manipulative, lurid fantasies.
That's why most hackers and infosec professionals found it all kinds of disturbing that Trump will be using Giuliani as his go-to for advice on all things cyber. It's not just that hecounts one of his qualifications as the fact that he's given over 300 speecheson how everyone's ignoring the scourge of hacking. Giuliani's not great at following advice when it comes to security. When he was advised against moving New York City's emergency services into the World Trade Center because it wasn't a good call, he did it anyway. Right before 9/11.
It didn't make anyone in the infosec sectors feel better when Giuliani announced he would be forming a cybersecurity team for the president-elect. Rudy isn't exactly a team player when it comes to computer-security matters. When the NYPD commissioner built a "computer statistics" system for crime, Giuliani did the equivalent of having him banished -- forcing him out -- toprevent credit going to anyone but Giuliani.
According to the Trump transition team'sofficial announcement, Rudy's team will advise the leader of the free world on issues "concerning private sector cybersecurity problems and emerging solutions developing in the private sector."
Things only got worse when, the minute the announcement was made, infosec denizens didimpromptu security assessmentsof Gulianisecurity.com and Gulianipartners.com. Both servers were described as having sat for years with theequivalent of a "hack me" sign on them-- meaning that both were likely hacked long ago. Thelaundry listof years-old unpatched vulnerabilities, nearly two dozen active exploits, andoverall security failureswas astonishing.
Team Giuliani didn't respond to all the public attention around the nearly-comic website security failings of both sites. By January 14th, both Gulianisecurity.com and Gulianipartners.com suddenly failed to resolve in DNS, making both sites unavailable to the public. But, as of this writing, the server addresses remained (just visit http://209.238.99.227/), showing that whoever attempted to pull the sites only removed the DNS entry -- but left Giuliani's vulnerable servers online.
Whether or not Giuliani manages those servers himself is beside the point: This is the worst possible resume anyone in this position could have. It's embarrassing and avoidable and displays a blatant disregard for even the most basic cybersecurity practices. It is the behavior of someone who carelessly believes he is an exception to the rules everyone else must live by. It sends a terrible message to an industry struggling for both legitimacy and a voice with regard to US policy, and in every way possible.
Giuliani has been interested in cybersecurity sincehe read an FBI report in 2003predicting a hacking crimewave, and instantly decided he needed to build a business around it. That business was Giuliani Partners, a security consulting company. His naming to Trump's post comes one week after Giuliani Partners announced itsnew partnership with Blackberry. The recently released Blackberry Secure platform will provide the underlying software for Giuliani Partners' cybersecurity-consulting product, whatever that will be.
Under these auspices, the future of cybersecurity policy looks dark. Given how much Giuliani hates hackers and believes he's the king of cops, we can probably expect to see the cyber version of "stop and frisk" coming out of Trump's inevitably opportunistic Giuliani-led Cybersecurity Working Group.
It's clear the new powers-that-be don't think very highly of hackers and hacking. Nor do they understand the subtleties of how hackers are actually the entire underpinning of infosec, let alone how important it is to this sector that someone like Giuliani models even the most basic website security. By Giuliani saying stupid things about infosec while pretending entire hacking communities didn't just call out his own cybersecurity as literally the worst possible ever, he's a complete hypocrite for even stepping into the ring. And if there's anything that gets exposed faster and louder than an anti-gay senator on Grindr, it's hypocrisy in security.
This is a business and culture that believes the teeny-tiniest details really matter and has witnessed firsthand that one careless step can topple businesses and ruin lives. Unlike Rudy Giuliani, the people in cybersecurity have dedicated everything to giving a shit about getting things right.
So if Giuliani and his sideshow of opportunists want to think of hackers as some kind of criminal cancer, they're doomed from the start. Thought pieces by armchair infosec pundits cantry to tell usGiuliani should be taken seriously in this role all they want. But I can't think of doing anything worse for the future of cybersecurity right now.
Images: Craig F. Walker/The Boston Globe via Getty Images (Lead image); United Artists/Getty Images (Hackers movie still); REUTERS/Mike Segar (Giuliani and Trump). || PRESS DIGEST- New York Times business news - Jan 10: Jan 10 (Reuters) - The following are the top stories on the New York Times business pages. Reuters has not verified these stories and does not vouch for their accuracy. - Yahoo Inc said on Monday when its $4.8 billion deal to sell internet business to Verizon Communications Inc closes, it would rename itself "Altaba." And that more than half the company's board members - including Chief Executive Marissa Mayer - would step down. http://nyti.ms/2iyGo40 - Goldman Sachs Group Inc announced on Monday that Elisha Wiesel would become the chief information officer, taking over from Martin Chavez, a prominent executive who pushed to make Goldman more of a forward-looking technology firm. http://nyti.ms/2iyEhx2 - UnitedHealth Group Inc, one of the largest and most diversified health insurance companies in the United States, said on Monday that it planned to buy Surgical Care Affiliates Inc, a chain of outpatient surgery centers, for about $2.3 billion. The deal is expected to close in the first half of 2017. http://nyti.ms/2iyHVHi - McDonald's Corp said on Monday it would sell its businesses in mainland China and Hong Kong for $2.08 billion to Citic Ltd, a state-owned conglomerate, and the Carlyle Group Lp, a private equity firm. http://nyti.ms/2jnN3hu - The company that serves as the back end for much Wall Street trading - the Depository Trust and Clearing Corporation, or DTCC - said on Monday it would replace one of its central databases, used by the largest banks in the world, with new software inspired by Bitcoin. The organization, based in New York, plays a role in recording and reporting nearly every stock and bond trade in the United States, as well as most valuable derivatives trades. http://nyti.ms/2jxvMqh (Compiled by Rama Venkat Raman in Bengaluru) || 2 big banks are backing a startup doing for global trade what Google did for advertising: Tradeshift Christian Lanng (Tradeshift founder and CEO Christian Lanng.Tradeshift) LONDON — Santander announced a few weeks ago that it is making an undisclosed investment in Tradeshift, a Danish fintech company. The Spanish bank joins HSBC, American Express, and CreditEase, China's biggest online lender, in backing the six-year-old company. What do they all see in it? "What we do is a fairly new thing," founder and CEO Christian Lanng told Business Insider in an interview. "We provide essentially a network to connect companies that do business together." Tradeshift's platform is a little like Salesforce but for managing global trade networks. Lanng explains: "We work with some of the largest companies in the world like DHL and the NHS. We help them connect their global supply chain. "In the case of DHL, it’s hundreds of thousands of suppliers around the world who are connected. Once they’re connected they can then do business with them and that means all of the invoicing, purchasing, risk assessment of suppliers, collaboration." Lanng adds: "Any new business process you want to roll out is essentially just an app sitting on top of the platform. Say I would love to do corporate social responsibility management or track carbon in my supply chain, it’s just an app you activate and deploy. It’s a whole new approach to managing your business and business processes." The cloud-based platform works with over 800,000 companies across 190 countries and counts 75 Fortune 500 businesses as customers. What we can do here is make financing much more relevant to you and we can make sure that the lender that is the best fit for you gets in front of you. As well as simply looking like a shrewd investment for the likes of HSBC and Santander, Tradeshift offers banks the opportunity to pitch for business. Lanng says: "In the old days, it made sense for the bank to have a branch next to the marketplace because it’s a physical location. In 2016, it makes sense for the branch to have branches where the trade is, which is now virtual. So on our platform." Story continues He adds: "What Google did was make advertising much more relevant for you. What we can do here is make financing much more relevant to you and we can make sure that the lender that is the best fit for you gets in front of you." Google targets ads based on what you are searching for and have searched for in the past, giving it a good idea of the type of things you might like. Tradeshift similarly gets an overview of how businesses are working and interacting, meaning it can offer up financing when it is most needed and the right type of financing. Lanng says: "When the supplier receives that big purchase order from lets say DHL, that’s a really good time to go to them and say would you like some really cheap financing for the next 6 months to finance your fulfillment of that purchase order." Tradershift does not provide any financing itself, however. Lanng says: "Our approach has been to take a marketplace approach. We say, 'look, we will let anybody provide services on top of our platform, we will take a small fee for providing data, and we will obviously help place the funding with firms who have the need.'" Deutsche Bank recently made the bold call that the world has reached "peak globalisation," predicting a decline in global trade as nations become more inward looking. Bad news for Tradeshift? Lanng is skeptical. "It’s very naive or very early on to call peak global trade," he says. "I think global trade patterns will change but it won’t peak," he said. "I think you will start to see a lot of nations just starting to tap into global trade now. You’re seeing a whole ascendant South East Asia. You’re seeing a whole new phenomenon which I think is extremely interesting and that is Chinese consumers buying more from Western suppliers. We’re working on a huge project right now around connecting Western suppliers into the Chinese market, a reverse of the flow you saw before. "If you’re looking at a 3 to 5-year perspective maybe [it’s declining]," he says. "If you’re looking at 30, 40, 50-year perspective, not at all." Still, Donald Trump has also vowed to bring jobs back to America from China and Brexit may well herald a decline in international trade, which is already wobbling. Surely this will at least mean some short-term pain for Tradeshift? Again, Lanng takes a contrarian view. "Our goal is lowering the friction and if there are more barriers internationally then actually we can provide an even more valuable service because we can help navigate those," he says. It’s very naive or very early on to call peak global trade. "One theme we’ve been talking about for the last 3 years is: be very careful because your supply chain and your business is set up for a market that predicts stability," Lanng says. "The way you source your goods, the way you run your supply chain, the way you roll out your IT systems are all built on the idea that things are going to remain the same. "The problem that you have is when there’s change in the market like Brexit, Trump, TTP being torn up, these companies now have a very high cost of change. "Now there’s a premium on agility in supply chains and lowering your cost of change and being flexible. This is what we’re selling to customers. If you’re buying SAP you’re buying something that is extremely robust but extremely brittle in some other ways. But if you’re buying Tradeshift you’re buying something that’s extremely flexible because it’s set up as a network, it’s easy to reconfigure, you can update some of our processes on the fly." Investors are siding with Lanng. Tradeshift was valued at over $500 million in its latest funding round earlier this year, according to the Wall Street Journal. NOW WATCH: Why Korean parents are paying for their kids to get plastic surgery More From Business Insider Bitcoin is surging Here's why 2017 will be a turning point for the UK marketplace lending industry The price of bitcoin is at a 2016 high || Bitcoin exchange BTCC: China hasn't said margin trading illegal: By Brenda Goh SHANGHAI (Reuters) - The head of Chinese bitcoin exchange BTCC on Thursday denied media reports that the central bank had ruled it was offering margin loans illegally, and he said the platform is operating normally. However, Chief Executive Bobby Lee told Reuters the company had stopped offering margin loans last week alongside competitors such as Huobi and OkCoin, after "discussions" with the People's Bank of China (PBOC). He gave no details. "No one has said that margin trading for bitcoin is illegal," Lee said. He said the media reports were "not based on any official documentation. So as far as I'm concerned, at this moment, we have not received any official documentation, verbal or written feedback from the PBOC with regards to their conversations with us over the last two weeks." The PBOC declined to comment. Beijing Youth Daily, a state-run newspaper, said on Thursday that a PBOC investigation found that China's three largest bitcoin exchanges were illegally conducting margin trading, and such activity stoked abnormal market volatility. Another state-owned media, Economic Information Daily, said that the Shanghai branch of China's central bank had found "hidden risks" in BTCC. SPOT CHECKS On Jan. 11, the central bank launched spot checks on BTCC, Huobi and OkCoin to look into a range of possible rule violations, amid increasing government efforts to stem capital outflows and relieve pressure on the yuan currency. While the yuan weakened 6.6 percent against the dollar last year, its worst performance since 1994, the bitcoin price has soared to near-record highs. Late on Wednesday, after some Chinese media reports were published, the price of bitcoin fell nearly 8 percent on the BTCC exchange to 5,724 yuan, equivalent to around $835. By Thursday, the price had recovered to around 6,120 yuan. Spokeswomen for OkCoin and Huobi confirmed to Reuters that their platforms had also stopped offering margin loans, but both did not respond to queries on whether they had received official notices from the PBOC. Story continues Lee of BTCC also said the exchanges had discussed introducing trading fees and were open to that, but said the regulator might have to get involved before this could happen. The absence of trading fees has encouraged volumes and boosted demand at the Chinese bitcoin exchanges. (Reporting by Brenda Goh; Editing by Richard Borsuk) || Bitcoin plummets over 23 percent after nearing all-time high as 'volatile little bubble' bursts: Bitcoin(Exchange: BTC=-USS)tanked as much as 23 percent Thursday afternoon after nearing an all-time high earlier in the trading day.
The world's largest cryptocurrency by market cap traded as low as $887.47, down from the day's high of $1,153.02, according to CoinDesk data. The high for the day was just shy of $1,165.89 set on November 30, 2013. The price has recovered somewhat from the day's low to about $973.89 at the time of publication.
However, bitcoin beat its high on some other cryptocurrency exchanges. Whereas CoinDesk's price index takes into account many different bitcoin exchanges – individual exchanges, where users can trade bitcoin, noted their own highest prices were exceeded. Among these were one of China's biggest and most liquid exchanges, BTC China.
Industry experts said the rapid rally in bitcoin created a little bubble which is now bursting but the long-term prospects are still positive.
"Once we broke through the nominal all-time high, liquidity dried up – no shorts, no sellers, which means a volatile little bubble formed quickly," Peter Smith, chief executive of bitcoin wallet Blockchain, told CNBC by email.
"We are seeing the effects of that now. It's still fairly thin trading volume though. I expect the market will find a floor and stabilize somewhere in the $850 to $1,000 range, but we'll see."
Wild swings in bitcoin's price are not unusual and volatility is a characteristic of the virtual currency.
CNBC recently outlinedthe reason behind the latest rally in bitcoin. One key reason has been the recent devaluation of the yuan as well as the threat of capital controls across many countries. The majority of bitcoin trade comes out of China so it has a big influence.
But on Thursday, theyuan rose against the dollar. The reason behind this was a sell-off in the dollar due to uncertainty around the future of U.S. Federal Reserve rate hikes, as well asstate intervention by Chinain its currency. The rise in the yuan led to a fall in bitcoin.
"It is absolutely tied to China. If the yuan goes up, bitcoin goes down," Dan Collins, CEO of technology consultancy firm CCO Global, told CNBC in an interview on Thursday.
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• Personal Finance || 'Fast Money' traders debate merits of riding tech wave with Intel, Microsoft: The " Fast Money " traders defended their technology picks after big names in the sector reported earnings Thursday. Intel reported earnings of 79 cents per share, beating the 74 cents expected by Wall Street. Revenue came in at $16.37 billion, beating estimates of $15.75 billion, according to Thomson Reuters consensus. Shares of Intel ( INTC ) moved 2 percent higher in after-hours trading before paring those gains. "This company is doing everything they're supposed to do," Trader Tim Seymour said, noting that his only issue is that the chipmaker's stock valuation hovers around $38. Seymour owns Intel and recommended interested investors buy it for the long term. The semiconductor giant's move into the autonomous-car space intrigued trader Brian Kelly. Still, he's waiting for the stock to break out above a $39 stock price. Trader Guy Adami prefers Microsoft ( MSFT ) over Intel. He was discouraged by Intel's weak guidance for the first quarter of 2017. Microsoft beat its earnings estimates and moved up 1 percent in after-hours trading. Trader Dan Nathan said he would be more interested in buying Intel in the mid-$30s. Disclosures: GUY ADAMI Guy Adami is long CELG, EXAS, GDX, INTC. Adami's wife, Linda Snow, works at Merck. BRIAN KELLY Brian Kelly is long FCX, Bitcoin DAN NATHAN Dan Nathan is long MCD Feb put. XLI long Feb put spread, FXI long Feb put spread TIM SEYMOUR Tim Seymour is longABX, APC, AVP, BAC, BBRY, C, CLF, CVX, DO, DVYE, EDC, EWN, EWZ, F, FB, FCX,FXI, GM, GOOGL, GE, INTC, LQD, MOS, MCD, MUR, OIH, PG, RACE, RAI, RH, RL, SINA,SQ,T, TWTR, VALE, VZ, XOM. short: EEM, SPY, XRT; Tim's firm is long ABX, BABA, BIDU, CBD, CLF, EEM, EWZ, F, KO, MCD, MPEL, NKE,PEP, PF, TCEHY, SAVE, SBUX, SINA, VALE, VIAB, WMT, WEN, X, YHOO, short EWG,HYG, IWM More From CNBC Top News and Analysis Latest News Video Personal Finance || IBM Investing in the Future of Blockchain: - By Cristiano Bellavitis, Ph.D. Most investors believe that blockchain and Bitcoin (the digital currency) are synonyms. What most people don't know, however, is the fact that the blockchain is an "infrastructure" and Bitcoin is one of many applications. IBM ( IBM ) is heavily investing in the blockchain to disrupt some large industries. Warning! GuruFocus has detected 4 Warning Sign with IBM. Click here to check it out. IBM 15-Year Financial Data The intrinsic value of IBM Peter Lynch Chart of IBM Blockchain basics Blockchain is a new technology that enables businesses to work together with trust and transparency. Blockchain is a distributed shared operating system where all parties involved in an exchange have open access to an unchangeable digital record of transactions. Each participant always has an exact copy of the transactions and therefore all parties can confidently rely on this data. In theory, the blockchain guarantees accountability and transparency while streamlining business processes. The blockchain industry There aren't definitive numbers on companies using blockchain, but the IBM Institute for Business Value released some figures a few months ago: 70% of early adopters are working with blockchain to create new business models and reach new customers. 65% of banks expect to have blockchain solutions in production in the next three years. 80% of banks identified trade finance, corporate lending and reference data as having the greatest potential to be disrupted by the blockchain technology. 15% of banks intend to implement full-scale, commercial blockchain solutions in 2017. Companies expect reference data (83%), retail payments (80%) and consumer lending (79%) to be the segments that will be impacted the most by blockchain. Another recent study from Markets and Markets speculates that the blockchain industry will grow from $210 million in 2016 to $2.3 billion by 2021, for CAGR of 61.5% during the forecast period. Therefore, the blockchain is in the early stages of development but seems to have great potential and medium term economic value. Story continues Numbers about the market and the companies involved are limited, but according to this article IBM and Microsoft ( MSFT ) are the market leaders. IBM provided examples of how they are implementing the blockchain. I will get in touch with Microsoft to see whether they would like to contribute. Blockchain can disrupt large industries Food safety Food safety is one of the sectors that is receiving attention. Authenticity has been a challenge in China, and Walmart ( WMT ) is taking a proactive role in using new technologies to address it. By using blockchain, Walmart is able to build an ecosystem of supply chain partners that is based on trust. Health care The need for private, secure and reliable information flow in health care is clear as organizations balance information sharing needs with privacy, security and protecting against ongoing cyber-attacks. The application of blockchain technology can be applied to address a health care workflow and ecosystem from the beginning as it is introduced to this emerging digital industry. FinTech Banks and consumers are turning to fintech companies to disrupt the financial industry. FinTechs are moving quickly to create new approaches in payments, lending and new use cases for blockchain. IBM is helping FinTechs envision, build and monetize these new solutions by providing developer tools, technology, training and programs to share financial services expertise. IBM's cloud and blockchain ecosystem is helping FinTechs, start-ups, developers and independent software vendors drive faster design and development. For example, Eigencat, a Singapore-based startup, is using IBM Bluemix to deliver digital investment solutions for the financial market. The FinTech startup is also using IBM Cloud to develop new cognitive-based investment solutions using Watson APIs and broaden its reach within and outside Singapore. Working with the Singapore BlueMix Garage, start-up FreshTurf is creating an innovative blockchain-based network of storage lockers for shipping and parcel delivery throughout Singapore. A few examples of IBM applications in the blockchain industry: SBI Securities - testing blockchain for a new bond trading platform and for improving securities operations. Japan Stock Exchange - testing the potential of blockchain technology for use in trading in low transaction markets. Bank of Tokyo Mitsubishi UFG - using blockchain to examine the design, management and execution of contracts among business partners. London Stock Exchange Group - exploring blockchain to manage risk and bring additional transparency to global financial markets. Kouvola Innovation - using blockchain to transform logistics value chains into a more seamless process that provides a trusted view of every piece of cargo. Kenya - The government is utilizing blockchain to develop an immutable and transparent education management system. In order to reduce the issuance of fraudulent academic degrees and limit the market of illicit academic certificates, the Kenyan government is working with IBM to launch an academic certificate issuance platform on a blockchain network. BNY Mellon - designing and developing a unique application for securities lending, using a blockchain network to trade and transfer assets. Mizuho Financial Group - testing blockchain for settlements using virtual currency. Everledger - using blockchain to track diamonds and other valuable assets. CLS Group - collaborating with IBM so that its payment netting service using Hyperledger Fabric meets the requirements necessary for delivering a resilient, secure, and scalable service. IBM investments in the blockchain IBM recently announced a $200 million investment in the new global headquarters for its Watson Internet of Things business in Munich. IBM is developing a new capability that connects IoT data to Blockchain through the IBM Watson IoT Platform. In addition, IBM opened a Blockchain Innovation Center in Singapore to accelerate blockchain adoption for finance and trade in the first collaboration of its kind with the Singapore Economic Development Board and the Monetary Authority of Singapore. IBM monetization and blockchain performance IBM is leveraging its Bluemix technology to implement blockchain solutions. IBM offers two price plans: The starter plan is free, but the more secure system costs $10,000 per month. We contacted IBM to ask about some performance and financial data about its blockchain business but they replied that they "can't provide any financial data related to IBM Blockchain at this time." We assume that the main reason for this is that the business is in its early stages and therefore does not materially impact IBM revenues. Considering that the estimates are for a total global industry valued at $210 million in 2016, at the moment this segment is of minor importance to IBM. We estimate that IBM has approximately 50 paying customers, therefore the revenues generated would be in the range of $6 million a year, plus ancillary revenues in the range of $50 million a year. Disclosure : We are long IBM. Start a free seven-day trial of Premium Membership to GuruFocus. This article first appeared on GuruFocus . Warning! GuruFocus has detected 4 Warning Sign with IBM. Click here to check it out. IBM 15-Year Financial Data The intrinsic value of IBM Peter Lynch Chart of IBM || Why Small Businesses Should Consider Bitcoin: In 2015 bitcoin finally made its mark: More than 100,000 businesses , including industry giants like Microsoft, Overstock.com and Dell, accepted it. But, what exactly is this mysterious "cryptocurrency" everyone has been talking about for years? And, is it time your small business accepted it, too? Related: 5 Ways to Participate in the Bitcoin Revolution Here's what you need to know about what bitcoin is, its advantages and potential drawbacks. What is bitcoin? Bitcoin is a cryptocurrency or an entirely digital form of money, invented in 2009. While that might not sound interesting, what sets bitcoin apart is that it's purely person-to-person , with virtually no banks, financial institutions or government bodies standing in the way between you and your money. Bitcoin relies on a technology system called blockchain that keeps your bitcoin wallet safe and secure from fraud. The currency's digital format also makes for faster, cheaper, easier exchanges of cash, from which many small businesses may benefit. Overall, Bitcoin's assets stem from its decentralization. Blockchain, the technology bitcoin was built on, allows you to not have to rely on a bank to process your financial transactions. Here are other reasons to consider bitcoin: 1. No fees If your 2 to 3 percent merchant transaction fees are a drain on your cash flow, then bitcoin has you covered. Bitcoin transactions typically cost between 1 percent and zero. That's no typo. You can send or accept bitcoins as payments with no fees attached. Since bitcoin doesn't require a bank to verify each transaction, you don't have to sacrifice your own revenue to the financial institutions that own your business loans or credit cards . However, you'll often have the option to pay an extremely small transaction fee, which can speed up your processing. 2. No wait Maybe those fees aren't bothering you, but waiting around for your money to arrive in your bank account does. Because there's no centralized institution that checks every bitcoin transaction -- its underlying technology, blockchain, does it for you -- there's no need to wait nearly as long to receive your payment. Bitcoin transactions are processed quickly, usually in a fraction of the time credit card transactions do. Story continues You can charge a customer, go for a walk around the block and receive your money. Bitcoin is that fast . 3. No borders If you export your goods and services or purchase supplies or materials from abroad, then bitcoin is a great solution for dealing with foreign transaction fees, exchange rates or currencies. Why? Because bitcoin is a global currency, not tied to a single government or company , it ignores border restrictions. As long as your customers or suppliers accept bitcoin, you're good to go. 4. No payment disputes Even though bitcoin is digital, it works more like cash than credit. Bitcoin transactions are final and can't be contested by a customer on the basis that he or she, for example, didn't enjoy the service you provided. If you have trouble with customers disputing their credit card payments, then accepting bitcoin could help. 5. An investment opportunity Like other currencies, bitcoin fluctuates in value. However, it's generally less stable than the payments in cash, gold or other commodities you're used to. Related: The Strange Positive Effect Political Uncertainly Has on Bitcoin While this fluctuation can be a drawback to accepting bitcoin, as we'll discuss below, it can also have a large upside. You can look at bitcoin as an investment: By accepting bitcoins, then waiting to cash them in, you're taking a chance on their value increasing. Bitcoin makes investing in a currency seem much less absurd or boring. From 2011 to 2013, the value of a single bitcoin rose from $2 to $1,242. Although it has since fallen back to around $800 today, there's still much potential for growth. Challenges of accepting bitcoin It's always important to be aware of the potential dangers, as well. Here are the three largest obstacles to running a business with bitcoin. 1. It's unregulated. Although its decentralization is a plus, bitcoin's lack of government support may scare some away. The U.S. government recognizes bitcoin as a valid commodity and possibly even a positive influence on financial regulation, but some other countries have restricted or banned the use of bitcoin. 2. It's unstable. Although bitcoin has become increasingly more stable over time, even recently beating out gold , it's still fundamentally a currency that isn't overseen by a single financial institution. If the economy requires it, the Federal Reserve can raise or lower interest rates, but no such option exists with bitcoin. Some observers point to this "unstable" quality as a good thing, since the bitcoin market has no interference, but it could also make things difficult for your small business if that market suffers. You'll want to figure out your aversion to risk before investing big in bitcoin. 3. It's tough to plan for. With a decentralized, volatile, purely digital currency, it can be difficult to plan financial statements, figure out taxes and determine your prices . How can you make projections that account for large fluctuations or changing government regulations? This is not an easy task, although it is do-able. You'll definitely need to speak with your bookkeeper and accountant before accepting bitcoin at your small business. Related: Bitcoin Is Money, U.S. Judge Says in Case Tied to JPMorgan Hack Overall, there's a lot that bitcoin can help your small business with, but also plenty of question marks involved in accepting the currency. If you're considering accepting bitcoin, sit down and determine why it can help your business and how you will deal with the challenges it may bring. || Bill Gates' Stock Portfolio: - By Ben Reynolds (Published Jan. 20 by Bob Ciura) Bill Gates ( Trades , Portfolio ) is the richest man in the world. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has a massive $18.5 billion endowment. Warning! GuruFocus has detected 4 Warning Sign with BRK.A. Click here to check it out. BRK.A 15-Year Financial Data The intrinsic value of BRK.A Peter Lynch Chart of BRK.A That kind of wealth is something of which the vast majority of us can only dream. However, there is one similarity between the everyday investor and the wealthiest person on the planet: We're all looking for good stocks to buy and hold for the long term. Gates is a personal friend of Warren Buffett ( Trades , Portfolio ) so it's no surprise to see the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation take a similar approach to investing as the Oracle of Omaha. You can see Buffett's top 20 high-yield dividend stocks analyzed here. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation owns several highly profitable companies with sustainable competitive advantages. Many of the stocks also pay dividends to shareholders and grow their dividend payouts over time. Without further ado, here are the top 16 stocks held by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. No. 1: Berkshire Hathaway Dividend yield: N/A. Percentage of Gates' portfolio: 58%. Price-earnings (P/E) ratio: 17. Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (NYSE:BRK.A)(NYSE:BRK.B) stock takes up the majority of Gates' investment portfolio, and it is easy to see why. It's safe to say the money is in good hands. Berkshire, under Buffett's stewardship, grew from a struggling textile manufacturer into one of the largest conglomerates in the world. Since Berkshire's current management team took the helm 51 years ago, the company's per-share book value rose from $19 to $155,501, a rate of 19.2% compounded annually. Today, Berkshire is a global giant. It owns and operates dozens of businesses with a hand in nearly every major industry including insurance, railroads, energy, finance, manufacturing and retailing. Story continues A breakdown of Berkshire's various operating segments is as follows: Sales and Services (51% of revenue). Insurance Premiums (20% of revenue). Railroad, Utilities, and Energy (19% of revenue). Interest, Dividend, and Other Investment Income (2% of revenue). Financial Product Sales (3% of revenue). Investment and Derivatives (5% of revenue). In Berkshire's annual letters to shareholders, Buffett typically evaluates the company's performance in terms of book value. Book value is an accounting metric that measures a company's assets minus its liabilities. The resulting difference is a company's book value. This is a proxy for the intrinsic value of a firm, which Buffett believes to be the most important financial metric. Over the past five years, Berkshire has done a great job growing assets faster than liabilities, which builds shareholder wealth. BRKA Growth Source: 2015 Annual Report, page 36 Berkshire doesn't pay a dividend to shareholders. Buffett and his partner Charlie Munger (Trades, Portfolio) have always contended that they can create wealth at a higher rate than the dividend would provide to shareholders. There are few managers who can say that and get away with it, but Buffett and Munger might be the only two who can. While Berkshire stock may not be attractive for investors who want dividend income, there are few companies that have a track record nearly as successful as Berkshire. No. 2: Waste Management Dividend yield: 2.4%. Percentage of Gates' portfolio: 6.5%. P/E ratio: 27. Waste Management Inc. ( WM ) is the embodiment of a company with a wide economic moat. It operates in waste removal and recycling services. This is a highly concentrated industry with only a few companies controlling the majority of the market. Waste Management services many different industry groups, which are organized as follows: Collection (55% of revenue). Landfill (19% of revenue). Transfer (9% of revenue). Recycling (8% of revenue). Other (9% of revenue). The company is performing well. Over the first three quarters of 2016, revenue and earnings per share increased 3.6% and 8.8%. Waste Management operates in a stable and necessary industry. Waste removal is extremely capital intensive and is subject to significant regulatory oversight. These competitive advantages allow Waste Management to generate steady profits even when the U.S. economy enters recession. WM Essential Source: JPMorgan Industrials Conference presentation, page 14 Waste Management's high margins and consistent cash flow put the company in a strong financial position. It has reduced its debt significantly in the past several years. WM Debt Source: JPMorgan Industrials Conference presentation, page 17 With less debt to worry about, there is more cash flow left over each year. It uses this cash flow to invest in the business and for shareholder cash returns. WM Capital Allocation Source: JP Morgan Industrials Conference presentation, page On Dec. 15, the company raised its dividend by 4% and added $750 million to its share repurchase program. Waste Management is a Dividend Achiever. Dividend Achievers are companies that have raised dividends for 10 years or more. You can see the entire list of all 272 Dividend Achievers here. For its part, Waste Management has increased its dividend for 14 consecutive years. The stock currently has a 2.5% dividend yield. Waste Management isn't a cheap stock. Its share price has soared over the past several years. But it still has an above-average dividend yield, and the company is growing. No. 3: Canadian National Railway Dividend yield: 1.6%. Percentage of Gates' portfolio: 6.1%. P/E ratio: 20. Canadian National Railway ( CNI ) is the only transcontinental railway in North America. It has a massive network, which includes more than 19,000 miles that spans Canada and the U.S. CNI Network Source: Investor Presentation, page 7 The company offers a full range of services including rail, intermodal, trucking, warehousing and distribution. Canadian National has an excellent business. From 2011 to 2015, it grew revenue and adjusted earnings per share at a 9% and 16% compound annual rate. It generated this growth from executing a number of operational strategies. First, it placed focus on improving productivity. CNI Productivity Source: Investor Presentation, page 9 This has allowed the company to boost volumes and revenue. Furthermore, Canadian National produces industry-leading margins, thanks to its lean cost structure. CNI Cost Source: Investor Presentation, page 12 One factor negatively impacting the company right now is that it is exposed to commodities, specifically coal. Coal revenue declined 32% in the third quarter, year over year. Moreover, revenue for energy and mining fell 13% and 20% last quarter. That being said, the company's diverse customer base and operational excellence more than offset the declines in its commodity-based segments. Canadian National's operating expenses declined 7% last quarter. Operating ratio reached a record 53.3% last quarter. Free cash flow over the first three quarters of 2016 remained steady with the same nine-month period in 2015. The company expects to post flat adjusted earnings per share in 2016. This in itself would be a notable accomplishment given the steep declines in oil and coal shipments. With its hefty margins, Canadian National generates significant cash flow, and its shareholder-friendly management actively deploys this cash flow to investors. Dividends per share have nearly doubled in that same five-year period. The company is one of the best dividend growth stocks in Canada. Canadian National certainly isn't a flashy business. Railroads may be overlooked by many investors for being boring, but Canadian National's shareholder returns prove that boring can be beautiful. No. 4: Caterpillar Dividend yield: 3.3%. Percentage of Gates' portfolio: 5.4%. P/E ratio: 31 (forward P/E ratio). Caterpillar ( CAT ) is a strong brand with a dominant industry position. It manufactures heavy machinery, mostly to the construction and mining sectors. 2016 was a year to forget for Caterpillar. The sharp downturn in precious metals prices weighed heavily on demand for heavy machinery. For example, Caterpillar's earnings per share fell by nearly half in the third quarter. CAT Third Quarter Source: Credit Suisse Industrials Conference presentation, page 4 Separately Caterpillar is being negatively impacted by slowing growth in emerging markets and the strong U.S. dollar. As a result, full-year revenue is expected to decline 29% in 2016. These headwinds are expected to persist in 2017 although there is potential for a recovery. CAT Forecast Source: Credit Suisse Industrials Conference presentation, page 7 Fortunately, there may be a light at the end of the tunnel. There are hopes that Caterpillar will return to growth in 2017. One catalyst could be a renewed emphasis on fiscal stimulus in the U.S. The incoming administration may pursue policies to stimulate the U.S. economy. This could include more infrastructure spending and perhaps a push for more lax regulations on the energy and mining industries, which are among Caterpillar's biggest customers. Separately higher commodity prices would be a major boost. In the meantime, investors are paid well to wait for Caterpillar's turnaround to materialize, and the company enjoys economies of scale. This provides it with the financial flexibility to cut costs so that it can maintain its dividend. Caterpillar forecasts over $1 billion in cost savings this year alone, mostly in manufacturing and headcount reductions. The company may not raise its dividend until economic conditions improve, but its solid 3.3% dividend yield is secure. No. 5: Walmart Stores Dividend yield: 3%. Percentage of Gates' portfolio: 4.5%. P/E ratio: 15. Walmart is another great example of a company with durable competitive advantages. It is the largest retailer in the world with annual revenue of approximately $500 billion. The company came to dominate the retail industry by keeping a laserlike focus on reducing costs everywhere, particularly in supply chain and distribution. This allowed Walmart to offer consistently lower prices than its competitors ever could. In turn, it steadily devoured market share until it became the giant it is today. Walmart's growth has slowed over the past year. The company is investing billions to pay higher wages, and renovate its stores. This will limit Walmart's earnings growth. As a result, some might assume Walmart's best days are behind it. After all, a behemoth as large as Walmart will naturally have difficulty continuing to grow at a rapid pace. But there are still growth catalysts for the company to look forward to, specifically in e-commerce and small stores. Walmart acquired Jet.com for $3 billion to boost its e-commerce business, especially in emerging markets like China. WMT Jet Source: Investor Community Meeting presentation, page 4 E-commerce revenue growth accelerated throughout the year. In the third fiscal quarter, e-commerce sales increased 20.6% year over year. Domestic growth is starting to pick up again, thanks to e-commerce and also Walmart's small-store franchise. The company's Neighborhood Markets small-store banner grew comparable sales by 5.2% last quarter, well above the 1.2% companywide growth rate. Walmart remains highly profitable and very resistant to recessions. Consumers tend to scale down to discount retail when times are tight, which is why Walmart continued to grow, even during the Great Recession. This allows Walmart to pay a solid 3% dividend yield and raise its dividend each year like clockwork. Walmart has raised its dividend for 43 years in a row. Its long history of dividend growth qualifies Walmart as a Dividend Aristocrat, a group of companies in the Standard & Poor's 500 that have raised dividends for at least 25 consecutive years. You can see the entire list of all 50 Dividend Aristocrats here. The stock has an appealing P/E ratio of 14. No. 6: Ecolab Dividend yield: 1.3%. Percentage of Gates' portfolio: 2.9%. P/E ratio: 32. Ecolab ( ECL ) is a commercial cleaning products firm. It operates in three segments: Global Industrial (36% of revenue). Global Institutional (35% of revenue). Global Energy (23% of revenue). Other (6% of revenue). The Other category includes pest elimination and equipment care. The Global Industrial group provides water treatment, cleaning and sanitation services to large industrial firms. The industrial customer base is made up primarily of food and beverage, manufacturing, chemical and mining companies. The Global Institutional business services specialized products and services to the foodservice, hospitality, lodging, health care and retail industries. This segment manufactures products for things like laundry and housekeeping. The Global Energy segment holds the company's Nalco brand. Nalco provides chemical and water treatment services to the oil and gas industry. Going forward, Ecolab is focusing on international growth. Expanding in new markets has been a core priority for the company in recent years. Nearly half the company's revenue comes from outside the U.S. One of the best aspects of Ecolab's business is its consistency. Providing cleaning products and services is a steady business. Customers need Ecolab's services, regardless of the condition of the U.S. economy. This means Ecolab is a recession-resistant business. In fact, the company grew earnings per share each year from 2007 to 2010. It didn't skip a beat, even during the worst recession since the Great Depression. Its reliable earnings growth allows the company to raise its dividend each year. In fact, Ecolab has paid a dividend for 80 years without interruption. It raises its dividend regularly. The company recently passed along a 6% dividend increase, marking its 25th consecutive year of dividend increases. Ecolab qualifies as a Dividend Aristocrat. The stock has a dividend yield of just 1.2%, which is on the low side. Its valuation is a bit high with a P/E ratio above 30. Investors may want to wait for a better buying opportunity, but Ecolab is a high-quality company. It is the largest operator in its industry, which provides competitive advantages. No. 7: FedEx Dividend yield: 0.9%. Percentage of Gates' portfolio: 2.9%. P/E ratio: 27. FedEx ( FDX ) is yet another example of a company with a strong economic moat. It operates in global logistics, essentially an oligopoly. It would be extremely difficult financially for a company to build out a fleet large enough to compete on the scale of FedEx. FedEx generates more than $50 billion in annual revenue. It has more than 400,000 employees and services more than 220 nations and territories around the world. The company has a diversified business model. It operates the following four segments: Express (52% of revenue). Ground (33% of revenue). Freight (12% of revenue). Services (3% of revenue). FedEx maintains a modest outlook for the global economy going forward. Economic growth is expected to be weak but remain positive. One growth catalyst that will help fuel future growth is FedEx's booming ground business, thanks to e-commerce. FDX Ground Source: Roadshow Presentation, page 8 FedEx notes the e-commerce market is growing at a 16% annual rate. Plus the company has captured additional revenue market share gains in ground shipping for 17 consecutive years. In addition, the company is countering sluggish global economic growth by cutting costs. Margins are up consistently over the past several years. FDX Margins Source: Roadshow Presentation, page 5 One downside for FedEx is that it has a very low dividend yield of less than 1%. It yields less than half the 2% average yield in the S&P 500. The company helps make up for this with dividend growth. For example, it raised its dividend by 60% in 2016. While FedEx might not be an appealing stock to income investors, it is a high-quality company with a strong business model. Earnings per share are expected to rise 21% in fiscal 2016. With this kind of earnings growth, FedEx stock can generate more than satisfactory returns, even without a significant dividend yield. No. 8: Crown Castle International Dividend yield: 4.3%. Percentage of Gates' portfolio: 2.7%. P/E ratio: 17. Crown Castle International Corp. ( CCI ) is a real estate investment trust (REIT). It provides infrastructure assets to wireless communications carriers. It has approximately 40,000 towers and 26,500 route miles of fiber supporting small cells. The company operates in an appealing area because wireless communications is a growth industry. U.S. consumers can't do without their smartphones, and Crown Castle is one of the companies reaping the benefits. Crown Castle has been investing additional capital in its infrastructure in several major U.S. markets. One example is Chicago. CCI Chicago Source: 3Q Earnings presentation, page 4 This investment across the U.S. was done to accommodate higher demand for wireless services, and the investment has paid off with strong growth rates. It is enjoying higher occupancy and rising rents as well. Revenue and adjusted funds from operation (FFO) increased 6% and 17% in the third quarter. Management has an optimistic forecast for the next two years based on strong growth for the wireless industry. Higher leasing rates and price increases should fuel solid growth in 2016 and 2017. Revenue is expected to increase 7% in 2016 and 3% in 2017. Adjusted FFO is expected to grow 10% this year and 6% in 2017. One consideration for investors going forward is the risk of rising interest rates. REITs like Crown Castle rely heavily on debt financing. When interest rates rise, so too does the cost of capital. This could inhibit the company's growth in future quarters. Still, the company operates in an industry with healthy fundamentals. It should be able to continue growing above its cost of capital and create wealth for shareholders. Crown Castle is a strong stock for dividends and dividend growth. Its current yield exceeds 4%, and it recently raised its dividend by 7%. No. 9: United Parcel Service Dividend yield: 2.7%. Percentage of Gates' portfolio: 2.7%. P/E ratio: 21. The global logistics industry is dominated by three companies. FedEx is one, and so is UPS. In fact, UPS is the industry leader; its market capitalization is $100 billion, which is double FedEx's market cap. Like FedEx, UPS is benefiting from e-commerce. UPS' domestic package revenue increased 4.8% in the third quarter year over year. This drove 3.6% earnings per share growth for the period. Another emerging growth catalyst for UPS is international growth. UPS International Source: R.W. Baird 2016 Industrials Conference, page 9 UPS is growing international revenue and a rapid pace, and it has significantly improved margins in its overseas operations. For example, UPS' international segment now represents 28% of its operating profit, up from just 6% in 2000. Lastly, UPS plans to grow through acquisitions. The company recently acquired Marken, a supply chain solutions provider to the life sciences industry. UPS Marken Source: R.W. Baird 2016 Industrials Conference, page 5 The acquisition further diversifies UPS' customer base by expanding its presence in health care and pharmaceutical logistics. One concern for investors in 2017 is the risk of global recession. UPS is widely viewed as an economic bellwether. Global uncertainty levels rose as 2016 drew to a close. If the economy enters recession in 2017 or beyond, it would significant affect UPS. Barring a global recession, UPS has a positive outlook. UPS stock is reasonably valued and has a solid dividend. The stock has a P/E ratio of 20. It is cheaper than the S&P 500, which has an average P/E ratio of 26. UPS stock has a 2.7% dividend yield. This is a big advantage over main rival FedEx, which has a much smaller dividend yield. UPS has a long history of paying consistent dividends. It has either increased or maintained its cash dividend for 47 years. Its dividend has risen more than fourfold since 2000. No. 10: Coca-Cola FEMSA SAB Dividend yield: 3%. Percentage of Gates' portfolio: 2.5%. P/E ratio: 28. Coca-Cola FEMSA ( KOF ) produces, markets and distributes Coca-Cola ( KO ) beverages. It offers the full line of sparkling and still beverages. It sells its products through distribution centers and retailers in Mexico, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, Colombia, Venezuela, Brazil, Argentina and the Philippines. Coca-Cola FEMSA is the largest franchise bottler in the world. The stock is an excellent way to gain exposure to two appealing emerging markets: Latin America and South Asia. KOF Markets Source: Investor Kit presentation, page 2 These markets are growing at high rates for the company. Over the first nine months of 2016, total revenue and operating cash flow rose 7.8% and 6.6%. Revenue growth was driven largely by price increases. Coca-Cola FEMSA is in a strong financial position with low levels of debt and positive free cash flow. In addition, carrying the Coca-Cola brand allows it to generate high margins and enjoy pricing power. KOF Financials Source: Investor Kit presentation, page 23 This allows the company to consistently raise its dividend each year. One risk factor on which investors should keep an eye going forward is a potential change in consumer preferences. Coca-Cola FEMSA sells and distributes water and noncarbonated beverages, but more than 75% of the company's annual sales come from carbonated soft drinks. The emerging markets are high-growth economies with expanding middle classes. Citizens are enjoying rising standards of living. Once these markets become more mature, there could be a risk of consumers changing their dietary habits. Soda sales have declined in the U.S. for more than a decade. Coca-Cola's growth is struggling from this trend, which could become a challenge for Coca-Cola FEMSA moving forward. That being said, Coca-Cola FEMSA is still firmly in high-growth mode. No. 11: Grupo Televisa SAB Dividend Yield: 0.5%. Percentage of Bill Gates (Trades, Portfolio)' Portfolio: 2.3%. P/E ratio: 31 (Forward P/E). Grupo Televisa SAB (TV) is a diversified media conglomerate. In all, Televisa operates 26 pay-TV brands and television networks, cable operators and over-the-top services in over 50 countries. In the U.S., it operates Univision. In addition, Televisa owns a majority interest in Sky, a satellite television provider in Mexico, the Dominican Republic and Central America. Televisa also has operations in magazine publishing, radio broadcasting, professional sports, live entertainment, film production and gaming. It operates four business segments: Content (36% of revenue). Sky (22% of revenue). Cable (33% of revenue). Other (9% of revenue). The company is enjoying strong growth, thanks largely to high economic growth in Mexico and several Latin American markets. In 2015, net sales and segment operating income increased 9.9% and 10.6%. Growth has continued in 2016. Net sales and segment operating income rose 6.6% and 4.1% in the third quarter. The company's strongest businesses are Sky, Cable and Other, each of which posted double-digit revenue growth in the third quarter. Content segment revenue was flat in the third quarter although it did see 20% growth in network subscription revenue. However, this was offset by declines in advertising and licensing. The licensing business was affected by difficult comparisons. For example, licensing revenue fell 10% last quarter for Univision, since the comparable 2015 quarter included a major soccer tournament in Mexico. Televisa is a strong brand and has a fundamental advantage, thanks to its geographic focus. As a result, it is a compelling growth stock, for investors interested in international diversification. While it does not pay much of a dividend to shareholders, Televisa's return potential is still significant, thanks to its rapid growth. No. 12: Walgreens Boots Alliance Dividend yield: 1.8%. Percentage of Gates' portfolio: 1.5%. P/E ratio: 22. It is no surprise to see Walgreens Boots Alliance (WBA) on the list of Gates' holdings because it is an industry giant. Walgreens Boots Alliance came together in the $9 billion merger of Walgreens and Alliance Boots in 2014. The merger was a great move for the two companies. Walgreens is the biggest pharmacy operator in the U.S., and Alliance Boots was a top European pharmacy and distributor. When the two joined forces, it allowed the combined company to reach a global scale. Walgreens Boots now has three separate businesses, each of which are very large: Retail Pharmacy USA ($83.8 billion in annual sales, 70% of revenue). Retail Pharmacy International ($13.3 billion in annual sales, 11% of revenue). Pharmaceutical Wholesale ($22.6 billion in annual sales, 19% of revenue). The company performed well in fiscal 2016. Revenue and earnings per share, adjusted for currency and non-recurring costs, increased 16% and 18%. It is off to a good start in fiscal 2017 as well, thanks largely to the U.S. retail pharmacy operation. That segment posted 2.5% growth in pharmacy sales and 3% prescription growth in the 2017 first fiscal quarter. Going forward, Walgreens Boots intends to invest more in its beauty departments to help drive higher traffic. WBA Pharmacy Source: Q1 2017 Earnings presentation, page 8 There could be more transformational deals in the near future. The company has a pending deal to acquire fierce competitor Rite Aid Corp. (RAD) for $17 billion. Walgreens Boots has a below-average dividend yield, and the P/E ratio significantly exceeds the retail industry average. One of Buffett's favorite sayings is that price is what you pay, value is what you get. Walgreens Boots enjoys several competitive advantages, high profit margins and a strong brand. These qualities make it a valuable stock to own as part of a dividend growth portfolio. No. 13: Liberty Global Group Dividend yield: N/A. Percentage of Gates' portfolio: 1%. P/E ratio: 23. Liberty Global (LBTYA) is the largest international television and Internet provider. In all, the company operates in 30 countries and generates more than $20 billion in annual revenue. The company and its various subsidiaries provide service to 29 million customers. Its core brand in Europe is Virgin Media. It also has the Ziggo, Unitymedia, Telenet and UPC brands. Liberty Global is split up into two businesses, which are Liberty Global Group and LiLAC. Liberty Global includes its European operations, and LiLAC houses its Latin America and Caribbean business. Each segment - Liberty Global Group and LiLAC - have three share classes each. This share class corresponds to the Liberty Global Group. The European economy is on shaky ground broadly speaking with weak economic growth and the uncertainty presented by the Brexit vote. But television and Internet is a growth industry because of the low levels of market penetration. There are still many parts of Europe with untapped growth potential. In turn, Liberty Global is rapidly adding customers. LBTYK Customer Source: Q3 Earnings Presentation, page 5 Year-to-date additions rose 50% through the third quarter. As far as future growth is concerned, there is plenty of runway left. Liberty expects to add more than 5 million new households from 2016 to 2018. This aggressive expansion will require significant capital investment. The company plans to spend $2 billion over the next two years to build up its customer base, but the payoff is growth. LBTYK Europe Source: Q3 Earnings Presentation, page 15 Liberty Global realized growth in revenue and cash flow over the first three quarters of 2016. Growth accelerated as the year went by with the fourth quarter expected to be the highest-growth period for the year. The company is investing large amounts of capital. There will be little cash flow to spare over the next two years, which is why the stock does not pay a dividend. Investors looking for income may want to select a different telecom stock that pays dividends, and there are many to choose from. But Liberty Global could conceivably start paying a dividend at some point in the not-too-distant future, once its aggressive expansion period ends. In the meantime, the stock is reasonably valued and could generate double-digit earnings growth. Revenue is growing at a high rate, and Liberty Global will use more than $2 billion to buy back stock next year. This earnings growth means investors can earn satisfactory returns moving forward even without the benefit of a dividend. No. 14: AutoNation Dividend yield: N/A. Percentage of Gates' portfolio: 0.5%. P/E ratio: 13. AutoNation Inc. (AN) is America's largest automotive retailer. It owns and operates over 360 new vehicle franchises in 16 states. The company operates five segments: AN Segments Source: 2015 Annual Report, page 5 AutoNation has been successful growing the business over the past five years. From 2011 to 2015, sales and earnings per share increased by 8.5% and 15% per year. The company has benefited greatly from a strong operating environment. Auto sales are near a record, driven by attractive product offerings, access to affordable credit thanks to low interest rates and lower fuel prices. The market climate is supportive of auto sales, which is why new and used vehicle sales both increased 9% for AutoNation in 2015. Going forward, the company is in the process of rolling out its Brand Extension strategy. This involves further expanding its stand-alone preowned vehicle sales and service centers, branded parts and accessories, branded collision centers and its auto auction businesses. To help accomplish this, AutoNation recently announced the acquisition of three Premium Luxury franchises, one collision center and three Premium Luxury franchise add points. The assets acquired hold combined annual revenue potential of at least $430 million. Separately, the company is building its digital channel platform AutoNation Express. Digital channel sales now account for nearly 30% of vehicle sales. AutoNation does not pay a dividend, but it does return cash to shareholders through stock buybacks. The company has $316 million left on its current share price authorization, which amounts to approximately 6% of its market capitalization. All things being equal, AutoNation's buybacks will boost earnings per share by an additional 6% over the next year. The stock is cheap at a P/E ratio of 13. As a result, the combination of earnings growth and expansion of the valuation multiple, could lead to double-digit annualized returns going forward. No. 15: Liberty LiLAC Group Dividend yield: N/A. Percentage of Gates' portfolio: 0.16%. P/E ratio: 23. This share class corresponds to Liberty Global's LiLAC (LILAK) operating segment. LiLAC includes Liberty Global's Latin America and Caribbean businesses under the brands VTR, Flow, Liberty, Mas Movil and BTC. These are currently a small part of the overall business. LiLAC represents approximately 13% of Liberty Global's total annual revenue, but there is a lot of growth potential up ahead. LiLAC is poised to become a much bigger part of the company going forward as a result of the 2016 acquisition of Cable & Wireless Communications. The $7.4 billion deal added more than 10 million new customers in Latin America and the Caribbean. The CWC acquisition presents cost synergy opportunities. LILAC Synergies Source: Q3 Earnings Presentation, page 12 As a result, LiLAC's year-to-date revenue and operating cash flow doubled year over year through the third quarter. Another growth catalyst for LiLAC is to increase bundling of services. Nearly half of LiLAC's customers purchase only one service. The company will seek to expand on this moving forward. LILAC Bundling Source: Investor relations Bundling services is lucrative for telecommunications providers, which is why the practice is so common in the U.S. Liberty Global has a much higher percentage of triple-play customers in Europe, and it has served the company well. Like Liberty Global, LiLAC uses its cash flow to reinvest in the business and support its balance sheet. It does not pay a dividend. That being said, LiLAC also offers investors attractive return potential, from its future revenue and earnings growth. The company expects to increase operating cash flow by 7% to 9% each year over the next few years. No. 16: Arcos Dorados Holdings Dividend yield: N/A. Percentage of Gates' portfolio: 0.1%. P/E ratio: 18. Last but not least is Arcos Dorados (ARCO). Investors might not immediately recognize Arcos Dorados by its name, but they will certainly understand its business. Arcos Dorados is a holding company. Collectively, it is the largest McDonald's (MCD) franchisee in the world in terms of number of restaurants. It has the exclusive right to own and operate McDonald's restaurants in 20 Latin American and Caribbean countries and territories. In all, it operates or franchises over 2,100 McDonald's restaurants. Its geographic split is as follows: Brazil (45% of revenue). South Latin America Division (28% of revenue). Caribbean (14% of revenue). North Latin America Division (13% of revenue). Many of the countries in which Arcos Dorados operates are emerging markets. For example, sales in South Latin America and the Caribbean rose 24% and 27.6% through the first nine months of 2016. One downside for Arcos Dorados investors is that the stock does not pay a dividend. This might seem like a deal breaker since McDonald's itself is a legendary dividend stock. The upside for Arcos Dorados is that it is growing much faster than McDonald's. For example, on a constant-currency basis, revenue rose 15.3% in the third quarter. Some of this growth was due to aggressive new restaurant openings. In the past four reported quarters, Arcos Dorados opened 33 new restaurants and 133 Dessert Centers. Comparable-restaurant sales, a key metric for restaurant chains that measures growth at locations open at least one year, increased 11.3% last quarter. Double-digit comparable sales growth is virtually unheard of in the U.S. Overall adjusted EBITDA grew 24% last quarter. ARCO EBITDA Source: Q3 Results, page 3 A key factor boosting EBITDA is that, even with sales growing at a rapid pace, Arcos Dorados kept general and administrative costs flat. This indicates the company is doing a very good job boosting productivity. Disclosure: I am not long any of the stocks mentioned in this article. Start a free seven-day trial of Premium Membership to GuruFocus. This article first appeared on GuruFocus . Warning! GuruFocus has detected 4 Warning Sign with BRK.A. Click here to check it out. BRK.A 15-Year Financial Data The intrinsic value of BRK.A Peter Lynch Chart of BRK.A
[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
MMMBTC || MMMBTC || Bitwyn Rocks !!!!! https://www.facebook.com/bitwyn/
https://youtu.be/h1etwk9yUuY
Valor de 1 bitcoin hoy... http://fb.me/65X7PFS0O || Guadagnare Bitcoin Gratis: Guida Definitiva 2016/17 http://www.akufantasy.com/guadagnare-bitcoin-gratis-guida-definitiva-201617/ … https://twitter.com/AkuduBright/status/810190183454883841/photo/1pic.twitter.com/LcvRJ0pob7 || MMMBTC || #Ripple #XRP $0.006544 (-2.42%) 0.00000826 BTC (-3.22%) || Get Free #Bitcoin here.http://ift.tt/1dBS5NK pic.twitter.com/xs9loItnaF || We are collecting funds to save people posting on this site.
http://sos.x0.com
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#SOS || MMMBTC || MMMBTC
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Trend: down || Prices: 1063.07, 994.38, 988.67, 1004.45, 999.18, 990.64, 1004.55, 1007.48, 1027.44, 1046.21
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Analyze the provided historical prices, technical indicators, news, and social media sentiment from the last 60 days. Based on this context, predict the overall trend (up, down, or no change) and the specific daily closing prices for Bitcoin for the next 10 days.
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[Technical Analysis]
Not fully available.
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
Bitcoin Price Shows Stability as Crypto Market Sees Minor $6 Billion Drop: Over the past 24 hours, the crypto market has lost $6 billion from its valuation, experiencing a slight drop after a solid corrective rally by Bitcoin.
While Bitcoin recorded a small gain of 0.5 percent, other major cryptocurrencies including Ethereum, Ripple, Bitcoin Cash, EOS, Stellar, Litecoin, and Cardano fell by 1 to 4 percent, affecting the token market.
On August 17, as the price of BTC showed a rapid recovery from $5,850 to $6,400, tokens recorded massive gains in the range of 30 to 80 percent, with VeChain increasing by over 80 percent against the US dollar.
However, as BTC stabilized in the mid-$6,000 region and other major cryptocurrencies struggled to sustain their momentum on the upside, tokens suffered. In the past 24 hours, Aion, DigixDAO, OmiseGO, BAT, and 0x fell by more than 6 percent against the US dollar and Bitcoin.
Yesterday, on August 19, CCN reported that the fall in the price of tokens in the past 48 hours can be attributed to the overly aggressive trades initiated by investors in the crypto market that considered the minor corrective rally of Bitcoin to be the start of a bull run.
Consequently, many traders reallocated their funds from Bitcoin, which has performed relatively well against the US dollar in the past month as seen in the rise of its dominance index, to tokens and high-risk high-return trades.
Some tokens including Ontology, Tezos, and Nano recorded solid 10 to 20 percent gains, but have fallen throughout the day due to the lack of momentum in Ether and other major cryptocurrencies.
In a bear market or downtrend, the dominance index of Bitcoin tends to increase as investors consider BTC to be a store of value in the cryptocurrency market. As such, in the past few months, apart from some exceptions including Binance Coin (BNB), Bitcoin has been one of the better performing cryptocurrencies.
In the past 24 hours, the dominance index of BTC has increased from 51 percent to 52 percent. A one percent increase is a minor movement, but considering that the market has been overly optimistic in the short-term trend of crypto throughout this week, the continuous increase in the dominance of BTC is important to consider.
The volume of Bitcoin and other major cryptocurrencies tend to be extremely volatile. The volume of BTC could remain in the $4 billion region and suddenly rise to over $6 billion within 24 hours, especially during corrective rallies.
But, the volume of BTC has fallen below the $4 billion mark, a level the market has not seen in the past two weeks. As of August 20, the volume of Bitcoin and Ethereum remain at $3.5 billion and $1.5 billion, less than half of their volume in June.
In the short-term, it is crucial for Bitcoin to sustain its current stability, allowing the market to establish a bottom at the lower price range. If BTC suddenly rises by large margins, it could lead the market to record overbought conditions.
Featured image from Shutterstock.
The postBitcoin Price Shows Stability as Crypto Market Sees Minor $6 Billion Dropappeared first onCCN. || The Ledger: Satoshi Wannabes, Bitcoin's Role in Russian Election Interference, Vitalik Clapping: Satoshi Nakamoto tweeted at me last week.
The previous week, the same person had emailed me, as he—or she, or they—has been doing since April, claiming to be the creator of Bitcoin and describing a forthcoming book that would supposedly “explain what happened to us and why we left and also tell our story from our viewpoint.”
This time, though, the self-proclaimed Satoshi, emailing from a mybitcoincenter.com domain, was trying todisclaimcredit for something that was making waves in the cryptocurrency community: An online missive June 29, signed by a Satoshi Nakamoto and posted on the sitenakamotofamilyfoundation.org, announcingan autobiography. ABloombergarticle the following day also ran excerpts of the book that had been released on the site. The listed email for the purported book author:nakamotofoundation@protonmail.com.
My Satoshi was having none of it. “Please inform your editors that the publication recently mentioned on Bloomberg is not authentic,” read the subject line of the email, sent the evening of June 30. It continued: “Dear Jen, Its Satoshi Nakamoto. You read my emails and my past writings and therefore must know that in no realm of possibility is that information released recently affiliated with myself or any member of our group.”
Two weeks earlier, this Satoshi had emailed me a “preview” of the book coming fall 2018, complete with a cover mockup showing the title,The Genesis Block: The Proof of Work.
Of course, I hadn’t responded to this email, or any others, since April, when it became clear to me that this Satoshi wannabe was likely wasting my time. In my first reply, I demanded proof that this author was indeed Satoshi Nakamoto.
I asked for Satoshi’s cryptographic signature; I asked for proof my pen pal held the private keys; I asked Satoshi to convince me in any way possible. I even asked for Satoshi’s Twitter handle, once it became clear that this person was closely following mytweets. (My follower finally did reveal at leasthis Twitter personalast week, when he took to the platform to gripe again about a “book-off” with the new rival author.)
The responses that came back, and the emails that followed, were frequently over 1000 words, and read like part nonsense and part fan fiction— an elaborate (and quite entertaining) imagining of what had caused Bitcoin’s founding father to go silent and retreat from the community, and why no one has ever been able to prove Nakamoto’s true identity.
“If there was a key left behind a ski mask and AK -47 would be the ultimate key,” went the cryptic explanation (suggesting some sort of heist) of why this Satoshi didn’t have access to the private keys to unlock the original Bitcoin wallet, containing more than 1 million Bitcoins that have never been moved.
In the writings, there were several tip-offs that this Satoshi was almost surely an imposter. There was the missing punctuation—a pattern of unsophisticated grammar and a complete disregard for contractions of “it is,” which requires an apostrophe. The real Satoshi never made such a mistake, as far as I can tell. Then there was a tone of arrogance and combativeness in this Satoshi’s emails that seemed absent in thearchiveof authentic Satoshi emails and writings. “This is a biblical journey and those who believe they can stop the work of the creator will fall like all others before them,” my Satoshi snarked in one email recently.
But I do believe this fake Satoshi about one thing: The recently published passages of the purported Satoshi Nakamoto book aren’t authentic either. AsBloombergnoted in its introduction to the book excerpt, the news outlet “has been unable to independently verify its authenticity.”
My guess? Neither of these Satoshis is the real deal—though I’d welcome being proven wrong.
After all, the creator of a mighty system for—in his words—transacting electronically “without relying on trust” would not simply ask us to blindly take his word for it, would he?
BRAINSTORM TECH
The Ledger team will be in Aspen, CO forFortune’sannual Brainstorm Tech conference next week, where several panels will focus on cryptocurrency and fintech. For example, I’ll be talking about blockchain payments with Ripple SVP Asheesh Birla, Stripe CEO Claire Hughes Johnson and IBM’s blockchain lead Bridget van Kralingen on stage at 10:05 a.m. MT on Tuesday, July 17. You canwatch the livestream here.
GOT TIPS?
Send feedback and tips to ledger@fortune.com, find us on Twitter@FortuneLedgeror email/DM me directly at the contact info below.
Steven Cohen’s Venture Capital Firm Gets Into Crypto With New Partnerby Lucinda Shen
Robinhood Adds Bitcoin Cash and Litecoin in Push to Expand Cryptoby Jeff John Roberts
Ripple Hires Facebook Payments Exec and Names New CTOby Jeff John Roberts
Live Fast, Die Young: Many Startups Powered by Initial Coin Offerings Don’t Last, But There’s Still Money to Be Madeby Lucas Laursen
Another Crypto Fail: Hackers Steal $23.5 Million from Token Service Bancorby Jeff John Roberts
Ethereum-Based Blockchain Betting Platform Augur Just Launched. Here’s Why It’s Not Married to Etherby Lucinda Shen
A Traditional Stock Exchange Is Also Going to Trade Cryptocurrencies Like Bitcoinby David Meyer
To the moon…Major League Baseball collectibles go crypto—thinkbaseball cards meet CryptoKitties. Andreessen Horowitz’s crypto fundmakes its first investment.Hypnotists and “crimestoppers” arehelping to recover$20 billion in lost Bitcoin. Indiamay not ban cryptocurrency after all.CryptoKitties: there will soon be anapp for that.Crypto.com sellsfor an estimated price of up to $10 million. Binance forecasting$1 billion profits.
.…Rekt:Elon Musk praises“mad skillz” of Ether scambots,misspells Ethereum. World Cup gambling ring with$1.5 billion in cryptogets busted. “Bitcoin Maven”goes to jail.Iran coulduse cryptocurrency to circumventU.S. sanctions. The Chinese yuan now makes upless than 1% of Bitcoin trading. Silk Road alleged coconspiratorextradited to the U.S.Romania moves toregulate electronic money(read: crypto). Rain in China may haveflooded Bitcoin mining equipment.
Olaf Carlson-Wee, head of Polychain Capital—the largest cryptocurrency hedge fund with $1 billion in assets at last disclosure—dropped byBalancing the Ledgerto talk about the tech talent “exodus” out of the Facebooks of the world and into crypto, Tezos controversies, and why the blockchain industry is healthier than Bitcoin prices suggest.
Bitcoin transaction times have spiked this month—to as high as 85 minutes on July 3rd and 43 minutes on Friday. Imagine trying to buy a latte with Bitcoin, only to be stuck at the cash register for almost an hour and a half waiting for payment to go through.
Still, that’s not as long as it took earlier in 2018. Here’s a sampling of how confirmation times for Bitcoin transactions have varied this year:
Bitcoin Average Confirmation Time
January 22, 2018*:7 days, 23 hours(*all-time high)
February 2: 13 minutes
February 22: 1 day, 3.8 hours
March 16: 7.6 minutes
May 11: 2 hours, 26 minutes
May 24: 6.3 minutes
June 13: 131 minutes
July 3: 85 minutes
July 13: 43 minutes
[Source:blockchain.com]
[h/t:Stripe]
Vitalik Clapping.This week, someone who goes by username1000xuploaded a 33-second video featuring Ethereum co-creatorVitalik Buterinecstatically applauding an unknown presentation. The setting and context is unclear. But the clip, set to a boisterous and catchy little ditty—featuring the lyrics, sung in accented English, “Vitalik clapping, Vitalik impress”—is guaranteed to make you at least half as happy as Buterin appears in the video.
The Internet enjoyed it so much that there is now a10-hour continuous loopversion,GIF versions, and a general feeling of“to the moon.”
Don’t miss out:On Friday, a dozen Russian intelligence officers were indicted by a grand jury in D.C. on charges including hacking the Hillary Clinton campaign in an attempt to influence the presidential election. Among the 11 criminal counts is one alleging a conspiracy “to launder the equivalent of more than $95,000 through a web of transactions structured to capitalize on the perceived anonymity of cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin.”
Here’s theindictment’sexplanation of how the Russian hackers allegedly used cryptocurrency to steal and leak emails of Clinton and Democratic committee staffers:
Although the Conspirators caused transactions to be conducted in a variety of currencies, including U.S. dollars, they principally used bitcoin when purchasing servers, registering domains, and otherwise making payments in furtherance of hacking activity. Many of these payments were processed by companies located in the United States that provided payment processing services to hosting companies, domain registrars, and other vendors both international and domestic. The use of bitcoin allowed the Conspirators to avoid direct relationships with traditional financial institutions, allowing them to evade greater scrutiny of their identities and sources of funds….The Conspirators funded the purchase of computer infrastructure for their hacking activity in part by “mining” bitcoin….The pool of bitcoin generated from the GRU’s mining activity was used, for example, to pay a Romanian company to register the domain dcleaks.com through a payment processing company located in the United States.
We hope you enjoyed this edition of The Ledger.Find past editions here, andsign up for other Fortune newsletters here. Question, suggestion, or feedback?Drop us a line. || Will China’s Trade Data Catch Trump’s Eye?: Economic data released through the Asian session was on the heavier side, with key stats including June Business PMI numbers out of New Zealand, China’s trade figures for June and finalized May industrial production figures out of Japan, while later in the day new loan numbers out of China will also be of influence.
For the Kiwi Dollar, June’s Business PMI showed that the manufacturing sector expanded at a slower pace in June, the PMI easing from 54.5 to 52.8, which was also the lowest level of monthly expansion since December 2017’s 51.0.
• The production sub-index fell from 53.4 to 51.8, while new orders expanded at a quicker pace, rising from 56.7 to 57.1, suggesting that production may see a pickup in the coming months. Mixed figures, following the NZIER Quarterly Survey of Business Opinion (QSBO) that reported a dip in new orders does leave some uncertainty over what lies ahead.
• A further contraction in the employment sub-index supported the QSBO numbers, which will be a concern for the RBNZ.
The Kiwi Dollar moved from $0.67714 to $0.67676 upon release of the figures before recovering to $0.6775 at the time of writing, down 0.10% for the session, the Kiwi Dollar weighed by the morning’s stat, while finding some support as risk appetite continued to return to the markets.
Things were better for the Aussie Dollar, which was up 0.15% to $0.7419.
Out of China, China’s USD trade surplus widened from $24.92bn to $41.61bn, which was far better than a forecasted widening to $27.5bn.
• Year-on-year, exports rose by 11.3%, coming in ahead of a forecasted 10.2% rise, following May’s 12.6% increase.
• Year-on-year, imports rose by 14.1%, falling short of a forecasted 22% increase, following May’s 26% rise.
For the Japanese Yen, industrial production fell by 0.2% in May, month-on-month, which was in line with prelim numbers, while partially reversing April’s 0.5% increase. Year-on-year, production rose by 4.2%.
The Japanese Yen moved from ¥112.628 to ¥112.633 against the Dollar upon release of the figures, to leave the Yen down 0.07% for the session.
In the equity markets, it was a mixed start to the day, with the Nikkei up 2.10% at the time of writing, while the ASX200 saw red, down 0.05%. For the Hang Seng and CSI300 the pair were heading for a positive end to the week, with gains of 0.58% and 0.49% respectively at the time of writing, driven by trade figures out of China and hopes that the U.S and China can find common ground at the negotiating table to bring an end to the trade war that has barely started.
For the EUR, key stats through the morning are limited to finalized inflation figures out of Spain and the Eurozone that are unlikely to have a material impact on the EUR, with the ECB unlikely to be adjusting its outlook on policy, a continued lack of inflationary pressure avoiding any need to begin considering adjusting policy towards interest and deposit rates over the remainder of the year.
At the time of writing, the EUR was down 0.10% to $1.1660, with risk sentiment and Eurozone inflation numbers the key drivers through the day.
For the Pound, it’s another quiet day on the data front, with no material stats scheduled for release, while BoE MPC member Cunliffe could provide some direction should there be any forward guidance on policy, the markets having been eyeing an August rate hike before recent political uncertainty muddied the waters.
At the time of writing, the Pound was down 0.22% to $1.3177, with Brexit and political uncertainty bringing $1.30 levels back into play, with Trump’s views on a free trade agreement should Britain go through a soft Brexit also weighing.
Across the Pond, key stats through the day include June import and export price figures along with prelim July consumer sentiment numbers.
Focus will be on consumer sentiment numbers for July, with forecasts pointing to a pickup in July that would ease concerns of a negative impact from the fears of a full blown trade war hitting domestic consumption, solid nonfarm payrolls and positive economic indicators likely to support consumer spending through the early part of the 3rdquarter.
Outside of the data, FOMC member Bostic is scheduled to speak, which will unlikely have a material influence on the Dollar, with Trump continuing to garner much of the market’s attention, trade war and NATO chatter likely to be hitting the news wires through the day.
At the time of writing, the Dollar Spot Index was up 0.05% to 94.871, with consumer sentiment numbers and the Oval Office the key drivers through the day.
For the Loonie, there are no material stats scheduled for release out of Canada, leaving the Loonie in the hands of market risk appetite and the direction of oil prices, though there is always the risk of the U.S administration slapping Canada with more tariffs, which would overshadow any positive sentiment following the BoC’s forward guidance on policy on Wednesday.
At the time of writing, the Loonie was down 0.06% to C$1.3162, with trade war chatter, market risk appetite and general sentiment towards monetary policy the key drivers for the day.
Thisarticlewas originally posted on FX Empire
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• E-mini S&P 500 Index (ES) Futures Technical Analysis – July 13, 2018 Forecast || Mt Gox Creditors Are Preparing to Claim for Bitcoin Repayments: A group of creditors of the defunct bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox have started preparing to claim for bitcoin repayments following a court's decision in June.
Lawyers representing several Mt. Gox creditors â who filed a petition in November to move Mt. Gox out of bankruptcy and into a process of civil rehabilitation â on Thursday published an updatedproposal for the process.
The lawyersreleasedan initial basic policy for the rehabilitation on June 29, just a week after a court in Tokyoapproved the creditors' petition for civil rehabilitation entered late last year.
Data Shows US Dollar, Not Japanese Yen, Is Dominating Bitcoin Trade
The policy stated in June that it would be "appropriate" to repay creditors who deposited BTC and BCH with Mt. Gox in the same cryptocurrencies instead of cash.
In the latest update, the lawyers further asserted that it would be desirable that these "BTC and BCH be sent to exchanges in which many creditors have accounts or can open accounts easily," adding:
"We are of the opinion that most of the assets, including approximately 166,000 BTC and 168,000 of BCH and other derivatives currently held by Mt. Gox, should be paid to creditors at the time of the first payment."
Those assets could be worth over $1.3 billion, based on latest data from CoinDesk'spriceindex.
Coinbase Adds British Pound for UK Crypto Users
The revised policy stated that the first payments to creditors are expected to start in May or June 2019, if the rehabilitation plan can be approved, that is.
Currently, the lawyers representing the group of creditors are seeking further feedback before a formal rehabilitation plan can be finalized and presented to the court by February of next year.
In addition, the revised proposal stated that cryptocurrencies other than BTC and BCH held by Mt. Gox should be liquidated into cash and paid to creditors since their prices could fluctuate significantly and security risks may arise if they are moved around from wallet to wallet.
Mt. Gox, once the world's largest bitcoin exchange by trading volume, declared bankruptcy in 2014 after over744,000 BTCwere stolen. Subsequently, creditors went into a years-long process in a bid to retrieve their trapped funds.
Amid bitcoin's price spike to close to $20,000 late last year, a group of creditorsfileda petition to the bankruptcy court in Tokyo to move the case into civil rehabilitation.
Mt. Gox's trustee was then holding 202,195 bitcoins and thenÂliquidatedover 30,000 of them into cash in March 2018. The court's approval of the civil rehabilitation petition means that Mt. Gox will no longer need to liquidate any BTC or BCH assets.
Nobuaki Kobayashi, the rehabilitation trustee,saidin July that a new system for creditors to file proof for claiming repayments is expected to be released in August.
Japanese yen and BTCimage via Shutterstock
• US Lawmakers Seek Blockchain Solution in Fight Against Fungal Disease
• China's Government Censorship Agency Is Hiring a Crypto Expert || ETFs and Financial Tools in the Cryptocurrency Market: After a brief hiatus, the Let’s Talk Bitcoin show is back with an informativeepisodeon the intersection of “Wall Street” financial tools and the Bitcoin space. For those who are unfamiliar with how mainstream financial tools are being applied to cryptocurrencies, this episode serves as an ideal primer to become well-informed on the topic.
The episode features an hour-long interview withCaitlin Long. A 22-year Wall Street veteran who has been active in the Bitcoin space since 2012, Long is the former chairman and president of enterprise smart contract platform Symbiont and founder of the Wyoming Blockchain Coalition.
While discussing the topic of exchange-traded funds (ETFs), the hosts examine the opportunities a person has to “invest” in bitcoin without actually using it, such as hosting nodes or even simply having a public key. Largely uninterested in participating in the decentralized project of Bitcoin, these Johnny-come-latelys mainly want to make a quick buck.
The episode details two main topics: the exact specifics of these financial tools and some of the potential market risks associated with them. The conversation includes opinions on the possible implications of these financial tools and what they could mean for the success of Bitcoin’s vision.
For more episodes of Let’s Talk Bitcoin and other podcasts on cryptocurrency and related topics, subscribe to theLet’s Talk Bitcoin Network.
This article originally appeared onBitcoin Magazine. || Breaking News: China Manufacturing PMI Falls Short of Expectations for July: The major U.S. stock indexes tumbled at the start of the week with the selling led by a steep drop in the technology sector for a third consecutive session. In the cash market, the benchmark S&P 500 Index settled at 2802.60, down 16.22 or -0.58%. The blue chip Dow Jones Industrial Average finished at 25306.83, down 144.23 or -0.57% and the tech-driven NASDAQ Composite closed at 7630.20, down 107.13, down 1.38%. Facing pressure in the NASDAQ Composite Index were shares of Facebook and Netflix, which lost 2.2 percent and 5.7 percent respectively. FANG stocks Amazon and Google-parent Alphabet fell 2.1 percent and 1.8 percent respectively. The FANG stocks werent the biggest losers on Monday, however. Shares of Twitter dropped another 8 percent. It was followed by a 7.7 percent loss in Take-Two Interactive, a 5.7 percent decline in Electronic Arts and a 5.5 percent pullback in Akamai Technologies. Earnings News Caterpillar said in its second-quarter earnings report that recently imposed tariffs will shave off between $100 million and $200 million from its bottom line in the second half. The company also reported better-than-expected earnings and raised its full-year outlook, however. Economic News Reports were scare on Monday with U.S. Pending Home Sales coming in 0.9% higher versus an estimate of 0.4%. It also reversed last months 0.5% decline. Rattling investors, however, was a report by Reuters that Canada , the European Union , Japan, Mexico and South Korea will meet next week to discuss a response to threats made by President Donald Trump about slapping tariffs on U.S. auto imports. Tuesdays Early Reports In breaking news, China reported on Tuesday that factory activity was slightly lower than expected in July, with the official manufacturing Purchasing Managers Index (PMI) coming in at 51.2 The Chinese manufacturing PMI had been forecast to fall to 51.3 in July from 51.5 in June, according to a poll of economists by Reuters. Chinas official services PMI also fell in July. The report showed a reading of 54.0 from 55.0 in June. In Japan , the unemployment rate rose to 2.4%, versus a 2.3% estimate and 2.2% previous read. Preliminary Industrial Production fell by 2.1%, worse than the -0.3% forecast and -0.2% previous read. In New Zealand , Building Consents fell 7.6% versus a 6.9% previous report. ANZ Business Confidence was -44.9. Last month the report was -39.0. Australian Building Approvals jumped 6.4% versus a 1.1% estimate. However, the previous month was revised lower by 2.5%. Private Sector Credit hit the estimate of 0.3%, slightly better than last months 0.2%. Story continues This article was originally posted on FX Empire More From FXEMPIRE: USD/JPY Price Forecast US dollar quiet against yen on Monday Gold Price Futures (GC) Technical Analysis Traders Respecting Pivot at $1232.90 Bitcoin Cash, Litecoin and Ripple Daily Analysis 31/07/18 E-mini S&P 500 Index (ES) Futures Technical Analysis Pivot at 2821.00 Controlling Near-Term Direction Natural Gas Price Forecast natural gas markets very noisy on Monday Bitcoin Back in the Red, with Volatility Testing the Bulls View comments || First Bitcoin Capital Corp Publishes Audited Financial Statements; Upgrades Company Website to New Address; Updates Shareholders: TEL AVIV, ISRAEL / ACCESSWIRE / August 23, 2018 /First Bitcoin Capital Corp (OTC PINK: BITCF) published its audited financial statements on its new website. See:http://firstbitcoin.io/investors/2016-2017-audited/
Update on Audits
The Company's Board of Directors accepted our PCAOB's audit and subsequently published our audited financial statements for the years ending 2016 and 2017 on our website, and therefore we have commenced the process of filing those financial statements in SEDAR to qualify for listing on a Canadian Stock Exchange. We look forward to seeing our shares trading in 3 markets in North America and Europe before the end of this year as a result.
New Website
We moved our website from bitcoincapitalcorp.com towww.firstbitcoin.ioand shareholders are encouraged to visit often where they can use our new communication tools and find important company updates. We anticipate rolling out some exciting new projects next week.
About First Bitcoin Capital Corp
First Bitcoin Capital Corp (OTC PINK: BITCF) (BITCF) (BITCF) began developing digital currencies, proprietary Blockchain technologies, and the digital currency exchange - www.CoinQX.com (in Beta) in early 2014. We saw this step as a tremendous opportunity to create further shareholder value by leveraging management's experience in developing and managing complex Blockchain technologies and in developing new types of digital assets. Being the first publicly-traded cryptocurrency and BlockChain-centered Company, we provide our shareholders with diversified exposure to digital cryptocurrencies and BlockChain technologies.
Forward-LookingStatements
Certain statements contained in this press release may constitute "forward-looking statements." Forward-looking statements provide current expectations of future events based on certain assumptions and include any statement that does not directly relate to any historical or current fact. Actual results may differ materially from those indicated by such forward-looking statements as a result of various important factors as may be disclosed in company's filings. In addition to these factors, actual future performance, outcomes, and results may differ materially because of more general factors including (without limitation) general industry and market conditions and growth rates, economic conditions, and governmental and public policy changes. The forward-looking statements included in this press release represent the Company's views as of the date of this press release and these views could change. However, while the Company may elect to update these forward-looking statements at some point in the future, the Company specifically disclaims any obligation to do so. These forward-looking statements should not be relied upon as representing the Company's views as of any date subsequent to the date of the press release. Such forward-looking statements are risks that are detailed in the Company's filings, which are on file atwww.OTCMarkets.com.
Contact us via:info@firstbitcoin.ioor visithttp://www.firstbitcoin.io
SOURCE:First Bitcoin Capital Corp. || Elon Musks Twitter Account Gets Hacked, Ernst & Young Dive into Blockchain and Cryptos: Elon Musk Hacked and Free Cryptocurrency Offered Elon Musk Twitter account was hacked. Musk, the controversial head of Tesla , is a frequent target of hackers due to his tendency to stand in the limelight regarding his many companies and projects like Tesla, the electric car manufacturer, and SpaceX which builds rockets for NASA. The hackers who took over Musks Twitter account (perhaps his fake Twitter account) offered free Bitcoin and Ethereum as part of a plan to take Tesla private. Being a hack the offer was obviously a scam, but the hackers took advantage of Musks recent bantering about potentially taking Tesla private may have been able to fool some of the 22.4 million followers Elon Musk has on Twitter. Since then, Musk abandoned his plan to take Tesla private and announced that the company remains public. The fallout from the hack has not been able to be tracked yet via individuals who may have fallen prey to the criminal hack. However, Twitter quickly responded to the hack on Musk by issuing a statement essentially warning its users once again that any offers of free cryptocurrencies should be viewed with extreme skepticism. The hacker (or hackers) certainly played into the recent news when Musk threatened to take Tesla private. A few weeks ago during one of his many loud pronouncements to the media and shareholders who question his handling of Tesla and its cash liquidity problems, which have surfaced and raised concerns, Musk said he was seriously considering taking Tesla private and could raise the funds to make this happen. Musk raised the ire of many, including shareholders with this statement and a legion of people who have become part of an anti-Musk vanguard warned lawsuits would greet him. The SEC is also taking a look into Musks pronouncements. However, Musk has made it known this past week that he is not going to attempt to take Tesla private. And the company will remain public. Skeptics surrounding Musk, of which there are many, said it would likely be impossible for Tesla to go private. A huge amount of money would have been needed to take Tesla private, approximately 80 plus billion U.S Dollars. And it has been suggested, serious questions exist about Teslas current cash liquidity situation which is under heavy scrutiny, and those who would have thought about funding the company going private would have likely balked upon seeing the auditing. Suggested Articles Cryptocurrencies and Their Consistent Robbery! Are They Really Indomitable? What are Stable Coins? Ripple vs. Stellar: Will There Be Only One Winner? Story continues Ernst & Young Interest in Cryptos Growing Ernst & Young have moved deeper into blockchain and digital assets with the announcement they are buying cryptocurrency software. Ernst & Young is one of the Big 4 global accounting companies. The purchase of this software will allow Ernst & Young to expand its cryptocurrency services. The software purchased is from a Silicon Valley company called Elevated Consciousness. Ernst & Youngs is keen on offering its hedge funds and institutional investors who are clients a host of full cryptocurrency auditing procedures. Hedge funds and institutional investors are focusing an increasing amount of attention on the cryptocurrency and blockchain sector with an eye towards finding profitable avenues of investment for their clients. They are making direct investments into certain digital assets, finding ways to invest in growing infrastructure projects surrounding blockchain, engaging in trade for clients, and looking at the creation of Indexes and ETFs. Reality Shares of the U.S, an asset management company, has recently announced that it is launching an ETF based in China. And Reality Shares has also said it will start a cryptocurrency hedge fund using up to 100 million USD as a starting point. Also, Northern Trust which is a custodian bank is assisting hedge funds to enter the world of cryptocurrency. Northern Trust is a U.S based financial institution with its headquarters in Chicago. The bank via administrative technology based on an integration of data storage capabilities with the accounting firm PriceWaterhouseCoopers is looking to offer its clients full digital asset services. PwC, which is among the top 4 accounting firms along with Ernst & Young, and is considered among the best top accounting firms consistently. The news of these two top international accounting and auditing firms getting active within the blockchain and cryptocurrency sectors is another sign of genuine interest is strong as global corporations examine blockchain innovation and its potential benefits. In the midst of the downturn in value in 2018 which has taken place since the beginning of January, after over-exuberance sending cryptocurrencies sky high in values subsided, hedge funds and institutions are still clearly attracted to the multitude of potential revenue streams blockchain and cryptocurrencies are capable of producing. Yaron Mazor is a senior analyst at DX.Exchange and Private Equity Manager This article was originally posted on FX Empire More From FXEMPIRE: The Week Ahead Geo-Political Risk and the Economic Calendar in Focus Bitcoin Sees Red Early as the Market Hits Reverse Oil Price Fundamental Weekly Forecast Wildcards This Week Will Be North Sea Strike, U.S. Dollar S&P 500 Weekly Price Forecast S&P 500 continues to march higher Natural Gas Price Fundamental Weekly Forecast Production Expected to Offset Demand This Week NZD/USD Forex Technical Analysis Breakout Over .6723 Targets .6803 View comments || Cryptocurrencies Advance; Starbucks Denies Reports of Bitcoin Payment: Investing.com - Cryptocurrency prices advanced on Monday, with Bitcoin and Ethereum gaining more than 1%. Starbucks (NASDAQ:SBUX) denied earlier reports that it would be accepting Bitcoin as payment.
Bitcoin was up 1.4% to $7,082.9 at 1:00AM ET (05:00 GMT) on the Bitifinex exchange.
Ethereum climbed 1.1% to $411.6 on the Bitifinex exchange.
Ripple was trading at $0.43227, gained 0.07% in the last 24 hours on the Poloniex exchange, while Litecoin also edged up 3.8% to $76.12.
A Starbucks spokesperson clarified that it would not be accepting Bitcoin as payment, and said reports from mainstream media were “misleading.”
New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) operator the Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) announced on Friday plans to create a new “global platform and ecosystem for digital assets” together with several big-name U.S.-based companies including Starbucks, BCG and Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT).
ICE said it is planning to introduce a one-day futures contract in November that would be different from what CME Group (NASDAQ:CME) and CBOE Global Markets currently offer. The owners of the contracts would get Bitcoin, instead of cash, upon expiration, according to ICE.
However, analysts casted doubts over the timing of the release of such products.
“It’s prudent for them as an exchange to list the new and up-and-coming thing, and knowing that this crypto thing is not going to go away, it makes sense for them to do it,” said Maria Adamjee, president of Megalodon Capital. “But is the market actually ready to do this?”
Following the announcement, a number of mainstream media outlets suggested Starbucks might soon be accepting Bitcoin as one of the payment methods, which was quickly denied by Starbucks.
“Customers will not be able to pay for Frappuccinos with bitcoin,” the company said in a statement. Adding that instead, the company is part of a new venture creating a platform to “convert digital assets like Bitcoin into U.S. dollars, which can be used at Starbucks.”
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Canaan Creative all set to launch world's first TV mining set || Chevron's Earnings Show Why Shale Is So Important to Its Future: While the rest of the oil and gas industry ramps up spending, Chevron (NYSE: CVX) is doing the opposite. Instead of looking to grow production by gaudy numbers over the next few years thanks to higher oil prices and lower services costs, the company is maintaining strict capital discipline to boost free cash flow and return value to shareholders. We saw the benefits of this plan this past quarter, as management announced an ambitious share repurchase program. But we also saw the consequences, as production growth was hampered by asset sales. Let's dig into the company's most recent earnings results to see how Chevron's strategic plan is shaping up, and what it could mean for investors over the next few years. Offshore oil rigs at port. Image source: Getty Images. By the numbers Metric Q2 2018 Q1 2018 Q2 2017 Revenue $42.2 billion $37.8 billion $34.5 billion Net income $3.41 billion $3.64 billion $1.45 billion Diluted EPS $1.78 $1.90 $0.77 Operating cash flow $6.86 billion $5.04 billion $4.97 billion DATA SOURCE: CHEVRON EARNINGS RELEASE. Despite the fact that oil prices were much higher this past quarter, the company's upstream results didn't increase as much as investors might have hoped. Some of that has to do with some asset impairments. And a few asset sales offset production growth from its two liquefied natural gas (LNG) export facilities and its continued growth in the Permian Basin. CVX earnings by busines segment for Q2 2017, Q1 2018, and Q2 2018. Shows uptick for both U.S. and international upstream segments. Data source: Chevron earnings release. Chart by author. The highlights Oil and gas production averaged 2.83 million barrels of oil equivalent per day for the entire quarter, which was up a modest 1.8% compared to the prior quarter . Even though Chevron has brought on a lot of new products lately between the ramp-up of the Gorgon and Wheatstone LNG export facilities and Permian Basin shale development, it has offset many of those gains with asset sales. Management continues to push an asset optimization program that will lead to $5 billion to $10 billion in asset sales between now and 2020. It offloaded a couple of positions in the quarter for $700 million. Its shale oil production in the Permian Basin continues to blow past expectations, as production for the quarter was 270,000 barrels per day. Management already increased its Permian guidance in the prior quarter, but this current pace is still well ahead of schedule. Management also went out of its way during its conference call to reassure investors that it had plenty of infrastructure in place to handle the uptick in volumes. Because Chevron is still keeping a strict cap on spending, it is generating enough free cash flow that the board of directors initiated a share repurchase program that will start in the third quarter. Management thinks that, at current oil prices, it can target about $3 billion in share repurchases a year. Story continues What management had to say Aside from a couple of updates on its assets in the Permian Basin and its one other major capital spending project (the Tengiz expansion in Kazakhstan), CEO Michael Wirth highlighted some of the company's asset disposal in the quarter and intentions to sell a couple more to meet its disposal goal by 2020. "In the second quarter, the company completed the sales of its upstream interests in the Elk Hills Field in California and the Democratic Republic of the Congo," Wirth said. "Additionally, in July we announced our intent to market our U.K. Central North Sea assets." In addition to these assets, management has said previously that it is currently marketing its downstream refinery and petrochemical facilities in South Africa. CVX Chart CVX data by YCharts. A lot of eggs in one basket Of all the big oil companies, Chevron is the one whose earnings are going to benefit the most from higher oil prices, because its business is so much more concentrated on the upstream production side of the industry. So the year-over-year gains shouldn't come as a huge surprise. Going forward, Chevron's management is putting a lot of faith in its Permian Basin assets to drive growth over the next couple of years. Between now and 2022, when the Tengiz expansion is supposed to be completed, it has one major capital project expected to come on stream. That means that the company is going to have to offset the natural decline of its existing assets (as well as any future asset sales) with shale for the next four years. Granted, management's current plan is to grow Permian Basin production by 300,000 barrels per day between now and then, and actual production has consistently outpaced management projections. However, the company's current capital plans and the recent initiation of a significant share repurchase program suggest that it has no intention of increasing spending on other potential projects. That is going to put a lot of pressure on a single asset to drive Chevron's growth over the next several years, and any disruptions to the Permian Basin could be a big issue. More From The Motley Fool 3 Growth Stocks at Deep-Value Prices 5 Expected Social Security Changes in 2018 6 Years Later, 6 Charts That Show How Far Apple, Inc. Has Come Since Steve Jobs' Passing 10 Best Stocks to Buy Today The $16,122 Social Security Bonus You Cannot Afford to Miss Bitcoin's Biggest Competitor Isn't Ethereum -- It's This Tyler Crowe has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy .
[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
@btc_0 || @btc_update || @btc_fan || @Bitcoin_Stats || @lifeoncoin || @Bitcoin_Post || #BTC pic.twitter.com/F1MlIrh86N || @eztechwin || @India_Bitcoin || Airdrop XTD get 250,000 and 125,000 for referral
#airdrop #bounty #BTC #xrp #freetoken #Crypto #ETH #NEO6 #Blockchain #ripple #trx #tron #trx #binance #freetoken #airdrops #SCTokenhttps://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSc_WtUfzdzpYU0hD9Nua2REsR_43Oz8FGwsidZsPhlDoOtmTw/viewform?usp=pp_url …
|
Trend: down || Prices: 7361.66, 6792.83, 6529.17, 6467.07, 6225.98, 6300.86, 6329.70, 6321.20, 6351.80, 6517.31
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Analyze the provided historical prices, technical indicators, news, and social media sentiment from the last 60 days. Based on this context, predict the overall trend (up, down, or no change) and the specific daily closing prices for Bitcoin for the next 10 days.
|
[Technical Analysis for 2020-01-02]
BTC Price: 6985.47, BTC RSI: 39.27
Gold Price: 1524.50, Gold RSI: 73.76
Oil Price: 61.18, Oil RSI: 61.28
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
Bitcoin, Litecoin & Ripple - American Wrap: 11/21/19: BTC/USD Technical Analysis: The Main Support Is Still Holding
• Now the BTC/USD chart is still looking weak with lower highs and lower lows.
• But the trend will be confirmed on the downside when 7,296.44 breaks lower.
• There is also a channel forming which is represented by the blue lines.
• What is interesting about the recent price drop is that the two prior candles were not overly bearish.
• Momentum looked like it was slowing on the downside but all of a sudden in the EU session the support levels broke.
LTC/USD Technical Analysis: 50.00 Has Broken To The Downside
• LTC/USD is still looking bearish after the psychological 50.00 level broke.
• It is one of the worst-performing crypto's today after the heavy fall earlier in the session
• Now 47.22 is in focus as it is the previous wave low, but the selling momentum has slowed down.
• There is a channel formation marked in blue to keep an eye on too.
Ripple's XRP Technical Analysis: XRP/USD Flirting With Game-Changing Demand Zone
• Ripple's XRP price is trading in the red by some % in the session on Thursday.
• XRP/USD bears continue to flirt with the big support area seen at $0.2500.
• Critical weekly support should be noted at $0.2350, failure to hold could be punishing.
Image Sourced from Pixabay
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See more from Benzinga
• Bitcoin, Ethereum & Ripple - American Wrap: 11/14/19
• Bitcoin, Ethereum & Ripple - American Wrap: 11/13/19
• Bitcoin, Ethereum & Ripple - American Wrap: 11/12/19
© 2019 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. || Asian Equities Unable to Keep Up With US Stocks’ Climb: Sentiment remains weighed down by concerns over the prospects of a US-China trade deal, as investors’ patience is wearing thin over the fate of the “phase one” agreement whilst Asian currencies are mixed against theUS Dollar. Gold has climbed above the psychological $1470 mark, while 10-year US Treasury yields declined towards the 1.80 level.
With less than two weeks remaining in November, the clock is ticking on prior estimates that a deal would be signed by this month. While investors are aware of the intricate challenges involved in trying to resolve trade differences between the world’s two largest economies, many believed that a deal was close. The longer investors are made to wait, the wider the door becomes for doubt and risk aversion to creep back into the markets, which could in turn restore appetite for safe haven assets.
The Pound is mounting yet another assault on the 1.30 mark versus the US Dollar, having reached its strongest level against the Euro since May. Conservatives have strengthened their lead in the polls ahead of the December 12 elections, which makes for a seemingly clearer path for Brexit while paving the way for more Sterling upside.
It remains to be seen how much either Boris Johnson or Jeremy Corbyn can sway voters’ minds during today’s TV debate, or how much the rhetoric could sway the Pound over the near-term. Ultimately, investors will relate the outcome of the December 12 polls to the UK’s ambitions of leaving the European Union. A path to a surer and speedier Brexit could translate intoGBPUSDemulating its year-to-date high around 1.34.
Brentfutures have been unable to break meaningfully above $63/bbl, hemmed in by concerns over the US-China trade deal. Compounding Oil’s outlook are forecasts that US stockpiles could climb higher after reaching a 4-month high.
Oil’s supply-demand equation requires an erosion of demand-side uncertainties or it risks falling further into an oversupplied environment, which would drag Oil prices lower. Considering the unrelenting US shale output, as well as the perceived stance by OPEC+ members to maintain its supply cuts at current levels during its December meeting, Oil bulls can only pin their hopes on a successful conclusion to the “phase one” trade deal.
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• Bitcoin: A Drop Below $8,000 Opens the Doors Toward $5,000 || What causes a Bitcoin bubble?: Bitcoin bubbles generally tend to grow after a fresh wave of new users join the market. The first registered Bitcoin bubble popped in 2011. This was then followed by a second bubble in late 2013. After that bubble burst, the market had to wait over four years before the biggest Bitcoin bubble of them all exploded spectacularly. In December 2017, Bitcoin reached $20,000 – a record price in the history of any cryptocurrency. But once the bubble burst, the digital asset came crashing down to lows of $3,150. Given that Bitcoin’s price is currently around 50% of its all-time high, will we ever see another massive run? Let’s take a look at what causes a Bitcoin bubble and whether it’s possible to predict one. Bitcoin price history Looking at the chart above, you can see how Bitcoin’s price bottomed at around $3,150. Price action, in terms of US dollars, has been showing bullish signals recently as the EMAs are once more starting to diverge and point upwards. The same signal appeared between April and September 2019. During this period, BTC climbed around 180% from about $5,000 to nearly $14,000. Not only that, but looking at the volume profile, you can see that volume is building up and creating a safety net below $9,000. This means, in terms of probabilities, there’s a higher chance of price breaking above $9,000 than below. Moreover, not only has volume grown 550% since January 2019, it has also reached over $44 billion twice during the same period. Bitcoin is gaining new whales Since early 2019, Bitcoin seems to have gained new strength as new investors have started pouring into the market. Number of #Bitcoin addresses holding more than 1000 $BTC 👀 pic.twitter.com/SGdBXrob5e — glassnode (@glassnode) October 11, 2019 Although one can never be sure if different addresses belong to different people, I’m going to assume there aren’t many people or businesses that own over 1,000 Bitcoin in one single address. Story continues In that case, the above chart should shock you. It shows that the number of addresses with over 1,000 Bitcoin, which at the current price represents a whopping $9,300,000, has grown substantially. From late 2019 to today, about 600 addresses with over 1,000 BTC were created – or funded to be precise. Should we assume institutional investors and VCs are betting heavy on the king of cryptocurrencies? I suspect so. Is a Bitcoin bubble on the horizon? If the first ingredient of a Bitcoin bubble is new players, the second is the sudden reduction in supply. This event is usually referred to as the “Bitcoin halving”, and it represents the date at which Bitcoin’s block rewards are halved. Around May 2020, Bitcoin miners will start to receive 6.25 BTC per block mined rather than the current 12.5 BTC. If today about 1,800 BTC are mined per day, after the supply cut, we should see around 900 BTC being mined on average each day. What will happen to Bitcoin’s price in USD terms? Even though I cannot foresee the future, I imagine there will be extra pressure for price to rise. After all, miners’ profits will be cut in half. According to the graph above, courtesy of @100trillionUSD , a few months after each halving event, BTC’s price action has gone through the roof. At the same time, past history doesn’t dictate future price, so the same “expected” bull run might not take place. In conclusion, Bitcoin bubbles are formed when there’s new people coming into the market, which is driven by miners selling at higher prices to maintain profits. The post What causes a Bitcoin bubble? appeared first on Coin Rivet . || Bitcoin mining giant Bitfury is now in the enterprise blockchain business: Bitcoin mining company Bitfury just released blockchain software Exonum Enterprise to help corporations more efficiently build their own private blockchain projects.
Founded in 2011, the Amsterdam-headquartered company established its brand name by selling bitcoin miners, which allow enterprise clients to run on either cloud-computing servers or traditional on-premise servers. In 2017, the company launched an open-source piece of software called Exonum, which lets anyone design and run permissioned blockchains similar to Bitcoin at zero cost. Bitfury’s hardware and software solutions attracted wide interest from investors. In November 2018, Itsecureda private placement investment of $80 million led by Paris-based venture capital firm Korelya Capital, bringing its total raised to $170 million.
Bitfury’s new product is the enterprise version of Exonum and targets big corporations and governmental agencies. According to Bitfury’spress release, Exonum Enterprise can process up to 5,000 transactions per second. Clients can use the framework to launch blockchain projects in as little as five minutes and use its full-service dashboard to track blockchain deployments.
“Blockchain is unparalleled in its ability to streamline operations, but its premier benefit to our world is its transparency and security,” said Bitfury CEO Valery Vavilov. “The Exonum Enterprise platform will further the adoption of blockchain, helping make our institutions more trusted and in turn improving the lives of people all around the world.” || A Noxious Combination Of Weak Data And Trade Talk Uncertainty Have Sullied The Landscape: The latest activity, employment, and growth data out of China, Australia, and Japan are suggesting the tariff knock-on effect is worse than expected as economic conditions refuse to adjust to trend. And despite the deluge of central bank easing, business investment is not responding as expected. So, when Thursdays miscellany of US data failed to inspire, traders further reduced short bond markets bets sending the critical US 10-year Treasury yield tumbling to 1.80 %, taking its declines to over 10 basis points this week as traders pared-back reflationary bets. Indeed, its stairs up for US yields and the express elevator down on the noxious combination of tariff rollback uncertainly and weaker macro data. More back and forth over the status of Phase One, with the Financial Times reporting that the US and China are struggling to wrap up the talks US and China struggle to finalize phase one trade deal There are some recriminations, with the US claiming that China is delaying the deal, which would seem to play into the view that President Trump is under pressure, having effectively announced a deal a couple of weeks ago. These are complex, long-term issues, so it should be no surprise that Phase One is hard to close. The big question should be about what comes next. How long will Phase Two take? Trade talk uncertainty is headline risk, whereas weak data is a macro risk. The worse than expected economic numbers are providing a stark reminder just how dire global economic conditions are and how necessary a rollback in a significant chunk of US tariffs are needed to adjust the listing ship. Not to mention that the Chinese economy needs a policy jolt. Growth has fizzled over recent quarters, and, broadly, we are back down to 2015 cyclical lows, if not below. Heres the thing, as bad as the latest run of backward-looking data is, still were likely only a positive trade talk development headlines away from sending the market skywards again. And perhaps the worse than expected evidence has added just enough premium to that potentially massive tariff rollback payout significantly enough to offset the lower probability of that dividend-paying out after President Trumps NY speech. One would have to think that worsening economic data would motivate both the US and China to get back to the negotiation table and not only agree to a tariff rollback but that critical enforcement mechanism. Story continues One look at the frothy US equity market suggests investors are hanging on and even adding to that tariff rollback optimism trade. Honestly, for investors well-being, lets hope trade talks all go according to the script. Otherwise, if US-China trade negotiations turn south and there is no détente, bond term premium retraces the .45 % improvement of the past couple of months while equity market will likely collapse. The flipside is also notable. If a trade negotiation is reached, there is likely upside to the .4-.6 % range, which could take us beyond 2.10% 10-year UST yield, but it will require a definite phase 2 roadmap to get us there. At current levels, the risks both to the upside and downside seem to reasonably well priced at current levels. Hong Kong Hong Kong descent into mobocracy has taken a significant turn for the worse as populism paralysis ensnared the city this week. And well beyond the financial market upheaval and capital flights that play a distant second and third fiddle to human welfare concerns. The US senate is quickly setting up the passage of the Hong Kong Democracy bill by placing the citys special trading status with the U.S. under annual review. In the past, the US and China have compartmentalized political issues away from tariff talks, like what has been done with Huawei, although the Hong Kong issues are exponentially more significant than Huawei. But its unclear e if this will be the case on the Hong Kong mega issue. Given that China has said they will retaliate to any US interference, I wonder just how forcefull that retaliation will be when they are clearly losing this battle in the global court of public opinion. Im not sure China wants to improve President Trumps approval rating anytime soon. Oil markets Oil prices gave up some hard-earned gains after US Crude stocks rose 2.2Mb, bearish vs. consensus for a 1.6Mb Whatever momentum was gained this week from OPEC jawboning and when putting it within in the context of a seemingly never-ending run of US inventory builds. Bullish for oil OPEC ambitions are still running into decent supply glut offers, keeping the bulk of price action confined to the WTI mid-level zone between USD 55.75 57.75 per barrel as we patiently await the next trade talk headline. The EIA publishes its November Drilling productivity report next week (18 November). The report will provide the market with excellent growth assumptions in the short term. Drilling and completion activity, as well as rig productivity forecasts, will be of interest as the industry resorts to DUC drawdowns to support short-term growth as rig counts fall. Gold markets Gold has made of blow-off bottom in recent days, first triggered by trade talk uncertainty, then supported by a run of virulent macro global data and framed by influential Fed Williams saying US monetary policy is trying to keep the economy in a good place. Keep is the key here as it suggests the Fed is not straying too far from the rate cut lever. If the US economy needs additional stimulus, then there is policy space. While gold remains an excellent defensive strategy against trade tensions, resurfacing, and intensifying. But in the absence of a definitive shift lower in Fed policy, rallies above $1480, which is needed to confirm a buying trend has re-emerged, might be hard-pressed in the absence of a dovish Fed. On a positive note, some considerable long positioning has been squared up in the past two weeks, emboldening buyers as the threat of a long position squeeze has lessened. Still, in the event of a positive trade headline, that we may need to assume coming, critical support is expected to come in at $1445 from a technical perspective. Currency markets Japanese Yen With US bond yields falling and the negative shift in trade talk headline risk, key 108.50 gave way triggering retail stop-loss orders. But with positioning looking much cleaner at current levels, a USD bid has started to re-emerge as traders may begin viewing the US exceptionalism index (QQQ vs. EEM), which might start to look attractive to the USDJPY bulls . Malaysian Ringgit The ringgit is trading weaker weighted down by equity market outflows, weak economic data out of China, and uncertainly over trade talks. Traders will now look to Malaysia GDP print for monetary policy clues, but with the market singular focused on the trade talks, the GDP print may need to blow out the expectation to get a significant rise from the ringgit bulls. This article was written by Stephen Innes, Asia Pacific Market Strategist at AxiTrader This article was originally posted on FX Empire More From FXEMPIRE: U.S Retail Sales and Trade Put the Greenback in Focus GBP/USD Daily Forecast Sterling Breaks Upward, Trendline Resistance in Sight E-mini NASDAQ-100 Index (NQ) Futures Technical Analysis Must Hold 8265.50 to Sustain Upside Momentum U.S. Dollar Index Futures (DX) Technical Analysis Trading on Weak Side of Retracement Zone; Lower for Week Currency Market Do Not Share Trade Optimism Bitcoin Cash ABC, Litecoin and Ripple Daily Analysis 15/11/19 || Spain’s INCIBE says Bitcoin is safer than credit cards: The Spanish national cybersecurity institute INCIBE has claimed that Bitcoin is a safer payment method than credit cards, debit cards, and even bank transfers. Unlike paying with bank transfers or credit and debit cards where users expose their data, the decentralisation that Bitcoin offers has huge implications on the security of payments, according to INCIBE. INCIBE places Bitcoin among the safest payment methods The infographic below, created by INCIBE, highlights the safety benefits of paying with Bitcoin. The data is based on Bitcoin’s decentralisation, which allows users to keep control of and take responsibility for their private keys without the intervention of third parties. INCIBE bitcoin safer than credit crads The infographic published on the INCIBE website shows which payment systems it considers most secure. These include cash on delivery and the use of payment platforms. Cash on delivery offers the greatest guarantee of security as it allows consumers to receive and verify the items purchased before processing the payment. Payment platforms come in second place as they are a reliable service of intermediaries that protect user data – and can intervene in the case of irregularities or fraud. Using prepaid cards or electronic wallets are the third most secure payment method, along with Bitcoin. This is because they allow for transactions that are not associated with the user’s bank account and don’t expose their data. They also accept payments with Bitcoin. Bank transfers are among the least secure The INCIBE graphic shows that debit cards, credit cards, and bank transfers are less secure than transactions with Bitcoin. This is because users expose their data when transacting with cards. In a traditional payment network, the payment is open because it contains the user’s private identifier (the credit card number). After the initial charge, any individual with access to identification can “withdraw” funds and charge the owner over and over again. Story continues A centralised model, such as a traditional bank or a payment network, does not have a strong mechanism to keep bad actors out who seek to take advantage through fraudulent actions. In comparison, a decentralised system such as Bitcoin gives responsibility and control of the data and keys used to those involved in the transaction, while the credit card is operated centrally. Bank transfers, particularly instant transfers (better known in Spain through the service offered by Bizum), come in last place, according to the institute. They reduce security as they do not allow for cancellation or refunds once processed. The post Spain’s INCIBE says Bitcoin is safer than credit cards appeared first on Coin Rivet . || Bitcoin Eyes $7,800 After Biggest Daily Price Gain in a Month: • Bitcoin jumped above $7,400 on Wednesday, confirming a bullish breakout on the short duration technical charts.
• Resistance at $7,800 could come into play in the next 48 hours. A violation there would expose $8,200.
• The nascent recovery will fall apart if Wednesday’s low of $6.848 is breached. At press time, that looks unlikely.
Bitcoin eked out the biggest single-day gain in four weeks on Wednesday, confirming a short-term price breakout and opening doors for a test of resistance at $7,800.
The number one cryptocurrency printed a UTC close at $7,528 on Bitstamp, representing a 5.15 percent gain on the daily opening price of $7,168. That’s the biggest single-day price rise since Oct. 26. On that day, BTC rose by 6.81 percent and printed highs above $10,300.
Wednesday’s gain looks more impressive if we take into account the rejection of lower prices seen during the European trading hours. Prices had dropped to $6,850, but were quickly reversed and the cryptocurrency ended the day on an optimistic note, validating the seller exhaustionsignaled bykey technical indicators.
Related:What the Crypto Markets Are Saying About the Future of Bitcoin
More importantly, BTC activated twin bullish cues on the intraday charts with a convincing move above $7,400 and could continue to draw bids in the short-term.
At press time, BTC is changing hands at $7,480, having hit a high of $7,670 during the U.S. trading hours on Wednesday.
Both an upside break of the descending trendline and inverse head-and-shoulders breakout indicate the path of least resistance is to the higher side.
Related:Lebanese Bitcoiners Show How to Talk About Crypto At Thanksgiving
The latter represents a transition from the lower-highs, lower-lows set up to one of higher lows and higher highs. It’s considered a potent bullish reversal pattern if it appears following a significant price drop, which is the case here.
The bullish reversal pattern has created room for a rally to $8,200 (target as per the measured move method).
On the way higher, the pair may face resistance at $7,800 (horizontal line) and the descending 100-candle average, currently at $7,936.
The 50-hour average is beginning to trend north – a sign of strengthening upside momentum – and looks set to cross above the 200-hour average in coming days. The impending bull cross may invite stronger buying pressure, possibly yielding a rally to $7,800.
That said, a short-term bullish reversal would only be confirmed if the current three-day candle closes (Friday, UTC) above $7,380.
On the downside, Wednesday’s low of $6,848 is key support, which if breached with strong volumes, would kill the nascent recovery and shift risk in favor of a re-test of $6,500.
Disclosure: The author holds no cryptocurrency assets at the time of writing.
• Bitcoin Is Looking at a Short-Term Bull Reversal if Prices Pass $7,400
• Charities Put a Bitcoin Twist on Giving Tuesday || Latest Ripple price and analysis (XRP to USD): The price of Ripple (XRP) has fallen over 40% since the beginning of November and is currently hovering around $0.21. XRP gained 3% at the start of December, but those gains have now evaporated with this week’s bearish trend. Over the past 24 hours, XRP is down around 1%. Since late June, Ripple has been bouncing between lower highs and lower lows – a clear sign the cryptocurrency could be in trouble. Not only that, price is now below all its EMAs and XRP is currently trading around its yearly low. Will the altcoin recover soon? Or will it fall further? Let’s take a look at the XRP chart, courtesy of TradingView . As you can see from the chart above, the price of XRP recovered during late October before crashing over 40% as we moved through November. The October gains were lost and the price came crawling back down to below $0.28 as the huge market-wide meltdown hit the coin hard. At its lowest point in the last two weeks, XRP touched $0.20 before recovering almost immediately. A few weeks back I claimed it was probable that XRP would start seeing some positive momentum as its price was recording higher lows. However, even though XRP increased to almost $0.24, the altcoin fell back down to near its support level around $0.22. If we do see XRP start to recover, I need confidence the coin can hold on to its gains. As such, I’m waiting until it breaks the major resistance levels around $0.26 and near $0.30 to make new entries. For the time being, I expect XRP to trade below its EMAs for a while and to attempt to recover towards the 200-day EMA. Right now, volume is sitting at just above $1.2 billion – around half of what it was last month. Safe trades! Latest Ripple price Current live Ripple pricing information and interactive charts are available on our site 24 hours a day. The ticker bar at the bottom of every page on our site has the latest Ripple price. Pricing is also available in a range of different currency equivalents: Story continues US Dollar – XRPtoUSD British Pound Sterling – XRPtoGBP Japanese Yen – XRPtoJPY Euro – XRPtoEUR Australian Dollar – XRPtoAUD Russian Rouble – XRPtoRUB Bitcoin – XRPtoBTC About Ripple Ripple is a real-time gross settlement system (RTGS) developed by the Ripple company. It is also referred to as the Ripple Transaction Protocol (RTXP) or Ripple protocol. It can trace its roots to 2004 when a web developer called Ryan Fugger had the idea to create a monetary system that was decentralised and could effectively allow individuals to create their own money. Ripple is one of the largest cryptocurrencies and is one of the top 10 cryptocurrencies by market capitalisation. More Ripple news and information If you want to find out more information about Ripple or cryptocurrencies in general, then use the search box at the top of this page. Here’s a recent article to get you started: Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse hits back at critics: ‘XRP is not a security’ By Oliver Knight – December 13, 2019 As with any investment, it pays to do some homework before you part with your money. The prices of cryptocurrencies are volatile and go up and down quickly. This page is not recommending a particular currency or whether you should invest or not. The post Latest Ripple price and analysis (XRP to USD) appeared first on Coin Rivet . || Coinbase’s crypto Visa debit card adds support for XRP and 4 more coins: Cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase’s Visa debit card has today added support for XRP and four more coins. The four coins are Brave browser’s basic attention token (BAT), Augur (REP), Stellar (XLM) and 0x (ZRX), Coinbase Card announced Thursday. Coinbase Card, which allows customers in the UK and EU to spend their cryptocurrencies directly from their Coinbase accounts, was launched in April and has already been supporting bitcoin (BTC), ether (ETH), bitcoin cash (BCH) and litecoin (LTC). "Since launching earlier this year, Coinbase Card has helped tens of thousands of users spend their crypto as easily as the money in their bank accounts. With Christmas approaching, the demand for Coinbase Card will be will higher than ever," said JD Millwood, head of marketing at Coinbase UK. Coinbase Card has also expanded its reach to ten new countries in Europe , bringing the total to 29. The newly supported countries are Bulgaria, Croatia, Denmark, Hungary, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, Poland, Romania, and Sweden. || BitGo Warns Users to Withdraw Bitcoin SV Over Hard Fork Threat to Wallets: A major code update for the cryptocurrency bitcoin SV (for Satoshi’s vision) will render some features of BitGo’s wallets useless, the crypto custodian says.
In ablog updateon Wednesday, “Murch,” a software engineer at the firm, said the Genesis hard fork scheduled for Feb. 4, 2020, would usher in a new consensus mechanism making BitGo’s BSV wallets unable to receive payments.
Specifically, the post stated:
Related:German Bank Launches Digital Assets Unit to Offer Custody Products
This means that, following the hard fork, funds in these wallets will still be spendable and BSV can be sent from the wallets. However, sending BSV to a wallet will produce an invalid transaction – even if it’s a BitGo wallet sending “change” back to itself, said Murch.
Customers holding the cryptocurrency – itself a fork of the bitcoin blockchain – are advised to either exchange their BSV into bitcoin, or withdraw their coins to an external wallet before the fork.
“If you continue holding BSV in your BitGo wallet after February 4th, you will only be able to sweep the wallet and most functionality will be disabled,” Murch wrote.
Related:Ethereum’s Istanbul Hard Fork Is Now Live
BitGo stores billions of dollars in cryptocurrency for clients such as institutional investors and exchanges. The firmrecently claimedit’s processing over 20 percent of all bitcoin transactions.
In 2018, BitGowas approvedin the U.S. to act as a qualified custodian for digital assets.
• BitGo Says It’s Now Processing 20% of Bitcoin Transactions
• Crypto Exchange Bitstamp Taps BitGo for Custodial Services
[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
#ماینینگ_بیت_کوین چیست و چگونه انجام می شود : در این ویدیوی آموزشی قصد داریم تنها در عرض دو دقیقه به زبان فارسی درباره ماینینگ بیت کوین توضیحاتی را ارائه کنیم....ادامه این مطلب و رویت ویدیو کلیپ درباره ماینینگ بیت کوین در لینک زیر :
https://t.co/AKCwnUcL7P https://t.co/1IQmfav2iv || Den günstigsten Preis bekommen Sie heute auf @bitqist mit 8213,27€ für 1 BTC. Vergleichen Sie die Preise selbst:
https://t.co/T037q2nZzF || @canbeconnected #BTC
19J5S2gNeg3qPDrEo2dtTgHi3tZFUo8KFp || 🚀 $FTT may go up
⛔ BINANCE
📈 COINMARKETCAP: https://t.co/50NIsJ5Yf3
⛔ BITTREX
📈 COINMARKETCAP: https://t.co/50NIsJ5Yf3
💱 Price: 0.00017343 BTC
📊 1H: 0.08%
📊 24H: 4.85%
📊 7D: 14.65%
💰 24H Vol: $5,629,229
ℹ This is not an investment advice. #DYOR #YTD #Robostopia || Binance - BTC Market
#MANA - Unusual selling activity
1.49 BTC in 22 seconds (13%)
B: 0.00000332 🔴 (0.60%)
A: 0.00000334 🔴 (0.30%)
24H Vol: 12.80 BTC
Last signal: 2 days ago (3/7D) || Time to sell XLM for : 0.000008547 BTC in HitBTC Date: 2019-11-10 06:00:45 || #Bitcoin & all major #Altcoins have recovered from the recent losses. However, the majority of coins are still in the red zone on a day-to-day basis. The total #cryptocurrency market capitalization dipped to $240 Billion from $245. Read more: https://t.co/hv21LhGYG7 https://t.co/n8vaQVXT8h || bitbank Daily 2019/11/11：SWELL狙ったXRP売りに一時全面安 アルトコインは戻り強くBTCも追随するかhttps://t.co/rMPCD6mW9B || Analysts Expect Further Losses as Bitcoin Forms EMA Bear Cross - newsBTC https://t.co/xln8z5C1jk || Stellar Foundation burns half of all existing XLM.
https://t.co/Y2Dkob8t9u
#xlm #blockchain #burningcoins #bitcoin #eth #xrp #bch
|
Trend: up || Prices: 7344.88, 7410.66, 7411.32, 7769.22, 8163.69, 8079.86, 7879.07, 8166.55, 8037.54, 8192.49
|
Analyze the provided historical prices, technical indicators, news, and social media sentiment from the last 60 days. Based on this context, predict the overall trend (up, down, or no change) and the specific daily closing prices for Bitcoin for the next 10 days.
|
[Technical Analysis]
Not fully available.
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
Dollar drops to 32-month lows vs. rivals after data, Draghi: Investing.com - The dollar dropped to 32-month lows against the other major currencies on Thursday, after the release of downbeat U.S. jobless claims data and as remarks by European Central Bank President Mario Draghi sent the euro broadly higher.
The greenback weakened after the U.S. Labor Department reported on Thursday thatinitial jobless claims rose more than expected to 298,000 last week.
The data came a day after a brief sigh of relief on the U.S. political front.
On Wednesday, President Donald Trump concludeda surprise deal with Democratsin Congress to extend the debt ceiling, providing government funding until December 15 and potentially avoiding an unprecedented default on U.S. government debt.
EUR/USD climbed 0.67% to 1.1998
The euro found broad support after the ECB President Mario Draghi said that recent euro volatility was a source of uncertainty and thatthe ECB will decide on the “calibration” of policy measures in the autumn.
He added that the central bank's outlook for growth and inflation in the euro area remained “broadly unchanged”.
The comments came after the ECBleft interest rates unchanged, in a widely expected move.
The safe-haven yen and Swiss franc remained higher, with USD/JPY down 0.58% at 108.60 and with USD/CHF retreating 0.33% to trade at 0.9533.
Markets were also still jittery after South Korea deployed an anti-missile system in response to North Korea's sixth and largest ever nuclear test last weekend.
Elsewhere, GBP/USD advanced 0.37% to trade at 1.3091, the highest level since August 4.
The Australian and New Zealand dollars were stronger, with AUD/USD up 0.40% at 0.8034 and with NZD/USD gaining 0.31% to 0.7222.
Meanwhile, USD/CAD slid 0.53% to 1.2161, just off a fresh 27-month trough of 1.2138 hit earlier in the session.
Statistics Canada reported on Thursday that building permits dropped3.5%in July, compared to expectations for a 1.5% decline.
The U.S. dollar index, which measures the greenback’s strength against a trade-weighted basket of six major currencies, was down 0.56% at 91.69 by 10:50 a.m. ET (14:50 GMT), the lowest since January 2015.
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Forex - Dollar drops to 32-month lows vs. rivals after data, Draghi
Bitcoin cash soars above $700
Forex - USD/CAD hits fresh 27-month lows after U.S., Canadian data || China hits booming cryptocurrency market with coin fundraising ban: By John Ruwitch and Jemima Kelly SHANGHAI/LONDON (Reuters) - China on Monday banned and deemed illegal the practice of raising funds through launches of token-based digital currencies. The move was targeted at so-called initial coin offerings (ICO) in a market that has exploded since the start of the year. ICOs have become a bonanza for digital currency entrepreneurs, globally and in China, and have provided the fuel for a rapid ascent in the value of cryptocurrencies this year that has driven fears of a bubble that could burst. [L5N1KV4DN] Individuals and organizations that have completed ICO fundraisings should make arrangements to return funds, said a joint statement from the People's Bank of China (PBOC), the securities and banking regulators and other government departments that was posted on the central bank's website. In total, $2.32 billion has been raised through ICOs, with $2.16 billion of that being raised since the start of 2017, according to cryptocurrency analysis website Cryptocompare. Bitcoin rival Ethereum, which token-issuers usually ask to be paid in and which has therefore seen unprecedented growth this year, fell sharply on the news, last trading down almost 20 percent on the day at $283, according to trade publication Coindesk. Bitcoin was also down 8 percent, while the total value of all cryptocurrencies was down around 10 percent, according to industry website Coinmarketcap.com. "The large price falls can be attributed to panic amongst traders and profit-taking," said Cryptocompare founder Charles Hayter. The rapid ascent of ICOs prompted the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to warn in July that some ICOs should be regulated like other securities. Singapore and Canada followed with similar warnings. Zennon Kapron, director of the Shanghai-based financial technology consultancy Kapronasia, said he suspected regulators were putting the brakes on ICOs in order to better understand the phenomenon, but could ease off in the future. Story continues "Regulators globally are struggling to understand what ICOs are, what the risks are, and how to ring-fence and regulate them," he said. "China, in many ways, is no different than the U.S. or Singapore in saying, ok, we need to push back on these for now until we figure out how to deal with them...I think it will be slightly a temporary measure." "THE MUSIC HAS STOPPED" By creating and issuing digital tokens, entrepreneurs can raise large sums quickly -- sometimes hundreds of millions of dollars in minutes -- with little or no regulatory oversight. But unlike traditional fundraising, token holders are generally not given any share in the particular project, nor any security. For the buyer, therefore, the main reason for buying these highly risky tokens is often simply a bet that their value will rise. Once the tokens have been issued they can be traded against other cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin, the first successful digital-only currency. The popularity of coin offerings has surged in China this year. In July, the state news agency Xinhua cited data from a government organization that monitors online financial activity to report that there had been 65 ICOs so far during the year raising a combined 2.62 billion yuan ($394.6 million) from 105,000 individuals in the country. Oliver Bussman, previously chief innovation officer at UBS and now president of the Switzerland-based "Crypto Valley Association" that promotes blockchain-based technology, said Chinese authorities had to be especially vigilant about protecting consumers because of the lack of financial advice in the country, compared with Europe or North America. Reaction to the ban was swift online. "The music has stopped," said one member of a chat group on the social networking platform WeChat that was set up last week for an upcoming ICO for a fundraising platform called SelfSell. "Hurry up and sell your bitcoin," said another. The organizer of the ICO project, who recently went on a six-city roadshow, said the project had been suspended. But Bussman said that once there was some regulatory clarity, and once it had been worked out how to classify different types of ICO, the token-based fundraising would continue. "The initial coin offering is a new business model leveraging blockchain technology and it will remain," he said. "This is not the end of the ICO absolutely not." (Reporting by Jemima Kelly in London, John Ruwitch in Shanghai, Elias Glenn and Beijing Newsroom; Editing by Richard Borsuk and Sam Holmes/Jeremy Gaunt) || How AT&T Inc. (T) Stock Became a Short-Term Buy: Just last week, I published an article onAT&T Inc.(NYSE:T) explaining why AT&T stock is nothing more than a dividend play.
It’s a low-growth story that will have the same headwinds (cord-cutting) and tailwinds (wireless build-out) in five years as it does today. Those headwinds and tailwinds will offset one another, and growth will be muted in a long-term picture.
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Meanwhile, the stock isn’t all that risky at just 7-times trailing EBITDA. Plus, there is the big dividend which adds significant downside protection.
This low-multiple, low-growth, high-dividend profile is perfect for income oriented investors seeking limited volatility but not yearning for out-sized returns. But A&T stock isn’t something you own for the long-term if you’re looking for big returns.
Just because AT&T stock won’t generate serious alpha in the long-term, though, doesn’t mean this stock is dividend dead-weight. In fact, AT&T stock does offer an interesting value proposition for short-term oriented traders.
The stock is highly cyclical against a fundamental growth story that isn’t very dynamic. Consequently, it’s fairly reasonable to say the trading patterns which have emerged over the past five years will persist over the next five years.
That is a short-term trader’s dream. So while AT&T stock may not be a long-term investment opportunity for traders wanting to generate alpha, it may be a good stock to buy on certain dips and sell on certain rallies.
• 7 Stocks to Buy Before the Holidays
Over the past five years, the right time to buy T stock is when the dividend yield is above 5%. That is when the stock has bottomed and downside risk is greatly limited.
For example, the dividend yield was largely above 5% for most of 2014 and 2015 when AT&T stock hugged the $35 level. AT&T stock then ran up in 2016 to $43. The dividend yield fell all the way to 4.4%. That was a peak. The stock pulled back until the dividend yield was about 5% in October 2016, and then rebounded sharply. Consequently, the dividend yield fell back to around 4.4%, once again representing a peak in the stock. AT&T stock again pulled back and has since hovered around the $38 and 5% dividend yield levels.
From this standpoint, adding some AT&T stock here could make sense. It’s around that all important 5% dividend yield level which normally represents a bottom in the stock. That means downside risk is greatly limited.
It also helps that near-term profits could get a boost due to weak iPhone 8 sales. Because iPhone 8 sales have been so weak, big telecom companies haven’t been running as many promotions. For example,BTIG Researchpoints out that the iPhone 8 promotion fromVerizon Communications Inc.(NYSE:V) is already over and “was both shorter lived and half as generous as last year”.
That is a nice near-term catalyst to couple with the 5%-plus dividend yield buying signal. Plus, there is also the potential for tax reform, which could immensely benefit AT&T, whose effective tax rate was 32.7% last year.
Not much is going to change about the growth prospects of this company over the next several years. Cord-cutting is here to stay. So is the shift from wire-line to wireless. Global fiber optic demand will keep increasing. So will demand for faster wireless speeds.
But there are certain growth catalysts on the horizon which could generate some near-term excitement among the investor base.
TheTime Warner Inc(NYSE:TWX) acquisition does offer the company an interesting opportunity to leverage unique entertainment assets like HBO to enhance AT&T’s value prop and grow its customer base. That deal looks like it’s going to go through. Plus, tax cuts are a potential speculative catalyst while less smartphone promotions could provide an incremental benefit.
These growth catalysts coupled with the stock trading around that all important 5% dividend yield levels makes T stock look like a buy here.
As of this writing, Luke Lango was long T.
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The postHow AT&T Inc. (T) Stock Became a Short-Term Buyappeared first onInvestorPlace. || Here’s Another Sign Goldman Sachs Is Taking Bitcoin Seriously: Even as China shutters Bitcoin exchanges and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission signalsheavier scrutiny of initial coin offerings, clients of trading giant are still to get in on the cryptocurrency trade.
According to theWall Street Journalciting people with knowledge of the matter, the banking giant is reportedly considering a new trading operation involving cryptocurrency thanks to increased interest in digital currencies. Potentially, the operation under consideration could become a full-fledged team of traders and sales people.
Such an operation would make Goldman the first Wall Street giant to directly deal with cryptocurrency, according to theJournal.
“In response to client interest in digital currencies, we are exploring how best to serve them in the space,” a Goldman Sachs representative said in a statement.
Interest in Bitcoin has indeed risen in the U.S., with the cryptocurrency trading at about $4,400 Monday, up roughly 341% since the start of 2017. Meanwhile, investorssuch asAndreessen Horowitz, Sequoia Capital, and Union Square Ventureshave all gotten involved in cryptocurrency.
Goldman Sachs has also been ahead of the curve in addressing bitcoin as an investment in comparison to other trading giants. Goldman Sachs is likely the only banking giant with a Bitcoin analystissuing price targets.
CEO Jamie Dimonon the other hand againdubbed Bitcoin a “fraud” recently, though his company is still catering to his clients’ fear of missing out. The banking giant has still been routing customer orders for anexchange-traded note tracking Bitcoin, but notably not the cryptocurrency itself.
See original article on Fortune.com
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• Can Blockchain Prevent the Next Equifax? Not So Fast || STOCKS TUMBLE: Here's what you need to know: falling drop bike lake (Wang He/Getty Images) Stocks tumbled on Tuesday, rattled by the weekend's saber rattling by North Korea and ongoing worries about the upcoming debt ceiling deadline . All three major indices fell by about one percent on Tuesday, with the Nasdaq taking the biggest hit. Several of the chip makers, like AMD and Nvidia , dragged down the index. And now, the scoreboard: Dow: 2 1,716.80 , -270.76, (-1.23%) S&P 500: 2, 447.98 , -28.57, (-1.15%) Nasdaq: 6, 375.57 , -59.76, (-0.93%) Stocks tumble as banks sell-off, North Korea tensions mount. North Korea tested its largest nuclear weapon yet over the weekend, and the stock markets opened weaker on Tuesday. Traders are increasingly worried that the US government may soon run out of ways to pay its bills. The bond market continues to reflect fears that the US government may soon run out of funding. Here's which parts of China's economy would get slammed if Trump put his Twitter threats into action. President Donald Trump is considering cutting off trade with countries who trade with North Korea, including China. Congress is leaning toward 'punting' on its huge deadlines, but it doesn't mean they 'can get through the month drama-free'. Congress is facing a brutal September , but according to many analysts, it looks like lawmakers may kick the can down the road a little longer. 20-somethings are spending less money than you think. According to a recent poll, youngsters are spending $20 less per day than their 2008 counterparts. ADDITIONALLY: Stock pickers are piling into these 9 stocks ROBERT SHILLER: Bitcoin is the 'best example right now' of a bubble Banks are sliding as the yield curve nears its flattest level since 2007 UBS: Technologies like blockchain are IBM's 'best hope for recovery' America is facing a 'retail refugee crisis' as thousands of stores shut down and millions of people become the 'blacksmiths of their era' NOW WATCH: Trump's lack of progress has caused a major dollar reversal More From Business Insider STOCKS DO NOTHING: Here's what you need to know NASDAQ HITS RECORD HIGHS: Here's what you need to know STOCKS CLIMB: Here's what you need to know || Here's what the charts are saying about Snap: (A Snapchat sign on the facade of the NYSE in New York CityThomson Reuters)
Snap has been a disappointment since its initial public offering.The IPO priced at $17 and shares opened for trading at $24. They rose to just above $27 two days later. That was the high point.Since then, shares have plunged to $14, amid a slew of downgrades. Even Morgan Stanley, the lead underwriter for Snap's IPO,admitted it was wrongabout where shares were headed.
In an August 23 note,Morgan Stanley dropped its price targetto $14, saying, "We believe Snap's core ad product is still lacking the performance (low click-through rates), measurability, and advertising return on investment to inflect ad dollar growth." The firm had aninitial price target of $28.
Aside from the downgrades,Snap was also facing the expiration of its lockup. From July 29 through August 29, a total of more than 1.2 billion shares owned by employees, directors, and insiders became available to be sold on the open market. In the middle of that period, Snap shares bottomed at $11.28 and have been in a steady climb ever since.
So where does Snap go from here? Technical analysis of the chart shows what looks like a double bottom pattern, and that could actually be good news.As you can see, in the chart below, a double bottom indicates the level at which traders are confident about buying shares. Twice since the beginning of August Snap has fallen to about $12 a share only to bounce back.Shares bottomed out over the first half of August and broke out through the neckline near $14 (marked in red dashes below). They climbed above the $15 mark before pulling back to test that neckline.That test held, setting the way for a presumed move higher. A rough measurement from the August lows to the neckline is $2, suggesting Snap shares could climb to about $16 ($14 + $2 measuring objective).
(Business Insider/Andy Kiersz/Jonathan Garber, Data from Bloomberg)
NOW WATCH:Bitcoin's bubble swells with a new record high
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ICOs use the blockchain cloud-ledger technology pioneered by Bitcoin to sell digital ‘tokens’ that are comparable to company shares. After a series of warnings, this appears to be the first time the SEC has filed fraud charges related to an asset marketed as an ICO. The SEC did not immediately respond to a request fromFortune.
The two ICOs in question were marketed as “REcoin” and “DRC,” and both were run by Maksim Zaslavskiy. REcoin was advertised as “The First Ever Cryptocurrency Backed by Real Estate,” while DRC, or Diamond Reserve Club, claimed to be backed by investments in diamonds. They were touted as full-fledged companies with staff, lawyers, and relationships with retailers.
But according to the SEC, neither scheme had “any real operations.” They made no investments on behalf of token buyers, and misrepresented their total level of investment. Nearly as bad, the SEC says the digital tokens they claimed to be selling “don’t really exist,” meaning REcoin and DRC – much like thenotorious global scamOneCoin – weren’t running on blockchains at all, and therefore weren’t even really ICOs.
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The prosecution comes after a July SEC bulletinannouncingthat ICO tokens “may be securities.” That signaled that irresponsible or fraudulent sellers could be targeted for prosecution.
It’s notable that, in addition to alleged wholesale fraud, this prosecution targets an ICO that claimed to be issuing tokens linked to real-world assets. The most reputable ICOs have sold digital tokens to fund cloud-computing applications for blockchain, with hard-coded links between the tokens and the applications.
Blockchain technology shows potential in certain real-world applications, particularly fortracking supply chainsshared by multiple parties, but those are private projects based on agreements between a few players. At least right now, there are few legal or technological means to link digital tokens to offline assets in the broader marketplace.
Even if Zaslavskiy’s ICOs had been doing what they claimed, in other words, they probably would have been a bad choice for the funding model.
The SEC, though, doesn’t seem to be looking to shut down ICOs as such. The agency’s targeted and graduated approach to regulation could help scare away fraudsters, while preserving the positive features of the technology, particularly its ability to raise funds globally with little friction and few fees.
That could give the U.S. a big edge over countries, now includingChinaandSouth Korea, who have taken more draconian measures to suppress the technology. || $5,200: Bitcoin Buoyant as Price Sets New All-Time High: Bitcoin has hit a new all-time high today, with prices reaching $5,226 on the CoinDesk Bitcoin Price Index.
At press time, the bitcoin-U.S. dollar (BTC/USD) exchange rate is trading at $5,200 levels. Week-on-week, BTC is up 18.75 percent, while month-on-month it's up 23 percent. The new record broke a previous all-time high of $5,013set in September.
All in all, it's a sharp reversal of trend given the cryptocurrency dropped to a low of $2,980 in mid-September on the news China had banned token sales and that local cryptocurrency exchanges would shut in the aftermath. However, in subsequent days, bitcoin's price quickly regained, reportedly due to a pick-up in trading volumes in Japan, South Korea and other markets.
Increased institutional interest seems to have played a role in boosting bitcoin prices.
For example, a rumored 'bitcoin desk' at Goldman Sachs would certainly be a game changer for the nascent market. Still, it's just the latest sign professional traders are increasingly interested in the market.
Further, even while skeptics continue to call bitcoin rally a bubble, the price action analysis indicates no serious trouble ahead for the cryptocurrency.
The chart above shows that:
• Bitcoin is chipping away at $5,154 – resistance offered by 161.8 percent Fibonacci extension of the move from the April low – June high – July low.
• The RSI is overbought, although it's not a cause for concern, as the indicator is still well below the highs seen in August and June.
• On the above chart, resistance is seen at $5,378.56 – 161.8 percent Fibonacci extension of the move from the Sep 15 low – Sep 18 high – Sep 23 low.
• The RSI is overbought.
• All major moving averages – 50-day moving average, 100-day moving average and 200-day moving average – are perfectly aligned one below the other, which indicates the long-run trend is bullish.
• A break above $$5,154 would open doors for $5,378.56.
• A healthy technical pullback cannot be ruled out, given the overbought conditions. On the downside, the key support levels to watch out for are $5,000, $4,809, $4,500.
Water ballonsvia Shutterstock
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• Billionaire Mike Novogratz: Bitcoin's Price Will Reach $10k in Less Than a Year || 3 Stocks to Watch on Tuesday: Celanese Corporation (CE), IDEX Corporation (IEX) and Sonic Corporation (SONC): Gold lost 0.1% and crude oil gained 0.8% on a strong day for U.S. equities. The S&P 500 Index gained 0.2%, the Dow Jones Industrial Average surged 0.3% and the Nasdaq Composite hiked up 0.4%. 3 Stocks to Watch on Tuesday: Celanese Corporation (CE), IDEX Corporation (IEX) and Sonic Corporation (SONC) Several companies reported on their latest quarters Monday, including IDEX Corporation (NYSE: IEX ), Celanese Corporation (NYSE: CE ) and Sonic Corporation (NASDAQ: SONC ). Here’s what you should know: InvestorPlace - Stock Market News, Stock Advice & Trading Tips IDEX Corporation (IEX) IDEX unveiled its latest quarterly earnings guidance Monday. The company announced that it will bring in $1.06 to $1.08 per share in its fourth quarter of fiscal 2017, which is better than Wall Street’s consensus estimate of $1.06 per share, according to Thomson Reuters . 7 Infrastructure Stocks That Don't Need Donald Trump IDEX also updated its fiscal 2017 guidance to $4.25 to $4.27 per share in profit. Over the course of its third quarter, the company earned $83.77 million, or $1.08 per share, which was higher than the consensus estimate of $70.47 million, or 92 cents per share of the year-ago quarter. The figure was ahead of the Wall Street outlook of $1.06 per share. Revenue came in at $574.49 million, which was 8.3% higher than the $530.36 million from a year ago. IEX stock fell 0.1% after hours Monday. Celanese Corporation (CE) Celanese unveiled its latest quarterly earnings results late Monday as well. The company raked in $1.68 per share in earnings on a GAAP basis, and $1.93 per share on an adjusted basis, which was above analysts’ expectations of $1.92 per share. Materials solutions sales rose 24% to $730 million. Revenue came in at $1.6 billion, which was better than the consensus estimate of $1.49 billion, according to data compiled by Thomson Reuters . The figure was ahead of the year-ago sales of $1.32 billion. The company’s adjusted earnings for the year where on the higher end of the 9% to 11% range on a year-over-year increase basis. Story continues CE stock fell a fraction of a percentage after the bell yesterday. Sonic Corporation (SONC) Sonic reported on its latest period after the bell yesterday. The fast food chain unveiled earnings of 45 cents per share, which topped the Wall Street consensus estimate of 43 cents per share by two cents. A year ago, the company earned 45 cents per share Revenue came in at $123.6 million for Sonic during the quarter, coming in below the consensus estimate of $126.01 million. Revenue was down for the quarter by 23.8% Why NVIDIA Corporation (NVDA) Stock Should Be Trading for Over $200 The company had a negative return on equity of 44.21% and a net margin of 13.23%. Sonic believes it will open 70 to 80 new locations around the country during fiscal 2018. SONC stock fell over 4% after hours Monday. As of this writing, Karl Utermohlen did not hold a position in any of the aforementioned securities. More From InvestorPlace 5 Bitcoin Stocks to Buy for Low-Risk Cryptocurrency Profits 7 Stocks to Buy Before the Holidays Costco Wholesale Corporation (COST) News Is Going to Stay Bumpy for a While The post 3 Stocks to Watch on Tuesday: Celanese Corporation (CE), IDEX Corporation (IEX) and Sonic Corporation (SONC) appeared first on InvestorPlace .
[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
NovaExchange #11 Market(1.07%) GOKU/BTC - Gokucoin Vol(24h):5.056 BTC / $23,221 - Price: $0.016488 / 3.59e-06 BTC || #bitcoin non si ferma più? Analisi tecnica || Join now:
http://t.me/fastsignals
$BTC $LTC $DOGE $VTC $PPC $FTC $RDD $NXT $DASH 56111643622 || 09/14 21:00 Crypto currency sentiment analysis.
BTC : Neutral
BCC : Neutral
ETH : Positive
ETC : Positive
https://goo.gl/5hp6Cz #BTC || #Putin Tells Central Bank Not to Create Barriers to #Cryptocurrencies || @jaxx_io since the update i can only see my bitcoin balance but the $eth and $cvc is showing empty. any thoughts? || Hey barrysilbert, ready to talk? #bitcoin today! http://bit.ly/1IAb8e4 || Текущая цена Bitcoin $4839.40 via Chain || What it feels like to earn #bitcoin on a daily basis with http://SlideCoin.co (Available on Google Play) #money #Androidpic.twitter.com/1Qsyjb0RwY || #Putin Tells Central Bank Not to Create Barriers to #Cryptocurrencies
|
Trend: up || Prices: 6153.85, 6130.53, 6468.40, 6767.31, 7078.50, 7207.76, 7379.95, 7407.41, 7022.76, 7144.38
|
Analyze the provided historical prices, technical indicators, news, and social media sentiment from the last 60 days. Based on this context, predict the overall trend (up, down, or no change) and the specific daily closing prices for Bitcoin for the next 10 days.
|
[Technical Analysis for 2022-06-27]
BTC Price: 20735.48, BTC RSI: 33.56
Gold Price: 1820.90, Gold RSI: 42.66
Oil Price: 109.57, Oil RSI: 45.60
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
Yahoo Finance: Crypto Down But Not Out: This article was originally published on ETFTrends.com. With bitcoin plunging to its lowest in nearly 18 months, it's important to look at what that could mean in the world of ETFs. VettaFi's vice chairman, Tom Lydon, was on hand for Yahoo Finance's "ETF Report" to go over this news, as well as more thoughts on the state of crypto in the ETF market. As far as what this says about the idea of wider adoption of this crypto space, which people were hoping to see, Lydon explains how crypto ETFs are still looking to get that sort of attention. It is notable how the ProShares Bitcoin Strategy ETF (BITO) came out last fall and grossed over one billion in a matter of days. That, in turn, led to the creation of the Valkyrie Bitcoin Strategy ETF (BTF) , the VanEck Bitcoin Strategy ETF (XBTF) , and the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) . This is all well and good, at least for the time, but a key to what hasn't exactly allowed the quick gross of those early funds to maintain that momentum is the lack of a true spot bitcoin ETF comparable to something like gold and the gold-backed State Street SPDR ETF (GLD) . As it stands, there are only futures-based bitcoin ETFs, as the SEC is not comfortable granting that sort of approval. Most investors want to make crypto allocations on trusted brokerage platforms like Charles Schwab and Fidelity. . @Vetta_Fi Vice-Chair @TomLydon discusses ETF trends to watch for: pic.twitter.com/LwIm6shenb — Yahoo Finance (@YahooFinance) June 14, 2022 "With that being said, we actually have more money that's been going in recently, even though the market's been declining in that space. But, because it's down about 66% since these ETFs launched, on a net-positive, we've actually seen flows." Story continues As Lydon notes, this is good news because advisors haven't seen emotion from those buying ETFs. They tend to buy on the dip, whether they are individual investors or advisors. Defying Demand In explaining what it will be like to move forward with crypto at a higher rate, Lydon states that it will be tougher due to a lack of demand. That said, anyone that wants to buy into this space has many choices. "A lot of folks, in lieu of a futures-based strategy or a spot strategy, are returning to miners," Lydon adds. It's interesting to see the evolution of this decline. "The key thing is that we survey advisors every year on bitcoin and cryptocurrency. Their interest from their clients continues to rise, and advisors continue to consult with their clients about it. If they are putting allocations in, it's small." Looking at the fund flows and what it will take to get to them, Lydon explains how BITO, while bringing in $822 in the year, is still over a drop of 50% YTD. There haven't been major swings like there have been for the various cryptocurrencies out there. This is actually a good thing, as those buying ETFs tend to be more rational than emotional. More and more, as far as crypto being adopted by advisors and investors close to retirement, this could be being seen as a great buying opportunity. Compared to traditional and trusted platforms catering toward retail investors, it's a fraction when looking at those allocating heavily to the crypto space. With that in mind, Lydon notes that ideally, there will be more trust in crypto down the road, and hopefully, there will be the spot bitcoin ETF, among other similar funds, as confidence grows. "There is a demand there, and as more time goes on, and there's more adoption, even though there's volatility in the marketplace, it's an opportunity to diversify." For more news, information, and strategy, visit the Crypto Channel . POPULAR ARTICLES AND RESOURCES FROM ETFTRENDS.COM SPY ETF Quote VOO ETF Quote QQQ ETF Quote VTI ETF Quote JNUG ETF Quote Top 34 Gold ETFs Top 34 Oil ETFs Top 57 Financials ETFs Advisors Are Smart Enough to Go Beyond Fees With Smart Beta Natural Gas ETFs Plunge After Freeport Delays LNG Processing Following Explosion Postcards From the Hedge: To Battle Inflation, Try These Unique Strategies FedEx’s Activist-Backed Changes Help Lift Transportation ETFs Yahoo Finance: Crypto Down But Not Out READ MORE AT ETFTRENDS.COM > || Solana, Ether Lead Gains in Relief Rally, but Traders Say Macroeconomic Concerns Remain: Don't miss CoinDesk's Consensus 2022 , the must-attend crypto & blockchain festival experience of the year in Austin, TX this June 9-12. Crypto markets saw a brief rally in the past 24 hours, adding some 9.7% to market capitalization after a difficult weekend that saw prices of several coins plunge as much as 15%. Bitcoin (BTC) fell to as low as $18,000 in a move that sent the asset below its 2017 highs , with investors locking in a record amount of losses as per on-chain data. Ether (ETH) dropped to $929. In the past 24 hours, however, Solanas SOL and ether led gains among the top 10 coins by market capitalization with a 9% bump, while Cardanos ADA and Polkadots DOT rose 7%. Bitcoin saw rejection at $21,000 after a brief recovery. Outside of the top 10, Avalanches AVAX jumped 14%, Polygons MATIC added 12% and ApeCoins APE rose 16%. A relief rally Analysts at Bitfinexs trading desk said the market jump displayed the inherent volatility of cryptocurrencies. While the trend of market turbulence is unlikely to recede as central banks call the shots amid an increasingly uncertain geopolitical environment, todays relief rally demonstrates a latent potential for the price of digital tokens to rebound quickly, the desk said in a message to CoinDesk. Most of the crypto gains came amid a jump in broader equity markets as U.S. markets remain shut for the Juneteenth federal holiday. European stock index Stoxx 600 added 0.7%, Germanys DAX gained 0.58% and Hong Kongs Hang Send added 0.42%. Japans Nikkei 225 lost 0.72%, while the Shanghai Composite finished with nominal losses on Monday. Market observers, however, remained unconvinced that Mondays rally in cryptocurrencies will extend into the coming days. The market is highly dependent on the [Federal Reserve interest] rate, and inflation is breaking records with the macroeconomic factor remaining heavy, said Anton Gulin, regional director at crypto exchange AAX. Uncertainty prevails in the market, and relief rallies do not significantly change this picture. Story continues Such market moves are a decent opportunity for daytraders but not for investors aiming to cut risks. We shall watch out for how the macro rhetorics change by autumn to see the mid-term direction of the markets, Gulin added. U.S. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell hiked rates by 75 basis points last week as the agency combats rising inflation and strives to bring costs under control. Inflation hit 8.6% in May, an increase of 0.3 percentage points from analyst expectations, and several more rate hikes are expected before September. 'We haven't hit the bottom yet' Some say such a macroeconomic climate is unlikely to support the continued recovery of the crypto market. Even though the recent price action has provided somewhat of a sigh of relief for bitcoin prices, its foolish to forgo the wider macro context in which crypto and finance operate, Andrey Diyakono, chief commercial officer at Choise, said in a Telegram message. Commodities market indicators and [European Union] bonds market meltdown spell out worrying predictions for the world economy, Diyakono stated, adding recent troubles seen at the crypto lender Celsius and prominent fund Three Arrows Capital have added to "crypto industry uncertainty. We havent hit the bottom yet, Diyakono concluded. Vasja Zupan, president of crypto exchange Matrix, seconded the sentiment. I don't see bitcoin quickly returning to all-time high levels. We should probably brace ourselves for a long period of uncertainty during the crypto winter, Zupan said in a Telegram message, adding a strong recovery to all-time highs could be on the cards when market sentiment turns positive. Bitcoin is also heavily influenced by global market sentiment, and when that changes, the asset will move much faster than other markets, Zupan said. Support for bitcoin exists at the $18,000 mark if the asset loses current trading levels, price charts show. Read more: Bitcoin Sees Resistance at $21K as Investors Record Losses of Over $7B: Glassnode || Wall Street’s Latest ‘Market Manipulation’ Scandal Should Be a Wake-Up Call for Crypto: Don't miss CoinDesk's Consensus 2022 , the must-attend crypto & blockchain festival experience of the year in Austin, TX this June 9-12. This week saw the dramatic arrest and criminal charging of Bill Hwang, the former manager of the private hedge fund Archegos Capital Management. You may remember that Archegos blew up last March . Banks that had lent it money for huge, leveraged trades wound up losing $10 billion dollars. There’s a fascinating discussion to be had about whether what Hwang did was full-blown fraud, but I won’t bother trying to outdo Matt Levine on that front. Instead, I want to focus on the financial mechanics of what Archegos was up to, and why it’s extremely important for cryptocurrency holders or traders to understand. This article is excerpted from The Node, CoinDesk's daily roundup of the most pivotal stories in blockchain and crypto news. You can subscribe to get the full newsletter here . The nut of it is simple: Archegos borrowed a lot of money and used it to buy very large amounts of roughly 10 different stocks. That buying itself helped push the stocks up, giving Archegos paper profits that it could use to borrow more money – which it then used to buy the same few stocks, pushing them up further. The leverage play produced incredible results for a time: Hwang reportedly launched Archegos with just $200 million in 2013 , but by its peak, the fund’s paper value topped $30 billion, a 1,400% return in eight years. But it was a tactic with a limited shelf life. Archegos over time accumulated utterly absurd positions in several major stocks. According to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) , Archegos came to own as much as 45% of the outstanding shares in Tencent and over 50% of ViacomCBS (now Paramount Global) shares. One of the pillars of the fraud case against Hwang is that he lied to banks about these levels when borrowing money. And the way things played out shows why banks don’t often or willingly lend into this sort of concentration. Story continues ViacomCBS was the pin that popped the Archegos bubble. The stock ran from about $35 in January of 2021 to nearly $95 by March. I’m speculating, but it seems very plausible that Archegos’ own aggressive buying (read: alleged market manipulation) contributed to the insane runup that motivated the sale of new stock. Either way, nearly tripling your money is good! Except when it’s not. The runup motivated ViacomCBS execs to issue new shares, which in turn deflated the stock, which dropped 30% in three days . With its high levels of concentration and leverage, that 30% drop in a single stock wound up being enough to earn Archegos the world’s worst margin call. With the paper value of its holdings dropping against its outstanding loan obligations, Archegos was forced to liquidate – ultimately nuking the entire fund. See also: What Does Liquidation Mean and How to Avoid It? But – and this is the really, really important part – there still wasn’t enough to pay back its lenders . Crucial warnings Archegos shows what might happen to any number of crypto assets that are leveraged or backed in certain ways. The key term here is exit liquidity, and one takeaway is the danger of backing or holdings concentrated in a few assets which can collapse suddenly in a liquidity crisis. In many cryptocurrency ecosystems, token holders are in much the same position as the banks that lent to Hwang: at risk of being trapped in a token as it burns down around them. I wrote last week about the potential for an unwind of the terraUSD (UST) stablecoin , which by the most generous interpretation is currently “backed” by a single asset, LUNA. The Luna team is working to diversify that backing to avoid the kind of concentrated risk that nuked Hwang, but their current goal would get them all the way up to three different assets by adding BTC and AVAX. Hwang wound up being too fragile while holding closer to 10 big positions. Another suggestive parallel here is with the mechanics of crypto valuations in general, particularly when it comes to founder rewards, pre-mines or other large pools of tokens held in relatively static blocks. As many have pointed out, the “market cap” metric touted by many tokens is rendered pretty meaningless by these large allocations, which are essentially not on the market, and often never have been. The same might be argued for the lockups in certain lending and staking protocols. See also: Lex Sokolin: The Fundamentals of Crypto's $2T Market Cap | Opinion These big blocks of untraded tokens inflate the total market value of coins in a way quite similar to how Archegos inflated its portfolio. Though pre-mine and staking effects are subtler, both create a misleading perception of the scarcity of or demand for an asset. And both, though for different reasons, can lead to retail investors getting their faces ripped off: If you saw ViacomCBS spiking in March of last year and bought in, you wound up being Bill Hwang’s exit liquidity as he torched it from $97 down to $48 in just seven days. You could probably have a very therapeutic chat with a SafeMoon holder. And let’s not forget the poor banks (heaven forbid!). Credit Suisse, for instance, shouldered the bulk of Archegos lender losses, eating $4.7 billion . That was in turn enough to knock nearly 18% off Credit Suisse’s stock price in a matter of days after Archegos fell. The bank was already troubled before this incident, and its stock has not recovered in the year since. Bill Hwang may be a criminal, or he may have simply been playing the Wall Street game according to a set of unwritten but accepted rules – after all, in this day and age, cheating and lying are practically qualifications for working in high finance. Crypto has the distinct advantage of transparency – Hwang couldn’t have caused as much damage if he hadn’t concealed his levels of concentration and leverage. In most cases, similar behavior by a layer 1 or other protocol would be much more visible. The question is whether traders and investors are paying enough attention to what’s right there on the blockchain to avoid a replay of Archegos, in crypto form. || Coinsfera is Helping People Sell USDT for Cash in UAE in this Crypto Market Crash: DUBAI, UAE / ACCESSWIRE / June 22, 2022 /As the crypto market declines, more investors are looking to sell their holdings and cash out their profits. Coinsfera now provides an easy way to do this, by enabling people tosell USDT in Dubaifor cash.
Coinsfera has announced the launch of its USDT-to-fiat gateway, which will allow users to sell their USDT for different currencies including AED, EUR, and USD directly deposited into their bank accounts or in cash. The company claims that this is the first time a service like this has been offered and that it offers a number of benefits over traditional exchanges. These include lower fees, no need to create an account or go through a verification process, and the ability to get any currency in exchange for USDT.
Tether (USDT) is a cryptocurrency that is pegged to the value of the US dollar. Tether does not have its own blockchain network, but operates as a second-layer digital token based on other cryptocurrency blockchains like Bitcoin, Ethereum, Algorand, Tron, and Bitcoin Cash. Tether is meant to provide a stable coin option for cryptocurrency investors and users. It's are backed by actual US dollars held in Tether's reserves. The goal of this currency is to create a blockchain-based platform that allows for the easy creation and management of digital assets. It enables users to store, send, and receive digital tokens pegged to fiat currencies like the US dollar, Euro, and the Japanese Yen.
Tether USD can be purchased with Coinsfera, which provides more security and sophisticated support systems so you may feel confident in your purchase. There are several trading possibilities on their exchange, allowing you to trade Tether USD how you choose. From the first moment, you'll feel confident and familiar with Coinsfera and have access to everything you need to buy orsell USDT in UAEfor your local currency.
Coinsfera is a company that wants to make it easier for people to trade in crypto-fiat transactions. Their goal is to level the playing field so that everyone has an opportunity to enter the digital currency world. CEO and Co-founder, Geray Gerayli, believes that this will help reduce volatility and encourage mainstream adoption of cryptocurrencies. In order to achieve this goal, Coinsfera has enabled residents of UAE to sell USDT for all major fiat currencies including AED and USD.
Coinsfera, the famous cryptocurrency OTC platform, has been operating in Dubai since 2015. Their goal is to make it easy for residents of the UAE to buy andsell Tether in Dubai, regardless of their trading experience. Coinsfera is a trusted platform that is used by many residents of Dubai. They offer a variety of features and services that make it easy to use for anyone, no matter what their level of experience is. One of the most popular services is to buy real estate with cryptocurrency. This allows users to buy property in Dubai directly with cryptocurrency without converting it into fiat currency.
Now you can easilysell Tether in UAEat the best cryptocurrency OTC shop in Dubai to cash out your USDT to Fiat currency; USDT to AED or USDT to Dollar etc.
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View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/705899/Coinsfera-is-Helping-People-Sell-USDT-for-Cash-in-UAE-in-this-Crypto-Market-Crash || Crypto industry fears contagion as bitcoin slips under $20,000: By Alun John and Elizabeth Howcroft
LONDON/HONG KONG (Reuters) - The cryptocurrency industry was on edge on Monday as bitcoin struggled to stay above a key level, with investors fearing that problems at major crypto players could unleash a wider market shakeout.
Bitcoin, the world's biggest cryptocurrency, was trading just under the symbolic level of $20,000 in early London trading hours - roughly the peak of its charge to its previous record in 2017.
Bitcoin had dropped on Saturday to as low as $17,592.78, falling below $20,000 for the first time since December 2020. It has lost almost 60% of its value this year and 37% this month alone in the cryptocurrency sector's latest meltdown.
Its fall follows problems at several major industry players. Further declines, market players said, could have a knock-on effect as other crypto investors are forced to sell their holdings to meet margin calls and cover losses.
Crypto hedge fund Three Arrows Capital is exploring options including the sale of assets and a bailout by another firm, its founders told the Wall Street Journal in a story published Friday, the same day Asia-focused crypto lender Babel Finance said it would suspend withdrawals.[nL4N2Y42I2]
U.S. based lender Celsius Network this month said it would suspend customer withdrawals. In a blog on Monday https://blog.celsius.network/a-note-to-the-celsius-community-e5af1f5a7998, Celsius said it would continue working with regulators and officials, but that it would pause its customer Q&A sessions.
"There is a lot of credit being withdrawn from the system and if lenders have to absorb losses from Celsius and Three Arrows, they will reduce the size of their future loan books which means that the entire amount of credit available in the crypto ecosystem is much reduced," said Adam Farthing, chief risk office for Japan at crypto liquidity provider B2C2.
"It feels very like 2008 to me in terms of how there could be a domino effect of bankruptcies and liquidations," Farthing said.
Smaller tokens, which usually move in tandem with bitcoin, were also hurt. No.2 token ether was at $1,0752, having dipped below its own symbolic level of $1,000 over the weekend.
The fall in crypto markets has coincided with a slide for equities, as U.S. stocks suffered their biggest weekly percentage decline in two years on fears of rising interest rates and the growing likelihood of recession. [MKTS/GLOB]
Bitcoin's moves have tended to follow a similar pattern to other risk assets such as tech stocks.
The overall crypto market capitalisation is roughly $877 billion, according to price site Coinmarketcap, down from a peak of $2.9 trillion in November 2021.
A fall in stablecoins - a type of crypto designed to hold a steady value - is also suggesting investors are pulling money from the sector as a whole.
Graphic: Bitcoin so far in 2022 - https://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/mkt/lgvdwbwqapo/Bitcoin%20so%20far%20in%202022.png
(Reporting by Alun John, Editing by Shri Navaratnam and Ed Osmond) || Bull Dollar ETFs Beating Market Turmoil: A small portion of the ETF markets betting on the U.S. dollar’s continued strength against other currencies is one of the few asset classes still producing returns in the panic-ridden past few weeks.
The $1.1 billionInvesco DB U.S. Dollar Index Bullish Fund (UUP)and nearly $500 millionWisdomTree Bloomberg U.S. Dollar Bullish Fund (USDU)have produced returns of 4.16% and 3.82%, respectively, in the past month, beating benchmarks for the S&P 500, aggregate bonds and a diversified basket of commodities.
(For a larger view, click on the image above)
UUP and USDU have returned 8.4% and 6.8%, respectively, year to date, beating theiShares Core U.S. Aggregate Bond ETF (AGG)’s 9.56% decline and theSPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust (SPY)’s 16% loss as of Tuesday.
Fed Hikes An Advantage
Bullish dollar ETFs work by holding futures tracking the U.S. Dollar Index in a long position against foreign currencies such as the euro, yen, British pound. The returns come if the dollar continues to gain relative to the shorted currencies.
Inflation would normally cause a currency to lose value, but inflation is high across developed economies trying to manage the disruptions of COVID-19. The year-over-year inflation rate in the United Kingdom for March was 7%. Germany, which is the European Union’s largest economy, most recently posted a 7.8% annualized inflation reading.
A higher inflation rate implies that a central bank is going to raise rates more aggressively to curb it. The difference is the Fed’s two straight rate hikes and tough talk on inflation versus comparable central banks, said Chris Vecchio, a senior strategist at DailyFX.
The Fed has telegraphed its intentions to hike for several months, and bond yields rose to price in those expectations, while other central banks haven’t been as aggressive. Japan’s central bank has pledged ongoing support for its economy, saying in recent weeks that it will buy an unlimited number of10-year bondsto support a yield cap.
“For the dollar, as US Treasury yields have gone up, its counterparts have basically run into a ceiling more or less,” Vecchio said. “That has greatly increased the appeal of the dollar against not just the yen, but a basket of major currencies around the world.”
The difference in central bank attitudes has made dollar ETFs outperform versus funds tracking the euro, yen and British pound.
(For a larger view, click on the image above)
Bull Rally’s Possible End
The dollar’s implied strength due to the Fed’s tightening may soon decline based on European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde saying that the bloc will take a“gradual” approachto rate hikes in recent weeks. Markets in the continent are pricing in an ECB hike as soon as July.
Any rate hike for the euro would harm UUP’s returns, as the fund overweights the euro in its basket of currencies relative to the dollar.
“While the dollar’s run has been impressive, we’re probably getting closer to the end of a significant bull run than we are to the beginning,” Vecchio said.
The dollar’s strength is also tied heavily to domestic economic conditions. If there are any signs that the U.S. economy is slowing, it may force the Fed to use smaller rate hikes. Such a move would reduce the dollar’s relative strength against other currencies based on anticipated spreads in central bank target rates.
Contact Dan Mika atdan.mika@etf.com, and follow him onTwitter
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Permalink| © Copyright 2022ETF.com.All rights reserved || First Mover Asia: Metaverse ETFs Are Underperforming Gaming ETFs; Cryptos Return to the Red: Don't miss CoinDesk'sConsensus 2022, the must-attend crypto & blockchain festival experience of the year in Austin, TX this June 9-12.
Good morning. Here’s what’s happening:
Prices:Bitcoin and most other cryptos return to the red.
Insights:Metaverse ETFs are struggling to keep pace with gaming ETFs.
Technician's take:BTC's upside appears limited despite short-term support.
Catch the latest episodes ofCoinDesk TVfor insightful interviews with crypto industry leaders and analysis. Andsign up for First Mover, our daily newsletter putting the latest moves in crypto markets in context.
Bitcoin (BTC):$29,982 -3.4%
Ether (ETH):$2,030 -4.7%
There are no gainers in CoinDesk 20 today.
[{"Asset": "Internet Computer", "Ticker": "ICP", "Returns": "\u22129.4%", "DACS Sector": "Computing"}, {"Asset": "Filecoin", "Ticker": "FIL", "Returns": "\u22128.3%", "DACS Sector": "Computing"}, {"Asset": "Cosmos", "Ticker": "ATOM", "Returns": "\u22127.7%", "DACS Sector": "Smart Contract Platform"}]
Bitcoin and other cryptos falter
That didn't last long.
A day after bitcoin broke a week-long losing streak, the largest cryptocurrency by market cap and other major cryptos were in the red again on Monday.
Bitcoin was recently down over 3% over the previous 24 hours and has fallen seven consecutive weeks. Still, it spent much of the day near or above the psychologically important $30,000 level. "As far as the last 24 hours, we've seen a consolidation from six to eight weeks of sell-off," 3iQ Digital Asset's Head of Research Mark Connors told CoinDesk.
Bitcoin and other cryptos' performances dovetailed with equity markets, which dropped slightly on Monday and have been tumbling since last fall as inflation and supply chain issues continued to surge and investors became more risk averse. The tech-heavy Nasdaq dropped more than a percentage point on Monday.
Such growing cautiousness fanned last week by the collapse of the terraUSD stablecoin (UST), and the luna token that supports it, rocked altcoins particularly hard over the past week. On Monday, AXS and AVAX were recently down 12% and 8%, respectively. SOL declined more than 6%.
Ether, the second-largest crypto by market cap, fell over 4.6%, although it held fast above $2,000.
"In equities, you've taken almost a year of returns off so [there was] a rapid resetting as the Fed hiked [interest rates] in the first week of May," Connors said. "You've seen digital assets, bitcoin, ether and the rest of the altcoins fall. What's happened is there's been a stabilization. What people are assessing is whether the interest rate hike has been taken out. In our opinion, it hasn't.
Trading volume rose from the lower levels to which it hewed for the first few months of the year, a sign of a potential, and at least temporary upswing. But few analysts are predicting a more permanent departure from the the current bear market. The coming weeks may be particularly hard on stablecoins even as Terraform Labs CEO Do Kwon released a “revival plan” to save the Terra network. Kwon proposed forking Terra into a new chain without UST.
Connors said that investors would likely see three to nine months of "choppy markets," and that prices would likely drop, possibly with support in the $20,000 to $24,000 range. In this environment, he sees investors focusing more on Bitcoin and Ethereum. "Bitcoin dominance should and will happen when markets sell off," Connors said. "People go to quality, but it seems that Ethereium is now building up as a number two quality asset in the ecosystem."
S&P 500: 4,008 -0.3%
DJIA: 32,223 +0.08%
Nasdaq: 11,662 -1.2%
Gold: $1,824 +0.6%
Metaverse ETFs are struggling to keep pace with gaming ETFs
Sometimes a fancy new investment vehicle, most recently the metaverse, doesn’t perform as well on the market as last year’s model.
Metaverse exchange-traded funds (ETF) arrived last year shortly after the term entered our lexicon and became a favorite of venture capitalists. Because the metaverse is simply a mashup of gaming and crypto, these metaverse ETFslook a lotlike gaming or eSports ETFs (the two terms are synonymous), which launched a few years ago.
They look like them because the metaverse is an ambiguous term; the shared online experience that is envisioned in Neil Stephenson's science fiction novel "Snow Crash" already exists on many multiplayer gaming platforms. Metaverse tokens don’t yet have listed proxies, so metaverse ETFs compensate for that by putting inpublicly listed crypto companieslike Galaxy (GLX.TO) or Block (SQ), the former Square. And that’s where the problem starts.
That association with crypto means that METV, ametaverse ETF from Roundhill,is significantly underperforming ESPO, a gaming/eSports ETF from VanEck.
Gaming tech heavyweights, like GPU designer Nvidia (NVDS) or game engine developer Unity, are in both baskets and haven’t performed well on-year but the inclusion of the likes of Galaxy Digital – down over 60% year-to-date andplanning a stock buyback– really sinks the metaverse ETF.
Of course, this metaverse ETF is outperforming the metaverse tokens themselves: The Sandbox’s eponymous token (SAND) is down nearly 77% and Decentraland’s MANA is at 68%, mainly because both havestruggled to attract a player basethat reflects their valuation.
There’s an irony here. The metaverse, which is a way to sell crypto-plus-gaming as a rebranded product, is doing better on the market than plain vanilla gaming itself.
Maybe crypto doesn’t belong in everything?
Bitcoin Struggles at $27K-$30K Support Zone; Resistance at $35K
Bitcoin (BTC) is stabilizing around the $30,000 price level after last week's sell-off. The cryptocurrency must remain above the $27,000-$30,000supportzone this week in order to generate a positive short-term momentum signal.
BTC was down by as much as 3% over the past 24 hours.
The relative strength index (RSI) on the daily chart is rising fromoversoldlevels, which could keep buyers active at support. The RSI is also oversold on the weekly chart, although negative momentum could cap upside moves in price.
Immediateresistanceis seen at $33,000 and $35,000, which is where a breakdown in price occurred earlier this month. That suggests a large number of sell orders could limit a relief rally over the next two weeks.
Further, the recent underperformance of alternative cryptos (altcoins) relative to bitcoin suggests a lower appetite for risk among crypto traders. Typically, alts decline by more than bitcoin during down markets because of their higher risk profile. The broader risk-off environment could keep BTC's short-term downtrend intact.
Cosmos Gateway Conference
Permissionless DeFi Conference
9:30 a.m. HKT/SGT(1:30 a.m. UTC): Reserve Bank of Australia minutes
8:30 p.m. HKT/SGT(12:30 p.m. UTC): U.S. retail sales (MoM/April)
In case you missed it, here is the most recent episode of"First Mover"onCoinDesk TV:
OKX Exec on UST and Luna Crash, Bitcoin Outlook After 7 Straight Weeks of Losses
As investors continued to digest the disastrous fall of Terra's luna (LUNA) and stablecoin UST, OKX Director of Financial Markets Lennix Lai joined "First Mover" to explain how it handled the crash and to share his thoughts on what may happen in the industry and markets next. Plus, Charles Allen of BTCS Inc. provided market analysis and Chen Arad of Solidus Labs examined the crypto crash.
Kwon Proposes Forking Terra, Nixing UST Stablecoin in ‘Revival Plan 2’:“$UST peg failure is Terra’s DAO hack moment,” the Terraform Labs CEO wrote, “a chance to rise up anew from the ashes.”
The Collapse of UST and LUNA Was Devastating, but There Is Still Hope for Crypto:When a prominent stablecoin and the token that backs it failed, the broader ecosystem certainly was dealt a blow, but ultimately it is surviving.
LFG Reserves Dwindle to Just 313 Bitcoins From 80K After UST Crash:The announcement comes after criticism of the Luna Foundation Guard's "lack of transparency."
Indian Central Bank Says Cryptos Could Lead to "Dollarization" of Economy: Report:RBI officials said cryptocurrencies could undermine the central bank's capacity to regulate flow of money.
Japan’s Nomura Said to Launch Crypto Unit With DeFi and NFTs on Menu: Report:The Japanese investment bank carried out its first cryptocurrency derivatives trades last week.
Nigeria’s SEC Affirms All Digital Assets Are Securities in New Rulebook:Rules look to clarify crypto’s role in the economy by providing a regulatory framework.
Satoshi's Mission, LUNA, UST and Where Crypto Went Wrong:In 2009, Satoshi Nakamoto encoded a mission statement for the industry in Bitcoin's first block. Essentially, crypto should first do no harm.
Today's crypto explainer:Bitcoin Mining Difficulty: Everything You Need to Know
Other voices:A Crypto Emperor’s Vision: No Pants, His Rules
"China’s economy descended deeper into a COVID-19-induced doldrums last month, raising questions about whether Beijing’s planned stimulus measures can prevent a prolonged downturn." (The Wall Street Journal) ... "Terraform Labs, the organization that built the system, supposedly deployed about $3 billion worth of bitcoin, paused the blockchain, flooded the market with UST’s sister token LUNA and tried to pay out arbitrageurs taking advantage of the volatile situation in an effort to rescue its network. Those expensive gambles failed, and even Do Kwon, UST’s principal architect, said the network as it once was can’t be salvaged. Terra is working on something of a repayment plan for “small” token holders. All of this raises two very important questions for the industry: Are all “algos,” or algorithmic stablecoins, dead on arrival? And should there be regulation in place to prevent a similar disaster?" (CoinDesk columnist Daniel Kuhn) ... Soaring valuations and booming [initial public offerings] made startups seem like a safe bet, inspiring hundreds of new venture funds. Now, the party seems to be suddenly ending – and downsizing may signal even worse times ahead. Since January, nearly 50 startups have made significant layoffs, according to data collected byLayoffs.fyi. Among them are companies like Robinhood [HOOD] and Peloton [PTON], which after huge growth during the pandemic now face the realities of a less buoyant economy, and less cash on hand. Startups like Cameo have had to reverse the spending sprees of the last two years." (Wired) || Nio Shareholders Are Fortunate it Makes Electric Vehicles: Auto salesin China fell 47% in April due to the country’s zero-Covid policy. It’s hard forNio(NYSE:NIO) and its peers to make cars when their workers are stuck in their homes and not in the factories. That’s one of the reasons NIO stock lost almost21%of its value last month.However, if you’re a Nio shareholder, there is a silver lining: it could be making and selling internal combustion engine (ICE) -powered vehicles. ICE vehicle sales were down more than 50% in April, whileelectric vehicle (EV)sales last month fell by 36% from 465,000 in March to 299,000 in April.As the headline states, Nio shareholders are fortunate they’re making EVs, not ICE-powered cars. Here’s why.
The chief executive officer of Automobility, an investment advisory firm based in Shanghai, recently discussed the major issues affecting the global auto industry. In addition to Covid-19, the supply chain is top of mind for Bill Russo, who once ledChrysler’sNortheast Asia business.
InvestorPlace - Stock Market News, Stock Advice & Trading Tips
Russo believes that EV companies will move to vertically integrate their businesses. That’s not good news forFisker(NYSE:FSR) orMagna International(NYSE:MGA), itsmanufacturing partnerfor the Fisker Ocean SUV.
• 7 Safe Small-Cap Stocks to Buy Now
“If you want to scale up and that supply gets taken by a consumer electronics customer — which was what happened during Covid, they can’t scale up,” Russo toldForbescontributor Russell Flannery.“The solution will eventually be to source customized integrated circuits where you have the ability to control the buy and sell these components. Batteries and chips supply are the key battlegrounds for securing your position in the future of this industry.”
So, how is Nio doing on the vertical integration front?The International Institute for Management Development (IMD) has aFuture Readiness Indicatorfor the automotive industry that ranks companies on their “readiness for deep, long-term, secular trends.”While Nio onlyranks 18thon the list —Tesla(NASDAQ:TSLA) is number one — its pace of innovation is pushing higher. IMD notes that while Nio doesn’t focus on manufacturing, itssoftware expertiseputs it second-only to Tesla.
“NIO and BYD are built on the capabilities of the future, not of the past. Whether there’s a semiconductor shortage or not, they are busy preparing for the next battleground. Traditional carmakers should be on high alert,” IMD wrote in December.
As bad as things look now with NIO stock down 57.3% year-to-date and trading at its lowest level since August 2020 — it is doing what is necessary to be relevant 10 years from now.While Nio is relatively new to the EV game, IMD sees it as a possible candidate to become the next Tesla. That’s much better than becoming the next big ICE player.
On the date of publication, Will Ashworthdid not have (either directly or indirectly) any positions in the securities mentioned in this article.The opinions expressed in this article are those of the writer, subject to theInvestorPlace.comPublishing Guidelines.
• Stock Prodigy Who Found NIO at $2… Says Buy THIS
• It doesn’t matter if you have $500 in savings or $5 million. Do this now.
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The postNio Shareholders Are Fortunate it Makes Electric VehiclesÂappeared first onInvestorPlace. || SATO Unveils Rebrand with Launch of New Name and Website: Responsible Bitcoin Miner CCU honors Satoshi Nakamoto changes name to SATO Technologies to coincide with existing ticker SATO
Toronto, Ontario--(Newsfile Corp. - June 13, 2022) - SATO Technologies Corp. (TSXV: SATO) (OTCQB: CCPUF) ("SATO" or "the Company") (previously Canada Computational Unlimited Corp.) rolls out its new brand and website to better express its commitment to responsible Bitcoin mining. SATO's new image will be closer aligned with its mission to lead with full transparency and to cultivate community through the development of blockchain applications, particularly on the Bitcoin Blockchain and the Lightning Network.
The new site is accessible at:https://www.bysato.com
"This rebrand emulates the company's growth with a more distinctive and approachable look while paying homage to Satoshi Nakamoto. A strong company is always evolving, therefore SATO's team is continually developing its responsible and highly effective Bitcoin mining business while innovating on the Bitcoin Blockchain and the Lightning Network, which gives us a competitive advantage,"commented Romain Nouzareth, Co-Founder, Chairman & CEO.
As approved at the Company's Annual and Special Meeting on May 31, 2022, the Company has filed articles of amendment to effect the change of its name to SATO Technologies Corp. The Company expects the shares to commence trading under the new name on the TSX Venture Exchange on or around June 16, 2022. The Company's symbol will remain "SATO". A new CUSIP number has been issued, and Shareholders are not required to take any action with respect to the name change.
SATO's focus is to expand its responsible Bitcoin Mining operations globally. The Company is also in the process of launching new projects built on the Bitcoin Blockchain and the Lightning Network. Project X at SATO is a group of users innovating and building the future with Bitcoin at its core, participants will be able to privately test new products prior to public launch. Interested parties are invited to join theSATO project X.
SATO operates a state-of-the-art, carbon-neutral bitcoin mining center with a contract of 20 MW of stable, renewable energy from Joliette, Québec. The Company's high-density calculation centers are built for high-grade cryptocurrency mining, AI data processing, and fintech infrastructure.
Founded in 2017, SATO is led by technology entrepreneurs, electricity and ventilation experts, network specialists, and Canadian industrialists. Since its inception, the company has pursued a vision of environmental stewardship throughout the mining process. The excess supply of renewable energy in the province of Québec has made this endeavor feasible and a great base for growth. Additional information can be found atwww.bysato.com.
For additional information, please contact:
Caroline KlukowskiTel: 604.260.5490news@bysato.com
Keep up-to-date on developments and join our online communities atTwitter,LinkedIn, andYouTube.
NEITHER THE TSX VENTURE EXCHANGE NOR ITS REGULATION SERVICES PROVIDER (AS THAT TERM IS DEFINED IN THE POLICIES OF THE TSX VENTURE EXCHANGE) ACCEPTS RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE ADEQUACY OR ACCURACY OF THIS RELEASE.
Cautionary Statement Regarding Forward-Looking Information
This news release contains certain forward-looking statements, including statements relating to the future performance of the Company, and other statements that are not historical facts. Wherever possible, words such as "may", "will", "should", "could", "expect", "plan", "intend", "anticipate", "believe", "estimate", "predict" or "potential" or the negative or other variations of these words, or similar words or phrases, have been used to identify these forward-looking statements. These statements reflect management's current beliefs and are based on information currently available to management as at the date hereof.
Forward-looking statements involve significant risk, uncertainties and assumptions. Many factors could cause actual results, performance or achievements to differ materially from the results discussed or implied in the forward-looking statements. These factors should be considered carefully and readers should not place undue reliance on the forward-looking statements. Although the forward-looking statements contained in this press release are based upon what management believes to be reasonable assumptions, the Company cannot assure readers that actual results will be consistent with these forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are made as of the date of this press release, and the Company assumes no obligation to update or revise them to reflect new events or circumstances, except as required by law.
To view the source version of this press release, please visithttps://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/127390 || Coinbase Says Users Could Be Subject to Bankruptcy Filings After Reporting Q1 Loss of $430 Million: Pavlo Gonchar / SOPA Images Cryptocurrency is currently exhibiting incredibly volatile market behavior, as major cryptocurrencies like bitcoin and ethereum have seen value loss over the last six months. To say that cryptocurrency platform Coinbase has had a disastrous 2022 is a massive understatement. Live Blog: Crypto Crash, Elon Musk, Inflation and More Explore: 22 Side Gigs That Can Make You Richer Than a Full-Time Job As troubling as its stock value is right now, users should be more nervous about information divulged by the company in its first quarter earnings report filed Tuesday. Fortune is reporting that if Coinbase goes bankrupt, then users carrying funds with the company may no longer have access to them. The coin could become the property of Coinbase, undermining the entire point of cryptocurrency — giving people more control and ownership of their finances. On page 83 of the 135 page 10-Q filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the company mentions the issue for the first time: “Moreover, because custodially held crypto assets may be considered to be the property of a bankruptcy estate, in the event of a bankruptcy, the crypto assets we hold in custody on behalf of our customers could be subject to bankruptcy proceedings and such customers could be treated as our general unsecured creditors.” Coinbase’s stock fell 30% on May 11 after it reported on the evening of May 10 that it lost $430 million in the first quarter of 2022. So far this year, the exchange’s stock price has plunged 80%. The report also shows a 19% drop in monthly users. As bad as the numbers and crypto stock trends look, there isn’t any indication that Coinbase is going bankrupt, something that was pointed out quickly by Coinbase CEO and founder Brian Armstrong. Armstrong also acknowledged that the bankruptcy warning was included in Coinbase’s earnings report because of new SEC requirements regarding public companies’ disclosures. In a series of May 10 tweets, Armstrong wrote that “your funds are safe at Coinbase, just as they’ve always been” and added that “we have no risk of bankruptcy.” Story continues Because they aren’t overseen by federal market regulators, there is an inherent risk with trading on crypto exchanges. Banks are protected by deposit insurance — provided by the Federal Deposit Insurance Company — for up to $250,000. Investments on crypto platforms are not similarly protected. Although it is recommended to save any crypto in personal wallets (Coinbase offers a self-custody wallet), most Coinbase users simply keep their funds stored in a wallet controlled by the company. If the popular crypto exchange goes bankrupt or gets hacked, users could be considered creditors may see their digital tokens become the property of Coinbase. Crypto Crash: Bitcoin, Ethereum, Dogecoin, Polkadot Plunge After TerraUSD Stablecoin Collapse Find: 5 Collector’s Items Worth Selling for Extra Cash When the company went public in April of last year through a direct listing of its shares on the Nasdaq, it was immediately valued at nearly $100 billion. Coinbase’s market value now sits at around $15 billion. It currently holds approximately $256 billion in fiat currencies and crypto in custody on behalf of its customers. More From GOBankingRates Social Security Schedule: When Benefits Will Arrive in May 2022 Nominate Your Favorite Small Business To Be Featured in GOBankingRates' 2022 Small Business Spotlight What To Do With Your Money During High Inflation 12 Essential Money Tips for Every Phase of Your Financial Life This article originally appeared on GOBankingRates.com : Coinbase Says Users Could Be Subject to Bankruptcy Filings After Reporting Q1 Loss of $430 Million
[Random Sample of Social Media Buzz (last 60 days)]
None available.
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Trend: up || Prices: 20280.63, 20104.02, 19784.73, 19269.37, 19242.26, 19297.08, 20231.26, 20190.12, 20548.25, 21637.59
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Analyze the provided historical prices, technical indicators, news, and social media sentiment from the last 60 days. Based on this context, predict the overall trend (up, down, or no change) and the specific daily closing prices for Bitcoin for the next 10 days.
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[Technical Analysis]
Not fully available.
[Random Sample of News (last 60 days)]
Bitfarms Welcomes Investors to Meet the Management Team and Tour its Operating Facilities on June 22: - Analyst and Institutional Investor Day Features Senior Management Presentations –
TORONTO, Ontario and BROSSARD, Québec, May 26, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) --Bitfarms Ltd.(NASDAQ: BITF // TSX: BITF), an industry-leading global Bitcoin self-mining company, will host an Analyst and Institutional Investor Day on June 22, 2022, both online and in-person in Montreal. Attendees will see Bitcoin being mined in real-time and experience first-hand why Bitfarms is one of the best-run miners in the industry.
The webcast portion of the event will begin at 8:00 AM ET and wrap up around 9:15 AM ET. In-person attendees will then embark on a tour of Bitfarms’ largest state-of-the-art facilities, The Bunker and Leger. The excursion will end by 4:00 PM ET with attendees dropped off at the airport.
Founder and Executive Chairman Nicolás Bonta and Founder and CEO Emiliano Grodzki will kick off the event and introduce the senior management team. President and Chief Operating Officer Geoff Morphy will lead the presentations by the individual managers followed by an interactive Q&A session. The presentations will address topics covering Bitfarms’ global operations and be led by the following senior executives:
• Strategic growth and execution- Geoff Morphy, President and COO
• Industrial scale facilities- Benoit Gobeil, Senior Vice President, Operations and Infrastructure
• Miner fleet and optimization- Ben Gagnon, Chief Mining Officer
• Latin American business and opportunities- Damian Luis Polla, General Manager, Latin America Operations
• Growth and development prospects- Philippe Fortier, Vice President, Special Projects
• Financing strategy- Jeff Lucas, Chief Financial Officer
In-person attendance requires advanced registration and is available by invitation. For more information, interested parties may contact LHA Investor Relations at bitfarms@lhai.com.
Webcast Registration for the Event
A webcast of the event, along with supporting materials, will be available on the company’s Investor Relations website atBitfarms IR Events. Interested parties may register for the webcast in advance here:
Webcast Registration - Bitfarms Analyst & Institutional Investor Day
A replay of the webcast and related presentation materials will be made available following the conclusion of the event.
About Bitfarms Ltd.
Founded in 2017, Bitfarms is a global Bitcoin self-mining company, running vertically integrated mining operations with onsite technical repair, proprietary data analytics and Company-owned electrical engineering and installation services to deliver high operational performance and uptime.
Having demonstrated rapid growth and stellar operations, Bitfarms became the first Bitcoin mining company to complete its long form prospectus with the Ontario Securities Commission and started trading on the TSX-V in July 2019. On February 24, 2021, Bitfarms was honoured to be announced as a Rising Star by the TSX-V. On June 21, 2021, Bitfarms started trading on the Nasdaq Stock Market. On February 24, 2022, the Company was further honoured by the TSX-V as Venture 50 Winner, placing first in the Technology sector. On April 8, 2022, Bitfarms up-listed from the TSX-V to the TSX.
Operationally, Bitfarms has a diversified production platform with seven industrial scale facilities located in Québec, one in Washington state, and one in Paraguay. Each facility is over 99% powered with environmentally friendly hydro power and secured with long-term power contracts. Bitfarms is currently the only publicly traded pure-play mining company audited by a Big Four accounting firm.
To learn more about Bitfarms’ events, developments, and online communities:
Website:www.bitfarms.com
https://www.facebook.com/bitfarms/https://twitter.com/Bitfarms_iohttps://www.instagram.com/bitfarms/https://www.linkedin.com/company/bitfarms/
Cautionary Statement
Trading in the securities of the Company should be considered highly speculative. No stock exchange, securities commission or other regulatory authority has approved or disapproved the information contained herein. Neither the Toronto Stock Exchange, Nasdaq, or any other securities exchange or regulatory authority accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.
Forward-Looking Statements
This news release contains certain “forward-looking information” and “forward-looking statements” (collectively, “forward-looking information”) that are based on expectations, estimates and projections as at the date of this news release and are covered by safe harbors under Canadian and United States securities laws. The information in this release regarding expectations in respect to the success of Bitfarms and about other future plans and objectives of the Company are forward-looking information. Other forward-looking information includes, but is not limited to, information concerning: the intentions, plans and future actions of the Company, as well as Bitfarms’ ability to successfully mine digital currency, revenue increasing as currently anticipated, the ability to profitably liquidate current and future digital currency inventory, volatility of network difficulty and digital currency prices and the potential resulting significant negative impact on the Company’s operations, the construction and operation of expanded blockchain infrastructure as currently planned, and the regulatory environment for cryptocurrency in the applicable jurisdictions.
Any statements that involve discussions with respect to predictions, expectations, beliefs, plans, projections, objectives, assumptions, future events or performance (often but not always using phrases such as “expects”, or “does not expect”, “is expected”, “anticipates” or “does not anticipate”, “plans”, “budget”, “scheduled”, “forecasts”, “estimates”, “believes” or “intends” or variations of such words and phrases or stating that certain actions, events or results “may” or “could”, “would”, “might” or “will” be taken to occur or be achieved) are not statements of historical fact and may be forward-looking information and are intended to identify forward-looking information.
This forward-looking information is based on assumptions and estimates of management of the Company at the time they were made, and involves known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause the actual results, performance or achievements of the Company to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking information. Such factors include, among others, risks relating to: the global economic climate; dilution; the Company’s limited operating history; future capital needs and uncertainty of additional financing, including the Company’s ability to utilize the Company’s at-the-market offering (the “ATM Program”) and the prices at which the Company may sell Common Shares in the ATM Program, as well as capital market conditions in general; risks relating to the strategy of maintaining and increasing Bitcoin holdings and the impact of depreciating Bitcoin prices on working capital; the competitive nature of the industry; currency exchange risks; the need for the Company to manage its planned growth and expansion; the effects of product development and need for continued technology change; the ability to maintain reliable and economical sources of power to run its cryptocurrency mining assets; the impact of energy curtailment or regulatory changes in the energy regimes in the jurisdictions in which the Company operates; protection of proprietary rights; the effect of government regulation and compliance on the Company and the industry; network security risks; the ability of the Company to maintain properly working systems; reliance on key personnel; global economic and financial market deterioration impeding access to capital or increasing the cost of capital; share dilution resulting from the ATM Program and from other equity issuances; and volatile securities markets impacting security pricing unrelated to operating performance. In addition, particular factors that could impact future results of the business of Bitfarms include, but are not limited to: the construction and operation of facilities may not occur as currently planned, or at all; expansion may not materialize as currently anticipated, or at all; the digital currency market; the ability to successfully mine digital currency; revenue may not increase as currently anticipated, or at all; it may not be possible to profitably liquidate the current digital currency inventory, or at all; a decline in digital currency prices may have a significant negative impact on operations; an increase in network difficulty may have a significant negative impact on operations; the volatility of digital currency prices; the anticipated growth and sustainability of hydroelectricity for the purposes of cryptocurrency mining in the applicable jurisdictions; the inability to maintain reliable and economical sources of power for the Company to operate cryptocurrency mining assets; the risks of an increase in the Company’s electricity costs, cost of natural gas, changes in currency exchange rates, energy curtailment or regulatory changes in the energy regimes in the jurisdictions in which the Company operates and the adverse impact on the Company’s profitability; the ability to complete current and future financings, any regulations or laws that will prevent Bitfarms from operating its business; historical prices of digital currencies and the ability to mine digital currencies that will be consistent with historical prices; an inability to predict and counteract the effects of COVID-19 on the business of the Company, including but not limited to the effects of COVID-19 on the price of digital currencies, capital market conditions, restriction on labour and international travel and supply chains; and, the adoption or expansion of any regulation or law that will prevent Bitfarms from operating its business, or make it more costly to do so. For further information concerning these and other risks and uncertainties, refer to the Company’s filings onwww.SEDAR.com(which are also available on the website of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission atwww.sec.gov), including the annual information form for the year-ended December 31, 2021, filed on March 28, 2022. The Company has also assumed that no significant events occur outside of Bitfarms’ normal course of business. Although the Company has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed in forward-looking statements, there may be other factors that cause results not to be as anticipated, estimated or intended. There can be no assurance that such statements will prove to be accurate as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on any forward-looking information. The Company undertakes no obligation to revise or update any forward-looking information other than as required by law
.
Contacts
Investor Relations:
LHA Investor RelationsDavid Barnard+1 415-433-3777Investors@bitfarms.com
US Media:
YAP GlobalMia Grodsky, Account Executivemia@yapglobal.com
Québec Media:
Ryan Affaires publiquesValérie Pomerleau, Public Affairs and Communicationsvalerie@ryanap.com || Ionic Capital Launches New Inflation ETF: ETF newcomer Ionic Capital Management rolled out an exchange-traded fund Wednesday designed to do well during periods of inflation. TheIonic Inflation Protection ETF (CPII)invests in inflation swaps; interest rate options or “swaptions”; and U.S. Treasury securities mainly in the form of U.S. Treasury inflation-protected securities (TIPS).
CPII comes with an expense ratio of 0.70% and lists on the NYSE Arca.
“It is critical that institutional and retail investors find ways to mitigate the destructive elements of sustained elevated inflation,” said Doug Fincher, a portfolio manager with Ionic Capital Management.
The new fund is intended to provide investors the inflation mitigation they need. It will typically hold roughly 30% of its portfolio in five-year zero-coupon inflation swaps linked to the level of the CPI, and will rise in value when inflation increases above the rate the swaps are tied to. It will also use the interest rate swaps and swaptions that benefit from increasing interest rates and volatility.
Fincher notes that while the July 13 Consumer Price Index (CPI) print for June could be around 10% according to industry chatter, the long-term expectations for inflation are only around 3%.
“Something's got to give. We're relative value investors by nature, so that spread is appealing to us,” he added. “The big arbitrage is that spread between the CPI readings that we see every month, and long-term inflation expectations that are much lower.”
He explained that the TIPS portion of the portfolio merely protects against inflation, while the inflation swap component of the strategy is what produces the fund’s added returns.
Contact Heather Bell atheather.bell@etf.com
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Permalink| © Copyright 2022ETF.com.All rights reserved || Silver Price Prediction Prices Slide as Yields Break Higher: Key Insights Silver prices moved lower on Thursday. Treasury yields appear to be breaking out. Gold prices moved lower as the dollar rallied. Silver prices moved lower along with most of the precious metals complex. U.S. Treasury yields continued to rebound, despite a higher than expected increase in jobless claims. On Friday the Labor Department will release its CPI report. A much stronger than expected number will spook the market. Initial jobless claims totaled 229,000, an increase of 27,000 from the upwardly revised level, more than the 210,000 expected. The last time initial claims were that high was in January. 15. Continuing claims, were unchanged at just over 1.3 million, below estimates of 1.35 million. The four-week moving average for continuing claims declined slightly to 1.32 million, the lowest level since January 10, 1970. Technical Analysis Silver prices moved lower, slipping through support which is now resistance near the 10-day moving average of 21.98. Support is seen near the June lows at 21.43. The 50-day recent crossed below the 200-day moving average, which is a headwind for XAG/USD and indicates downward momentum. Short-term momentum has turned negative as the fast stochastic generated a crossover sell signal. The medium-term momentum turns positive as the histogram prints positively with the MACD (moving average convergence divergence). The trajectory of the MACD histogram is in negative which reflects consolidation. This article was originally posted on FX Empire More From FXEMPIRE: S.Koreas Yoon says labour conflicts should be handled by law and principle amid strike Crypto Market Daily Highlights June 9 BTC, BNB, GMT and SOL Chinas May PPI +6.4% y/y, CPI +2.1% y/y Dollar on front foot as traders await U.S. inflation data for Fed cues Trump-era Interior Secretary Zinke wins Montana U.S. House Republican primary Bolsonaro tilts at closer Brazil-U.S. ties at unlikely meeting with Biden || Compass Therapeutics Reports Positive Interim Phase 2 Data of CTX-009 in Combination with Paclitaxel in Biliary Tract Cancers: Compass Therapeutics CTX-009 Demonstrated a 42% Overall Response Rate (ORR) Based on 10 Partial Responses (PRs) in 24 Enrolled Patients CTX-009 Continues to be Well Tolerated, Consistent with the Phase 1 Studies Compass Plans to Initiate Stage 2 of the Phase 2 Study in the U.S. in Q3 2022 Compass to Host Key Opinion Leader Webinar on May 4, 2022 at 8:00 a.m. ET BOSTON, May 04, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Compass Therapeutics, Inc. (Nasdaq: CMPX), a clinical-stage, oncology-focused biopharmaceutical company developing proprietary antibody-based therapeutics to treat multiple human diseases, today reported additional interim results from a Phase 2 study of CTX-009 in combination with paclitaxel in patients with biliary tract cancers (BTC). The data show that: CTX-009 demonstrated a 42% overall response rate (ORR) based on 10 patients with Partial Responses (PRs), including 9 PRs confirmed by RECIST 1.1 and 1 PR pending confirmation CTX-009 demonstrated anti-tumor activity in previously treated patients with a clinical benefit rate (CBR) of 92% based on 22 patients with a PR or stable disease (SD) out of 24 enrolled patients CTX-009 was well-tolerated and preliminary safety profile is consistent with prior studies Thomas Schuetz, M.D., Ph.D., Chief Executive Officer, and Scientific Founder of Compass, said “We are excited by these impressive interim Phase 2 results and believe CTX-009 is a promising investigational drug. In the initial data review of this trial, reported in November 2021, CTX-009 exhibited a 29% ORR and a 100% CBR. We are very encouraged by the performance of CTX-009 across a larger patient population, particularly the maturing of the dataset, with the ORR moving from 29% in 17 evaluable patients to 42% in all 24 patients enrolled.” Dr. Schuetz continued, “The findings reported today suggest that CTX-009, if approved, may represent a novel therapeutic option for patients with BTC who have limited treatment choices and poor prognoses. We are very pleased to see the strategy of blocking both DLL4 and VEGF-A in a bispecific antibody continue to yield positive data.” Story continues Vered Bisker-Leib, Ph.D., President and Chief Operating Officer of Compass said “CTX-009 demonstrated responses across all of the four BTC subtypes enrolled in the trial and good overall tolerability. These are very encouraging aspects of the Phase 2 results and mark an important step forward in the ongoing development of CTX-009 as a potential new treatment for patients with BTC. We look forward to studying CTX-009 further in Phase 2 trials, which we expect to begin in the U.S. in the third quarter.” CTX-009 Phase 2 Study Overview The Phase 2 study has a Simon Two-Stage adaptive design where three PRs among the first 21 patients enrolled in the first stage of the study will advance the study to the second stage. In November 2021, Compass reported that there were five PRs observed among the first 17 evaluable patients, and therefore, the criteria to advance the study to its second stage was met. The study is currently being conducted at four leading medical centers in Korea. In the United States, an IND was opened in January of 2022 and first patient dose is projected to take place in early Q3 2022. Enrollment All patients enrolled in the study had BTC, classified into four subgroups: intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma (37.5%), extrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma (12.5%), gallbladder cancer (29.2%) and ampullary cancer (20.8%). As of the data cut-off date April 14, 2022, 24 patients were enrolled and dosed with at least one cycle of CTX-009 and paclitaxel, and 22 were evaluable for response. All patients enrolled in the study have advanced BTC; 45.8% of the patients received one prior therapy and 54.2% of the patients received at least two prior therapies. Almost all patients (95.8%) received gemcitabine/cisplatin. Patients had a median age of 61.5 years, an ECOG performance status of 0 (54.2%) or 1 (45.8%). Preliminary Activity Data CTX-009 exhibited a 42% ORR based on 10 patients with PRs, including nine confirmed PRs by RECIST 1.1 and one PR pending confirmation. Two patients were not evaluable for the purpose of efficacy, and 22 of the 24 patients have had stable disease or better observed leading to a CBR of 92%. As of the cutoff date, seven patients were continuing to receive treatment, including five patients who had been on treatment for over nine months. Preliminary Safety Data CTX-009, in combination with paclitaxel, continues to be well tolerated, consistent with the Phase 1 studies, with hypertension and neutropenia being the most common events related to CTX-009 and paclitaxel, respectively. Of the 24 subjects enrolled in the study, all subjects had at least one AE related to CTX-009 and/or paclitaxel. The most common adverse events (all Grades) occurring in at least three patients were anemia (12.5%), asthenia (25.0%), fatigue (16.7%), edema (16.7%), pyrexia (16.7%), neutropenia (54.2%), thrombocytopenia (20.8%), headache (16.7%), proteinuria (20.8%), dysphonia (12.5%), dyspnea (25%), epistaxis (33.3%), pulmonary hypertension (16.7%, all Grade 1) and hypertension (50.0%). Grade 3 or greater treatment-emergent adverse events (TEAE) occurring in more than one patient include neutropenia (n=12; 50.0%), hypertension (n=4; 16.7%), anemia (n=3; 12.5%) and thrombocytopenia (n=2; 8.3%); all TEAEs were manageable with standard treatment. About the Trial The Phase 2 trial was designed as a prospective, multi-center, open-label, Simon Two-Stage adaptive design trial to evaluate the use of CTX-009 in combination with paclitaxel for the treatment of patients with BTC. The study enrolled patients with advanced, unresectable, metastatic or recurrent biliary tract cancer with an ECOG performance status of 0 or 1. The initial phase of the trial was conducted in Korea and enrolled 24 subjects at four leading medical centers. All subjects received bi-weekly doses of 10 mg/kg of CTX-009, and paclitaxel, dosed at 80 mg/m 2 weekly every three out of four weeks. The primary endpoint for the study is ORR, based on the proportion of subjects whose best overall response is assessed to be Complete Response (CR) or Partial Response (PR) per Independent Radiology review. Secondary outcome measures include assessments of several standard measures of disease progression. About CTX-009 CTX-009 is a bispecific antibody that simultaneously blocks Delta-like ligand 4/Notch (DLL4) and vascular endothelial growth factor A (VEGF-A) signaling pathways, which are critical to angiogenesis and tumor vascularization. Preclinical and early clinical data of CTX-009 suggest that blockade of both pathways provides robust anti-tumor activity across several solid tumors, including colorectal, gastric, cholangiocarcinoma, pancreatic and non-small cell lung cancer. Partial responses to CTX-009 as a monotherapy have been observed in heavily pre-treated cancer patients who were resistant to currently approved anti-VEGF therapies. CTX-009 has completed a Phase 1 monotherapy dose escalation and dose expansion study and a Phase 2 combination study is ongoing. Initiation of a Phase 2 trial in the U.S. is planned for Q3 2022. Compass holds the global rights to CTX-009 (also known as ABL001) with the exception of rights in Korea, held by Handok, Inc. ( https://www.handok.co.kr/eng/ ) and rights in China, which Compass out-licensed to Elpiscience Biopharma, Ltd. ( https://www.elpiscience.com/ ). About Biliary Tract Cancers Biliary tract cancers (BTC) are a group of rare and aggressive gastrointestinal (GI) cancers that form in the cells of the bile ducts (cholangiocarcinoma), gallbladder or ampulla of Vater (where the bile duct and pancreatic duct connect to the small intestine). In the United States approximately 18,300 cases of BTC are diagnosed annually, 1 including cholangiocarcinoma, gallbladder and ampullary subtypes. Only 10% of these patients present at an early stage when they would be candidates for surgical resection. The vast majority present with locally advanced or metastatic BTC, for which there are very few therapeutic options. 2 1 seer.cancer.gov/statfacts/html/livibd.html 2 cancer.gov/types/liver/patient/bile-duct-treatment-pdq#_66 About Compass Therapeutics Compass Therapeutics, Inc. is a clinical-stage oncology-focused biopharmaceutical company developing proprietary antibody-based therapeutics to treat multiple human diseases. Compass’s scientific focus is on the relationship between angiogenesis, the immune system, and tumor growth. The company’s pipeline of novel product candidates was designed to target multiple critical biological pathways required for an effective anti-tumor response. These include modulation of the microvasculature via angiogenesis-targeted agents, induction of a potent immune response via activators on effector cells in the tumor microenvironment, and alleviation of immunosuppressive mechanisms used by tumors to evade immune surveillance. Compass plans to advance its product candidates through clinical development as both standalone therapies and in combination with proprietary pipeline antibodies and selected targeted therapies based on supportive clinical and nonclinical data. The company was founded in 2014 and is headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts. The Company’s website is www.compasstherapeutics.com . Webinar Information Compass will host a webcast on Wednesday, May 4 th at 8:00 a.m. ET Registration for the webcast or access to a replay of the call is available by clicking here. Forward-Looking Statements This press release contains forward-looking statements. Statements in this press release that are not purely historical are forward-looking statements. Such forward-looking statements include, among other things, references to Compass’s product candidate, CTX-009, its development, regulatory plans with respect thereto and therapeutic potential thereof. Actual results could differ from those projected in any forward-looking statements due to numerous factors. Such factors include, among others, Compass’s ability to raise the additional funding it will need to continue to pursue our business and product development plans, the inherent uncertainties associated with developing product candidates and operating as a development stage company, Compass’s ability to identify additional product candidates for development, Compass’s ability to develop, complete clinical trials for, obtain approvals for and commercialize any of its product candidates, competition in the industry in which Compass operates and market conditions. These forward-looking statements are made as of the date of this press release, and Compass assumes no obligation to update the forward-looking statements, or to update the reasons why actual results could differ from those projected in the forward-looking statements, except as required by law. Investors should consult all the information set forth herein and should also refer to the risk factor disclosure set forth in the reports and other documents Compass files with the SEC available at www.sec.gov . Media Contact Anna Gifford, Communications Manager media@compasstherapeutics.com 617-500-8099 Investor Relations Contact Joyce Allaire LifeSci Advisors jallaire@lifesciadvisors.com || MORNING BID-How far behind the curve exactly?: A look at the day ahead in markets from Julien Ponthus. On Friday, St. Louis Fed President James Bullard argued that the U.S. Federal Reserve is "not as far behind the curve as you might have thought".
With inflation running over 6%, the jury is out on whether last week's 50 basis point rate hike is catching up with the curve or falling woefully behind.
But while the terminal U.S. rate pricing solidifies around 3.5% in mid- 2023, only time will tell whether the Fed's aggressive plan to hike rates this year will tip the economy into recession or not.
Equally, the pace of interest rates hikes is already fuelling recession fears in Britain where the BoE warned that dealing with an inflation over 10% will have dire consequences for the economy.
In the meantime, the world must now cope with fast-rising bond yields and a surging greenback.
The dollar hit a two-decade high this morning as investors turned to their favourite safe haven as the war in Ukraine and COVID-19 lockdowns in China continued to weigh on global growth.
This morning's data showed China's export growth slowed to its weakest in almost two years.
These growth concerns may deter central banks, especially in Europe and Japan, to tighten policy in line with the Fed.
A number of currency strategists have already flagged the risk of seeing the euro go below parity with the dollar while the yen is trading towards levels unseen in about two decades.
The mood is also worsening across stock markets as the rise in yields of 'risk-free' government bonds dent the appeal of wobbly risk assets.
U.S. stocks marked their fifth consecutive weekly drop last week — its worst run since 2011.
The Nasdaq is down about 25% from its peak in November when the 'transitory inflation' narrative was officially ditched by central bankers.
After four consecutive weekly losses, European stock markets are set to begin cash trading yet again in the red this morning. Key developments that should provide more direction to markets on Monday: -Chipmaker Infineon raises 2022 revenue outlook after results beat -G7 to phase out Russian oil, U.S. sanctions Gazprombank execs over Ukraine war -China's exports growth hits 2 year-low as virus curbs hit factories -Japan's service sector activity posts first growth since Dec - PMI -Indonesia's economy stays on growth path in Q1 as price pressures loom -Bitcoin falls to lowest since January, in line with tumbling stock markets
(Reporting by Julien Ponthus; Editing by Saikat Chatterjee) || Binance to Advise on Crypto Strategy as Kazakhstan Looks to Boost Industry: Don't miss CoinDesk'sConsensus 2022, the must-attend crypto & blockchain festival experience of the year in Austin, TX this June 9-12.
Binance, the world's largest crypto exchange, will help Kazakhstan develop digital assets regulation as the central Asian country looks to develop its crypto industry beyond bitcoin (BTC) mining.
• Binance will also try to "integrate banking infrastructure within the cryptocurrency market," and help with the country's blockchain strategy, according to aposton its official blog.
• It will work with the country's digital ministry to make IT parkAstana Hubinto a regional blockchain hub, the post said.
• Kazakhstan is one of the world's biggest bitcoin mining powerhouses, but its mining industry has beenstrugglingto deal with electricity shortages. The government has turned to developing its crypto and blockchain industry beyond mining, includingattracting new firmsto its finance hub, the Astana International Financial Centre (AIFC).
• The central bank also confirmed to CoinDesk a Marchamendment to a lawthat allows banks to service crypto exchanges established in the AIFC.
• The advisory role is a turnaround for Binance, which last year drew irefrom regulators around the world. The company has since beenbeefing up its compliance teamand efforts to assuage their concerns.
• Binance founder and CEO Changpeng "CZ" Zhao met Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, as well as Minister of Digital Development, Innovation and Aerospace Industry Bagdat Musin and the president's First Deputy Chief of Staff Timur Suleimenov on Wednesday, according to the post.
• "Together with CZ, we considered the Binance roadmap in Kazakhstan. We also discussed the potential of creating a blockchain-oriented VC-fund and academy to help local talents fromAstana Hubto go global," Tokayev said according to the blog post.
Read more:Kazakhstan Looks to Bring Crypto Exchanges to Central Asian Financial Hub || Crypto Market Crash Leads to $1B in Liquidations: Don't miss CoinDesk's Consensus 2022 , the must-attend crypto & blockchain festival experience of the year in Austin, TX this June 9-12. Crypto futures racked up more than $1 billion in liquidations in the past 24 hours amid weak market sentiment and major assets losing pivotal support levels. Bitcoin ( BTC ) fell as much as 8% in the past 24 hours. Ether ( ETH ), BNB Chain’s BNB and XRP saw similar losses. Terra’s LUNA fell 50% as its UST stablecoin lost its peg with U.S. dollar, while meme coin dogecoin ( DOGE ) fared relatively better than the market with just a 6% drop. Bitcoin temporarily fell under $30,000 during early Asian trading hours, buoyed by a weak broader market. Nasdaq ended Monday 4.29% lower, while Asian markets began Tuesday over 1% lower. Such price action led to this year’s biggest liquidations losses so far. Data shows traders of bitcoin futures lost $346 million, ether futures lost $321 million, and LUNA futures lost $87 million – a higher-than-usual figure for traders of that asset. Crypto futures racked up $1 billion in losses. (Coinglass) More than $793 million of the total liquidations arose from long traders, or those betting on higher prices, which represented 74% of the futures trades. Some $257 million of that occurred on crypto exchange OKX, followed by Binance at $181 million and FTX at $102 million. Open interest, or the amount of outstanding derivative contracts that have not been settled, fell 5.6%, implying traders closed their positions in anticipation of a further drop. As such, the crypto market lost nearly 8% of its overall capitalization in the past 24 hours. Markets seemed to gradually recover at writing time. Bitcoin traded above $31,800, while ether regained the $2,800 level. An extended recovery would depend on how broader equity markets trade this week, however, as market observers previously pointed out . || Bitcoin down again after worst ever month: BITCOINtook another hit today following turbulence in equity markets, the latest sign that it may no longer be regarded as an alternative toshares.
The most popular crypto currency fell $354, nearly 2%, to $19,631. It has lost nearly 60% in the last six months and endured its worst month ever in June, according toBloombergdata.
Edward Moya, senior market analyst at Oanda Corp, says that if share turmoil continues, then bitcoin “could be vulnerable to one more ugly plunge that could have manytradersfearing a fall towards the $10,000 area”.
By some estimates, towards 10 million Britons have dabbled in cryptocurrency investment, ignoring warnings from regulators that they could lose everything.
There is growing pressure on the Financial Conduct Authority to try and get a grip on instruments it has so far insisted are beyond its control.
Some still believe bitcoin will in the end replace other currencies. Today, El Salvador President Nayib Bukele said on Twitter that his nation has bought more bitcoin, seeing the fall in the price as an opportunity.
El Salvador is the first country to formally make Bitcoin a legal tender, encouraging people to use it in day-to-day transactions.
So far, its $100 million investment in the coins has halved in value.
Crypto exploded in popularity during lockdown as a new breed of traders, bored and with money saved, dabbled for the first time.
In March, the FCA issued its latest warning, saying there were illegal crypto ATMs operating in the UK. || Elon Musk says he's been supporting Dogecoin in response to people who are 'not that wealthy' asking him to do so: Tesla and SpaceX Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk speaks at the SATELLITE Conference and Exhibition in Washington, Monday, March 9, 2020. Susan Walsh/AP Elon Musk says he backs Dogecoin because people who are "not that wealthy" asked him to do so. Dogecoin and other cryptocurrencies have plummeted in recent weeks. Musk has been sued for $258 billion by a plaintiff accusing him of engaging a "pyramid scheme by way of dogecoin cryptocurrency." Elon Musk is a vocal supporter of Dogecoin, and now he has explained exactly why he backs the cryptocurrency. Speaking at the Qatar Economic Forum on Tuesday, Musk said he buys and backs it because people "who are not that wealthy" have asked him to, according to Bloomberg. "I just know a lot of people who are not that wealthy who, you know, have encouraged me to buy and support Dogecoin," Musk said in an interview with Bloomberg News Editor-in-Chief John Micklethwait at the forum. "I'm responding to those people." Dogecoin often fluctuates based on Musk's remarks on it. On Sunday, it jumped 8.5% in the span of 24 hours from near-record lows after Musk tweeted he'd keep supporting and buying the meme token amid a frenzied cryptocurrency sell-off. Last May, Dogecoin plummeted when Musk appeared on Saturday Night Live and called it a "hustle." Dogecoin was created as a joke in 2013 but gained more investors over the years partly thanks to tweets about it from figures like Musk, Mark Cuban, and Snoop Dogg. Besides Dogecoin, Musk has also expressed his support for other cryptocurrencies. In October, Musk said he owns Bitcoin, Dogecoin, and ether. In January, Tesla started accepting payments in Dogecoin for some merchandise. Last week, Musk was sued for $258 billion by a Dogecoin investor accusing him of engaging in a "pyramid scheme by way of dogecoin cryptocurrency." Musk did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Read the original article on Business Insider || Can Carnival Shake Its Huge Losses in Q2?: • Carnival (CCL)reports its second-quarter results at the end of May.
• In the first quarter, it lost $1.49 billion, almost identical to its loss in Q1 2021.
• Before you buy CCL stock, you might want to answer the question.
Source:Flickr
Carnival(NYSE:CCL) reportedfirst-quarter 2022 resultsin March. It won’t be long before the cruise ship operator says its Q2 2022 results. Before you buy CCL stock, you might want to consider whether it will be able to put a dent in its losses in the second quarter.
I believe it can.
In Q1 2022, Carnival lost $1.9 billion from its operations on $1.62 billion in revenue. In Q1 2021, it lost $1.52 billion from its operations 0n $26 million in revenue. This says a lot about the company and whether its shares are worth buying.
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Despite generating revenues in the first quarter that was almost $1.6 billion higher than a year earlier, its operating loss was a mere $33 million less. That’s almost entirely attributable to Carnival’s variable costs for sending cruise ships out to sea.Variable Costs Are Like a Weight Around CCL Stock’s Neck
For example, a big deal is made about Carnival’s debt — Idiscussedthis situation in January — but its Q1 interest expense of $368 million was just 10.5% of its $3.51 billion in total expenses for the quarter [$3.11-billion plus $397 million].
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Bigger expenses included payroll ($506 million), other operating ($557 million), selling and administrative ($554 million), and depreciation and amortization ($554 million). Fuel came close at $365 million.
Of all its operating and non-operating expenses in the first quarter, its “other operating” expenses increased the most year-over-year, 208% higher than a year ago. According to its10-K, other operating expensesinclude repairs and maintenance of the ships, dry-dockexpenses, etc.
• 7 REITs to Buy for the Second Half of 2022
The company’s highest revenue year is 2019, at$20.83 billion. Its highest operating income was $3.33 billion in 2018 on revenue of $18.88 billion. Not coincidentally, Carnival stock hit an all-time high of $72.70 on Jan. 30, 2018.
The three most significant expenses in 2018 were other operating ($2.81 billion), commissions, transportation and other ($2.59 billion), and selling and administrative ($2.45 billion).
From 2016 through 2018, its operating expenses varied between 81% and 84% of revenue. Yet its operating profit in all three years was at least $2.8 billion. Its lowest operating profit in the past decade was$1.35 billionin 2013. Its operating expenses were 91% of revenue. Even in 2006, when it had revenues of just$11.8 billion, it had an operating profit of $2.6 billion.
So, the past would suggest that Carnival needs to get revenues to $10 billion or more before the profits start rolling in.
Carnival’s occupancy percentage in the first quarter was 54%. In 2018 and 2019, it was 106.9% and 106.8% — the number’s over 100% because more than two people stay in some rooms — and the company expects its historical occupancy to return in 2023.
If so, there’s a very good chance it gets to over $10 billion in annual revenue and turns profitable.
When Carnival reports earnings, I would look at occupancy percentage and customer deposits. If both of those are moving in the right direction, CCL stock will move higher.
It’s important to remember that in June 2021, CCL was trading at over $30 despite the fact the pandemic was still very much alive and kicking. While it’s still around, we’re learning to live more normal lives.
Carnival’s current share price ought to be enticing to aggressive investors.
On the date of publication, Will Ashworthdid not have (either directly or indirectly) any positions in the securities mentioned in this article.The opinions expressed in this article are those of the writer, subject to theInvestorPlace.comPublishing Guidelines.
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The postCan Carnival Shake Its Huge Losses in Q2?appeared first onInvestorPlace.
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